Murder and Revolution

by Evelyn Weiss

  He nods again, and sit back in the leather chair. He lights another cigarette, blowing through pursed lips, idly watching the swirls of smoke rising. I glance at the map, its edges curled and torn, and the other papers scattered across the desk.

  “I have only one more thing to ask you, Agnes. Did the general have an assistant called Vasily Bukin?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And this Mr Bukin – what were his responsibilities?”

  “He told me he took care of the personal security of the Tsar’s family.”

  I can’t help thinking back, again, to what happened to that family – and, indeed, the sad story of Mr Bukin himself. But Kılıç himself stands, and calls out.

  “Take this woman back to the cell.”

  The soldier reappears; again I notice his ragged, stained uniform. I go back into the lobby with him. I don’t bother to glance at Aristarkhov, because now I know why he is waiting there. Instead, I say to the soldier “I need the bathroom.”

  “I’m taking you to the cells.”

  “I need the bathroom. Only for one minute. Please. I can give you this.”

  I hold up a ten ruble note. The man looks at it, and immediately says “Twenty.” I pull out another ten, and press both notes into his hand. He opens a door I’d noticed before, next to Kılıç’s office, and hisses “Be quick!”

  Inside the bathroom, I press my ear to the wall, and push my finger into my other ear. I can hear the blood pumping in my head. Then, I hear Kılıç’s door opening and closing.

  “Welcome back. I’ve now checked some key facts about you. Among the prisoners, I chose to question the woman. She has confirmed that you are indeed General Aristarkhov, as you claim.”

  “I saw her, going into your office.”

  “I chose to interrogate the woman, because I have a lot of experience of women. I know they lack the intelligence to construct effective lies. If what that woman said about you had been untrue, I would have easily spotted her attempt to deceive me.”

  “And – what did she say?”

  “What she said, General, matches your own account perfectly.”

  “Good. So, Kılıç Pasha, do you accept that I have the seniority within the Bolshevik government to agree terms with you, for a binding treaty for Baku?”

  “Yes. You and I can do business. I will also personally ensure your safe passage back to Russia, after you have signed the treaty. And of course, General, you will not be returned to the cells now. We will arrange the best temporary accommodation we can in Baku for you.”

  “Thank you. That is all very satisfactory. I need only one more thing. The prisoner Captain Yuri Sirko must accompany me to Russia. He must stand trial, for the murder of a Swedish person of importance.”

  “Why is that necessary?”

  “You will understand, Kılıç Pasha, that our Bolshevik regime has many opponents, especially the United States and Great Britain. They are providing supplies – armaments, ammunition and food – for the counter-revolutionary White Army.

  Sweden could easily allow the Allied Powers to supply the White Army via Swedish territory. That would be disastrous for Bolshevik Russia. Fortunately for us, the Swedes have declared strict neutrality – for the moment.”

  There’s a pause. Through the wall, I can picture Aristarkhov explaining, Kılıç listening and nodding. I hear the general’s voice again.

  “Therefore, we needs to ensure that we are on excellent terms with the Swedish government. We cannot afford to annoy them in any way.”

  “I don’t follow you, General.”

  “We need to show the Swedes that the Russian government properly investigated the murder of their citizen. Sirko will hang –”

  Kılıç laughs. “We Ottomans can carry out the hanging, General! After all, we are going to dispose of all those persons in that cell.”

  Aristarkhov interrupts. “No. Do what you like with the others. But Sirko must accompany me to Russia, as a prisoner. If I don’t have him, you don’t get my signature on that treaty.”

  “I still don’t understand the importance –”

  “If we take Sirko to Moscow, we can then obtain a confession from him – or write one in his name, if he is unco-operative. But either way, the Swedes will see that we treated the murder of their countrywoman very seriously, and that we put a Russian citizen on trial for the crime. Sirko’s execution will help us keep good relations with Sweden.”

  “Very well, General. You want to run a show trial of the Cossack; I understand that. But it does amuse me – how you Bolsheviks are so keen to appease other countries. The true secret of strength in a nation is within, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I have no opinion on that, Kılıç Pasha. I’m a soldier, not a philosopher.”

  “Just as a man’s power is within him, so is a nation’s, General. That stupid Cossack in the cells knows nothing, nothing at all! Yet the fool joked about my relationship with Talaat Pasha.”

  “So you are close to Talaat, then?”

  “Talaat and I are of one mind: we have worked hand-in-hand to cleanse Turkey of inferior races. Our Special Organisation took all Armenian men from their homes, under the pretext that they were needed to help with the war effort. But instead, we took them to remote places and shot them in secret. Then we destroyed the women and children through forced marches and transportation into the desert. We knew that hunger and disease would dispose of them all. Typhus, especially, was our friend and helper: it did most of our work for us. We have eliminated over one million Armenians, and many Assyrians and Greeks – leeches who were sucking the lifeblood from our Empire.”

  There’s a pause, but Aristarkhov is silent. I hear Kılıç’s voice again, as if he’s giving a speech.

  “Now we are beginning the second phase of cleansing. Today we are liquidating the Armenians of Baku. We will soon do the same to the remaining Armenian villages in the rest of our Empire.”

  Aristarkhov can’t resist a reply. “I heard that your Empire was close to collapse, Kılıç Pasha. I also heard that a few Armenian partisans armed only with rifles defeated the Ottoman Army three times, and that they’ve carved out their own homeland and delared independence.”

  Kılıç has a tremor, a brittle edge, in his voice. “Those battles were merely temporary setbacks. Our troops have, as an interim measure, backed off from the so-called Republic of Armenia, so that we can concentrate our resources on Baku. What has happened today in Baku will soon be repeated all over this region.

  So don’t listen to rumors, General. Instead, look around you. Take note of how we have dealt with the vermin of this city. You Russian Slavs could learn some lessons from our Turkish race and the way we have cleaned our ethnic purity –”

  There’s a knock on the bathroom door, and I hear the soldier’s rasped whisper. “Finish up in there, quick!”

  “All right, all right, I’m coming…”

  Back in the cell, I look at Mariam, and whisper. “Is she asleep?”

  The professor, Yuri and Rufus all nod.

  “Then I’ll explain. Kılıç and Aristarkhov have done a deal.” I tell them the details; Yuri’s face is impassive as he hears what Aristarkhov is planning for him. Then I tell them that Kılıç intends to kill us all. Axelson strokes his chin in thought.

  “Sadly, this may actually be the end for us. Perhaps we should resign ourselves to death. I can’t see how we can possibly escape. Even if we could get out of this building, Baku is full of Kılıç’s men, who literally have an open mandate to murder.”

  I touch the professor’s arm. “Let’s think about facts. I learnt something else, too, in Kılıç’s room. I saw, on his desk, a map, and some lists. The map was torn, and so curled by rolling that Kılıç had put books on each corner to stop it rolling up again. So he’s been using that map while travelling, on his army’s campaign, and now he’s brought it to Baku with him. It’s a military map.”

  “What was on the map, Miss Agnes?”

&nbs
p; “I can’t read Turkish script, of course. But, Professor – when we came through the streets this morning, what were those words daubed on so many of the doors?”

  “The graffiti said ‘Armenian swine’.”

  “Well, the same word – that script, meaning ‘Armenian’ – was written on that map, six times, in a cluster. Putting that information together with what Kılıç said to Aristarkhov, I think he is planning another operation like the one which killed Mariam’s family.”

  I explain to them more of what I heard Kılıç say to the general about ‘ethnic cleaning’. The professor looks grave; his face becomes ashen. He speaks slowly, as if each word is hard for him to say.

  “Five years ago, I read an article written by a Swedish explorer. The writer subsequently committed suicide, haunted by what he had seen.”

  We wait for Axelson’s next words.

  “The explorer was travelling through the most arid part of the Namib Desert in Africa. He came to a dried-up waterhole. It was surrounded by thousands of human skeletons. He found out that, in 1904, the German rulers of Namibia had driven all the local people out into the desert to die of hunger and thirst. It was a concerted plan to kill an entire race. Down all the centuries, not even the cruellest tyrants had killed on such a scale, so systematically. Until, that is, we reach the twentieth century. It was a new sort of crime.”

  We’re all silent, listening. The professor’s voice has an edge of despair. “Sometimes, I wonder if the human race is in fact going backwards.”

  He puts his head in his hands for a while, then looks at each of us in turn, glancing to check that Mariam is still sleeping, before going on.

  “Clearly, the Ottomans are copying the German tactics in Namibia. Talaat, Kılıç and their cronies have orchestrated the extermination of entire races.”

  Rufus interrupts. “It’s terrible, I agree – but we can do nothing to save Kılıç’s victims. It will be a miracle if we can save our own lives.”

  But the professor and Yuri look thoughtful. After a few minutes, Axelson breaks the silence.

  “There was nothing else you could read on Kılıç’s map, Miss Agnes? Nothing to give you a clue as to the locations of the Armenian settlements it showed? Even if we ourselves are to be executed, we could get a final message to the British, or the Iranians, somehow? Or to the American embassy in Istanbul?...”

  I try to picture the desk and the map. “The cluster of writing was in the bottom right hand corner – looking from Kılıç’s side of the desk. So that might be the south-east corner of the region it showed. The only other thing I could see was lots of contour lines, in the top left-hand corner of the map.”

  “Contour lines… a deep valley, perhaps? Could you see any rivers marked?”

  “No, it didn’t look like that at all. The contours were in a circle – like concentric rings.”

  “A mountain?”

  There’s a faint edge of life again in Axelson’s voice, and a tiny spark of light in his eyes. He’s thinking aloud. “Most mountains are in long chains. Circular, concentric contours, on the other hand, mean a solitary conical peak. A volcano.”

  Rufus snorts. “Bloody hell, Prof! This isn’t a geology lesson! We’re locked in a cell, at the mercy of a murdering maniac. Look at that little girl.” He points at Mariam’s sleeping form. “Let’s concentrate on saving ourselves – and her.”

  I see the scared whites of Rufus’s eyes, but his voice calms a little. “I’m sorry. The truth is, I’m not coping well with this. Agnes…”

  Rufus’s words trail away, his voice shaking, dwindling to an unheard whisper. Axelson looks around at the heavy door, the cell walls and the tiny grille of the window onto the courtyard, as if checking for a final time that there really is no escape for us. Then he grins grimly at Rufus.

  “It’s quite all right, Mr du Pavey. None of us are coping well with this. Now, were you about to ask Miss Agnes something?

  “I’m clutching at straws. But did you learn anything else, anything at all, when you were with Kılıç, Agnes? Anything that might help us?”

  “I found out one more thing, Rufus. Not about Kılıç, but about that soldier who’s guarding us. He’s open to bribery.”

  Mariam is snuggled up to Rufus’s large form; his arm is around her. They are both asleep. She stirs: then she wakes and looks around the cell, her eyes like saucers. It’s nearly dark now. She looks at the shadowed face of the professor, then at Yuri, then at me. Her lip trembles, but she doesn’t cry out. Axelson goes gently over, and sits beside her and the unconscious Rufus. For five minutes, the professor just looks quietly at her: then, he speaks.

  “Mariam, do you know of a big mountain – maybe near your home, when you were a little girl?”

  “There is only one really big mountain. I’ve never seen it, but of course I know about it, because it’s in the Bible.” She seems suddenly troubled, and looks at each of us in turn. “You are all Christians like me, aren’t you? You know the Bible stories?”

  It’s Yuri who answers her. “Yes, of course.”

  She almost smiles. “Then you will know about the big mountain. When God sent the flood, it was the only land sticking up above the sea. The place where Noah landed his Ark, and all the animals were saved. The mountain was called Ararat.”

  Yuri’s voice is soft. “You must sleep again now, Mariam. We’ll wake you, when we need to go. Because tonight, we’re getting out of this place.”

  Mariam is sleeping again. Yuri looks around at the rest of us; somehow, I feel just a tiny bit better. He starts to speak; his voice is low, but distinct and strong.

  “You know, when they first brought me here, my Bolshevik prison guards were actually kind and helpful. I gave them a little flattery, of course, about how famous their city is, the ‘Texas of Russia’. They liked hearing that. Then I said I was bored in my cell, could they bring me reading material, maybe something about Baku? And they did. A map would have been best; they didn’t give me one, but I found out what I needed to know about the layout of the city and its surroundings from the books and magazines they gave me.

  I already knew that there had been trouble in Baku, back in 1905. But I didn’t know the details. So I read up carefully on the incident. It was a revolt against the Tsar. The revolutionaries tried terrorist tactics, including setting fire to some of the oil wells, and damaging the all-important pipelines. The revolt was suppressed, and then the Russian government built new, well-protected pipelines. Did you see a long, walled alley near the courthouse, Professor?”

  “We did. We walked through that alley, to get here.”

  “That wall along one side of the alley was built after the 1905 revolt, to protect the new pipeline running from the oilfields down to the harbor, for loading oil tankers.”

  Axelson nods. “Yes. I thought that long, straight, blank wall looked odd.”

  Yuri carries on. “Between that wall and the harbor, the pipe has to run a steady, level line. So parts of the old courthouse were demolished to make way for it. That’s why these cells are here, on the upper floor. They replace the old cells on the ground floor, which were knocked down to make room for the pipeline.

  The pipeline runs right through the middle of the court buildings, on the ground floor. Look out there.” Yuri points out through the grille into the courtyard. “The courtyard is an artificial floor. The pipe is, in fact, directly below that courtyard. Do you see that iron trapdoor? It’s an inspection hatch, so that engineers can get inside the pipeline to check it.”

  Rufus looks at him. “You’re not suggesting we go into the pipe! It’ll be full of oil!”

  “It might be. On the other hand, it might be empty. Agnes, you told me something that General Dunsterville said, about the oil pumps?”

  “Yes. Dunsterville said that the governors of Baku wouldn’t listen to his idea. He proposed that the pumps should be destroyed, to stop them falling into the Turks’ hands. Then the oil supply would be cut off.”

 
Yuri looks around the room. “That’s what I’m hoping. You told me, Agnes, that Dunsterville was a leader and a fighter. I believe he and his men took matters into their own hands, and destroyed the pumps.”

  Rufus can’t suppress a laugh. “A wild guess, Sirko!”

  “I’m open to better ideas, if you can offer them.”

  The professor, meanwhile, has been musing to himself, staring into empty space. But now, I realise what he’s doing. He’s looking out through the grille at the trapdoor.

  “I agree with Captain Sirko’s idea. It is our only chance. I have only one question: if we get through the pipeline to the harbor, how will we escape from there? It will be full of Ottoman troops.”

  Yuri replies with a smile. “We’re not going to the harbor, Professor.”

  It’s half an hour later, and night has fallen. I stand at our cell door, and call softly through the hatch. After a few moments, I see the face of our guard.

  “Yes?”

  “Look, I know you have your job to do. But could you move me to another cell for the night? I can pay you, like I did before when you let me go to the bathroom.”

  He hisses in reply. “I can’t change your cell! I have strict orders. Kılıç is a truly harsh commander: no-one has ever dared disobey him.”

  “I could offer you a hundred rubles.”

  “How much do you have?”

  “I have – quite a lot of money.” I pull several hundred-ruble notes out of my pocket. The man peers through the hatch, his eyes bulging greedily at the sight of the money. Then he glances around the cell at the sleeping shapes of my companions. I smile pleadingly at him.

  “Two hundred rubles? That’s my top price. These men, they all snore, and I really do need to get away from the noise and get some sleep.”

  He takes a final glance at the money in my hand. Then I hear the key turn in the lock, and he ushers me out into the corridor. Suddenly, my face is pushed against the stone wall.

  “Now, you bitch. Give me all your money –”

  His voice is cut short. I turn, and see Yuri’s arm around the man’s throat. Behind Yuri, Rufus holds the man’s rifle, and levels it at his face. Yuri glances at Axelson.