The Longest Winter

by Daphne Wright

  ‘God knows how long they will be able to keep this supremacy. But while it lasts you will all have to be extremely careful.’ He came into the room and put his hat on a small side table. ‘Come in, Adamson.’

  Evelyn watched the tall, broad-shouldered American as he strolled towards her, and could not help the words that rushed out of her.

  ‘I suppose you are pleased with this news.’

  The hate in her voice stopped him dead, about four yards away from her. He looked down at her, his mouth twisting into a smile that seemed to be half a grimace of pain, and his hands stuffed nonchalantly into his pockets.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it is the only way forward. You must know that the Provisional Government was losing what little support it had ever had, and was quite incapable of saving this country.’

  Evelyn did not speak but the scorn in her face was too much, and he turned his back on her to rejoin Piotr, who alone shared his ideals.

  ‘Piotr, I must get back to the Smolny Institute and find out what is happening so that I can telegraph first thing in the morning. Are you coming?’

  Evelyn wanted to protest, but Andrei Suvarov did it for her.

  ‘Certainly not, Adamson. I am grateful for the intelligence you brought us, but neither of my sons will be present at a Bolshevik conspiracy to subvert my country from her allies. My son will stay here.’

  Piotr looked at his father and wondered why he had ever been afraid of him, and why he had not just walked out of the house months and months ago. The Revolution had shown him at long last that no one could exercise power over you unless you submitted. All it took to free yourself was resolution and a determination not to be frightened by the loneliness of freedom. Trying to keep the sound of triumph out of his voice, he said with great formality:

  ‘No, Andrei Alexandrovitch Suvarov, I shall not stay.’ Piotr could feel the whole family suddenly still and he recognised an intoxicating feeling of power. ‘You have no right to give me orders. And I shall go with Bob to the Smolny Institute. Georgii?’ His eyes seemed to narrow as he looked at his brother.

  Georgii looked away and found himself face to face with his father. Evelyn could see no change in Andrei Alexandrovitch’s expression but Georgii flushed and clumsily nodded as though in submission. Piotr saw the gesture, too, and, remembering the warmth and friendship they had regained that one evening in Adamson’s flat, he walked towards his twin. Ignoring their father, he put a hand on Georgia’s shoulder.

  ‘Georgii, he is only a man. The state will take over the Works now, and make him and you and me equal with the rest of them. You do not have to submit to him ever again. Be strong for once, and do what you believe in.’

  Georgii moved sharply and pushed his brother’s hand away. His face looked closed in and bitter once more. Their moment of easy friendship might never have happened. There was venom in his voice as he said:

  ‘Yes, you would enjoy taking me with you, wouldn’t you? You hate the family now and would do anything to spite them. It would be like extra sugar in your pashka to prove that you could get me away from them. You don’t believe in the Bolsheviki at all: you are just doing what you know will hurt our father most. It is only revenge.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ cried Evelyn, burying her face in her hands. As though she had touched some switch and released the others, they all started to talk at once. Dindin ran to Georgii and put her arms round him, begging him not to leave her and telling him she loved him.

  Andrei Suvarov stood his ground and said to his second son:

  ‘You have one chance to undo the harm you have started. Will you stay and apologise?’

  Piotr did not even answer. His expression of disdain said everything. His father threw back his head and in the tones of a judge passing sentence, said:

  ‘Then you are no longer my son. No house of mine will ever give you shelter. And I never want to see you again.’

  After a long, tense moment, Piotr shrugged and said:

  ‘So be it.’

  He turned away.

  Natalia Petrovna heaved herself up from the sofa and ran to her favourite child, crying:

  ‘Petrushka, where are you going? Please stay here; it must be dangerous out there tonight. Petrushka, please stay.’

  He looked down at her plump, wrinkled, tearstained face for a moment, as though he still had a decision to make. Then with a determined expression that hid his sudden doubts, he put her away from him, detached her clinging hands and walked away.

  In the unhappy days that followed, Natalia Petrovna would say to Georgii whenever she saw him:

  ‘Where is your brother? Where’s my Peterkin?’ All Georgii could say was:

  ‘Mama, I have told you often: I do not know where my twin brother is, or what he is doing. He joined the Bolsheviki even before he went to university: you knew that; and you know what they want to do – how they want to drag us all down to the levels of our own servants.’

  ‘My Peterkin? You must be mad. He would never do anything like that.’ Then her voice hardened. ‘You always were jealous of him, weren’t you? And now you are trying to turn me against him.’

  His eyes closed and he gripped the bridge of his nose for a moment. Then he looked at his mother, who had always ignored him when his twin was in the house.

  ‘Jealous! No, Mama, I was not and am not jealous. I think he is a dangerous fool, and if I could stop him, I would for his own sake. But he spends all his days at the Smolny Institute, and I can’t get near him. They know that I’m a Cadet and they hate us because we know what they are trying to do. Unlike these deluded workers and “Red Guards”, we know that they care nothing for Russia. They only want their precious Revolution to break out all over Europe and they will lay my country to waste to do it. Then they will leave for Europe and someone else will have to clean up after them.’

  Evelyn listened to such exchanges day after day, becoming more and more worried that no one would be strong enough to stop the Bolsheviki and save Russia. The only thing that gave her any hope as the snow began to fall and winter started in earnest on 15 November was a report she heard that Lev Davidovitch Trotsky, People’s Commissar for War, had said:

  ‘Either the Revolution will create a revolutionary movement in Europe, or the European powers will crush the Revolution.’

  Evelyn waited for that day.

  Chapter Five

  Evelyn waited, too, for news of Sergei Voroshilov, as she had waited for almost a year. Soon after her birthday, it occurred to her that Sergei’s face was far clearer in her mind than either her brother’s or John’s, and that worried her. She had known Sergei for only a week or so and he meant nothing to her compared with the others, and yet it was his flashing dark eyes and high cheekbones that she saw when she closed her eyes. Having slowly learned to accept that Tony was dead, Evelyn still fought to believe that Johnnie was alive, and to keep the link firm between them.

  But sometimes it was hard to concentrate on her good memories of him, his kindness, his loyalty and protectiveness, the gaiety of his approach to life before the war. In the frightening disintegration she could see all around her Johnnie had no place. He could know nothing of the Revolution and its consequences, and just sometimes, Evelyn wondered how she would ever be able to explain it all to him when they found each other again. Sergei, of course, would know at once what she meant from the slightest reference to the bread riots or the Taurida Palace or the July Days. It was a curiously upsetting admission to have to make, even to herself, and it renewed her determination to hold John in her mind, whatever else she had to think about.

  Then on 29 November came the news that Evelyn at least had half expected. Sergei was missing. There was no proof that he had been killed by his own men, but so many officers had died that way that it seemed horribly likely.

  The news almost broke Evelyn and she waited only until she could control her voice and be certain that she would not cry before going to Andrei Alexandrovitch.

 
; ‘Cousin Andrei, I … Can I go home? I know I’m not supposed to until the war is over, but …’

  Mercifully he interrupted and saved her from trying to put her multifarious reasons into words.

  ‘Evelyn, I wish that I could get you home. It’s been in my mind for weeks now. But our present masters are not giving exit permits to any English at the moment.’

  ‘What?’ she demanded and then, remembering her manners, said more quietly: ‘I beg your pardon, but I don’t understand. Do you mean that they can force us to stay here?’

  ‘Yes. Just that. Without a permit you would be stopped at the frontier and probably arrested.’

  ‘But why should they do such a thing? They hate us; there isn’t enough food in the city anyway for its real inhabitants. Why should they want to keep us foreigners here?’

  ‘As a way of trying to force your government to allow two of their leading revolutionaries out of England. They’ve been in prison there and your government is refusing to let them out.’

  For the first time Evelyn felt the Revolution actually touch her: she was no longer a bystander. The man who had beaten her might have been its product, but he was not a deliberate part of it, and when he had assaulted her it had only been because she had been there. His victim could have been any defenceless woman. Whereas this, this virtual imprisonment, was different. It felt as though it were aimed specifically at her. Now she could no longer feel herself a neutral observer, albeit sympathetic to the Suvarovs in their increasingly unpleasant plight. She, too, was a victim, hated as they were hated, and a target for the Bolshevik malice. Knowing that Piotr was a member of the Bolshevik party, she found herself blaming him for it, and yet it was hard for her to believe that the boy who had teased her, skated with her, sat beside her at dinners, concerts and ballets, could belong to a group of men who would do such a thing to her.

  ‘But how long …?’ she said, and then: ‘I’m sorry Andrei Alexandrovitch, I know you couldn’t possibly know the answer to that.’

  ‘No, I don’t. But I can promise you that as soon as there is a way to get you out, whatever it takes, I shall do it.’ He looked at her, admiring the coolness with which she was struggling with her obvious fear and so he did his best.

  ‘If conditions get worse here, and I am afraid they may, I shall take you all up to Archangel.’

  Her dark brows straightened to meet across the bridge of her nose as she frowned.

  ‘But that’s up in the Arctic. Surely no one can live up there. I know you go sometimes to visit your forests there, but you can’t live in it, can you?’

  At that shocked protest, he even laughed. ‘Not quite in the Arctic, my dear, and many people live there. My family has always had a summer home in a town called Shenkursk, which is only about five hundred miles north of here; we don’t use it now, because Natalia Petrovna dislikes it and has always insisted on our going to Finland for the summer, but it is a perfectly comfortable house. I think we might all be safer out of the way up there, and it would be easier to get to Archangel itself from there if necessary.’ She looked at him in puzzled surprise and he went on:

  ‘Don’t talk about this to anyone else, but as it’s a port from which there has always been a lot of traffic to England it might be much easier to get you out from there – on an English ship, perhaps. My manager up there is English and he will know the best way of doing it. I can’t find out anything from here, because of course all our letters are read by those swine; but he’s a competent man and he’s worked for your father in the past.’

  Evelyn’s face relaxed a little. If there were an Englishman, a former employee of her father’s side of the business, in Russia ready to help her get home, things would look a lot brighter. As a way of thanking her cousin for the reassurance, Evelyn said:

  ‘Andrei Alexandrovitch, I am so sorry about Piotr …’ She got no further. He looked murderously angry, and she was vividly reminded of the fear she had felt in her first weeks in his house.

  ‘That is not a name I wish to hear spoken. Do you understand me, Evelyn?’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said, asking herself how any parent could behave so to his son. Was it pride that made him so tyrannical, or was there some kind of fear in him that made it impossible for him to allow his sons the freedom to think and say what they wanted? For the first time, it dawned on Evelyn that until his father had driven him into outright rebellion, Piotr had done nothing that any young man might not have done too. What hidden weakness could there be in Andrei Suvarov that could not allow him to trust his sons and let them be their own men? Unaware of the way her face had hardened, she left him and went back to the schoolroom, determined to do her best to keep the household as normal as possible for the sake of Natalie and Sasha, who missed Piotr so much and talked about him in a way that told Evelyn more about his gentler side than anything he himself had ever done or said.

  That determination was badly shaken only the following day when another party of Red Guards stormed into the house in search of hoarded food. Evelyn had been sitting with Natalia Petrovna in the morning room when they arrived and so she saw at first hand what happened. This time the leader of the raiding party was no gentleman and the roughness with which he spoke to Natalia Petrovna really frightened Evelyn.

  She stood, powerless and trembling with anger and terror, as the men loaded their cart with the contents of all the larders and store cupboards. Then, adding the last touch to Natalia Petrovna’s torment, the leader of the Red Guards turned to Anna and the one other remaining servant and said:

  ‘And what are you doing here in this rathole of the bourgeoisie, Comrades? Come and join us. Leave these vermin to their own filth.’

  Anna, whose insolence had grown with every new piece of evidence that people like the Suvarovs were losing their influence, threw off her apron.

  ‘Yes, you’re right. Why should I slave like this and take orders as if I was some kind of animal? I’m as good as them.’

  Evelyn, whose hatred of the maid had become almost an obsession, said through clenched teeth:

  ‘And how do you think you will live, Annoushka?’ The usually affectionate diminutive was spoken with such suppressed rage that the girl flushed. ‘Who fed you, housed you, clothed you, taught you civilised behaviour?’

  ‘And made me sleep on the floor and all that. You can take a turn at it now, Miss. You can sweat down here in summer and freeze in winter cooking, and you can break your back lugging trays upstairs, and cans of hot water. You can find out what it‘s like to be so tired at the end of the day that even the floor seems a comfortable place to sleep, and be told to be thankful for scraps and hand-me-down frocks. And may you rot!’ She scrambled up and followed the laden Red Guards out of the door with the other maid.

  Natalia Petrovna sat down at the sticky, dirty kitchen table, put her head on her arms and wept. Evelyn looked at her and saw how thinly the grey hair had had to be distributed over the horsehair pads that supported it around her head and felt great pity – and anger. She could understand the hopelessness Natalia Petrovna must feel, and the desperation at being faced with feeding and clothing the household without servants, but she could not understand her giving way. Natalia Petrovna was in charge; it was her responsibility. Evelyn said in as neutral a tone as possible:

  ‘Cousin Natasha, come along upstairs. The samovar is already in the morning room; come and have a glass of tea while I do something about this unspeakable filth.’ She looked round the squalid, greasy kitchen and wondered how she would be able to touch anything in it without being sick. Then, to cheer them both up, she added: ‘And if there is no food in the shops, we can always ask that English journalist Mr Adamson told us about to fish in the river for us too.’

  Natalia Petrovna was beyond understanding a joke, but at least she lifted her head. Evelyn saw that little bits of old food from the table were clinging to her cousin’s hair, and waited to hear what she would say.

  ‘But I can’t abide freshwater fish.
Oh, Evelyn, what will we do? If only Peterkin were here.’

  ‘Well! There’s nothing he would do, beastly Bolshevik that he is. Try not to worry, Cousin Natasha, I shall get this cleaned up and find something we can eat for luncheon.’

  ‘But how can you? You know nothing more about cleaning and cooking than I.’ Evelyn, her irritation rising, I forebore to say that she knew considerably more since in Yorkshire they at least oversaw their servants’work and inspected the kitchens and servants’quarters every day to ensure that everything in the house was properly cleaned and hygienic. Instead she said:

  ‘I’ll do my best; and I expect Ekaterina Nikolaievna will help me, and perhaps Dindin and the children, too. Now you come along and rest.’ Evelyn made her cousin get up, and shepherded her out of the room and upstairs, thinking that at least if she were out of the way and not having to be comforted, it might be possible to do what had to be done. Then she went up to the schoolroom, where she found the governess and all three children.

  Dindin greeted her ecstatically, showing too obviously how bored her lessons made her, but the Russian governess tightened her thin lips and said instantly:

  ‘Pray have the goodness, Mademoiselle, not to interrupt my classes. You have done enough to damage this family. Dina Andreievna will come to you for English conversation after luncheon; until then, please do not interfere.’

  Holding on to her temper with difficulty, Evelyn said in French:

  ‘There will be no luncheon, Mademoiselle, unless I have some help from you and Dindin. The last of the servants have disappeared and the Red Guards have stripped the larders again. Someone must go to fetch today’s bread ration, and since I do not expect you would be prepared to scrub the kitchen floor, you had better go for the bread.’

  ‘I? With my chest? Stand out there in the snow in a bread queue? You must be out of your mind. I am employed to teach these children and that is what I was endeavouring to do when you came bursting into room. Please leave.’