The Story of a Life

76

Material for a History of Russian Houses

Sometimes the history of houses can be more interesting than the lives of people. Houses last longer and are witnesses to several generations. Local historians are the only ones who take the trouble to study the history of old houses, and it’s normal for these historians to be treated with condescension as harmless lunatics. Yet it’s these same people who collect our history one little bit at a time and teach us to know and love our country and its traditions.

I am convinced that if we could reconstruct the history of some old house in every last detail, to follow the lives of everyone who had lived there, to describe their ways of life, and to learn everything that had happened there, we would end up with a great roman de mœurs perhaps more revealing than the novels of Balzac. Moreover, the life of every house is joined together with quite a number of things that have also been around for a long time and experienced their own extensive and revealing journeys. Unfortunately, such a history is well-nigh impossible. Things don’t talk, and people are forgetful, lack for curiosity, and treat their faithful though inanimate assistants with insulting carelessness.

Things are crafted by human hands, like for example Pinocchio, who was carved out of a knotty log by the old carpenter Geppetto. Pinocchio came to life and started a train of events such as only a magical fairy could sort out. If things really could come to life, what a mess they would unleash in our lives and how much richer history would be. They would have something to say.

No one can say for certain how many large, private homes there were in Moscow before the October Revolution. People say at least three hundred. These were mostly merchants’ homes. Only a few of them belonged to the nobility. Nearly all their urban mansions had burned down back in 1812. Following the October Revolution, the anarchists seized most of these homes of the Moscow merchants. They enjoyed life amid all the fine old antique furniture, chandeliers and rugs, and treated these furnishings in their own distinctive way. Paintings were used for target practice with their Mausers. Exquisite rugs replaced tarpaulins to cover the stacks of cartridge cases out in the yard. Rare books from the library were used to board up the windows as protection against gunfire. Ballrooms with intricate parquet floors served as dormitories for the anarchists and all sorts of dubious characters.

Moscow was ripe with rumours about the dissolute lives of the anarchists in these mansions. Prim old ladies whispered in horror among themselves of abominable orgies. But these were not orgies, just the usual drinking bouts at which hooch instead of champagne was drunk to help wash down salted fish as hard as rock. They were a collection of riff-raff, strung-out youths and neurotic girls – a forerunner to the Makhno gangfn1 right in the heart of Moscow. The anarchists even had their own theatre. It was called Izid. Its posters advertised it as a ‘theatre of mysticism, eroticism and spiritual anarchy’ that was devoted to ‘an idea raised to the point of fanaticism’. What this idea was, the posters didn’t say. Every time I came across one of these posters, I thought to myself that Rachinsky must somehow be involved with the theatre.

I was writing my first novel and often stayed at the newspaper’s office late into the night or even until morning. I slept on our battered old editorial sofa with its broken springs. It sometimes happened that in the middle of the night a spring would snap and give me a good smack in the ribs. I preferred to write in the office instead of my sleepy and musty lodgings where the tap dripped in the bathroom and the landlady was always shuffling around outside my door in her slippers. The light in my room bothered her, and she got up several times during the night to check the electricity meter.

Back at the newspaper, I usurped Kuskova’s expansive, carpeted office with its large writing desk. Sometimes I fell asleep at this desk for ten or fifteen minutes and then woke up rested and refreshed. The office cat slept on the desk opposite me, his paws tucked in. Now and then he would open his eyes just wide enough to give me a friendly look, as if to say: ‘Working, are you? All right then, go on, keep at it! I’ll just have another little snooze.’ But then one night, the cat woke with a start. His ears twitched this way and that. He stared at me with eyes as green as gooseberries and let out a hoarse miaow.

I listened and caught the sound of gunfire. It crackled somewhere in the dark streets and then started to get closer. The intensity of the shooting made it clear this was not just some random street fight.

Just then the phone rang. The sound made me jump. The Moscow news editor was on the line. ‘They’ve started disarming the anarchists!’ he shouted into the receiver. ‘They’ve launched raids on the houses. It’s a good thing you’re at the office. I’m on my way, but in the meantime, do me a favour and head over to the Morozov house on Vozdvizhenka Street and see what’s going on. But be careful.’

I went out into the street. It was dark and deserted. Wild shooting was coming from the direction of Malaya Dmitrovka Street, where the anarchists were entrenched in the former Merchants’ Club and had even set up two field guns at the gate. I picked my way through some back streets until I came to the Morozov house on Vozdvizhenka Street. Every Muscovite knew this house with its grey, sea-shell-encrusted walls which looked like some sort of fanciful castle. The house was dark. It looked black and sinister. I climbed the granite steps to the heavy front doors, so massive they reminded me of the bronze doors of a medieval cathedral. I listened. Not a sound came from within. I decided that the anarchists must have left, but knocked, cautiously, just the same.

Suddenly, the door flew open without a sound. Someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me inside. The door slammed shut. I found myself in utter darkness. Several people held me tightly.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked calmly. The question sounded ridiculous, even to me. It was obvious what was the matter, and I could guess the matter might end quite poorly for me.

‘He’s obviously an agent,’ a young woman’s voice said close to my ear. ‘We’ve got to report him to Comrade Ognevoi.’

‘Hold on,’ I said, trying to talk my way out of this. ‘The days of the Count of Monte Cristo have come and gone. Turn on a light and I’ll explain everything to you. Please, just let me go.’

‘Well, ain’t that something,’ said the same woman’s voice. ‘He’d like us to let him go. You’re nothin’ but a rat, a Bolshevik spy, and you’re goin’ nowhere. But I promise not to touch a hair on that pretty lil’ head of yours unless you start something funny. Got it?’

It was clear this kind of talk was not natural to her. She had picked it up recently and was trying it out for the first time. I lost my temper.

‘Queen of Anarchy,’ I said in the direction of the invisible woman, ‘stop playing the fool. You’ve been reading too many cheap novels. It’s bad for you at your age.’

‘Search him and then lock him up in the corner drawing room to the left,’ she said in an icy voice, as though she had not heard me. ‘I’ll report to Comrade Ognevoi.’

‘Do what you like!’ I snapped. ‘Go ahead and report me to Comrade Ognevoi or whoever you want. I don’t give a damn what you do!’

‘Watch it. You’ll be sorry for talk like that, you rat!’ the woman said.

Two men led me down a dark corridor. One of them was wearing a leather jacket. It felt cold against my hand. Their mouths shut, they dragged me up and down several narrow flights of stairs, shoved me into a room, locked the door from the outside, took away the key and said that they would shoot me through the door if I tried to make any noise, and then they left. I heard one of them say to me in a surprisingly calm voice as they turned to go: ‘That’s no way for a spy to act, you Bolshevik scum. If you worked for us, I’d show you a thing or two.’

I had a box of matches with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to light one to have a look around. Who knew what these anarchists were capable of. They might think I was sending a signal and start shooting through the door. I went over and felt it. The door was covered with intricate carving. Next I began to run my hands over the walls. I caught a fingernail on some silk panelling and jumped with fright. Finally, I came to a large armchair, sat down and began to wait.

At first, I found the whole affair amusing. The anarchists really had taken me for a spy. I found this completely ridiculous, but there was nothing I could do about it. And what about this young woman? Her voice seemed familiar. I searched my memory and recalled once hearing an anarchist with the same voice at a demonstration near the Gogol Monument. She had a long black fringe, greedy, cocaine-addled eyes and huge turquoise earrings. The crowd shouted her down and wouldn’t let her finish, so she had pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and then walked off, swinging her hips and smiling contemptuously. Yes, of course, it was her.

I was happy to go on sitting in the soft, comfortable chair and to wait and see what would happen next. I was certain they would let me go the moment I showed them my press card from the People’s Power. Over an hour passed. I could hear rifle fire in the distance and once there was the muffled sound of a large explosion. I was dying for a cigarette. Finally, I couldn’t hold out any longer. I sat down on the floor behind the chair, pulled out a cigarette and struck a match. It flared up brightly, like magnesium, and for an instant illuminated the semicircular room. The flame bounced around the walls, reflecting off several mirrors and crystal vases. I hurried to light my cigarette and then blew out the match, at which point I noticed why it had burned so brightly – the head on it was double the normal size.

The next thing I knew the windows began shattering from rifle fire out in the street. Plaster showered from the ceiling. I stayed on the floor and didn’t move. The shooting was getting stronger. It occurred to me that the flame from my match might have served as a signal to the Red Guards who had quietly surrounded the house. They were mostly shooting at the windows in my room. Bullets hit the chandelier. I could hear the crystals shatter as they hit the floor. I had unwittingly played the role of a spy that the anarchists had cast me in. I realised now that my position was not a good one. If the anarchists had noticed the light from my match, they would soon burst through the door and shoot me.

But apparently the anarchists didn’t see the match, or they had much bigger things to worry about now. They were shooting back. I could hear steps running down the hall and something heavy rolling right behind – no doubt a machine-gun. Someone was swearing and shouting to the others: ‘Four of you, up to the first floor! Stay away from the windows!’

Something crashed to the ground and shattered. People charged past my room, a window frame cracked, and that familiar woman’s voice sounded: ‘Over here, comrades! Through the hole in the wall!’ There was another rush of noise and then all was silent. Now and then the Red Guards fired a shot at one of the windows, as though testing to see whether anyone was still hiding inside. Finally, the silence became complete. It seemed that the anarchists had fled. This didn’t last long. Heavy footsteps pounded up and down the halls again, I heard the sound of clanking rifles, and then voices: ‘Search the whole house! Turn on the lights!’ ‘Just look how fine they were livin’ in here, the bastards!’ ‘Watch that corner – they could hit us with a grenade from there.’ There was the sound of footsteps outside my door. Someone was tugging hard on the handle, but the door wouldn’t open.

‘Locked himself in, the dog,’ came a scratchy voice.

The door began to shake. I kept quiet. What could I do? There was no point in trying to explain through the door that I had been captured and locked in here by the anarchists. Who would believe me?

‘Open up, you bastard!’ I could now hear several different voices yelling at me from the other side of the door. Next, one of them fired at the door and it cracked. They began smashing it with their rifle butts. It began to give way.

‘Built to last,’ said the scratchy voice admiringly.

The door finally snapped in two, and the light of an electric torch hit me square in the eyes.

‘Just one left!’ shouted a young Red Guardsman, a smile on his face. He pointed his rifle at me. ‘All right, get up, you anarchist. Off to headquarters! You’ve had your fun, but it’s all over now!’

I went willingly to headquarters. It was located in a small house on Povarskaya Street. There, at a desk in the front hall, sat an unbelievably thin fair-haired man in a field jacket. He had a pointy little beard and amused eyes and looked me over slowly. He smiled. I smiled back.

‘Well, let’s hear it,’ he said, lighting his pipe. ‘But keep it short. I don’t have much time to waste on you.’

I told him everything just as it had happened and showed him my press card and identity papers. He barely glanced at them.

‘We ought to lock you up for a week or two for excessive curiosity. But as of now that’s still not illegal. So clear off! And I advise you to leave that newspaper of yours. It’s useless. What’s wrong with you, anyway? You got a problem with the Soviet government?’

I answered that just the opposite, all my hopes for a little bit of happiness for the Russian people depended on the new government.

‘Well, then,’ he said, squinting from the pipe smoke in his eyes, ‘we’ll do our best to justify your trust in us, young man. We’re so flattered, truly we are, just terribly flattered. Now get lost!’

I went out into the street. I could still hear scattered gunfire. My face burned from shame. The man had been mocking me. Deep down I knew that he had been right, however, and that no matter what clever, cutting replies I might think up now, in the end they would not disprove his scornful words.

By midday all the anarchists had been driven from their houses. Some of them fled Moscow, others hid and gave up the struggle. The Muscovites who had slept through the events of the night stared with amazement the next day at the bullet-riddled houses, the porters sweeping up the piles of broken glass, and the gaping hole in the wall of the Merchants’ Club on Malaya Dmitrovka Street made by the only shell fired during the battle. Back then, events happened so suddenly that it was quite possible to sleep right through them.