Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  Isaac was worried when Samuel told him what the friends had been talking about. He, too, dreamed of a classless society, but he was too scared to take a single step toward its creation. He had lost too much—his mother, his wife, and two of his children—to run the risk of losing Samuel as well.

  One afternoon, as Samuel was leaving the university, he ran into Andrei and another man.

  “This is my friend Dmitri Sokolov,” Andrei introduced him.

  Samuel thought that the man’s face was familiar. He was tall and thickset, with a thick black beard scattered with grey hairs, and the hair on his head was nearly completely grey. He had an imposing look to him, and his eyes seemed as if they could drill into the soul of anyone who crossed his path.

  “You’ll have seen him around the university.”

  “Yes, of course, I know who he is, I’ve heard people talk about him.” Samuel remembered that Sokolov was not a teacher, but rather the oldest library assistant, and he enjoyed a great deal of prestige among those students who thought that Russia needed a revolution. He knew that Sokolov was also Jewish, and although the man had broken with his religion some time ago, he still attracted all the Jewish students at the university. Initially, it appeared strange to Samuel that Andrei and Sokolov would be friends, but he said nothing.

  “I know who you are as well,” Sokolov said, to Samuel’s confusion.

  “But I’m nobody . . .”

  “The university has lots of eyes and ears, not just the Okhrana’s . . . Besides our mutual friend Andrei, there are other people who have spoken to me about you. They say that you’re a brave young man who wants to change things, but some people think you’re too cautious, and we don’t like that.”

  “We don’t like that? Who should care what I’m like?”

  “Andrei has said that you sympathize with us.”

  “With who?” Samuel asked, uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going.

  “We are many, many more than you might imagine, the ones who want things to change. Russia is dying. The aristocrats keep our country in the past. We are little more than serfs in a country of serfs. Don’t you think that the time has come to do something?”

  Samuel did not know whether to let himself be carried away by the enthusiasm he felt at this moment, or to fall back on the caution that his father had urged so often. He said nothing.

  “I’ve told Sokolov that we can trust you, so if you want to come with us . . . We’re going to a meeting with other comrades, some of whom you know . . . but it’s your decision. If you come, then there’s no turning back, we can’t let anyone come with us who we’re not sure shares our ideals.”

  “So I didn’t run into you by accident . . .”

  “No, I arranged this. I’ve spent some time trying to convince Sokolov to let you join us. I know how you think. We’ve spoken a good deal about what Russia needs. This cannot last forever, and you’re either with us or you’re against us.”

  “Andrei vouches for you. Are you ready?” Sokolov asked.

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t know what you want from me, what I should do . . .”

  “You’ll find out if you join us. All you need to know is that we’re risking our lives if we fall into the hands of the Okhrana . . . But don’t you think it’s worth it to risk everything for freedom and justice?” Sokolov’s face had acquired a reddish tinge, as if his skin were burning.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  From that afternoon onwards, Samuel was a part of Sokolov’s group, which spent most of its time engaged in debates on the rights of the peasants, or of the workers, or of the Jews. Sometimes Samuel had bitter discussions with people who insisted that the next step was to take action. He roundly rejected anything to do with violence.

  “We will all be equal. There will be no difference between men. We will abolish all religion,” Sokolov said at many of the meetings. Of all the promises he made, the abolition of religion was the most attractive to Samuel.

  He was still not resigned to being a Jew, to taking on that burden that he felt to be too great because of the way it made him feel different. Now he faced the possibility that in the new society they were going to build, no man would be different from any other. The Jews could live like the Christians, and both groups could be free, disposing of the need for religion, which only served to cloud men’s reason.

  He told Konstantin and Joshua that he had joined Sokolov’s group, and invited them to do the same.

  “You’re half Jewish, and you are in favor of things changing,” Samuel said, trying to convince his friend.

  “Yes, I am, but you are being naïve if you think that the ideas of Marx or Bakunin can triumph here in Russia. What’s more, I don’t like some of your new friends, they seem a little like fanatics to me.”

  “Fanatics? Joshua, you know Andrei, how he makes his living giving classes to struggling students. Does he look like a fanatic to you?”

  “I barely know Andrei, except when I’ve met him at your house. I don’t have any opinion of him at all,” Joshua replied.

  “Sokolov would like to meet you,” Samuel insisted.

  “My dear friend, it’s one thing to discuss ideas, and quite another to become conspirators. I cannot afford to do it. Let’s leave it there.” Konstantin’s tone was unequivocal.

  “If there is a revolution in Russia, it will be because Marxists and Bakuninites fight for there to be one, we could end up like Germany, or even Britain. Let’s let the Russians decide their own fate. I understand that we need to be careful, but Russia in the future will need people like you,” Samuel insisted.

  “I am responsible for my family. I can’t take any risks. And you should be careful, I can’t imagine that the Okhrana will remain indifferent to a group of Jews who gather together to plan how to change Russia,” Konstantin warned him.

  “But . . . The people I trust most of all are you two.”

  “Listen, if I join your group, Sokolov will start to move you against me. In his eyes I will always be an aristocrat. Let’s not put our childhood friendship to the test. We both want what’s best for each other. Let’s leave it there.”

  Samuel couldn’t convince Joshua Silvermann either. The rabbi’s grandson was unmovable.

  “No, my friend, don’t think I’ll join Sokolov’s group. Although I am in favor of some socialist ideas, I hate fanaticism, and . . . Well, I can’t afford to become a conspirator. Also, I think it’s dangerous that the group is made up of so many Jews. One of these days they will accuse you of plotting against the tsar. And then they will accuse all of us Jews on the basis of your actions. Think about it.”

  “But how can you say such a thing! I don’t understand how it’s so difficult for you to collaborate with Sokolov; I’ve heard you with my own ears criticizing the current situation . . . ,” Samuel complained.

  “I don’t like the people who surround Sokolov, he and his group want revolution to be a religion, and I already have a religion. Just like you do.”

  Konstantin and Joshua were right. When Sokolov found out that Samuel’s friends had both refused to join the group, he started to sow the seeds of doubt in Samuel’s mind.

  “The bourgeoisie don’t want anything to change. Why should they? They hate political parties, they hate any organization that is not the monarchy. They are afraid of losing their privileges. Do they really think that we Russians are not prepared to change, to stop being what we are? We want to be free men, we want a classless society, we want them to stop treating us like garbage for the simple fact of being Jews, we want justice,” Sokolov cried out.

  “My friend Joshua Silvermann is not a bourgeois,” Samuel replied.

  “His grandfather is one of the few Jews they accept, and he and his family are grateful to the tsar, just as dogs are grateful when their master throws them a bone. You say that Joshua Silvermann sy
mpathizes with socialism, but there is no socialism without commitment.”

  Samuel and Andrei spent a lot of time together. At night, when they came back from their daily rounds and met each other in the widow Korlov’s house, they would go into Andrei’s room and put together pamphlets, read forbidden books, and prepare for the weekly secret meeting.

  The Korlov sisters were not surprised that Andrei and Samuel locked themselves away in Andrei’s room, as Samuel had told them that Andrei, as a botanist, was helping him with his thesis. But Isaac was not convinced by these excuses: he saw in his son’s eyes a glint of passion and impatience that had never been there before. Last summer, he had refused to go to Paris with him. Isaac reminded him that his grandfather Elijah was a very old man, who could fall ill at any moment. But Samuel was not to be moved, and that summer, the summer of 1893, he did not travel with his father.

  Alongside his passion for politics, Samuel had fallen deeply in love with a young woman whom Konstantin had introduced him to.

  Irina Kuznetsova was a few years older than Samuel, she was nearly thirty and was Konstantin’s sister Katia’s piano teacher.

  It was not usual for a woman to teach the piano, but Irina’s father had been a famous professor of music until a few years previously, when a stroke had obliged him to stay permanently at home. Irina, whom her father had taught everything he knew, had convinced Countess Ekaterina to allow her to take over Katia’s classes from her father. The countess was not particularly keen on allowing her granddaughter’s education to be left in the hands of this woman, who seemed slightly arrogant, given her situation, but in the end she gave in to Konstantin’s arguments in Irina’s favor.

  “Grandmother, Irina seems like a fine person, and at least we know that she can play the piano. Katia is too impatient for music, maybe Irina’s example will help overcome her resistance.”

  What Konstantin really wanted was to help the old music teacher and his family. He didn’t care if Katia learned how to play the piano or not; he had realized that his little sister had no aptitude or desire for the instrument, no matter how much her grandmother insisted to the contrary. He was also swayed by Irina’s beauty.

  She was of medium height, thin, with blonde hair and huge blue eyes, a beautiful woman, something that she herself knew better than anyone.

  Ever since her father had fallen ill she had taken on the family duties, and before she had come to the Goldanski house she had suffered experiences that had marked her for life. Her mother was a good woman, but a little too dreamy. So dreamy that she had assured her daughter, when Irina was a little girl, that her beauty would lead her to marry into the aristocracy.

  “You’ll see, all the counts and dukes will fight duels for you. It will be difficult for your father and I to decide whom to choose for your suitor.”

  Convinced that her daughter’s beauty would open the doors of the court to her, she had insisted to her husband that Irina be given the best education they could afford. Her father realized at once that Irina had a good ear and a fine sensibility for the piano, and he taught her all he knew, until he was convinced that she was better even than he was.

  But counts and dukes did not come knocking at the Kuznetsovs’ door, they did not even know that Irina existed. When she reached the age of seventeen, her father suggested that she take over the teaching of the daughters of a count to whom he gave lessons to twice a week.

  “The countess has asked me if I know of anyone who is well mannered and trustworthy. She is looking for someone to take care of her daughters. I’ve told you about them. Two lovely, very well brought-up girls. The oldest one is eight and the youngest one is five, they are very attached to their governess, but she has to leave them and go back to Germany for a while to look after her sick mother. It will only be for two or three months. What do you think?”

  Irina’s mother gave the project her blessing. This could be the first step toward the whole of Saint Petersburg society knowing her daughter; also, it was an honest job, looking after people’s daughters.

  Irina went to the Novikovs’ house convinced that this was the first step toward the brilliant future that her mother had promised her.

  The countess did not appear happy when she saw her, and from the very first moment treated her like a maid. She did not only have to look after the children, she had to take care of their clothes, wash and iron their dresses, bathe them and dress their hair. Of course she would take them out on their visits, but while they played in the houses where they had been invited, Irina would have to stay below stairs. And below stairs they thought she was putting on airs and tried their best to make her feel uncomfortable.

  Irina was not ready to be treated like a servant, and far less to be treated like a plaything by Count Novikov.

  When they first met, Irina was frightened. Yes, she was frightened by what she saw in that man’s eyes.

  One afternoon, when Countess Novikov had gone out visiting, Irina was surprised at the count’s unexpected return to the house. He rang for her and she came to him all flustered, her hands sweating from fear.

  Novikov took her to his bedroom and ordered her to undress. She resisted, but could do nothing. He seemed to be beside himself, he tore off her clothes violently and then he raped her. It was the first time, but being raped by Count Novikov became customary.

  Two months later the young girl realized that her body was changing. She no longer bled every twenty-eight days, and she felt her breasts swelling and was sick every morning. When she told the count he hit her.

  “You wretch! Don’t you know what to do to avoid a pregnancy? You’re an idiot!”

  The next day he gave her an address that she was to go to the next Sunday, after church.

  “You will ask permission from my wife to go see your parents. But instead you will go here. They will know what to do with you there. Give the woman who looks after you these rubles. Ah, and don’t say anything to anyone.”

  Irina did not dare imagine what would happen to her in that house where she was to go on Sunday. And even much later, her guts still hurt when she remembered the woman who opened the door and told her to lie down on the kitchen table. She had ordered her to take off her underwear, and when Irina had protested, the woman had given her a ringing slap across the face. Then she made her lie still and, without being able to resist, the woman tied Irina’s arms and legs to some hooks that were attached to the table. What happened next was the stuff of her worst nightmares. The woman pulled out the child that she was carrying inside her. She didn’t know if she should feel relieved for having gotten rid of the child of the man she so hated, or if she should call upon God for mercy for not having been able to resist being raped.

  When the governess came back a few months later, Irina was able to go home. She was no longer the same. She forbade her mother even mentioning the possibility that one day she would marry an aristocrat.

  “Never! Do you hear me? Never!”

  “But what happened?”

  She didn’t tell her mother that she had been raped, or that she had had an abortion. Nor did she tell her about the series of humiliations that had been heaped upon her during those endless months.

  For all that her mother insisted on finding out how many dukes and counts she had met, Irina kept her silence. She could have replied that she had managed to get to know one count in particular very well, so well that at night she would wake up to the salty smell of his skin and the wine fumes in his mouth.

  She had not seen the aristocratic friends of the Novikovs, not even at a distance. The maids, however well brought-up they might appear, did not mingle with the aristocrats. What did her mother know about counts and dukes? How could she have imagined that they would notice her? She almost gave thanks to God for not having met any more counts.

  A little while later, her father found her another job, this time as a maid in the house of a widowed
violinist whose son had just reached the age of one. His wife had died giving birth, and his in-laws had looked after the child, but now the child’s grandmother had died as well, and the violinist did not know what to do with his son.

  “He’s a good man, and a great violinist, I trust him completely, we play together.”

  Irina’s mother argued with her husband. It did not seem right to her that her daughter should go to work in the house of a widower, especially one who was Jewish. People could think all kinds of things and her reputation could be compromised. Irina did not care. She knew that she no longer had a reputation, and that she would never marry.

  “I trust our daughter, she would never do anything to be ashamed of. Anyway, she doesn’t have to sleep in the house, she just has to look after the little one during the day.”

  Yuri Vasiliev was a well-known violinist who had on several occasions played at the court. His talent made the people who heard him forget that he was Jewish. On the other hand, he had also opted to assimilate, and had changed his surname to make it sound more Russian, and to call less attention to himself.

  Tall and thin, with chestnut brown hair and eyes, he had white hands, with long fingers that immediately drew Irina’s attention.

  He was friendly and extremely well mannered from the very first moment.

  “You don’t know how grateful I am for your help, I cannot work if I need to take care of my child. I don’t have any trouble at night because the porter, who is a good woman, can look after him, but during the day . . . My in-laws looked after my son when my wife died, but now that my mother-in-law is dead I don’t have anyone to leave him with. My parents live a long way away, near Moscow, and they are insisting that I leave the child with them. But I promised my wife that I would not leave the child and that I would look after him. Mikhail is a good boy, he won’t be too much trouble.”