by Jerry Sacher
Benjamin sat on the edge of his bed and prayed silently for Sergei and his parents. He looked up at the calendar and counted the days until February, when he would have leave to return to Russia.
Petrograd, Russia
January 1917
SERGEI TRUDGED through the snow, trying not to see the people lining up in front of the shops for goods that would be sold out before they reached the front of the line. It was dark by the time he crossed the bridge over the Neva River and reached the Carter mansion. Hazel Carter hurried to meet Sergei before Simon could intercept him.
“I have news about Benjamin. He told me to let you know that he’s received your letters, and that he’ll be here to see us in February, depending upon transportation.”
“That’s great news. I can’t wait to see him. Thank you for telling me, Hazel.” Sergei couldn’t help smiling. Soon he would be able to take his angel in his arms and tell him his feelings. It had been so long since they had seen each other.
As Sergei walked back to his hotel, he noticed the unusually crowded streets around the workers’ hall. He pushed his way through the mobs to get near the front where he could listen. Petr stood on the stage, smoking a cigarette; he looked to be arguing with a short pudgy man with black oily hair and whiskers. Finally, a tall man in a soldier’s uniform took the stage, calling out in a loud voice for quiet.
“Nicholas is calling for more troops at the front, but I have word that a provisional government is prepared to take over power. It’s only a matter of time—”
Cheering that lasted for ten minutes drowned out the rest of his words. Sergei sat back in his chair. He didn’t have the heart to cheer. He tried to leave, but everyone he passed wanted to slap him on the back and kiss him out of excitement that the revolution was going forward at last. Sergei had almost reached the door, when Petr stopped him, clamped a heavy hand on his shoulder, and turned him around. He stood so close Sergei smelled the vodka on his breath.
“Well, if it isn’t my old comrade, Sergei Breselov—finally coming to your senses at last, I see.”
Petr’s face was glowing, but Sergei couldn’t tell whether it was from the closeness of the assembly hall or the vodka. He guessed it was the latter.
“Are you talking about the meeting or stopping to talk to you?” Sergei sighed.
Petr pulled him closer. “Talking to me of course, so let’s get out of here and go to our usual place, eh?”
“I’ll go with you because you’re a friend, but nothing is going to happen between us,” Sergei told him as they walked together through the crowded street back to the hotel.
Upstairs, Petr tried to kiss him, but Sergei backed away without any explanation. This time Petr didn’t say anything. He took a swig of vodka.
“You’re a good friend, Sergei, but I guess our good time is over now, eh?” Petr burped, his eyes focused on Sergei.
“I guess it is, Petr, good night.” Sergei prepared to leave, but Petr told him to stay.
Petr clumsily pulled off his clothing, at the same time trying to plant sloppy kisses on Sergei’s lips. It didn’t take much effort for Sergei to push him back on the bed, where Petr promptly passed out.
Sergei laughed and bent down to move Petr’s body so he could throw the wool blanket over him. Petr mumbled something, but Sergei ignored it. Finally, Petr was snoring. It wasn’t a gramophone, but it was an accompaniment while Sergei read and composed another letter to Benjamin.
While he wrote, he closed his eyes from time to time and saw Benjamin’s light blue eyes and fair blond hair as Benjamin leaned over him that first time in the impromptu hospital bed near Mogilev. He could feel them pressed together as they rode away from the train. He prayed the month would pass quickly so they could see each other again. This time he wouldn’t pull away when Benjamin came to him. Behind him, Petr swore loudly in his sleep and rolled over on his side to face the wall.
Petrograd, Russia
February 19, 1917
BENJAMIN WAS the only passenger on deck to see Petrograd appear out of the snowy fog on the Gulf of Finland. He pulled his heavy wool officer’s coat closer to his body and reached up to pull his hat down to keep the wind from sending it over the side.
It was now almost a year since he had left Petrograd, his parents, and especially Sergei to join the British Army, and he found himself wondering how much all of them had changed.
The old passenger liner bumped through the chunks of ice in the water, and the pier came into view out of the mist. He jammed his hands into a pair of gloves and remained on deck, looking out over the rails. A sailor approached, carrying some rope. The man saluted, and Benjamin returned the salute. The sailor went back to his duties, but Benjamin couldn’t help thinking how much he resembled Reggie. He smiled as he thought about the few hours they’d spent together in Paris a few weeks earlier.
He and Reggie had held each other close during the night, and at least for a few hours forgot the mud, blood, and horror of the trenches. The first night they made love, Benjamin imagined Sergei’s handsome face looking up at him, and once, with his eyes closed and imagining himself with Sergei, he almost whispered Sergei’s name into Reggie’s ear. His heart wasn’t in their lovemaking, so he and Reggie lay awake all night talking instead. When the sun came up, Reggie had moved to the other bedroom.
Benjamin sighed, left the rail of the ship, and walked into the dining room for lunch. It would still be hours before they docked.
Four hours later, with the boat berthed, the sailors swung the gangplank into position for disembarking the passengers and cargo. Benjamin grabbed his suitcase and at last set foot in Petrograd. One of the first things he noticed was the red banners hanging from every available space, proclaiming LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION…. PEACE, LAND, BREAD.
A peasant in a dirty coat and threadbare gloves offered to carry his bag to a waiting carriage. The snow and mud made the ride to his parents’ house extremely bumpy, and once on the Nevsky Prospekt, one of the wheels nearly fell off its axle. The driver explained that equipment to fix the carriages had been confiscated for the war effort, or was in need of repair itself.
The twenty-minute journey took two hours, but finally Benjamin stood on the stairs in front of the familiar house. He rang the bell, and from the depths of the house heard shuffling footsteps. Finally the door swung open and an old woman with a red peasant kerchief tied around her stringy gray hair poked her head out.
“What do you want?” she asked in a raspy voice.
“Are Mr. and Mrs. Carter at home?” Benjamin was surprised to hear the formality in his voice, but the woman seemed unimpressed.
“Who wants to know?” The old woman spoke in halting English.
“I’m Benjamin Carter, their son,” he said in the same stiff voice.
She turned around and shouted into the depths of the house. “There’s someone at the door that says they’re your son!”
Running footsteps sounded, and Benjamin saw his mother’s face over the old woman’s shoulder. She cried out with joy, moved the woman aside, and threw her arms around Benjamin.
“Thank God you’re here at last. You should have let me send the motor for you.” She pulled him inside.
Benjamin removed his coat and left it on a chair, and then his mother pulled him across the hall. She paused to speak curtly to the woman still standing at the door, looking on. “Bring tea to the drawing room.” She shut the door and then led him, or rather pulled him, to the settee by the fire.
“You look thin, Benjamin. Aren’t they feeding you in the Army?”
“I’ve been kept too busy to eat, Mother.”
“I would say I’d fatten you up, but there’s so little food available nowadays. The most important thing is that you’re home at last. Your father will be home soon, and then we’ll dine.”
She smiled, and for a second Benjamin imagined everything was the same as always. When the haggard old peasant woman brought the tea and left, Benjamin paused before he spoke. �
��I don’t remember that woman being here before.”
“We took her on after you left. Most of the other servants went on strike and never came back. The only servants left to us are the cook, my lady’s maid, a valet, and the chauffeur. French and British nationals like ourselves.”
His mother sighed and fidgeted with the collar of her dress. She poured a cup of tea and handed it to him. Benjamin noticed that suddenly she became nervous, checking the clock and looking back at him, as if she wanted to say something that she couldn’t put into words. “Is there something wrong, Mother?”
“Yes, there is, and I’m afraid your father may be home soon and I’ll never have a chance to have this talk with you.”
“Well why not say it quickly before he does get here?”
His mother reached out and took Benjamin’s hands in her own. “Are your feelings for Sergei the same as his for you?”
Benjamin felt at a complete loss for words. He didn’t think his mother even knew about such feelings between men. He struggled to find something to say, but she went on.
“I’ll wager it shocks you that I know about such things, but you’re not the first man with those feelings in this family. Your uncle… well, we’ll talk about him later. Your father already suspects. That’s why he forbade Sergei to have any contact with you, but I don’t think that’s fair. You’re a man now, and you love who you love.”
“Thank you for understanding, Mother. That means a lot to me.”
Benjamin managed a shy smile, and Hazel squeezed his hand tightly.
When Simon returned, he welcomed his son home. He pulled Benjamin away to his study, speaking to Hazel over his shoulder. “Benjamin and I are going to have a man-to-man chat. Send that peasant to fetch us when dinner is ready.”
“Simon dear, he hasn’t been home but a short while, so don’t wear him out too much with your politics,” Hazel called back to him.
Simon closed the door on her final words, and father and son sat down facing the small fire.
“Would you like a brandy, Benjamin?”
“I would rather have whisky.”
“That’s almost impossible to get nowadays—unobtainable, like almost everything else,” Simon replied very sharply.
“Forget it. Now, what do you want to chat with me about? Surely, not about the state of Russia or the Western Front—you can get that from newspapers or the War Office. What do you really want to say to me, Father?”“
“Well, since you want me to get right to the point…. I welcomed Captain Breselov into this house because he’s a soldier and you saved his life, but I suspect there’s just a little more to your relationship. Am I correct in my assumption?”
His father sat in his chair and stared at Benjamin. For the first time, Benjamin noticed his father’s eyes were cold. Benjamin didn’t know what answer to make, but he had never lied to his father. He took a deep breath and prepared himself.
“There’s nothing untoward going on, Father. Sergei and I are friends, and we exchange letters.”
“I can only imagine the things you discuss between you in those letters.” Simon Carter frowned
“There’s nothing about the contents that’s wrong or distasteful. We talk about the war like everyone else.”
“You write about your feelings, too, I suppose? I’m just happy your mother doesn’t know about your correspondence.”
“How do you know how Mother would react? Have you ever discussed this with her?”
“I don’t believe this is a proper subject for a woman, but let’s leave her out of this. We’re talking about you and your friendship with Sergei.”
“Sergei is a soldier and a man of honor. If you’re thinking we’ve had sexual contact, then you would be sorely mistaken, Father,” Benjamin snapped and sat back. He folded his arms and waited for his father to fire the next barb.
“I know this isn’t either of your faults. Nature has twisted you into this. I shouldn’t have fought as hard as I did to keep you from the trenches. That would’ve made a man of you.”
“Hold on one moment, Father. There’s nothing twisted or abnormal about me or about whom I choose to love. Not that I love Sergei. He’s my friend, and if I want to write letters—”
“He’s a friend that would land you in prison if the authorities should get suspicious.”
“That sounds like a threat, Father, but there’s nothing in our relationship that’s disgusting or anything else.”
Simon didn’t answer at first, and then he finally said, “Then you both might be convicted as spies or worse, should your notes to one another fall into the hands of the authorities and contain details of military matters that could fall into enemy hands, or even talk about this so-called revolution. Well, now you’re here in Petrograd for a month, I suspect you’ll be busy with embassy functions I have arranged to distract you from entertaining any thoughts about seeking out Sergei.”
“I don’t wish to be rude under your roof, Father, but I am twenty-two years old now and old enough to make my own decisions. I will see whomever I choose while I’m here in Petrograd.”
“So you are, but if you see Sergei again, I will notify the proper authorities, and on your return to duty, you may well find yourself in prison.”
Simon got up from his seat, took a cigar out of its box, and lit it, the match illuminating his face. He puffed and blew the smoke over his head. The entire time he continued to glare across the room at his son.
Benjamin wanted to storm out of the house and stalk into the streets of Petrograd in search of Sergei, but fatigue from the journey and this interaction with his father caught up with him. The clock on the mantel was unusually loud.
The tension burst like a bubble when his mother walked in, without knocking, to announce that dinner was ready.
Chapter 12
SERGEI ONCE again assisted a drunken Petr back to the workers’ hotel after another highly charged meeting at one of the Vyborg district works that manufactured shells for the war effort. Sergei, Petr, and over five hundred workers from other factories succeeded in getting their fellow workers to join them and walk off the job. The police and the military were called out, but in the end, they also joined the demonstration and laid down their weapons.
Sergei laid Petr on the bed and pulled the ragged wool blanket over his friend’s body. Petr tried to pull Sergei down on top of him for a kiss, but Sergei, being the stronger of the two, resisted, and after a couple of drunken pleas, Petr was out again. Sergei left him, and he went alone to a room down the hall.
He sat, raised his legs, and stretched them across the foot of the bed. Outside the ice-covered windows, he heard shouts, random gunfire, and running feet pounding through the snow. He tried to read by the light of an oil lamp, but the street sounds distracted him so he could only reread the same paragraph. Giving up on reading, he threw the book onto the table. He stood, paced the room, and thought about Benjamin. Mrs. Carter had told him that Benjamin would return in February. Sergei had to find a way to get a note to Benjamin and see him.
“When I see him, I’m going to tell him my feelings. That I love him, and he has to know that.” He spoke out loud.
He laughed and pulled on his overcoat, then walked out of the room and closed the door.
At the bottom of the stairs, he stood for a second to watch the desk clerk break up a chair and throw the pieces into the fireplace. Wood, like food, was in short supply, and Sergei noticed the lobby furnishings disappearing piece by piece. He exchanged a smile with the desk clerk and walked out into the street.
Sergei didn’t bother reading the banners people carried through the streets. He already knew what they said: Revolution, Strikes, End the War…. He traveled by the side streets to avoid the crowds crying out for revolution. He’d heard all those cries, too, so he didn’t bother to listen. He paused at the bridge across the Neva River, ignored the motorcars and the bitter cold, and looked silently down at the footprints and sleigh tracks crisscrossing the heavy co
ating of ice that wouldn’t melt until the spring.
He wanted nothing more right now than to walk to the Carter home, knock at the heavy door, and ask for Benjamin. Hazel Carter would graciously welcome him, but Simon Carter might well telephone the police and have him arrested as a dangerous revolutionary. The thought made him laugh. He’d never considered himself any kind of radical. Walking away from the Army because, like so many other soldiers, he’d had enough mud, blood, and defeat was one thing, but to depose the tsar—he didn’t want that. He owed him some loyalty, since it was Nicholas II who’d ordered him put on that train, and the tsar who’d brought Benjamin into his life.
Looking downriver he asked himself silently, What will history say of this revolution? Is it all worth it? Silence answered him. He didn’t even hear Petr’s voice explaining Marxist theory—nothing but wind whistling around the girders of the bridge. Sergei stood straight and continued walking.
BENJAMIN SAT on the side of the dance floor at the British Embassy. He found it hard to believe people danced to the latest music and crowded the buffet while so many on the streets of Petrograd starved. Across the room, he felt his father’s cold eyes on him, mentally berating him for not dancing. His mother’s support surprised Benjamin, and due to her he was in contact with Sergei. She told him about the hotel where Sergei lived in the factory district across the Neva, but she advised that it wouldn’t be wise to seek out this hotel until the political situation sorted itself out. If ever, she’d told him bitterly.
He’d found a dance partner, if only for appearance’s sake, but he couldn’t face another dance, so he walked out of the ballroom, seeking refuge on the snow-covered balcony outside. It was freezing, and he wore no heavy coat, but he didn’t really mind the cold. Somewhere across Petrograd, Sergei was no doubt at this very moment thinking about him, and Benjamin stretched a hand out across the city, as if Sergei could reach out and touch him.
