Shoot Me, I'm Already Dead

by Julia Navarro

  Irina wondered if this man, too, would try to abuse her. But Yuri Vasiliev did not appear to be attracted by her beauty. Little by little they started to trust one another, but they always maintained a respectful distance.

  One day, when Irina was cleaning the room where Yuri locked himself away to practice the violin, she found a sheaf of papers on the table, with one word underlined in red that drew her attention: revolution.

  Irina told herself that she should not read the papers, but she could not contain her curiosity and became so deeply engrossed in them that she did not hear Yuri come in.

  “My God, what are you doing!”

  She was frightened and dropped the papers, which fell to the floor.

  “I’m sorry . . . I . . . I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t . . .” She didn’t know how to excuse herself and felt her face burning.

  Yuri picked the papers up from the floor. He seemed as stunned as Irina was.

  They stood in silence, not knowing what to say. He was worried and she was ashamed.

  “These papers are not mine; they were given to me by a friend to look after,” Vasiliev explained.

  Irina nodded, she couldn’t tell him that she thought he was lying, neither could she ask him to let her read these papers that said that all men were equal, that religion could not be used to discriminate among them, that the privileges of the nobles had to be abolished and Russia had to be governed by free men.

  “I was just coming to pick them up and take them back . . . I was very careless to leave them on the table.”

  “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have read them, but . . . I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Do you remember what happened to Lot’s wife?”

  She lowered her eyes in shame. Of course she knew that passage in the Bible, so she nodded.

  “I hope that you will be discreet, my friend could have serious problems if anyone . . . well . . . if anyone were to read these papers. And I would be in trouble for having looked after them.”

  “Don’t worry! I won’t say anything to anyone, I promise! And anyway . . .”

  “Anyway what?”

  “I . . . Well, I agree with what it says in those papers . . .”

  “What do you know about these things?” Vasiliev asked with curiosity.

  “Know? I know that I don’t know anything, but I would like us in Russia to be equal, for those of us who serve to be acknowledged as something more than zeroes . . . I would like for the aristocrats to stop doing whatever they want to the people. They have everything, and they let us have the crumbs that fall from their tables and expect us to be grateful for them. I know that there are people even more unfortunate than I am who have almost nothing.”

  “At least you have parents who look after you and care for you,” he replied, “and as far as I know you have always had enough to eat. Musicians don’t earn much, but we can survive.”

  “I’m not complaining, sir, I know it could be worse. But I imagine a world like the one described in those papers, a world where we could all be equal, where there would be justice. How is it possible not to wish for a world like that?”

  Yuri Vasiliev seemed to grow calmer. He had never heard Irina’s father complain about the injustices suffered in Russia, but then again, who would dare complain? He didn’t know if the young woman spoke like this because of her father’s influence or because it was what she herself had thought up. In any case, Irina could be dangerous for him and his friends. He decided to keep an eye on her, and if he thought that she could betray him, then . . . He decided that he would have to reveal this danger to the rest of his comrades so they could decide what to do.

  But soon he realized that not only could he trust Irina, but that she also wanted to do something more than read about revolution in secret. At first the two of them avoided any conversation that could lead to the question of the papers, but one day, to Yuri’s surprise, she addressed him directly.

  “I am only a servant, but do you think I could meet your friend? Maybe I could be useful for him, I know that I’m not able to do anything much apart from clean and cook and play the piano, but I would do anything that would . . . well . . . that would change things.”

  Yuri believed her. She was a young woman who was brimming over with sincerity, and his instincts told him to trust her.

  “Your father told me that you play the piano well,” Yuri said.

  “He taught me himself.”

  “I will trust you. Would you like to come to a musical evening with me next weekend? You could play there.”

  “I don’t understand . . .”

  But soon she came to understand what those musical evenings were that Yuri attended in his free time. They took place in the house of a violin virtuoso, an older man named Fyodor Volkov.

  Many of the Saint Petersburg musicians had taken Volkov’s classes and some kept on finding in him inspiration not only for music, but also for their political ideals. Volkov had traveled all over the world, and had played for the rich and powerful in London, Berlin, and Paris, and had even lived in Switzerland for a considerable time.

  His closest friends knew that he had met Marx and Engels, and that he had even met Bakunin in Switzerland, even though he did not share his anarchist ideals. Volkov was a committed Marxist, who had been deeply moved when, in Hamburg at the end of 1867, he had had the privilege of obtaining the first volume of Das Kapital from Otto Meissner’s publishing house.

  He, who was condemned to be nothing more than a Jew, had managed to become someone thanks to his talent as a musician: he was an extraordinary violinist, so great that for decades the tsar’s palace doors had opened for him and for his music.

  Now he had retired from public performance, but he dedicated himself to teaching young musicians all that he knew. And in between eighth notes and grace notes and the key of G he looked into the eyes of his students to see if they burned with a passion for something more than music. Many of them also became his political disciples. Yuri Vasiliev was one of them.

  Irina’s life changed the night she went to Fyodor Volkov’s house with Yuri Vasiliev. That same night her father suffered a stroke while she was listening to Volkov talking about equality.

  She went home happy with the confidence that Vasiliev had shown in her, but also with the all-encompassing words of those men talking about the future.

  From then on her life would never be the same. She knew that Yuri Vasiliev trusted her and so they became friends. Although he never asked her to come to another meeting, at least they felt free to talk about the future of Russia. Yuri Vasiliev also became their family’s only support.

  The doctor explained to Irina and her mother that her father would never move his right leg or his right arm again, and that he had lost some of his vision. Irina took over the running of the household.

  “Don’t worry, Mother, now you need to dedicate yourself to looking after Father, and I will work to make sure you lack nothing.”

  And this is what she did. Decided on helping out her family, she spoke to Yuri.

  “My father needs care and medicine. It’s not enough with what you pay me, so I need to work more.”

  Yuri said nothing. He couldn’t pay her any more, neither could he afford to lose her, Mikhail was used to her by now. However, Irina had thought of everything.

  “I will go and see Countess Ekaterina. My father taught her granddaughter Katia three times a week. He said that the girl had no talent at all, but that they paid well. I will ask her to let me take over from my father. I just need an hour two afternoons a week. Do you think that you could arrange it for the porter to look after Mikhail during that time? It would just be for an hour.”

  Yuri felt relieved not to be losing Irina, although he was not sure if the countess would accept her as a replacement for her father.

  “I will speak with th
e porter, I suppose I’ll have to pay her something . . .”

  “I can’t ask you to take it out of my wages. I need everything that I can get,” she said sincerely.

  “The porter is a good woman, she won’t charge me much and I would prefer to have you here with Mikhail, the boy has grown used to you by now.”

  Konstantin and his grandmother met with Irina, and it immediately became clear that the young man was willing to heed Irina’s request; what’s more, he appreciated sincerity and courage, wherever they came from, and Irina had both virtues. He was also impressed by her dignity. Irina did not try to make them take pity on her, but rather asked for them to pass on her father’s work to her, convinced that she could fulfill his commitments.

  When, at the end of a month, Countess Ekaterina asked her how the lessons with Katia were going, she replied frankly:

  “Your granddaughter does not have a natural gift for music, which is all the more reason for her to take lessons.”

  Soon Konstantin began to take an interest in Katia’s schoolroom.

  He could not remain indifferent in the face of Irina’s beauty, a beauty that she seemed to hold in disdain, but more than anything else he was enraptured by her personality. He started to wait impatiently for the days when Irina would come to give lessons to his sister, and then he offered to drive her back to Yuri Vasiliev’s house, but she rejected his offer. She was afraid of men, especially aristocrats, and Konstantin, pleasant as he might have been, was a count.

  Samuel met her in the Goldanskis’ house and fell in love with her. Of the three friends it was only Joshua who remained indifferent to her.

  “If you could see how you look when Irina appears . . . She’s very pretty, yes, but she has such a hard look in her eyes . . . There is a hell hidden inside her. I don’t think she could make any man happy.”

  Konstantin and Samuel both protested against Joshua’s judgment, but although they did not accept it, they, too, had on occasion been surprised by the hardness in Irina’s eyes.

  Samuel found out about Fyodor Volkov via the librarian Sokolov, and knew that Yuri Vasiliev, Irina’s patron, sympathized with socialism.

  Irina was aware that the two young men were fighting for the honor of accompanying her, of being close to her, but she preferred not to let herself be tempted by the attractions that either of them offered. Only one thing was important to her in her life: supporting her family. There was no place in her plans for love. It was not something she admitted even to herself, but the idea of any further intimate relations with a man disgusted her. Her first employer, Count Novikov, had traumatized her forever.

  Isaac suffered when he saw the two young men competing for Irina’s attention.

  “I don’t like it that you and Konstantin are fighting over a woman,” he said to his son, almost pleading with him.

  “But Father, Irina is Katia’s piano teacher, we get on well with her and she’s become a good friend, don’t imagine things that aren’t there.”

  “What I see is that she doesn’t care for either of you, I don’t know why you walk out with her, why you are working on her affections, when it is clear that she is not for you. Besides, she’s older.”

  “Father, I’m twenty-three years old, I’m not a child.”

  “And she’s nearly thirty.”

  “For goodness’ sake, Father! Irina is only twenty-eight.”

  “That’s what I said, she’s nearly thirty, and that’s a lot for a woman. Why hasn’t she gotten married? She’s very beautiful, she should have a husband, and children.”

  “She works, Father, she works to keep her family. Do you think that a woman’s only duty is to get married?”

  “Of course! What could be better for a woman than to be a wife and mother? Don’t you remember your mother? Have you ever met anyone better than her? I only wish that you meet someone like your mother!”

  Samuel gave way to his father’s complaints. He knew Isaac wanted the best for him and that he suffered to think about his future, which was why he did not like Samuel spending time with Andrei, and Andrei’s desire for Russia to become a country like Germany or Britain.

  “If Professor Goldanski were still alive, I’d ask him to talk to you and make you see some sense.”

  “Father, there is no one apart from you who can have any influence on my mind, and I promise you that you have nothing to worry about. Irina does not mean anything to me or to Konstantin.”

  But Isaac knew that his son was lying so as not to upset him.

  Raisa Korlov, who could not avoid hearing the conversation that father and son were having, tried to cheer him up.

  “Leave it alone, don’t worry about him. This will pass. Samuel is still very young, and what young man can resist falling in love? But he’s sensible, and he studies. And it’s a blessing that he’s got Andrei to help him. You see how many hours they spend shut away talking about plants. Andrei is a good man, and he’s helping Samuel as much as he can.”

  “Yes, you’re right, at least Andrei is a good influence. I hope that he isn’t caught up by Irina’s beauty as well.”

  Andrei was not interested in anything other than staying as close as possible to Sokolov the librarian, whom he saw as an example of a Russian capable of embodying the new man who would bypass all prejudices and would be able to share his ideals with other men, like him, whose only difference was having been born Jewish.

  “There’s no need to run unnecessary risks,” Sokolov would insist at every one of their secret meetings, “it will not help anyone if you end up in an Okhrana prison cell.”

  The number of students who had been arrested, tortured, and had disappeared at the hands of the fearsome secret police was not small. Some of Samuel and Konstantin’s friends had been victims of the tsar’s agents, and those who had survived had never gotten over being tortured. Some had survived because they belonged to powerful families, and had paid for their daring with exile. But the tsar was not willing to allow certain wealthy young men to dedicate their lives to plotting the overthrow of his regime, and had ordered that no exceptions were to be made and that no conspirator was to be given favorable treatment. He wanted parents to be aware of the price their sons would pay, and that they themselves would pay, for any hint of treason.

  One night, Irina came to the Korlovs’ house unexpectedly. She had Mikhail by the hand, and although she was polite and courteous, Raisa Korlov could read something like fear in her eyes.

  “Samuel is studying, I don’t know if he’ll be able to see you. You are . . .”

  “Irina Kuznetsova. I’m sure he’ll see me, it’s urgent.”

  “It must be when you’ve gone out into the street in this cold, and with such a small baby. Come into the kitchen, I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  “Please, I need to see Samuel!”

  Although she was reluctant, Raisa allowed the two young people to see each other alone in the living room. She would have liked to have overheard the conversation, but she could only catch murmurs through the walls.

  “You shouldn’t listen,” her sister Alina reproached her. “Young people have things they need to talk about, too . . .”

  “At this time of night? It’s past eight . . . Decent women are at home at this time.”

  “And what’s indecent about coming to see Samuel? What do you think they could do in the living room, with a baby there as well? Come on, sister, don’t be as mistrustful as Isaac is. He’s Samuel’s father, and he hasn’t even come out of his room to see what’s going on.”

  “Isaac has a temperature, and he has to head to the north tomorrow morning to buy new furs. Maybe he’s asleep and doesn’t know that this woman is here.”

  “You always stand up for Samuel in front of his father . . . ,” Alina reminded her sister.

  “Yes, but I would never have imagined that she would turn up like this a
t our house. No, it’s not good for a young woman to follow a man home.”

  “But she only wants to talk to him . . .”

  “It’s already dark! What could be so urgent?”

  Meanwhile, Irina explained her worries to Samuel in the living room.

  “Yuri hasn’t come home for two days. He hasn’t sent any message. I fear the worst . . .”

  “Have you been to see Fyodor Volkov?”

  “No, I would only make him worried . . . ,” Irina said.

  “And what can I do?”

  “Maybe you could speak to Konstantin, he’s an aristocrat, he’s got very good connections, maybe you could find out if they’ve arrested Yuri. I cannot go to his house, the countess wouldn’t like it and she might fire me, but you are Konstantin’s best friend, and it would not be odd for you to go and speak to him.”

  “At this time of night?”

  “Please, Samuel, help me!”

  “Of course, of course I will,” Samuel replied, unable to refuse anything to the woman he loved. “I’ll take you home, you stay there with Mikhail. Then I will go see Konstantin. I’m sure he’ll help us.”

  Samuel didn’t know how much Irina knew about Yuri Vasiliev’s activities. Via Andrei and Sokolov the librarian he knew what the musician was doing: they blamed him for not seeing how to connect his defense of the least well-off in society with that of the Jews. Neither did Samuel know if there was anything more than an employer’s relationship between Yuri and Irina. Sometimes he was blinded by jealousy and imagined that a young man like Yuri could not remain indifferent to Irina’s beauty; also, she seemed to like the musician very much. But then he blamed himself for thinking this way, knowing that Irina worked only out of necessity.

  Samuel grabbed his overcoat and asked Raisa to look after his father.

  “He’s got a bit of a fever, although he’s asleep now. If he wakes up, give him a spoonful of this syrup, which will help his cough.”