12 NOVEMBER 1879 ODESSA
There was a queue at the telegraph reception where an elderly Jew was struggling to make himself understood to the clerk. Vera Figner was losing her temper, her foot tapping impatiently on the tiled floor, click, click, click, and every few seconds her eyes turned to the large post office clock on the opposite wall of the hall. She edged her way to the counter at last and the clerk slipped a telegram beneath the grille. She turned away with the ribbon of paper between her fingers, concern and excitement written in the fine lines of her face.
‘Well?’ Anna asked.
‘Here,’ and Vera pressed the message into her outstretched hand. ‘He’s ready to leave the Crimea.’
The telegram was in simple code: ‘PRICE OF FLOUR TWO ROUBLES. STOP. OUR PRICE FOUR. STOP.’
‘Fourth coach of the second train,’ whispered Vera, with a discreet shake of the head. ‘Let’s go now. It will be a miracle if we aren’t arrested. Can you imagine a more obvious code? You know the telegraphers are under orders to look out for strangely worded messages.’
She led Anna from the Central Post Office on to the busy street and hailed a cab. ‘There’s a train in half an hour. You must go at once.’
Anna had arrived in Odessa the day before. Vera’s cell had worked hard on its own plan for an attack, only to discover the tsar would not be travelling through the city after all. It had left them feeling flat and a little resentful that they had no further part to play, but it had been agreed that Goldenberg would leave with their supply of dynamite on an earlier train and meet Anna when she received word from the Crimea.
As the cab began to turn before the station, Vera leant closer: ‘Good luck, Annushka, good luck.’ Her voice shook with emotion. ‘Please be careful. The gendarmes have stepped up their patrols.’
‘Do you think they know something?’
Vera Figner gave a little shrug: ‘I don’t know, but be careful.’ And she bent to brush Anna’s cheek lightly with her lips.
Vera was right. A squad of gendarmes was questioning travellers and checking papers on the concourse and Anna was obliged to show hers with the rest. A plume of steam and soot was rising from the mouth of the station and she had barely settled into her seat in third class when, with a hiss and a jolt and a clanking of couplings, the train began to pull away from the platform. Her carriage was crowded with a rich slice of southern Russia: peasants with poultry; a Greek shopkeeper and his family, his small children screaming for the attention of their mother; Jews, Armenians, even a young Muslim man from the Crimea in a bright red Tatar cap. Anna found herself pressed against a middle-aged clerk in a stained and threadbare frock coat who fell asleep almost at once. Opposite her was an old soldier with a thick grey beard and small inquisitive eyes. He gave her a lascivious toothless grin when she caught him scrutinising her and he refused to look away. For a while she followed the comings and goings in the carriage — the officious ticket collector and tipsy vodka seller, the children peeping cheekily through their fingers at strangers — and she listened patiently to the everyday troubles of her neighbours. But the late sun glinting yellow in the glass made her blink and slowly she succumbed to the weariness of the passive traveller, drifting away to the rattle of the train. It was an uneasy sleep, broken at each station along the line by the slamming of doors, the guard’s whistle and the traffic of new passengers up and down the carriage. For hours she floated in that restless demi-world between sleep and consciousness in which dreams are shaped by memories and the images that form and dissipate are familiar. In one, the tsar was waving from his carriage, his long fingers beautifully manicured, a gentle look in his eyes, and he was beckoning to her, ‘Come, come,’ offering her the seat beside him. But she knew he was going to die, that it was too late, that he must die and that if she sat with him she would die too. But would he be suspicious if she refused? Was it her duty to take the seat and die for the people? She wanted to live. What would the others say? No, she must die for them. And she could see the face of the English doctor gazing at her, his hazel eyes full of pain, and she wanted to kiss him and feel his arms wrapped tightly round her. But he turned his back on her and kept walking, and she was furious for showing she cared.
She woke with a start as the train juddered to a halt, her mouth dry, her neck stiff. It was dark and her neighbours were still dozing, blankets pulled up to their chins. She examined her dim reflection in the window, discreetly tidying loose strands of hair. She felt dirty and cold and would have given almost anything for a bath and a comfortable bed. Elizavetgrad was only a little further and it was there she had arranged to rendezvous with Goldenberg and a portmanteau of dynamite. With the bag on the rack above them, she would have to be on her mettle for the rest of the journey. The old soldier opposite was awake and eyeing her intently. She ignored him and gazed out into the November night as the train began to gather speed, wisps of steam whisking past the window like spirits at a witch’s dance. And soon she could see the yellow twinkle of Elizavetgrad and the train began to slow. The plump clerk beside her, who had grunted and snuffled in his sleep for most of the journey, stirred as if an unseen hand was shaking him roughly to give notice the city was only minutes away. Placing his hands on his knees, he hoisted himself groggily to his feet and reached up for his trunk. Most of the passengers were preparing to leave the carriage. It would make it easier for her to pass unnoticed on the platform.
From the edge of the platform, Captain Alexander Zabirov could hear the rails singing and knew the train was only minutes from the station. He glanced at the waiting-room door then a little way beyond it to where he knew his men were waiting in the darkness beneath the canopy for his signal.
‘You’re sure he’s in there, Turchin?’ he said, turning to the sergeant at his side.
‘Quite sure, sir. He’s not going far with that trunk.’
‘Very good.’
It was Turchin who had noticed the Jew struggling along the platform with a heavy portmanteau. A small man with wispy red hair and a goatee beard, dressed in an old student coat, he had stepped off the Odessa train at a little before six o’clock that evening and taken refuge at once from the bitter chill. Ordinarily, Turchin would have presumed he was on his way to a university in Moscow or Kiev, but he had been briefed every day for a fortnight to be on the lookout for nihilist conspirators at the station. Names and descriptions and even a few photographs had been sent by the Third Section to every gendarmerie in the empire: almost at the top of the list was the man pressed into a corner of the waiting room. Turchin had not been able to remember his name but he knew he was wanted for murder and he was too long in the tooth to risk tackling him alone.
‘Where is the next train to, Sergeant?’ asked Captain Zabirov.
‘Kiev, sir.’
‘He may take this one. He’s from Kiev.’
Word of the approaching train must have reached the waiting room because the door opened and people began drifting out and along the platform.
‘He’ll be armed,’ Zabirov muttered to himself. Then to the sergeant: ‘All right, let’s take a look.’
They moved towards the waiting room, but after only a few steps they saw their man through the lighted window. He bent down and a moment later a battered leather trunk appeared in the half open doorway. He was pushing it with his foot. How fortunate that he is going to have his hands full carrying his luggage, the captain thought with a wry smile. He touched the sergeant’s sleeve and whispered: ‘Stop. We’ll let him drag that thing to us.’
The end of the platform was almost lost in a hissing cloud as the train rumbled into the station. As the steam began to clear Anna leant closer to the window in the hope of catching a glimpse of Goldenberg’s diminutive figure.
‘You got someone meeting you?’ It was the nosy veteran with his twinkling little eyes. His voice was husky with age and he spoke with a hard ‘e’ that suggested he had spent a good deal of time in the Caucasus.
‘Yes.’
‘A friend?’
‘Yes. A friend.’
‘You from these parts?’
‘No.’
‘Here, let me carry your bag.’ He reached down for the small leather suitcase at her feet.
‘No. No, thank you,’ she said firmly, leaning down quickly to lift it from the carriage floor. Turning to join the queue for the door, she could sense his hard inquisitive eyes boring into her back.
The train drew to a halt, the carriage door opened and the Greek shopkeeper in front of her began coaxing his sleepy-looking children down the steps on to the platform. In the dim yellow gaslight, friends and family waited, warmly wrapped against the cold of the November night, their faces lost in clouds of freezing vapour.
As she edged closer to the door Anna was surprised to see their attention was fixed not on the travellers decanting from the carriages but on the smoking head of the train. There was a murmur of excitement and one of the porters climbed on his trolley for a view over the press. Seconds later a gendarme and one of his men pushed carelessly past.
‘Bit of trouble.’ It was the voice of the old soldier. Ignoring him, Anna stepped off the train and began to shuffle through the throng towards the commotion. She caught words and snatches of conversation between those tall enough to see what was happening: the gendarmes had arrested someone. There had been a struggle. Who was he? A thief or a murderer?
She had to be sure. The attention of those waiting on the platform began to turn to the friends they were meeting from the train. The entertainment was over and the porters were in search of custom again, the train guards shutting carriage doors for departure, the travellers gathering their bags and drifting towards the station hall. As the platform cleared she saw a squad of gendarmes in their sky-blue coats at the door of a waiting room. Close by, the steaming black engine, its driver and the fireman smoking and chatting on the platform, intrigued by the little scene unfolding before them. The shrill blast of a whistle, then another, and they hauled themselves back into the cab. A moment later there was a whoosh of steam and soot and the driving rods began to turn.
It was madness. She was taking too much of a risk. If they had taken him it was too late. No purpose would be served by a second sacrifice. As the train began to pick up speed, she turned away, preparing to retrace her steps to the station hall with the last of the passengers. The guard’s van cleared the platform edge and rumbled into the night. A moment later she heard shouted commands and, glancing over her shoulder, she could see the waiting-room door was open, the gendarmes standing in close order to receive the prisoner. A second later it was beyond doubt: almost lost between two burly military policemen, half marched, half dragged — Grigory Davidovich Goldenberg.
She forced herself to stop and stare as everyone about her was doing. He would be escorted past her and she would look at him and hope that he might draw strength from her love and trust. A careless glance, a foolish word or gesture, and he would give her away, but she wanted him to know that she trusted him implicitly.
‘I thought I saw you here.’
Anna turned angrily. The old soldier from the train had sidled up like the serpent in the garden. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’
He shrugged non-committally: ‘Filthy Jew.’ And she saw his sharp little eyes turn to Goldenberg. ‘Probably one of those terrorists.’
The gendarmes’ boots crunched on the packed cinder surface of the platform in time, as if to demonstrate their power to grind men like Goldenberg into submission. His head was bent, his hair falling about his face, and she could see by the yellow station light that he must have put up a fight because his coat was torn in two places and dirty. She would offer him comfort if he saw her, offer with her eyes the love and reassurance he always sought. As they approached, she stared intently at his bent head, willing him, silently begging him, to look up.
And he did look up, with frightened eyes. But only as he was on the point of passing did he find her. He gave her a fleeting smile of recognition before turning his head away. Behind him, two gendarmes were carrying the portmanteau between them.
‘He smiled at you, didn’t he? I saw him smile.’
Anna turned quickly to look at the old soldier at her side. He was smiling at her too but it was not a pleasant smile.
‘I don’t know who he was smiling at,’ she snapped. ‘Perhaps he was smiling at you. Now why don’t you leave me alone?’ And without waiting for a reply, she began walking briskly towards the station hall.
‘It was you!’ he shouted after her. ‘Is he the friend you were meeting?’
What was wrong with him? He was still shouting after her. She cursed herself for taking foolish risks when the party was in need of the intelligence in her possession. As she entered the station hall, she turned to look back; the old soldier was hobbling after her.
‘There’s no reward for catching me, old man, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ she muttered under her breath. A choice: leave the station and take refuge in the town or face it out? There was a train to Moscow in twenty minutes and she had to catch it. Across the ticket hall she could see two gendarmes lolling in a very unmilitary fashion against the wall, casting lazy glances at the travellers gathered about the stove in the gloomy waiting room opposite. Instinct told her they were the sort who prefer things to be simple and do not ask many questions, and she trusted her instinct. She began scurrying noisily towards them. In the middle of the ticket hall she seemed to trip and her case clattered to the tiled floor, drawing the eyes of all on the concourse. With a little cry, she snatched it up again and ran breathlessly on, almost cannoning into the gendarme sergeant who had taken a step forward to meet her: ‘Hey, miss, is the devil at your heels?’
‘An old devil!’
‘Calm yourself, please,’ he said. ‘What is it?’ The sergeant was in his mid-forties, a little overweight, with bloodshot eyes and a florid complexion.
She dropped her suitcase and fumbled in her coat pocket for a handkerchief. ‘An old man. He’s mad. He’s followed me from Odessa. He says he loves me,’ she said, snivelling into her handkerchief.
The sergeant chuckled: ‘Well, at least he’s got good taste. Is that him?’ And he laughed again. ‘An old soldier, well, that explains it.’
Anna burst into tears: ‘But-’
‘There, there. I’ll speak to him.’
It was quite apparent from the expression on his face, even at thirty yards, that the old man was surprised and disappointed to find Anna in the company of a gendarme.
‘Here he comes,’ said the sergeant, ‘the light of battle in his eyes. What’s your name, miss?’
‘Anna Petrovna. A schoolteacher. I was visiting a sick friend in Odessa and am on my way to Moscow.’ Her voice trembled a little.
‘You have beautiful eyes, Anna Petrovna. Doesn’t she?’ The sergeant turned to the private at his side who was too callow to think of a chivalrous response. By now, the old soldier had made his long journey across the hall and was wheezing consumptively before them, too breathless to spit out his story. Anna shrank from him as if from a leper.
‘You should know better than to chase pretty young teachers at your age, old man,’ said the sergeant, wagging his finger at him. ‘You’ve had your day. Leave it to younger men.’
The old soldier managed to gasp a few words: ‘The Jew… the prisoner smiled, smiled at her…’
‘Ha. I bet you smiled at her too,’ said the sergeant good-humouredly. ‘I can’t stop smiling at Anna Petrovna.’
‘She was going to meet him, I tell you!’
The sergeant was taken aback by the ring of conviction in his voice: ‘What does he mean?’ he asked, looking down at Anna.
‘I have no idea,’ she replied, reaching for her handkerchief again. ‘He won’t leave me alone.’
‘She knows. She was going to meet the Jew! The terrorist. He smiled at her.’
‘Is that a crime?’ she shouted angrily. ‘Can I help it if a Jew smiles at me? Why would I be meeting a Jew?’ The vehemence of her attack shook the old man and she saw a flicker of doubt in his beady little eyes.
‘Shame on you, old man.’ The sergeant was losing his patience. ‘Go home and leave Anna Petrovna alone.’
‘I tell you…’ he spluttered. ‘At least ask her where she’s going, Sergeant…’
‘I know where she’s going,’ the sergeant said irritably. ‘Now get lost before you feel my boot up your backside.’
‘I served His Majesty for thirty years…’
‘I don’t care if you served the Frog Prince. Go home before I arrest you for wasting my time.’
The old man turned disconsolately away, pulling his green uniform coat tight about him for comfort, cursing under his breath.
‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘He was so persistent, and this crazy story about the Jew…’
‘At your service, Anna Petrovna, and be sure to remember Sergeant Alexander Dmitrievich in your prayers.’
‘I have a brother called Alexander Dmitrievich,’ she said with a demure little smile. How Alexander Mikhailov would laugh if he could hear her. ‘I will be sure to remember your kindness, Sergeant. God bless you.’
The waiting room was icy and no one was inclined to give up their place by the stove. For a while Anna was warmed by the recollection of her own audacity. What was more unthinkable in Elizavetgrad, she wondered, to be a Russian revolutionary or a Jew? Sometimes it was necessary to say and do disgusting things in the name of the people, to lie, to slander, to be someone hateful. They were preparing to blow the tsar and his family to pieces. None of them would take pleasure in carrying out the death sentence on Alexander Romanov, but it was necessary. And she owed it to Grigory.
‘Please,’ she said, edging her small frame between two large babushkas who were sitting as close to the heat from the stove as was humanly possible. The rough telegram paper was still in her pocket. Scrunching it in her little hand, she opened the fire door with the sleeve of her coat and threw the ball of paper into the flames. Fourth coach. Second train. She would be in Moscow by the morning.