Russka (61 page)

And then, too late, the Polish garrison realized they had been duped.

As he cut down an astonished Pole, Andrei laughed to himself. The splendid horses he and Stepan had been given, and the various Polish uniforms, swords and finery that his companions had looted in the big battles, had come in very useful in this little deception.

I’m even glad they made me learn Polish at the seminary, he thought.

Taken completely by surprise, the Polish garrison lost a quarter of their men before they even realized what was happening. But they rallied bravely and fought well. There was no quarter given; they did not suppose that there would be any captives taken. The fighting went from house to house.

It was in this way that Andrei almost lost his life.

Pressing a Pole slowly back past the stout wooden hut where Yankel the Jew sold his liquor, he failed to see another who had crept up on to the little balcony above. Only a shout from Stepan caused him to glance up and ward off a blow as the fellow leaped down on him. He fell to the ground and would have been done for if his friend’s huge figure had not burst upon the scene and despatched both Poles with a couple of mighty blows.

As he got up he saw that the battle was over. He could see the last two Poles surrounded by four of his men.

‘Don’t kill those two,’ he shouted cheerfully, ‘we’ll see if they have any information.’

Then he saw something else.

The rest of his men, and the villagers Stepan had collected, were killing the Jews.

Andrei grimaced. He didn’t like the Jews any better than the Poles, and if these fellows had been armed he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But they were not armed. One man was trying to defend himself with a stick, but he soon went down. Then he saw them dragging out the women and children.

‘Stop that,’ he ordered.

The men took no notice. He saw a woman fall.

‘Leave them,’ he bellowed. ‘That is an order.’

The Cossacks hesitated this time. But he had not reckoned on the villagers.

‘Jewish children down the well,’ one of them shouted.

‘No, we use the well.’

‘To the river, then!’ another voice cried.

They were going to drown them, and he realized, with a sense of self-disgust, that there was nothing he could do to stop them.

He turned away.

‘Lord Andrei.’ The loud whisper came from the window of the house. ‘Lord Andrei.’

He looked in. It was Yankel. In all the excitement he had forgotten about the fellow.

‘Lord Andrei, I recognized you. Save us, noble sir. You see what is happening.’

Andrei looked at him dully.

‘I never did you any harm,’ Yankel went on eagerly. ‘You’re my only hope.’

Because he was not sure if he had the power, Andrei replied testily: ‘You took my father’s horse.’

‘But not the best. The one I took was worth half what he owed me, and you can have it back if you want.’ He paused for breath. ‘Send me out to die. Kill me yourself. But at least have pity on my children.’

‘Open the door.’

They went in. The main room of the house was not very light and it had an unmistakable aroma of vodka, not unpleasant. Before him he saw, besides the stout old Jew, a girl of about fifteen, and a boy of eight or nine. He suddenly realized he had not seen the girl for some years, since before he went away to the seminary. She was a striking, dark-haired beauty now, with almond eyes and a curving nose that looked Turkish. The boy, too, was a handsome little fellow.

‘All right,’ Andrei said. ‘I’ll try. But I’ll need help.’ He turned to his friend. ‘Will you help me, my Ox, to protect these Jews?’ he began, but then stopped as he realized that his huge companion had not even heard. For Stepan was staring at the girl open-mouthed, as though he had seen a ghost.

It was Yankel’s own fault that, a few moments later, he lost his life.

He was so relieved and excited to have got the protection of Andrei and his huge friend that, without thinking, he went out through his front door first. Two villagers standing nearby, one with an axe, the other with a scythe, took one look at him and, before the poor fellow even had time to tell them about his protector, fell upon him. He was dead when, moments later, Andrei emerged.

There were several things to be done. One was to question the two captive Poles to see what they could tell him. Another was to make two graves, one for the Poles, another for the Jews. He instructed the villagers to do this. A third was to ride over to see his father.

He took the boy with him.

The sun had just gone down when he reached the farm. He found old Ostap in robust good humour. With all the events of recent months, Mordecai had not been able to visit the farm to claim his labour service and Ostap had ignored the whole business. He had been drinking less and sleeping in the open.

‘I’ve heard it all!’ he cried, as Andrei rode up. ‘A boy from the village came by. Pity you couldn’t have let me know in time, I would have enjoyed that fight.’

He was delighted with the horses, but when Andrei made his other request, his brow clouded.

‘You want me to shelter a Jewish boy?’

Andrei explained everything that had happened.

‘I can’t take him to the camp. The villagers will kill him. Do you want me to leave him to them?’

Old Ostap frowned, unwilling to admit that he might have a soft heart.

‘He must convert,’ he announced. ‘Then he can help on the farm.’

Andrei went over to the boy.

‘This is the only place where you may be safe. People won’t bother my father. But you have to become a Christian.’

‘Never,’ the boy said defiantly.

Andrei paused, then he looked carefully into the boy’s eyes.

‘I promised your father to save your life and I must keep my promise. You have to help me. Do you understand? As long as you stay here, you’re Orthodox.’

The boy looked at him, still defiant, but understanding him.

‘He’s converted,’ Andrei announced.

The Polish prisoners couldn’t tell them much. The Cossacks took all their possessions and let them walk off through the forest.

As soon as this was done, and while his men were setting up their quarters for the night in the fort, Andrei went across the river on his next errand. This was to see Anna.

He had not noticed her so far, but there had been so much to do that it was not particularly surprising. He was taken aback therefore, on reaching her house, to find it closed and boarded up.

‘Where are they?’ he asked.

‘The old man’s gone off with his sons to your Cossack camp,’ their neighbour told him. ‘His wife’s gone to her sister in another village near Pereiaslav.’

‘And Anna?’

‘Anna?’ The man looked surprised. ‘Why, didn’t you know? She’s gone. The Pole took her. Stanislaus. Came by here just after
the men left, stayed a few days then off he went and took her with him. Stole her at dawn.’

Andrei could scarcely believe it. First the arrogant Pole had tried to take his farm and humiliate his father. Then he had abducted his girl.

‘Where did they go?’

‘Who knows? They’re probably in Poland by now,’ the man said.

Thoughtfully Andrei returned to the fort. It seemed he had lost his bride.

But I’ll find her, he vowed. As for Stanislaus, there could be only one solution.

If anything could take his mind off his loss, it was the extraordinary thing that had happened to his friend. For if Andrei had lost a bride, it seemed that Stepan had found one.

And whoever could have imagined that, of all the possibilities, his choice would have fallen on the Jewish girl! Despite his own troubles, Andrei almost burst out laughing.

‘But she’s Jewish, my old Ox,’ he protested as they sat together by a little fire inside the fort.

‘She’ll convert,’ Stepan said.

‘Does she say so?’

‘I know she will.’

‘But why this girl?’

‘I don’t know why,’ the strange fellow confessed. ‘I just know that it’s so.’

‘You just saw her and … it was fate.’

‘Yes. That’s it.’

He seemed to be in a kind of daze. Even when they spoke, his eyes had a faraway look and Andrei was not sure if his friend was truly with him.

‘Oh dear, poor old Ox,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do with her? You can’t take her on campaign.’

Stepan nodded his large head slowly.

‘I know. I’ve been thinking about that. I’ll find a priest to marry us. Then I’m going home to the Don with her.’

‘You’re deserting me?’

‘The time has come,’ Stepan said solemnly.

‘You’d better talk to her.’

‘Yes.’ The huge fellow got up slowly. ‘We must talk.’ And with that he walked slowly over to the place where the girl was sitting in the shadows. Quietly he led her to the fire and made her sit by him. Andrei, curious though he was, left them alone. Then, very softly, Stepan began to talk to her.

For some time, from a distance, Andrei watched them. The other Cossacks glanced at them too. What a strange fellow the bearded giant was, to be sure!

The girl seemed to be saying little, watching Stepan with her large, thoughtful eyes, interjecting a word here and there as if to prompt him. There she was, a fifteen-year-old who had seen her own father hacked to death just a few hours before, and now she was sitting with this strange Cossack who had taken it into his head to marry her. And, Andrei thought, it was as if she were the teacher and he the child; for something in her composed, tragic young face made her look older than him – older than any of them, perhaps.

At last, Andrei went to sleep. But several times, that short summer night, he awoke to see them still sitting there, quietly conversing by the glowing embers of the little fire.

What was Stepan saying to her? Who knew what strange jumble of thoughts might be coming from that solemn head. Was he trying to convert her? Was he, perhaps, telling her about the lands past the Don which were his home? Was he telling her his life story, or God knew what tales of magic and superstition with which his simple head was full? Perhaps he was describing the endless, scented steppe, or his belief that all men should be equal brothers. Whatever it was, it was clear to Andrei that his friend, believing that this Jewish girl was his fate incarnate, had chosen that night to pour out his whole soul.

And the girl was listening, always listening.

She probably knows more about that fellow than some wives learn in a lifetime, he thought with a smile, the third time he went to sleep.

It was just as the sky was beginning to lighten that he half awoke, to find Stepan rummaging through his baggage beside him. He noticed two things – that the girl was standing up, by the fire, and that his friend had upon his simple face a look of extraordinary exaltation, as if he had just been told some wonderful, mystical secret. More than ever, he seemed to be in a sort of daze. More
asleep than awake himself, Andrei remembered vaguely seeing the two of them going out of the fort together, and thinking that Stepan looked like a man who was sleepwalking. Then he fell unconscious again.

The shout which woke the whole fort came only minutes later.

Startled wide awake, Andrei rushed to the gate, to find several of the guards already there, gazing out in puzzlement. He darted through them, and down the path.

Stepan was standing by the river bank. In his hands was a pistol. The girl was lying on the grass a few feet in front of him, dead.

He did not move. Even when Andrei reached him, he was still staring at her with a look of mystified disbelief on his face; and when Andrei tried to take him by the arm, he found that the big man was completely rigid.

For several minutes they stood there together, in the pale light of early morning then Stepan let Andrei take the pistol out of his hand and, his body suddenly sagging, walked slowly up the slope with him.

Only when he had sat the strange fellow down and made him drink a little vodka did Andrei get a confused account of what had happened.

During their long talk that night, it seemed the girl had understood the foolish, superstitious fellow only too well. She had told him she would marry him. He had been ecstatic. She had entirely won his confidence. And then, towards the end of the night, when Stepan had entered a state which, to him, seemed to be mystical, she had told him her wonderful secret.

‘It is true we were fated to meet, Stepan. I was expecting you.’ She had smiled. ‘You see, I am magical.’

She could even prove it to him, she said. If he came to a private place, she would show him.

‘You can fire your pistol through my heart,’ she promised, ‘and it will not even hurt me. Come, let me prove it.’

And that was what the simple fellow had done.

Even now, he could not fully understand that his faith in his destiny had been shattered. Still, he shook his head.

‘There must be a mistake. Perhaps she only fainted.’

Nor, it seemed, did any of the Cossacks except Andrei understand that, to the girl, death was better than to be sullied by Christian hands, even when those hands were kindly.

A little later he went to see to her burial.

Andrei wondered whether to bring her brother there, but decided it was better not. Feeling that the little fellow should at least have something to remember her by, he searched her and was surprised to discover, on a little chain around her neck, a small, ancient metal disc with a three-pronged trident on it. He had no idea what this might be, but took it for the orphaned boy all the same.

So it was that the girl was buried in an unmarked grave, by the edge of the steppe. That her journey with Stepan to the lands beyond the Don would have taken her to the homeland of her ancient Khazar ancestors, she had not remotely guessed.

As for Stepan, he gave his puzzled judgement later that morning: ‘It was that wildcat we saw. It must have looked at me. That’s what did it.’

At noon the party departed, to seek out news of the magnate Vyshnevetsky and his army.

The massacre of the Ukrainian Jews in the year 1648 followed a pattern very similar to the events at Russka. Indeed, written records survive of incidents just as strange as Stepan’s courtship.