The White Russian

by Tom Bradby

  He ran a hand through his hair, then rubbed distractedly at his lower lip with his index finger. Now that he was here, he did not know what to do.

  A dancer appeared from one of the rooms farther down the corridor. She was in a hurry. “Can I help you?” she asked as she ran past him, toward the stage, but Ruzsky had failed to reply by the time she turned the corner.

  He took another pace forward.

  He felt the blood pound in his head. He didn’t need the ballet master’s help to feel he didn’t quite belong here.

  For a moment, he was transported back to their first meeting at Krasnoe Selo just outside the capital-the site of the summer camps of many of the Guards regiments-shortly before the outbreak of war. On that bright day, the French president had joined the Tsar for an inspection of the serried ranks of guardsmen on a dusty field leading down to a shimmering sea. Ruzsky had forgotten not a single detail. Standing here, he could almost feel the intense heat and smell the acrid odor of burning turf from a distant forest fire. He recalled the sight of the Emperor on his white horse, the stillness in the crowd, and then the cheers rising with the strength of an approaching storm.

  Irina had persuaded him that they should accompany his father. After the inspection was over and a sinking sun cast shadows across the gray battleships anchored in the bay, he had been introduced to Maria. They had exchanged only a few words, but as she walked away, in a cloud of dust kicked up by a thousand horses’ hooves, she had turned to look back at him, the wide brim of her white hat pushed up and her hand shielding her eyes from the fading sunlight.

  Ruzsky took another pace forward. In that moment, his life had been transformed and yet the truth was that he had nothing more concrete to go on than an instinct for her feelings.

  He thought of Anton’s assertion that she had kept a picture of him on her dressing table and his face flushed with pleasure once more. Was he too late? He knocked.

  “Come in.”

  The adrenaline pumped through him. He put his hand on the door and pushed it gently.

  Maria stood on the far side of the room, in front of a mirror, half-turned toward him.

  She was tall, with long, dark hair that stretched all the way down the center of her back. She had a petite nose, long eyelashes, rich green eyes, and full, slightly upturned lips.

  She was a woman of heart-stopping beauty-talented and womanly and clever-and yet the sight of him made her flush bright red. Her smile was girlish, full of unsophisticated pleasure. “Hello, Sandro,” she said, her voice soft.

  Ruzsky felt his stomach lurch.

  She wore a simple, elegant, cream and gold dress. “You’re back,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve come home.” Her voice was warm.

  Ruzsky did not know what to reply.

  “You haven’t changed one bit,” he said.

  She gave a tiny smile. “Is that a compliment?”

  “Of course.”

  “You look older.”

  “And that isn’t.”

  “I don’t know. It suits you.” She paused, her face serious again. “It’s been so long, Sandro.”

  “A lifetime.”

  Her cheeks flushed again.

  “How was Tobolsk?” Maria asked.

  “It was cold.”

  “You missed Petersburg. City of our dreams.”

  “And yet it got along without me.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion. I was told that your wife came home.”

  Ruzsky wanted to ask by whom. “She did, yes.”

  “I’m sorry for that.”

  Ruzsky didn’t reply.

  Maria caught sight of a hole in his boot, then shook her head. “Don’t you have anyone to look after you?”

  “No,” he said with a rueful smile.

  It had been intended as a joke, but her face was instantly concerned.

  Warmth flooded through him.

  Maria took a step toward him, then leaned against the dresser upon which she stored her makeup. Her dress was tight and low cut, the swell of her breasts almost sculpted. He caught sight of a single rose in a cut-glass vase behind her, and suddenly imagined another man bending to kiss the smooth skin of her neck.

  Ruzsky fought to keep his emotions in check, but it was an unequal battle. He was forty-forty-an investigator hardened by more experience than was good for a man; married, betrayed, alone. And yet when he was with her-a girl not much more than half his age-the cares of the world fell away.

  Opposite her dresser, a photograph of the male dancer Vaslav Nijinsky as the golden slave-the role that made him famous-took pride of place alongside one of Maria and Kshesinskaya, the prima ballerina assoluta. Russia ’s two best-known ballerinas had their arms draped around each other for the camera. “How is she?” Ruzsky asked, inclining his head.

  “Much the same as before.” Maria shrugged. “Still collecting Romanovs.”

  “Perhaps not the best currency in these times.”

  “The world is at war, Sandro. How many million dead? How many yet to die? Our fantasies count for little.”

  Ruzsky felt that she was able to look right through him.

  “Was it so bad, what you did? To send you away for so long.”

  Her gaze was intense. Was it hurt that he saw there? Ruzsky sighed. “I helped cause a man’s death.”

  “But he was a terrible man.”

  Ruzsky stared at the floor.

  “And you took the blame, Sandro?”

  Ruzsky did not answer.

  “So you’re the kind of man who will not cheat on his wife, even though she betrays him openly, and who will happily go into exile in order to protect a friend.”

  “I wouldn’t say happily, exactly-”

  “An example to us all.”

  “I’m afraid my father would not agree.”

  “Is what he thinks still so important?”

  “Yes.” Ruzsky realized he had said too much. He shook his head. “No.” He forced a smile. “Are you rehearsing today?”

  There was a shout from the corridor. “Maria Andreevna!” Then another, when she did not respond.

  Maria was still looking at Ruzsky. “Something for next month. Two more nights of the Stravinsky and then I go home to Yalta.”

  “It’s a long way, at a time like this.”

  “My sister is not well. Sandro, I…” As she tried to find the words, her face was soft and more achingly beautiful than ever. This was how he had remembered her. “I would like us to be friends,” she said.

  Ruzsky did not move. His heart banged like a drum. Friends… He was not sure if she meant only friends and no more. “We are friends.”

  Now he saw sorrow in her eyes. Was it longing, or just a deep loneliness that was the mirror of his own? Ruzsky looked at her for a few moments more, but something prevented him from speaking.

  “Maria!” the man shouted again.

  Maria touched his cheek, her fingers cool on his skin as her eyes searched his. Then she was gone.

  Ruzsky stayed rooted to the spot. By the time he had followed her out of the door, she had disappeared.

  At the end of the corridor, he stopped.

  He could hear the ballet master already barking instructions. “And one and two and no… Again!”

  He waited.

  He listened to his own breathing in the silence of the corridor.

  After a minute, he continued on his way.

  9

  I t was still snowing heavily as Ruzsky walked across the square toward the Tsarskoe Selo Station, head down and deep in thought. He could see no sign of any police presence, so he assumed the trains must be running today.

  The elegant, yellow station took its name from its principal destination; trains from here ran out to the town that was home to the current tsar an hour away. Whenever Nicholas wanted to come to the capital on his train, the entire station was sealed off, sometimes all day.

  Ruzsky barely registered the long khvost on the far si
de of the square until he heard shouts and looked over to see a group of soldiers fighting in the middle of the queue.

  He hesitated, then began to walk on until he heard the crack of a shot, then another.

  A tram rattled past, almost encased in ice, and Ruzsky ran around the back of it, slipping as he narrowed his eyes against the driving snow. A large group of men was fighting-perhaps ten or more and there was another shot. The melee was too confused to tell who was firing, or at what. Ruzsky reached into his pocket for his Sauvage and pointed it in the air. He fired once. “Police! Get back in line.”

  The men continued to fight. He fired twice more. “Get back in line!” he bellowed.

  They stopped and, as Ruzsky moved closer, turned slowly to stare at him. Two were on the ground, covered in snow, and got up slowly. All were in long greatcoats, but one at least had large holes in the top of his boots. He was an older peasant conscript with a long, unkempt beard. He had knocked a woman and her son over in the scuffle and Ruzsky stepped forward and helped them to their feet. The woman almost slipped over again, but he caught her. She was dressed in a thick jacket and a scuffy, dark pair of valenki-knee-high rough woolen boots.

  He retreated once more, and it was only then that he could see that the line was more than a hundred yards long and stretched all the way around the corner of the block. He couldn’t see what they were waiting for. Perhaps, as so often, they did not even know themselves.

  “You’re waiting for bread?” he shouted.

  All of the men stared at him, the snow gathering in their faces. Most of those ahead and behind them were women, wrapped up in headscarves, so that only their eyes were visible.

  He saw himself through their eyes, for the first time in many years. A detested servant of the Tsar. He thought of the article on his desk. No wonder the educated classes feared the mob.

  “You’re waiting for bread?” he shouted again, wanting to break the mood, but still no one answered him.

  Ruzsky walked swiftly along the queue, turning the corner to see that the bakery they waited outside was not even open. He pushed through the middle of the crowd and went to the door, then put his face to the cold glass and peered in. There was no light on inside, but he could see that the shelves were empty.

  He turned around. “There’s nothing there.”

  Nobody answered him.

  At the front of the queue, a woman waited with her son and an old man they had wheeled on a makeshift wooden barrow. Snow and ice had gathered in the old man’s beard and his eyes were beyond caring.

  “They said there would be bread later,” the woman said. “No one wishes to lose their place in the line.”

  Ruzsky looked at her for a moment and then turned around and walked back toward the group of soldiers. “It will be a long wait,” he said as he approached. “If you must stay, be patient. Fighting serves no one.”

  But even as he spoke, he felt the patronizing futility of his words.

  He stared at them for a moment more and then turned and walked toward the station steps. As he did so, he felt a thousand eyes upon his back.

  “Officer!” someone shouted. Ruzsky swung around. The young boy who had been at the front of the queue stood before him. He thrust a piece of paper into his hands.

  Ruzsky looked down at it.

  “A PROPHECY,” it read.

  A year shall come of Russia ’s blackest dread;

  Then will the crown fall from the royal head,

  The throne of tsars will perish in the mud,

  The food of many will be death and blood.

  – Mikhail Lermontov, 1830.

  Ruzsky looked up. They were all staring at him. Even through the veil of falling snow he could see the hatred in their eyes.

  He folded the piece of paper, put it into his pocket, and walked away without looking back.

  Ruzsky climbed the stone steps to the platform level of the station and emerged onto the concourse. A conductor blew his whistle loudly and the engine closest to him released a burst of steam that billowed out across the platform. Light spilled through the glass panels of the curved iron roof.

  Ruzsky walked past the shops selling sweets and cigarettes and noticed how bare even their shelves appeared. Before the war, they’d also have sold pastries and bread, but now there was no sign of either. Only a man standing next to a brazier by the edge of the concourse, selling baked lavasky, the wafer-thin round cakes, appeared to be doing any trade.

  Ruzsky grasped the brass rail at the entrance to one of the carriages and swung himself up, slamming the door shut behind him. He took his seat and pushed up the window next to it, a few crystals of snow and ice floating down onto his lap.

  On the platform outside, three women in fur coats and hats stood next to an officer in the dark blue and green parade uniform of Her Majesty’s Cuirassier Regiment-the Blue Cuirassiers. Next to them, a newspaper boy in a flat cloth cap was shouting loudly in an attempt to sell copies of Petrogradskie Vedomosti and Novoe Vremia beside a crudely inscribed headline board: “Western Front: no changes; Rumanian Front: no changes; Caucasian Front: no changes. Bravery of Russian Soldiers! Shaliapin Charity Concert to be announced in Moscow.”

  As Ruzsky watched, the officer stepped over and ordered the boy curtly to be quiet, before moving back toward his companions. He said something to the women and then tipped back his head in laughter as the whistle sounded.

  For all his rebellions, Ruzsky could not help sharing his family’s prejudice against cavalry officers. The Preobrazhensky was in the Infantry Division of the Life Guards.

  He stood and returned to the platform to buy a copy of Petrogradskie Vedomosti. He gave the boy a large tip.

  The carriage was almost empty, save for a young couple in the far corner staring out of their window. Ruzsky stretched his legs and sank back into the leather seat.

  There was another whistle and the train began to move off. The view across the rooftops through dull light and dirty windows appeared endless.

  The girl at the far end of the carriage leaned her head affectionately on the man’s shoulder. They were young, both of them, possibly palace household staff.

  Ruzsky pulled his thin overcoat tight, trying to ignore the cold. He took out his silver case and almost smoked a cigarette, before thinking better of it. He turned the case over and looked at the family crest. Like the Romanovs’, it depicted a giant eagle-but single headed.

  He closed his eyes. Train journeys always transported him back to his youth and those moments when the family would leave Petersburg and set off for what had been his father’s favorite country estate at Petrovo. Sometimes, still, Ruzsky revisited every detail of that journey in his mind: the packing of the household, the excitement that flooded through everyone, even the servants, for days beforehand; the hampers, the first-class compartment, the soporific rattle of the train as it moved slowly south; the horse-drawn troikas that would be waiting at the station two days later and the thrill of that last journey when he, Ilya, and Dmitri would climb down and run through the woods to the house. He could see, even now, the village sparkling through the pine trees as they crested the last hill, the house ablaze with light.

  He wondered if he would ever go back.

  The train rattled past a frozen lake upon which a boy of six or seven was skating with halting, uncoordinated movements. Ruzsky watched him as he fell and sat suddenly upright, craning his neck to see if he had gone through the ice.

  But the boy stood. He dusted the snow from his clothes and began to skate again.

  Ruzsky kept his eyes upon him until the train had rattled around the corner of the wood and out of sight.

  He picked up his newspaper. There was a long article on the front page that contained the usual fantastic assertions about the progress of the war and a claim that the radical political changes demanded by some would shatter the foundations of Russian society.

  This was the newspaper Ruzsky’s father had always treated as a conservative bible. He fli
cked through it. A group of criminals had robbed a million rubles from the Mutual Credit Bank in Kharkov, drilling through a wall from a neighboring house.

  He put the paper down. Perhaps it was a sign of the times. When a ship hit bad weather, it was every rat for himself.

  When he reached the station in the town of Tsarskoe Selo itself, Ruzsky climbed into the back of a droshky and a few moments later the wind was cutting into his cheeks as he was hurried along Sadovaya Ulitsa, past the formal gardens of the Catherine Palace. The weather was much clearer out here, and the magnificent blue, white, and gold baroque facade of the palace sparkled in the sunlight. Above it, the Imperial Standard of the Romanovs crackled in the breeze.

  Ruzsky watched a green ambulance with a red cross on its side slide through the gates of the palace. Since the start of the war, a section of the grandest of all the Romanovs’ homes had been turned into a hospital for officers.

  Not that it had done the ruling dynasty any favors.

  Ruzsky smoked a cigarette to hide his nerves. He had been here as a child, when his father had been summoned to a meeting with the present tsar’s father, Alexander III, in the Catherine Palace-a rare event since Alexander had preferred his home at Gatchina-but this time Ruzsky doubted he would get past the gate.

  Even as the son of privilege, Ruzsky had found the opulence awe-inspiring. So many servants, he had told his mother. Nor could he forget the look of rapture in her eyes.

  The droshky slowed as they approached the Alexander Palace and the driver stopped short of the gate. Ruzsky paid and sent him on his way.

  He waited for a moment as he pushed the bundle of his own rubles back into his pocket. Two guards stood by the gate. There was a sense of calm within. The emperors did not like to see servants arriving and leaving, he had once been told, so an entrance to the palace complex had been built underground. He was surprised by how ordinary it all seemed. Somehow, given the climate in the capital, he had expected to find hundreds of guards and thick barbed wire fencing.

  “Ruzsky, Alexander Nikolaevich, investigator of the Petrograd police,” he told the guards, producing his identification papers.