by Leo Perutz
"Why should anyone arrest me, comrade?"
"An odd question. The Cheka have become aware of your activities, that's why. You weren't very discreet."
"But all my things are there - my clothes and so on."
"Are they worth risking your neck for? We'll provide you with all you need. You'd better leave today, and whatever you do, don't go anywhere near that apartment. You promise? Very well, take your papers."
Vit¬torin pocketed them and, in so doing, became a Red Army soldier.
He had all he needed to get him to the front - equipment, papers, food for the journey, and, concealed on his person, the revolver essential to his grand confrontation with Selyukov - but still he hesitated to take the ultimate step. It seemed so final and irrevocable that he was reluctant to be over-hasty. Twice he set off for Kursk Station, and twice he turned back, deterred each time by the same misgivings. Could he be certain that Selyukov was still serving with the regiment in whose ranks he had originally entered the civil war? Mightn't the former staff captain have quit the service? Mightn't he have been assigned to rear echelon duties, given command of one of the newly raised regiments, or transferred to some divisional headquarters? Vit¬torin was anxious to reassure himself on that score before leaving Moscow for good.
He spent two days looking for men from "Karl Liebknecht's Own", whether wounded or on leave, but none of the soldiers he encountered wore shoulder-straps bearing the initials "K. L." Instead of returning to the apartment, he slept at a lodging house on the Leningrad road. On the morning of the third day he joined a procession of suburban factory workers singing revolutionary songs as they marched to the Kremlin to attend a rally there.
Moscow's factories were at a standstill that day. Vit¬torin learned that the workers of Milan had seized power, and that street fighting had broken out in Elberfeld. Because the simultaneous nature of these developments suggested that world revolution was imminent, the embattled proletarians of Western Europe were to be honoured with rallies, revolutionary demonstrations, processions, public entertainments, and a Red Army parade.
Most government offices were shut, but staff at the headquarters of the various departments remained on duty till noon. Vit¬torin left the procession in Red Square, formerly Imperial Theatre Square, and had no difficulty in gaining admittance to the War Commissariat.
Only two people were in the Personnel Records Office at this hour: an oldish man with a sparse goatee and a bald head - clearly the head of the department, because he was reading Pravda - and a weary-looking girl engaged in numbering documents of some kind. Vit¬torin addressed himself to the girl.
"I need some information, comrade. I should like to know the names of the battalion, platoon and section commanders of a certain front-line regiment."
"I'm sorry, comrade," the girl replied in a soft, melodious voice. "I'm not allowed to disclose information of that sort."
Vit¬torin was determined not to be put off. For a moment he considered producing his papers as evidence that he was bound for the front and anxious to know the names of his future superiors, but he abandoned the idea in case the documents were recognized as forgeries. He tried another tack -one that seemed less risky.
"In this instance, comrade," he pleaded, "perhaps your orders will allow you to make an exception. It's a genuinely deserving case. I've requisitioned a room in a family's apartment. The wife is sick, there are three children, and the husband's at the front. She hasn't heard from him for two months. Put yourself in her position, comrade."
Vit¬torin could tell that his story had made an impression. The girl seemed to be wavering, reconsidering. She glanced inquiringly at her boss, who was still engrossed in his newspaper.
"The woman has her husband's parents to look after as well," Vit¬torin went on. "Two months without a word, imagine! She asked me to make inquiries. The last time she heard, he was commanding a battalion of the Liebknecht Regiment. His name is -"
"No," the girl broke in, "it's pointless going on, we can't give you any such information."
Just then the head of department put his paper down.
"One moment," he said, and turned to Vit¬torin. "The battalion commander you mentioned - which regiment was he serving with?"
"The Liebknecht, formerly the Semyonov Regiment."
"Be patient, comrade, and you'll have the particulars you're after. Wait here while I make the necessary inquiries."
He left the room. The girl glanced nervously at the door to satisfy herself that it was almost shut.
"For heaven's sake go!" she whispered. "Go, or an innocent family will suffer. Along the corridor on the right, down two flights of stairs, and you'll be out on the street. Go quickly! Oh God, it's too late ..."
The head of department returned, accompanied by a burly, thickset man with a broad face, prominent cheekbones, and the lustreless eyes of a dead fish. He wore a flat green cap and a uniform adorned with red piping and the Soviet star in gold.
H5
The girl's expression had gone quite blank. She bent over her desk and went on numbering documents in the margin. Her boss beckoned to Vit¬torin.
"What was the name of that battalion commander?"
"Mikhail Mikhailovich Selyukov."
"Address?"
"No. 15, Tagansky Square. He's at the front, though."
"I know," said the head of department. He turned to the man in the red-braided uniform.
"Take three of your men and escort this comrade to the said address. Arrest any persons you find there and march them off to the Special Tribunal for questioning. The head of the family is a traitor." With a glance at Vit¬torin, who was looking utterly dismayed, he added, "The Semyonov Regiment, as it used to be known, deserted to the enemy four days ago, officers and all."
Outside the door bearing the brass plate inscribed with Selyu-kov's name, Vit¬torin made one last attempt to avert the consequences of his initiative.
"I tell you, comrades, you're wasting your time. You won't find anyone there. It's all a misunderstanding."
The three Red Guards leaned on their rifles, waiting for an order of some kind. Their peasant faces, broad and bearded, were quite impassive. One of them had removed his cap and was mopping his brow. The Cheka officer fixed Vit¬torin with his dull, fishlike gaze.
"We'll see," he said brusquely. "Give me the key. You don't have it? If the place is really empty you'll be paying the Luby-anka a visit yourself. Then you'll tell us where to find those people."
He tugged at the bell-pull.
The bell's harsh, jangling note terminated in a plaintive tinkle, then silence. Vit¬torin had heard it only once before, and that was when he had stood outside, heart pounding, with a requisition order in his pocket. Baron Pistolkors had been playing a Bach gavotte. Where were those sounds now? Gone for ever. The rooms were deserted, devoid of all human presence. The violin reposed on some stall in the flea market, and buried somewhere in a prison yard were the remains of the old courtier who had bidden farewell to the world, farewell to his memories, with the melancholy, fervent strains of "La Furiosa".
Vit¬torin gave a sudden start. Footsteps could be heard inside the deserted apartment. As they approached the door, a crazy notion flitted through his head: Pistolkors had returned from the dead to fetch his violin - no, it was cold below ground and he wanted the brown woollen rug - no, nonsense, it was Selyukov! Selyukov was back in Moscow, back in his apartment, home from the front . . .
"Who is it?"
An unfamiliar voice. Vit¬torin had never heard it before.
The Cheka officer hammered on the door with the butt of his Mauser.
"Open up! House search!" . The door remained shut. The only response was an oath and an alarm signal: two short, shrill, piercing whistles.
"All right," the Cheka officer yelled, "Break it down!"
Rifle butts reduced the door to matchwood. A shot rang out. The bullet, which was meant for Vit¬torin, grazed his shoulder. The soldiers burst into the lobby and
hurled themselves at the man who had fired it. He resisted fiercely, but they pinned him to the ground. The Cheka officer hurried past them into the living-room, gun in hand.
He found it deserted. The first thing he saw was a hand press with a pile of leaflets beside it, the ink still wet. Some yellowish powder had been spread out on the desk to dry, and the chairs were littered with tin boxes, metal cylinders, pieces of lead, glass tubes.
The Chekist went over to the desk, took a pinch of powder, and sniffed it. A sound made him look up. Artemyev was standing in the doorway leading to the dressing-room.
The man from the Cheka didn't recognize him. All he saw was someone who had fallen into his clutches and was at his mercy. He blew the powder off his fingertips.
"Are you the owner of this apartment? A hand press, leaflets ... So you've set up a clandestine printing works, have you? Come here!"
Artemyev scrutinized the Chekist's face.
"Are you a Russian?" he asked. "You look more like a Kalmuck or a Buryat to me."
"I'll ask the questions and you answer them!" the Chekist snapped. "What's this powder here?"
"Groats," said Artemyev. "I live on them."
"You seem to be in a humorous mood. Well, you'll soon get over it. You're under arrest."
"Under arrest, eh? That's an empty phrase. It takes more than words, even to catch a chicken. You'll have to do better than that. I'm Fyodor Artemyev."
The Cheka officer turned pale. The hand holding the Mauser trembled and his forehead became beaded with sweat. He stared at the object in Artemyev's hand, conscious that he would never leave the room alive.
"Give yourself up, the building's surrounded," he pleaded hoarsely. "Your position is hopeless, even you must realize that. The Soviet authorities want no bloodshed - they may consider imposing a more lenient sentence if you volunteer to work for the proletarian masses. I know Dzerzhinsky and Steklov - I'm acquainted with them both. I'll speak to them, I'll use my influence on your behalf. Stay where you are, keep that hand still! I don't want to have to shoot you, but-"
"If only you'd shut up," Artemyev broke in with a sigh, "but you can't stop blathering."
The soldiers had entered the room with their rifles at the ready. Artemyev was suddenly overcome by a wild desire to escape his enemies once more, lose himself in the crowd, start work all over again. For a second or two, his alert brain juggled with a series of ingenious, audacious, futile plans.
He discarded them all.
"Welcome," he told the Red Guards. "You've turned up at a bad moment, comrades."
He took a step forward. Nestling in his hand was a cylinder of shiny, reddish metal. He tossed it into the middle of the room.
Vit¬torin had already left the building by the time the bomb exploded. He collided with a street lamp, recovered himself, heard a woman scream, saw her throw up her arms and make for the shelter of a doorway, saw a cabby in the middle of Tagansky Square whip up his horses like a madman, heard a tinkle of broken glass.
He ran off without a backward glance. Getting as far away as possible - that was his only thought as he plunged into a maze of unfamiliar streets. He hurried past people with his face averted, convinced that they were Chekists, informers, or militiamen in disguise.
Not that he knew how he had got there, he found himself outside a church. Too exhausted to go any farther, he went in. There was an effigy of St Nicholas the miracle-worker in one of the side aisles. He subsided into a niche beneath it and shut his eyes.
It was four in the afternoon when he left the church. He felt calmer now, and the risk of being recognized and arrested seemed less immediate. He went up to a young woman selling matches on a street corner - they cost sixty roubles a box -and asked her the way to the station.
By now, the public festivities had reached their climax. A cortege was wending its way through the Sadovaya to the strains of a bizarrre funeral march: the parliamentary system was being borne to its grave. Behind its coffin, jeered and hooted by the crowds, walked actors got up as generals and priests, distillery owners and financiers. America, symbolized by an enormous money-bag, was being hauled along Smolensky Boulevard. A proletarian poet stationed on the steps of St Paul's recited revolutionary tirades against the bad old days,
the bourgeoisie, the late Tsar's armies. In Arbat Square, where a makeshift circus was performing, European monarchs and politicians were portrayed as hyenas, wolves, alligators, feline predators and gesticulating monkeys. Wilson, Vandervelde and Lloyd George played the role of clowns.
Vit¬torin's ears were last assailed by the voice of Red Moscow outside Kursk Station, where men armed with megaphones invited all present to participate in the crowd scenes of a revolutionary play, The Storming of the Winter Palace, and broadcast the latest news: the city of Perm had been captured by Soviet troops; Red partisan detachments had derailed an ammunition train behind the Kolchak army's lines; last but not least, the counter-revolutionary Artemyev, that mortal enemy of the Soviets and hireling of foreign capital, had been killed while attempting to evade arrest and due punishment.
Vit¬torin stopped in his tracks when tidings of the great rebel's death rang out across street and square. He had no notion of the circumstances, no inkling that he himself had delivered Artemyev into his enemies' hands. All that struck him as odd was that providence should have granted Artemyev just time enough to facilitate his, Vit¬torin's, departure for the front. It was almost as if that had been the underlying purpose of Artemyev's colourful career.
But there was no time to dwell on this now. Vit¬torin extracted the movement order and travel warrant from the leg of his boot. Then, with the papers in his hand, he made his way into the station.
CHARGE!
The Penza Division's 3rd Red Rifle Regiment had originated under enemy fire in the front line itself. Formed at the end of June 1919, it had taken part in six engagements and the defence of Kharkov during the summer campaign, borne the brunt of the enemy's assault at Valki, and had received two honourable mentions in communiques issued by the pan-Russian bureau of the War Commissars. By early November, when the rain had become incessant, the severely depleted regiment was in position facing a White brigade south-east of Miropol.
The regimental commander was a veteran captain who had lost his right arm in Carpathia and signed his orders left-handed. The first battalion was commanded by Seaman Stassik, the second by Comrade Storoshev, a stove fitter by trade. Both had completed a command course in Moscow, and both had been awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The third battalion existed on paper only.
Also under regimental command were a light field gun battery and a reconnaissance detachment made up of specially trained men. In command of this detachment was a Moscow University student who had volunteered for combat duty. His name was Berezin, and he had a girl-friend and an old mother in Moscow.
One dank November morning, Berezin returned from a patrol to the quarters he shared with the second-in-command of No. 1 Section. These consisted of a barn made semi-habitable with the aid of a worm-eaten table and a few chairs. Part of the interior was illuminated by the flickering light of a candle stuck in the neck of a broken bottle. A private soldier named Yefimov was crouching in front of the little cast-iron stove, feeding it with the damp remains of a broken crate.
Berezin hung up his crumpled, muddy greatcoat to dry. Then he went to the stove and warmed his hands at it.
"Where's the German?" he asked. "Is he out?"
"No, asleep. He's over there." Yefimov jerked a thumb at the shadows behind him.
"Still feverish?"
Yefimov shrugged. "Maybe it's fever, maybe something else. He feels cold - he shivers all the time. The medical orderly came and tried to give him some drops, but he sent him away."
Berezin proceeded to pull off his boots. Yefimov put some water on the stove to heat and continued his report.
"About the rations, comrade. They haven't issued any bread today, only cans of bully beef. One between two, that's al
l they had. This one's for you, though. The German won't eat a thing. He's only thirsty - kept asking for water all night long." Yefimov paused. "Well, comrade, how are the Whites faring? They sent over some shrapnel yesterday. I heard some rifle fire, too. Have the wolves' teeth grown again?"
"They're in clover, the swine," said Berezin. "It's groats and milk for them. You can hear them praying and singing after evening muster. They have regimental priests, the way they had in the days of the Tsar. They even have psalm singers."
The figure in the corner stirred. Vit¬torin rubbed his inflamed eyes, threw off his coat and blanket and sat up.
"Is that you, Berezin? Why shut the door? It's unbearable, this heat - for God's sake let some air in. Well, did you see him?"
Berezin, who had produced a cup with a broken handle from his knapsack, knelt down beside the stove. He carefully wiped the cup on the hem of his jacket and filled it with tea.
"Aren't you going to open the door and let some fresh air in?" Vit¬torin exclaimed.
"You think it's still summer outside, but that's because you're feverish," Berezin told him. "It isn't hot in here, with all the wind blowing through the cracks."
"I'm all right - there's nothing the matter with me. So you didn't see him?"
"Who?"
"The White officer - the one your men call 'the Whistler'."
"No, I didn't come across him. A patrol passed within twenty paces of us in those willow thickets beyond the embankment. Later on, at dawn, I met another - nearly bumped into it, the mist was so dense."
Vit¬torin shut his eyes. When had he first heard of the White officer who whistled as he led his men ino the attack, riding crop in hand? Who lined up Red prisoners, told their officers to step forward, and, still whistling, gunned them down? Brooding hatred had impelled Vit¬torin to seek him everywhere and question every White deserter, but it was only now, as he lay there in the barn, stricken with fever and consumed by his endless obsession, that he had become convinced that "the Whistler" and Selyukov were identical: Selyukov the well-groomed, perfumed murderer who strolled through life with a quirt in his bloodstained hand . . .
