Dmitri and the Milk-Drinkers

by Michael Pearce

  It made him think, oddly, of law books. He tried to recall what he had read of the origins of Russian law. Was Russian law European or Eastern? Up till now he had always taken it for granted that it was European. But Russian law had its origins in decrees of the Tsar and had no existence apart from the sovereign. In this it was more Eastern than European.

  An interesting point, thought Dmitri, but one of purely historical interest.

  It took the steamer another four days to reach Perm, by which time Dmitri was thoroughly fed up. His original prejudices had been entirely confirmed: the boat was slow, the passengers were boring, and the Russia away from St Petersburg and Moscow, the ‘real’ Russia, as the Slavophils had it, completely without interest.

  The real problem was that he had finished his book. After that, all he could do was either talk to the engineer, which even by the end of the first day had become a strain, or study the scenery. The trouble with that was that it was always the same: woods, woods and yet more woods, the occasional little wooden landing-stage, infrequent hamlets with their one-storey wooden houses. Everything wooden, thought Dmitri, jaundiced, including the people.

  This was, perhaps, unfair, as he had not yet talked to any of them. But he did not need to. He could see at once that they did not read the latest periodicals.

  Towards the end of the first day after Kazan they left the Volga and turned up the Kama, which was like the Volga only more so: more woods, fewer people, fewer white-walled, golden-domed monasteries. The banks were steeper and more rugged, the barges ruder and more primitive, crudely painted in the way of the houses at Kazan, all bright colours jumbled together, spiralling up the masts and spilling over the fronts (the bows, so the engineer informed him). The people, too, were brightly coloured, the men in blue, crimson, pink and violet shirts, the women in lemon-yellow gowns, scarlet aprons and short pink over-jackets. In civilized Russia traditional costume was reserved for feast-days and holidays. Here it seemed to be holidays all the time. It was with some relief that he saw Perm approaching.

  Having learned from his experience at Nizhni Novgorod, this time he drove straight from the landing to the police headquarters. The Chief of Police looked at him suspiciously, and even more suspiciously when Dmitri told him his errand.

  ‘Show me your passport,’ he said.

  ‘Passport?’ said Dmitri.

  ‘You need a passport to travel in Siberia,’ said the Chief of Police.

  ‘But this isn’t Siberia!’

  ‘You’re going there, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not if I can help it,’ said Dmitri.

  ‘You need a passport.’

  This was the kind of exchange that usually brought out the worst in Dmitri. Realizing, however, that it would only lead to further delay, and, perhaps, crucial delay as it had done in Nizhni Novgorod, he fought hard to keep his temper.

  ‘I have, of course, the necessary authorizations,’ he said, dumping them on the desk in front of the Chief of Police.

  The Chief of Police took his time looking through them. Dmitri told himself to be charitable. Maybe the man just found it hard to read.

  ‘Your authorizations are incorrect,’ said the Chief of Police at last, looking up triumphantly.

  ‘In what respect?’ demanded Dmitri.

  ‘Wrong line,’ said the Chief of Police, pointing with his finger.

  Dmitri, however, was not a lawyer for nothing.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. He pointed with his own finger. ‘You need to refer back to the main clause. An entry is required in that space only if the condition in the main clause is unfulfilled. Since that is not the case here, as Sub-Clause Two makes clear, no entry is required.’

  ‘The authorization is still invalid,’ said the Chief of Police. He was, however, impressed. ‘What did you say you were here for?’

  ‘I’m trying to trace a prisoner, mistakenly included in the exile convoy – ’

  ‘Exile? Oh, in that case you’ve come to the wrong place. What you need is the Bureau for Exile Administration.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  ‘On the other side of town,’ said the Chief of Police, smiling.

  Dmitri managed to leave without saying a word; a not inconsiderable moral triumph in his case.

  The Bureau was there but closed.

  ‘When is it open?’ he asked a passer-by.

  ‘Oh, it’s open,’ the man assured him. ‘It’s just that Simeon likes his vodka.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  The man pointed to a nearby traktir.

  Dmitri went inside. There were several men sitting at tables.

  ‘Simeon?’

  ‘I’m Simeon,’ said one of them, still, fortunately, sober. Just.

  Dmitri sat down opposite him.

  ‘I’m trying to trace a prisoner, a woman, mistakenly deported – ’

  ‘You’ll have to ask the police.’

  ‘I have asked them. They sent me to you.’

  ‘Ah, but they’re the ones who really deal with it. You’ll have to go back to them.’

  Instead of hitting the ceiling, Dmitri, wisened by his experiences, considered.

  ‘If I bought you a drink,’ he said, ‘would you give me some advice?’

  ‘I might well.’

  ‘I’m trying to trace a prisoner, a woman, mistakenly deported,’ said Dmitri, the bottle between them.

  ‘Where is she from?’

  ‘Kursk.’

  ‘That consignment went through yesterday.’

  ‘I was told they stopped here for a bit. Isn’t this a trans-shipment point?’

  ‘It is. But things have speeded up, now that we’ve got the new railway. The train sits waiting in the siding. All we have to do is march them across.’

  ‘So they’ve already gone?’ said Dmitri slowly.

  ‘That’s right. Yesterday morning.’

  Dmitri needed another vodka.

  ‘You’ll have to go to Ekaterinburg,’ said Simeon, who needed another vodka too. ‘You’ll definitely catch up with them there. It’s the end of the railway and it always takes them some time to sort them out before they go on.’

  ‘Ekaterinburg!’

  Perm had always been his worst case. Even Porfiri Porfirovich had not envisaged him going beyond.

  ‘It’s not far,’ said Simeon encouragingly. ‘Not now that we’ve got the railway.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘A day. The train leaves at nine in the evening and gets to Ekaterinburg at eight the following evening.’

  ‘Won’t I need a passport?’

  ‘A passport? Why?’

  ‘Don’t you need one in Siberia?’

  ‘Ekaterinburg isn’t in Siberia. It’s still in Russia!’

  How could he give up now? When it was only one more day?

  ‘You’re sure. They’ll stop there?’

  ‘Certain sure. They’ve got to get them on to wagons. You know what wagons are. They’ll have to sort them out into the right groups, get them loaded …’

  Dmitri took another drink.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ he said.

  The railway was indeed splendid, although Dmitri did not find that out until the next morning, when he woke to find the train stationary at a place called Biser. Biser was almost at the summit of the Urals and above the mists and cloud which clung to the forests below. All around was the heavy smell of pinewood resin. For most of the morning the train was running through forest-clad hills, with lumber camps the only sign of human habitation, except that occasionally it passed placer mining camps where hundreds of men and women were at work washing auriferous gravel. It was almost agreeable.

  Though not as agreeable as when they stopped for lunch. This was at a station called Nizhni Tagil, on the Asiatic slope of the mountains. The dining room into which all the passengers filed had a floor of polished oak, a high dado of dark-coloured wood of a sort which Dmitri did not recognize, walls covered with oak-green paper and a stucco cornice in relief.
Down the centre of the room ran a long dining table, set with snowy napkins, high glass epergnes and crystal candelabra, and piled high with artistic pyramids of wine bottles. For every two chairs there was a waiter in tails, white tie and spotless shirt front.

  ‘Very modern, yes?’ said a voice beside Dmitri.

  It was the engineer.

  ‘Modern?’ said Dmitri. That was not quite how he would have put it. Although he was not complaining, especially as Porfiri had said he would foot the bill.

  ‘Only the best,’ said the engineer proudly.

  Slightly dazed, Dmitri sat down. Instantly, soup was brought, and not your cabbage soup, either, but bouillon.

  ‘Yes, I see,’ said Dmitri. ‘But why?’

  The engineer looked puzzled.

  ‘Why the best? Here? Who’s it for?’

  ‘Passengers. Mining engineers. Company people.’

  ‘I see. Well,’ said Dmitri, ‘I suppose you’ve to lay it on a bit to get them to come here at all.’

  ‘Ekaterinburg is a very cultivated city,’ said the engineer, injured. He pulled a newspaper out of his pocket and opened it on the table. ‘You see?’ he said. ‘“Meeting of the Ural Society of Friends of the Natural Sciences”. Opera. Exhibitions. The latest geological findings.’

  ‘But the news is a month out of date!’ said Dmitri.

  ‘Ah, well …’

  The engineer looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s not our fault,’ he said. ‘The papers have to go back to Moscow.’

  ‘Moscow?’

  ‘For approval.’

  ‘You mean they’re censored?’

  ‘Aren’t all papers censored?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dmitri, ‘but … loosely.’

  ‘The nearer you get to Siberia, the less loose it gets,’ said the engineer. Ekaterinburg, however, when they reached it that evening, seemed a normal Russian city. It had the usual wide, unpaved streets, the usual square log houses with ornamental window casings and flatly pyramided tin roofs, the usual white-walled churches with coloured or gilded domes and the usual gostini dvor, or city bazaar. Unusually, though, there were white globes of electric light hanging here and there over the broad streets, which they certainly didn’t have in Kursk.

  ‘Very modern,’ said Dmitri, pre-empting the engineer’s strike, as they were driven to the hotel in the droshky.

  Less modern, however, was the sight of the prison carts the next morning lumbering on to the parade ground in front of the army barracks. What was worse was that they were empty and returning not going.

  ‘Yes,’ said the man in the Bureau cheerfully, ‘they’ll be well on their way now.’

  ‘But they can only have got here yesterday!’

  ‘I know. But we’re very efficient. The wagons are all waiting for them when they get off the train. Besides, it’s only the sick who need wagons. The rest walk.’

  ‘Walk?’

  ‘Until the new rail extension is built. It will take them all the way to Tiumen. We can’t wait for it, I can tell you. They won’t need to go through here at all. We won’t even see them.’

  ‘If they set out yesterday,’ said Dmitri, ‘and they’re walking, they can’t have got very far. If I took a droshky, couldn’t I overtake them?’

  ‘Well, you could,’ said the man doubtfully, ‘but I don’t think it will help you. You’re going to have to talk to the Administration, and that’s at Tiumen.’

  Dmitri sighed.

  ‘How long will it take me to get to Tiumen?’

  ‘Set out now,’ said the man, ‘take the horse express, and this time the day after, you’ll be in Tiumen. You’re sure to catch up with her there.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before,’ said Dmitri.

  ‘Ah,’ said the man, ‘but Tiumen is different.’

  The Tiumen forwarding prison was a rectangular three-storey brick building, seventy-five feet in length by forty or fifty in width, covered with white stucco and roofed with painted tin. It was surrounded by a whitewashed brick wall twelve or fifteen feet in height. At each corner stood a black-and-white zigzag-barred sentry box; and along each face paced a sentry carrying a rifle and fixed bayonet. Against the wall, on the right-hand side of the gate, was a small building used as the prison office.

  On the ground in front of the gate sat a row of women with baskets beside them. The baskets contained black rye bread, cold meat, boiled eggs, milk and fish pies for sale to the prisoners.

  There were sentries at the gate, which was locked and barred. As Dmitri approached, one of them called through a porthole in the gate and a moment or two later a door within the gate opened and a corporal came out. He looked at Dmitri’s papers and then waved him through into the yard. Dmitri stood there for a moment while the corporal went off to find someone more senior.

  There were about two hundred prisoners in the yard, some sitting idly in groups on the ground, others walking to and fro. They were all dressed in the same grey featureless clothes: a shirt and trousers of homespun linen, a long overcoat with one or two diamond-shaped patches of black or yellow cloth sewn upon the back between the shoulders, and a round peakless bonnet-style cap.

  It took Dmitri a moment or two to register the strange sound. The air was filled with a peculiar continuous clinking, as of innumerable bunches of keys. He suddenly realized that almost all the prisoners were in chains.

  Dmitri was used to the prisoners in the yard of the Court House at Kursk. Some of them had been in chains too. It had never, however, struck him as this did. Perhaps it was seeing so many all together. Or perhaps it was that the prisoners he had seen at Kursk had all only recently been free men and still retained something of the air of freedom. Even in the Court House they had been individuals. Here, individuality had been stripped away; or, at least, hidden beneath the uniform greyness. What remained was not faces but chains.

  Was this what the back yard at Kursk led to? Dmitri had never before quite seen it like that. The back yard was, well, back; pushed back so that no one could see it, at the back of one’s thoughts, something one knew existed, had to exist, but which one preferred not to face.

  Here, at Tiumen, the back yard of the world, or of Russia, at any rate, one could not help but look. The back yard had come up front.

  5

  ‘The Kursk consignment? Shumin?’ The prison official looked at his papers. ‘Yes, she’s here.’

  He led Dmitri out into the yard.

  ‘The women are in a separate prison.’

  He took Dmitri through a small gate in the outer wall of the prison. Opposite them was a high stockade made of closely set and sharpened logs.

  ‘The women are in there.’

  Inside were several barrack-like huts, each about thirty or forty feet long and about twelve feet high. The official glanced at his list and went into one of these.

  It consisted of a large single room. Down the centre of the room, and occupying about half its width, ran the sleeping bench – a wooden platform twelve feet wide and thirty feet long, supported at a height of about two feet from the floor by stout posts. Each half of this low platform sloped a little, roofwise, from the centre, so that when the prisoners slept on it in two closely packed rows, their heads in the middle were a few inches higher than their feet. There was no other furniture apart from a large tub for excrement. Nor were there any blankets or mattresses. The prisoners slept on the bare wood in their overcoats.

  The room was full of women and children, many of them lying on the sleeping bench. They stood up as the prison official entered.

  ‘Now, girls, how are you?’

  ‘Pretty well, thank you, Your Honour,’ they chorused. Some of them even curtsied. They were nearly all, or so it seemed to Dmitri at first glance, ordinary peasants.

  ‘Shumin’s the one I want. Is she here?’

  Dmitri had been looking. There were a number of blonde women, some strikingly so, but he could not see Anna Semeonova.

  No one came forward.

  The official i
nspected his list.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘She’s down on the list. Where is she?’

  The women conferred.

  ‘She’s not here, Your Honour,’ said one of them hesitantly.

  ‘I can see that,’ said the official impatiently. ‘Where is she?’

  They conferred again.

  ‘She was here, Your Honour.’

  ‘All right, all right. Where is she?’

  Considerable hesitation.

  ‘We don’t know, Your Honour.’

  ‘Come on,’ said the official sternly. ‘She must be here!’

  The women looked at each other. No one said anything, however.

  ‘She’s not in the yard?’ The official went to the door and looked out. ‘Visiting, is she?’

  The women shook their heads.

  ‘Don’t know? Well, we’ll soon find out!’

  He walked briskly into another of the barracks.

  ‘Shumin?’

  ‘There’s no one of that name here, Your Honour.’

  He tried the next one, and then the others; with, however, the same result. He returned, vexed, to the original barracks.

  ‘You’re messing me about,’ he said. ‘And I don’t like it. Now, where is she hiding?’

  The women looked at him blankly.

  ‘She must be here!’

  He looked under the platform. There was nowhere else in the room where anyone could hide.

  He looked at Dmitri.

  ‘Do you know her? Do you see her? Come on girls, line up! Let’s make sure.’

  The women lined up along the edge of the platform. The children had stopped chattering and huddled to their mothers. Dmitri walked along the line. But he was sure already.

  The Governor listened. He was a short grey-haired man in his mid-fifties and had the air of a martinet.

  ‘Well, she must be here,’ he said, ‘if it says so on the forms.’

  ‘But, Nikolai Razumovich, I’ve checked!’ said the official.

  ‘Check again. Get them all out in the yard.’

  Dmitri went with him. The women all filed out of the huts and lined up in the yard. There were so many of them that they filled the yard.

  Dmitri walked up and down the rows. Many of the women wore headscarves. The official made them take them off.