by Evelyn Weiss
The horse is strong: it tries to keep its footing at the top of the cliffs, straining desperately. Soaked with sweat, eyes staring wildly, it treads a line towards us, then stops, arresting the sled's fall in a tangle of reins and harnesses. The sled hangs over the precipice, still attached to the horse.
Emily and I step down from our sleigh and run across the snow. The sled is dangling in the air; its occupants are nowhere to be seen. Emily has the knife.
“I'll cut this poor beast free, before the weight of the sled pulls him over the cliff.”
The horse strains and lunges in mad alarm: Emily watches its savagely kicking hind legs, as she saws at the leather. “Stay back, Agnes. I know what I’m doing.”
I stand, looking around the oddly calm landscape: the vertical bluffs dropping down to the river, the wide sweep of the valley. On the slope above us, lumpy drifts and bulges of snow are outlined in the sun. One of the drifts moves and lifts. Its snowy crust breaks open, like a hatching egg, to reveal the rising figure of a man, huge and strong.
Horobets stands, silhouetted; then he steps heavily towards us, his boots crunching through the snow. Within seconds, he's standing only a few yards from us, and I see that he still has his revolver.
He doesn't bother speaking. Both arms stretch out, gripping the gun and pointing it straight at me.
I hear the last strap of the harness rip, as Emily cuts the horse loose. Freed, the panicked creature plunges straight ahead, blundering up the slope in a frenzied terror.
It runs straight into Horobets. There’s a whirl of trampling hooves amid a cloud of snow. I hear the crumpling sound of his body falling onto the snow, and a choked, gurgling scream. Then the sound cuts off instantly, and everything is quiet.
Behind us, I realise the sled hasn't fallen. Although free from the horse, the cut harness is still tangled in the rocks, the leather stretched and strained to the limit.
I see a hand.
Gripping the edge of the sled, a man is pulling himself up. I see an elbow, a shoulder, a face. A face that I recognise.
Emily and I run forward. This man was shooting at us – but it’s sheer instinct to save him. I grasp an extended hand; Emily takes the other, and we pull him up from the sled onto the safety of the snow. He collapses in a shivering heap: a big man, although small compared to Horobets. He's too exhausted to speak, but all the same he is trying to mouth something. A minute passes, then I hear a gasp, a few distinct words.
“I wasn't trying to shoot you. I was aiming to miss. After all, I’m English you know. I would never shoot a lady.”
Emily looks at me. “Who on earth is this man?”
I reply with a smile. “I can answer that, Emily. His name is Rufus du Pavey. Long ago, when I knew him, he was an airplane pilot.”
“Mr Sokolov. You are colluding with murderers!”
The startled man stands in his little office, speechless with shock as Emily’s pent-up rage explodes at him. Ten seconds pass, and he fumbles with a piece of paper on his desk. Then he mutters “Excuse me” and stumbles away.
“I’ll get an answer out of him, if I have to –”
I point gently to the paper. “Could this be an answer?” I turn it round to show her. It’s a telegram.
“St Petersburg Soviet – Bolshevik Party to Mr Andrei Sokolov, Yermak Estate, Kungur, near Perm
Please arrange a visit for two of your residents Emily Neale and Agnes Frocester to the Kungur Ice Caves Stop Tell them it is a tourist day excusion Stop Do not inform any other residents of Yermak about Miss Neale and Miss Frocester’s excursion Stop Our representative will meet Miss Neale and Miss Frocester at the caves and will accompany them directly from there on a journey to St Petersburg en route to the United States Stop”
I go in search of Mr Sokolov. He’s taken refuge in the kitchen. His face is white; his hands shake. I stand in front of him and look into his wavering eyes.
“We’ve read your telegram.”
“Residents are not supposed to read the communications, Miss Frocester… But I left the telegram on the desk, so you would see it and understand. Whatever happened on your trip today, it is nothing to do with me. I had no idea that anything sinister was planned.”
“I understand that now. You told us the other residents were not coming with us today because they had already been to the ice caves – but they never did, did they? If they’d visited the caves, Dr Günther would no doubt have collected some fossil samples there.”
“It wasn’t a very good lie. I didn’t want to deceive you. But I had to follow the orders I was given.”
“Come back and make it up with Emily. She flies into rages; it’s her personality. But also – we have a visitor for you to meet.”
It’s taken me a while, but I’ve warmed to Emily. We’ve been thrown into each other’s company, and many people have assumed wrongly that she and I are alike. That annoyed me, I must admit. Also, she struck me as quick to judge others, and opinionated in her communist beliefs. I saw her bravery in the February Revolution, but since then I’ve spent a lot of time listening to her strongly-expressed views. But she came through for us today, that’s for sure.
She, Rufus and I are in the sitting room. A farmer who spotted the straying horse kindly brought us back to Yermak. Throughout the journey, Rufus shivered with shock and cold, and could hardly speak. Now, he sits wrapped in Mr Sokolov’s dressing-gown, which is rather too small for his well-built frame. He’s been told that he can stay at Yermak as another of our motley crew oresidents, which he seemed delighted to hear. He grasps a mug of hot cocoa – a rare luxury – in both hands, and sips it, savouring the taste. Like long ago, his manner reminds me of a wilful and rather spoilt schoolboy.
“How did you get here, Rufus? And on a sled – with Ivan Horobets? It makes no sense at all.”
“Actually, it’s less of a coincidence than you might think. The reason why I’m here, of course, is Lord Buttermere. And because of you too, Agnes.”
He smiles at me under his brown handlebar mustache, which is now fringed with drops of cocoa.
“I’ll start my story at the very beginning. Back in 1913, as you know, I was at the top of my career: a celebrated pilot, on the brink of founding his own passenger air-line. That was my idea, you remember? For a few months, I was a household name on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Emily grins. “Even I’d heard of you – so you must have been famous.”
“It was the high life, you know. But it spiralled in the wrong direction. I was partying every night, drinking far too much. I hadn’t actually piloted an airplane in months. But worst of all, I was receiving letters – demands for money.”
“Blackmail?” I think back to what I learned about Rufus’ private life.
“Yes. I’d been watched, over a period of months, in London. I’d been seen with one particular gentleman friend – he and I had been spotted about town, if you know what I mean. There are people who are black-hearted enough to try to use that kind of information to their advantage. I thought I might have to quit England forever. In fact, ladies, I was at rock-bottom.”
Emily looks at me, an eyebrow raised. She’s realised what I already know about Rufus. I think about the way that, like Oscar Wilde, he would be an easy target for slanderers and extortioners. He sighs, and carries on.
“Lord Buttermere, of course, knows everything that goes on in English society. So I wasn’t surprised when, early in 1914, he contacted me and said that he knew all about the blackmail. But I was surprised – very pleasantly surprised – when he said he wanted to offer me an escape route.
I’d written several articles and such-like about my flying exploits; they’d been widely published. Lord Buttermere said they were well written, indeed inspiring. He said I had as much talent for writing as I had for flying.”
Rufus pauses. Looking at him, I think how easy it would have been for Lord Buttermere to manipulate him with a little well-directed flattery. He sips his cocoa again.
“Lord Buttermere suggested that I would be the ideal person to fill a newly-created post of Writer-in-Chief at the Anglo-Russian Bureau.”
Emily snorts. “Did you speak Russian?”
“I was put on a crash course to learn the language. It was hard work, I can tell you. Not my sort of thing at all.
I sailed to St Petersburg in May 1914. In Lord Buttermere’s view, war was imminent. German-produced leaflets were already circulating in St Petersburg, to tell ordinary people that the Tsar is a war-monger, that the Germans were their friends, and so on. There were also other leaflets, being produced by Communists and others in Russia. They were less subtle than the German leaflets. They simply aimed to incite anger against the Tsar’s regime.”
I nod. “I saw leaflets like that. They were horrible.”
Rufus can’t resist a snigger. “Mmm – you mean the naughty picture, showing Rasputin and Alexandra having sex! In fact, those leaflets did exactly what they were trying to achieve. They stirred people up against the imperial family.”
Emily buts in. “The leaflets were effective all right – because they showed what a lot of ordinary Russians were already thinking.”
I look from her to him. “I don’t quite understand. What had all that to do with you, Rufus?”
“The purpose of my new job was propaganda. I was to write materials to counter the effect of the German and Communist leaflets. The ‘hearts and minds war’, Lord Buttermere called it. The Anglo-Russian Bureau would publish the leaflets, and Okhrana would ensure their distribution.
It went passably well for a year or so. I enjoyed the work. And St Petersburg, as you may be aware, is a beautiful city, and the bath-houses are an especially civilized place of relaxation: London has no equivalent.
However, there was another side to my job. Once the war started, I began to receive messages from British Intelligence. It was my job to pass all that information on to Okhrana. For a while I was based in Ivangorod, and I saw there how Okhrana used that information. They executed a group of men as war traitors and saboteurs, on the flimsiest of evidence. It was sickening.”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head as he recalls the events. Then he then looks directly at me and Emily, his blue eyes wide again, as he carries on.
“There were other issues, too. Russia had taken me away from the blackmailers – but it hadn’t, I’m afraid, taken me away from my other problems.”
“You mean, alcohol.”
“Yes. I’m ashamed to admit it, but after those executions in Ivangorod, I just fell apart with guilt and horror. I sought oblivion in bottles of vodka. I still do.”
I reach out and touch his hand. “I’m sorry to hear that. Lord Buttermere told me about what happened in Ivangorod. He was crystal clear that those deaths were nothing to do with your actions. They are simply an example of the way Okhrana used to work.”
“Well – I took that business in Ivangorod very hard. Months passed in a haze of drink, trying to forget what had happened. But I had to keep on going with my work. My next instructions came from Lord Buttermere as a result of him meeting you, Agnes.”
“Really?”
“He met me in person in Ivangorod, in September 1916. He said that you and Professor Axelson were tangled in a web surrounding the murder of Svea Håkansson, and that someone had tried to kill you both. His intelligence suggested that your attacker was called Ivan Horobets. Horobets was, he said, a former Cossack soldier who worked as personal operative for a General Aristarkhov – a senior military man with strong connections to Okhrana.”
Emily’s interest is sparked now. “So? What did you do?”
“Lord Buttermere told me to try to get close to Aristarkhov, or Horobets, or both. I had no luck at all with Aristarkhov. But I found that Horobets frequented a bath-house in St Petersburg. It was not, however, one that I knew. The Kukolka Bath and Massage House was actually a brothel, and Horobets was its most regular customer.
I went to the place, avoiding conversation with the women and generally feeling ill at ease. After a couple of visits, I saw Horobets, and managed to fall into conversation with him. That was the start of it. During last summer, all through the time that the Bolsheviks were increasing their power, I saw Horobets regularly, firstly at the bath house, then in bars, and then at his home. I managed to convince him that I held Bolshevik beliefs, and that he could rely on me to help him.
Then, Horobets started to receive instructions from unnamed people. Following those instructions, I accompanied him on visits to the homes of a variety of people. Most of them were moderates and liberal democrats, people such as Nikolay Chkheidze.
The ‘visits’ were all most unpleasant. Horobets would make a speech about loyalty, and say that total support had to be given to Lenin. Anyone who didn’t, he said, would be putting their lives and their families at risk.”
Emily snorts. “A protection racket. Except about politics instead of money.”
Rufus nods in agreement. “Then, a few days ago, Horobets and I were sent here. He told me nothing about our mission until we got off the train at Perm. That was where he told me that his task was to ‘disappear’ two American women who posed a threat to senior members of the Bolshevik Party – and I was to assist him. He told me I had to act as a guard outside a cave, while he ambushed the women inside. He planned to hide the bodies underground so that they would never be found. It would look as if the women had got lost in the cave; an unfortunate accident. That would avoid any awkward questions from the American consulate.
Of course, I could never kill anyone. But to preserve my cover, I had to go through the motions of working with Horobets. So that’s how I ended up on that sled, pretending to shoot at you.”
“So you couldn’t kill us, but you were quite happy to stand out in the snow while Horobets came into the cave to do his dirty work.” Emily spits the words out.
“Please. I’m not proud of a single thing I’ve done. I never wanted any of this…” He slumps over his cocoa, his eyes closed, his brows corrugated with guilt.
20 The House of Special Purpose
Birds are singing in the trees outside the sitting room window. It’s a perfect summer’s day. Over seven months have passed since our visit to the ice caves: it’s July 1918.
The door opens, and Professor Axelson enters.
“Professor! You got here at last! Are you joining us here at Yermak?”
“I’m afraid, Miss Agnes, that my stay in this delightful place will be of very short duration. I am to leave again in an hour or so.”
“What is going on?”
“I have no idea. After I returned from the hospital in Helsinki, I was forced to spend the winter and spring in Moscow. I was accommodated for free, at a luxury hotel. But it was no consolation for my frustration and boredom. Finally, a few days ago, I received a letter – would you believe it, from Lenin himself! I have the letter here.”
He flashes a piece of paper with a red crest on it. “The letter requests that I carry out an important piece of work – but it does not explain what that work is. It also said that two Red Guards would meet me at my hotel in Moscow. They would accompany me on the train to Perm. So now, I am here. But the guards have said that this is a brief stop, then we will travel on to a new destination. I have no idea where, or why.”
Two men follow him into the room. Their Red Guard uniforms are less makeshift that those I remember from St Petersburg: properly sewn red collars and cuffs have replaced the armbands and sashes. They look around the room. All the usual residents are here, including Rufus. One of the guards speaks to all of us.
“We are sorry, but we have to break up this pleasant party. Yermak is too small for all the residents. Some of you have new accommodation, in Yekaterinburg.”
We’ve all been here so long that the news of change is greeted with startled expressions around the room. The soldier begins to read out names.
“Two residents must accompany us to Yekaterinburg. Their names are Agnes
Frocester and Rufus du Pavey. They will travel with this gentleman, Professor Felix Axelson.”
I look at the soldier. “What about Emily Neale? She and I came here together.”
“I have news, too, for Miss Neale. But my message for her is private. Where is she?”
“I’m here! The only other woman in the room, if you hadn’t noticed.”
The guard steps over to Emily, and quietly asks her to leave the room with him. After five minutes, he reappears without her, and tells Rufus, the professor and me to get ready to leave. I say goodbye to the other residents, then I go up to the room I share with Emily, and pack my suitcase. But she’s not there.
Half an hour later, the professor, Rufus and I get into a motor car, but I’ve seen nothing of Emily. I’m going away without even saying goodbye.
Rather than going to the railway station at Kungur, the car drove us all the way to Perm, arriving at dusk. Just like months before, we boarded the Trans-Siberian Express, and the guards showed us into a sleeper carriage. Then, unexpectedly, they took their leave of us, and got off the train; moments later, we were sliding out of the station. I can hardly believe that the Red Guards are allowing the three of us to travel unaccompanied – but it’s true. I slept surprisingly well, and when we awoke, a waiter came to tell us that a table was laid for us in the dining car.
As we eat breakfast, the train winds along on its journey through a rocky valley among high, forested hills. The professor looks out at the view over the rim of his teacup.
“This is the Ural watershed. We are now leaving the continent of Europe, and entering Asia.”
“Bloody Russia. It all looks the damned same to me.” I’m sad to see that, after months of sobriety at Yermak, Rufus’ eyes are bloodshot, and his breath smells of vodka.
