The Vanishing Futurist (17 page)

The hope I’d felt on leaving Pelyagin’s office had not entirely faded. The longer we didn’t hear from Slavkin, the more certain I was that he hadn’t gone abroad. We had made enquiries of everyone we knew, but there was no breath of a rumour that he was in Europe. Anna Vladimirovna still insisted that he and his machine had left together – ‘Just like that! The engine started up, and . . . poof!’ Pasha and I moved into Slavkin’s workshop, giving up the other rooms in the house to new inhabitants. I insisted on keeping the stands for the Capsules exactly where they had been, not moving them by so much as an inch.

Then a colleague of Pasha’s, on the condition of strict secrecy, showed him a confidential publication by the Department of Mobilisation of Sciences, a division of Narkompros, dated 18 February 1919, that listed current research by Soviet scientists in government facilities. Among the list, the following phrase appeared: ‘N. G. Slavkin, study into Transformational Science’. In the column that listed the research faculty, there was only a line of stars. What could this mean? Could it simply be a typing error – some tired secretary copying out last year’s list without checking? In which case, surely his area of study would have been ‘Possible Applications of Iridium Alloys’? And what of the line of stars?

Everyone had heard rumours of secret State-run institutions where Soviet scientists were creating astonishing new technologies. This was the first sign either of us had come across that they might exist. Pasha and I went immediately to Lunacharsky. He had been supportive of Slavkin’s research, even if he had dismissed the Propaganda Machine. Waiting outside his office, I felt almost faint, suddenly, with relief. Surely at last we were to hear the truth.

‘Come in, come in!’ Lunacharsky stood to greet us, shook both our hands warmly. He read the list slowly. ‘I rather think you need not worry,’ he said at last.

‘Not worry? Why’s that? Is he working in a government laboratory?’

He said nothing, simply looking at us both kindly. ‘I am not at liberty to tell you,’ he murmured at last. ‘We are at war; certain freedoms are not available to us as they would be during peacetime. Can you, foot soldiers, simply accept what I, your commanding officer, tell you? Slavkin is putting his talents to work for the future of our country. That is all you can know.’

Darkness had fallen by the time we emerged onto Ostozhenka Street. By the door we gathered up two or three sharp stones and set off towards home. If the dogs got too close we threw them, not very accurately, but as hard as we could. On one occasion there was a sharp crack and an anguished yelping retreat. Hurrying, breathless, keeping to the shadows, I found myself grinning like a madwoman in the dark.

He hadn’t abandoned us. It was just that they wanted Slavkin to pursue his experiments in peace and quiet. I still had to talk to him, of course; for the baby’s sake, I would not be warned off, however hard Lunacharsky tried. But at least I didn’t need to worry about his safety.

On 14 March, the
Moskovsky Komsomolets
– a new paper for Party youth – ran with a simple banner headline: ‘The Vanishing Futurist!’ Slavkin had been awarded the title he would bear for the next fifty years. The piece began: ‘Scientist who claims to be creating the New Soviet Man disappears . . . is this the result of his Ground-Breaking Discoveries?’
Pravda
picked up the story as well: ‘We have to transform ourselves, claims Slavkin. Has the brilliant inventor made the greatest sacrifice for the Revolution?’ The majority of both articles could have come from his last lecture; some sentences were quoted word for word. Yet there were a couple of details in the
Pravda
article – for example, I remember that the Capsule was described as ‘darkish silver, coated with iridium alloy’ and ‘about seven foot long’ – which seemed to suggest either that the author had seen it himself, or that Slavkin had described it to him.

Pasha and I together identified four main possibilities:

1) Slavkin, as a result of his experiments, had disappeared from Gargarinsky Lane on 19 January with the knowledge of the authorities; they had therefore registered him as working in a secret location for Soviet science. (This tallied with Anna Vladimirovna’s account.)

2) Slavkin had moved to the secret laboratory on the night of the 19th and had disappeared, as a result of his experiments, from within the secret laboratory.

3) Slavkin was still working in the secret laboratory and the Party was keen, for some reason, to promote the mystery of his disappearance.

4) Slavkin was somewhere else entirely, perhaps without the knowledge of the authorities, and again they were simply promoting the mystery of his disappearance.

A young man came to interview us for a newspaper article about the IRT. I began to describe to him our programme. After a few minutes he stopped me, frowning. ‘He sounds like an avant-gardist!’

‘Well, yes, I suppose he is.’

‘Hmm.’

Into his uncertain pause I inserted a question of my own. ‘May I ask, why the sudden fascination with Slavkin? Who had the idea for this article, for example?’

‘Well.’ He looked confused. ‘Why the fascination? I should think that would be obvious. He’s vanished, hasn’t he? He’s given his life to the cause of Soviet science – he deserves to be celebrated!’

‘But we don’t know he’s given his life. We don’t know if he is dead or alive, or anything about where he is or what he is doing . . .’

‘I think you’ll find there are people who know exactly what he is doing, and that’s where the orders are coming from.’ He smiled at me a little condescendingly. ‘Perhaps because you’re a foreigner, you find it hard to understand his action. But trust me, for a Soviet citizen there could be no more glorious fate.’

That evening Pasha and I quarrelled. Lunacharsky had made it clear that we should cease all our efforts to find Slavkin, and Pasha was concerned that we might make things difficult for him if we disobeyed. But I was now almost seven months pregnant and his words of caution meant nothing to me. ‘I have to see him, Pasha, just once, do you see? If only I’d known in that last week; if only I’d talked to him then – but think of this poor child. When he or she grows up, at the very least I’d like to be able to say that his father knew of his existence and was glad.’

Pasha went very pale. ‘Don’t cry, Gerty. I can’t bear it if you cry. I have thought of something . . . just a faint possibility, it might lead to nothing. Look, the list of research projects.’ He hurried to find it. ‘Look at these other names: Beloborodov, do you see, Yu. M. – isn’t that Miss Clegg’s old employer? Or is it his brother? He also seems to have been working in a secret facility until February, he has a line of stars by his name. I wondered if it was worth going to see them – he would know something about the system, wouldn’t he?’

There was no answer to my knock on the door of Miss Clegg’s apartment, but to my surprise, it opened to a gentle push.

‘Miss Clegg? Are you at home? Please forgive the intrusion—’

A voice came from the sitting room. ‘Enter!’

The room was dark and painfully cold. I found Miss Clegg sitting up in her bed, dressed in an overcoat and hat. She turned her head as I entered and seemed to be searching for me in the gloom.

‘Here I am, Miss Clegg, it’s Gertrude Freely, do you remember me?’ I said gently.

‘Of course I remember you, Gerty,’ she said. ‘I haven’t lost my wits. But my eyesight, I’m afraid, is not what it was.’

Coming up close to her I was shocked, not by her thinness – everyone was thin – or even her filmy eyes, but by the fusty, neglected smell of her room, the stains down her overcoat and her long, dirty nails, so unlike Miss Clegg. She looked in my direction and I couldn’t help a flash of uncharitable gladness at her affliction; if she could have seen my stomach, she would no doubt have had a great deal to say about it.

‘Well, Gerty, are you still living in that madhouse? You’ve ruined your reputation, you know, no good family will touch you now.’

I paused for a moment, then offered her the small parcel of bread I had brought for her. ‘I’m afraid this is all I had.’

‘I’m no charity case, you know,’ she snapped, but she reached into the bag immediately and began to eat, trying to hide her mouth with her hands. I looked away, moved almost to tears. ‘I’m still teaching, I receive my pupils like this too.’ She suddenly cackled. ‘Imagine that! I sit up in bed and my young men come and sit on the other end! That wouldn’t have done in the old days, would it?’

I laughed too. ‘No, our manners are very simple these days.’

‘Light me a fire, would you? There’s a few sticks of wood in that corner. I manage very well on my own, always have done, but if you’re here . . .’

Of course she’d been alone before the war too, in the days when I found her so infuriating, with her half-martyred, half-condescending air. She’d been surviving on her inexhaustible willpower even then.

‘Miss Clegg, I’ve come to ask you for your help,’ I said as I tried to get the fire going. ‘I’m searching for a friend of mine who’s disappeared. I wondered if you were still in contact with the Beloborodov family? I think they may know something.’

‘Gracious me, you plan to bother them about it, do you?’ Her voice drifted off. ‘The Beloborodovs are still living in their old home on Vozdvizhenka. They have suffered at the hands of the Bolsheviks, and they’re surrounded by informers, of course, so be careful how you speak to them.’

‘What were the names and patronymics of your employer, Miss Clegg, I can’t remember? And what was his specialisation – was he a scientist, like his cousin?’

‘Elizaveta Igorevna and Yuri Maksimovich. He was trained as an engineer, it was thought that the training would come in useful when he took over the family business – railways, as you remember. Now the poor man is a wreck. He was in prison for several months – it almost killed him.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘How they are surviving now, I cannot imagine,’ went on Miss Clegg. ‘Elizaveta Igorevna was such an impractical woman. She could hardly dress herself, and she had certainly never brushed her own hair. Send them my regards. They don’t visit me any more. No doubt they are too busy, but if they had the time . . .’

Once the fire was lit I left Miss Clegg, promising to do my best to come and see her soon. I wondered if I would find her alive at my next visit.

Down Vozdvizhenka one had to negotiate great heaps of filthy slush and rubbish. It was getting late, yet I was so close to the Beloborodovs’, I could not resist visiting, even if only for a few minutes. My mind was full of that snowy day in November 1917 when we had taken refuge in their apartment from the sight of a dead man on the street. Now the door swung open on a hallway like a railway station, humming with the activities of the fifteen or so families crammed into the Beloborodovs’ spacious rooms. A large woman in a soldier’s jacket wanted to know my business there.

‘Comrade Beloborodov? What do you want with him?’

I hesitated. ‘It’s his wife I’m looking for,’ I said quietly, hoping she wouldn’t query my accent.

‘His wife, eh?’ she nodded towards the right door. ‘She’s quite the good-time girl these days’ – she winked coarsely – ‘but he doesn’t have much to say.’

‘He’s at home, is he?’

‘Oh yes, he’s always at home. Doesn’t go out at all these days.’

I found Madame Beloborodov, her husband, and three young children living in two small rooms. The children looked fed, and fairly well dressed. She was very thin and her beautiful hair had gone completely white. Superficially, her husband was little changed since before the Revolution, yet there was something odd in the way that he gazed at me so blankly. Before I could say a word, Madame Beloborodov hushed me fiercely, took out a coffee grinder and began to grind beechnuts. The children watched her.

‘Miss Clegg sent me to you, she’d so like it if you had time to visit her. I’m afraid she is almost blind now, and very weak,’ I began. ‘Please, forgive me for coming to see you,’ I murmured hurriedly under cover of the crunching of the grinder. ‘I am trying to find out the whereabouts of our friend, Nikita Slavkin – you remember – he was involved with the sale of the Svyatinsky’s minerals.’

Monsieur Beloborodov did not respond; he was gazing at the dark window panes as though he was hardly aware of what was going on around him, but Madame fixed me with an icy look. I felt myself flush – why should these people help Slavkin? – and gabbled on.

 ‘He has disappeared, Madame; perhaps you have seen it reported in the papers. Please, forgive me for raising his name with you. I understand that you do not feel any warmth towards him. But we have been led to believe he may be working in a secret laboratory run by the Ispolkom, and perhaps – it’s a long shot, I know – your husband may have been working in the same, or a similar establishment. I wonder, would Monsieur Beloborodov agree to talk to me?’

She almost spat. ‘My husband does not talk about such matters.’

I turned to her husband. ‘Please, I – I am Slavkin’s wife,’ I found myself saying. ‘I beg you to take pity on me . . .’

She pushed past me and said nothing. Heavily, I turned to leave. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you – it was ridiculous of me to think—’

‘Who told you I was working at a secret laboratory?’

My eyes snapped towards Beloborodov’s. It was his low, amused tone, so at odds with his earlier manner, that was so unexpected. I smiled at him involuntarily. His wife seized the coffee grinder and began to turn furiously.

‘We were shown a list of current research projects and your name was there, as was Slavkin’s. But next to each of your names, instead of an institute or a university department, there was only a line of stars,’ I murmured. ‘Lunacharsky hinted to us that Slavkin was working on some kind of secret research organised by the State, so I thought perhaps you were too.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think that’s right, he is working in a scientific establishment. I, on the other hand, only got as far as the Cheka prison at the Lubyanka. But I did come across your friend there.’

‘At the prison?’ Involuntarily my voice had risen. Madame hushed me sharply.

‘Yes – Nikita Gavrilovich Slavkin, that’s right, isn’t it? He was only there for a night or two, I believe. I never saw him, just heard him talked of. Of course I remembered him.’ He grimaced. ‘Then they took him to some kind of a laboratory. I never heard of anyone else going there.’

I was so shocked to hear he had been in prison, I could hardly get my words out. ‘D-Did they say anything more?’

He leaned forward and whispered in my ear. ‘Lab 37, they called it. Don’t ask me anything more – that’s all I know.
Laboratoria
37.’

One of his children began to cry. He glanced at the boy and back at me. Then he shook his head. ‘Well, good luck,’ he said in a normal voice. From outside their door came unashamed scuffling noises and creaking of floorboards. ‘Thank you for telling us about Miss Clegg. We’ll do what we can for her.’

‘Thank you—’

‘Our pleasure,’ snapped Madame Beloborodov, without looking at me.

Distracted, I turned the wrong way out of the courtyard. I was exhausted and chilled, my boots were soaking, and I soon realised I had no idea how to find my way out of this maze of unlit alleyways. I couldn’t make sense of the idea that Slavkin had been held by the Cheka, even if only for a few days. With a rising sense of panic I wandered until I finally came out on the bank of the river. I was near Narkompros, I realised, and had to take a deep breath for a moment to calm myself. When I arrived at his office, Pasha took one look at me, frowned and broke off from the report he was writing.

‘Sit down.’

‘No – I mean, I am tired, but would you mind if we went straight home?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to rest?’

‘No . . . Please . . .’

Outside in the silent streets I told him what Monsieur Beloborodov had said. Pasha nodded, holding my arm against his, and was quiet for a long time. The temperature had risen and it began to snow in the darkness. Soft, unhurried cascades of snow fell all around us, obscuring the whole world except for the few feet immediately before us. Large flakes melted on my padded coat, now frayed and threadbare. I regretted the loss of its cosy astrakhan collar – too bourgeois to wear safely in the street, so I had bartered it, like everything. All was gone, scattered, broken. Again tears were prickling at my eyes, and I wiped them away furiously. I turned, and caught Pasha looking at me, such a sad expression on his face.

‘Much though it pains me to say it,’ he murmured, hesitating, ‘I think the time has come for you to go home.’

‘What? Go home, now? Are you mad? I can’t go anywhere until we’ve found him. You see, I talked to Pelyagin. I’m – I’m terrified I said something that might have harmed Nikita . . .’

I suppose that was the closest I ever came to a confession, until I began to write this.

Pasha dismissed it. ‘Yes, yes, but where do you intend to look now? You think your Cheka friend will show you the way to Lab 37? This isn’t nice tidy England, you know. There aren’t necessarily answers to questions in Russia.’