The Little Russian (35 page)

Berta turned her back on the crowd and started up the hill toward home. She was exhausted and longed for her bed on the stove and her children in her arms. Just before she reached her room she saw a man wearing a silk dressing gown under a heavy greatcoat, moving through the street like a phantom. He clutched an icon under his arm, his hair was matted with ice, and his cheeks were flushed from either the cold or a fever. He threw one wild glance in her direction and in that moment she recognized him.

“Aleksei Sergeevich,” she said in surprise. It was Alix’s husband. He didn’t seem to recognize her. “What are you doing out here?”

“It’s all gone,” he said, to no one in particular.

“What is?”

“All gone.”

The Bolsheviks had nationalized the banks, factories, and railroads and had even started expropriating the houses in the Berezina.

“Where is Alix?” Berta asked.

He kept on walking.

“Aleksei Sergeevich . . . where is Alix?”

He didn’t turn around.

“Lenya!” She called after him. She stood there a moment longer and watched him shamble into the night.

December 1919

 

IT WAS STILL early in the afternoon when Colonel Svegintsev, the commander of the Drozdovskii Battalion, ordered his private train to stop in the middle of a snowy field about ten versts northwest of Cherkast. The men in the infantry sledges couldn’t understand it. The Cossacks in their blue caps, gray-green belted tunics, and blue breeches with the red stripe up the side couldn’t understand either, nor could the ladies in the commander’s private cars who wore black hoods like the nurses but did little nursing. The battalion was supposed to be in retreat. In fact the whole Volunteer Army was in retreat, running from a newly formed Communist cavalry that was swift, skilled, and seemingly unstoppable.

The Drozdovskii Battalion was in the rear of this retreat. So why then were they ordered to take Cherkast? It didn’t make sense. Since nobody in the battalion was in a position to question the young commander, the train stopped, the horses were unboxed and saddled and the supply sledges loaded up. It didn’t take long for the battalion to assemble in front of the commander’s car. Soon the vast snowy field held a collection of armored trucks loaded with machine guns, a repair truck, a battery of eighteen-pounders supplied by the British, a battery of 4.5 howitzers, ammunition sledges, and five
tachankas
, sledges outfitted with Vickers or Lewis machine guns also supplied by the British. Flanking on the left and right were the two companies of Don Cossack cavalry, their razor-sharp swords at their side, their famous
nagaiki
, short-handled whips, hanging from their belts. These were special whips, laced with wire so they could flay the skin off a man’s back even through five layers of shirts.

Commander Svegintsev was the youngest officer to ever take
command of the Drozdovskii Battalion and had only just been appointed because General Otlanov, the previous commander, had died of typhus. Svegintsev didn’t have much experience, so he didn’t really deserve the command or the private railroad cars that were put at his disposal. He should have been satisfied with a sledge and a tent.

Svegintsev was an ardent monarchist. He took the death of his czar and the czar’s family very badly. He simply could not believe that God would want the red devils to rule Mother Russia while he, his family, and all his friends were condemned to wander the world as penniless refugees. He was young, not yet twenty-five, and not willing to surrender, especially now that he had a battalion to command. His plan was to take Cherkast, then move on Kiev. He reasoned that once he sent word to General Wrangel, informing him of his victories, he would surely be forgiven for disobeying orders and granted all the honors due a hero. Fortunately for Commander Svegintsev, the men hadn’t seen as much as action as the other units. Their horses were still somewhat fresh and there was enough enthusiasm among his junior officers to give credence to his plan.

The young commander stood on the top step of his carriage and surveyed the battalion that stretched out before him in the undulating snow. The men stood in silence, scraping the snow into little piles with their boots or leaning on the butt of their rifles or shielding their eyes with a hand. He thought,
This is Russia, her might, her pride. These are the heroes who will take her back and make her whole again
. And he, Vladimir Arkadyevich Svegintsev, will be the greatest hero of all. He will be remembered as the man who saved Russia even after it appeared all was lost.

He spoke simply to the men that afternoon, his strong voice carrying to the far reaches of the field. He considered himself a good orator and fancied that he had a way of reaching down into the souls of his men. His mother and teachers had always told him that he could be a great leader someday and he was certain that day had come. He told his men that the army was in retreat and that they had been ordered to give up and go home. They were running away like beaten dogs, their eyes always on their backs, waiting for the next blow. “Is that what you
want?” he shouted to his troops. “To run back to your wife and mother and hide under your bed? Is that your fate?” He looked into the faces of his men. “No! I say no! I say we stand up to the enemy! Beat him back! Show the Bolshevik dog what the Drozdovskii Battalion can do.” He shouted this above their heads, sending his words soaring up into the blue sky yet unmarred by clouds or smoke. “If we stand together and fight like Russian bears
we will prevail
! God won’t desert us. He doesn’t want us to give up. He wants us to save Mother Russia.
Victory will be ours!
” He shouted this last as a battle cry and waited for the crowd’s thunderous reply. Instead, he got only a halfhearted cry of
Na Moskvu.
To Moscow.

The advanced guard rode out against a sky layered with ribbons of orange and pink. It consisted of a company of infantry in their sledges and a squadron of Cossacks, who rode out in two patrols. Behind them came the
tachankas
, swooping over the snow like heavy waterfowl, their occupants holding on to the sides of the sledges to keep from falling out. Following in their tracks came two batteries of field artillery and then the main force, their ponies kicking up snow and dirt as they thundered off across the fields.

About three versts from Cherkast they ran into a small unit of Red cavalry who fired on them from a stand of willows with a sledge-mounted maxim machine gun and would have engaged them if they had bothered to stop. Instead they kept going, spurring their horses up the hills and letting them have their head going down, careening nearly out of control over the windswept snow. Then just outside the city, they ran into three machine gun emplacements situated above the trenches that ringed the perimeter. At the first sign of opposition they turned their horses around and rode back up the hill. There they waited just out of range while their howitzers and eighteen-pounders got into position.

 

BERTA SAT down on the pallet next to Sura, took up her daughter’s fingers, and brought them to her lips. Sura was bundled up on the straw mattress on the floor in front of the stove. She was propped up on pillows to make it easier for her to breathe. The air smelled of herbal rubs
and smoke from the dried white pulp of elderberry branches thrown on hot embers. Berta examined her child’s fingers in the faltering light. The fingernails were white and the flesh around the cuticles was a pale blue. She kissed her daughter’s moist forehead and looked into her face. Her eyelids were transparent, the tracery of veins plainly visible beneath the skin. Her lips were white and there was a burbling in her lungs with every breath she took, a constant reminder that her lungs were failing, that they were filling with fluid, and that something had to be done.

When Sura was five Dr. Egglostein said her lungs were weak but that she would grow out of it in time. Now she was ten. Her honey blond hair had turned brown, her arms and legs were getting too long for her torso, and still she had bad lungs. Every few months the air in the neighborhood would make her sick and send her to bed with a cold. But this time was different. Berta could see it in her pale lips, her eyelids tinged with blue, the way she struggled to breathe.

Her eyes fluttered open. “What is that, Mameh?” The words came in tortured gasps. Off in the distance there was the thunder of big artillery pieces.

“The guns, my darling.”

“Are they going to blow up our house?”

“No, they’re far off. We don’t have anything to worry about.”

Lhaye came in and stood by the sink. She dipped a cloth into the washbasin and brought it over to the bed, where she laid it across Sura’s forehead. The two apartments were one now; the doors were always open and the adults and children wandered back and forth without consideration. Lhaye looked over at her sister. “You better hurry,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. The two sisters exchanged a look.

It was only half past three when Berta left the building, but already the sky was growing dark. There were still some people on Dulgaya Street, but no one seemed to be in a hurry. Cherkast had changed hands so many times recently that people took the shelling in stride. It never lasted long, because of the scarcity of shells; targeting was wildly off, and besides, the buildings that were far from the perimeter
were rarely hit. Only the children were absent from the street, having been herded inside by their mothers.

Out on the street Berta looked for Samuil in all the familiar places, in the alley where he liked to play with his friends and down at the grocery. She had to hurry, but she couldn’t leave until she knew he was safe inside. She called out for him over and over again but got no answer. Finally, when she was on the verge of tears, she heard him calling down to her. She looked up and saw him on one of the upper floors of the bombed-out building across the street. It had been shelled some months ago and stood empty and broken. The wall facing the street had been blown away, revealing the rooms behind it. There was a dry sink hanging over a hole in the floor and several window frames with shattered glass where tattered curtains ruffled in the breeze. The roof had collapsed in a few places, while the staircase never made it to the second floor, stopping in midair. Samuil was standing at the edge of one of the rooms on the upper story. He looked down at her and even from that distance she could see that he knew he was in trouble.

“Samuil!” she shouted.

“I just wanted to watch. You can see everything from up here.” With her heart pounding in her throat, she watched him slither down a post that had fallen at such an angle that it had become a bridge from one level to the next. After that he squeezed through a hole in the floor and climbed down a chimney, jamming his feet against the corners of the bricks and finding purchase on the outcroppings. He shimmied down another broken beam and ran down the last steps of the ruined staircase and came over to her slowly with his eyes on his shoes.

“I thought I told you never to go up there.” Her voice was even and contained, but she was furious and he knew it.

“I know, Mameh. But we just wanted to—”

“Go upstairs and help Mumeh Lhaye. She’s with Sura.”

“Where are you going?” He was twelve, not tall, but wiry, more like Berta than Hershel. There was a shadow of a moustache on his upper lip. His voice was still high, but now and then it dropped down into an unfamiliar register.

“To get the doctor. Now go.”

He sighed heavily and turned back to the doorway. He muttered something under his breath but did as he was told, dragging himself up one step at a time.

She ran to the corner and waited while a Red cavalry unit galloped past, halters jingling, rowels on the spurs clinking like a pocket full of silver rubles. Then she crossed the street and ran on to the hill that overlooked the Jewish neighborhood. As she climbed she could hear the dull thud of the incoming shells, and once she reached the top, she saw fighting on the other side of the Lugovaya Market. It seemed closer than it was. She could see the flashes of fire from the field artillery and the exploding shells and hear the sharp crack of rifle fire and the short bursts of machine guns. A detachment of female Red Army troops came up behind her and ran down the other side. They were hurrying to get into position, struggling with rifles that were taller than they were. Two of them were dragging a machine gun through the snow and stopped to argue about the best way of doing it. A third came over, slung her rifle over her shoulder, and stooped to help the others carry it along.

Berta ran down the hill toward the fighting. She heard the whine of an incoming shell and dropped to the ground, covered her head with her arms, and rolled into a ball. It landed just up the street but didn’t explode. Instead it sent a spray of snow and dirt high up into the air, sprinkling her with clods of black earth instead of shrapnel. When she realized she wasn’t hurt, she got up and wiped away the few unconscious tears of fright. Shells were falling on the neighboring streets. A house blew up behind her and she saw a roof collapse in a rising cloud of dust and fire. Farther down the street someone was screaming. Someone else was calling for help. She kept running, past a burning building and a woman lying facedown in the snow.

At the end of the street she ducked into a doorway and stood there trembling and panting, locked in with fear, too scared to think. She could see the doctor’s house on a low rise above her, silhouetted against the sky between the two houses of wealthy businessmen. All three were still intact. But to get there she would have to run through
an empty field where there would be no cover from falling shells and shrapnel. In the twilight she could see the pockmarks in the snow left by recent explosions and tried to gauge her chances of making it. Her legs felt rubbery. She didn’t know if she could count on them to carry her across.