by John Boyne
‘And that’s a good thing, is it?’ asked Rachel.
Zoya smiled, before nodding and letting a great sigh escape her lips. ‘Oh yes, Mrs Anderson,’ she said. ‘That’s a good thing. A very good thing indeed.’
Before Arina was born, there had been some discussion at the factory where Zoya was employed as a sewing machinist that she was going to be promoted to the position of supervisor. The hours would have been no easier, of course – long working days from eight o’clock in the morning until half past six at night, with only a half-hour break at lunchtime – but the pay would have been much improved, and rather than sitting at her machine throughout the day, she would have had the freedom to move around the factory floor.
That possibility came to an end, however, when she became pregnant.
We told no one our news for almost four months – we had suffered too many losses by that point in our lives to believe that we would ever become parents – but eventually, she started to show and our doctor reassured us that yes, on this occasion the pregnancy had taken and there was no reason to believe that we would suffer another miscarriage. Almost immediately, Zoya made the decision not to return to the factory after the birth, but to devote her time instead to bringing up our daughter, a moot point anyway, given that her employers did not allow young mothers to return to work until their children were of school-going age. And while this put a greater strain on our finances, which were now reduced to my single salary, we had saved our money carefully over the previous few years and, in recognition of my new responsibilities, Mr Trevors granted me a small pay rise immediately following Arina’s birth.
It was a surprise, therefore, when I returned home one evening to find a large sewing machine standing in the corner of our living room, its heavy metal casing glaring defiantly at me as I walked through the door, and my wife clearing a space to the right of it for a small occasional table on which to rest her fabric, needles and pins. Arina was watching intently from her chair, her eyes wide, captivated by this unusual activity, but she clapped her hands together joyfully when she saw me and pointed towards the machine, shouting loudly in delight.
‘Hello there,’ I said, divesting myself of my hat and coat as Zoya turned to face me with a smile. ‘What’s going on here?’
‘You’re not going to believe it,’ she replied, kissing me on the cheek and sounding thrilled by whatever development had taken place during the day, her tone betraying a certain anxiety at the same time that I would share her happiness. ‘I was making Arina’s breakfast this morning when there was a knock on the door. And when I looked through the window, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Mrs Stevens.’
Zoya tended to grow nervous whenever there was an unexpected knock on the front door. We had few friends and it was unusual for any of them to call around unannounced, so any disturbance to our typical routine caused my wife to feel uneasy, as if something terrible was about to take place. Rather than open the door immediately, she always walked towards the window and pulled the net curtain a little to the side to get a better view of who had come calling, for it was possible from that position to see the back of our visitor, while he or she remained unaware that they were being observed. It was a habit that never left her. She never felt safe, that was the problem. She always believed that some day, somehow, someone would find her. That they would find all of us.
‘Mrs Stevens?’ I asked, raising an eyebrow. ‘From Newsom’s?’
‘Yes, she took me completely by surprise. I thought that perhaps there was some discrepancy in my final pay packet and she had been sent around to fix it, but no, it was nothing like that. At first she said that she wanted to stop by to see how I was and how Arina was, which of course I didn’t believe for a minute. And then, after having a cup of tea and making me feel entirely uncomfortable in my own home, she finally said that they are suffering a shortage of machinists at the factory just now, there aren’t enough to fill all their orders anyway, and they wondered whether I would be interested in doing some work from home.’
‘I see,’ I replied, nodding as I looked across at the machine, aware how this particular interview was certain to end. ‘And you said yes, of course.’
‘Well, I didn’t see any reason why not. They’re offering very generous wages. And a man from Newsom’s will deliver everything I need once a week and collect my work at the same time, so I don’t need to go anywhere near the factory. It’ll help us to have more money coming in, won’t it?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, considering it. ‘Although I’d like to think I could take care of all three of us.’
‘Oh, I know you can, Georgy. I only meant—’
‘She must have been sure of your response if she brought the machine with her too.’
Zoya stared at me in bewilderment for a moment, before bursting out laughing. ‘Oh Georgy,’ she said, shaking her head, ‘you don’t think Mrs Stevens carried it here all the way from the factory, do you? Why, I could barely drag it across the floor. No, one of the workmen came with it this afternoon, after I had agreed. He left only a short while ago.’
Perhaps it was wrong of me, but I wasn’t entirely happy with the arrangement. It seemed to me that our home was our home, it was not a place that should be turned into a sweatshop, and that these new arrangements had been made without my even being consulted. But at the same time I could see how happy Zoya was, that this work would provide a break from playing with Arina all day long, and realized that it would be churlish of me to stand in her way.
‘It’s all right, Georgy, isn’t it?’ she asked me then, sensing my ambivalent feelings on the subject. ‘You don’t mind?’
‘No, no,’ I replied quickly. ‘If it makes you happy.’
‘It does,’ she said assertively. ‘I feel flattered that they even thought of me. And besides, I like earning my own money. I promise, there will be no work in the evenings. You won’t have to put up with the noise of the machine when you get home from the library. And if I buy some fabric of my own, then I can make clothes for Arina too, which will be a great bonus.’
I smiled and said that I thought it was a very fine idea, and then, to my surprise, Zoya spent the rest of the evening working on the machine, examining the various patterns which had been sent with it for her to begin before the man from Newsom’s returned the following week. I watched as she concentrated on her task, her eyes narrowing a little as she followed a line of stitching along a piece of fine, pale cotton, snipping off the edge of the thread and lifting the arm of the machine before tying off the knot. At home, this would have been considered a menial job, a task for moujiks, but here in London, almost two thousand miles and twenty years away from St Petersburg, it was a task which gave my wife pleasure. And for that, if nothing else, I was grateful.
When we did have an evening visitor, it was usually Rachel Anderson, who knocked on our door once or twice a week and spent an hour in our company in order to relieve her loneliness. We both enjoyed her visits, for she was a kind soul who came as much to play with Arina – who adored her – as she did to see us, a fact which inevitably endeared her to Zoya and me.
That year, as Christmas approached, we all sat together in our front parlour listening to a concert on the wireless. Arina was asleep in my arms, her tiny mouth half open, her eyelids flickering slightly as she dreamed, and I felt an almost overwhelming sensation of well-being at this happy home life which had been gifted to me. Zoya was sitting next to me, her head resting against a cushion as we listened to Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Our fingers were interlaced and I could see that she was lost in the music and the memories it conjured up for her. Glancing across at Rachel, I caught her gaze in the candlelight, and although she was smiling at our small family, her expression was one of almost unbearable sorrow.
‘Rachel,’ I asked, concerned for her, ‘are you feeling all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ she reassured me, shaking her head and attempting a smile. ‘Absolutely fine.’
; ‘You don’t look fine. You look as if you’re about to burst into tears.’
‘Do I?’ she asked, raising her eyes for a moment as if to stem any sudden tide. ‘Well, perhaps I do feel a little emotional.’
‘Tchaikovsky can provoke strong sensations,’ I said, hoping that I had not embarrassed her. ‘When I listen to this movement, my head is filled with recollections of old Russian folk songs. I can’t help but feel nostalgic for it.’
‘It’s not the music,’ she replied quietly. ‘It was the three of you.’
‘What about us?’
She laughed and looked away. ‘I’m just being an old softie, that’s all. You just seem so content, all of you, sitting there like that, all snug in each other’s company. It puts me in mind of my Albert. It makes me think of what might have been.’ She hesitated, before offering an apologetic shrug. ‘It would have been his birthday today, you see. His fortieth birthday. We most likely would have been enjoying a right knees-up tonight, had things worked out differently.’
‘Rachel, you should have said,’ said Zoya, standing up and going over to sit next to her, placing an arm around her shoulder and kissing her cheek. Her great empathy always came to the fore at moments like this, when she saw another soul in torment; it was one of the things I loved about her. ‘I expect you think about him a lot.’
‘Yes, every day,’ she admitted. ‘Even though it’s been more than twenty years since he died. They buried him in France, did I ever tell you that? I used to think that made it worse, as I couldn’t just stroll down to see him and put flowers on his grave like anyone else. There’ve been days when I’ve wanted nothing more than to fill a little flask of tea and stroll down to sit where I knew he was near by, but I can’t do that. Not here. Not in London.’
‘Haven’t you ever gone over?’ I asked her. ‘It’s not a long trip from Dover.’
‘I’ve been eight times, luvvie,’ she said with a smile. ‘I might go again in a year or so if I can afford the crossing. He’s buried in Ypres, in a cemetery called Prowse Point. Rows and rows of neat white tombstones, all lined up together, all covering the bodies of the dead boys. The whole place is so immaculately kept. It’s almost as if they’re trying to pretend there’s something, I don’t know, clean about the way they died. When there isn’t. The purity of that place is a lie. That’s why I’ve always wished that he was here, in some graveyard with overgrown trees and hedgerows and a few field mice running through it. Somewhere more honest.’
‘He was a foot soldier?’ I asked. ‘An officer?’
‘Oh no,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No, Georgy, he wasn’t grand enough to be an officer. Wouldn’t have wanted it either. He was with the Somerset Light Infantry. Just one of the boys – nothing special, I suppose. Except to me. He died at the end of 1914, quite early on, really. He hardly got to see any action at all. Sometimes I think that was a blessing,’ she added, considering it. ‘I’ve always felt sorry for those poor boys who died in ’17 or ’18. The ones who spent the last few years of their lives fighting and suffering and witnessing God only knows what horrors. At least my Albert … at least he didn’t have to go through any of that. He went to his reward quite early on.’
‘But you still miss him,’ said Zoya quietly, taking Rachel’s hand in her own, and the older woman nodded and gave a deep sigh, trying to hold back the tears.
‘I do, luvvie,’ she said. ‘I miss him every day. I think of all that we might have been together, you see. All the things we might have done. Sometimes it makes me terrible sad, and other times, it makes me so angry with the world that I could scream. Those bloody politicians. And God. And the war-mongers – Asquith and the Kaiser and the Tsar, all of them buggers.’ Zoya bristled a little at the reference, but made no comment. ‘I hate them for taking him from me, you see. A lad like him. A young lad. With everything to live for. But who am I talking to, after all? You must have suffered during the war, too. You had to leave your homeland. I can’t even imagine what that was like.’
‘They weren’t easy days for anyone,’ I said hesitantly, unsure whether this was a safe subject for conversation.
‘I lost my entire family in the war,’ said Zoya, surprising me that she should talk of her past at all. ‘All of them.’
‘Oh, luvvie,’ said Rachel in surprise, leaning forward and rubbing her hands now. ‘I didn’t know that. I always thought that maybe you’d just left them behind you in Russia. You never speak of them, I mean. And there’s me, bringing up all those bad memories for you.’
‘That is what wars do,’ I said, anxious to change the subject. ‘They take our loved ones from us, separate families, create untold misery. And for what? It’s hard to see.’
‘It’s coming back, you know,’ she said then, the seriousness of her tone surprising me.
‘Coming back?’ I asked.
‘War. Can’t you feel it? I can. I can almost smell it.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Europe is … stirring, that’s for sure. There are troubles and enmities, but I don’t believe there will be another war. Not in our lifetime. No one wants to go through what we all went through last time.’
‘Don’t you think it’s ironic,’ she replied, considering this, ‘that all those boys conceived in a great outpouring of love and lust when the Great War came to an end will be just the right age to fight when the next one begins? It’s almost as if God created them for no other reason than to fight and die. To stand before the rifles and swallow the bullets that fly towards them. It’s a joke, really.’
‘But there won’t be a war,’ insisted Zoya, interrupting her. ‘As Georgy says—’
‘Such a waste,’ Rachel said with a sigh, standing up and reaching for her coat. ‘Such a terrible waste. And I don’t mean to contradict you, Georgy, not in your own home, but you’re wrong, I’m afraid. It’s coming all right. It’ll be here before too long. Just wait. You’ll see.’
The Neva
THE NOTE WAS placed under the door of my room and slid so far along the floor that it almost disappeared beneath the bed. Only my name was printed on the exterior – Georgy Daniilovich – in a fine Cyrillic handwriting. It was rare for me to receive communications in this way; typically, any changes to the schedule of the Leib Guard were passed from Count Charnetsky to the divisional leaders, who in turn informed each man under their command. I was curious to open it, but surprised to find nothing but an address and a time printed neatly on the card inside. No instructions or clue as to who might have sent the note. No details of why my presence was required. The entire thing was a mystery which, at first, I put down to Anastasia, but then I recalled that she was due to attend a dinner at Prince Rogesky’s house later that evening with her family, so she could hardly have been arranging a secret assignation. Still, my interest was piqued, my evening was free and my spirits were good, so I went to the bath-house and washed myself thoroughly, before dressing in my finest non-military clothes and leaving the palace to make my way to the proposed address.
The night was dark and cold and the streets thick with snow, so deep that I was forced to lift my boots high above the mounds as I trawled slowly along them. As I walked, my hands buried in my pockets, I found it impossible to ignore the propaganda posters pasted on the walls and lampposts of the central city. Images of Nicholas and Alexandra, disgraceful images, naming them as plunderers of the land, tyrants, despots. Portraits of the Tsaritsa as a whore and a she-wolf, some where she was surrounded by a harem of young, tumescent men, others where she was lying prone and exposed beneath the lusty gaze of the dark-eyed starets. The posters had become a regular feature of the city and were torn down by the authorities every day, only to reappear as quickly as they were removed. To be discovered with any in your possession was to risk death. I wondered how the Tsar and his wife could bear to see themselves depicted in so obscene a fashion as they passed through the streets. He who had spent months and sacrificed his health leading the army in an attempt to protect
our borders. She who was at the hospital every day, tending to the sick and the dying. The Tsaritsa was no Marie Antoinette and her husband no Louis XVI, but the moujiks seemed to look at the Winter Palace as a second Versailles and my heart was heavy as I wondered where all this discord might end.
The address on the card led me to a part of the city I rarely visited, one of those curious areas which housed neither palaces for princes nor hovels for peasants. Nondescript streets, small shops, beer taverns, nothing that suggested anything extraordinary might be taking place here that required my attendance. I wondered for a moment whether the note had been intended for me at all. Perhaps someone had meant to put it beneath the door of a fellow involved in one of the numerous secret societies that plagued the city. Someone involved in politics. Perhaps I was being led towards a covert meeting designed to cause further upheaval against the Romanovs and I would be taken for a traitor by them all. I almost considered turning away and heading back to the Winter Palace, but before I could decide for sure, the house that I was searching for appeared before me. I stared cautiously at the unimposing black door, behind which lay someone who wanted me to visit.
I hesitated, surprised by my own anxieties, and knocked quickly upon the wooden frame. I had been invited here, I told myself. The note had been addressed to me. There was no immediate answer, however, so I removed my right glove to knock again more loudly. But at that same moment the door swung open and I stood face to face with a dark-clothed figure, who stared at me for a moment as he tried to identify my face in the darkness of the night, before breaking into a delighted, hideous smile.
‘You came!’ he roared, reaching out and placing both hands on my shoulders. ‘I knew you would! Young men are so easily led, don’t you agree? I could have told you to throw yourself into the depths of the Moyka and you would be lying dead on the riverbed by now.’
I struggled beneath the weight of those great hands and tried to shrug them off, but without success; he pressed down with such determination that it felt like a test of his strength and my endurance. ‘Father Gregory,’ I said, for it was he who had opened the door – the monk, the man of God, the moujik who had made a whore of the Russian Empress. ‘I didn’t realize it was you who had invited me here.’
