Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  He was heating a pan of porridge on the fire when he heard a loud knocking at the door of the house.

  It was sure to be bad news. Friends stood outside and shouted; only the authorities knocked. Grigori put on his cap, then stepped into the hall and looked down the staircase. The landlady was admitting two men in the black-and-green uniforms of the police. Looking more carefully, Grigori recognized the podgy moon-shaped face of Mikhail Pinsky and the small ratlike head of his sidekick, Ilya Kozlov.

  He thought fast. Obviously someone in the house was suspected of a crime. The likeliest culprit was Lev. Whether it was Lev or another boarder, everyone in the building would be interrogated. The two cops would remember the incident back in February when Grigori had rescued Katerina from them, and they would seize the opportunity of arresting Grigori.

  And Grigori would miss his ship.

  The dreadful thought paralyzed him. To miss the ship! After all the saving and waiting and longing for this day. No, he thought; no, I won’t let it happen.

  He ducked back into his room as the two policemen started up the stairs. It would be no use to plead with them—quite the reverse: if Pinsky discovered that Grigori was about to emigrate he would take even more pleasure in keeping him incarcerated. Grigori would not even have a chance to cash his ticket and get the money back. All those years of saving would be wasted.

  He had to flee.

  He scanned the tiny room frantically. It had one door and one window. He would have to go out the way Lev came in at night. He looked out: the backyard was empty. The St. Petersburg police were brutal, but no one had ever accused them of being smart, and it had not occurred to Pinsky and Kozlov to cover the rear of the house. Perhaps they knew there was no exit from the yard except across the railway—but a railway line was not much of a barrier to a desperate man.

  Grigori heard shouts and cries from the girls’ room next door: the police had gone there first.

  He patted the breast of his jacket. His ticket, papers, and money were in his pocket. All the rest of his worldly possessions were already packed in the cardboard suitcase.

  Picking up his suitcase, he leaned as far as he could out of the window. He held the case out and threw it. It landed flat and seemed undamaged.

  The door of his room burst open.

  Grigori put his legs through the window, sat on the sill for a split second, then jumped to the roof of the washhouse. His feet slipped on the tiles and he sat down hard. He slid down the sloping roof to the gutter. He heard a shout behind him but he did not look back. He jumped from the washhouse roof to the ground and landed unhurt.

  He picked up his suitcase and ran.

  A shot rang out, scaring him into running faster. Most policemen could not hit the Winter Palace from three yards, but accidents sometimes happened. He scrambled up the railway embankment, conscious that as he climbed to the level of the window he was becoming an easier target. He heard the distinctive thud-and-gasp of a railway engine and looked to his right to see a goods train approaching fast. There was another shot, and he sensed a thump somewhere, but he felt no pain, and guessed the slug had hit his suitcase. He reached the top of the embankment, knowing his body was now outlined against the clear morning sky. The train was a few yards away. The driver sounded his klaxon loud and long. A third shot rang out. Grigori threw himself across the line just ahead of the train.

  The locomotive howled past him, steel wheels clashing with steel rails, steam trailing as the klaxon faded. Grigori scrambled to his feet. Now he was shielded from gunfire by a train of open trucks loaded with coal. He ran across the remaining tracks. As the last of the coal wagons passed, he descended the far embankment and walked through the yard of a small factory into the street.

  He looked at his suitcase. There was a bullet hole in one edge. It had been a near miss.

  He walked briskly, catching his breath, and asked himself what he should do next. Now that he was safe—at least for the moment—he began to worry about his brother. He needed to know whether Lev was in trouble, and if so what kind.

  He decided to start in the last place he had seen Lev, which was Mishka’s Bar.

  As he headed for the bar, he felt nervous about being spotted. It would be bad luck, but it was not impossible: Pinsky might be roaming the streets. He pulled his cap down over his forehead, not really believing it would disguise his identity. He came across some workers heading for the docks and attached himself to the group, but with his suitcase he did not look as if he belonged.

  However, he reached Mishka’s without incident. The bar was furnished with homemade wooden benches and tables. It smelled of last night’s beer and tobacco smoke. In the morning Mishka served bread and tea to people who had nowhere at home to make breakfast, but business was slow because of the strike, and the place was almost empty.

  Grigori intended to ask Mishka if he knew where Lev had been headed when he left, but before he could do so he saw Katerina. She looked as if she had been up all night. Her blue-green eyes were bloodshot, her fair hair was awry, and her skirt was crumpled and stained. She was visibly distressed, with shaking hands and tear streaks on her grimy cheeks. Yet that made her more beautiful to Grigori, and he longed to take her in his arms and comfort her. Since he could not, he would do the next best thing, and come to her aid. “What’s happened?” he said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Thank God you’re here,” she said. “The police are after Lev.”

  Grigori groaned. So his brother was in trouble—today of all days. “What has he done?” Grigori did not bother to consider the possibility that Lev was innocent.

  “There was a mess-up last night. We were supposed to unload some cigarettes from a barge.” They would be stolen cigarettes, Grigori assumed. Katerina went on: “Lev paid for them, then the bargeman said it wasn’t enough money, and there was an argument. Someone started shooting. Lev fired back, then we ran away.”

  “Thank heaven neither of you got hurt!”

  “Now we don’t have the cigarettes or the money.”

  “What a mess.” Grigori looked at the clock over the bar. It was a quarter past six. He still had plenty of time. “Let’s sit down. Do you want some tea?” He beckoned to Mishka and asked for two glasses of tea.

  “Thank you,” said Katerina. “Lev thinks one of the wounded must have talked to the police. Now they’re after him.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m all right, no one knows my name.”

  Grigori nodded. “So what we have to do is keep Lev out of the hands of the police. He’ll have to lie low for a week or so, then slip out of St. Petersburg.”

  “He hasn’t got any money.”

  “Of course not.” Lev never had any money for essentials, though he could always buy drinks, place a bet, and entertain girls. “I can give him something.” Grigori would have to dip into the money he had saved for the journey. “Where is he?”

  “He said he would meet you at the ship.”

  Mishka brought their tea. Grigori was hungry—he had left his porridge on the fire—and he asked for some soup.

  Katerina said: “How much can you give Lev?”

  She was looking earnestly at him, and that always made him feel he would do anything she asked. He looked away. “Whatever he needs,” he said.

  “You’re so good.”

  Grigori shrugged. “He’s my brother.”

  “Thank you.”

  It pleased Grigori when Katerina was grateful, but it embarrassed him too. The soup came and he began to eat, glad of the diversion. The food made him feel more optimistic. Lev was always in and out of trouble. He would slip out of this difficulty as he had many times before. It did not mean Grigori had to miss his sailing.

  Katerina watched him, sipping her tea. She had lost the frantic look. Lev puts you in danger, Grigori thought, and I come to the rescue, yet you prefer him.

  Lev was probably at the dock now, skulking in the shadow of a derrick, nervously looking out for policemen
as he waited. Grigori needed to get going. But he might never see Katerina again, and he could hardly bear the thought of saying good-bye to her forever.

  He finished his soup and looked at the clock. It was almost seven. He was cutting things too fine. “I have to go,” he said reluctantly.

  Katerina walked with him to the door. “Don’t be too hard on Lev,” she said.

  “Was I ever?”

  She put her hands on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him briefly on the lips. “Good luck,” she said.

  Grigori walked away.

  He went quickly through the streets of southwest St. Petersburg, an industrial quarter of warehouses, factories, storage yards, and overcrowded slums. The shameful impulse to weep left him after a few minutes. He walked on the shady side, kept his cap low and his head down, and avoided wide open areas. If Pinsky had circulated a description of Lev, an alert policeman might easily arrest Grigori.

  But he reached the docks without being spotted. His ship, the Angel Gabriel, was a small, rusty vessel that took both cargo and passengers. Right now it was being loaded with stoutly nailed wooden packing cases marked with the name of the city’s largest fur trader. As he watched, the last box went into the hold and the crew fastened the hatch.

  A family of Jews were showing their tickets at the head of the gangplank. All Jews wanted to go to America, in Grigori’s experience. They had even more reason than he did. In Russia there were laws forbidding them to own land, to enter the civil service, to be army officers, and countless other prohibitions. They could not live where they liked, and there were quotas limiting the number who could go to universities. It was a miracle any of them made a living. And if they did prosper, against the odds, it would not be long before they were set upon by a crowd—usually egged on by policemen such as Pinsky—and beaten up, their families terrified, their windows smashed, their property set on fire. The surprise was that any of them stayed.

  The ship’s hooter sounded for “All aboard.”

  He could not see his brother. What had gone wrong? Had Lev changed plans again? Or had he been arrested already?

  A small boy tugged at Grigori’s sleeve. “A man wants to talk to you,” the boy said.

  “What man?”

  “He looks like you.”

  Thank God, thought Grigori. “Where is he?”

  “Behind the planks.”

  There was a stack of timber on the dock. Grigori hurried around it and found Lev hiding behind it, nervously smoking a cigarette. He was fidgety and pale—a rare sight, for he usually remained cheerful even in adversity.

  “I’m in trouble,” Lev said.

  “Again.”

  “Those bargemen are liars!”

  “And thieves, probably.”

  “Don’t get sarcastic with me. There isn’t time.”

  “No, you’re right. We need to get you out of town until the fuss dies down.”

  Lev shook his head in negation, blowing out smoke at the same time. “One of the bargemen died. I’m wanted for murder.”

  “Oh, hell.” Grigori sat down on a shelf of timber and buried his head in his hands. “Murder,” he said.

  “Trofim was badly wounded and the police got him to talk. He fingered me.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I saw Fyodor half an hour ago.” Fyodor was a corrupt policeman of Lev’s acquaintance.

  “This is bad news.”

  “There’s worse. Pinsky has vowed to get me—as revenge on you.”

  Grigori nodded. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “You’ll have to go to Moscow. St. Petersburg won’t be safe for you for a long time, maybe forever.”

  “I don’t know that Moscow is far enough, now that the police have telegraph machines.”

  He was right, Grigori realized.

  The ship’s hooter sounded again. Soon the gangplanks would be withdrawn. “We only have a minute left,” said Grigori. “What are you going to do?”

  Lev said: “I could go to America.”

  Grigori stared at him.

  Lev said: “You could give me your ticket.”

  Grigori did not want even to think about it.

  But Lev went on with remorseless logic. “I could use your passport and papers for entering the United States—no one would know the difference.”

  Grigori saw his dream fading, like the ending of a motion picture at the Soleil Cinema in Nevsky Prospekt, when the house lights came up to show the drab colors and dirty floors of the real world. “Give you my ticket,” he repeated, desperately postponing the moment of decision.

  “You’d be saving my life,” Lev said.

  Grigori knew he had to do it, and the realization was like a pain in his heart.

  He took the papers from the pocket of his best suit and gave them to Lev. He handed over all the money he had saved for the journey. Then he gave his brother the cardboard suitcase with the bullet hole.

  “I’ll send you the money for another ticket,” Lev said fervently. Grigori made no reply, but his skepticism must have shown on his face, for Lev protested: “I really will, I swear it. I’ll save up.”

  “All right,” Grigori said.

  They embraced. Lev said: “You always took care of me.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Lev turned and ran for the ship.

  The sailors were untying the ropes. They were about to pull up the gangplank, but Lev shouted and they waited a few seconds more for him.

  He ran up onto the deck.

  He turned, leaned on the rail, and waved to Grigori.

  Grigori could not bring himself to wave back. He turned and walked away.

  The ship hooted, but he did not look back.

  His right arm felt strangely light without the burden of the suitcase. He walked through the docks, looking down at the deep black water, and the odd thought occurred to him that he could throw himself in. He shook himself: he was not prey to such foolish ideas. All the same he was depressed and bitter. Life never dealt him a winning hand.

  He was unable to cheer himself up as he retraced his steps through the industrial district. He walked along with his eyes cast down, not even bothering to keep an eye open for the police: it hardly mattered if they arrested him now.

  What was he going to do? He felt he could not summon the energy for anything. They would give him back his job at the factory, when the strike was over: he was a good worker and they knew it. He should probably go there now, and find out whether there had been any progress in the dispute—but he could not be bothered.

  After an hour he found himself approaching Mishka’s. He intended to go straight past but, glancing inside, he saw Katerina, sitting where he had left her two hours ago, with a cold glass of tea in front of her. He had to tell her what had happened.

  He went inside. The place was empty except for Mishka, who was sweeping the floor.

  Katerina stood up, looking scared. “Why are you here?” she said. “Did you miss your boat?”

  “Not exactly.” He could not think how to break the news.

  “What, then?” she said. “Is Lev dead?”

  “No, he’s all right. But he’s wanted for murder.”

  She stared at him. “Where is he?”

  “He had to go away.”

  “Where?”

  There was no gentle way to put it. “He asked me to give him my ticket.”

  “Your ticket?”

  “And passport. He’s gone to America.”

  “No!” she screamed.

  Grigori just nodded.

  “No!” she yelled again. “He wouldn’t leave me! Don’t you say that, never say it!”

  “Try to stay calm.”

  She slapped Grigori’s face. She was only a girl, and he hardly flinched. “Swine!” she screeched. “You’ve sent him away!”

  “I did it to save his life.”

  “Bastard! Dog! I hate you! I hate your stupid fac
e!”

  “Nothing you say could make me feel any worse,” Grigori said, but she was not listening. Ignoring her curses, he walked away, her voice fading as he went out through the door.

  The screaming stopped, and he heard footsteps running along the street after him. “Stop!” she cried. “Stop, please, Grigori, don’t turn your back on me, I’m so sorry.”

  He turned.

  “Grigori, you have to look after me now that Lev’s gone.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t need me. The men of this city will form a queue to look after you.”

  “No, they won’t,” she said. “There’s something you don’t know.”

  Grigori thought: What now?

  She said: “Lev didn’t want me to tell you.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’m expecting a baby,” she said, and she began to weep.

  Grigori stood still, taking it in. Lev’s baby, of course. And Lev knew. Yet he had gone to America. “A baby,” Grigori said.

  She nodded, crying.

  His brother’s child. His nephew or niece. His family.

  He put his arms around her and drew her to him. She was shaking with sobs. She buried her face in his jacket. He stroked her hair. “All right,” he said. “Don’t worry. You’ll be okay. So will your baby.” He sighed. “I will take care of you both.”

  { II }

  Traveling on the Angel Gabriel was grim, even for a boy from the slums of St. Petersburg. There was only one class, steerage, and the passengers were treated as so much more cargo. The ship was dirty and unsanitary, especially when there were huge waves and people were seasick. It was impossible to complain because none of the crew spoke Russian. Lev was not sure what nationality they were, but he failed to get through to them with either his smattering of English or his even fewer words of German. Someone said they were Dutch. Lev had never heard of Dutch people.

  Nevertheless the mood among the passengers was high optimism. Lev felt he had burst the walls of the tsar’s prison and escaped, and now he was free. He was on his way to America, where there were no noblemen. When the sea was calm, passengers sat on the deck and told the stories they had heard about America: the hot water coming out of taps, the good-quality leather boots worn even by workers, and most of all the freedom to practise any religion, join any political group, state your opinion in public, and not be afraid of the police.