The White Russian

37

P avel and Ruzsky stood side by side looking out of the tiny, dirty, barred window at the spires of Russia ’s capital, which were indistinct against a pale, lifeless sky.

They did not converse, because, even at this speed, the transport carriage proved an almost total bar on audible forms of communication.

They’d made the assumption that the station at Sevastopol would be watched, so had gone to Simferopol instead and waited many hours before boarding a train bound for Moscow. From there, only troop trains had been moving. In all, it had taken a full two days to get back home.

This goods wagon was all they’d been able to find and they’d passed the last section of the journey to Petrograd in extreme cold and discomfort, the noise ensuring they were barely able to exchange a word.

It was instructive, Ruzsky thought, that this carriage was empty. Why wasn’t the government using it to bring food into the city?

They jumped down from the wagon as it rolled into the Nicholas Station and clambered over to the edge of the track. Ahead of them, amidst clouds of steam rising to the glass and iron roof of the station concourse, a lone conductor furled and unfurled his flag. An engine hooter roared, but the train on the platform did not move.

Ruzsky and Pavel slipped through a narrow passage between two wooden warehouses, the pungent aroma of engine soot and rye bread carried on the breeze. As they passed the low entrance to one of the warehouses, Ruzsky stopped. Every inch of his body ached.

The rye bread was in a tin bucket just by the door, but the air was now thick with the smell of cheap tobacco and putrefaction. There was a cough, quickly answered by another. Ruzsky stepped forward and peered into the gloom.

Inside, there were hundreds of wounded soldiers on makeshift pallets laid down on the freezing mud. One or two stood, smoking, but most were lying down in an eerie silence. The men stared at him. There were more coughs.

Ruzsky turned around. Outside, a railway worker was walking in their direction, a giant metal mallet over his shoulder. He wore a quilted winter coat, with a sheepskin hat pushed back from his forehead. He, too, was smoking, the cigarette hanging from his lips.

Perhaps Ruzsky’s face framed an unspoken query, because the man answered: “They said they were moving them to Moscow.”

He spat his cigarette out and continued on past them toward the tracks. “Prisoners of war,” he shouted. “Escaped from the Germans and treated no better than animals!”

Ruzsky and Pavel tipped themselves over the edge of a low iron fence and trudged down the snowy embankment to the road beyond. The country was falling apart. He couldn’t help recalling the ecstasy in those faces in Palace Square as the Tsar read out the Declaration of War.

War was not an instrument of foreign policy. It was a national disease.

Icy winds cut through their overcoats as they mingled with the crowds moving down Ligovskaya. Ruzsky waved at a droshky driver waiting outside the station. Eventually, the man saw them and snapped his reins to bring his horse to attention, swinging the small sled around. “Ofitserskaya Ulitsa, twenty-eight,” Pavel instructed him as they climbed into the back.

“Forty-five copecks.”

The vanka turned around. He had a thick, black beard and the hollow eyes of an alcoholic addicted to the worst kind of moonshine.

“You are joking, right?” Pavel asked. Vankas always haggled, but his quoted price was at least double the going rate. This wasn’t the game.

“It’s far.”

“It’s a mile at the most.”

The man was still looking at them. “I know the building. I don’t carry pharaon in my cab.”

Ruzsky and Pavel stared at him. Pharaon was an insulting street slang name for policeman, usually reserved for members of the Okhrana. They were shocked both by the man’s audacity and by the fact that he appeared to include them in the same bracket.

Ruzsky leaned forward. “Twenty copecks says you’ll take us.”

The man spat noisily into the snow beside them and turned around. They set off down the Nevsky in silence.

Ruzsky thought the capital surpassed itself in bleak grayness, snow and sky melting into each other, the city’s inhabitants bundles of rags hurrying to be out of the wind. One of the single-story buses pulled by a team of horses had veered into the course of a tram and there had been a minor collision which they had to work their way around. The passengers of both were shouting at the bus driver.

As they came close to the wooden pavement, Ruzsky saw a small group of students coming out of Filippov’s bakery. There were three girls dressed in the distinctive wide green robes of seniors at the Smolny Institute and two boys in the uniforms of cadets at the Corps des Pages. The sight of them brought back instant and vivid memories. For some reason, Ruzsky recalled rounding the corner of the washroom to see his brother Dmitri suspended naked from a chain, upside down, while some of the senior cadets beat him with leather whips.

He had been thinking of his brother on the journey home, nagged by lingering guilt at his liaison with Maria.

Ruzsky had fought to free his brother on that winter day at the Corps des Pages. The cadets had been seniors and the fight had proved the final nail in the coffin of his military career.

Ruzsky turned away and saw that Pavel was watching him. His expression was quizzical, but when Ruzsky frowned, he just shook his head and looked away.

The sled swung past the Kazan Cathedral and slithered along the banks of the frozen canal. Ruzsky buried his face in the collar of his jacket and pulled his sheepskin hat down over his eyes. He could feel the stubble on his chin scratching against his neck and his bones ached from the relentless rattle of the iron goods vehicle.

He’d found himself fantasizing about vodka. He looked again at Pavel. His partner’s eyes now carried the same message they had throughout the journey: How the hell did you get us into this?

As Pavel paid off the cabbie outside their office, Ruzsky hurried into a lobby so silent they could have heard a pin drop.

The entire department had gathered to hear Anton address them and Ruzsky was confronted by a sea of solemn faces.

They stood loosely in groups. It seemed that almost everyone in the department was present: cooks, transport boys from the stables, secretaries and typists, even the cleaners. There was tension in every face.

Maretsky stood next to Anton. He had clearly seen Ruzsky come in, but avoided his eye, staring at the floor and playing with his pocket watch. Vladimir and his assistant stood a few feet away. Only the journalist Stanislav appeared to be absent.

“Thank you all for coming,” Anton said. He had his fingers in his waistcoat pocket, his jacket pulled back, a confident stance that failed to conceal his nerves. “First a piece of unwelcome administrative news, which most of you will already be aware of and will certainly not surprise you: all leave has been canceled for the foreseeable future. This applies to every member of the department and is by direct order of the minister of the interior.” Anton’s face softened a little as he shifted his weight onto one leg and then back again. “I know it is some years since many of you had any leave and quite a number have made requests in the past few weeks.” He lowered his voice. “We will look to ensure leave entitlements are taken once the war is won and the current uncertainty brought to an end.”

Anton surveyed the room. “On a more positive note, I can confirm I have approved an order to allow all members of staff in each department to pick up one loaf of bread every second day from the canteen here after six in the morning. I hope this will do something to alleviate the circumstances that I know many of your families have found themselves in.”

Anton cleared his throat. “As to the reason for calling you together again like this, I am instructed to inform you that this afternoon, approximately ten thousand workers from five armaments factories in Vyborg will come out on strike. Shortly after dark, they will gather outside the gates of the Symnov factory. There will be an inflammatory speech and then, most workers imagine, they will disperse.

“In fact, they will be led over the Alexandrovsky Bridge and then toward the Winter Palace, where the leaders will attempt to incite the crowd to the point where bloodshed is again inevitable. It is the intention of the Okhrana that they will be intercepted long before they reach Palace Square and strongly discouraged from attempting such action again.”

Anton stared at the floor. They all knew exactly what he meant.

“I have been asked by the Ministry to draw this to your attention, firstly to be on the lookout for any peripheral troublemakers. We all know there are those who try to take advantage of any disorder, however well controlled, to engage in everyday criminality. And secondly, the Ministry, or rather the Okhrana believe that some of the most notorious agitators have slipped back over the border and returned to Petrograd. So, I am asked that you all check the suspect bulletins and sharpen your eyes. Report any sightings, at any time, anywhere, direct to me.”

Anton took a pace forward. “Are there any questions?”

The speech had not invited questions and there were none. Anton walked toward the stairs, the crowd ahead of Ruzsky parting to allow him through. It was only as he stopped next to him that Ruzsky realized Pavel was beside him. “I’d like to see you two, please.”

They turned and followed.

Anton passed the secretaries outside his office without acknowledgment and turned to shut the door behind them. He ran his hands through his hair. “An explanation, please.”

Maretsky slipped into the room and shut the door again. Pavel leaned back against the wall, Anton the desk. Ruzsky did not move.

“I don’t need this,” Anton went on. “I know exactly where you’ve been, by the way.” He went around to the other side of the desk and slumped into his chair. He threw his glasses down and then pressed his hands into his eyes. “What have you got us involved in? Do you have any idea how many times the palace has rung me? Colonel Shulgin has called twice, every day, without fail. The Empress would like to know, Anton Antipovich, how the investigation into the death of the girl Ella Kovyil is progressing? Where are the two detectives who came out to Tsarskoe Selo? They are in Yalta? What are they doing in Yalta?” Anton picked up his glasses again. “Then Vasilyev telephones. He’d like to speak to the chief investigator, please. That isn’t possible? Why is it not possible? He has taken a few days leave? But all leave is canceled by direct order of the minister of the interior. Why have they disobeyed regulations?”

“Vasilyev knew exactly where we were.”

Anton flicked his glasses with his hand, sending them flying onto the floor. Pavel picked them up and put them back on the desk.

“He tried to have us killed,” Ruzsky added.

Anton stared at the depiction of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.

Ruzsky took out and lit a cigarette. Pavel shook his head when offered the case, as did Anton. “We found a file in Yalta,” Ruzsky said. “It contained details of the activities of a small cell of the Black Terror. Six individuals in all, three of whom are the corpses we have here. Vasilyev kept the group under surveillance until three weeks before an armed robbery, then nothing.”

“I don’t understand. What are you saying? The implication is… you think Vasilyev… what?”

“It’s possible he was involved with the group in some way, or became involved. I cannot say exactly what transpired.”

“And the three corpses we have here were all members of this group?”

“Yes.”

“So what happened to them?” Anton asked. “What were they doing in Petrograd?”

“It appears they had gathered here for some purpose. We don’t yet know exactly what it was.”

“Who are the other three?”

“A man named Borodin. Michael Borodin.”

“He’s a Bolshevik.”

“Yes. A woman named Olga Legarina.”

They were silent.

“And who is the sixth?” Anton asked.

“We don’t know.”

Pavel looked at Ruzsky sharply. Ruzsky instantly regretted the lie, but found himself unable, or unwilling, to correct it.

“You don’t know?”

“The name was impossible to read.”

“Did you bring the documents with you?”

Ruzsky shook his head. “No.”

Anton stared at the glasses in his hand. He rubbed his forehead and Ruzsky could see the immense strain in his eyes.

“We have three bodies,” Ruzsky said. “Before long, we may have more.”

“What evidence do you have for that claim?”

“The American was stabbed seventeen times. Markov almost had his head severed. Three of the group have been murdered, but three remain.”

“They’re revolutionaries,” Anton said.

Ruzsky imagined Maria’s body sprawled on the ice as Ella’s had been, a knife wound to her chest. He recalled the fear in her face on the night he had followed her outside the Mariinskiy.

Anton seemed to make a decision. He pulled his seat to the edge of his desk and reached for the telephone. “We have to go and see Vasilyev.”

“Vasilyev?” Ruzsky asked.

“Shulgin is with him. They telephoned me about an hour ago. They want all of us to go over; Maretsky and Sarlov, too.”

“I can’t,” Ruzsky said, standing. “I have-”

“Sit down, Sandro,” Anton said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Pavel, Maretsky, and Ruzsky waited in their office for Sarlov to arrive. Maretsky stood by the door, smoking, while Ruzsky and Pavel began to sort through the paperwork that had accumulated in their absence.

Ruzsky found a thick wad of internal memorandums, a few more-belated-responses to the All Russias missing persons bulletin he had posted, but nothing that related directly to the case. He opened the drawer and took out the roll of banknotes they had found on the dead American. He sifted through them again, carefully examining the numbers that had been marked.

“Did you come up with a translation of that inscription?” Ruzsky asked Maretsky.

The little professor frowned.

“I gave you the knife. It had an inscription on the side.”

“Oh, yes. I… er, I gave it to a former colleague at the university.”

“Who?”

“Professor… Egorov.”

“What did he say?”

“He’s out of town today. He promised to call me tomorrow.”

There was an unusual degree of hesitation in the professor’s voice. Ruzsky leaned back in his chair. “You know Borodin?”

“Of course.”

“He’s a Bolshevik or a Menshevik?”

“Oh, a Bolshevik. A colleague of Lenin’s over the years.”

“You’ve discussed him with the Okhrana?”

“No, no.” Maretsky shook his head. “Too sensitive.”

“So in their definition, he’s a revolutionary, not a criminal.”

Maretsky shrugged. “It has never been discussed, Sandro.”

Ruzsky held up the role of banknotes. “Do the Bolsheviks use ciphers?”

“What do you mean?”

“These numbers on the banknotes.”

Maretsky shook his head to indicate he did not understand.

“I think these numbers could represent some kind of code. Have the Bolsheviks used ciphers to communicate in the past?”

“I don’t know… yes, I’m sure.”

“Would the money have been sent to him by mail? Would it have been left for him somewhere? How is it done?”

Maretsky shook his head again.

“What about the reference book? He would have carried it with him in his luggage?”

“They will almost certainly go into a library to decode anything they receive. It’s safer.”

As Ruzsky thought, Maretsky knew more about this subject than he wanted to let on. Pretty much all revolutionaries, so far as he knew, used some kind of cipher to communicate. Since the Okhrana intercepted and checked most letters, it was the only reliable means of relaying a message in secret.

“If Borodin is the leader, he would have chosen the code reference book?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know.”

“The American must therefore be able to go into a library and decode a message sent by his leader. Correct?”

Maretsky shrugged.

“Are you sure he could not have kept the reference work on him?”

“There would be no security in that.”

“So he might have received a new message anywhere. He would have had to go to a library to decode it?”

“I suppose so.”

“He might have picked up a new message here. When he arrived, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“An English text in a Russian library?” Ruzsky asked.

“Who is to say it was an English text? White must have spoken Russian.” Maretsky did not understand what his colleague was driving at.

“You would commonly find English texts in a Russian library, but not Russian texts in an American or European one.”

Maretsky thought about this. Despite himself, he was being drawn into the conversation. He put his glasses back on and stared at the floor, deep in thought.

“Major works of English fiction,” Ruzsky suggested.

“Perhaps.” Maretsky shook his head. “The Bible’s too complicated-too many different editions and they wouldn’t have an English Bible in Germany or France. Academic books… hard to think of too many that you could guarantee you’d find everywhere.”

“So which author would he choose?” Ruzsky said.

“I see your train of thought, but it’s an impossible task.”

Sarlov put his head around the edge of the door. “Come on. He wants to go.”