Rachel's Hope (12 page)

13

February 10, 1906

Rachel Paskar

35 Sixth Street

San Francisco, California

Dear Rachel,

I am writing this as I travel the bumpy, icy roads of Russia aboard a horse-driven sledge, so pardon the messy writing.

Though you prepared me well for what I might see in small villages, I have been taken aback by their hopeless poverty. In one village, I saw young girls in oversized coats, holding babies that didn't have the strength to cry. There were men in patched sheepskin coats in front of houses where the roofs were made of hay. A policeman, in his white uniform, sat arrogantly on his horse, as if he didn't see the suffering all around him.

After being here less than one week, I witnessed an atrocity I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. A police officer killed a student for refusing to sing “God Save the Tsar!” I will never forget the image of the student being shot on the spot. He was alive one moment and dead the next. This student was no criminal. He did nothing wrong. I feel as if I am in a land governed by savages.

We traveled next to the village of Tsarevschina, where the peasants had elected a leader and were establishing a local parliament. In the evening, a bell rang and everyone gathered to speak freely about their problems. As they assembled, Cossacks arrived and burned the village to the ground. Near Tambov, a special execution squad of Cossacks killed one of the peasant leaders along with six of his men. Like the executed student, the only crime committed by these men was that they lived in a country that is ruled by a beast.

We are on our way to Moscow now, and I will write you when I arrive. I wonder whether things are any better there. Whatever else I witness, I know I will be forever changed by this trip.

With fond wishes, Anna

P.S. Father discovered I'm in Russia and is fit to be tied! I know that if you visited him and Mother, it would help take their minds off me.

The bitter cold leached through his bones. Sergei had forgotten what it felt like to be warm. And alone. In the twenty by twenty foot
kamera
, which might have been built to hold fifteen people, one hundred men were imprisoned. Still, loneliness prevailed. The hard, stone floor of the cell had no pillows or blankets. One wooden tub, for excrement, stood against the back wall. A constant, foul stench hung heavily in the air.

Sergei had been in Taganka Prison, Moscow's forwarding prison for political criminals, for a week. The man lying at Sergei's feet groaned. Blood oozed from his nose, and his skin was mottled red and purple. Sergei cringed, pressed his back against the wall, and drew up his knees. The chains around his feet, rattled as he moved. All the prisoners wore coarse gray trousers, shirts, and foot wrappers of homespun linen, visorless caps, and
kati
, low-fitting felt boots that didn't fit properly. Sewn between the shoulders on the backs of their overcoats, were yellow diamond-shaped patches identifying them as exiles.

“You'll want to keep your distance,” said a bespectacled man in his thirties, sitting beside Sergei. He gestured to the groaning man on the floor. “He has scurvy.”

Sergei looked askance at the man. “How can you tell?”

“It's been jumping around like lice. I've been here six months and have seen a dozen men—good men—drop dead from scurvy.”

“Six months? You've been here that long?”

“Since October. I expect I'll be here until March, when they start sending exiles to Siberia.”

“What are you in for?”

The prisoner grunted. “Speaking. Against the government.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “They say I'm a threat, but all I am is a husband from Kiev with a wife and three children to feed.”

“Didn't you defend yourself at your trial?”

“What trial? The interior minister exiled me without one.”

“I didn't commit a crime either,” said a boy who looked no older than fifteen. His voice hadn't even deepened yet, and his face was as smooth as a child's. “They mixed up my name, Andrei Gusev, with someone named Andrei Gurov. I'm being exiled for another man's crime.”

“They can't do that,” said Sergei.

“They can do whatever they want,” said the other prisoner. “And don't cause trouble or you'll be sent to the mines to do hard labor.”

“What did you do?” Andrei asked Sergei.

Sergei hesitated before answering. Nobody knew his actual identity, or that he had been involved in von Pleheve's murder. If the authorities found out about his role in the murder of the Minister, he'd be hanged rather than exiled.

“I was one of the revolutionaries in the Moscow uprising,” said Sergei.

“You'll be here until March, too,” said his fellow prisoner.

“But that's three months from now! I can't live in this cold and filth for three more months.”

“You think this is bad?” snorted an elderly, bald man leaning on the wall opposite Sergei. “I've been exiled twice before. Just wait until we begin our journey. You'll look back at this place and call it a palace.”

⚓ ⚓ ⚓

“Stroisa
! Form ranks,” ordered the officer as the prisoners marched to the convict train that would take them on the first stage of their exile journey—to Perm, seven hundred and eighteen miles east of Moscow. At an average speed of forty miles an hour, it meant about eighteen hours on this train with other political exiles and hardened criminals, distinguished by their half-shaven heads, who were sentenced to labor in the Kara mines.

Sergei had been sentenced to five years in exile in Siberia, without a trial. The exact destination was Chita at the far eastern side of Siberia, about thirty-eight hundred miles from Moscow. He lifted one leg, with difficulty, and then the other. After weeks of sitting in a damp, cold cell, his limbs were weak and moved awkwardly, especially with ten-pound leg fetters attached. The clanging sound of hundreds of iron chains, the sound of doom, sent a tremor of dread down Sergei's spine.

The fresh outside air stung his skin as he walked. He inhaled deeply and tried to rid himself of the stench of urine and excrement that had assaulted his nostrils since the day he'd been arrested. As they arrived at Kurskii Station, Sergei caught a glimpse of the
Okhrana
headquarters that Viktor had bombed. Viktor. The memory of him hanging limp in Sergei's arms made his heart ache.

Sergei hoisted himself up and into the train, and understood immediately why the old man in his cell had warned him of worsening conditions. There were no seats or windows. Brutish-looking criminals were packed alongside frail political prisoners. Men were crammed into the car, filling every inch of space.

Sergei stood, jammed beside a political prisoner whose skin sagged from his bones. Sergei pressed his arms against his body to avoid crushing this man, who looked as if he'd break if touched. By the time the train departed Moscow, the air had become so thick with dirt and body odor, Sergei had trouble getting his breath.

The train rumbled and jolted as it moved east, taking Sergei farther from home and civilized society. He scratched his itchy, lice-infested head until it started to bleed. Men began to drop like flies. The train stopped in a village on the Volga River to refuel. Trees were cut and logs fed to the engine.

Sergei and the prisoners still able to stand were led out in a line. Officers flogged them with clubs if they moved too slowly. Seeing so many identical gray prison uniforms, Sergei realized they were all as common and replaceable as dirt.

A child's high-pitched voice startled Sergei. He saw women and children getting off two cars down.

“Are these children and wives being exiled as well?” he asked.

“Some women are exiled, but more come voluntarily to be with their husbands,” answered a sharp-featured exile in his early thirties with a red birthmark on his left cheek. He spoke with an air of authority, as if nothing would surprise him. “This is my second time as an exile on the way to Siberia and there are always more women and children than men.”

Sergei couldn't stop himself from gazing at the women's mournful faces.
Why would they give up their lives to be with their husbands in such desperate conditions?
All exiles had to forfeit their property, and their wives were allowed to remarry as if their husbands were dead.

“Maybe love keeps women from abandoning their exiled husbands,” said Sergei to his companion in a wistful voice.

“Or their own fear of being alone,” he answered drily.

“How come you've been exiled twice? When my time is up, I'll make sure I never end up here again.”

“The first time, as a student at Moscow University, I was exiled to western Siberia without a trial, for being friends with people who belonged to a political organization.”

“You weren't a member of this group?” asked Sergei.

“No, but my closest friend was one of the leaders. He was banished to penal servitude in Yakutsk, just south of the Arctic Circle.”

“And the second time?”

“I went back to university and completed my engineering degree, but I couldn't stop thinking about my friend, who would likely die in Yakutsk. He had never been violent. He wanted an end to censored books and newspapers, the right to free speech. I was caught circulating pamphlets at the university. By the way, my name is Cyril.”

Sergei beckoned for Cyril to follow him away from the throng of exiles. “I'm Sergei, but I have false identity papers under another name. I helped Maxim Gorky distribute
Iskra
throughout Moscow. But that is not what got me arrested.”

“Gorky is a good man,” said Cyril. “It's a shame
he
has been arrested again.”

“What?”

“You don't know?”

“No,” said Sergei. “Tell me.”

“He was arrested at the end of December, for his part in the Moscow uprising. I read about it in the
Novo Vremia
.”

“But I never saw him at the prison.”

“They took him directly to the Peter and Paul Fortress in Petersburg,” said Cyril.

“I can't believe it,” murmured Sergei. “I know he's been imprisoned before, but I just can't imagine him alone in a dark cell, without his books and papers.”

“He's not the first writer to be arrested and he won't be the last,” said Cyril. “Vladimir Korolenko, a journalist who publicly criticised the tsar, has been exiled four times, and never had a trial.”

“I know, but—”

“Back onto the train,” ordered an officer, cutting Sergei off and jabbing him in the ribs with his club.

Sergei fell forward. Cyril grabbed him to keep him from crumpling to the ground. Together, they entered the train, which seemed to stink even worse after the brief respite outside. Finding no place to sit, Sergei ended up standing beside a giant of a man. His nose came to the man's foul armpit, where it stayed until the next fuel stop.

With each passing hour, Sergei's head grew foggier. He lost track of time, his mind often traveling back to Kishinev. He visualized himself sitting in his flat with his mother. She poured him a glass of tea and fussed over him. He felt warm and content. When the train jerked or pitched forward violently, he was shaken back to the reality of the Ural Mountains, his sense of comfort replaced by isolation and shame.

⚓ ⚓ ⚓

“
Vot granitsa
, here is the boundary,” said an officer, who opened the train door.

“Where are we?” Sergei asked Cyril.

“The border between Russia and Siberia, where Perm meets Tobolsk.” Cyril clambered to his feet.

Outside, the sun burned his skin after so many hours in darkness. Sergei rubbed his eyes to make sure they weren't playing tricks on him. Grown men, their bodies pressed against a square, white boundary post, wailed hysterically and kissed the pillar. Others had fallen to the ground and gathered soil in their hands as if it were sacred. Sergei shuffled toward the boundary post to get a closer look. About ten feet high, it had the coat of arms of Perm on one side and the coat of arms of Tobolsk on the other. Inscriptions and names of previous exiles covered the post. One man had written
Good-bye, Tatiana
. Another inscription read:
Boris was here, 1891
.

“They stop here to let us have one last farewell to Russia,” explained Cyril, who'd come up behind Sergei. “My first time, I took some soil with me, but it didn't make me feel any better.”

Sergei turned and watched as exiles kissed the soil, or held it up to the sky in the palms of their hands. For the first time since he'd been sentenced to exile, the finality of this punishment hit him. He had a sudden urge to bolt.

Sergei watched the officers guarding the prisoners. He observed their guns and realized he'd be doomed from the start if he ran. Trying to escape would be suicide, an unforgivable action, even in these dire circumstances. Besides, he reasoned, he did deserve to be punished for taking part in von Plehve's murder. Exile meant justice and hopefully an easing of his conscience for his past transgressions.

⚓ ⚓ ⚓

By the time the train rolled into Tiumen, the first town within Siberia, Sergei's trousers were so loose around his waist he had to hold them to keep them from falling down. He could hardly see the skin on his hands through the dirt, and his throat was parched.

“Welcome to your home for the next two weeks,” said Cyril, as the officers impatiently waved the men off the train. “Every exiled person spends about two weeks here, in the forwarding prison, before going any farther.”

“Will there be more room for us to sleep?” asked Sergei. He stepped down from the train. His legs shook, his knees buckled, and the leg-fetters clinked.

Cyril chortled. Sergei groaned inwardly.

They had to walk through the town to get to the prison. The ground was muddy from a recent rainfall. Before long, Sergei's feet were covered in sludge, and he struggled to keep his loose-fitting shoes on. A river snaked beside them for a few minutes and disappeared as they neared the village—two rows of unpainted log houses. Between every two houses stood an enclosed side yard. Flowers adorned the windows, and the shutters were decorated with intricate designs in surprisingly bright colors, but there were no sidewalks, trees, or grass.