The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars

by Maurice DeKobra

  Chapinski bowed mockingly. “I am that personage, my dear Prince.”

  “Then who is the judge in this vicinity?”

  “I am, Your Royal Highness.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It is a strange judge who interrogates the poor devils on trial while there is a loaded revolver on his desk!”

  “You are mistaken. It is not loaded. Look at it, if you like.”

  “Then what do you use it for? To fan yourself?”

  “No, it’s merely a little bait for the counter-revolutionaries. Sometimes the prisoner, losing control of himself, takes advantage of my momentary inattention, picks up the automatic and tries to shoot me. I smile at the perfectly harmless weapon, pull this loaded gun from my pocket and return the favor to the prisoner, who has the pleasure of expiating for his murderous attempt right on the spot. Do you understand what I mean? It’s an amusing little game. I have already marked four Georgians on my list. What do you think about that, most illustrious foreigner?”

  Chapinski’s sardonic smile was unbearable. His delicate hand, adorned with a stolen ring, a beautiful piece of platinum marked with the crest of some member of the imperial family, his revolutionary’s hand, which had never manipulated a pick and shovel, caressed the stock of the revolver the way a dilettante would fondle the contours of a chryselephantine statuette.

  “Do you expect to make me confess to a lot of imaginary crimes by threatening to shoot me,” I said at last. “Don’t make a mistake, Comrade! The Inquisition no longer exists and the Albigenses never wore silk shirts, made to order in Bond Street.”

  “That’s true enough. Silk shirts are part of the attire of capitalists.”

  “Yes, just the same way that complete lack of comprehension of economic necessities goes with the Communist uniform.”

  “Prince, please leave these generalities in the cloakroom. The attendant will return your truisms when you leave. If my information is correct you came to Georgia on behalf of an Anglo-American organization which proposes to exploit some oil-lands in Telav.”

  “Yes. But not without Moscow’s permission and approval. And for that very reason, if you don’t release me at once, I shall telegraph to Berlin and I—”

  “You will do nothing of the kind because we are instructed to guard you secretly.”

  “Who issued that order?”

  “Moscow.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  He handed me a telegram.

  “I don’t read Russian.”

  “Then I’ll translate it word for word: The chief of police of Nikolaïa is herewith instructed to arrest the Prince Séliman immediately on his arrival in Georgian territory. He will land at Batoum and go to the Hotel Vokzal in Nikolaïa. Keep him in strict secrecy until the arrival of No. 17 when you will receive detailed instructions from the Executive Committee as to further measures. Signed, LEONOF.”

  The Tchekist returned the telegram to its proper place among a quantity of other papers, looked at me with an amused air of commiseration and said:

  “There you are!”

  “Then you intend to prevent me from communicating with the outside world until the arrival of Number Seventeen?”

  “Absolutely! There is no alternative.”

  “Who is Number Seventeen?”

  “If you offered me a fortune, I couldn’t satisfy your curiosity on that score.”

  “Is it a delegate from Moscow? A member of the Extraordinary Commission?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Why the number?”

  “That is our only means of identifying them. In any case, I can tell you that when double figures are used it signifies a comrade of very high rank.”

  “Oh! So you admit that, in your Union of Soviets, with equal rights, you permit of rank? That seems a trifle inconsistent.”

  Chapinski made a vague gesture. “All sheep need shepherds. Anyway, you ought to take it as a great compliment that a comrade is coming all the way from Moscow to interview you and to decide your fate. But you and I have nothing further to discuss, most noble traveler. I must return you to your cell. You have only to wait there until Number Seventeen arrives.”

  The Tchekist rang a bell, gave an order to the Red guard, and, as I went out, scrutinized me in anything but a friendly manner. I found myself back in my gloomy quarters. My unfortunate companion was not there. He was enjoying a breath of air out in the courtyard with the rest of the prisoners. I profited by this temporary solitude to take certain precautions. I had managed to conserve ten $100 bills which I had hidden in my socks. But I was afraid that was not a safe hiding-place. So I carefully folded and slipped them in between two tiles which I covered over with dust. I anticipated the possibility of needing that money badly in the near future.

  Ivanof returned. His desolate expression moved me. He threw himself down on his bed like a poor sick dog and declared in a trembling voice:

  “I told you so; it was Gouritzki who was shot the other night.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I saw his shoes on one of the guards.”

  Ivanof coughed. I thought of the la of a violoncello.

  “They will kill us all! You have been interrogated, haven’t you? By whom?”

  “Chapinski.”

  “Look out for Chapinski. He is a crook, a hypocrite, and a coward. A former reactionary journalist, who, having been interned in the Tcheka at Kouban, was rapidly converted and who sold his friends to gain the confidence of the heads of the Third International. He is the type of man who would compromise his blood brother to save his own skin. I learned these details from a poor friend of mine who was imprisoned at Ekaterinodar in nineteen-twenty-one and who only escaped death by a miracle. He was shut up with seventy other unfortunates in a vast subterranean jail which the Communists called ‘the Vestibule of the Tomb.’ And I’ll explain to you why that appellation was so well merited. One evening, along toward seven o’clock, the huge door swung open and the commandant of the prison entered, followed by a firing squad armed with revolvers. The officer turned to the starosta—the man in charge of the prisoners—and asked:

  “ ‘How many are you?’

  “ ‘Sixty-seven.’

  “ ‘Only sixty-seven,’ repeated the commandant with perfect indifference. ‘And the trench is ready for eighty bodies. That’s a waste of time and labor.’

  “The poor wretches waited in breathless fear. The commandant looked them over carefully while the sixty-seven victims stood in horrified silence. Finally, he turned to the head of the firing-squad and said:

  “ ‘Well, I must find thirteen more. Watch these until I come back. I’m going to rummage through the cells. I’ll get my quota all right.’

  “The door was closed. The sixty-seven men waited several minutes, petrified with the vision of what was to come. Suddenly one of them fell on his knees and began to pray in a desperate voice. He invoked God and groveled in the thick dust; then he gave vent to an inhuman laugh, like that of a hyena in an African jungle, and began to rush wildly around, striking his friends. He had lost his mind.

  “Hours went by while the horrible expectation continued. A few men tried to summon up a vestige of hope. Some suggested that the captain might fail to find thirteen more victims and that, on that account, they would be spared by a miracle. The others wept, wrung their hands and groaned pitifully. This went on for two days and nights. Then it became known that the thirteen others had already been executed. No one could understand that. Everyone was completely bewildered. On the third day the Tchekists invaded the dungeon a second time. Their leader was carrying a lantern and a large piece of paper. The prisoners read with horror these words, written in the left-hand corner: ‘To Be Shot.’ And enduring the most awful mental torture, they saw the names which were underscored in red ink. Which ones were they? The insane man threw himself at a Tchekist, who shot him on the spot. He was still breathing when they threw his body into the hall. The death roll began. One prisoner, in an effort
to drive away the frightful anxiety which was threatening his sanity, whistled loudly an old popular mazurka.

  “ ‘Keep quiet!’ shouted the leader of the firing-squad. ‘I can’t even hear myself talk.’

  “Then the reading of the list was resumed.

  “The whistler was one of four who were spared out of this wholesale slaughter. When he found himself with the three others who had escaped death by nothing short of a miracle, he asked in a stupefied manner, staring the while with glassy eyes:

  “ ‘Well, what about me? And you there? Aren’t they going to shoot us?’

  “ ‘We are pardoned.’

  “He repeated the word ‘pardoned,’ clutched his throat with both hands and fell dead. The joy of living had killed him.”

  The afternoon passed. The jailer opened the door and gave us some soup which stank of rotten fish. He motioned to Ivanof and said something in Russian. Ivanof rose to his feet, terrified.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, worried for this companion whose society and docile resignation I deeply appreciated.

  “They are changing my cell. It seems that they want you to be alone tonight.”

  “Me! Alone? Why?” A vague question to which the jailer himself could not reply.

  He pointed to the vile concoction supposed to be soup, rubbed his stomach mockingly and, pushing Ivanof before him, went out.

  I was alone. An hour passed. Tired of trying to determine why they had deprived me of my unhappy friend, I lay down on the bed and pulled the blanket over me. My eyes half closed, in the yellowish deathlike light, I had leisure to meditate. But the meditations of a man of the world, locked in a Russian jail, are anything but amusing. I slowly rehearsed my past; it was like sipping a nondescript beverage and it left the frightful after-taste of uncertainty. Visions of my early life alternated with lingering reminiscences of the last night at the Pera-Palace, and of my pretty German girl with the sad eyes. I had encountered danger in the course of my life. Shells had whistled by my head during the war.

  But those intermittent tribulations, those insignificant difficulties, seemed nothing at all in comparison to my present state of ignorance about my own fate. And I had endured that for three and a half days. My life was hanging like a thread from between the rough fingers of these all-powerful and irresponsible Tchekists. They might liberate me tomorrow or execute me tonight according to their mood. My disappearance, once remarked by the civilized world, would doubtless occasion a stir in diplomatic circles. The authorities in Moscow would, of course, invent plausible proofs of my guilt: probably espionage or conspiracy against their orders. The Quai d’Orsay would register a formal protest. But, as it could not afford to have trouble with the Soviets, it would accept fabricated excuses, and the case would be buried in the file. With an indifference which surprised me, I imagined the events which my decease would occasion. I read, amusedly, long articles in Paris, London and New York papers. I could hear Lady Diana’s impassioned voice in Park Lane drawing-rooms:

  “Such a dear boy! What an awful thing! And it was all on my account. It’s an inexcusable judicial error and I have already reported the details to the Foreign Office. But those Downing Street imbeciles have as much heart as a golf ball. They told me that they lacked formal proofs. No, thank you, Lady Chutney—no sugar. Yes, I would like just the tiniest bit of cream. Lord Edwin telephoned me yesterday.”

  And Griselda? My sweet, far-away Griselda? My wife. Soon to be my widow. Doubtless she was at this very moment cruising along the coast of Asia Minor on the Northern Star. In my sorrowful heart, a hope vacillated like an agonizing little flame, the hope that she would regret my loss, the hope that she would have some remorse for having failed to reopen her arms to me on board her beautiful white yacht. Dear Griselda, she would surely weep over the news of my assassination. I felt certain of that. I knew that generous heart of hers too well to question her reaction on reading an article in the New York Herald, which would inform her brutally that she would remain the Princess Séliman all her life.

  I had closed my eyes. My pulse beating furiously, my temples drumming heavily, I lay motionless under my blanket, a living corpse whose thoughts were already wandering aimlessly over the Land of the Beyond. I thought that I was buried, a mass of flesh and bones, beneath the Caucasian soil, being slowly forgotten by everyone who had known me; by the women whom I had loved and who, while polishing their nails, would honor me with a fugitive thought; forgotten by the men for whom I had done favors; forgotten by the friends who had helped me. And in the total oblivion, this inevitable oblivion, I experienced the same dizziness which one feels when contemplating, on a summer night, the innumerable little stars which shine on the robe of the Milky Way. It seemed that the sublime insensibility of a praying fakir was taking hold of me and that my dematerialized self was returning to the astral plane, when a voice outside my cell returned me to reality.

  As on the previous occasion, I did not budge. But, through my half-closed lids, I recognized that same pair of eyes, peering at me through the opening.

  The eyes observed me for several minutes. Then the little wicket was carefully closed. I cursed the prying individual who had disturbed the comforting coma of my drugged mind, and I was about to turn over so as not to be tempted to look again when loud steps resounded in the corridor.

  Some whispered words. Then the door opened.

  The jailer muttered, “Number Seventeen.”

  He waited on the threshold of my cell. Intrigued, I raised myself on my elbow. “Number Seventeen” appeared—Madam Irina Alexandrovna Mouravieff.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DRESS REHEARSAL WITH DESTINY

  I WAS NOT GREATLY SURPRISED. I HAD MORE OR less anticipated her occult intervention but I had not flattered myself that she would take the trouble to come all the way to Nikolaïa.

  Yet there she stood, at the entrance to my cell, under the unflattering light of the yellow lantern. She contemplated me without evidencing the least bit of emotion. Nothing in her expression betrayed the trend of her sentiments. Her dark bobbed hair was restrained by a little black hat, like a fisherman’s helmet. Her slim body was tightly wrapped in a leather vest with four very mannish pockets. A short khaki skirt, simple in the extreme, fell half way down her legs and black Russian boots reached to her knees. No earrings, so usual with her race, nor any other jewels. Varichkine’s good fairy appeared virtuous to a degree.

  Madam Mouravieff’s presence acted on me like a stimulant. An injection of strychnine would not have more quickly dispersed the torpor which invaded me. My amour propre pruned its feathers. I was determined that this plotting Slav should never be able to boast of having seen me in a terrified sweat, trembling with anxiety. I threw off the blanket, jumped out of bed and bowed with exaggerated formality:

  “Forgive me, madam. Had I foreseen your visit, you would never have found me in this incorrect pose.”

  Irina made no answer. She waved the jailer away, came a step nearer, closed the door behind her, and said, “An excellent bluff, my dear Comrade. I only wonder how long you can sustain it.”

  Her tone and her words made me shudder, but I joked, “So you are the illustrious Number Seventeen? What a modest pseudonym for a woman of your ability! I had expected an illiterate revolutionist, brutal and uncouth. How fortunate I am to discover instead a lovely Muscovite, intelligent and well-bred—an adversary worthy of my best endeavor. It is too good to be true.”

  “Carry on—I enjoy your remarks.”

  “I have completed my speech, madam. Now I am all ears.”

  Irina shrugged her shoulders. She sat down on the bench. I chose the edge of my bed. As she made no remark, I continued:

  “My bachelor quarters are most uncomfortable. I apologize.”

  “Stop the comedy, Séliman. Fear is written on your face. You’re a good actor and you might fool the average person. But I know you are shaking like a leaf, way down inside. You don’t come from the stock of men who die smilingly f
or a noble cause. And besides, your cause is anything but noble. Great men don’t sacrifice themselves with serenity for a few oil wells, a financial organization, and the caprice of a conceited Englishwoman.”

  “You are wrong there, madam. A real gentleman can stare into the jaws of death simply to set an example for less fortunate human beings.”

  “An example of what?”

  “Of savoir vivre.”

  “That is real French!” she said disgustedly. She crossed her knees, unbuttoned her leather coat, and continued, “Having indulged in an overdose of repartee, shall we get down to business? I presume you have had ample time to connect the chain of events which brought you here.”

  “To use a melodramatic phrase, the whole thing was a frame-up, I suppose?”

  “Well, has not drama been Russian currency for the last seven years? In any event, the telegram which I signed ‘Edwin Blankett’ had the desired effect. You came, you saw, and you are conquered.”

  “How do you say ‘vae victis’ in Russian, madam?”

  Irina ignored my question. She looked me up and down. “If all your beautiful women, those lovely painted dolls with tinted hair and sparkling jewels, could see you now, how sorry they would feel! Although you are not particularly attractive with your scraggly beard and your wrinkled clothes.”

  Irina indulged in a bitter laugh. “Where is the handsome Prince Séliman, illustrious habitué of Ritz hotels on two continents? This is a good chance to remark truthfully: Life is a Russian mountain, a sequence of ups and downs. Here you are, suspended on the rocky edge of an abyss. Were you to fall over, what a thrill for the pretty ladies of the polo field and the baccarat table!”

  She playfully kicked over the soup bowl which I had left on the floor and continued:

  “Yesterday, hors d’œuvres, paté de foie gras, soufflé, Napoleon brandy. Today, soup, smoked herring, stale water. Please forgive us, Prince. We are unable to get one of Sherry’s old chefs and Prunier refuses to send us oysters. Caviar? Oh, yes. But we haven’t enough to share with our prisoners; we have to keep it to exchange for capitalist gold. They eat our fish eggs while we threaten their digestive processes with the money they pay us. Caviar plus propaganda equals world-wide Revolution.”