As soon as the Volga flooded the grounds of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, Fomin and Zhora sailed out there looking for abandoned goods. The most valuable of these were sewing materials. In the countryside, the local peasants would give as much as five pounds of flour for a good needle and even more for a pair of scissors.
A lot of the goods had not even been removed out of the fair for safekeeping. It was less risky and cheaper to take them to the upper floors of the warehouses and hide them there until the next season. At one time, the merchants had hired watchmen to keep thieves away, but now—since all the owners were either in prison or on the run—the fair was completely defenseless.
At first, Nina had objected. “That’s just breaking and entering!”
“No,” Fomin had said. “We’re just being ‘self-sufficient,’ which is precisely what the Bolsheviks are urging us to be.”
Looting and petty thievery had become rampant in Russia. People were cutting off the seals of shop doors and drilling holes into the bottoms and sides of boxcars. Sales assistants would add water to the flour to increase its weight. There were constant fires in the warehouses started by employees to hide their tracks after stealing the very supplies they were meant to be protecting. But the worst looters of all were the Bolshevik “food brigades,” armed groups of workers who came to villages to requisition grain and other “surplus supplies.” They declared anything and everything they could their hands on to be “surplus,” from the bread baking in the peasants’ ovens to seeds set aside for next year’s harvest.
Nina was shocked at how quickly people’s attitudes and behavior changed. Now, even the old countess wasn’t above petty thievery. She had picked up and brought home a plank that had fallen off the back of a Red Army truck and even boasted about her crime.
That day, Fomin and Zhora had brought back two sacks filled with boxes of needles.
“We were sailing down Teatralnaya Street,” Zhora told Nina excitedly, “and then we saw another boat. They wanted to rob us, but Mr. Fomin took a pistol from his bag and splintered one of their oars to matchwood.”
Nina gasped. “Did they shoot at you?”
Fomin waved his hand dismissively. “If they did shoot at us, they didn’t make any impression on us or the boat.”
Elena knocked on the door. “Nina, the old countess would like to see you.”
When Nina entered the room, the old countess was busy writing at her desk.
“Good evening,” Nina said. “Elena said that you wanted to speak to me?”
Sofia Karlovna nodded. “Yesterday, I noticed from my window that Mr. Fomin was walking down the street between you and Elena. Could you tell him that a gentleman should always keep to the roadside when he is escorting ladies?”
“I will,” Nina said with a sigh. “Is that all?”
The old countess looked at her through her lorgnette, her eyes flashing scornfully. “I suppose you think good manners are only relevant in peacetime? If so, you are very much mistaken.”
She took a stained envelope from the drawer and gave it to Nina. “I was at the post office this morning, and they gave me this letter for you from Mr. Rogov. I do apologize. I forgot all about it.”
Nina felt as though every sight and sound around her had suddenly receded into the distance, and she stood transfixed to the spot, unable to breathe or move. It took some time before she came to her senses, and when she did, she found herself in an armchair, not sure how she had gotten there.
She stared at the envelope in her hand with the torn mail stamps along its sides.
“Are you all right?” she heard her mother-in-law’s voice. “I noticed that the letter had been opened, but the clerk at the post office told me that that’s how they receive them these days.”
Nina nodded and pulled out a sheet of lined paper. It was a letter from a woman she didn’t know asking for a pair of canvas shoes and a set of drawing instruments to be sent to her.
Nina looked at the envelope. The address was in Klim’s handwriting.
“It would appear that the letter has gone astray,” said Sofia Karlovna, taking it from Nina’s shaking hand. “Princess Anna Evgenievna told me that the Cheka censors are opening and inspecting all correspondences before they get to their recipients. The censors have probably made a mistake and put Mr. Rogov’s letter in the wrong envelope.”
“His letter has gone astray,” Nina repeated in despair.
“You’re lucky to get at least something from Mr. Rogov,” said Sofia Karlovna. “I’ve heard that the Cheka destroy all letters that look like they’ve been written by anyone who is half-educated, assuming that they must be counter-revolutionaries. At least you know that Mr. Rogov has reached Petrograd safely. According to the stamp, this letter was sent a month and a half ago.”
Nina snatched the envelope out of the old countess’s hand. “What’s the return address?”
But it was impossible to read. Someone had placed a sticky cup of tea on the corner of the envelope and torn off the top layer of paper. Nina could make out nothing but the word “Petrograd” and the apartment number.
“Please don’t mention this to Mr. Fomin,” Nina whispered.
The old countess gave her a reproachful look. “Why do you think I summoned you here instead of bringing you the letter in the dining room?”
“Thank you!” Nina found herself breaking down in tears. “I’m so afraid that if Klim comes back, Mr. Fomin will—”
Suddenly, the old countess did something unthinkable: she patted Nina on the shoulder.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t expect Mr. Rogov to stay in Russia,” Sofia Karlovna said. “Since he hasn’t betrayed you, he deserves to be treated with the same respect as he has evidently shown us. As for Mr. Fomin, don’t worry too much about him. Right now, there is nothing you can do about your situation, but later, who knows how things will turn out? As you grow older, you start to notice that most of the alarms in our lives turn out to be false ones.”
10. THE DEFECTOR
Dr. Sablin was perfectly aware that his wife had taken a lover. The squat, red-faced soldier called Osip who now worked at the regional Military Commissariat and had appointed Lubochka head of its canteen. If in the past, she had channeled her energy into putting the lives of her friends in order, now she did the same for that vats of sour cream and other provisions that had been confiscated by the Cheka and handed over to the Commissariat. Lubochka could keep track of hundreds of names in her head and knew exactly who needed what, and that made her very useful.
Everybody in the hospital knew about Dr. Sablin’s misfortune.
“I simply don’t understand it!” Ilya Nikolaevich, the chief doctor at the hospital, had exclaimed when he next saw Sablin. “You need to put your foot down. I know that morals are in decline and that we live in troubled times—but you know as well as I do how it will end: one day this fine fellow will stick a knife in her ribs. Do you remember that young cabaret girl who was brought in to us recently? Well, it’ll be the same story with your Lubochka.”
“If Lubochka ends up on my operation table, I’ll shove the knife into her ribs myself,” Sablin had said in a husky voice.
Ilya Nikolaevich had gaped at him for a moment. “If I ever hear you talk like that again, you’ll be out of a job.”
Sablin didn’t care. He felt as if his life was pouring out of him, as though he were hemorrhaging to death and there was no way to staunch the flow.
When Sablin had suggested to Lubochka that they divorce, she had merely nodded but hadn’t brought the subject up again since.