Sashenka

Sashenka was relieved when the woman was gone, and then ashamed until she reminded herself that the old hooker was not a proletarian, merely a degenerate bourgeoise.

The corridors of the House of Detention were busy: men and women were being delivered to their cells, taken to interrogations, dispatched on the long road to Siberian exile. Some sobbed, some slept; all of life was there. The gendarme behind the counter kept looking at her as if she were a peacock in a pigsty.

Sashenka took her poetry books out of her book bag. Pretending to read, she flicked through the pages. When she came across a piece of cigarette paper with tiny writing on it, she glanced around, smiled broadly at any policeman who happened to be looking at her, and then popped it in her mouth. Uncle Mendel had taught her what to do. The papers did not taste too bad and they were not too hard to swallow. By the time it was her turn to be booked at the counter, she had consumed all of the incriminating evidence. She asked for a glass of water.

“You’ve got to be joking,” replied the policeman, who had taken her name, age and nationality but refused to tell her anything about the charges she faced. “This isn’t the Europa Hotel, girl.”

She raised her grey eyes to him. “Please,” she said.

He banged a chipped mug of water onto the counter, with a croaking laugh.

As she drank, a gendarme called her name. Another with a bunch of keys opened a reinforced steel door and she entered the next layer of the Kresty. Sashenka was ordered into a small room and made to strip, then she was searched by an elephantine female matron in a dirty white apron. No one except dear Lala had ever seen her naked (her governess still drew her a bath every evening) but she told herself it did not matter. Nothing mattered except her cause, her holy grail, and that she was here at last, where every decent person should be.

The woman returned her clothes but took her coat, stole and book bag. Sashenka signed for them and received a chit in return.

Then they photographed her. She waited in a line of women, who scratched themselves constantly. The stench was of sweat, urine, menstrual blood. The photographer, an old man in a brown suit and string tie, with no teeth and eyes like holes in a hollow pumpkin, manhandled her in front of a tripod bearing an enormous camera that looked like a concertina. He disappeared under a cloth, his muffled voice calling out:

“OK, full face. Stand up. Look left, look right. A Smolny girl, eh, with a rich daddy? You won’t be in here long. I was one of the first photographers in Piter. I do family portraits too if you want to mention me to your papa…There we are!”

Sashenka realized her arrest was now recorded forever—and she gave a wide smile that encouraged the photographer’s sales patter.

“A smile! What a surprise! Most of the animals that come through here don’t care what they look like—but you’re going to look wonderful. That, I promise.”

Then a yellow-skinned guard not much older than Sashenka led her toward a holding cell. Just as she was about to enter, an official in a belted grey uniform emerged from nowhere. “That’ll do, boy. I’ll take over.”

This popinjay with some stripes on his shoulder boards appeared to be in charge. Sashenka was disappointed: she wanted to be treated like the real thing, like a peasant or worker. Yet the Smolny girl in her was relieved as he took her arm gently. Around her, the cold stone echoed with shouts, grunts, the clink of keys, slamming of doors and turning of locks.

Someone was shouting, “Fuck you, fuck the Tsar, you’re all German spies!”

But the chief guard, in his tunic and boots, paid no attention. His hand was still on Sashenka’s arm and he was chatting very fast. “We’ve had a few students and schoolboys in—but you’re the first from Smolny. Well, I love ‘politicals.’ Not criminals, they’re scum. But ‘politicals,’ people of education, they make my job a pleasure. I might surprise you: I’m not your typical guard here. I read and I’ve even read a bit of your Marx and your Plekhanov. Truly. Two other things: I have a fondness for Swiss chocolates and Brocard’s eau de cologne. My sense of smell is highly sophisticated: see my nose?” Sashenka looked dutifully as he flared narrow nostrils. “I have the sensory buds of an aesthete yet here I am, stuck in this dive. You’re something to do with Baron Zeitlin? Here we are! Make sure he knows my name is Volkov, Sergeant S.P. Volkov.”

“I will, Sergeant Volkov,” Sashenka replied, trying not to gag on the suffocating aroma of lavender cologne.

“I’m not your typical guard, am I? Do I surprise you?”

“Oh yes, Sergeant, you do.”

“That’s what everyone says. Now, Mademoiselle Zeitlin, here is your berth. Don’t forget, Sergeant Volkov is your special friend. Not your typical guard!”

“Not at all typical.”

“You’ll miss my cologne in a minute,” he warned.