by Jerry Sacher
“I don’t understand you, Sergei. You seem about to do something and yet you pull back at the last second.” Benjamin pushed back his chair and stood, then came around the table to Sergei.
Sergei took a step back and pressed against the wall behind him. “My feelings for you are nothing more than friendship. And I hate to point out the obvious to you—we’re in the middle of the country, and deserters from the Army and peasants could descend on this house any second for shelter or firewood and find us here. I would be all right. To them, I would be just another deserter, but you, a member of the pampered, privileged class… they might not be inclined to show you any kindness.” He searched Benjamin’s face for a reaction, but Benjamin was silent. Sergei allowed himself to relax and asked him, “Well…?”
“I can’t argue with what you say, because at this moment we need each other to get through this, and when we get back to Petrograd, I’ll have you checked out by my parents’ physician, though it appears you’re doing better, and I’ll go into the Army, and that’s the end of it.”
“Now you’re angry, but please don’t be, angel—”
“You can call me Benjamin, and as for the kisses, you’ll forget all about them while I’m fighting on one front and you’re here in Russia.”
With his hand balled into a fist, Sergei took a step toward Benjamin, but at the last second, he lowered his hand, swept Benjamin into his arms, and kissed him. Sergei pulled away and whispered fiercely, “I’ll never forget.”
Benjamin responded with a kiss of his own. Just then, Sergei pulled away, turning his head toward the window.
“What’s wrong, Sergei?”
Sergei put a finger to Benjamin’s lips. “Listen, do you hear that?”
At first they heard nothing, but then voices sounded from a distance but clear enough they could make out a combination of shouting and singing. The voices were getting louder and closer.
Sergei turned. He went to a window and pulled aside the drapes. Down at the end of the road leading to the house came several ragged soldiers, both on foot and on horseback. They waved and shouted, and Sergei thought he could see the glint of vodka bottles held aloft. He turned back to Benjamin.
“Several men are coming up the road. Get your coat and follow me!”
Sergei had already started to move, and Benjamin grabbed his coat, the portfolio, and a small stack of books he had tied together earlier. He followed Sergei out the back of the house and to the stable where Sergei had tied the horse.
Sergei led the horse and tethered it out of sight behind the barn and then returned to Benjamin in the stable. They stood at the window and watched.
Chapter 6
BENJAMIN STAYED close to Sergei as they observed from the stable. Then they moved away from the window to avoid being seen.
“Stay back, Benjamin. I want to see,” Sergei told him and looked through a crack in the barn wall. “It looks like there’s four soldiers on foot and two on horseback. One’s staggering, so they might be drunk.”
“Do they have weapons?” Benjamin asked.
“One of them has a rifle, but I’m not sure about the others.”
Sergei stepped back and took Benjamin by the sleeve. Benjamin stood in place and peered through the break in the wood to see for himself. One of the men was sitting on the back porch step, removing one of his boots, which he began beating on the rail to clean off the snow and mud.
Sergei pulled Benjamin away, whispering, “We have to get out of here before they discover the barn and stable and us also.”
He led Benjamin outside to where he’d tied the horse. When the men entered the house, Sergei and Benjamin quickly led the horse down a trail into the woods farther back from the house.
The sky was darker by the time they rode away, and they were a few miles before they allowed themselves to breathe again.
Riding onward for a couple of hours, they came to the outskirts of a village, and they rode up to the gate of a peasant farmhouse. The door opened, and a bearded man, wearing a hat and a felt coat, came to the gate. Sergei dismounted and approached him.
“Good evening. My friend and I are seeking a place to stay for the night.” The man stared silently at Sergei and Benjamin. Sergei repeated his request, and suddenly the man left them and went inside, then came out a minute later with his wife and a young man. Sergei repeated his request a third time, this time adding, “We are on our way to Petrograd and have already come a long way.”
“We don’t have visitors often, but you’re both welcome to stay with us,” the man’s wife said, smiling. She led Sergei and Benjamin inside while the young man took care of the horse.
During the meager meal of black bread, tea, and borscht, the head of the family queried Sergei about the Army and whether he had heard any news from the capital. The father asked if it was true what he’d heard about strikes, marches, and a group calling themselves Bolsheviks in Petrograd.
“I don’t know too much about what’s going on in the cities. I’ve been at the front for over a year,” Sergei confessed.
The family then turned wary eyes on Benjamin. In his fur coat and leather boots, they no doubt considered him a member of the bourgeoisie and an enemy of the workers.
Yes, class hatred has filtered even this far away from the cities, Benjamin thought as he told the man and his wife about the riots and workers’ demonstrations.
The family’s young daughter flirted endlessly with Benjamin. The way he spoke Russian and the way he paused when he was searching for the proper word clearly amused the other children.
After dinner, the peasant gave Sergei and Benjamin the bedroom at the back of the house. The wood stove in there made the room warm and comfortable. Though both Sergei and Benjamin insisted they could sleep on the floor, their host would not hear of it.
“It would be an honor to have one of the defenders of Holy Russia and his English friend sleep in the warmest room in the house.” The man blessed them both with the sign of the cross and left them alone.
Sergei laughed. “That girl was making sheep’s eyes at you, angel. Be careful or we’ll be hearing wedding bells in the village church.” He grinned, pulled off his boots, and dropped them on the floor.
Benjamin sat on a chair across from him, watching him closely.
“Ah, love’s young dream,” Sergei added after a minute of silence.
Benjamin smiled, then stood and walked over to Sergei, and would have kissed him, but Sergei pulled away.
“Not here,” Sergei growled.
“Why not? You were so eager before, and we are alone.” Benjamin looked around him.
“You do not understand, but we are guests in this house, and we would bring dishonor if we….”
“It’s only a harmless kiss. I’m not asking you to throw me down on the family bed. But why do we keep discussing this?”
Sergei stood and stalked to the window. “Keep your voice down. They’ll hear you.”
“I don’t give a damn!”
“You should. You’re a guest in our country, and you would do well to follow our ways, as you would expect me to do if I was in London…. You are the one that keeps mentioning it, Benjamin.”
Benjamin felt his face flush, and angry words welled up inside him, but he kept silent and watched Sergei remove his military greatcoat and sit on the side of the bed. He was looking down at the floor, but he lifted his head, and Benjamin saw his eyes flash with anger at him.
“Go to bed, and we’ll discuss it tomorrow, when we are once again on the road.”
“Very well, Sergei, until tomorrow.”
Sergei didn’t answer him. He ignored Benjamin while he checked his bandage, and after it was covered again, he lay back on the bed and threw the blanket over himself.
Benjamin sat on the bed for a minute, then finally went and sat in a chair near the wood stove. He tried to sleep, but whenever his eyes got heavy, he would wake and see Sergei across the room in the waning light of the fire through the grate.<
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Benjamin felt disappointed that things hadn’t gone any further than a kiss, but every opportunity to be alone had been ruined—by a train wreck, deserters from the Army, even the hospitality of a peasant family. He tried putting it out of his mind, and he read by the light of a candle, but then Sergei would snore or mutter something in his sleep, and Benjamin would gaze at him over the top of the book, hoping he would wake and join Benjamin beside the fire. Nothing happened, and soon the book slipped from Benjamin’s hands and onto the wooden floor.
BENJAMIN WAS surprised to find it was dawn the next day, and the master of the house was outside hitching a wagon.
As Benjamin approached from the house, the man smiled and bowed. “Good morning, young master.”
“Good morning. Where are you heading so early?”
“I have some business in the village.”
“There’s a town near here? How far away?”
“Some five miles that way.” The peasant pointed to the east.
Benjamin had an idea. “Does the railroad pass through there, by any chance?”
“It does, but I don’t know when it passes through. I can give you a ride to the station if you wish to ask Blaknykov, the station master there.”
“Please. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Benjamin returned inside to grab the leather portfolio for his father and the stack of books he had tied together, and then he returned to the wagon and climbed up next to the driver. The wagon started to move.
At the station on the outskirts of the village, the peasant remained on the cart while Benjamin went inside. Behind the bars of the ticket window, a short man in a fur cap sat at a desk, writing something in a book. He looked up when Benjamin approached, and he frowned.
“Yes,” he said, yawning.
“I need two tickets to Petrograd, please.” Benjamin reached into the pocket of his coat for his money purse.
“Not today.”
“The train doesn’t come through here today?”
“It comes at ten o’clock every morning, but not today. There was an accident up the tracks that way, so who knows when there’ll be a train running.” The man pointed with his fountain pen in the direction of the tracks.
“What about tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. These are troubling times, God help us.” He crossed himself and went back to writing.
Benjamin thanked him and left. He stood in front of the station, looking down the iron rails for a train he knew wasn’t coming. He jammed his hands in the pockets of his heavy coat and walked back to where the peasant waited.
THE SUNLIGHT filtering through the shutters cast beams on the wall, which woke Sergei out of a sound sleep. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, looking around for Benjamin. Perhaps he was in the main room with the family, having breakfast. Sergei pulled on his boots and went out to join him.
The table was empty, except for the mistress of the house who sat sewing at the head of the table closest to the window. She smiled when she saw him and rose to bring him some tea and black bread and jam. He sat down across from her place at the table.
“Where is my friend?”
“My husband took your friend into the village this morning.”
It took Sergei a couple of minutes for it to sink in. “What? Why?”
Sergei stood up and tried not to show emotion, but he didn’t think he was doing a good job.
“My husband said he wanted to inquire about trains to Petrograd.”
Sergei kept his face like stone so the peasant woman wouldn’t see the sadness on it. Benjamin, my angel, is gone and without a word, not even a good-bye. He swallowed hard and reached for a chunk of bread to keep from bursting into tears, which burned his eyes and stung his throat. The woman reached out and put a hand on top of Sergei’s.
“You needn’t hide your feelings from me. I know,” she said quietly, since two of the younger children were nearby.
“What do you know… how?” Sergei took a long sip from the glass of tea and set it back down on the table, waiting for the woman to reply.
“I may be a poor, uneducated peasant woman, but I’m not blind, sir. I could tell by the way you looked at each other last night across the table.”
“Does everyone know… your husband?”
“No, my husband didn’t notice anything. He doesn’t know about such things.”
Sergei exhaled.
Almost as if he had listened from outside, the door opened and the husband walked in, shaking snow from his coat and boots. He bowed his head when he saw Sergei staring at him, and then Sergei saw a shadow behind the peasant farmer. It was Benjamin. Sergei was relieved to see him, having feared he had bolted without saying anything.
“The train won’t be running because of an accident on the tracks,” Benjamin announced after they walked through the door.
Sergei nodded, and as Benjamin came to sit down, the peasant’s wife seated him next to Sergei. The head of the house joined his wife, Benjamin, and Sergei at the table. The woman rose again to bring tea and then sat and drank hers in silence.
“It looks like you both will have to stay here until they get the train running again. God knows when that will be,” the peasant said, and he and his wife crossed themselves.
“How often does the train arrive for Petrograd?” Sergei ventured to ask Benjamin.
“It passes through about ten o’clock in the morning once a day.”
IN THE afternoon when Sergei came out of the house, he was surprised to find Benjamin in peasant clothing. Benjamin looked up from brushing one of the horses when he saw Sergei smile.
“What is it?” Benjamin asked, looking up from the brush to Sergei’s puzzled look.
“I’m surprised to see you doing this, brushing a horse. That’s all.”
“Oh, you think I don’t do anything except wear high collars, read books, and drink tea all day long? I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Benjamin patted the horse’s flank and grinned at Sergei.
“I wasn’t thinking that….” Sergei looked over the horse and changed the subject quickly. “It looks like a fine animal, accustomed to work and riding.” Sergei glanced at Benjamin and asked, “Can you ride?”
THE PEASANT’S house was a five- or six-mile ride to the small village consisting of a white stucco church with the familiar onion dome topped by a crucifix, the priest’s house next door, a general store, a tavern, and several buildings around a square. A peasant woman smiled at Sergei as she came out of the church, and Sergei lifted his cap and smiled in return. Benjamin had left him to check back with Blaknykov at the rail station.
The church’s heavy wooden door swung closed behind him as Sergei stepped inside. Hundreds of icon lamps along the walls illuminated the interior, casting flickering beams of light on the solemn faces of the holy men and women, and the air was heavy with the odor of incense and the murmured prayers of past generations that had been spoken within this building—to which Sergei added his own.
In front of the icon of Our Lady of Kazan, he whispered a silent prayer for his own mother, for Russia, and above all, for Benjamin, that they would always be together. Sergei left the church, joined Benjamin, and rode back to the peasant’s house. They arrived just as it began to get dark.
The mother of the house crossed herself and seemed genuinely happy when they opened the door and stepped across the threshold. “We thought you’d wandered off and got lost in the forests nearby.”
“We’re sorry to have worried you. We did lose our way a little, but once we got back on the main road, the horse knew his way back,” Sergei said, removing his cap and joining Benjamin at the table, where the mother set out food and tea for them.
BENJAMIN OPENED his eyes as the train chugged slowly into the station in Petrograd. Surrounded by their families, soldiers returning to the front milled everywhere outside the windows as the train jerked to a stop.
As he stepped off the train and walked slowly along the platform, Benjamin stared into the face
s of the men moving past him. Sergei had refused his offer to let him share a first-class compartment and was at the rear of the train with the soldiers and peasants. Benjamin searched for him among the crowd, thought he saw his face for a second, and made his way toward him, only to be mistaken. Farther down near the third-class coaches, people, luggage, and crates blocked the way, so he had to turn back.
Benjamin walked through the station, which smelled of coal and tar, old wood and marble, and bodies—a mixture of scents that usually excited him, because these smells meant he was home again. Outside, he scanned the crowds for a face he didn’t see.
The taxi drivers were on strike, so Benjamin walked home, down the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt lined with automobiles and crowds, and across the Moika Embankment. He reached home just as darkness and a light snow began to fall.
His mother nearly dropped her teacup and was overjoyed to see him when he walked into the dining room.
“I’m fine, Mother. You needn’t have worried. The trains don’t run like they used to since the war.”
“I told your father not to let you go on this fool’s errand, but if it helped to cure you of your desire to join the Army—”
The appearance of Benjamin’s father in the dining room interrupted his mother. Simon kissed his wife, took Benjamin by the arm and led him out of the dining room and into the drawing room, then shut the door.
“Well, do you have the tsar’s response to the king’s letter?”
Benjamin nodded and handed over the leather portfolio to his father.
Simon untied the ribbon that secured the folio and removed the letter that bore the seal of Nicholas Romanov. “Tomorrow, Benjamin, I leave for London. You and your mother will remain here.”
“Is that wise, Father?” Benjamin recalled everything he had seen and heard on the journey, and he wondered how much longer anyone would be safe.
