Nina pulled her knees to her chest. Klim had been arrested as a deserter for not taking part in yesterday’s battle, and that meant… oh, no… God, please, no!
Sister Photinia rose, shaking off the pieces of straw that clung to her skirt. “I’ll go and find out what’s happened.”
Nina stayed sitting up and awake until evening, unable to move a muscle. Her body felt frozen, and her scattered thoughts ran through her head like dry sand.
Here in Sviyazhsk, it felt as though they had all fallen through a hole in time and gone back to the Dark Ages, a time when it was considered an act of glorious righteousness to ask the Lord not for love and joy but for the face of a dog to prove one’s faith. If you didn’t believe in what you were supposed to and if you weren’t ready to kill or maim for that belief, then you deserved to die.
Sister Photinia had still not returned, but a wounded soldier who was able to walk brought news.
“Trotsky lined up all the deserters,” he said, “and ordered every tenth man to be shot as a warning to the others. The commissar announced that this method had been very effective in improving discipline in the Roman army.”
As night fell, Nina was still sitting and gazing into the flame of the oil lamp on the duty doctor’s desk. She felt as though the souls of the executed soldiers were roaming the cathedral among the rows of sleeping men. They hadn’t yet grown used to death. They might try to take a cup of water or say something to one of those still left alive. But their weightless fingers passed straight through these earthly things, and their voices couldn’t be heard.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Sister Photinia.
“Your young man is alive!” the nun whispered excitedly. “He’s at the station with the Chinese. He gave me this note for you.”
Her hands shaking, Nina took the piece of paper but could make out nothing in the darkness.
“He asked me to tell you, ‘Wait for me, and I’ll come as soon as I can,’” the nun said and put a small white feather into Nina’s hand. “He also asked me to pass on this gift for you, but I don’t really understand what it means.”
“What’s happening at the station?” Nina asked, tears of joy pouring down her cheeks.
“Trotsky has gone to Moscow. He ordered the train master to hitch up the remaining cars to a new engine, and off he went. Apparently, there’s been an attack on Lenin. He was seriously wounded by a terrorist.”
The Chinese saved me from the firing squad. They threw themselves at Trotsky’s feet and, with my help, informed him that they had only deserted because they hadn’t understood the orders they had been given, and if the last remaining Chinese interpreter is killed, their detachment will be totally unable to fight.
Trotsky took mercy on us, but he gave the order for Pukhov to be shot for failing to organize effective communication between the military command and his soldiers. The poor fellow didn’t even try to defend himself. He just stood there in front of a firing squad, barefoot with his shirt hanging out of his trousers, weeping silently. The revolution has betrayed him—its most loyal disciple, the man who loved it more than any other.
The Chinese were determined to take me with them. Ho, the new commander of the battalion, assigned two Chinese men to guard me, but Skudra had no intention of giving me up because he wanted me to write propaganda leaflets about the attempt on Lenin’s life. So, he also sent his soldiers for me, and while the command was deliberating what to do with me, the guards and I had a fine old time playing cards. As a result, I won myself a very nice pair of German binoculars.
On September 2, 1918, the matter was settled when Trotsky came back from Moscow bringing two Chinese interpreters, so I’ve stayed with Skudra.
Thinking back, my work at La Prensa newspaper seems like a distant dream. I remember Buenos Aires and our building with its gilded dome topped with the statue of Athena who represented the freedom of speech. The feisty editorial staff, the atmosphere of fervent competition—where are they all now?
I—like everybody else in Sviyazhsk—am in the business of building communism. There’s only one problem: we are trying to make a beautiful palace using plans for a city crematorium. Alas, it doesn’t even occur to my colleagues for a fraction of a second that there is something seriously wrong with their blueprints. The piles have been driven into the ground, the cranes are already lifting pipes over the building site, and it’s too late to start the project from scratch—the Bolsheviks have invested too much time, money, and effort into it. They’ll realize their mistake later when the red ribbon has been cut and the orchestra has struck up its triumphant fanfare. Only then will the Bolsheviks see that instead of a paradise for the living, they have built a palace for the dead in which they too are doomed to be cremated alive like poor old Pukhov.
I don’t dare state this obvious truth or try to prove my colleagues wrong in any way. The devil has given me the fright of my life, and I’m not going to forget our deal again. He is keeping his end of our bargain, so I must keep mine.
The most terrible events often become myths, and every myth needs a hero. The hero’s job is to perform miracles and suffer for the people. Rising from the dead is always a handy trick to have up your sleeve as well.
Lenin’s miraculous recovery from his recent attempted assassination has transformed him into a hero of epic proportions, and I’ve now become an expert at creating the myths that will fix him on this pedestal for time immemorial. I write that Lenin works tirelessly for the revolution day and night despite the hole in his lung. A man of his caliber and intellect is born only once every thousand years. Workers all over the world adore him, and delegates from villages flock around the Kremlin to pay homage to their great leader. His name will resound through the centuries, his achievements are immutable and immortal, and so on and so forth.
My Sunday school education and the time I spent serving in church as an altar boy has turned out to be of some use after all. I have developed a flair for writing panegyric material of an almost religious fervor. The thing that truly amazes me is that my over-the-top, ironic toadying is taken at face value and applauded as a resounding success. The more colorful and vulgar my turn of phrase, the more satisfied Skudra is with my work.
I never imagined that anything I ever wrote would be distributed to a hundred thousand readers, yet that’s precisely what is happening now. Yesterday, Skudra sent a courier off to Moscow with a manuscript of mine entitled The Great Leader of the Rural Poor. For my pains, I received the princely fee of two hundred rubles and a looted toiletry bag replete with a bar of soap, a box of tooth powder, a new toothbrush, and a Gillette razor.
The railroad station—or rather, what’s left of it—is overrun with children selling trading cards with pictures of Lenin on them. Some soldiers buy them for good luck in battle, others for good luck in their career, but most take them back home and pin them on the walls above their beds.
All of this makes Nina and me laugh. Not very wholesome laughter, it’s true, but there’s no other kind to be had at the moment.
Nina is still in the Cathedral of the Assumption. She’s getting better and has already been out to join me on walks to the bluff overlooking the river. In spite of everything, she wants to go back to Nizhny Novgorod and find Zhora. I’ve tried to talk her out of it but to no avail. She just gets upset and takes offense when I do.