The Dark Clouds Shining

by David Downing

  So how had it all gone wrong? Was it his fault or hers, or were they just another casualty of civil war? And if it was the latter, why had they—why had he—let things they knew they couldn’t control slowly push them apart?

  Or had he just been imagining a future that was never on offer? Sometimes he was sure she loved him, at others certain she didn’t. And on those rare occasions when he’d swallowed his pride and sought reassurance, she’d usually quoted her friend Kollontai at him, stuff about love and relationships that sounded like sense but left him as unsure as ever about how she really felt. Maybe she didn’t know, or simply didn’t want to.

  It didn’t matter anymore. He knew that even as he sat there, looking at her, loving her. It wasn’t politics that had come between them; it was who they were, and how their hearts and minds had pulled them in different directions.

  As if on cue, the candle gutted out.

  “I’d like some advice on what to do next,” Caitlin said. She, Fanya Zenzinova, and Alexandra Kollontai were sitting in the second-floor room of the Zhenotdel offices, the one usually used for internal meetings. Everyone else had gone home, but the sun was still above the rooftops, bathing the walls in golden light. “How much do you remember?” Caitlin asked Kollontai.

  “Assume nothing,” Kollontai said. “I’ve had a lot on my plate these last few weeks,” she added apologetically.

  Her friend and boss was still under strain, Caitlin thought. The recently concluded International Women’s Conference, which had raised everyone else’s spirits at the Zhenotdel, had offered Kollontai only a temporary respite. And here was another burden to shoulder.

  “Anna Nemtseva is a young woman from Orel,” Caitlin began. “She turned up here about six weeks ago to report a crime. A series of them in fact. Crimes that no one else would take seriously. Anna was one of two Zhenotdel officials who ran our office in Orel. She is married, and in April this year her husband—also a party member—was suddenly arrested for ‘speculation.’ Meaning he had bought something on the black market.”

  “Since March and the NEP, the whole of Russia has been one big market,” Kollontai protested.

  “Maybe Orel was still catching up,” Caitlin suggested. “It doesn’t matter, because whether or not he did anything illegal, nearly everyone in Russia has committed the same sort of crime over the last couple of years. They arrested Anna’s husband because the local party boss—a man named Agranov—had decided he wanted to sleep with Anna. The day after the arrest, she was called in to the local party office. There was no beating about the bush—if she spent that night with the party boss, her husband would be released on the following morning. She spent the day agonizing, decided she really had no choice, and agreed on condition that her husband would never find out.

  “Agranov was rough with her, but her husband was released, and she tried to put it all behind her. But then another young woman, utterly distraught, came to the Zhenotdel office with a similar story to tell. And she, in turn, knew of two others who had been through the same nightmare. So Anna reported Agranov to the local Cheka. She was reluctant to mention her own experience—she was still afraid her husband would find out—or to name the other women, for fear that might put them or their husbands in jeopardy, but she was bracing herself to come clean if she got a sympathetic hearing. She didn’t. The local chairman told her the women concerned must be no better than prostitutes and that, if she persisted in defaming a party official, he would have her and her husband arrested for counterrevolutionary activity.

  “She thought about it for several days, and decided she couldn’t live with herself if she just kept silent. Since the Chekist had also threatened her husband, she decided she had to tell him the whole story. He was horrified, but not in the way she expected. He more or less called her a slut and forbade her from pursuing the matter.”

  Kollontai rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake!”

  “This story doesn’t paint our male comrades in the best of lights,” Caitlin noted wryly. “Anyway, Anna thought, ‘The hell with him,’ took the train to Moscow, and turned up at our door. After she’d told her story, and we’d checked it as best we could, I took it to the Orgbureau. The members spared me the usual litany of objections and excuses and appeals for greater clarity—Molotov even admitted to being shocked—and promised immediate action. That was five weeks ago, and absolutely nothing has been done. Agranov is still in charge of Orel.”

  “Where’s Anna Nemtseva?” Kollontai asked.

  “She’s staying at the house on Povarskaya,” Fanya told her. “She wants to go back to Orel and her Zhenotdel work, but of course she can’t. Not while Agranov and his Cheka friends are still in control of the town.”

  “And she’s pregnant,” Caitlin added. “By either her husband or Agranov—she doesn’t know which.”

  “Oh hell,” Kollontai said with a sigh. “I’d love to think this was an exceptional case, but . . .” She shook her head. “Leave it with me for a few days. I’ll try and find out why nothing’s been done.” She glanced across at the clock on the wall. “I have to be at another meeting,” she said, getting up. “It looks like this man, Agranov, has some influential friends in Moscow. If I find out who they are, we can take things from there.” She paused in the doorway. “And I’ll go to Vladimir Ilych if necessary—he still listens to me on issues like this.”

  “But for how long?” Fanya wondered out loud once Kollontai had left. “She’s going to speak for the Workers’ Opposition at the World Congress.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me before you arrived.”

  “Oh dear,” Caitlin said, for want of something stronger. If the Zhenotdel director went against Lenin’s wishes, and spoke up for the Workers’ Opposition in front of the foreign comrades, she would almost certainly be inviting retaliation against her own organization, and Russia’s women would be the losers.

  “Do you think it’s worth trying to change her mind?” Fanya asked. “She sometimes listens to you.”

  “She listens to everyone,” Caitlin said. “And then she goes her own sweet way. And she’s usually right. Maybe this time as well. She sees the whole picture better than we do.”

  “I hope so,” Fanya said, sounding far from convinced. “Because if she’s wrong . . .”

  “The Orgbureau will have to find a lower place than last on their daily agenda.”

  That at least made Fanya laugh.

  Caitlin picked up her bag, checked its contents. “I’m going home. It’s been a depressing day, and I want to catch Sergei before he goes out.”

  An hour later she was wishing she hadn’t. An innocent remark of hers had sparked an argument, and that in turn had swiftly escalated into a major row, one that encompassed not only them but also their world and everything in it.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, as he stood there with head in both hands, as if he feared it might fly off. She could feel the tightly wound force of his anger and the precarious control she had over her own.

  She tried chiding him gently: “You once said that living through that first year was more than any man could hope for.”

  “I was wrong,” he said coldly, blue eyes brimming with the pain she could never seem to reach.

  “You were right,” she retorted. “We have to remember how far we’ve come.”

  “It doesn’t seem so far since they’ve started dragging us backward. And with people like you so sold on the wonders of the New Economic Policy that you won’t lift a finger to stop them.”

  The quivering finger aimed at her face was too much. “I’m not pretending everything is wonderful,” she said icily. “If anyone’s pretending, it’s you. It’s you who’s stuck in—” She heard her own voice rising and cut it off. “This is getting us nowhere.”

  “Stuck in what?” he asked, as if he actually wanted to know.

  “I
n . . . in this all or nothing mentality,” she said. She knew by now that she was probably wasting her breath, but persisted regardless. “You behave like a child who throws away a toy because it’s not the exact one you wanted. You either sit here and sulk, or you sit in your club and get drunk with your equally apoplectic friends and wonder where utopia went. For God’s sake, Sergei, if you think we’re being dragged back, then why not pull in the other direction? If people like you and your friends don’t take responsibility, you can hardly complain when careerists grab all the jobs that matter.”

  He’d been inching toward her, and for a moment she actually thought he would hit her, something he’d never done. He didn’t, but the smile he offered instead was full of contempt. “You’re living in a dreamworld,” he told her.

  “I may be,” she snapped back. “I know you are. Take a walk, Sergei; look around the city. Take a train out into the country. Everyone’s exhausted. Everyone’s hungry. We needed peace. And by God we needed the NEP—”

  “Like a man with broken legs needs brand-new boots,” he said sarcastically. “You take a walk. Every day we’re giving away the things we fought for, the things our comrades died for. You’re so wrapped up in your women that you can’t see the truth in front of your face. Don’t you realize that it will all have been for nothing? All the death, all the suffering. And you have the nerve to accuse me of shirking responsibility!” He reached for his cap, face pale with rage. “Because I won’t accept your blind optimism, I have to be sulking!” he almost shouted in her face. “It’s you who needs to wake up!”

  The door slammed behind him, and she waited for the wash of cold indifference that she knew would follow. Each time it came a little quicker. Saving her, destroying what was left of them.

  She stood there, fists clenched, for several moments, then slowly spread her fingers. The papers she’d brought home from the office were on the table. There was work to be done.

  It was past midnight when she finally put down the pen, stretched out her arms and legs, and yawned. Her eyes ached and she felt thirsty. After adding the finished report to the pile, she went to plug in the hot plate under the kettle. The socket gave its usual impersonation of a firework, just in case she’d forgotten that the building needed rewiring. Some hope. The whole of Russia needed rewiring.

  She remembered Lenin saying that electrification plus the soviets equaled Communism. It would probably be a long wait.

  She went across to the window and leaned out. It was gone midnight, and the heat of the day seemed at last to be dissipating. In the street below, two drunks were having a loud but good-natured argument about which breeds of dog made the tastiest stew. She wondered how drunk Sergei would be if and when he came home, and whether by then he’d be angry with her or himself.

  She pulled what remained of the curtain across the window and roamed restlessly around the room, waiting for the water to boil.

  The box of photographs caught her eye. She took it down and sat on the bed, then, after a moment’s hesitation, opened it. Her family stared up at her. They were standing outside the church on Fifty-Eighth Street, all in their Sunday best. Almost ten years ago now—her father still looked middle-aged, and so did her Aunt Orla. Her brother Fergus had either taken the picture or had already moved to Washington at the time; her sister, Finola, still looked like a child, though she must have been almost twenty. All were smiling but her younger brother, Colm, who was doing his best to look like a stranger. Colm who had died in the Tower of London, refusing to admit he had any regrets.

  She didn’t miss her father, nor Fergus or Finola, much though she loved the two siblings. But she did miss Colm, and by God she missed her aunt. It was almost six months since the last letter had reached Moscow, and that had been posted two months before. She had no idea whether Orla had received the last few she’d sent. Or whether Orla was still alive. Orla was sixty-eight now, and over the last few years she’d had several bouts of serious illness.

  Maybe next year things would be easier here in Moscow, and traveling abroad wouldn’t be so difficult. Surely no one would begrudge her a month away, not after all this time.

  Picking the photograph up, she recognized the corner of another and pulled it out from under the pile. It was her and Jack McColl, arm in arm on the Coney Island beach, in the spring of 1914. More than seven years ago.

  With an angry sigh, she closed the box. The past was the past—there was no point in trying to live there, no point in trying to bring it back. Particularly when there were no real regrets. Sadness perhaps, but she’d never caught herself longing to turn the clock back, never wished she’d taken a wholly different path.

  She made the tea, placed it on the chair by the bed, and undressed. She reached for the threadbare white nightgown, then left it where it was. It was too hot.

  She turned off the light and sat up in bed sipping the tea. Outside in the street, two cats were screeching, presumably at each other. Like Sergei and her, she thought, remembering their row.

  Cats were probably better at knowing when to let go.

  His own words were still ringing in Piatakov’s head when he reached the house in Serpukhovskaya where Brady and Grazhin were sharing a room. He was the last to arrive: the other six already sat in a circle, some on rickety-looking chairs, the rest squatting cross-legged on the wooden floor. He joined the latter group.

  “Now we’re all here,” Brady began. “I’m afraid there’s bad news.”

  “Our traveling money,” Shahumian predicted.

  “Right,” Brady confirmed. “I met with Suvorov last night, and he told me it hadn’t arrived. According to Suvorov, the courier was caught crossing the border, and Suvorov has no reason to lie. He said London has sent a replacement, who won’t arrive for at least two weeks. I told him our papers will be out of date by then, and that we can’t afford to wait.”

  “What other choice do we have?” Nasim asked, sounding more curious than anxious.

  “There’s always . . .” Ivan Grazhin began, before succumbing to a coughing fit. His eyes were almost popping out of his head, Piatakov noticed. Grazhin was hoping that the dry southern climate would help his lungs, but first he had to get to it.

  “We can fund ourselves,” Brady said, once the coughing had abated. He looked around the circle of faces. “We all feel the same about the NEP and the return of the profiteers—well, here’s our chance to teach the bastards a parting lesson, and find a better use for their ill-gotten gains.”

  “We steal it,” Grazhin rasped.

  “If property is theft, it can hardly be stolen,” Brady retorted with a grin. “But we could insist on a loan from the state.”

  “Which organ of the state were you thinking of approaching?” Shahumian asked drily.

  “I’m open to suggestions. My own is a city tram depot, the one on Shabolovka Street. Paper money is useless, and the depots handle only coinage.”

  “I like it,” Grazhin wheezed.

  “I am not as sure,” Rafiq said. He looked most unhappy. “Perhaps you”—he indicated the Europeans—“could do this successfully, but we Indians will be recognized so easily. How will we get out of Moscow?”

  Brady waved a hand. “If we do the robbery in masks, then no one will be recognized.”

  “How well are the depots guarded?” Piatakov asked, wondering how much homework Brady had done already.

  “One Chekist, that’s all,” Brady told them. “But there is a slight problem. The last trams stop early, between seven and eight, because of the electricity shortage. The money is counted immediately and then sent across the city to headquarters straight after that. Which means we must do it in daylight.”

  “In daylight,” Rafiq echoed. “That does not sound good.” He looked this way and that for support.

  He didn’t get any. “If that’s when the money is there, then that’s when we have to do it,” Chatterji
said coldly. “Anyone gets in our way, we kill them. It is our country, our revolution, that is at stake,” he lectured Rafiq. “These things cannot be achieved without risk.”

  “But failure in Moscow will not bring success in Delhi,” Rafiq protested.

  “Then we must be sure not to fail,” Nasim said. “Durga is right. We must take this gamble.”

  And it would certainly be one, Piatakov thought. They were almost bound to run into a Cheka or militia patrol—it was hard to go out on the street and not trip over one. He watched Brady’s face as the Indians continued to argue. Did the American know what he was doing? Were Aram and Ivan, he himself—were they all so in love with the prospect of action that due caution was being abandoned?

  Perhaps. But better that than the opposite crime of waiting and waiting for a perfect moment that never came. He remembered a phrase of Caitlin’s—in for a kopek, in for a ruble.

  “What do you think, Sergei?” Aram was asking.

  Piatakov smiled to himself. “Why not?” he said.

  “Hold the line a moment,” Fanya was saying as Caitlin entered the office. “It’s the M-Cheka,” she told Caitlin, covering the mouthpiece with a palm. “They say they’ve already telephoned once, and someone gave them your name. It’s about Rahima. Her husband’s kicking up a stink in Tashkent, and the Cheka down there have gotten in touch with their comrades up here.”

  “Where are Rahima and Laziza?” Caitlin asked Fanya, crossing the room.

  “They went to the textile factory with Vera.”

  Caitlin took the phone. “This is Comrade Piatakova,” she said. “How can I help you?” As she listened to the male voice at the other end, she relived Rahima’s sudden reappearance the week before, this time in tandem with her younger sister. With all the news she had to impart about events in Turkestan, Rahima had let slip only several days later that she’d left Tashkent in defiance of her husband’s orders. He had told her that he was still regretting her first trip to Moscow and that there was no chance at all of a second.