“Why are you all looking so tragic?”
We told him everything, including the tragedy of the grand piano.
“The piano? I can sort that out for you in no time. First, we just need to take out the keys.”
“Darling, you’re the answer to our prayers.”
He sat himself down, twiddled something around—and out came the keys.
“There! And now back they go!”
But the keys didn’t want to go back.
The engineer went very quiet. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.
A terrible suspicion began to dawn on me.
“Wait! Look me in the eye and tell me the truth. Have you ever before in your life removed the keys from a grand piano?”
“Yes!”
“And have you ever got them back in again?”
Silence.
“Tell me the truth! Have you ever got them back in again?”
“N-n-no. Never.”
Dreary, uneventful days.
The life that had bubbled up so noisily and excitedly had now subsided.
Returning to Moscow was impossible. Kiev was cut off from everywhere to the north. Those who were quicker and more alert had already left. Everyone, however, now had their plans. Remaining in Kiev was out of the question—and we all knew this.
Once, I was talking to the famous clairvoyant, Armand Duclos, in the foyer of a theater, after a show. A soldier on duty by the door came up to us and said, “Tell me, Mr. Duclos, will Petlyura be here soon?”
Armand frowned and closed his eyes.
“Petlyura… Petlyura… three days from now.”
Three days later, Petlyura entered the city.
Armand Duclos was extraordinary.
Before I left Moscow, I had been to several of his séances. His answers to the questions put to him were extremely accurate.
Later when we got to know each other, he admitted that he usually started these sessions with little prearranged tricks—but after a while he would start to feel strange. He would slip into a trance and find himself answering a question this way or that way without knowing why.
He was very young, not more than twenty. A pale, thin boy with a beautiful, tired face. He never talked about his background, but he spoke French quite well.
“I was alive many, many years ago. Then I was called Cagliostro.”[58]
But he lied lazily and without enthusiasm.
I think he was simply a Jewish boy from Odessa. His impresario was an energetic young student. Armand himself was quiet and sleepy and had no business sense at all. His own success meant nothing to him.
While Armand was still in Moscow, Lenin had taken an interest in him and twice summoned him to the Kremlin; Lenin wanted to know what fate held in store for him. When we asked Armand about these meetings, he was evasive: “I don’t remember. I remember only that Lenin has success till the end. As for the others, some have success and some don’t.”[59]
His impresario told us how alarming all this had been. He was well aware that “when something came over him,” Armand would quite forget who he was dealing with.
“Well, thank God that’s all behind us!”
Only a few months later, Armand was executed.[60]
The last act of our Kiev drama.
Petlyura was entering the city. There was a wave of arrests and searches.
Nobody wanted to go to bed at night. We all wanted to stay together, usually in Milrud’s apartment. We would play cards to keep awake and we were always listening out to see if anyone was coming. If there was a knock or a ring at the door, we hid the money and cards beneath the table. Armand often used to join us.
“No, I can’t play cards,” he said. “I mean, I know every card in advance.”
He then lost three nights in a row.
“How strange. When I was a little child, no one dared play with me.”
“But who wants to play cards with children?” we would reply.
Quiet, always rather sleepy, he neither argued nor laughed. He was a strange boy.
“I’m always half asleep. And this sleep exhausts me. It drains my blood and saps my strength.”
His beautiful face was indeed very pale. He was telling the truth.
Petlyura’s men were now patrolling the streets. Unbelievably polite gentlemen in soldiers’ greatcoats would click their heels and tell us which streets to avoid so as not to get caught in one of their raids.
“But who are you?” we would ask.
“We’re the peasant bands you all kept talking about,” these gentlemen would reply with proud humility and heavy Ukrainian accents.
The shops ran out of stock, then closed. People hid or fled. There were more and more soldiers’ greatcoats to be seen.
Milrud’s apartment was searched. Apparently little Alyoshka sprang out of the playroom with a ferocious cry:
“I’m Petlyura! Don’t you dare!”
And the patrol respectfully withdrew.
There was a victory parade. Vinnichenko bowed to the crowds. Never had he received such ovations for any of the plays he had written.[61]
Fine fellows in new overcoats made from German cloth rode by on strong, sturdy steeds.
Muscovites said mockingly, in Ukrainian, “Long live Ukraine, from Kiev to Berlin.”[62]
And then—after a last quick walk, a last quick look—we packed our cases. Time to leave.
Not far from the city, we heard the boom of cannon.
“Where?”
“Behind Bald Mountain, I think. Seems the Bolsheviks are approaching.”
“Well, there’s no knowing when all this will be over. Have you got a travel permit?”
“Odessa! To Odessa!”
12
I WENT to say goodbye to the Lavra.[63]
“God knows when I’ll be here again!”
Yes, God knows…
The Lavra, the very heart of devout old Russia, was empty. No pilgrims: no old men with little knapsacks; no old women with little bundles tied to their walking sticks. The monks going about their business looked troubled and anxious.
I went down into the caves. I remembered my first visit, many years ago, with my mother, my sisters, and our old nanny. A checkered and eventful life lay between me and the long-legged girl with blonde pigtails I had once been. But my feelings of awe and fear had not changed. Just as I had crossed myself and sighed long ago, so I crossed myself and sighed now—moved by the same beautiful and ineffable sorrow emanating from the age-old vaults that had heard so many ancient Russian prayers and seen so many, oh, so many Russian tears….
An old monk was selling little crosses, prayer ropes, and a miniature image of the Mother of God, glued by some miracle to the inside of a small, flat bottle with a narrow neck. Beside her were two plaited candles and a lectern with a tiny icon on it. And on her halo I read an inscription: “Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!” It was a wonderful miniature. To this day, having survived all my wanderings as a refugee, this small flat bottle—the old monk’s small miracle—stands on my Parisian mantelpiece.
I also went to say goodbye to the Cathedral of Saint Vladimir. In front of the icon of Saint Irina, I saw a little old woman, all in black, on her knees. Her shoes were old and worn, the toes turned inward, toward each other, in a way that seemed timid and endearing. She was weeping. And while the little old woman wept, the magnificent Byzantine Empress, entwined in pearls and framed in gold, gazed sternly down at her.
We left Kiev late at night. Cannons were booming somewhere close by.
58
Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (1743–1795) was a famous Italian fraudster, Freemason, and occultist, supposedly gifted with magical powers.
59
Lenin’s biographer, Robert Service, thinks it unlikely that Lenin ever had any contact with Duclos (personal email, April 2015).
60
In November 1918, Teffi published an article titled “Armand Duclos” (
Always the same: we want to hold our little human happiness and take it away with us. To a place where no one will steal it from us.
Yes, the most ambitious, most ascetic, most ideologically committed builder of a new life, just like a simple stonemason, feels the need to come back home in the evening. To light his lamp, open his book, and smile into affectionate, loving eyes.
Armand Duclos! Brilliant clairvoyant! Look closely—will we yet meet happiness and be able to hold onto it? Surely we must!
How pitiful we all are.
61
Vladimir Vinnichenko (1880–1951) was a leading Ukrainian writer and nationalist politician. He was the chairman of the council of five, “the Directorate,” that ruled much of Ukraine in late 1918 and early 1919. Petlyura was a member of this Directorate, as well as commander of its army.
62
The Hetman, Skoropadsky, had been supported by the Germans. When the Germans withdrew, many of his officers and soldiers deserted and went over to Petlyura and the Directorate. See note 54.
63
The Kiev Pechersk Lavra. This cave monastery, founded in 1051 by Orthodox monks from Mount Athos, is believed to contain the uncorrupted bodies of saints from the days of Kievan Rus, the medieval Slav kingdom that embraced Christianity in 988. Present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are all descended from this first important kingdom of eastern Slavs.