And he felt it too. It may have been the whiskey, the talk, or the late hour, but whatever the reason, by the end of the evening he felt like a brother to these men. He had never felt this way before, not even to his own brothers. They were all comrades in the struggle. He would’ve done anything for them. So, when Zolman told them about their plan to break into a police warehouse to steal guns and asked for their help, Morris agreed without a moment ’s hesitation. Pavel agreed too. Afterward he joined in when the flask was passed around even though he didn’t particularly like whiskey.
PAVEL FELT nothing but disgust for Morris when he came into his room on the morning of the break-in and found him lying in sweat-soaked sheets, his face flushed with a high fever, his hair plastered to his forehead, and a deep rumbling in his chest whenever he took a breath. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance for the malingerer.
Morris opened his eyes and with some effort managed to focus them on his friend. “Pneumonia,” he whispered. He was propped up on pillows to make it easier to breathe. His room was a study in gloom. The heavy curtains were shut and the only light came from a small lamp on a table beside the bed. There was a white enamel inhaler beside the lamp emitting a lazy trail of steam out of its funnel that smelled of eucalyptus oil.
Pavel pursed his lips and shook his head. “For God’s sakes, Morris. I know what this is about. You don’t want to go tonight. All right, so we won’t go. You don’t have to put on this show.”
“I’m sick, Pavel. Ask my doctor. I’m running a high fever.”
He snorted. “Right.”
A coughing spasm caught him by surprise and when it was over he lay back on the pillows, panting for breath, wiping his hands on the sheets.
Pavel’s lip curled up in disgust. “Can’t you use a handkerchief ?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, it isn’t pleasant having pneumonia. I may have to go to hospital.”
Pavel looked pained. “Well, what about tonight then?”
“You’re going to have to go it alone.”
“I don’t want to go it alone. It’s goddamn freezing out there.”
“What choice do you have? They need a lookout.”
“They’ll just have to postpone it.”
“They can’t. The guns might be moved any day. You’ll only be a lookout.”
“Only . . .”
“Not much can happen to you. You’ll be standing out on a corner. The others will do the rest. You can’t back out now. I think even you can see that.”
“Even me?”
“You know what I mean.” Morris closed his eyes and lay back.
“Oh fine. You’re really a load of horseshit, Eiger, and I’m never forgiving you for this.”
“I know,” he said with a faint smile.
That night Pavel waited out on Potemkinskaya, down in the factory section, hoping that Zolman and the others wouldn’t show up. It was so cold that the snot froze in his nose and it hurt to breathe. He was standing in front of an old factory building across the street from the police warehouse. The factory was deserted, with missing windows like broken teeth and a front door secured with a flimsy padlock. It used to be a textile mill. He could see that by the likeness of a loom carved into the lintel over the doorway.
Although it was a snowy night with an icy wind blowing in off the river, there was some light coming from the Nicholas Sugar Refinery located at the eastern end of the street. It had one enormous smokestack that belched flames and burning cinders into the black sky, and the yard was lit because the refinery doors were open. As he stood on the corner trying to see the hands on his pocket watch, knowing that it was late and hoping that it was called off, an electric tram rumbled by, pulling cartloads of beetroots on the icy tracks in the middle of the road. He watched the tram pull into the refinery yard, where he could see men silhouetted against the light of the open doorway. When the tram had come to a stop, the men tilted the carts to spill the tubers out in the snow and started loading them onto a conveyor belt.
Looking down the other way, he saw Zolman and the others walking toward him out of the flurries. There were two other men with them that he didn’t recognize. One was expensively dressed and seemed out of place like Pavel. The other one was a laborer like the rest. With a pang of regret he walked down to meet them. There was a nod between them, no introductions or explanations, none of the joviality from that night in the tearoom. The new men were older and seemed to be in charge. The shorter of the two, the laborer, the one they called Scharfstein, took Pavel aside and told him where to stand so that he could have a good view of the street and the surrounding buildings. It was on the corner directly across from the police warehouse in front of the deserted factory. Pavel took his sentry post and watched the others cross the street and disappear around the back of the warehouse.
For a while Pavel saw nothing except the whirlwinds of snow and the men working the carts at the refinery. Then, after a short while, he saw the play of electric torch beams through the dark windows of the police warehouse and knew they were inside. He tried to keep his attention on the street. He knew that any trouble would come from down the street, not from the refinery or from the steep ravine behind it, but from the west, from the town, so he kept his eyes mostly in that direction. It was so icy out he began to shiver and curse Morris, blaming him for the cold and the fear that felt like something died in his stomach. After a strong gust of wind drove him back into the doorway of the deserted textile mill, he thought that if Morris survived the pneumonia he would kill him.
He began to take shelter in the doorway. He told himself he would only stay there for a little while. He reassured himself that it would be all right; besides, no one would be out on a night like this. He tried to limit the time he spent in there, but it was such a relief to be out of the wind. He could have stepped inside the building. It would have been easy to pry the padlock off the door. He probably would have done it if he hadn’t heard voices behind him.
At first he thought his comrades were coming back and very nearly hurried out to the street so they wouldn’t know he had abandoned his post. But then he realized the voices weren’t coming from across the street, but from down the block, from the direction of the town. He froze. He peered out from his hiding place and saw two gendarmes coming his way. He jumped back and flattened his body against the wall. His heart was racing. He couldn’t think. His mind was a jumble. He wanted to run to the warehouse, but it was too late for that. Instead he tore off his glove with his teeth thinking that he would whistle. But he was never very good at it and now his lips were numb. In any case, the wind was too loud.
As the two policemen approached, he fell to his knees and held his breath. He could hear the crunch of their feet on the snow and even made out most of their conversation above the wail of the wind. One of them thought he had heard a noise in the warehouse and wanted to investigate. The other wasn’t for it. He argued that they ought to go to the sugar refinery to get warm and have a cup of tea. More was said that Pavel couldn’t hear, but the first one must have prevailed for they never passed him by. When he got up his courage to look out again he could see them crossing the tracks and trudging through the snow up to the warehouse windows. They brushed off the snow and shined their lights inside. Then they went on to the next set of windows and then around to the back.
Pavel waited in the doorway trying to get up the courage to run over to the warehouse and warn the others. At first nothing happened; he thought maybe they had heard the gendarmes and were hiding somewhere inside. Then he heard shouts and a couple of shots and before he knew it he was running blindly up the street toward the refinery, slipping on the ice, catching himself on a rusted beet cart and racing on past the boarded-up shacks and broken-down outbuildings that lined the street. He didn’t stop until he came to the edge of the ravine. Looking over the ledge he saw only a sheer snowy rock face and a black void beneath it. He turned back and this time ran to the refiner
y yard, where the men were still loading the beetroots onto the conveyor belt. Without a word he stooped to join them, piling the roots onto the belt, keeping his head down and ruining his fine calfskin gloves on the dirt that encrusted the tubers.
When the police ran by he looked up with studied unconcern and in doing so caught the eye of the other workers, who were watching him. There were three of them, dirty, careworn faces, wearing patched coats and felt boots. They stopped their work and studied him. Then the one with the raggedy beard took Pavel’s gloves right off his hands. The other one took his fur hat and the last one took his coat. In exchange the flat-faced little man gave Pavel his coat, a filthy assortment of mismatched patches. Pavel took it without a word, and put it on. It was too small. After that the men returned to their work, and Pavel did the same.
He was just beginning to wonder how long he would have to stay there, in the cold, with his back beginning to ache, when a new contingent of police arrived and approached the workers.
“See any suspicious men around here?” asked the captain.
Pavel’s heart began to thump in his chest. The workers shook their heads.
“Some men run past here? Maybe they headed off into the gulley or down over there,” he said, pointing to the edge of the ravine.
A sullen silence.
The captain looked at them and shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Then Pavel saw his eyes flick to the new gloves, to the fur hat and the coat.
“There is a reward, you know.” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the wind.
They looked up.
Pavel’s heart stopped.
“A reward?” asked the one wearing Pavel’s gloves.
“How much?” asked the one wearing his hat.
“Twenty rubles.”
Pavel looked at them, silently pleading with them. But they knew he was a Jew. A Jew owned the corner store. Jews did business with the devil and some even had horns and a tail. The shame of it was that Pavel could’ve easily outbid the police for his life. He could’ve offered them any amount they wanted. But it was too late. His options had just run out and all he could do now was slump down on a pile of roots and watch his end unfold.
Chapter Ten
January 1914
IT WAS nearing dawn and only the members of Berta’s inner circle were left lounging about on the settees and chairs, among the ferns and orchids, with their ties loosened and shirt collars unbuttoned, tiaras and ostrich feathers lying where they had dropped them. Olga and her lover, Valya, were on the floor sitting on cushions. She was using her considerable talents as an artist to paint his toenails. Her bobbed hair fell around her face as she leaned over his bare foot resting in her lap. There was a bottle of nail varnish wobbling precariously on the rug next to her.
“Stay still,” she said impatiently. “How am I supposed to do this if you keep moving?”
“I hope you know this is ridiculous.”
“Oh, stop being so dull.”
“It’s going to spill.”
“It’s not going to spill. Not if you stay still and let me ply my trade.”
“You’ve already got it on your dress.”
“Olga . . .” Berta said with annoyance. “Do you have to?” She was standing by the window watching the horizon turn from black to a deep blue. She had been expecting Hershel to walk through the door all evening. He told her that he had to go out and wouldn’t be home for her salon. Still, she didn’t expect him to stay out all night.
“I’m almost done,” Olga replied. “But he keeps moving.”
“I’m not moving. You’re drunk.”
“I am not drunk.”
“Yes, you are. It’s so like you to think that it’s the world that’s swaying and not your own body. She’s drunk,” announced Valya to the assembled. “Let the world know that the great painter and love of my life, Olga Nikolaevna,” he took her chin in his hand and leaned over to kiss her lips, “is nothing but a common drunk.”
Valentin Guseva was stretched out on the sofa, his arm thrown back supporting his head, his girlish mouth plump and slightly open. Across from him on a matching sofa was Aleksandra Dmitrievna, bundled up in a blanket, her arm resting on a pillow beside her, the rings on her fat fingers winking in the firelight. Yuvelir was seated in a chair at the edge of their little circle with his bare feet propped up on a hassock. His toenails were painted purple.
Valya looked down at his blood red toenails and wiggled his toes. “I actually do like them.”
Olga laughed. “Told you,” she said triumphantly. “And you put up such a fuss. You never listen to me.”
“I always listen to you. I have no choice. You never stop talking.”
She ran the brush up from his toe to his ankle, leaving a line of varnish on his leg. “Olga!” he said, pulling his leg back.
“Yes, my darling?” she said feigning innocence.
“Such a child.” He took out a handkerchief and tried to wipe off the varnish, but it smeared all over the hair on his legs.
“I’m bored. What should we do now?” Yuvelir said.
“Something fun,” said Olga, returning the brush to the bottle with the deliberate concentration of a drunk. “Something dangerous and morally reprehensible. Maybe we should kidnap someone.”
“Who shall we kidnap?” asked Yuvelir with growing interest.
“Someone helpless. Someone who couldn’t put up much of a fight. A child perhaps. I know, a Christian child. We’ll make matzos out of his blood. Berta will show us how.”
Berta turned back from the window. “You seriously think that’s funny, Olga?”
“We’re just having fun, zaichik. Don’t be such a sourpuss.”
Berta wandered back to the little circle and took a seat. “It’s late. I want to go to bed.”
“Why don’t we all go to bed?” said Yuvelir. “I’m sure there’s one around here big enough for all of us.”
“Now that’s an idea,” said Olga, standing and stretching her little body and nearly falling over.
“Even for me?” asked Alix. She had persuaded Lenya to go home without her. Now she could stay up with the young people and get into all kinds of mischief and he couldn’t do a thing to stop her.
“No, not for you, maya krasavitsa,” said Valentin with a yawn. “You’re much too refined for that.”
“You mean old and fat,” she replied glumly.
Berta was bored with her friends and wished they’d go home. She wanted to go to sleep. She wanted Hershel by her side, safe and warm in their bed. She wanted him to curl up behind her and wrap his arm around her waist.
It had been three weeks since she found the pistols in Hershel’s office and since then everything had changed. Now she was always on edge, anxiously awaiting the next calamity. He had tried to reassure her, telling her that it was only the one time, a favor for a friend, but she didn’t believe him, not really. She kept hearing boots on the front steps and watched for the Okhranka at the door. She couldn’t sleep and when she did she had nightmares of blue men galloping across frozen landscapes.
“I know,” Olga said with a childish clap of her hands. She ran to the drapes and pulled off the tieback cord. “I’ll go and hide and whoever finds me can tie me up and do whatever they want to my body.”
Yuvelir said, “Now, that’s a wonderful idea.”
“Yes, I’m all for it,” Valentin chimed in.
“I thought you only played that game with me,” Valya said sulkily. He wasn’t having much luck with the varnish.
“Tryn-trava, darling,” Olga said with a wave of her hand.
Berta hated that phrase. Loosely translated, it meant that everything was going to hell anyway, so what did it matter? But it did matter. Her life mattered; her family and home mattered. They mattered very much.
“It’s late,” she said to the others. “It’s time for all of you to go home. I’ll call a cab.”
“Oh, don’t be like th
at. We’re just having fun. You could hide with me,” said Olga.
“Doesn’t sound like much fun to me,” Alix said, rolling over and pulling the blanket up over her shoulders.
Yuvelir said to Berta, “I’d find you first, I promise. You wouldn’t have to bother with these lice.” He nodded in Valentin’s direction.
“I’m not playing your stupid game,” Berta replied. “I’m tired and I want to go to sleep.”
“Then we’ll just have to play without you,” said Valentin.
Olga said, “Yes, we’re very sorry, Berta, my sweet. But we won’t let you kick us out. We’re here to stay. It ’s for your own good. We can’t let you waste your life sleeping away your days.” With that she grabbed the cord and ran from the room shouting, “Give me to the count of thirty. No fair cheating. Count to thirty.”
Yuvelir and Valentin counted out loud in unison, then ignored her wishes, skipped to thirty, and ran after her. Valya sat back on the cushions and looked over at Berta with half-closed eyes. “I’ve played that game one too many times with her. Now, if you were to play . . .”
Berta shot him a look and walked back to the window. She could see fragments of the cold dawn through a jumbled tracery of ice crystals on the window. The tracks from the sleds were nearly obliterated by the last of the storm. The only evidence of her guests’ comings and goings were faint definitions under the new snow in the road.
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