The Longest Winter

by Daphne Wright

  His twin put a restraining hand on their mother’s arm and said:

  ‘I came, brother, to warn you that the Cadet party is to be outlawed.’

  The bitterness in Georgii’s laugh shocked all of them except Evelyn, who shared most of his feelings. Looking at the two of them, so alike, she understood a little of the anguish each must feel as his convictions cut him off from the other. She herself could not hate Piotr although she hated what he had done. She looked at the two pale, chiselled faces, mirror-images of each other even to the lines that the recent months had driven into their thin cheeks. As she watched, Piotr’s face seemed to soften. Georgii’s was as stony as ever.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ he said. ‘Well, your family loyalty and devotion are quite mesmerising, brother. We’ve already had a visit from your friends in the Cheka. Did it give you satisfaction to put them on to your own family? When we made the Revolution it was to do away with the injustices like secret police and censorship and imprisonment without trial and the death penalty for political offences. For six months Russia was free – and whatever else will be forgiven you, there can be no mercy when you are brought to trial for the crime of reversing all that. You and your friends are as bad as Bloody Nikolai.’

  ‘Georgii, that is your brother you are talking to,’ said his mother, shocked into some sort of rationality. ‘You must not talk to him like that.’

  ‘Why not? It’s true, Mother. He and the Bolsheviki are breaking Russia a little more every day and soon there will be nothing left except miserable workers scraping a bare living and men like him lording it over them and keeping them under a tyranny as cruel as anything the Romanovs achieved. Just wait.’

  Piotr put his mother away from him and stood alone in the doorway, his plain, shabby, black breeches, blouse and damp boots in severe contrast to the ruined luxury of her salon and the formality of his brother’s clothes.

  ‘We are fighting for our lives and for the lives of all Russians. We have to stop counter-revolution in any way that we can to preserve the Revolution for the people of this country.’

  ‘Ha!’ The single, derisive sound from Georgii seemed to galvanise their father into life. He had been silent throughout the quarrel between his sons, but now he said:

  ‘Stop, both of you. There is madness in Russia now and until it is cured we must do everything we can to stop it invading this family. Twelve years ago my brother and I quarrelled as you two are quarrelling now and it got us nothing. He has been brought to his senses by Siberia; I, by what has happened here in Petrograd. He has been begging me to take you all north to Shenkursk to wait for sanity to return and now I understand. We shall leave as soon as possible. And you two must make peace, for the family at least must not be broken.’

  His eldest son listened with a kind of pitying tolerance and said:

  ‘Papa, I am ready to make peace any time he renounces his Bolshevism and admits what he has been trying to do to Russia.’

  Piotr did not even answer. Instead he addressed his father.

  ‘There can be no peace and no family until the Revolution is safe. I will do all I can to ensure that you get away from here safely, but that must be the end. I am committed. I stay in Petrograd.’

  ‘Piotr Andreivitch,’ said his father formally but with some coldness, ‘I know I said that you would never be welcome here again, but think, boy: you will not be safe either. These men are savages. When they turn on you, as they will in time, you will have no one to help you – and there will be no hope for you.’ Piotr realised with amazement that his father was coming as close to pleading with him as his pride would allow. He was surprised to find himself able to feel pity for the man he had feared and loathed for so many years. He said, with no anger in his voice:

  ‘I am one of them. But you are wrong about us: we are desperate, not savage. If you must go, then go as quickly as you can and as unobtrusively. You will have to take minimal luggage. Goodbye.’

  He put out his hand, and then he let it drop as his father made no move towards him. He turned away from them, then, and heard his mother cry out.

  ‘Peterkin, come back. Come back.’

  When he did not answer, only straightening his shoulders, and lengthening his stride as he walked towards the front door, she screamed:

  ‘You must come with us. You will be killed if you stay. Or else you will starve.’ Georgii grabbed her wrist as she started to run after his brother.

  ‘Stop it, Mama. Let him go. He’s got what he wanted, and you will never make him change his mind. Good God, he’s been waiting for this day for years.’

  Natalia Petrovna looked at him with hatred and wrenched her hand out of his grasp. But before she could leave the salon, her husband said in his coldest voice:

  ‘Natasha, we have no time to waste. As he said, we won’t be able to take much luggage and you must sort out now what you don’t want to leave behind. Remember that what is left won’t be here when we come back.’

  ‘What does that matter? What does anything matter now that you have driven my son away. You always hated him because you knew how much he meant to me.’ Her husband closed his eyes for a moment as though praying for strength, and Evelyn said quickly:

  ‘Don’t worry, Cousin Andrei, I shall help, and Ekaterina Nikolaievna will give me a hand, won’t you, Mademoiselle?’ She looked round at the upright sofa, where the Russian governess was sitting, and was hard put to it not to laugh at what she saw in spite of the tragedy she had just witnessed.

  The woman was half lying against the hard back of the sofa, her head lolling and the tight collar of her blouse unbuttoned, while Natalie, her most faithful pupil, was fanning her with a large handkerchief.

  ‘Oh, pull yourself together, for heaven’s sake,’ said Evelyn, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice, ‘you are a grown woman and you are needed. Come on.’

  ‘You are a spiteful, jealous snake,’ came the answer, in a surprisingly vigorous voice. ‘You do not understand how we suffer, Natalia Petrovna and I.’ Her employer looked round at the sound of her name.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Katisha, did you say something?’ she asked.

  ‘No, Natalia Petrovna, of course not. I was merely telling Mademoiselle Markham …’

  ‘Oh, be quiet,’ ordered Andrei Alexandrovitch. ‘Ekaterina Nikolaievna, go at once and help my wife to select whatever she and the girls will need for Archangel. We’ll leave the day after tomorrow, please God, and anything not ready by then will be left behind for the Bolsheviki. Hurry.’

  ‘Archangel,’ the governess repeated, at last understanding what he wanted of her. ‘I am not going to Archangel. I could not survive in all that cold.’

  ‘Well then, you will just have to stay for the Bolsheviki too,’ said Georgii viciously, ‘and I hope you enjoy what they do to you – except I don’t suppose even those degenerates would want you.’

  Evelyn gaped at him in astonishment, unaware until that moment how much he had hated his erstwhile governess. Much as she disliked the woman, the crudity and violence of what he had said made her almost sympathise when Ekaterina Nikolaievna said:

  ‘You always were a hateful, cruel boy. But don’t you think I’m at your mercy. I shall go home to Rostov, to dear Natalia Petrovna’s family. They will know how to treat one of their family, even if you do not.’

  ‘By Christ, you bitch!’ said Georgii, forgetting the last vestige of his manners in the strain of that moment. ‘You have battened on to my mother all these years and now when you could really be of some use to her you’re leaving. Well go, you old bag of bones. She doesn’t need you. And nor do any of the rest of us. We shall all be glad to be rid of you.’

  She gasped at his violence and looked for support to his father, but Andrei Alexandrovitch appeared unmoved. With as much dignity as she could find, she rebuttoned her blouse, turned to Natalie, who was standing shocked and frightened beside her, and said:

  ‘Darling, you see how I am treated. When I have gone, you must try to r
emember me, as I shall never forget you.’ Then she walked out of the room, giving Evelyn a look of searing hatred as she passed.

  Shaken by the whole horrible, violent scene, Evelyn looked at the girl who was in tears, tightened her lips, and said with as much control as she could muster:

  ‘Right, that’s that, then. Now all we have to do is sort out our possessions. How much shall we be able to take, Cousin Andrei?’

  ‘I don’t know any better than you, Evelyn. Pack all your jewels, of course, in some inaccessible place, preferably sewn into your stays. Then sort out your warmest clothes to wear on the journey: I’m told that the trains are unheated now. Try to get everything into one case that you can carry yourself. I can’t imagine that there will be any porters.’

  He was half afraid that she would protest so that he would be left without any sensible adult female, but she did not.

  ‘Come along, children. And you, too, Dindin. We must do our own things first, and then you can help me with your mama’s.’

  ‘Can I take my ikon, Papa?’ asked Sasha in a robust voice that betrayed no fear. ‘You know, the one my godfather gave me?’

  ‘Of course,’ said his father, trying not to show the irritation he felt at such an irrelevance, because he was determined that with this son he would not make the same mistakes. ‘You are going to be a great help to us, Sasha, and your ikon will remind us of everything we have to fight for.’

  Chapter Six

  Only the thought that she was on the first leg of her journey towards home and England kept Evelyn from despairing as she sat with Sasha on her knee, squashed between Natalia Petrovna and her daughters in a filthy, stinking, third-class carriage on the train to Vologda. She knew that they were lucky to have won even that much space, but the sight of four shabbily dressed, armed men sitting on the hard bench opposite her was making her shake with fear. If only Andrei Alexandrovitch and Georgii had been able to sit with them, she would have felt safer. But there was no protection – and the men looked exactly like the one who had assaulted her in the Vyborg.

  Remembering how she had been taught as a very young child that to show fear towards animals was the very thing that would make them attack, she tried desperately to hide her feelings, but when one of the men spoke to her, reaching a grubby hand across the narrow gangway, she nearly screamed.

  ‘Food, Comrade. Give us food. I know you’ve got some.’

  Evelyn hugged Sasha tightly against her breasts, trying to reassure both him and herself. Then, refusing to look at the rifles each man had across his knees, she found enough Russian words to say:

  ‘Comrades, we have very little, but of course we’ll share with you. I do not grudge you my food, but please leave enough for this child.’ She felt in her bag and fished out a small packet of bread and four hard-boiled eggs. The man opposite grabbed it from her hand. Her voice shaking, Evelyn said: ‘Please leave some. We have nothing else with us,’ hoping that neither Natalie nor Dindin would betray their knowledge of the rest of the food that had been carefully wrapped up and hidden among their bags. ‘The boy is delicate enough as it is; please leave him a little.’

  One of the men hawked and spat at her feet and with the fingers he had used for scratching his no-doubt lousy head, he broke off a small piece of bread and handed it to Sasha who smiled in unfeigned pleasure.

  ‘Thank you, Tovarisch,’ he said and took the offering. Evie was horrified by the dirt and likely germs, but she could do nothing about them – and at least the child was being fed, however inadequately. The soldier grinned back and asked Sasha a question about their journey. He answered, displaying none of the fear and disgust his sisters had such trouble hiding. Evelyn watched the man talking to Sasha in an almost jovial, kind way, and obviously taking pleasure from the perky answers. She had just begun to relax, thinking that perhaps Piotr had been right when he had tried to make her believe that there was no important difference between different kinds of people when one of the other men spat a mouthful of sunflower seeds out on to the carriage floor and scratched his groin openly and luxuriously. When Natalie shrank back against her sister and tried to push some of the seeds and spittle that had landed on her foot away with the other shoe, the man leaned forward.

  ‘Have you never seen one, then?’

  The little girl looked at him in obvious fear and incomprehension, recoiling even further from his foul breath. He roared with crude laughter and unbuttoned his trousers.

  ‘See, that’s what it’s like. Take a good look.’

  Natalie pressed her face into her mother’s shoulder and it was Evelyn who cried out.

  She put her hand over Sasha’s interested face as she thought Animal!

  So this is the sort of creature Piotr and Mr Adamson think should take over this country and lord it over people like us. I knew they were mad.

  All three soldiers joined in the laughter at Evelyn’s reaction. Her terror was almost overtaken at that moment by the feeling that the whole world mocked and despised her. She felt she could bear no more and put her hands over her ears to shut out the cruel laughter and screamed at the top of her voice:

  ‘John. Oh John, for God’s sake.’

  The carriage door was flung back and Georgii came in.

  ‘What’s happened? Mama, are you all right?’ Then he saw Evelyn and, glancing across at the rough-looking men, gradually guessed at the reason for her screams. He hissed something in Russian that Evelyn did not understand and put both hands on the man’s shoulders and shook him back and forth.

  It must have been a full minute before the man’s two friends got over their surprise and stood up to pull Georgii Suvarov away. Then one of them held his arms, while the other gave him a heavy backhanded blow across his face. His head snapped back, and they all saw the blood on his lips. At that, even Natalia Petrovna screamed. Evelyn could do nothing except hold on to Sasha and feel guilty for her part in turning an unpleasant if hardly dangerous scene into this horrible violence. She prayed that something would intervene.

  Her silent pleas were answered as the train screeched to a halt and a voice called out:

  ‘Vologda. Vologda. Everybody out.’

  The armed peasants dropped their victim, picked up their rifles and grubby bundles and with a final foul insult pushed their way out and off the train. Evelyn ran to Georgii and made him sit down, examining the darkening bruise on his right cheek.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked urgently.

  ‘Yes. Dazed for a moment, that’s all. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Thank God,’ she said devoutly, grateful at least that she had not been responsible for some dreadful injury to him. ‘Where’s your father?’

  ‘He went further up the train at that last halt to see if he couldn’t find seats for us nearer the engine, but … No, there he is … Look.’ He waved out of the window, over the heads of all the milling passengers to attract his father’s attention.

  ‘Good. He’s all right, then,’ said Evelyn. ‘Let’s wait for a bit to let him catch up. Dindin, Natalie, will you get the bags down from that rack? Come on – it was horrid, but it could have been much worse.’ The least she could do in reparation was to take charge of the children and, telling herself that at least the men had not touched any of them, she got them all off the train with their baggage, and then persuaded Georgii to find out about their new train.

  Diligent enquiries revealed that the next train for Archangel would not be leaving until three the next morning. Georgii asked the only station official he could find whether they could at least board the train, but he refused permission, pointing to the crowded, filthy platform and saying:

  ‘Wait there, with the rest.’

  Realising that their only hope of escaping disaster lay in dumb acceptance, Evelyn led the way over to a relatively empty spot at the back of the platform by the station building, only to discover that it had been used as a latrine. Wrinkling her nose and trying hard not to breathe in, she turned her back on it and searched unt
il she found them enough space to sit down.

  There they stayed throughout the night, violently hungry, increasingly cold – and frightened. Evelyn leaned back against the piled baggage and felt Sasha fall asleep in her arms. Taking comfort from the soft regularity of his breathing, she endured the long hours.

  Despite all the much more dramatic things that had happened, the thought that obsessed her as she waited throughout that cold horrible night was that she had had to leave her dressing-case behind. Rationally, she knew that she had had no option. It was far too heavy for her to carry and it would have held almost nothing compared to the soft canvas bag she had brought. But it had been the most generous present her parents had ever given her, and she now understood as she had not at the time that it had been a way for them to express the real sympathy they had felt for her when they heard of John’s disappearance.

  At the time she had thought that they could not understand how she felt, and the only words either of them had been able to find had been stiff and had sounded unsympathetic. But they had gone out and ordered for her the most luxurious possible dressing-case, with her initials engraved on all the silver tops to the bottles and the backs of the brushes. Understanding at last the feelings that must have prompted them, she wished that she had not had to leave the case for the Bolshevik and anarchist thieves who were probably ransacking the house at that very moment.

  As the night passed and her back and legs grew stiffer and more painful, she thought more and more of her home and parents and wondered why she was stuck in such a frightful situation, trying to take care of these cousins of her father. They had no real claim on her, yet she felt herself to be responsible for them. The beginnings of resentful anger seemed to be forming in the depths of her mind when Sasha stirred in his sleep and put out a hand which fell on one of Evelyn’s. The slightly damp fingers drifted across the back of her hand, feeling almost like grapes as they touched her skin. She tightened her arms round him and felt him turn a little against her breast. Dropping her head until her cheek lay on his hair, she thought that perhaps this was why she had unthinkingly accepted both the situation and the responsibility. Sasha might not have been born to her, but he seemed to be her own child as she held him. He trusted her, needed her, and was warm in her arms. In that security, so different from anything she had known in the midst of her own family in the bleakness of their Yorkshire life, she even slept.