“I wish to address us all,” Ivan Leshkevish declared. “We are men, not slaves. Are we to be dictated to, when we may worship? But these Christians will not listen to our begging. They never have, and they never will. I say they must be taught that we are men, and will not be dictated to.”
“Sit down, Ivan Leshkevish,” Cohen said. “You are preaching sedition and violence. That is not the way.”
“That is the only way,” Leshkevish declared. “There are enough of us here who have been sent to Siberia for us not to be afraid of the Okhrana.”
“You have never been sent to Siberia,” someone remarked.
“So I have been lucky,” Leshkevish said.
“Just what are you proposing, Comrade Leshkevish?” Ulianov asked.
“I am saying that we will never get anywhere by petitions and deputations. When was the last concession we, the people, ever obtained from the Tsar? It was when Tsar Alexander II emancipated the serfs. And he emancipated the serfs because of a campaign of terror launched by the Will of the People. Oh, I know, Tsar Alexander III ruthlessly stamped upon our aspirations. But he is now dead. Now is the time to start another campaign of terror, to frighten this new Tsar, this Nicholas II, into realising that he too must make concessions, or be blown up like his grandfather.”
“This is outrageous,” David Fine declared. “Those terrible days are behind us. Whatever we do in the future must be within the law.”
But Patricia observed that the man Ulianov was stroking his beard, thoughtfully. They cannot be serious, she thought. But if they were serious, then Peter and Alexei were in danger, because of their proximity to the Tsar. Just as she and Sophie and Aunt Anna were all in danger, as well. There was a babble of conversation going on about her, but she felt she should say something. Before she could summon the courage to stand up, however, there was a sudden shrill sound, of several whistles being blown at the same time. “The police!” someone screamed.
“We are betrayed!” shouted another.
“Kill the lamps,” shouted a third.
“That bitch of an aristocrat,” shouted another.
Patricia’s arms were gripped and she was pulled to her feet. But even as the women around her jostled close, seizing her clothing and her hair, all the lamps were turned down or knocked down, and the room was plunged into darkness. At the same time there came several huge thumps on the front door, accompanied by the sound of shattering wood and splintering glass. By now the entire room was a roar of terrified sound. Some of the women still clung to Patricia, and she felt her clothing being torn, but most were interested only in attempting to escape. Patricia felt herself being thrown forward, to strike a chair and trip over it and land on her hands and knees. She screamed herself as someone trod on her back and her face banged into the floor.
“Rurik!” she shrieked.
More people trod on her and she thought she was going to be stamped to death. But then someone grasped her arm, pushing people left and right, and dragged her to her feet. “Quickly,” her saviour said, and she realised that it was Sonia.
The Jewish girl at least knew the house better than most, and a moment later they were in a corridor, still jostled to and fro by fleeing people, while the police were now in the house, their whistles shrilling more loudly than ever. “Up here,” Sonia said, and Patricia found herself on a staircase.
“We’ll be trapped,” she protested.
“We are trapped,” Sonia pointed out. “The house is surrounded. Our only hope is to sit it out.” Patricia surrendered. She had in any event lost her willpower for the moment. She allowed herself to be dragged up the stairs on to a landing, without any idea of where she really was in the total darkness. “In here,” Sonia said, and opened a door. “This is my bedroom. Quick, into bed.”
“But our clothes!”
“Doesn’t matter. Get in and pull the covers to your throat.”
Patricia obeyed, and Sonia lay beside her. But now Patricia’s brain was starting to work again. “Listen,” she said. “All I have to do it tell them I am the Countess Bolugayevska, and they will not dare arrest us.”
“You are naïve,” Sonia told her. “Under no circumstances must you tell them you are the Countess Bolugayevska. That will only get your family into trouble. You must not tell them anything. Promise me that. You will not tell them anything.”
Patricia bit her lip and listened to feet on the stairs and then the landing. Booted feet, stamping, while their owners shouted. She began to tremble, and Sonia’s fingers closed over hers. The door crashed back on its hinges. There were lights in the hall now, from lanterns, and a lantern was thrust into the room. “What have we here?” someone asked.
“Go away,” Sonia snapped. “My sister and I are in bed. You have no right...”
Her voice faded as more men came into the room, and one stood above the bed, smiling at them; the lantern was held above his head. He looked just like a ferret.
CHAPTER 9 - THE ACCUSED
Reddich seized the covers and jerked them off the two girls. “You sleep with your clothes on, do you? Search them for concealed weapons,” he told his men.
Sonia gasped as one of the men gripped her arms and pulled her out of bed. She fell to her knees, and was thrust back against the mattress, her face pressed into the sheets, another man holding her wrists while the first threw her skirts up, over her head. “No,” she begged.
Patricia sat up. “You cannot do this,” she shouted.
“It’ll be your turn next,” Reddich assured her.
Sonia gasped and moaned as hands pulled down her drawers and surged between her legs. Other hands pulled and prodded at her breasts.
“I’ll have you sent to prison,” Patricia said. She wanted to get off the bed, but she didn’t dare move.
“Now this one,” Reddich said.
Patricia was seized and rolled on her face. “Stop that,” she shouted. “Listen! I am the Countess Bolugayevska. You’ll all be gaoled for this.”
“If you knew how many young women I have arrested in my time,” Reddich said, “who have claimed to be countesses. I will do this one.”
Patricia tried to push herself up, and was thrust down again by several pairs of hands. One man held her wrists and another her arms. Her face was buried into the sheets, and she had to twist it desperately to avoid being smothered. Her skirts had also been thrown up, and she felt hands on her thighs, dragging down her drawers. The hands were followed by fingers, probing her in a way she had never supposed possible. She watched Sonia being thrown on the mattresses beside her. Sonia was panting, and gasping, and her drawers had been torn right off; Patricia could see nothing but white thighs, and the man beyond, unbuckling his belt and dropping his breeches as his comrades, laughing and joking, held Sonia’s legs apart. “She says she’s a virgin,” the policeman grinned. “Can’t arrest a virgin.”
Reddich squeezed Patricia’s naked buttocks as he leaned over her. “Can’t arrest a virgin, can we, eh Countess?” He signalled his men to pull her ankles apart in turn.
*
Rurik Bondarevski stumbled through the stables and across the yard into the pantry and on, towards the main hall. He parted the curtain that separated the servants’ quarters from those of the family, and ran across the hall. One of the footmen, busily turning off lights, gazed at him in astonishment. Rurik ran up the great staircase to the first-floor gallery, panting and puffing, then up the next flight of stairs to the sleeping apartments. He staggered along the corridor to Anna’s door, banged once, and threw it open. The sitting-room was predictably empty. “Your Excellency!” Rurik shouted. “Anna!”
He hurled himself at the inner door, threw it open in turn. The light had been switched on, and Anna was sitting up in bed, naked as was her custom, clearly disturbed by his noisy entry. Beside her was Prince Peter. “Rurik?” Anna demanded. “Have you lost your senses?”
“For God’s sake, man,” Prince Peter snapped, having got over his initial surprise. “What
do you mean by bursting into the Countess’s apartment like this?”
“The Countess Patricia has been arrested,” Rurik said. “By the Okhrana.”
For a moment both Anna and Peter stared at him. Anna was first to recover. “The Countess Patricia is in her bed, you stupid fellow,” she said, and leapt out of her bed. She picked up her undressing robe and pulled it round her shoulders. “I will have you whipped,” she told Rurik.
“It is the truth, Your Excellency,” Rurik protested.
Anna flung open the doors to Patricia’s rooms, stamping into the bedroom to look at the bed. “Where is she?” She turned to face Rurik.
Rurik licked his lips. “She went to the ghetto, Your Excellency. She had received an invitation from the man Fine.”
Anna sat on the bed: her knees felt weak. “David Fine sent the Countess an invitation to visit him?”
“I think it was from the other one, Your Excellency. The young one.”
“My God!” Anna looked past the groom at Peter, who had also followed. “Close the door, Peter,” she said. “You went with her?” she asked Rurik.
“I was commanded to go, Your Excellency. She wished an escort.”
“And she was arrested on the street?” Peter asked. “Then it is a mistake.”
“The Countess was not arrested on the street, Your Highness. We went to the house where the Fines are lodging and were admitted. There was a meeting going on.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“I do not know, Your Highness. People were speaking against the government. Then there were whistles, and the police broke in.”
“And you ran away, abandoning my sister,” Peter accused.
“The lights went off, Your Highness. There was absolute pandemonium. I tried to find the Countess, but I could not in the darkness. I did not see that my being arrested would help her, so I got outside, and stood with the crowd.”
“Then how do you know she was arrested?” Anna demanded.
“She was brought out later, with a Jewish girl. There were several arrests. They were put into a wagon and driven away.”
“My God,” Anna said. “How much later did this happen?”
“About an hour, Your Excellency.”
Anna looked at Peter. “She has been in their hands for more than two hours,” Peter said. “I must get down there.”
“I will come with you.” She rang the bell. “You may leave us, Rurik. I will speak with you later.” Anna strode to the door behind him. Now the gallery was filled with people asking questions. “Go back to bed,” Anna told them. “Collins, come with me. I wish to get dressed.”
*
Patricia blinked in the sudden glare of light. It had been dark in the police wagon, now she was again exposed as they were pushed into a large bare room. There were several benches arranged in rows. “Sit down,” the police sergeant commanded.
Patricia’s knees gave way, and she sat on the bench. Her brain was a confused mass of anger and outrage, overlaid by fear. She had been raped, more than once. Once she had envied Aunt Anna that experience — now she merely felt sick at the thought of it. Apart from the pain, her body no longer felt as if it belonged to her.
There had been a dozen arrests: four women and eight men. And one of the men...“Your honour!” the man gasped. Reluctantly Patricia turned her head. It was Joseph Fine. “Your honour...”
“No talking,” said one of the guards.
“But this is the Countess Bolugayevska,” Joseph protested.
“I said, no talking,” the guard repeated, raising his truncheon. But there was a shout: “Attention! Prisoners will rise!”
Patricia pushed Sonia up and stood herself.
She gazed at the man who had just entered the room. He wore uniform, was tall and heavily built, and had a monocle in his right eye. He appeared to be looking at ail the prisoners in turn, impartially, but she had a terrible feeling that he was interested only in her. Yet her instincts bade her keep silent until he actually addressed her.
“Those two,” Michaelin said. He pointed at Patricia and Sonia.
She was grasped by the shoulder and thrust forward by the guards, Sonia at her side. They were pushed along a corridor to the left and down a flight of steps. A door opened, and they were pushed into a large room, empty save for a desk and a chair in the corner. The floor was bare stone, and there were no windows. Sonia was as alarmed as Patricia, and turned, so suddenly that they found themselves in each other’s arms. “Very touching,” Colonel Michaelin remarked.
Patricia glared at him, then looked past him at the four men who had come in behind him; one of them was Reddich. She pointed. “That man raped me!”
“I can believe that,” Michaelin agreed. “You stink. You both stink. If there is one thing I cannot abide, it is women who stink. Bathe them,” he told his men.
Patricia lost her breath as she was seized by two of the men. Her clothes had already been torn. Now they were ripped from her body. She struck at the men and attempted to kick, and was thrown to the floor. The men knelt beside her and continued to tear away her clothes, unlacing her boots to pull them off, ripping her stockings as they clawed them down her legs. She was aware that Sonia was also being stripped, and she was screaming. But she was the Countess Bolugayevska. Countesses did not scream. “Listen!” she shouted. “I am Patricia Bolugayevska. My brother...”
Someone kicked her in the stomach, and she clutched at her abdomen while she was dragged to her feet. “Over there, bitch,” she was told.
Patricia raised her head, and through pain-filled eyes saw that Sonia had already stumbled across the floor against the far wall, a startlingly white and attractively slender figure, shrouded in tumbling black hair. Patricia pushed herself to her feet to join her, and was struck in the back by a jet of cold water. She had not previously noticed the hose, which was attached to an outlet set in the wall, and did now scream with the surprise of it. She fell to her knees again, and was bowled over by the force of the water; when she tried to get up, the water played on her face, and she was thrown full length.
Through a new haze she saw Sonia starting forward to help her, only to be struck on the chest by the jet and hurled backwards. Her feet skidded on the now wet floor, and she sat down heavily, while men laughed, and the jet played at her groin. She screamed and rolled away, and the jet scored her buttocks, rolling her over again. The respite had enabled Patricia to catch her breath, but the water sent her sprawling as well, to roll across the floor and come to rest against Sonia. Then they could only clutch at each other while they watched the water approach, directed by the man holding the nozzle, whose booted feet splashed across the floor towards them. And now he was twisting the nozzle so that the jet was being honed, down to a thin stream, which stung as it was directed at their faces, their nipples and between their legs.
Then the water stopped, so suddenly they both lay helplessly on the floor. They were dragged to their feet and marched across the room to stand before the desk. This part of the room was dry, and behind the desk sat the colonel. “That is better,” he remarked. “Now you both look clean and smell clean. That is how young women should be. Now...” He pointed. “Your name is Sonia Cohen.”
“Yes, your honour,” Sonia said. She was shivering, even her wet hair trembling, at once from cold and from fear.
“You are a Communist.” Sonia bit her lip. “The young lady seems to have forgotten,” Michaelin remarked.
Sonia’s arms were held by two men. Reddich stood behind her. Now he hit her in the kidneys with his truncheon. Sonia gave a strangled gasp and would have fallen had the men not dragged her upright again. “You bastard!” Patricia shouted.
And gave a scream herself. She had been inadvertently standing with her legs parted, and the man behind her swung his truncheon in an upwards arc, slamming between her legs. She too sagged and was held upright by the men. “Prisoners speak when they are spoken to,” Michaelin remarked, mildly, then turned back to Sonia. “Yo
u are a Communist?”
“Yes,” Sonia gasped.
“Therefore your mother and father are also Communists?”
“I do not know.” Even as she spoke Sonia tensed her muscles for another blow, but Michaelin gave no signal.
“The meeting in your house tonight was to plot sedition against the state.”
“No,” Sonia said.
“Do you deny that sedition was spoken.”
“It...we did not know what was going to be said,” Sonia protested.
“I see.” Michaelin turned to Patricia, who had regained her breath. “Your name?”
Patricia tossed wet hair from her eyes. “I am the Countess Patricia Bolugayevska.”
Michaelin leaned back. “You must not try my patience, little girl.”
“I am the Countess Bolugayevska!” Patricia shouted. “My brother is Prince Peter. He is a personal friend of the Tsar.”
Michaelin studied her for several seconds. Then he asked Reddich, “Do you suppose she is demented?”
“It is possible, your honour,” Reddich said.
“That man raped me,” Patricia said. “I am going to have him hanged.”
“I may say, your honour,” Reddich said, “that she was not a virgin, unlike the Jew.”
“Yet you still claim to be a countess?” Michaelin asked. “Now, I wish your name.”
Patricia started to cry. She was slowly being overtaken by despair. “I am the Countess Patricia Bolugayevska,” she sobbed. “Why don’t you at least contact my brother? Why can’t you do that?”
“I have no intention of involving Prince Bolugayevski in some terrorist plot,” Michaelin lied. “However, I am prepared to be lenient with you. And you, Mademoiselle Cohen. I wish a complete list of the names of the people who were at the meeting tonight. Give me those, and it may be possible to reconsider your positions.”
The Masters Page 17
