Janet Fitch - The Revolution of Marina M.

So there.

The old lady tucked her chin, making many of one. “You should save the money. A girl hardly needs that kind of education. It will only give her ideas.”

I couldn’t keep still one more minute. “I believe that’s the point,” I said.

Seryozha snickered. Encouraged, I continued. “In your day, it was enough to look pretty and know what fork to use. Today we want to do things, not just sit there like painted dolls.”

Potemkin’s eyes regarded me with horror, just like his owner’s. “In my day, a young lady at least knew how to comport herself and not go running around contradicting her elders.”

I felt Mother’s hand on my arm, stilling me, but I had the bit in my teeth. “A month from now, you won’t recognize this country. Our lives are about to change forever, while you’re talking about comportment and feeding rabbit to your dog.”

She picked up another piece of meat and held it to the small beast’s mouth. “A whole month? I don’t recognize it now. And if I feed him rabbit, why shouldn’t I? It’s my money, my dog.”

“You see, Vera? You see?” Cousin Masha finished her second glass of Madeira. “Mother was right—sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”

Mother rubbed her temples. “Masha, dear, your mother was a horse’s ass. That’s what my mother used to say.”

Great-Aunt Mariya Grigorievna laughed out loud. “So true. Forgive me but she really was.”

Masha’s face turned dark with fury. I was glad not to be seated next to her. She would have pinched me. “Waiter!” she called out. The man with the long face was at her side in a moment. “This fish has gone off.” She pushed her plate away from her. The man took it without comment, though she’d eaten half.

At last Father returned, white-faced, his pipe trailing the scent of his tobacco. “There’s been some trouble down by Gostinny Dvor. Shots fired. We should all avoid Nevsky for the next few hours.”

“Who shot? The soldiers or the strikers?” How could I get around my parents and find out what was going on?

“I’m ready to avoid the entire mad city,” said our great-aunt, placing her napkin on the table, signaling the end of the meal. “We’ve met with our bankers, I see no point in lingering, do you, Masha, dear?”

“I should say not,” said our disgruntled cousin.

“We can be back in Moscow by morning.” The old lady stuck her face nose to nose with the pop-eyed pug. “What do you say, Potemkin? Let us leave the asylum to the inmates. Maybe next year they’ll have come to their senses.” She stood and we rose to kiss her and Cousin Masha. Mother embraced her old relative with an affection that surprised them both, knocking their hats together.

It was the last time we ever saw the two Mariyas.

IN THE WATER-GRAY first light, the sidewalks already exuded a bristly, nervy energy. I hurried after Seryozha. For a change, he was the one who’d woken early, rousing me from sleep, determined to spend the day at the demonstrations—with Solomon Moiseivich. I understood. After our luncheon at the Hotel Europa, I needed no urging.

Fresh posters had been stuck to the walls overnight, and groups of people stood around reading them.

FROM TODAY FORWARD, ALL STREET ASSEMBLIES WILL BE DECLARED OUTLAWED AND SUBJECT TO ARREST. TROOPS WILL FIRE TO MAINTAIN ORDER. ALL WORKERS ARE HEREBY INSTRUCTED TO RETURN TO THEIR FACTORIES BY TUESDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 28, OR SUFFER CANCELED MILITARY DEFERMENTS AND BE INDUCTED INTO DUTY ON THE FRONT LINE. BY ORDER OF THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR.

“Guess you better go home now, kids. Papa’s mad,” joked a man in a corduroy cap.

“This time we’re ready for Papa.” His friend rattled a bag in the palm of his hand. It jingled, full of metal.

“The reserves don’t want this fight any more than we do,” said an old man with hands the size of dinner plates. “They’ll come over to our side.”

“Yeah? You saw ’em yesterday. Move along. Bugger off.”

Seryozha, halfway down the street, called to me to hurry. But I wanted to hear what the workers were saying. “What happened yesterday?” I asked the man in the corduroy cap.

“Police fired on the crowd up near Gostinny Dvor.”

I was glad Seryozha couldn’t hear that. “Are you worried? About being sent to the front?”

The man with the metal said, “Nobody’s going anywhere, devushka. It’s them’s going somewhere. Straight to the devil is where.”

As we approached Nevsky, we could see the demonstrators already crowding the boulevard. At the Katzevs’ building Varvara had just arrived. She rushed up to us. “They’re rallying out in the districts. Bigger crowds than yesterday. The government’s raised the bridges—as if that’s going to do any good.” Raising the bridges on the Neva was a time-honored tactic but an iced-over river in February was not much of a barrier. “Everyone’s running across. The police don’t dare shoot. They know the least spark and—babakh!” She flung her hands upward and out. I could picture the workers, their dark coats and caps, running across the frozen expanse. Small figures against white like living sheet music. The city was coming together like two halves of a brain—what the reactionaries feared most. “It’s beyond protest now,” she said. “It’s revolution.”

Revolution. The great brazen sound of the word rang in my bones, resounded in the bell of my chest. It had us hypnotized, promising resurrection, a cleansing, after which Goodness and Future would emerge like the shining city of God.

We climbed to the fifth floor—Seryozha running ahead—but by the time we got to Mina’s, her father had left. “Come in, have breakfast,” her mother urged, but we grabbed Mina and fled back down to the street, resisting her sisters’ pleas to take them along. Sofia Yakovlevna let loose a skein of warnings that trailed after us like scarves.

The rising sun fingered the tops of the buildings as we came out onto the street. A crisp winter day. The soft snow that had fallen during the night gave the gathering crowds a holiday spirit. The transparent blue of the sky arched above us like the dome of a church. Seryozha raced ahead, not caring that he was alone, watching for Solomon Moiseivich. Varvara thought he was most likely to be photographing workers crossing the river and gathering at Palace Square. Sullen-faced soldiers clustered on corners and mounted police trotted in the streets. I fell back with Mina, who was having trouble keeping up. She stopped to catch her breath, bent over at the waist, bracing herself on her knees. “Do we really have to run? Won’t they be coming this way?”

In a gathering chorus, church bells rang out. It was Sunday. Kazan Cathedral, the Lutheran church, the Armenian church, the Church of the Spilled Blood all sounded their benedictions. A good sign.

“Listen.” Varvara stopped us with outstretched arms. She didn’t mean the bells. Yes, from the direction of the Neva they came. Little black figures, the swaying red banners. Steam rose from the assembled mass, so many lungs, and as the bells faded, the sound grew deep and wide, a song. At first you couldn’t hear words, but then they became clear. “Arise, arise, working people. Arise against the enemies, hungry brother!” Homemade banners and signs from factories swashed overhead, METAL WORKERS NO. 14, ADMIRALTY SHIPYARD ON STRIKE! But also newer, more militant slogans: DOWN WITH THE AUTOCRACY! RUSSIA OUT OF THE WAR! SOCIALISM MEANS STRENGTH OF THE MANY! It thrilled me to see their demands, right out in the open. The emperor’s father would know what to do. At the curb, we caught up with Seryozha, his sketchbook open, attempting to capture the flow of humanity. A man, skin burned by some kind of chemical work. A tall woman in a white scarf, a chin like a doubled fist, leading a chant: Give us bread! Give us peace! Faces Kolya might have picked to be his messengers.

Suddenly Varvara grabbed my arm and stepped into a passing line of strikers.

My brother and Mina stood frozen like two rabbits on the curb. “Come on, Seryozha!” I called. But he pointed in the direction of the river and Solomon Moiseivich, and soon I lost sight of him as the marchers swept us along in the opposite direction, east, away from the river and toward Gostinny Dvor. Varvara was practically jumping with excitement. “Where are you from, brothers?” she asked the men marching with us. A blond man with a big moustache and a thick patched coat black with grease replied, “Ericsson.” The big manufacturer of telephones and other electronic devices. These men were taking a tremendous risk striking—it was one of the militarized industries. They weren’t just putting their jobs on the line. Their strike was tantamount to treason. Their bravery made me feel very young and frivolous, like a colt who’d decided to follow its mother in harness. People at the Hotel Europa stared at us from the window as we marched by. I wondered if the two Mariyas were still in Petrograd, if they could see me.

A young worker with elfin ears wedged himself between me and Varvara, draping his arms heavily over our necks. “What are you girlies here for? Bit of fun?” He smelled sharp and bitter—he’d been drinking. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be a bourgeois missy. He was “the people,” after all. But Varvara had no compunctions. She shoved him off, sent him staggering into the men behind us, shouting at him, “Where’s your discipline? This is a strike, not a social hour!”

The Ericsson men laughed. “That’s the way, little sister,” said the blond man with the moustache, while our would-be Romeo shrugged, wiped his nose on his coat sleeve, and spit—not quite at us, but close enough.

A wave of song reached us from up ahead. We followed with our own wave, hearing the same melody from various sections of the boulevard like a rolling echo. Soldiers leaned out the window of a military hospital, waving handkerchiefs—my soldiers! Businesses were mostly closed, the streetcars abandoned. Some of the strikers were trying to turn one of the trams over. People stared at us from the cafés. No one had told them that the revolution had arrived. Arise, arise, working people…

As we approached the intersection at Sadovaya Street, cracking sounds echoed off the buildings. I stopped, confused, but people around us began to turn, break off. They were shooting at us! Or someone was shooting, it was hard to tell who. We followed the Ericssons, dodging behind Gostinny Dvor, the great department store, zigzagging past the Assignation Bank and around to the Chernyshevsky Bridge, then back onto Nevsky. The excitement! Our blood was up and I could understand how soldiers were able to run into the gunfire of enemy troops. When we rejoined the demonstration, there were more strikers than ever. Workers in an upper-story tailor shop waved red flags.

At last we poured into Znamenskaya Square, the plaza before the Nikolaevsky train station. And I saw that we were just one of many streams flooding in from all four directions to meet in the grand circle surrounding the statue of Alexander III, the emperor’s father, on his flat-footed horse, the tsar’s expression equal parts indigestion and disgust.

So many people, and they kept coming, pressing us farther into the square. No one could scare us away now—we were too many. How glad I was that Seryozha and Mina hadn’t come after all. They would have been apoplectic at the gunfire and panicky at the size of the crowd, whereas Varvara was thrilled and singing at the top of her lungs. And I was at one with these brave people, ready to change the fate of a nation.

Speakers climbed onto boxes to address the demonstration. “The old order has led the country to ruin!” shouted a gray-haired woman, hatless in a simple coat and dark skirt, pointing up at the statue. Her voice would have been the envy of a regimental sergeant major. “This is not the war to end all wars. It guarantees there will be more! It strengthens the autocracies! Forced annexations cause hatred among the peoples! Only socialism can guarantee a lasting peace.”

“Russia out of the war!” responded a handsome bearded student who had appeared at my side. He flashed a brilliant smile at me.

“Up with the people’s socialism!” Varvara shouted.

The gray-haired woman ceded the soapbox to a younger man. “We call for the return of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies! We call for the arrest of the tsar’s ministers.” He pointed back up Nevsky, the way we’d come. “They’re huddling right now in the Mariinsky Palace. They’re rolling down the shades, they’re putting out ‘for rent’ signs!”