Blood Red Snow White

by Marcus Sedgwick

  “Indeed. I have bad news. There has been another outbreak of fighting on the Estonian front. The fighting is spreading south. Your journey out may be harder than the journey you made to get here. But we will do what we can.”

  * * *

  Then we left, by train, and at first all was well.

  We made a slow but comfortable journey of four hundred miles through the day and overnight to Rejitsa, and then on the following day to Korsovka, though this time we sat on the floor of a freezing cattle truck, huddled around a small fire.

  At Korsovka we were handed over to the Commissar, where we had a basic but welcome lunch of soup and bread. The Commissar was grave-faced.

  “The fighting is everywhere,” he said. “To and fro, we capture a village, then the Whites take it back. There is no telling where you will be best to go. All I can say is that if you do run into any trouble, sit tight in the first cottage you see and wait to be captured by the Whites.”

  And hope they don’t find out who Evgenia is, I thought.

  He gave us two carts, one driven by a small boy in which we put all our luggage, and one driven by a gloomy old militiaman, who seemed convinced we were heading into certain death.

  We trundled out of Korsovka, into the unknown. The boy and I walked at the side of the horse, while Evgenia sat on our luggage. No one spoke.

  I’d found Evgenia, true, but we were not safe yet. With every step we moved a little way forward, but I didn’t know whether it was one more step toward safety, or danger.

  We made our way along forest tracks, deeply rutted and frozen solid. The trees reached silently toward us on all sides, opening out into a clearing here and there, and our carts rumbled on.

  Then we heard firing. It was impossible to tell where the shots were coming from, but they sounded distant. There was nothing to do but go on.

  We saw no one, but then, long after the shots we’d heard, we saw men running low through the trees. They emerged onto the track ahead of us, and then ran back the way we had come, taking no notice of us at all.

  We went on, and another mile or so later we saw a farmhouse up ahead. Outside was a group of people, not soldiers, but peasants. As we came up, I called to them.

  “Do you know where the front is?”

  They stared at us, and then one of them pointed. Back the way we had come.

  At this, the old militiaman turned his cart around, and sped away hell for leather, for home. I looked at the young boy leading our cart. He was chewing on a piece of straw, which he spun from one side of his mouth to the other. I feared for him; he had no business risking his life for ours.

  “And you,” I said, “do you want to run for home, too?”

  He shook his head.

  “I have brothers on both sides,” he said, “I’m happy in either place.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I was relieved by that, but the peasants looked at us less happily. They were in no man’s land, in a civil war. If they were caught sheltering Reds …

  “We are on our way to Marienhausen,” I said. “Do you know the way? Is it far? Perhaps we could ask you for some tea before we go on.”

  There were five men, and an old woman. They regarded us suspiciously, but the old woman spoke.

  “Yes, we can make some tea.”

  She led the way into the farmhouse, and we found it was a single large room, dark inside, but beautifully warm; a fat stove roared away. Two small children saw us come in, and ran to hide behind a hefty chair next to the fire. From there they gazed at us as we took out our own samovar to make tea.

  Without removing her headscarf, the old woman bustled around the kitchen. Our boy grew brave, and sat himself next to the stove. The children peered around the chair at him, and for a moment I was transported to a different Russia, one that I had made myself, in a book of fairy tales.

  Now in no man’s land, we could expect that the next soldiers we saw would be White, and I decided to get rid of anything that might endanger us. I opened the door to the stove and fed into it all the passes, letters of safe conduct and every scrap of paper from Moscow, while our samovar came to a boil on top. The old woman watched me, and then looked at our samovar, the fine silver piece with my initials on the side. She caught me looking at her, smiled, and looked away.

  I heard a voice outside, and saw one of the men looking through the window at me. I thought nothing of it, but then heard raised voices. They grew louder.

  The woman cast anxious glances at us, then went outside, where her voice joined the others.

  “He is burning papers!”

  “He is a spy.”

  “They are both spies. He is English.”

  “But the English are on our side.”

  “Whose side? We have no sides.”

  “Tell that to the soldiers when they come.”

  “And anyway, she is Russian.”

  I looked at Evgenia, who came over to me.

  “What shall we do?”

  Then I heard something that made me want to be sick.

  “Let’s hang them now, to be sure.”

  I stood up quickly, and accidentally knocked the samovar over. The old woman must have heard the noise, because she came rushing back inside.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We’re sorry.”

  We set about helping her clear up the mess, when I realized what to do. We had walked into a fairy tale. In fairy tales, there are always tests that must be passed. Challenges to survive. This was one such challenge, and we had to pass it. As in a fairy tale, it was time to cross the old woman’s palm with silver.

  I winked at Evgenia and then glanced at our precious little samovar. She understood.

  “Kind lady,” she said, “we have troubled you and we should be on our way. Won’t you let us leave you the samovar as a gift for your kindness? It is small, but it’s very good.”

  The old woman was not stupid, she could see what it was worth, never mind its charm. She took it from us eagerly.

  We got our things together and were about to leave when the men burst in. But we saw that we had passed the test, because the woman shouted at them and scolded them for their wicked thoughts and inside a minute had sent them scuttling to get our horse ready again.

  * * *

  We went on toward Marienhausen, with only the silence of the forest and the tramp of the horse’s hooves for company. Evgenia and I hardly spoke. I put my hand on her knee as I walked beside the cart, but she didn’t look down. Her eyes stared into the distance, down the track, and I knew what she was thinking. She was wondering what lay ahead of us; in the forest, and beyond, in the future.

  “Are you cold?” I asked as the day wore on.

  “No,” she said, smiling, but I could see she was freezing.

  “Walk for a bit,” I suggested. “It’ll warm you up.”

  * * *

  A few more miles along the road and we heard the beat of a galloping horse, and then a horseman came into view. We had no idea whose side he was on, but there was a rifle slung across his back.

  “Keep walking,” I said to Evgenia and the boy.

  The horseman approached, and then to our horror we heard horses behind us. Another twenty or so riders surrounded us before we knew what was happening. Still, I had no idea whose side they were on; they were a motley collection of civil war irregulars, with no uniforms. That gave me an idea. If I didn’t know who they were, it stood to reason they didn’t know who I was, and I was still wearing my Tsarist officer’s greatcoat, after all.

  I turned to the nearest man, and fairly barked at him, sounding as angry as I could.

  “Have you got an officer with you?”

  There was a shaking of heads and I saw my bluff might actually work.

  “Are you going to Marienhausen?” I roared, again, trying to seem as disgusted as I could with them.

  “Exactly so,” one of them said, adding quickly, “Your Excellency.”

  The coat was doing its job.

  “And is th
ere an officer in Marienhausen?”

  “No, sir, not at present.”

  Excellent news.

  “So, on with you, and tell them I am coming! Get rooms ready for my wife and I, and for the boy. We leave in the morning.”

  23

  “ARTHUR,” EVGENIA WHISPERED TO ME. “What have you done?”

  She had a point, but I didn’t like to admit it. The bluff had worked so far.

  At Marienhausen we had been welcomed as an officer should be. I had been invited to inspect the gang of irregulars holding the garrison, an unlikely bunch with half a uniform and about four rifles between them; the other men holding pitchforks and hoes for dear life.

  With trepidation I learned that the regular White soldiers, and their officer, had left only that morning, leaving this lot behind in the charge of an old noncommissioned officer from Tsarist days.

  This had worked in our favor, for he had a strong sense of the deference due a superior, and so we had eaten well and were now sleeping, or trying to sleep, in the old fellow’s bed which he had given up for us.

  “We ride out at six,” I said, before turning in. “Have the horse ready and see the boy is fed.”

  Now Evgenia and I lay awake, staring at the painted wooden ceiling, trying to ignore the fact there were things moving in the mattress, expecting to hear a crash of boots on the stairs at any time, and feel a noose around our necks a moment later.

  “It’s all right,” I said, as much to convince myself, as her. “This is a fairy tale. We’re in a fairy tale, and we both know how to live in fairy tales. If we do the right things, say the right things, it will save us.”

  “Oh, Arthur, will you ever live in the real world?”

  “I will,” I said, quietly, “we will. Once we find a place to call home. In the meantime all we have to do is keep living the fairy tale. We are a White nobleman and his wife fleeing to the safety of Reval, and if we keep calm and don’t seem too eager to get away, it’ll be all right.”

  * * *

  It seemed I was right. In the morning we went downstairs to find breakfast and our horse waiting for us. Our boy was very cheerful and said he couldn’t remember when he’d had so much to eat.

  One of the soldiers came over to me.

  “I was thinking,” he said, “how are things on the other side? With the Reds?”

  I shrugged. I had to pretend to know nothing of them.

  “Hungry and cold,” I said, “like us, I suppose.”

  The soldier nodded.

  “I feel sorry for them. They are just like us. Just people. We are given food and guns by the English. I don’t understand why we aren’t at peace with them. Why can’t the English make us all make peace?”

  The temptation to tell him that one Englishman very close to him was trying to help them make peace was very great, but I resisted. In a fairy tale a foolish tongue can cost its owner much pain.

  Our luggage was piled in again and we set off once more, though not without huge relief that the second test was over. The irregular soldiers I had been able to fool; I knew it would not be so easy to talk our way past the real thing, should we meet them.

  It wasn’t long before we did, but I shouldn’t have been surprised; I should have known there had to be the third and final test, or the fairy tale wouldn’t have been complete.

  * * *

  It was a fiercely bright morning, but the sun had no strength in it, no warmth. At least we had managed to take an extra blanket or two from the garrison, and Evgenia was firmly wrapped up on top of our bags.

  I was walking beside the boy, chatting, trying to stamp some warmth into my feet as I went, when we saw a long column of cavalry riding toward us.

  White Army men, with a group of officers riding at the head of the column.

  “Arthur!” Evgenia called from the cart. “What now? What do we do?”

  At last, our luck had run out.

  As they came within a few yards of us, I opened my mouth to speak, but could think of nothing to say, or do. I would fail the test.

  A rider at the front broke away from the others and galloped toward us. With my heart in my mouth I stepped forward to meet him, and raised an arm.

  He lifted his arm, I thought to wield his sword, but a second later he pulled up in front of me, waving.

  “Ha! I thought it was you,” he said.

  I looked at the young officer, who dismounted and came to shake my hand.

  “Don’t you recognize me?”

  There was something familiar about him, it was true. Then, laughing, he hid his moustache with two fingers.

  “Better?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I remember. We met in Galicia, during the war? Yes? Where was it?”

  “Tarnopol.”

  “Tarnopol! That’s it. You’re the chess player.”

  At last it came back to me. I’d been down at the Galician front, early in the war, reporting for the News. I’d met him then and discovered he played chess. We’d had a game in the middle of the field kitchens and tents, the chaos of the camp all around us. That day I’d been lucky, and just as he seemed about to beat me, I’d inflicted a smothered mate on him, a sore defeat.

  He’d challenged me to another game, but we’d been disturbed even as we set up the pieces, and never played it.

  “Now,” he said, laughing, “you can tell me what on earth you’re doing here, and we can have that other game of chess.”

  * * *

  There it was, the third test, passed.

  But not without one last lesson on how to live in a fairy tale, this time from Evgenia.

  Time had not improved the officer’s chess skills. Maybe he’d never had the chance to play a single game since that day in Tarnopol, maybe he’d suffered in the war. Whatever the reason, I was beating him easily, and he was getting agitated. When I took his second rook his agitation became anger and he swore at himself.

  I looked up to see Evgenia, who’d been watching us play, standing behind him. She fixed my gaze, and then mouthed one word at me.

  “Lose,” she said, and I understood. There was a war we were fighting, but this chess match was not it. We needed his help.

  But how to do it? Cautiously. It wouldn’t do at all to make it too obvious. I let a pawn go and then my queen’s knight. I pretended to get flustered and made a couple of reckless moves. Then I showed him my queen and he finished me off in three moves.

  He was delighted.

  “Ha!” he cried. “I thought you had me, but now we are even. One game all. Shall we play a decider?”

  “No,” I said, smiling. “I think we should wait another three years before we play again. And we must get going. We have to get to Reval.”

  He stood and saluted me, and then lifted and kissed Evgenia’s hand.

  “Of course. You will have everything it is in my power to give. We have an officer’s railway car on the siding. It is yours when the next train leaves for Reval. I will arrange for the car to join the train. I’m afraid it has cockroaches in it, but it is yours to use.”

  24

  IT WAS OVER.

  We, Evgenia and I, and the cockroaches, rolled through the Estonian countryside in style, such style as we’d not seen since Lockhart’s final party in Moscow, so long ago.

  We got to Reval with ease and promptly collapsed, from exhaustion, illness or worry, I don’t know which, but one day, I woke up in our beautiful room at the Golden Lion Hotel, and knew that we’d won. We’d won our own little war, to be together, and nothing would ever stop us from being together again.

  1942—CONISTON

  The years slipped away.

  I sit by the fire, and gaze at the empty chair across from me, and listen to the call of the geese down at the water. The shotgun roars, again. It reminds me that the world is at war once more, but I am too old for all that now, too old.

  We never were apart again, we never were. Not in all those years.

  And later, I wrote, and I wrote furiously,
not about men and war, but about children and adventure, and it did my heart good to do it, and maybe, just maybe, it healed the scar left by what happened with Tabitha. I created some children who I would never lose, who would never walk away from me, or be taken. And who I could never walk away from either, for good or bad.

  * * *

  There’s a noise from the kitchen and the door opens. Genia comes in with a tray and sits down in the empty chair.

  I thought we’d have some tea, she says, in her English still with that dreamy Russian accent. Even now her voice can take me back all those years, to Petrograd, a city that changed its name once more, in honor of the little man with a small and excellent beard, who changed Russia forever. For better, or for worse. These days they call it Leningrad. This new war has brought soldiers to its door again, and it suffers a terrible siege that I cannot imagine, but I am done with such things. I left politics behind long ago, and I was glad of it.

  I often wonder to myself how little we understand our lives, even when we’ve had the time to pick over the fallen leaves. And if we know so little about our own lives, what does anyone else ever know? All they see is a scant biography, read in a hurry and half forgotten, as memorable as a footprint in a puddle.

  So I forgot politics and soon, politics forgot me.

  * * *

  I sailed instead. We had a boat built. A small one, but then another, much larger. And then a yacht. We sailed the Baltic from east to west and back. One day, we pulled in at an island off the coast of Estonia, a tiny place, that couldn’t have changed in a hundred years or more. We had repairs to make to the boat and we found a boat builder. While he worked, I asked him if he’d suffered much during the war.

  War? he said. Was there a war?

  It made me smile to hear that.

  * * *

  We’re nearly out of tea, Evgenia says. Then, Look what I found in the back of the cupboard.

  She pulls out something we’ve both not seen in years. A small case, a strange one, dark green leather, with crimson straps. I remember when I first saw it, pushed across the desk to me, and then we laugh as we remember the next time I saw it, the day we unpacked in Reval, and it fell out of Evgenia’s luggage.