Russka (97 page)

Above all, serfs could nowadays be bought and sold like chattels. A pretty girl or a man with special skills could fetch a high price. In a celebrated case, a magnate had sold an entire serf orchestra for a fortune.

Of course, it was wrong. It was monstrous. In his radical days, in the salons of Catherine’s St Petersburg, Alexander would have conceded as much. Nowadays, it was well known, the Tsar himself considered the practice of serfdom utterly repugnant.

‘But he can’t change it, not yet. The gentry won’t let him,’ Alexander would correctly argue. ‘And in the meantime, I must provide for the family,’ he told himself. At least on the Bobrovo estate, serfs were seldom flogged and never killed.

In all this terrible dealing in souls, probably no practice was
more common than the selling of men as military recruits. And it was not the landlords who usually bought these.

It was other serfs.

For the recruiting officer cared not one rap whence the soldier came. As long as he had a body for cannon fodder, it was enough. A rich serf like Suvorin, therefore, did not let his own son go to war. He simply went to the landowner and bought another fellow to go in his place.

So here he was, and the only question was, how much? Slowly Bobrov considered, while the Suvorins waited.

It was quite by chance that, at this moment, Tatiana and young Sergei should have entered the room. The landlord’s wife had run the estate long enough to guess what business the Suvorins must have called upon. She had always rather liked the stern couple. Perhaps it was her Baltic ancestry, but their businesslike ways appealed to her. She looked at her husband enquiringly. As for young Sergei, he just smiled at them cheerfully, as he did at everyone.

And why was it that their entry should have caused Bobrov to change his price? Was it a sudden memory of his humiliation at Sergei’s birth? Was it a sense of his failure at his career and his wife’s success at running the estate when he was in prison? Whatever the cause, instead of the five hundred roubles he had thought of asking for, he calmly announced: ‘The price is a thousand roubles.’

The two serfs gasped. He had struck home this time; he could see it in their faces. The amount, of course, was outrageous. The top rate being asked for substitutes, even by the greediest landlords, was about six hundred roubles at that time. But it was not unknown for landlords to charge even greater sums if they thought the purchaser might have the means.

‘Of course,’ he added coolly, ‘I could just decide to send Savva anyway.’ It was within his power. Then he watched as the two serfs looked at each other.

They had brought eight hundred roubles. To get another two hundred they would have to dig under the floorboards. It was all they had in the world.

‘I could bring such a sum tomorrow, Alexander Prokofievich,’ Suvorin said glumly.

‘Very well, I will send for one of the Riazan serfs to take Savva’s
place.’ Alexander concealed his smile, but he felt a glow of triumph. It was not easy to run the estate better than his unfaithful wife, but he had discovered that milking the richer serfs was one way. And he had certainly got the better of Suvorin today. In his triumph over the serf, he scarcely gave young Savva more than a glance.

Savva looked at the Bobrovs. Tatiana he did not mind. She was fair and she was practical. He correctly saw, from the distant look on her face, that she had no part in this. But the rest of them, father and sons, he hated and despised. He might have admired them, although they oppressed him, if they were strong. But he knew that they were not. He glanced at Sergei. Somehow he looked different. His bright brown eyes were watching Savva with apparent amusement: was the boy laughing at him?

The young peasant knew little of the past. Back in Peter the Great’s time, his grandmother had told him, her own grandmother had escaped from fire when the villagers burned themselves in the church. Then she had returned here later. ‘We’ve been here as long as the Bobrovs,’ she used to say. But that was all he knew. Of his earlier ancestors, cheated by a Bobrov on St George’s Day in the faraway reign of Ivan the Terrible, he knew nothing. He had never heard of Peter the Tatar and his severed head. All that was lost, long forgotten, buried in the ground.

What Savva knew was that these Bobrovs were his enemies: he knew it in his soul. And as he looked at them now, he made a simple, irrevocable decision. He would be rid of them. It might take him many years; he would need to be cunning and to be strong; but he had strength and endurance.

Master versus serf: it would be a duel, perhaps to the death.

Sombre blue-grey skies; dark trees. First refugees had come by, then troops, each followed by complete silence – as when, after a shot has been fired and its echo died away, one continues to listen intently and the silence seems so much greater because one hears nothing.

The Russians had fought; they had defended the fatherland; the serfs had been loyal. And was it not natural to fight when they
saw before them not only the French, but their traditional enemies from the ancient days of Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible – the German Prussians and the Poles?

First there had been the day when news came of the huge but inconclusive Battle of Borodino; soon afterwards, that Napoleon had entered Moscow. And then, the fire.

It could be seen from over thirty miles away – that tower of fire and smoke that rose, for three days, like a vast pillar into the September sky to announce that Moscow itself was burned down and that the mighty conqueror had been robbed of his prize. Still the emperor of the French lurked in the charred city. What would he do next?

Russka had been busy. Troops had come streaming through as the Russian army prepared to shadow the foe along the great curve of the River Oka. A few days before, a whole regiment of infantry in their green coats and white leggings came swinging by. Then squadrons of cavalry.

It was one October morning, during these days, that Sergei and his sister Olga were sitting with nanny Arina and her baby girl by the fire in the nursery.

There had been fresh news, and fresh rumours, every day. Napoleon was still cooped up in the burnt and empty city of Moscow. Would he try to strike up at St Petersburg where the Tsar was fortifying the approaches? Would he try to pull back to Smolensk? If so, the crusty old veteran, General Kutuzov, and the main Russian army were waiting for him on the way. Or would he attempt to sit out the winter in Moscow?

How thrilling it all was. Sergei was so excited, so anxious to see Kutuzov, or even the French, that Alexander had laughingly told him: ‘You won’t be satisfied until Napoleon himself has paid a visit to Russka!’

‘If he comes, we’ll all fight, won’t we?’ he had anxiously asked. He would stand, side by side with his father, and protect his mother and sister to the end. Which had just caused Alexander Bobrov to laugh, and ruffle the boy’s hair. ‘I dare say we should, Seriozha,’ he had replied affectionately.

The last few days had been quiet, though. No troops came by. Russka was as silent as usual.

Sergei was a passionate little fellow. He not only loved his
family, he was
in
love with them. His mother at forty-two had matured into a classic, rather Germanic beauty. She was unlike any other woman the boy had seen and, for some reason too wonderful to understand, she seemed to treat him with a special softness that gave him a secret pride. Then there was stern Alexis, away at the wars. He was tall and dark like their father. Sometimes Sergei was a little afraid of Alexis, who could be rather cold and aloof. But hadn’t he the right to be? He was an officer. A hero.

Here at home was Ilya. Some people laughed at his fair-haired brother because he did nothing and was so fat. But Sergei didn’t. ‘He’s read so much,’ he would say in wonderment. ‘He knows absolutely everything.’

And then there was his father. It had always seemed to Sergei that Alexander Bobrov was everything a nobleman should be. He would look splendid, like Alexis, in uniform. Yet he was cultivated like Ilya. He could be stern; yet, with that ineffable little Bobrov gesture of the hand, he could seem wonderfully gentle. He had suffered in prison for his beliefs. And, above all, he had that most desirable of all qualities in the eyes of the schoolboy: he was a man of the world. How lucky he was to have such a father.

These were his heroes. There remained his childhood play-mate, the little girl with the long, dark brown hair and sparkling eyes: little Olga. He called her little because she was a year younger and he felt protective towards her. Yet at times she was like an extension of himself. Each always knew what the other was thinking.

How lucky, how supremely blessed by God he was, to be one of such a family.

Sergei and Olga sat each side of Arina. As usual, she had been telling them a story. How comforting her dear, shiny, round face was! She was going grey, she had lost a front tooth that summer, yet she was always the same. ‘Pretty I never was,’ she would admit cheerfully. How old was she? The two children often tried to guess, or to trick her into telling them. But all she would ever say was, ‘I’m as old as my tongue, my dear, and a little older than my teeth.’ Perhaps she didn’t even know herself.

And she was just about to start a new tale when, suddenly, they heard a commotion downstairs and then his mother’s voice was crying out: ‘Alexis!’

How handsome he looked. How utterly splendid in his fur-lined coat. In the grey light of the hall, with his dark, brooding features and deep-set blue eyes – like some warrior from another age, a
bogatyr
from the days of ancient Rus. Sergei was beside himself with excitement to see his hero.

Alexis even smiled at him. ‘Here,’ he called out, and to Sergei’s surprise produced a musket ball. ‘This is a French bullet. Just missed me and hit my supply wagon.’ Sergei took it with delight.

‘Did you see Napoleon?’ he cried.

‘Yes.’ Alexis grinned. ‘He’s nearly as fat as Ilya.’

Soon, round the dining-room table, he gave them all the news. After the Battle of Borodino, he proudly told them, old General Kutuzov had actually complimented him in person. Since Moscow fell, he had been specially picked to carry out sorties against the French. And now he came to the most exciting news of all.

‘Napoleon’s leaving Moscow. The French are going home.’ Alexis nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s too late, though. Napoleon’s supplies are already low and he must think he can make a dash for the border before the snow comes.’ He smiled at Sergei. ‘If so, Seriozha, he’s forgotten one thing.’ He paused. ‘Our Russian mud. He’ll get bogged down. Our Cossacks will destroy every sortie he sends to find food. Then winter will get him long before he even reaches Smolensk.’

‘And will we engage again?’ Tatiana asked anxiously.

‘Yes. Probably. But if there’s another big battle like Borodino, we’ll crush him this time.’

Soon Alexis had to hurry on. He could not even stay the night. The family watched as he and his father embraced and Alexander Bobrov gave his brave son his blessing. Then he was gone, and as always happens when a soldier departs, each of them wondered if they would see him again.

It was at dusk that young Sergei came upon his father, standing alone on the verandah, gazing out at the last glow of the sunset. Alexander did not see him. There were tears in his eyes, and he was muttering to himself: ‘A true Bobrov. A true Bobrov.’

And for the first time it occurred to Sergei that perhaps his father might love Alexis more than him; and he wondered what he could do to be worthy of this greater love.

Three weeks had passed; the first snows had fallen, and the shattered Grand Army of Napoleon was already reduced to a dark, straggling mass, leaving corpses along its route as a snail leaves a trail, when the Bobrovs were surprised to receive a very different sort of visit.

It was young Savva Suvorin.

Alexander Bobrov had decided that he really did not like the Suvorins. Perhaps he felt a little guilty for the way he had treated them over the substitute recruit. But there was something dark and calculating behind their reserve that made him feel uneasy. An instinct told him that they neither feared nor respected him. He was not inclined to help them, even though his wife would laugh and remind him: ‘They’re the best source of income you’ve got.’

Now he stood before Bobrov, this solemn twenty-year-old serf, with a strange gravity already in his walk, calmly making a most extraordinary request.

‘I wish, lord, to ask for a passport. To visit Moscow.’

As a serf, Savva could not travel anywhere without a passport from his owner. He even needed one to go to the regional city of Vladimir. It did not seem a matter of great significance, but Bobrov looked at him with suspicion.

‘What the devil for? The whole city has just burned down!’

Savva permitted himself a half-smile.

‘Exactly, lord. So if there’s one thing the people there will need, it is warm clothes. We should get a good price for our cloth just now.’

Bobrov snorted with disgust.

How typical. Here they were, in the middle of the great patriotic war, and all this fellow could think about was profit.

‘That’s profiteering.’

‘Just business, lord,’ the serf replied calmly.

‘Well, I won’t have it,’ Alexander snapped, and then, casting about for another reason: ‘It’s unpatriotic.’ With which he waved the serf away.

And why, he always wondered afterwards, had Tatiana decided that evening to interfere on this trivial matter? Perhaps it was some instinct, or just that she felt sorry for Savva. But as soon as he told her about it, she had begun to plead: ‘I beg you to reconsider.’
Until at last he had given way and signed a passport. It did not seem very important.

The plan that young Sergei Bobrov had hit upon was daring – but with careful timing it should work. Two friends would answer for his whereabouts, a third would answer his name at roll call. By bribing one of the school servants he had secured horses for each stage of the journey out and back.

The school at the Tsar’s summer residence of Tsarskoe Selo, near St Petersburg, was both strict and elite. It adjoined the great blue and white Catherine Palace, and not only had the Tsar given its pupils the use of his own library, but the imperial family would come to watch the chapel services from a private gallery above. Alexander Bobrov had had to pull some strings to get young Sergei in there.