Sashenka

Father and daughter went out into the hall and then, for some reason, they were running. Leonid was at the top of the stairs, Lala on the landing. All were looking at the door of Ariadna’s room. A cold hand clutched his heart, and Zeitlin rushed up the stairs.

“Ariadna!” he shouted, knocking on the door. The staff peered past him, goggle-eyed.

Ariadna was snowily naked on the divan. The smoking Mauser, dark and chunky, rested on her stomach. On her white skin, blood dripped crimson down her breast and pooled on the floor.

35

Sashenka stood at the window of the Gogol Street safe house, not far from the War Ministry, smoking a cigarette and peering out over the frozen Neva at the Peter and Paul Fortress. It was dark, yet the sky glowed an unnatural purple like a theatrical screen with a light behind it. The lantern atop the spire of the fortress’s church swung a little in the wind.

The workers controlled the fortress. Mendel and Trotsky had once been prisoners in the Trubetskoy Bastion but yesterday the prisoners had all been freed. It was early evening and the streets were still teeming as excited but good-natured crowds tore down any remaining Romanov eagles. The Okhrana headquarters was on fire.

Sashenka’s dreams were coming true but now she was numb. She walked the streets without seeing or hearing the remarkable sights. Her mother had pulled off the impossible: she had upstaged the Russian Revolution. People bumped into Sashenka. Someone embraced her. Vanya Palitsyn called her name from a careering car filled with Red Guards, a Romanov crest on its doors.

The apartment was too hot; she was sweating because she had not taken off her coat or hat. Why on earth had she walked straight here again? A place she had promised never to revisit. She had tried to block Sagan out of her mind; his time was past and probably he was already in Stockholm or the south. Yet here she was, in the familiar apartment, waiting for the person she was accustomed to confiding in about her mother.

She heard a sound and turned slowly. Captain Sagan, still in full gendarme uniform but haggard and bleary, stood there pointing a Walther pistol at her. Suddenly he looked his age, older even.

They said nothing for a moment. Then he put the pistol back in its holster and without a word came to her. They hugged. She was grateful he was there.

“I’ve got some brandy,” he said, “and the samovar’s just boiled.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I came last night. I didn’t know where else to come. Some workers went to my home and my wife has gone. The trains aren’t running. I didn’t know where to go so I just came here. Sashenka, I want to tell you something that will surprise you. My world—everything I cherished—has vanished in a night.”

“That’s not what you told me would happen.”

“I’m in your hands. You can turn me in. I was a believer in the Empire. And yet I told you the truth about myself.”

He took a bottle of Armenian brandy, cheap cha-cha, and poured out two shots, handing one to Sashenka. He downed his. She took off her coat and hat.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “I’d have thought you’d be celebrating.”

“I was. And then something terrible happened. I was going to the Taurida Palace but when I passed the guardhouse at the barracks I knocked on the door. It was open. The doorman—remember the doorman, Verezin?—was lying dead on the floor, shot in the head. And then I went into the Soviet and met my comrades.”

“You’d told them he was a traitor?”

She nodded.

“And you were surprised that he was dead?”

“No, I wasn’t surprised. A bit shocked, I suppose. But that’s revolution for you. When you chop wood, chips fly.”

“But you said something terrible had happened?”

“My mother shot herself.”

Sagan was aghast. “I’m so sorry, Sashenka. Is she dead?”

“No, she is just about alive. She shot herself in the chest. Apparently, beautiful women tend to avoid their faces. She found my Mauser, the Party’s Mauser, under my mattress. How did she know it was there? How could she have found it? The doctors are there now.” Sashenka paused, struggling to control her breathing. “I should have gone to the newspaper but instead I found myself here. Because it was here…with you…that we talked so much about her. I hated her. I never told her how much…”

She started to cry and Sagan put his arms around her. His hair smelled of smoke, his neck almost tasted of cognac, yet she found that just telling Sagan about her mother had calmed her. His hug restored her and, ironically, gave her the strength to pull away.

“Sashenka,” he said, his hands squeezing her shoulders, “I have something to tell you. I was doing my job but I never told you how much I came to…be fond of you. I have no one else. I…”

She went cold suddenly.

“You’re so much younger than me but I think I love you.”