The Russian Century

by George Pahomov

  “I survived my ordeal—a miraculous deliverance from death.”

  There were other risky assignments. Actually appearing on a street was accompanied by risk. One evening five of us went out. We had just approached the corner, when we heard the rhythmic clicking of horses’ hooves. The clatter was so close that it was too late to retreat and there was nowhere to run. The leader of our combat units, Aleksandr Gudkov, who was later to die as a Russian volunteer on the French front during World War I, pulled out his revolver and stood first along the edge of the wall. Behind him, also with revolvers in hand, were Oskar and Aleksandr Vysotskii. Fondaminskii and I shuffled from foot to foot: we had no weapons, and didn’t know how to use them anyway. Many tense seconds passed. My heart beat faster in rhythm with the approaching thud of the horses. Suddenly, a shaft of light from a lantern fell on a peacefully passing carriage, not on a dragoon patrol as we had supposed.

  On a different occasion I was sent with another person to deliver dynamite in tea tins decorated with birds of paradise and other birds. The dynamite had to be brought to Chulkov’s house on Smolenskii Boulevard. On the way back I stopped to see Sventsitskii who lived in the same neighborhood. He was also storing either dynamite or arms. I found Andrei Bely [the famous poet and novelist] there. I did not know whether he was an SR, an SD [Social Democrat], or a member of the Christian Brotherhood for the Struggle. One did not ask these things. But I can be a definite witness to the fact that at this time he “listened to the music of the revolution” and was captivated by it.

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  During the uprising, the Moscow soviet began to issue the newspaper Izvestiia. In principle, the editorial work was to be done by a collegium consisting of representatives of the soviet and the SR and SD parties. The SR’s appointed me as their representative on the editorial staff. Having collected all the information that came in during the day from supporters in all parts of the city, I set out late at night through the quiet and snowy lanes of the Po-varskii and Arbat neighborhoods to the address given me. There I found only one person—Ermanskii. I did not know whether he was a Menshevik or Bolshevik but soon became convinced that he acted like a Bolshevik. He greeted me affably:

  “Well, how did it go? What have you brought?”

  I laid out my material—reports from on site: conditions, morale, and losses.

  “Leave it! Later we’ll see what to include.”

  In next day’s Izvestiia, there was almost nothing from the material that I had brought. When I met Ermanskii again next evening, I suggested that we decide jointly what material to include. He firmly rejected this and, after some wrangling, he unambiguously let me know that I had a choice: either leave the material and trust him, or take it back with me. Either choice was painful. Both were equally unacceptable but, in fact, I assented to both. At first I took the material and left. Then having walked two blocks, confused and angry—both at Erman-skii and myself for my own weakness and capitulation—I returned and left my papers. I could do nothing with them, and they would have been out of date by the next day, anyway. Perhaps the unscrupulous and factious Ermanskii might still use even a part of them.

  Later it became clear that Ermanskii was a “left” Menshevik. The Bolsheviks accepted him into their Communist Academy, but he was expelled in 1930 and liquidated during Ezhov’s purges.

  The draft board gave me a one-year deferment and I left for Moscow the same evening. In an upper berth of a third-class railway car I gave myself up to sorrowful considerations of the immediate future. To knock about from house to house of relatives and acquaintances—a night here, a day there— seemed a boring and useless waste of time. Without a specific task—whether work or assignment—it was easy to fall out of the habit of systematic work. The thought of a personal life would also simultaneously surface. In order to marry, the law required an ID in the form of a passport or a residence permit. I had a university residence permit which I did not register with the police, but which was good until 31 August 1908. Only two days remained until its expiration. With acute awareness, I realized that this was my last chance to legally marry.

  Mark Vishniak, In Two Worlds

  101

  I went to my uncle’s apartment directly from the train station. It was not difficult to convince my cousin that we had to marry within 36 hours. To postpone marriage meant the creation of new passport difficulties in the future. We split our tasks: I went to inform my parents, she—hers.

  My father said nothing—giving his assent through silence. Mother, “for the last time,” cautioned against marriage between close relatives, citing the sickly condition of my future “life’s companion” and the like. Her objections were basically a formality—a self-justification rather than condemnation of my decision. In this fashion things on my front were settled. On my bride’s side, aunt and uncle raised technical objections: how could a wedding be organized in the time span from Saturday to Sunday when all the stores were closed? One needed a wedding dress, a place in which to get married had to be found, guests had to be invited, and arrangements had to be made with the rabbi. Even obtaining the required wedding rings was a problem.

  All of these obstacles, real or imagined, were easily overcome by our decisiveness.

  I immediately went to see another uncle, Miron, with whom I had stayed periodically during my wandering years. He became a widower early on and had two young daughters. Tilla Ivanovna Sproge, a German from the Baltic region, looked after them and the household, not without a lively sense of humor. On the spot, my uncle agreed to the use of his quarters for the ceremony. We “arranged” for a rabbi and a portable canopy that was required for the ritual. The ten Jewish men of legal religious age, older than thirteen, who were mandatory to effect the prayer properly, were supplied by close relatives. As far as inviting friends, we had to limit ourselves to the very closest: Aniuta Koroleva, Sher, and the Ratner brothers.

  With her characteristic resoluteness, the bride refused to wear a wedding dress. Very quickly one that was similar was sewn. A skirt was made out of a white silk dress and a white blouse with a bridal veil was added. The latter was obtained via the back door from the neighboring wig maker. Vasia Sher gallantly sent the bride an enormous bouquet of white roses. Everything turned out “as it is supposed to be.” The most difficult items to get were the wedding rings. My future father-in-law went looking for them after the Sabbath rest had ended. Despite his efforts, he was unable to get anything better than rings made out of 14 carat gold. Which, by the way, did not impede their functioning in faith and truth for 46 years.

  All of this seemed to be useless, though innocent ritualism, which one had to bear insofar as we had chosen the juridical, and therefore, according to Russian law, religious consecration of matrimony. Our wedding took place on August 31st, the day that my university residency permit expired. The religious ritual and the social ceremony were adhered to with minor deviations

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  occasioned by the urgency in preparing the celebration and the particular circumstances of the groom.

  The bride wore a white dress—not satin to be sure, but silk nevertheless. I wore a dark blue jacket. The parents and relatives were dressed up. The rabbi appeared. He was not the conventional Ia. I. Maze, but was a so-called spiritual rabbi, Weisbrem. He was a handsome elder with gentle facial features and a long white beard with streaks of yellow in it. He did not “torture” those gathered with a didactic speech, but limited himself to the minimum necessary to conduct the ritual. Those assigned to the task led us the required number of times under the velvet canopy with the golden fringe. As was customary, vessels were broken and crunched underfoot. We sipped the wine. We put the rings on the ring fingers and moved toward the refreshment table. Despite it being Sunday, the energetic Tilla Ivanovna was able to obtain various treats.

  The whole procedure did not take much time. Though everything went well, one still felt that something was missing, that
closure was needed. It was 10:00 PM, the program was spent, and it was time to depart. The young people decided to continue the celebration elsewhere. But where? Somebody suggested going to the Iar. This required the kind of money that I did not have. Dr. Rosenthal came to the rescue.

  “Tell Uncle Abram, he will gladly give you a hundred rubles,” he suggested. “At Vera’s wedding (my father-in-law’s eldest daughter) the horses alone cost more.”

  I became the possessor of one hundred rubles and, driven by six reckless cabmen, we left for Moscow’s favorite place of revelry, which had a gypsy choir, individual compartments, and other attractions. It was only eleven o’clock, child’s time for Iar. People came there after theater or for finishing up parties. There was no one there besides us. Here and there loose women loitered about, looking at us with astonishment since we were so unlike the usual guests and clients. We ordered coffee and liqueurs, also unlike Iar regulars, and soon felt out of place. We did not fit in Iar, nor did Iar fit us. It was decided to end the celebration and go home. The newlyweds departed as well: my cousin returned to her father’s house and I went to sleep at Sher’s.

  Chapter Ten

  Konstantin Paustovskii, Commencement Revelry

  Largely forgotten now, Konstantin Paustovskii (1892–1968) was a talented writer whose works began to appear in print in the 1920’s. His writing frequently expressed a lyricism not often seen in literature of the Soviet period. Steeped in the inheritance of Chekhov and especially Turgenev, Paustovskii wrote in the high style of Russian literature well into the 20th century. This selection is taken from his autobiographical work, Povest’ o zhizni [Story of a Life]. Moscow: 1962.

  The final examinations began at the end of May and dragged on for a whole month. All the grades had already been dismissed for the summer vacation. We were the only ones who came to the empty, chilly gimnazium, which seemed to be resting from its winter commotion. The noise of our steps resounded through all the floors.

  In the auditorium, where the exams were taking place, the windows were wide open. Dandelion seeds floated around the hall in the sunlight like white, twinkling lights.

  It was customary to come to the exams in uniform. The stiff collar of the tunic with its silver braid chafed our necks. We would sit in the garden under the chestnut trees with unbuttoned tunics and wait our turn.

  We were afraid of the exams. And we were sad about leaving the gimnaz-ium. We had grown accustomed to it. The future appeared dim and difficult before us, mostly because we would lose each other irrevocably. Our loyal, cheerful school family would break up.

  Before the exams we held a meeting in the garden. All the boys of our class were invited except for the Jewish boys. They were not supposed to know anything about it.

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  It was decided at the meeting that the best pupils from among the Russians and the Poles should get a ‘B’ in at least one subject on the exams, so as not to get gold medals. We had decided to give up all the gold medals to the Jews. Without these medals they would not be accepted into the university.

  We swore to keep this decision a secret. To the honor of our class, we didn’t spill the secret either then or later, when we already were university students. Now I am breaking that vow, because hardly any of my school comrades are still among the living. Most of them perished during the great wars which my generation experienced. Only a few have survived.

  Then there was a second meeting. We agreed on who was to help several of the girls from the Mariinskii Girls’ Gimnazium write their essays. I don’t know why, but they were to take the written exam on the History of Russian Literature along with us.

  The negotiations with the schoolgirls were conducted by Stanishevskii. He had brought a list of the girls who were in need of help. There were six names on the list. I was assigned to help a schoolgirl named Bogushevich. I didn’t know her and had never seen her.

  We wrote the essays in the auditorium. Each one sat at a separate little table, the boys on the left and the girls on the right. The proctors paced along the wide aisle between the girls and us. They watched to make sure that we didn’t pass notes, blotters, or other suspicious objects to each other.

  All six of the girls on Stanishevskii’s list had taken seats near the aisle. I was trying to guess which one of them was Bogushevich. The surname ‘Bo-gushevich’ brought to mind an image of a plump Ukrainian girl. One of the girls was plump, with thick braids. I decided that this was Bogushevich.

  The director entered. We stood up. The director unsealed a thick envelope with a crackle, pulled out a sheet with the theme of the essay sent from the district school board, took a piece of chalk, and carefully wrote on the board: ‘True enlightenment unites moral development with intellectual development.’ An anxious moan passed through the hall—it was a ghastly topic.

  I had no time to lose. I immediately began to write an outline of the essay for Bogushevich on a narrow strip of paper.

  During the senior-year exams we were allowed to smoke. To do this we would ask permission and, one by one, to go to the smoking room at the end of the corridor. There the decrepit watchman Kazimir was on duty—the same one who had once brought me here to the preparatory classes.

  On the way to the smoker I rolled the outline up into a thin tube and stuck it into my cigarette holder. I smoked the cigarette and laid the cardboard holder on the windowsill, in the place we’d agreed on. Kazimir noticed nothing. He was sitting on a chair and chewing a sandwich.

  Konstantin Paustovskii, Commencement Revelry

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  My job was finished. After me, Littauer went off to the smoker. He flipped his cigarette butt containing an outline on the windowsill, got the crib-sheet out of mine, and, returning to his place by way of the aisle, tossed it on Bo-gushevich’s desk. After Littauer, Stanishevskii, Regamé, and two other boys pulled the same trick. Their work required adroitness and an accurate eye.

  I had already begun to write my own essay when Littauer returned to the hall. I followed him with my eyes. I wanted to watch how, and to whom, he would toss my crib-sheet. But he did it so quickly that I didn’t notice a thing. Only by the fact that one of the girls began to write spasmodically did I understand that the deed was done and Bogushevich was saved.

  But it wasn’t the girl with the thick braids who began to write; it was a completely different one. I could see only her thin back, crisscrossed by the straps of her white, dress apron and the reddish curls on her neck.

  Four hours were allowed for the essay. Most of us finished it sooner. Only the girls still sat suffering at their desks.

  We went out into the garden. That day such a multitude of birds was singing that they might have assembled from all over Kiev.

  A quarrel almost erupted in the garden between Littauer and Stanishevskii. Littauer said that Stanishevskii’s organization of all this help for the girls had been stupid. Stanishevskii flared up. He was radiant with the success of his enterprise and was expecting praise, not criticism.

  “So, what was the matter?” he asked Littauer in a challenging tone that boded no good.

  “The matter was that there was no damn need for us to know the last names of the girls we were writing for. Six girls—six crib-sheets. Any girl could get any crib-sheet. Why do I need to know that I’m writing for Bogushevich or for Iavorskaia? As if it made any difference! It only made things more complicated when we were dropping them.”

  “My God!” Stanishevskii shook his head sorrowfully. “You utter cretin! You have no powers of imagination. So get this: I did it on purpose.”

  “What for?”

  “It just seemed more INTERESTING to me!” Stanishevskii said weightily. “Maybe a passionate love between the saver and the saved will blaze up out of this! Did you think about that?”

  “No.”

  “What a dolt,” Stanishevskii snapped. “But now—to François’. For some ice cream.” After every exam we would binge on our mode
st means and go to François’ confectionery shop, where we would eat as many as five servings of ice cream each.

  The most difficult exam for me was trigonometry. Anyhow, I passed it. The exam stretched on into the evening. Afterwards we waited for the school

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  inspector to announce the grades, and overjoyed by the fact that no one had flunked we burst noisily out into the street.

  Stanishevskii hurled a tattered textbook into the air with all his strength. The pages sifted down from the sky onto the pavement, dipping and fluttering from side to side. That pleased us. All of us on signal threw our textbooks skyward. A minute later the pavement was white with rustling paper. Behind us a policeman whistled.

  We turned off into Fundukleev Street, then onto narrow Nesterov Street. Gradually everyone trailed off in various directions, and only five of us were left: Stanishevskii, Fitsovskii, Schmuckler, Khorozhevskii, and I.

  We set off for Galitskii Market, where there were many small snack bars and beer parlors. We decided to get drunk, because we considered that the exams were already over. Latin was the only one remaining, but no one was afraid of it.

  We joked and laughed. A devil, as the old expression goes, had possessed us; passers-by were turning to look at us. At Galitskii Market we dropped in at a beer parlor. The floor smelled of beer. Along the wall there were booths built of planks, wallpapered in pink. They were called “private chambers.” We occupied such a ‘chamber’ and ordered vodka and beef Stroganoff.

  The owner foresightedly jerked the faded curtain closed. But we were making such a noise that from time to time one of the customers would open the curtain a bit and glance into our “chamber.” Everyone who looked in we treated to vodka. They drank it willingly and congratulated us on our “successful graduation.”