by Gale Sears
As she hobbled back to the university, her mind churned with thoughts of finding the other two packets, of finding out where Agnes and her siblings were imprisoned, and how she could get the money to them. She also wondered what she was going to tell Sergey Antonovich.
When she reached the building she noted that several of the once-lighted windows were dark. Had the meeting ended already? How long had she been gone? Was Sergey looking for her?
She opened the front door of the building and stepped inside. She yelped with fright and surprise as she was confronted with Sergey, Dmitri, and Professor Prozorov standing near the entrance. The men stopped talking abruptly when she came in and she noted their stiff appraisal. The look on Sergey’s face was a mix of anger and suspicion.
“Where have you been?”
Natasha blinked. “I . . . Have you been looking for me?”
“We were just about to. Where were you?”
“I went to see if my father was in his office, but I fell.”
“Fell?” Some of the anger dropped from Sergey’s face.
“Yes. I fell hard. I think I might have blacked out for a time.”
Sergey reached down and took hold of the bottom of her coat which was indeed soaked with water. The suspicion on his face was replaced with concern. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I knew I should have come with you.”
“No, it’s all right. I didn’t break anything.”
“Where are you injured?”
“My hip and left arm seemed to have taken the worst of it.”
“Here, let’s take a look,” Professor Prozorov interjected.
Natasha clung to her coat. “Oh, no, it’s all right. My mother will look at it when I get home.”
The professor reached for the collar of her coat and tugged. “I know a little about medicine, comrade. Let me evaluate the truth of the matter.”
Natasha reluctantly allowed him to remove her coat, then took it from him, and held it close. She offered her left arm to him. He undid the button on her cuff and slowly pushed back the blousy sleeve. Even in the dim light of the hallway, the garish purple bruise along her elbow and upper arm indicated a vicious fall. Professor Prozorov probed the bones of her elbow and Natasha cried out in pain.
“Enough!” Sergey Antonovitch shouted, glaring at the professor. “She’s had a bad fall, it’s obvious.”
“Yes, it is obvious.” He nodded at Natasha as Sergey gently buttoned her sleeve. “I’m sorry, my dear. We need to get you home. May I offer my automobile?”
“Yes,” Sergey snapped, “that would be appreciated.”
Natasha did not understand this curt interchange, but she didn’t care. She was beginning to feel nauseous from the pain and anxiety, and if she could ride in an automobile instead of walking to catch the streetcar, it would be heaven.
“Yes, thank you,” she mumbled. “A ride in your automobile would be . . .”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Sergey whispered in her ear as he helped her on with her coat. “Dmitri, you go with the professor to get the auto. Natasha and I will wait here and watch for you to drive up.”
Dmitri’s eyes jumped from Sergey’s face, to her face, and back again.
Odd, Natasha thought. He looks guilty about something.
The two men left to get the automobile, and Sergey slipped his arm around her waist. She leaned against him and he kissed her forehead. “I’m so sorry you were hurt.”
She felt his concern was genuine. She looked up at him and he kissed her on the mouth.
She’d thought the fall would be disastrous and expose her secret outing, but she now knew it was the accident that brought her not only an alibi but sympathy. She put her left hand in her pocket and wrapped her fingers around the precious bundle. Surely now there was hope.
“Your arm must hurt.”
“What?”
“For you to protect it like that.”
“Oh, yes. . . . It feels better when I give it a little support.”
Sergey kissed her forehead and her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Natasha,” he whispered as he kissed her. “So sorry for the doubt.”
Her eyes flew open. “Doubt? What doubt?”
Sergey looked as though he’d been caught saying more than he’d intended.
“What do you mean, Sergey Antonovich?”
“Never mind. It’s Professor Prozorov. He sees treachery behind every corner.”
“Treachery?” She stepped back. “Does the professor suspect me of something?”
“No . . . no . . . well, yes. I mean, not really, but he is suspicious of everyone. His cousin was killed by White Russians, so now he thinks everyone is plotting.”
“And what does he think of me? Does he think that I ran off to inform the White Russians of our meeting?”
Sergey’s silence indicated that that was exactly what Professor Prozorov had thought.
“That’s absurd.”
“Yes, that’s what I told him. And, of course, now he knows he was completely wrong.”
Natasha looked at Sergey with a grim expression. “How can we trust a man like that? He will be over our lives for months, Sergey Antonovich.”
“Don’t overreact, Natasha. He is a brilliant man.”
“Just because he’s a professor, Sergey, doesn’t mean he can’t be dangerous.”
“He’s just being cautious.”
“Cautious?” She winced as the bruises on her hip and side twisted. She leaned down to catch her breath.
“Ah, let’s get you home,” Sergey said, his voice a mix of concern and frustration. “Your health is the most important thing right now.”
Professor Prozorov’s auto pulled up in front of the building and Sergey whispered in her ear, “Let’s not tell him we talked about this.” She frowned at him, but nodded. “Besides, we might find his diligence and paranoia useful.”
She stopped. “Useful?”
“Against the many radicals who want the Bolsheviks to fail.” He opened the car door.
She nodded again and climbed in, but in reality she was too tired to care. Other things had taken on greater meaning, and the shouted slogans of “Peace, Land, and Bread” and “All Power to the Soviets” had begun to sound like the shrill voices of children in a schoolyard.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Siberia
February 1, 1918
Ekaterinburg. Agnes and Alexandria stood pressed together with the other female prisoners on the platform of the train station. They had become so used to the smell of unwashed bodies that they were embarrassed by the disdainful looks and comments of the guards who surrounded them. Ekaterinburg. Agnes glanced again at the faded sign on the side of the train station hut which feebly announced the town’s name. Ekaterinburg. It was an unknown place—a place of desolation and lost souls. No one will know where we’ve gone.
A woman, shivering with fever, was pulled from the group. A guard barked for her name and checked his list. She was taken away. A young woman started to faint and an older babushka caught her. The woman motioned for the group to press in. Everyone moved closer together to prop up the girl as the woman slapped her face several times. A guard looked over, but did not approach. Names were called, lists checked, and more of the sick taken away. Agnes heard jangling bells and the clop of horse’s hooves. She reached for Alexandria’s hand. The wagons were coming to take them away, and they must stay together.
She strained to see the knot of male prisoners at the other end of the platform. She thought she could make out Johannes’s face, but all of her other brothers’ faces were missing. And where was Erland? Had he been taken away with the sick?
The guards yelled at them to move to the wagons, herding them around the side of the station hut and out to the frozen and snow-covered road
. Four powerful workhorses stood harnessed to four wagons. As Agnes watched the huge beasts stamp and snort and shake their heads, she calculated that only a small percentage of the emaciated prisoners would be riding in the wagons. The two wagons were nearly full with the sick male and female prisoners.
She leaned close to Alexandria. “I think we’re going to have to walk. Are you able?”
Her sister pressed her pale, cracked lips together and nodded. “Do you think it will be far?”
Agnes pulled her hat over her ears. “No idea.”
The men were closer now as the guards loaded them into the wagons, and Agnes searched anxiously for her brothers. Alexandria was the first to discover them. She grabbed Agnes’s arm and whispered urgently. “Look! There’s Oskar getting into that wagon with Erland. Oh, Erland isn’t well.”
It was true. Agnes watched as Erland crawled into the wagon and was pushed onto the wooden floorboards by Oskar. Erland hadn’t seen a doctor since the night of their arrest, and she knew there was internal damage that wasn’t healing.
Guards were reaching past her and Alexandria, dragging women to the wagons. The babushka was put on, and she pulled the fainting girl with her.
“Agnes!”
She heard her name called and looked quickly back to the knot of men. Johannes and Arel stood staring at her, intent on catching her eye. It had been risky for Johannes to call out her name, but she was grateful for the connection. She gave the two a weary smile. Someone pushed against her back and she nearly fell.
“Let me onto the wagon!” a woman pleaded as she shoved past. “I have a bad foot.”
“There’s no room,” the guard said. “You will have to walk.” He raised his voice. “The rest of you will have to walk.”
Agnes found Johannes’s face again, and he nodded his encouragement. Agnes and Alexandria nodded back.
The drivers called commands to the horses, and the wagons moved forward, creaking and groaning under the weight of their human cargo. Agnes turned her face forward, took Alexandria’s hand, and walked.
In the darkness of the afternoon, she could see the outlines of buildings and church domes that testified of the town of Ekaterinburg.
Why this town? Why send us here—so far away from everything?
They walked beyond the town and into a forest of pine trees. The scent was strong and clean, and Agnes wanted to wander off and fall asleep under the protective boughs of one of the beautiful giants.
“Agnes! Don’t close your eyes!” Alexandria snapped.
Agnes obeyed her sister’s voice, and as the world came into focus again, she found herself bumping against the woman on the other side of her. The woman seemed oblivious of her presence, but Agnes mumbled an apology and moved back to her sister. Her toes were numb, and she stamped her feet, attempting to encourage circulation. Alexandria clutched her little brown suitcase against her chest—her face a mask of determination. Agnes knew that the suitcase held a meager store: a lightweight coat, a sweater, the new gloves she’d worn to the theater, and a picture of the Savior that Elder Lyman had given to her when she was five. Thirteen years ago.
People were beginning to fall, and several times she or Alexandria stumbled over a crumpled body. All the women helped each other to stand and move forward, bonded by necessity and a common foe.
“Do they want us to die out here?” Alexandria mumbled. “Why would they bring us all the way out here to work in a work camp if they just wanted us to die?”
A guard rode up beside them on a dappled gray horse that seemed to blend into the opaque surroundings. “Shut up there!” the guard yelled. “No talking!”
“How far?” Agnes asked.
“Not far. Keep walking and don’t talk.”
A half a mile later they broke the cover of the forest and came out into a clearing unprotected by the trees. The wind blew slivers of snow into their eyes, and with daylight long extinguished, it was difficult to see much farther ahead than the lead wagon. Agnes lowered her head and trudged on.
It seemed like only a few minutes later when Alexandria shook her arm. “Agnes, look there. That must be the camp.”
They were going into another forest, but this time the tall pine poles stood tightly side by side and formed a square.
“Someone has cut off their arms and green hair,” Agnes complained.
“Agnes, are you awake?”
Agnes nodded.
“Well, stop mumbling nonsense. Someone will think you’ve gone mad.”
“Haven’t I?”
“No. Now stop it.”
Agnes heard the fear in her sister’s voice, and shook her head to clear her thoughts.
The gate of the wooden kremlin stood open, and as the lead horse passed under the portico, Agnes shuddered. Dear Lord, please be with us in this lonely place.
As they entered the enclosure they were confronted by a wall of a large building, thirty feet in front of them. The lead wagon angled to the left around the side of the building, and the women followed. Agnes held back.
“Agnes?”
“I want to see where the men go.” Just before she was forced to move around the building, Agnes saw the men’s lead wagon angle right. She caught up to Alexandria. “They’re not going off to a separate compound. They’ll be here with us.”
“That’s a blessing,” Alexandria responded.
They came to a stop in front of the two-story building. The look and smell of the wood indicated it was new; perhaps it had been completed in the last months of autumn before the cold weather set in—completed even before the Bolsheviks seized power. Perhaps the Provisional Government had built it, and now the Bolsheviks were laughing in their faces as they used the fortress for their own grim purposes.
Agnes brought her mind back to making a map of the compound. Steps led to a front porch which ran the entire length of the building that she assumed was the prison headquarters and the place where the guards slept.
She was turning to look behind her when the lead guard dismounted and met the commandant of the prison on the porch. The guard handed the stern, broad-shouldered man the packet containing the lives of fifty-eight people—sixteen women and forty-two men. It was only then that Agnes realized she could no longer see the men. A fence eight feet high ran the entire length of the compound from the steps of the headquarters to the back prison wall. She could hear the horses whinny, a shuffling of feet, and the muttering of a few bass voices, but the wall effectively sliced the prison into two sections—sections where a foot apart might as well be a hundred miles.
“How will we know if they’re all right?”
Alexandria squeezed her hand. “We’ll find a way.”
The commandant nodded to the head guard, who in turn ordered his men to conduct the prisoners to their quarters. Agnes almost started crying with relief when she thought about being inside away from the wind, of being able to lie down, of finding water to bathe. Though perhaps water was too much to hope for.
As they passed the long barracks building, Agnes could hear the muted rumble of voices. How many prisoners already occupied the camp?
All sixteen of the new female arrivals were led to a door at the far end of the building. Inside was stark. Lit by a few lanterns, Agnes could make out the unadorned pine plank walls, a few high windows, no chairs, and one small heating stove. Thin mattresses and blankets were stacked in one corner, and in the opposite corner was a partition with a hallway beyond which Agnes deduced was the way to the latrine.
They were ordered to get a mattress and blanket and line them up in two rows in the center of the room. The women complied, but a tussle broke out when two women went for the one remaining mattress and blanket. The guard ordered the louder of the two women to be taken out.
“Where are they taking her?” Alexandria asked as she roll
ed out the mattress next to her sister’s.
“I don’t know . . . probably to one of the other rooms.”
“And where are the sick ones?”
“I think we passed an infirmary at the other end of the building.” Agnes watched as some of the concern drained from Alexandria’s face.
“Oh . . . well . . . that would be good. Maybe Erland will have a bed.”
“No more talking,” the guard said. “Tomorrow you will be up at five, assigned to your work details and your bosses. You and you,” he pointed to two women, “shut down the lights.”
Agnes and Alexandria put their blankets together and laid down close to each other for warmth. The last lantern was extinguished, plunging the room into melancholy darkness.
The guard hesitated at the door. “There are guards on each tower, comrades, but they really aren’t necessary. We are two hours from town and you would freeze in half that time.” He went out into the dark night, shutting fear and loneliness into the room.
Agnes wondered if Alexandria was praying. Her heart wanted to pray, but resentment and pain kept the words from her lips. Her only reassurance was her own determination to keep them all alive. Johannes, Oskar, Arel, Erland, Alexandria. Before exhaustion took her into a fitful sleep, Agnes thought of Natasha Ivanovna—how she and Arel and Natasha Ivanovna danced at the burning of Maslenitsa on New Year’s Eve. The warm fire leaped high into the sky and Natasha Ivanovna was laughing, and in her raised hand was a cloth bundle.
Notes
1. Soviet work camps fell into basically two categories: penal work camps housing criminals who had actually broken a law, and “special work camps” which incarcerated persons under suspicion of actions against the state, mostly clergy, aristocrats, wealthy merchants, and intellectuals. Those sent to “special work camps” were mostly sent without trial or recourse. Under Stalin these work camps became the gruesome Gulags where millions of Russians perished.
