Эльвира Барякина - Russian Treasures

“Go to the ship, ma’am. We’re leaving soon.”

Suddenly, the woman caught sight of the R.A.M.C. officer. “Dr. Sablin!” she cried.

The woman rushed to him and started to explain something. Looking at her in confusion, the officer nodded, and Eddie realized that not only the officer but also all of the wounded men with him were Russian. The doctor had changed into British uniform to give himself and his patients a chance to get on the ship.

Should I report them? Eddie thought for a second. His next thought was, Of course, not. Let the captain find out after we set sail.

He went up to the doctor. “Keep your people quiet,” he said in a whisper. “Try not to talk until we’ve boarded the ship. I’ll help you get settled.”

The words of a solemn song kept going around in Eddie’s head:

It’s the only, only way,

It’s the only game to play—

3

The old countess told Klim that she wanted to go straight to the French quay. “Sorry, but I’m too old for all these adventures. I just want to get onto the ship.”

For an extra twenty francs, Shushunov had promised to take the old countess to the checkpoint.

“You should come with me,” Sofia Karlovna told Klim. “You have documents now, and Fomin will get Nina out.”

Klim looked away from the old countess. “The British will take her to Egypt or somewhere, and I’ll never find her again.”

“You won’t find her again anyway,” said the old countess with the sigh. “Still, I wish you luck.”

They shook hands, and Sofia Karlovna got out of the car. “If by some miracle,” she said, “you manage to get out of here, do write to me care of the Paris central post office. Mr. Shushunov, let’s go.”

Klim had to leave the car behind in the port. It was impossible to get through the endless columns of Don Cossacks. A forest of lances and a sea of horses’ heads stretched as far as the eye could see. The ground was littered with cloth, leather, canned food, and rifles.

Klim made his way, ducking under the bellies of the horses.

The cavalry officer ordered the Cossacks to dismount. “Leave your horses behind!”

The Cossacks unfastened their saddles and bridles. Many of them wept silently, tears coursing down their dusty faces. It was unthinkable to leave behind a horse that meant more than a friend. These horses had saved their riders in battle and shared everything that had come their way.

The Cossacks put their arms around their horses’ necks and stroked their cheeks. One man put a gun in his horse’s ear, but his friends wouldn’t let him pull the trigger.

“Do you want me to give up my girl to the Reds?” he yelled as he struggled in the arms of his friends.

The horses whinnied in fear while the men cursed. In a frenzy, the Cossacks began to throw their saddles into the water. “To hell with it all!”

Hundreds and then thousands of feet stomped up the gangplanks as the regiments boarded the steamers, which began to list under the weight.

“Get back! We’re setting sail! No more space here!” the captain shouted through his megaphone, but nobody paid any attention.

“We still have three rearguard regiments here!”

An artillery shell wailed and exploded on a nearby slope.

“The Reds are already at Hajduk Station!” someone cried. “They might even have gotten as far as Kirillovka.”

“You’ll sink the ship!” yelled the captain. “There’ll be another transport soon to take you on board.”

One by one, the overloaded ships sailed away with clusters of people hanging onto their rigging. Whenever a new vessel sailed toward the quay, the crowd would dash along the side of the water shouting, not knowing where it would berth. Lost children wailed, and women became hysterical.

Klim noticed a Kalmyk with two boys, numb with fear. They were dashing hither and thither among the soldiers, completely lost.

“Where should we go?” the Kalmyk asked Klim. “Where’s our boat?”

Several horses jumped into the sea and swam after the steamers as they left the quay.

4

Klim reached the British pier by evening. A huge crowd was standing in front of the closed gate; however, people were now no longer shouting or panicking but staring silently through the rows of barbed wire, watching a warship sail into the distance.

The fog drifting from the mountains mingled with the smoke of the fires on the streets. Some people decided to go to Gelendzhik, and some went back into town. Klim overheard an officer from the Markov Regiment proposing to take by force the next ship that came in. “It’s every man for himself now,” he said.

“There won’t be another ship,” a familiar voice said.

Turning, Klim saw Fomin, bareheaded in an overcoat with its buttons torn off, standing a few steps away.

Klim rushed up to him. “Where’s Nina?” he asked.

A vague smile appeared on Fomin’s face. “If it isn’t Mr. Argentinean himself! Nina’s gone. Neither you nor I will ever see her again.”

5

Sablin ordered Nina to help him carry the wounded onto the ship. When all of the men were aboard, she rushed onto the upper deck.

Sablin tried to hold her back. “Where’re you going?”

 “Klim’s still there,” Nina said, panting. “I need to go back to town.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Dr. Sablin!” cried the nurse running up to him. “The captain found out that a we’d made our way onto his ship unlawfully.”

Sablin closed his eyes for a moment.

“I’ll go to the captain now,” he said. “Fay, I want you to keep an eye on Miss Nina. She’s beside herself with grief. She could throw herself overboard.”

Fay cast a jealous look in Nina’s direction.

“You can go back to Novorossiysk if you want to,” she told Nina as soon as Sablin was out of the way.

Nina set off toward the gangplank.

“I can’t leave,” she tried to explain herself to the British sailors.

They helped her to get to the jetty strewn with abandoned possessions. Thick smoke billowed from the steamer’s funnel, and the anchor chain rattled as it was pulled up.

The Hannover set out to sea.

For a long time, Nina stood at the railing looking at the fiery glow in the waves of the gulf. The last transport passed, tugging an overcrowded barge behind it.

The crowd behind the barbed wire was thinning out. At first, people left one by one and then in groups. Soon, there was nobody left at the pier.

Darkness set in rapidly as the town struggled in its death throes. From time to time, the pink glare of an explosion flashed behind the dense clouds. The last defenders of Novorossiysk were desperately trying to hold the mountain passes.

Nina picked up an abandoned chocolate bar from the ground and unwrapped it. The smell and taste were like something long-forgotten. She struggled to understand what she had done and why she had refused to be saved.

I don’t need that kind of salvation, she thought.

There was nothing in her heart but a sort of dull apathy. Where should she look for Klim? What might have happened to him? She couldn’t bear to lose him again.

One of the abandoned horses came up to Nina and laid its head on her shoulder. It was trembling and snorting, and a purple point of fire glowed deep in the pupil of its eye.

Nina picked up her skirt, put her foot in the stirrup, and mounted the horse, feeling the unfamiliar sensation of the breeze on her bare knees.

“Let’s go home,” she said, touching the reins.

6

The town was in the grip of a pogrom. The streets glowed golden from fires, the low clouds were brown as coffee from the smoke, and the air was filled with flying ash and charred paper.

Nina rode slowly down the middle of the road. Ragged people ran by with bundles of leather jackets, shoes, and belts. People were breaking open crates right there in the street and pouring packets of hardtack, yeast, and starch into their knapsacks. It was beyond belief that all of this food had been kept in warehouses all this time while in Novorossiysk, people had been starving.

The earth trembled with the beat of thousands of hooves. Horses abandoned by the Cossacks had herded together, and bearded Circassians were chasing after them whooping.

Vorontsovskaya Street was empty. It appeared that everyone had taken cover in anticipation of the inevitable trials to come. Nina rode into the backyard, jumped to the ground, and froze in disbelief when she heard laughter inside the house.

She ran onto the porch and pulled open the front door. In the living room by the light of two candles, Klim and Fomin were sitting at the dinner table playing cards.

“I think I’d have made a good Provisions Commissar,” Fomin said.

Klim nodded. “I agree.” He caught sight of Nina and jumped to his feet, his face transformed. “Why are you still here?”

She rushed to him. “I couldn’t go without you!”

Klim’s hands were shaking as he took her tightly in his arms and kissed her. “Everything will be fine—you’ll see. We’ll go East instead. The Bolsheviks won’t be able to block the border with China, however hard they try—it’s thousands of miles long. We’ll find a way to get over it.”

Fomin cocked the little revolver in his hand.

“Nina, my dear,” he said, “you are distracting us from very important business. After you left, Mr. Argentinean and I decided to have a card duel. We thought it would be entertaining. The winner will die a quick and painless death courtesy of the last precious bullet in this gun. The loser has to wait to be hacked to death by the Red cavalry. I must inform you that your husband beat me.”

Nina froze. “Surely, you wouldn’t—”

“Mr. Rogov, if you wish, I can let Nina have your prize. Whatever you say.”

The reflection of the candle flame flickered on Fomin’s forehead, slick with sweat. The corners of his mouth twitched.

“There’s no need to look so frightened.” He laughed. “After all, you wouldn’t be apart for very long. The Reds will be here in a couple of hours, and they’ll kill the rest of us. Then we’ll meet in heaven and laugh over our memories.”

“Hands up!” shouted a clear boyish voice as a group of scrawny teenagers armed with rifles appeared in the doorway.

Startled, Fomin dropped the revolver on the tablecloth and raised his hands. A second later, he realized that the intruders were mere boys trembling at their own effrontery.

“What do you want?” Fomin demanded angrily.

He reached for his revolver, but the older boy pressed his rifle to Fomin’s chest while the second boy grasped the gun. “We need to talk about our father—Jacob Froiman.”

Fomin grimaced. “I see. Well, young men, have a seat.”

The older boy turned to Klim. “You must leave now. We have a score to settle.”

Klim grabbed Nina’s hand, and they ran outside. The sky above the trees was bathed in an orange glow.

“Who were those boys?” Nina whispered.

“The vanguard of Soviet power,” said Klim. “Come on. We need to find a place to hide.”

A rifle shot rang out inside the house.

1

No sooner had Sofia Karlovna boarded the dreadnought Waldeck-Rousseau than the nightmare of Novorossiysk fell away, and she found herself in France. She was given a five-course dinner and a cabin with a bath along with a now subdued and obliging Shushunov, who had gotten himself a place on the ship by passing himself off as her butler.

Although the ship was far from shore, clouds of smoke and the glow of fires could still be seen from the direction of the port. Sofia Karlovna wasn’t looking in that direction. The sea was calm, the clear sky was the color of lilac, and the moon was rising over the mountains like a worn cameo.

The evacuated cadets from the Alexander Military School lined up on the ship’s deck to sing a prayer. The old countess listened to their clear young voices and crossed herself.

Everything was as it should be: the mistress of the ball was bidding farewell to her guests and wishing them a good night. Now, she could rest while the servants swept up the rubbish and cleared the dishes from the tables.

2

A year later in Montmartre, Sofia Karlovna read in a newspaper that—following the tragedy in Novorossiysk—some Whites had fled and others had been taken prisoner. Many more, believing that they would be given amnesty, had taken part in a voluntary registration. All of those who had registered had been arrested. Some had been sent to labor camps while others—drafted into the ranks of the Red Army—had taken part in the bloodbath that was the Polish war.