Эльвира Барякина - Russian Treasures

All Klim could do now was put his trust in God. The surgeon operating was called Gabriel, like the angelic messenger, and that was probably a good sign.

As a teenager, Klim had served as an altar boy in the church. The high-school boys liked to make an impression, taking the collection bowl around the left-hand side of the church where the female parishioners stood. The service boys were allowed to join the priests behind the altar screen to gain a “better understanding of the church service,” but it was there that Klim had parted company with the Orthodox faith once and for all. One day, he had caught the priest taking snuff on the quiet. On another occasion, he had seen the deacon polishing off the last of the sacramental wine. After that, Klim and his friends took to sneaking the occasional nip from the bottles of altar wine themselves.

Klim wore a cross around his neck like an amulet and generally spoke to God in a familiar tone. He grumbled at him when something was wrong and went to church when he needed something. It didn’t matter to him whether the church was an Orthodox or a Catholic one.

Now, Klim felt as though everything he was going through was a punishment for his lack of faith back then. He was experiencing that fiery torment that his divinity teacher at school had promised awaited all lapsed believers.

5

Again, Klim heard rapid footsteps behind his back and felt himself tense in anticipation.

“So, what have we here?” Trotsky asked, pointing at the satyr peeping out of the sackcloth.

“It’s nothing—” Klim said. “A souvenir. I bought it at the market.”

Trotsky squatted down and gazed at the sculpture. He and the satyr looked rather alike: both had a broad forehead and a similar style beard, only one had no pince-nez, and the other lacked horns.

“Well, well, Comrade Argentinean,” Trotsky mused. “Perhaps you could let us have your souvenir? I think we might be able to use it for propaganda purposes.”

Klim nodded. “Sure.”

“And one more thing,” Trotsky added. “The doctor told me that your wife needs to stay in the hospital car for some time. I don’t want you to be left without anything to do, so we’ll provide you with some socially useful work. Seeing as you’re a journalist, you can write us leaflets about the dangers of religious indoctrination. Comrade Skudra will explain to you what you need to do. He’s a great expert on propaganda. Come with me, and I’ll introduce you to one another.”

Klim rose to his feet, overcome by the unexpected and joyful news. Nina had survived the operation.

He had asked God for a sign as to how to repay him if Nina’s life were spared, and now, Klim had his answer: he was now to write sermons denouncing God’s divinity for these devils in the Red Army. He felt sure that the Almighty was enjoying the irony immensely.

1 EL CUADERNO NEGRO ^{Klim Rogov’s little black notebook}

Nina is quite weak and can barely lift her head. Her hair has been cut short, and now, she looks like a sick little pixie with her distant eyes, thin neck, and willowy arms. But she already wants me to come and sit with her. She looks forward to my visits and makes a fuss if Skudra keeps me away for too long. This makes me happy. If my darling is annoyed about something, then that means she still has an interest in this world and has no plans to go drifting off to the next.

She’s worried sick about her family. Zhora and Elena were plotting something, it seems, and were caught in the act. As for the old countess, we’ve no idea what’s become of her.

Nina has decided to go back to Nizhny Novgorod as soon as she’s well enough. She asked me if I would go with her as if I have a choice. I have more important questions on my mind, however. What if Trotsky goes off somewhere with his propaganda train and takes Nina along with him? What if the Whites try to bomb the train again?

I don’t want to move Nina from the hospital car—she’s getting the sort of food and medical attention here that the wounded and sick elsewhere can only dream of.

She has no right to this special treatment, and the only reason she’s still getting it is because Trotsky hasn’t yet had time to reconsider the decision he took in a fit of melodramatic generosity. Now that I’ve sold my soul to the devil, all that remains is for me to carry out my part of the bargain as best I can in the hope that he’ll forget about us.

Our angel, Dr. Gabriel, has said that as long as there are no complications and Nina gets plenty of rest, she ought to recover. Sablin asked to have a look at the patient and went into raptures over her perfect stitches.

“I’m green with envy,” he said as he came out of the hospital car. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to suture a wound like that!”

I only hope that the Red Army will stay put for the time being, and Nina will have time to get better.

The military camp in Sviyazhsk is swelling and growing before our very eyes. Every day, new trains bring reinforcements, but the Reds have taken no military action apart from shelling some of the White steamships since most of the recruits don’t know how to handle their rifles and still need to be trained.

Apparently, the Whites are not strong enough to move up the river Volga. Skudra told me there are plenty of White agitators making speeches in Kazan, but very few soldiers prepared to defend the city. The only troops the Whites can count on are the Czechs, but they’re not ready to die to save Russia. All they want is to get out of here as soon as possible.

I spend my days with the propaganda boys in the former telegraph station. We design posters, put together an army newspaper, and assemble newsstands. We also cut printing paper into strips and trade it for raw vodka. The local peasants glue these strips of paper over their windows to prevent the glass breaking from the bomb and shell blasts.

My job is to write the texts for propaganda leaflets debunking religion under the supervision of Skudra, a former pharmacist’s assistant from Riga.

For example, what is the secret of the sacred, luminous inscriptions that sometimes appear on the walls of churches? The truth of the matter is that there’s no miracle involved at all—just simple chemistry. All you need to do is take some softened beeswax, add white phosphorus, and then use this mixture to draw mysterious symbols that will glow in the dark.

Similarly, if you dissolve white phosphorus in carbon disulfide and dip the wicks of candles in the solution, the solvent will evaporate, and the phosphorus will ignite spontaneously in the open air. That’s how you produce the miracle of Holy Fire.

The people who have gathered in Sviyazhsk are like hordes of army ants. Here the survival of every individual depends on the success of the colony as a whole. Anyone who breaks away from their group will find themselves dead in no time. These “strays” quickly meet their deaths either at the hands of the Reds, the Whites, or the “neutral peasants” whose motto is “A plague on both your houses.” Nina and I have found refuge and protection with the Red Army, so we call it “our army.” I am sure the majority of my “comrades in arms” feel much the same way as we do.

Individual desires or ambitions count for nothing now; the collective is our only hope. God help anyone admitting that they want personal comfort or to be safe, well-fed, rested, and satisfied! As a result, we’re all leading a double life. We’re all pretending to be devoted ants—proud carriers of straw and dead caterpillars. But deep down inside, we’re still humans, and the more human you feel, the more difficult it is to pretend that instead of a heart, you have a dorsal vessel in your chest.

It’s a perfect recipe for daily misery. The worst sort of slavery you can imagine. You are bound not by shackles but the realization that if you refuse to be an ant, you will lose the support of the colony, and then you might as well be dead. You have to live your life not as you want to but as the collective dictates. The irony is that you are part of it and, therefore, your own slave.

What should we do then? Toughen up the outer shells of our bodies? Sharpen our mandibles? Arm ourselves with poison? We’ll definitely need it at some point. And we’ll have to master the art of mimicry—to pass ourselves off as ants. According to zoologists, small spiders and grasshoppers use this form of self-defense very effectively.

2

All day long, Nina stared through the gap in the white curtains at the stinging nettles growing by the fence, the sentry walking to and fro, or the mangy stray dog that had made its home on the station platform.

“Dogs aren’t allowed here!” the nurse cried. “Get it away from here!”

She didn’t know that Nina had been secretly pinching off pieces of bread and throwing them out of the window. When you can’t get up and are bored to death, there are still the pleasures of petty disobedience to be had.

Behind the thin screen that divided the hospital car were two sailors with broken legs who were acting up too. They constantly told ribald jokes and talked about their girlfriends in the most colorful language and shocking detail. For some reason, Nina found this unbearably funny.

Maybe it was just her nerves. The doctor had told Nina not to laugh for fear of bursting her stitches, but now, the slightest tomfoolery would reduce her to feeble, debilitating laughter. She asked the sailors to stop, but they continued to tell each other their outrageous stories, claiming a good laugh is the best cure for any ill.

Klim would come after lunch. The nurses were glad to see him because he always brought them something—a bouquet of daisies picked at the fence, a few cigarettes, or some other small gift. Nina felt proud to see the nurses fussing around Klim but annoyed at them for taking up her precious time with him. Skudra never let him get away for more than half an hour.

When Klim came to visit Nina, he would sit beside her, and the two of them would talk in whispers about how wretched and terrified of losing each other they had been during their separation.

Nina never admitted that Fomin had visited her, but she did hint that she and Zhora had taken part in preparing the uprising.

“Why?” Klim gasped. “Why did you risk so much for the sake of someone else’s interests?”

“They are not someone else’s,” Nina protested. “There is something in this world worth fighting and dying for.”

“What exactly is it that you are planning to die for? Some ‘Just Cause’ nobody will remember in ten years?”

Nina didn’t know what to say when she had realized how upsetting it had all been for Klim. He had sacrificed everything he had had to save her, and it appeared to him that she hadn’t been taking her own life seriously.

“Zhora and I couldn’t just sit on our hands,” she said, looking down. “If you do nothing, you begin to feel that you don’t exist.”

The next day, Klim brought Nina the ring from the safety pin of a hand grenade, which consisted of two rings joined together.

“I’ve found something that symbolizes us in a funny way,” Klim said. “Individually, we’re nothing but zeros, but together, we become a symbol of infinity and perfection.” He straightened the ring into a figure of eight. “We must never part from each other again.”

Nina asked Klim to put the symbol of infinity onto the chain that held the “key from his heart” as well as a small anchor that had been made for her by one of the sailors. The sailor had said it was a symbol of hope, a sign that one day Nina would return to her home harbor.

I wish I could go home and find my brother, she thought.

Klim kissed Nina goodbye and ruffled her cropped curls—he found her boyish hairstyle amusing. “See you tomorrow.”

He paused at the screen, pretending he had something to say but had forgotten what it was. In fact, he was just trying to prolong the final precious moments of his visit.

“Well, bye-bye for now.”

Nina heard his footsteps, the creak of the door as it closed, and then a knock at the window. Then there were more farewells, waves, smiles, and faces traced in the dusty glass of the car window.

Nina stared after him as he made his way down the empty platform.

“You’re truly lucky to have made such a rare catch,” said one of the nurses.

3

The Red Army troops were lined up on Kafedralnaya Square. As a foreign journalist, Klim had a prime view of the parade from the roof of a staff automobile.