The Rift

by H Schmidt

  ---

  Fedor Riezler could not believe what he was being told. His orders from the Cheka were to leave the lieutenant alone. The problem which the American had with Kerensky was of no concern to the Council of People’s Commissars. While the Americans were opposed to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, they were still interested in finding a means to drive a wedge between the Germans and the new Soviet government, and such an interest could prove useful. Already, the French were providing rubles to help Trotsky build the Red Army; perhaps the Americans could be counted on for some assistance, as well. The new government had let it be known that their actions should not be construed as shutting the door to future deal making. Demanding the deportation of Lieutenant Housman would serve no useful purpose, and would strain relationships which the Party had no interest in doing.

  His anger increased when he recalled the first rebuke by Zinoviev in the spring of last year. Riezler still believed he had been correct in considering him a serious threat then, but now something more personal drove him. He had taken the woman he loved. Somehow, he had turned her against him. He had always done what the Party had told him. He had always believed that the Party must demand that everyone obey the Party. He had killed for the Party for that reason. Now, he knew he could no longer obey the Party. He had tried once to hurt the lieutenant. He had made one mistake. He had asked someone do what he should have taken care of himself.

  Four people had returned to Petrograd one week ago. Only one moves about Petrograd. Three are hiding somewhere in the city. Anna; if he could find Anna, he could win her back. He knew she was angry for what he had asked her to do, because he had beaten her. But she would understand once he had a chance to explain that he did what he did for the Party. He still loved her and needed her. He beat her, not because he despised her, but because she made him angry by refusing to understand the importance of doing what she was told. She could never be a part of his life until she learned that. Why couldn’t she understand that? At night, when he was all alone, he would curse his weakness. Why could he not forget her? There are other women. More than ever, women saw the men in the Party as the new national heroes. He tried but he could not.

  He thought about how he would find her. He had inquired of the men watching Count Tsereteli whether they had seen his daughter. He had done the same of the men watching Count Voravskii. There was one man who would know. A man considered the enemy of the people, a man who had sucked the blood of the Russian people since he arrived on their soil. Carson--he needed to find Richard Carson.

  ---

  Captain Trepov watched the bands of soldier-peasants returning from the front, abandoning their units and returning to their small pieces of land. He had ridden out to talk to these men, telling them that their lands would be taken away by the Bolsheviks, that they would burn their churches and kill their priests. He told them the freedom they had been promised was a lie, that the Bolsheviks would take their freedom and turn them into slaves. He could not know that these things were true; but the peasants were simple men who loved their land and their church. Who could tell them in their time of suffering and disillusionment that the czar loved them as his children? Who could make them understand that socialism without God was a promise of a heaven that did not exist? No, you tell them things they can understand.

  The young officer felt alone. While Alekseev and Kornilov talked of Russia and the Constituent Assembly, Yuri Trepov dreamed of a Russia blessed by God, presided over by the czar, run by the czar’s vassals who held to a code of honor that assured that the children of Russia prosper and be protected. As he rode beside the peasants, they would seldom stop to listen. They had heard nothing but words since they had been sent to war. They were tired of words now. They only cared about seeing their wives and children, of plowing the earth and harvesting their grain. Some would laugh among themselves, thinking the young man mad.

  Still, the captain, whose uniform had begun to fray, would talk to the men, calling on them to join him against the wicked Bolsheviks. Once, a huge man with a great beard turned upon the captain, causing his horse to rear on its hind legs.

  “Enough,” he shouted. “We have heard enough. Leave us be. Let the men here return to their villages. Have you not done enough?”

  The young officer looked into the gleaming eyes of the huge peasant and wondered if he had not gone mad. He turned his horse, and talked to the two old men who had stayed to listen. He looked at their bent bodies and the weary eyes. They would be no use to him, anyway. He glanced again at the peasant who was still watching him.

  He sighed. “Please, go home to your families. They need you.”

  At the end of the cold winter day, none of the men who had passed on the road near the village where he camped had agreed to join him. He thought of tomorrow when he would try again. Perhaps the village priest could help him.

  ---

  The brazier glowed but offered little heat to Merriweather as he sat across the table from Fedor Riezler. Though Riezler was much smaller than Merriweather, the large man was afraid. This is a man he knew had killed others. He knew now he had ordered the attack on Housman. Before he sat down, Riezler had turned his back on his guest and walked slowly to the door. He closed it, pulling at the knob, then setting the latch. Shivering uncontrollably, Merriweather could feel the sweat slide down his rib cage. He could not know that Riezler’s behavior was for the benefit of his guest. Riezler had made a habit of behaving this way when he was about to question someone. It brought them under his control, he thought. When he would return to them, they seemed mesmerized by him, ready to tell him things.

  As he sat, he pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his breast pocket, lighting one and inhaling deeply, then turning his head toward the ceiling and clearing his lungs. Only then did he look at the American.

  “Many American capitalists think the ocean can save them from the revolution, Mr. Merriweather. Only a few such as you know that it has already begun there. It will not be long before the Party is as strong in America as it is in Russia. Did you know that?” The wiry Pole looked at Merriweather, seeing his discomfort. “When were you last in America, Mr. Merriweather?”

  “It has been two years this month.”

  “When you return, you will find the workers no longer pay attention to such men as Samuel Gompers, who is a tool of the capitalists. They look to men like the martyr Joe Hill and to Big Bill Haywood. Many of the members of the Party who were forced to flee after the 1905 revolution have joined the unions in America. They are educating the union leaders not to be lackeys of the owners.” Reginald Merriweather found he was having trouble focusing on the man across the table, whose eyes behind the steel-rimmed glasses seemed to fix themselves on his. Riezler looked at the frightened man and willed himself to hide his contempt. Such men can be useful. You must be careful how you use them. “Men like yourself will be needed, Mr. Merriweather. People who have been born into the class that exploits the workers in America but who have demonstrated their sympathy for our cause.” He knew what the answer to the next question would be. “I am correct that you sympathize with the miserable conditions of the workers in America, am I not?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Merriweather did agree with Riezler. He knew nothing about the conditions of most workers in America, but he remembered how he and his friends at Harvard had created a world full of misery, discrimination and exploitation. He found appealing attacks on such men as Samuel Gompers, who insisted labor unions should focus on improving the working conditions and pay of their workers. He liked the sweeping condemnations of America of Haywood and Hill.

  The preparation had been easy. Merriweather would simply fall in line, like most of the soft-headed bourgeoisie. “There are Americans who do not believe like you. There are Americans who would like to destroy the revolution in Russia. Do you agree, Mr. Merriweather?”

  Merriweather thought of the lieutenant. He was not positive how Housman felt, but he wanted to believe that such men a
re enemies of a better world.

  “Yes, the industrialists and the bankers in America are openly critical of the Bolsheviks. Others are influenced by these people.” He did not feel so cold now and was not so afraid of the man in the room with him.

  “We think there are certain members of the embassy who are working for the counterrevolutionaries.” Merriweather sensed the change in Riezler’s voice as he spoke about the danger from Americans in Petrograd. He leaned forward.

  ---

  Billy had laughed when he received the telegram. Proceed to the south to Lipetsk to meet with army of Colonel Trepov. Yuri was alive! And now a colonel, no less! He had somehow made contact with the Old Man’s Russian network. Five months. It had been that long since the young officer had pulled his daring rescue. It would be a long trip. The village was one hundred twenty kilometers south of Moscow. The trip by train would take less than a day, if the lines were open. Four days. He should be able to see his friend in four days. Hyperbole, rumor, lies were all endemic in Russia, he thought. Yuri with an army. Another of the Old Man’s fantasies.

  ---

  The great house was quiet. Elena was gone. He remembered the first day he saw her at the reception for the French ambassador. He had only been in Russia for six months, trying to work out credit arrangements with Russian companies to purchase electrical generators and machine tools from his principals in Cleveland, Ohio. As a young merchant seaman, he had visited St. Petersburg while working for an American shipping line. A chance conversation with a German ship captain changed his life. They talked about the business opportunities in the Russian Empire. The German captain spoke of the two realities of doing business in Russia. You couldn’t do business without knowing the right people, and nobody does business without expecting something under the table.

  The first six months in Petrograd had been spent cultivating a persona of wealth, American-style, spending lavishly at restaurants, buying clothes and works of art, and gambling. His lifestyle quickly brought him into the circle of important people in St. Petersburg. It brought him to the ambassador’s reception. He had met Count Protopopov at the polo matches sponsored each summer by the British Embassy. Within a short time, they had met several times, and matters had gotten around to business. Yes, the count had said, there was a possibility that we can work something out with Brunson Machine Tools and the Cuyahoga Electric Motor Company.

  He sat holding the picture of Elena, thinking about the reception. He was very near the end of his rope. The companies he had promised huge orders were threatening to cancel their contracts with him. The count had been his best hope. If nothing happened within a matter of weeks, he would be stranded, forced to find a way home on one of the ships stopping at St. Petersburg’s port. She had been standing with her friends, very comfortable talking about the summer in St. Petersburg. One of the most beautiful girls in the city, Carson remembered his young men friends talking about her. He remembered that one had said that while many suitors and important families had sought to attract her, she had remained content to stay unmarried. She was already twenty years old.

  He smiled when he thought how it had all begun. He was down to his last card. Like the gambler he had always been, he had bet everything on Elena. Arranging an introduction, he had spent the evening trying to charm her with his American manners. Somehow he had won her over, and her influence over her adoring father kept Carson in St. Petersburg. He thought how surprised he was that the flirtation had turned to love, that Elena turned his whole world around. Once thinking he would make his nest egg and return to America, he had become part of Russia because of his wife.

  They said it was influenza. Elena had taken ill in December, and had lingered with a burning fever for almost a week. She had died without anyone. Her father and mother were gone. The servants had walked out on her. People she had thought were friends stayed away because she was the wife of an enemy of the Bolsheviks. Only Marie Renner, who had been Elena’s seamstress, was still in the house when she died.

  He thought of the Old Man, whom he had never met. He had been surprised, then mildly disappointed, then resigned at the failure of the Old Man to contact him. He was no longer needed. No matter. He would like to lie down beside Elena. Not yet fifty, he thought, and he wanted to die.

  Marie answered the pounding on the door. When she opened it, there were two soldiers. They walked past her and stood in the center of the foyer. “Where is he, woman?”

  Marie pointed toward the study. She wondered what she would do now. Perhaps she should join the Party like her friends. She heard they might be able to get her a job.

  ---

  Victor had given him a full report on Richard Carson. For ten years, Carson had moved about Petrograd, making important people rich, getting rich himself. He was the lieutenant’s taskmaster, the man who directed the operations of the Americans, ignoring the American ambassador, who Victor said was kept in the dark. He had shadowed the American for the last two years. He was disappointed that the man he had feared and hated was not the same man who sat in the chair. The man he remembered was not tall, but broad in the shoulders and thick in the chest. He had radiated power. Now, he saw a man who seemed to have lost at least twenty kilos, whose face was drawn, who seemed to shuffle as he walked. He felt cheated.

  The room was narrow, not more than two meters wide. A single 40-watt bulb hung from a wire in the ceiling. It was placed over the head of the prisoner, who sat listlessly in a chair directly under the light. Riezler sat behind a small table in front of him. An electric torch was on the table. He used it now to read something on his desk. As Carson watched, Riezler switched off the torch, putting him in darkness. Carson knew his questioner. Six months ago, he would never have allowed himself to be questioned by such a man.

  “The Americans have abandoned you, Richard.”

  “Then why are you questioning me?! I can be of no use to you.” “You have only to tell us what you know. That will be enough.”

  Carson felt his head begin to swim. He wondered if he was going to be sick. He did not care. He could answer the questions of Fedor Riezler. He owed nothing to the Old Man. The Old Man could have protected Elena. He did not. But he did owe something to the lieutenant. He owed something to all the people who would die if he told them what they wanted to know.

  “I do not want to bore you, Comrade. There is nothing to tell.” He knew they could make him talk. He thought of his plan to escape as he listened to the voice in the blackness in front of him. He must hold on until then.

  Riezler had questioned Carson for twenty minutes. Suddenly, he banged a book he was holding on the table. He walked quickly past Carson, slamming the door. Carson could hear him shouting to someone. He could not hear everything, but enough to know what was coming. Five minutes later, the door opened and someone pushed him off the chair onto the floor, stood on the chair, and replaced the bulb with a 100-watt one. Two men picked Carson up, sat him in the chair, and bound him to the chair with wire. Behind him, he could hear someone enter. To his right, near the floor, he could see an electrical socket. Feeling nothing, he watched the uniformed woman insert the plug into the socket.

  He did not know how long the shocks had taken. There were voices behind him. At first, there was an argument, then some agreement. They were going to take him to the toilet, to allow himself to be cleaned up. He could smell the urine and excrement that had soiled his pants. As two sets of hands lifted him out of the chair, his legs turned to rubber and he collapsed in their arms. He was allowed to stand near the chair until his legs were steady. Now, only a single man accompanied him into the dimly lit hallway. A guard followed the two as they made their way to the toilet. The guard was behind them. He felt himself being turned toward the toilet door. As he was turned to the right, he felt the hand of the man in the breast pocket of his shirt.

  “Clean yourself up. There are clean pants you can put on. We will wait outside for you.”

  The man gently touched his shoulder.r />
  As the man holding him closed the door, he could hear the guard shout at the man and the man shout back. The guard was coming in. He pulled the packet from his pocket, looked at it and put it back in his pocket as the guard quickly opened the door and stood inside watching him remove his pants and underwear. After he had cleaned himself and put on the new pants, he was led back to the room. He felt better. The man who led him in seemed more gentle as he placed him in the chair. They did not bind him with wire. The bright light had been replaced with the dimmer one. He could not see behind the table but he knew the devil was there watching.

  Riezler looked at Carson. He was surprised that the pain seemed to have revived him. The dullness in his eyes had gone. He seemed to sit straighter.

  “Are we ready to begin, again, Richard.” Once again, Carson thought, he is calling me Richard.

  “I think so. But could you ask the men behind me to leave the room. I do not want them to hear what I have to say. Not after what they did to me.”

  That is good, Riezler thought. Now, I am his friend. I did not torture him. He nodded to the men, who left the room to the two of them.

  Riezler was about to begin but Carson spoke first “Do you think the lieutenant will come after you, Comrade?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he knows what you did to Elizaveta Voravskii’s father, and he knows you hired someone to kill him. When he finds out what you have done to me, he may decide that you will be after him next.”

  “What I do is for the Party, for the people, Richard. There is nothing personal in all this.”

  “I suppose you are right, Fedor Riezler. What the lieutenant will do is for America. Nothing personal.”

  “Richard, we are wasting time. Can we talk about the Americans?” He was angry now. Why was Carson doing this? he thought. He began to feel uneasy.

  “It is personal, isn’t it, Comrade. You use the Party to hide your sick mind, your hatred. You are, stripped to your soul, a sadistic killer. You should be in a cage, Riezler. You should be an exhibit to remind people of what evil really is.”