by Ken Follett
He forced a smile and offered the last unopened bottle. "Have a drink, Major."
The officer ignored him and turned to Gavrik. "What do you think you're doing?"
Gavrik was not intimidated. "The men have had no dinner today, Major, so I couldn't make them refuse a drink."
"You should have taken him prisoner!"
Feodor said: "We can't take him prisoner, now that we've drunk his booze." He was slurring already. "It wouldn't be fair!" he finished, and the others cheered.
The major said to Walter: "You're a spy, and I ought to blow your damned head off." He touched the holstered gun at his belt.
The soldiers shouted protests. The major continued to look angry, but he said no more, clearly not wanting a clash with the men.
Walter said to them: "I'd better leave you. Your major is a bit unfriendly. Besides, we have a brothel just behind our front line, and there's a blond girl with big tits who may be feeling a bit lonely ... "
They laughed and cheered. It was half-true: there was a brothel, but Walter had never visited it.
"Remember," he said. "We won't fight if you don't!"
He scrambled out of the trench. This was the moment of greatest danger. He got to his feet, walked a few paces, turned, waved, and walked on. They had satisfied their curiosity and all the schnapps was gone. Now they might just take it into their heads to do their duty and shoot the enemy. He felt as if his coat had a target printed on the back.
Darkness was falling. Soon he would be out of sight. He was only a few yards from safety. It took all his willpower not to break into a sprint--but he felt that might provoke a shot. Gritting his teeth, he walked with even strides through the litter of unexploded shells.
He glanced back. He could not see the trench. That meant they could not see him. He was safe.
He breathed easier and walked on. It had been worth the risk. He had learned a lot. Although this section was showing no white flags, the Russians were in poor shape for battle. Clearly the men were discontented and rebellious, and the officers had only a weak hold on discipline. The sergeant had been careful not to cross them and the major had not dared to take Walter prisoner. In that frame of mind it was impossible for soldiers to put up a brave fight.
He came within sight of the German line. He shouted his name and a prearranged password. He dropped down into the trench. A lieutenant saluted him. "Successful sortie, sir?"
"Yes, thanks," said Walter. "Very successful indeed."
{ II }
Katerina lay on the bed in Grigori's old room, wearing only a thin shift. The window was open, letting in the warm July air and the thunder of the trains that passed a few steps away. She was six months pregnant.
Grigori ran a finger along the outline of her body, from her shoulder, over one swollen breast, down again to her ribs, up over the gentle hill of her belly, and down her thigh. Before Katerina he had never known this easygoing joy. His youthful relations with women had been hasty and short-lived. To him it was a new and thrilling experience to lie beside a woman after sex, touching her body gently and lovingly but without urgency or lust. Perhaps this was what marriage meant, he thought. "You're even more beautiful pregnant," he said, speaking in a low murmur so as not to wake Vlad.
For two and a half years he had acted as father to his brother's son, but now he was going to have a child of his own. He would have liked to name the baby after Lenin, but they already had a Vladimir. The pregnancy had made Grigori a hardliner in politics. He had to think about the country in which the child would grow up, and he wanted his son to be free. (For some reason he thought of the baby as a boy.) He had to be sure Russia would be ruled by its people, not by a tsar or a middle-class parliament or a coalition of businessmen and generals who would bring back the old ways in new disguises.
He did not really like Lenin. The man lived in a permanent rage. He was always shouting at people. Anyone who disagreed with him was a swine, a bastard, a cunt. But he worked harder than anyone else, he thought about things for a long time, and his decisions were always right. In the past, every Russian "revolution" had led to nothing but dithering. Grigori knew Lenin would not let that happen.
The provisional government knew it, too, and there were signs they wanted to target Lenin. The right-wing press had accused him of being a spy for Germany. The accusation was ridiculous. However, it was true that Lenin had a secret source of finance. Grigori, as one of those who had been Bolsheviks since before the war, was part of the inner circle, and he knew the money came from Germany. If the secret got out it would fuel suspicion.
He was dozing off when he heard footsteps in the hall followed by a loud, urgent knock at the door. Pulling on his trousers he shouted: "What is it?" Vlad woke up and cried.
A man's voice said: "Grigori Sergeivich?"
"Yes." Grigori opened the door and saw Isaak. "What's happened?"
"They've issued arrest warrants for Lenin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev."
Grigori went cold. "We have to warn them!"
"I've got an army car outside."
"I'll put my boots on."
Isaak went. Katerina picked up Vlad and comforted him. Grigori hastily pulled his clothes on, kissed them both, and ran down the stairs.
He jumped into the car beside Isaak and said: "Lenin is the most important." The government was right to target him. Zinoviev and Kamenev were sound revolutionaries, but Lenin was the engine that drove the movement. "We must warn him first. Drive to his sister's place. Fast as you can go."
Isaak headed off at top speed.
Grigori held tight while the car screeched around a corner. As it straightened up he said: "How did you find out?"
"From a Bolshevik in the Ministry of Justice."
"When were the warrants signed?"
"This morning."
"I hope we're in time." Grigori was terrified that Lenin might already have been seized. No one else had his inflexible determination. He was a bully, but he had transformed the Bolsheviks into the leading party. Without him, the revolution could fall back into muddle and compromise.
Isaak drove to Shirokaya Street and pulled up outside a middle-class apartment building. Grigori jumped out, ran inside, and knocked at the Yelizarov flat. Anna Yelizarova, Lenin's elder sister, opened the door. She was in her fifties, with graying hair parted in the center. Grigori had met her before: she worked on Pravda. "Is he here?" Grigori said.
"Yes, why, what's happened?"
Grigori felt a wave of relief. He was not too late. He stepped inside. "They're going to arrest him."
Anna slammed the door. "Volodya!" she called, using the familiar form of Lenin's first name. "Come quickly!"
Lenin appeared, dressed as always in a shabby dark suit with a collar and tie. Grigori explained the situation rapidly.
"I'll leave immediately," Lenin said.
Anna said: "Don't you want to throw a few things in your suitcase--"
"Too risky. Send everything later. I'll let you know where I am." He looked at Grigori. "Thank you for the warning, Grigori Sergeivich. Do you have a car?"
"Yes."
Without another word Lenin went out into the hall.
Grigori followed him to the street and hurried to open the car door. "They have also issued warrants for Zinoviev and Kamenev," Grigori said as Lenin got in.
"Go back to the apartment and telephone them," Lenin said. "Mark has a phone and he knows where they are." He slammed the door. He leaned forward and said something to Isaak that Grigori did not hear. Isaak drove off.
This was how Lenin was all the time. He barked orders at everyone, and they did what he said because he always made sense.
Grigori felt the pleasure of a great weight being lifted from his shoulders. He looked up and down the street. A group of men came out of a building on the other side. Some were dressed in suits, others wore army officers' uniforms. Grigori was shocked to recognize Mikhail Pinsky. The secret police had been abolished, in theory, but it seemed men such as P
insky were continuing their work as part of the army.
These men must have come for Lenin--and just missed him by going into the wrong building.
Grigori ran back inside. The door to the Yelizarovs' apartment was still open. Just inside were Anna; her husband, Mark; her foster son, Gora; and the family servant, a country girl called Anyushka, all looking shocked. Grigori closed the door behind him. "He's safely away," he said. "But the police are outside. I have to telephone Zinoviev and Kamenev quickly."
Mark said: "The phone is there on the side table."
Grigori hesitated. "How does it work?" He had never used a telephone.
"Oh, sorry," said Mark. He picked up the instrument, holding one piece to his ear and the other to his mouth. "It's quite new to us, but we use it so much that we take it for granted already." Impatiently he jiggled the sprung bar on top of the stand. "Yes, please, operator," he said, and gave a number.
There was a banging at the door.
Grigori held his finger to his lips, telling the others to be quiet.
Anna took Anyushka and the child into the back of the apartment.
Mark spoke rapidly into the phone. Grigori stood at the apartment door. A voice said: "Open up or we'll break down the door! We have a warrant!"
Grigori shouted back: "Just a minute--I'm putting my pants on." The police came often to the kinds of buildings where he had lived most of his life, and he knew all the pretexts for keeping them waiting.
Mark jiggled the bar again and asked for another number.
Grigori shouted: "Who is it? Who's at the door?"
"Police! Open up this instant!"
"I'm just coming--I have to lock the dog in the kitchen."
"Hurry up!"
Grigori heard Mark say: "Tell him to go into hiding. The police are at my door now." He replaced the earpiece on its hook and nodded to Grigori.
Grigori opened the door and stood back.
Pinsky stepped in. "Where is Lenin?" he said.
Several army officers followed him in.
Grigori said: "There is no one here by that name."
Pinsky stared at him. "What are you doing here?" he said. "I always knew you were a troublemaker."
Mark stepped forward and said calmly: "Show me the warrant, please."
Reluctantly, Pinsky handed over a piece of paper.
Mark studied it for a few moments, then said: "High treason? That's ridiculous!"
"Lenin is a German agent," Pinsky said. He narrowed his eyes at Mark. "You're his brother-in-law, aren't you?"
Mark handed the paper back. "The man you are looking for is not here," he said.
Pinsky could sense he was telling the truth, and he looked angry. "Why the hell not?" he said. "He lives here!"
"Lenin is not here," Mark repeated.
Pinsky's face reddened. "Was he warned?" He grabbed Grigori by the front of his tunic. "What are you doing here?"
"I am a deputy to the Petrograd soviet, representing the First Machine Guns, and unless you want the regiment to pay a visit to your headquarters you'd better take your fat hands off my uniform."
Pinsky let go. "We'll take a look around anyway," he said.
There was a bookcase beside the phone table. Pinsky took half a dozen books off the shelf and threw them to the floor. He waved the officers toward the interior of the flat. "Tear the place apart," he said.
{ III }
Walter went to a village within the territory won from the Russians and gave an astonished and delighted peasant a gold coin for all his clothes: a filthy sheepskin coat, a linen smock, loose coarse trousers, and shoes made of bast, the woven bark of a beech tree. Fortunately Walter did not have to buy his underwear, for the man wore none.
Walter cut his hair with a pair of kitchen scissors and stopped shaving.
In a small market town he bought a sack of onions. He put a leather bag containing ten thousand rubles in coins and notes in the bottom of the sack under the onions.
One night he smeared his hands and face with earth then, dressed in the peasant's clothes and carrying the onion sack, he crossed no-man's-land, slipped through the Russian lines, and walked to the nearest railway station, where he bought a third-class ticket.
He adopted an aggressive attitude, and snarled at anyone who spoke to him, as if he feared they wanted to steal his onions, which they probably did. He had a large knife, rusty but sharp, clearly visible at his belt, and a Mosin-Nagant pistol, taken from a captured Russian officer, concealed under his smelly coat. On two occasions when a policeman spoke to him he grinned stupidly and offered an onion, a bribe so contemptible that both times the policeman grunted with disgust and walked off. If a policeman had insisted on looking into the sack, Walter was ready to kill him, but it was never necessary. He bought tickets for short journeys, three or four stops at a time, for a peasant would not go hundreds of miles to sell his onions.
He was tense and wary. His disguise was thin. Anyone who spoke to him for more than a few seconds would know he was not really Russian. The penalty for what he was doing was death.
At first he was scared, but that eventually wore off, and by the second day he was bored. He had nothing to occupy his mind. He could not read, of course: indeed, he had to be careful not to look at timetables posted at stations, or do more than glance at advertisements, for most peasants were illiterate. As a series of slow trains rattled and shook through the endless Russian forests, he entered into an elaborate daydream about the apartment he and Maud would live in after the war. It would have modern decor, with pale wood and neutral colors, like that of the von der Helbard house, rather than the heavy, dark look of his parents' home. Everything would be easy to clean and maintain, especially in the kitchen and laundry, so that they could employ fewer servants. They would have a really good piano, a Steinway grand, for they both liked to play. They would buy one or two eye-catching modern paintings, perhaps by Austrian expressionists, to shock the older generation and establish themselves as a progressive couple. They would have a light, airy bedroom and lie naked on a soft bed, kissing and talking and making love.
In this way he journeyed to Petrograd.
The arrangement, made through a revolutionary socialist in the Swedish embassy, was that someone from the Bolsheviks would wait to collect the money from Walter at Petrograd's Warsaw Station every day at six P.M. for one hour. Walter arrived at midday, and took the opportunity to look around the city, with the aim of assessing the Russian people's ability to fight on.
He was shocked by what he saw.
As soon as he left the station he was assailed by prostitutes, male and female, adult and child. He crossed a canal bridge and walked a couple of miles north into the city center. Most shops were closed, many boarded up, a few simply abandoned, with the smashed glass of their windows glittering on the street outside. He saw many drunks and two fistfights. Occasionally an automobile or a horse-drawn carriage dashed past, scattering pedestrians, its passengers hiding behind closed curtains. Most of the people were thin, ragged, and barefoot. It was much worse than Berlin.
He saw many soldiers, individually and in groups, most showing lapsed discipline: marching out of step or lounging at their posts, uniforms unbuttoned, chatting to civilians, apparently doing as they pleased. Walter was confirmed in the impression he had formed when he visited the Russian front line: these men were in no mood to fight.
This is all good news, he thought.
No one accosted him and the police ignored him. He was just another shabby figure shuffling about his own business in a city that was falling apart.
In high spirits, he returned to the station at six and quickly spotted his contact, a sergeant with a red scarf tied to the barrel of his rifle. Before making himself known, Walter studied the man. He was a formidable figure, not tall but broad-shouldered and thickset. He was missing his right ear, one front tooth, and the ring finger of his left hand. He waited with the patience of a veteran soldier, but he had a keen blue-eyed gaze that di
d not miss much. Although Walter intended to watch him covertly the soldier met his eye, nodded, and turned and walked away. As was clearly intended, Walter followed him. They went into a large room full of tables and chairs and sat down.
Walter said: "Sergeant Grigori Peshkov?"
Grigori nodded. "I know who you are. Sit down."
Walter looked around the room. There was a samovar hissing in a corner, and an old woman in a shawl selling smoked and pickled fish. Fifteen or twenty people were sitting at tables. No one gave a second glance to a soldier and a peasant who was obviously hoping to sell his sack of onions. A young man in the blue tunic of a factory worker followed them in. Walter caught the man's eye briefly and watched him take a seat, light a cigarette, and open Pravda.
Walter said: "May I have something to eat? I'm starving, but a peasant probably can't afford the prices here."
Grigori got a plate of black bread and herrings and two glasses of tea with sugar. Walter tucked into the food. After watching him for a minute, Grigori laughed. "I'm amazed you've passed for a peasant," he said. "I'd know you for a bourgeois."
"How?"
"Your hands are dirty, but you eat in small bites and dab your lips with a rag as if it was a linen napkin. A real peasant shovels the food in and slurps tea before swallowing."
Walter was irritated by his condescension. After all, I've survived three days on a damn train, he thought. I'd like to see you try that in Germany. It was time to remind Peshkov that he had to earn his money. "Tell me how the Bolsheviks are doing," he said.
"Dangerously well," said Grigori. "Thousands of Russians have joined the party in the last few months. Leon Trotsky has at last announced his support for us. You should hear him. Most nights he packs out the Cirque Moderne." Walter could see that Grigori hero-worshipped Trotsky. Even the Germans knew that Trotsky's oratory was enchanting. He was a real catch for the Bolsheviks. "Last February we had ten thousand members--today we have two hundred thousand," Grigori finished proudly.
