Little Apple

by Leo Perutz

  "You've got the intelligence of a turnip, that's all I can see,"

  said the schoolmaster. "I'm delighted you got your thrashing, and . . ."

  He broke off. Rifle fire and confused cries could be heard coming from the streets outside the prison.

  At six the next morning the nurse entered the cell followed by an officer with his arm in a white sling.

  "The Reds have been overthrown," the nurse announced. "The Volunteers have occupied the town. Any prisoner with friends or relations prepared to vouch for him is free to leave."

  Not a word, not a movement. Someone in the corner started sobbing quietly. All at once the tramp rose. He thrust the actor aside and went up to the officer.

  "I see you're with the 3rd Ukrainian Volunteers, Lieutenant," he said. "Be good enough to send for your commanding officer. I'm Artemyev. I'll vouch for everyone here."

  People hurried out into the street from their homes and offices, from tea-houses, cellars and places of refuge. They exchanged congratulatory hugs and clustered together in vociferous groups. The same exultant and delighted cries rang out on all sides:

  "They've gone - the Bolsheviks have gone! They cleared out during the night!" - "I told you so: I said they couldn't hold out for more than three weeks!" - "The chairman of the executive committee has been arrested!" - "I woke up in the night, heard those shots, and ..."

  The main thoroughfare had transformed itself into a promenade. There was a sudden reappearance of long-forgotten Tsarist uniforms, ladies' silk hats, jewellery, choice furs. It was as if the town's inhabitants wanted to prove to each other that the Bolshevik reign of terror had failed to change their ways.

  The commander of the Volunteers was standing in conqueror's pose on the corner of Mikhailov Street, nodding and saluting in all directions. The silver braid on his blue military tunic glittered in the winter sunlight. Saffyanikov, an ex-member of the Duma who had spent two months hiding from the Bolsheviks in the back room of a cabbies' tavern, smilingly acknowledged his friends' congratulations. Elegant sleighs and officers' horses stood waiting in front of the Passage Hotel, where the regimental band of the Volunteer Cavalry was giving a concert. The Jews of the town had gone to ground. Posters outside the municipal theatre advertised a gala performance. Cossacks were bivouacking in the marketplace.

  While light and life were flooding through the streets, fighting continued on the outskirts of town. Three Communists barricaded themselves inside a warehouse near the freight depot and defended it against a half-company with revolvers and hand-grenades. When two of them were wounded, the third surrendered. A Red Army instructress arrested in the act of dressing up as a man killed herself with a bullet from her revolver. A Red sentry guarding the ration store in Uman Street refused to quit his post. Out of ammunition, he fought off the mob with his rifle butt, a tight-lipped giant of a man with blood streaming from a head-wound. He was offered quarter but paid no heed. A Volunteer officer, who happened to be riding past, dispatched him with his service revolver. The mob poured into the ration store over his dead body. All they found was a basket of onions and a few pounds of black flour adulterated with chopped straw.

  Toward noon a violent snowstorm set in and the streets emptied. Vit¬torin suddenly found himself alone on the deserted boulevard. Now that all those beaming, excited faces had disappeared and the cries of joy had died away, it occurred to him that he had no share in the happiness of the liberated town. Although he had escaped a futile death and was no longer in custody, he was back where he had been four days ago: outside Soviet Russia and far from his goal. All his trials and tribulations had been in vain. He had a momentary vision of the young officer who had lost his life on Selyukov's account. Cheeks pale and eyes closed, he lay in the snow while a Red Army soldier bent over him and rifled his pockets. Vit¬torin gave an involuntary groan. Gagarin had died so young, but his death hadn't taken him, Vit¬torin, a step further. He doubted if he would ever get to Moscow unaided. Meanwhile, Selyukov was striding arrogantly through the streets of that white stone city, strolling quirt in hand along Petrovka and Tverskaia, or sitting in his office and pouring scorn on humble petitioners. "Ah, so it's you. What a fortunate coincidence - I couldn't be more delighted to see you, believe me. Your father? He was shot last night. And now get out, you can see I'm busy. Pashol!"

  Or perhaps he was riding into villages at the head of a requisitioning detachment, herding peasants together and mowing them down . . .

  It was while these thoughts were running through Vit¬torin's mind that he suddenly recalled Selyukov's face, the loathsome countenance he'd forgotten: eyes like those of a bird of prey, thin lips set in a cruel, mocking smile, features inhuman. A Satanic mask, that was how Selyukov's face appeared to him now.

  The snow swirled about him unceasingly as he came to a halt and debated what to do. First he must find somewhere to sleep for an hour or two. He was hungry, too, not having eaten all day. Such money as he still had left was sewn into his cap. He walked on, intending to remove it from the lining in the shelter of the next doorway, but his path was barred by a young man in working clothes.

  "Excuse me, comrade, would you be good enough to come with me? Someone wants a word with you."

  "Who is this someone?" Vit¬torin demanded.

  "Don't worry, he's a friend. I'll take you to him."

  Vit¬torin was shown into a room on the first floor of an elegant town house. It had probably served as the office of a Bolshevik commissar, because pictures of Lenin, Trotsky and Liebknecht shared the walls with a motley assortment of Communist proclamations and posters: "Long Live the Fraternal World of the Working Class!" - "Universal Education for the Proletariat!" - "We Forge Your Guns, You Grow Our Bread!" The room reeked of stale tobacco smoke. Seated at a circular table strewn with newspapers and pamphlets were three men so intent on their conversation that they seemed oblivious of what was going on elsewhere in the room. A girl in a dark school uniform was furiously battering away at a typewriter. Cartridge cases and empty cans littered the floor.

  "Comrade Artemyev," said Vit¬torin's companion, "here's the man you wanted to see."

  It was only then that Vit¬torin recognized his former cellmate. The veteran revolutionary was standing at a window some distance from the rest. He had shaved off his beard and now looked thoroughly West European despite the tattered peasant smock he still wore. He took no notice of Vit¬torin. His entire attention was focused on the cringing, terrified figure of the schoolmaster, who stood before him with his arms outstretched in a bizarre attitude of supplication.

  "Comrade Poshar," Artemyev called to one of the three men sitting at the table, "take this down. The following items were found in the prisoner's bundle: twelve thousand Romanov roubles, eighty thousand Duma roubles, a canvas pouch containing picric acid, and a small-bore Colt revolver. I identify them all as my property. There can be no doubt, therefore, that he robbed me while in prison."

  "It's a mistake, I swear it," the schoolmaster cried piteously. "I'm innocent. I've no idea how those things found their way into my possession. It's a complete mystery to me."

  "Be quiet, Semyon Andreevich, you can't expect me to believe that!" Artemyev's expression was half indignant, half sorrowful. "Whatever the reason - greed, spite, or ingrained habit — you robbed me. Now turn out your pockets. Ah! So you took my Soviet roubles too, did you? They aren't worth much, but you didn't sneeze at them either. All right, tell me: what am I to do with you?"

  The schoolmaster wiped some beads of sweat from his brow.

  "I don't understand," he moaned, "I must have done it in my sleep. For Christ's sake have mercy and let me go. I've been an honest man all my life. It's only now, in these accursed days ..."

  Artemyev raised one hand and let it fall again.

  "As far as I'm concerned you can go to hell," he said scathingly. "Wait, not so fast - don't forget your bundle. And no more experiments of this kind, or you really will end up against a wall."

  Vit¬torin's
companion suddenly threw his cap on the ground and roared with laughter. The three men at the table joined in while the youthful typist spluttered into her handkerchief. The schoolmaster paused in the doorway. He glared at the girl, spat, and disappeared in a flash.

  "He caught on at last," the girl said, still laughing.

  Artemyev shook his head. "No, he didn't. He's as thick as a doorstep, that man." He turned to Vit¬torin. "Ah, there you are, comrade. Would you mind seeing if your own belongings are in order?"

  Vit¬torin undid the drawstring of his knapsack. The red notebook was still lying on top, but tucked between the clothes beneath it, to his amazement, he saw a brown leather pouch that didn't belong to him.

  "All right, hand it over," said Artemyev. "There aren't any roubles inside, but no matter, I'll take that too. All good things come from God."

  The blood surged into Vit¬torin's cheeks.

  "Are you suggesting I stole it?" he demanded angrily.

  Artemyev fended off the imputation with both hands.

  "No, no, why should I make a joke at your expense? I" wanted to thank you for doing me a little favour and retrieve my property, that's all. Remember what a fix I was in and you'll understand. Lydia! Lydochka! Comrade! Give that machine a rest, I can't hear myself speak."

  The clatter of the typewriter ceased. Artemyev took the leather pouch from Vit¬torin and put it on the table.

  "You see," he went on, "they arrested me just as I was on the point of leaving town. I had all kinds of things on me, but the militiamen didn't search me. Why should it have occurred to them that a tramp's pockets were stuffed with explosives and detonators? So there I sat in the cell. For someone in my disguise, the prison was a safe place to be. Everybody was too busy looking for Artemyev in town to bother about an old tramp in custody. But then, comrade, I learned the governor's name. Sixteen years ago, when I was preaching rebellion at the artillery barracks in Karkov, he was with the secret police. Later on he joined us and became a revolutionary - we fought side by side on the Moscow barricades. Since then we've gone our separate ways. Today he's a Bolshevik, whereas I'm an anonymous subversive again. He wouldn't have recognized me if he'd visited our cell, but he's an experienced type. 'Hey, you with the shifty eyes,' he might have said. 'Come here. Let's see what you've got in your pockets.' In a predicament like that, I had no choice: I divided up my things and palmed them off on other people."

  Vit¬torin turned pale. "You mean that pouch contains an explosive of some kind?"

  "Mercury fulminate," Artemyev replied, "but don't be alarmed. It got damp, so there was little risk of an explosion."

  "What if they'd found it on me - what if they'd shot me?" Vit¬torin said bitterly. "Would you have been entitled to go on living?"

  "I'm up against a whole regime, an entire political system," said Artemyev. "You don't appreciate what revolution entails. When Stromfeld tried to blow up the Moscow Government building in 1902, forty innocent people lost their lives."

  "Stromfeld's operation was ill-conceived and ill-prepared," said one of the men at the table. "It was bound to fail."

  "That's beside the point," Artemyev told him, turning back to Vit¬torin. "Now, comrade, if you'd be so kind, take another look among your things. A small white cardboard box - yes, here it is. Now look in your left-hand coat pocket: a batch of identity cards bearing the Military Commissariat's official seal. Aren't they there? Damnation, I'd forgotten: you don't have them. I got rid of them on that engineer who accused Lenin of hoarding kerosene. After him, Alyoshka! No, wait, there's no hurry, I can always find him at his factory. Well, comrade, that's that. May I offer you a cigarette? You're from Germany, aren't you? A prisoner of war? Where are you bound for?"

  "Moscow," said Vit¬torin.

  Artemyev started whistling, and for the first time Vit¬torin heard the tune that was being sung the length and breadth of Russia.

  "Where are you rolling, little apple?" Artemyev quoted. "You will ne'er come back again . . ."He grinned. "To Moscow, eh? Why venture back into the forest when you've just escaped the wolves?"

  "Because I've a bone to pick with one of the pack," Vit¬torin replied.

  Artemyev studied his face intently, then gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  "I thought as much. So I wasn't mistaken: 'there's fanaticism in those eyes' - that's what I said to myself when they brought you to the cell. However, I'm still not quite clear about you. What party do you belong to?"

  An expectant hush descended on the room. Vit¬torin realized that they were all waiting for him to reply - that everything depended on the next few moments.

  "I don't belong to any party," he said, determined not to stray from the truth because he knew that he could never deceive a man like Artemyev. "I'm operating on my own, for purely personal reasons." After a pause he added, "Is it possible to get to Moscow? That's all that interests me."

  "Where there's a will there's a way," Artemyev replied with a chuckle. "Very well, let the apple roll. Comrade Dolgushin is leaving here tonight. He'll take you with him as far as the railway station at Pecherka-Slava. From there ..."

  A black-bearded man in the background leapt out of his chair.

  "Excuse me, Comrade Artemyev, but what are you thinking of? We know nothing about this German, and -"

  Artemyev cut him short with a gesture.

  "Our friend distrusts intellectuals," he told Vit¬torin. "He's almost a Bolshevik in that respect. Comrade Dolgushin," he continued, addressing the bearded man, "when Lieutenant Gromov approached us in 1911, it was you that told him, 'We know nothing about you. Show us what you're made of.' So he went off to Rostov the next day and gunned down the chief of police in broad daylight. I remember what you said at the time. You said -"

  "At the time, acts of terrorism based on personal initiative were useful to us," Dolgushin broke in angrily. "Today they only harm the Party. They lend our operations a disorganized appearance and alienate the Europeans."

  "Alienate the Europeans?" Artemyev laughed uproariously. "So you still hope for assistance from them? From whom, exactly? Surely not from the newspapermen who ride around Russia in Trotsky's private train and gorge themselves on caviare? Enough!"

  He turned to Vit¬torin.

  "There's a carter named Yankel Hornstein in Sukharov Street. Dolgushin will meet you outside his place at nine tonight. Now it's my turn to say, 'Show us what you're made of.' How much time do you need? When shall I hear from you?"

  Vit¬torin drew himself up. He confronted Artemyev like Lieutenant Gromov, the police chiefs assassin, who had long since vanished into a Siberian salt mine. Now that he was sure of getting to Moscow, the remainder of his mission seemed child's play.

  "I'll be in touch a week from now," he said, and picked up his knapsack.

  LA FURIOSA

  Moscow, arsenal and armed camp of world revolution, was undergoing a Messidor 1793 of its own.

  A bloody fog brooded over the soil of Russia. Fierce fighting was in progress everywhere, and the white armies, those "hirelings of foreign stockholders and their lackeys", were gaining ground on every front. Orenburg and Ufa had fallen to Kol-chak's Cossack regiments, Kazan was under threat from the Czechoslovaks advancing on the Volga. Soviet government forces were faring no better in the south. General Denikin, who enjoyed French support, had proclaimed his intention of hanging Budenny, "the renegade sergeant", and Trotsky, whom he called "the Jew Leiba". Repulsed at Nikopol and beaten at Kremenchug, Red troops had given up the Donets Basin, evacuated Poltava, and abandoned Kharkov to the enemy. The "black bands" led by the peasant anarchist Makhno, hitherto allied with the Soviets, deserted to the counter-revolution. At Tula the 4th Red Infantry Regiment murdered its commanding officer and joined forces with the rebel peasants of Vyenev. In the north, General Yudenich's army was preparing to attack Leningrad with the support of the British Navy.

  Faced with this predicament, the men in the Kremlin resorted to heroic measures. Under a decree proclaiming the Soviet
Republic to be in extreme danger, all able-bodied workers were drafted into the Red Army. Factory yards became parade grounds. The woodworkers, textile workers and paper-mill workers raised a regiment apiece, and wildly cheering crowds applauded these units as they left for the front after a mere six days' training. Anaemic and undernourished Russian clerks who had never before handled a gun were mobilized and hurled into battle. A call for help went out to the Baltic destroyer fleet, which succeeded in doing what everyone had thought impossible: it steamed up the Neva, negotiated the Mariinsk canals, entered the Volga, and subjected the Czechoslovak lines to a murderous and wholly unforeseen bombardment.

  Trotsky and his staff of former Tsarist officers sped between the battlefronts by express train. There were eleven fronts in all, and Vatsetis, Trotsky's Lettish military adviser, was rumoured to have forecast that they would soon be augmented by a twelfth, to wit, starvation. Although food and fuel were in short supply, the munitions factories continued to function. "If our coal runs out," Kamenev told a gathering of foundrymen, "we'll stoke our furnaces with the pianos of the bourgeoisie." Muscovites undertook two-day journeys by rail to obtain a sack of potatoes. The itinerant traders who used to peddle garlic, dried fish and cranberries in the streets of Moscow had disappeared overnight. All that could now be bought were buttons, shoe polish and notebooks.