He bowed politely to everyone in the room and seemed grateful when Mrs Suvorin led him to a sofa, and offered him tea.
The little party, however, soon seemed to be going rather well. Mrs Suvorin, rather meeker than usual, sat and made polite conversation with her honoured guest. The imperial family was mentioned and pious sentiments about them expressed. Various people were brought over to speak to Rasputin and for each, it seemed, he had kind and modest words. When Nadezhda was introduced, he politely told her mother that the girl had a beautiful nature. To Peter Suvorin he respectfully said: ‘You study the wonders of God’s universe.’
‘There doesn’t seem anything so remarkable about him,’ Dimitri remarked to Karpenko.
He was to revise this opinion somewhat, however, a few minutes later when Mrs Suvorin motioned him to approach. For it was only now, as he came face to face with Rasputin, that he encountered that strange man’s most extraordinary feature.
While he observed him before, it had seemed to Dimitri that the fellow’s eyes were rather foxy: curious, watchful, probably cunning as, from under his heavy peasant brow, their gaze darted here and there about the room. But now, finding them turned and fixed upon himself, Dimitri experienced their full effect.
They burned: there was no other word for it. They were like two searchlights, boring through the darkness, and everything else about the man was forgotten as one felt their astonishing, primal force. Only when he drew very close did the hypnotic gaze seem to soften and the eyes appear kindly, if a little bloodshot.
‘A musician. Ah, yes.’ That was all Rasputin said to him. It seemed he was not especially interested in Dimitri, though for some reason, after he had returned to his place, the boy felt a strange tingling sensation in his back.
Despite this little glimpse of Rasputin’s power, the rest of the visit passed quietly enough; and it might have remained in Dimitri’s mind as nothing more than a social event but for two small incidents that took place shortly before Rasputin left. The first concerned his mother.
Rosa had already been introduced, just after Peter, and apart from a polite bow, Rasputin had appeared to take no notice of her at all. Indeed, he was not even looking in her direction when suddenly, as if impelled, he rose from the sofa, turned, and walking swiftly over to where she was standing, took hold of her forearm with one hand and stood there, like a doctor feeling a pulse, quite silent for almost a minute. Then, without a word, he calmly let the arm drop and returned to his place, continuing his conversation with Mrs Suvorin as though nothing had happened. As for Rosa, though everyone else looked awkward, she did not blush, or even look startled, but stood very still, and neither then nor later did she ever refer to the incident.
The more frightening occurrence took place as Rasputin was leaving.
For some reason, after watching him for a while, Karpenko had suddenly decided he did not want to meet Rasputin. When it looked as if Mrs Suvorin was about to summon him, he had slipped away to a far corner of the room. And as the visitor finally rose to take his leave, Karpenko watched discreetly from behind the cover of two elderly ladies.
And Rasputin was halfway to the door when he abruptly stopped, wheeled, and came straight towards him.
The two ladies blushed and parted. Rasputin came nearer, then paused about ten feet in front of the young man. The hypnotic eyes stared at him, as Karpenko, stripped of his protection, seemed to quail before them. For a full quarter minute Rasputin looked at Karpenko. And then he smiled. ‘Well, well,’ he said softly. ‘I have known others like you, in Siberia and St Petersburg.’ And to Mrs Suvorin: ‘What a clever young Cossack to have in your house.’
What on earth did he mean? Mrs Suvorin seemed to understand him, but she only looked a little awkward, and escorted Rasputin to the door.
But the effect upon Karpenko was devastating. By the time Rasputin had gone and Dimitri had gone over to him, he was white as a ghost, and shaking. When Dimitri put his arm around him and asked him what was the matter he could only whisper: ‘He saw through me. He saw everything. He is the devil himself.’ And when Dimitri gave him a look of blank incomprehension, he just grimaced, shot an awkward glance at Mrs Suvorin, and muttered: ‘You don’t understand. You know nothing.’
And for several weeks afterwards, the young Cossack was moody and withdrawn, and Dimitri could not discover why.
1911, September
For some reason, Rosa noticed, her breasts felt cold. Why should that be? The chill damp air smelt faintly of smoke as she walked down the street. Darkness had fallen an hour ago. Here and there, lamps glowed.
At the corner she stopped and looked back. The bedroom she and Peter shared was the only room in the apartment that looked on to the street and for some reason – she herself did not know why – she had lit a candle and placed it in the window there. She could just see it now, a small, guttering flame set in the dark frame of the building, a strange, intimate little sentinel. A message perhaps, of love and of hope. Except for a note to say she had gone for a walk, she was leaving no other.
She walked round the corner. Her footsteps, oddly, felt light.
No one would know: that was the point. That was, in truth, her gift of love to them, that they should never know. Only Vladimir would know, and he was with his son in Paris now, not due back for a month. She had not written to him: there was no message; but he would know, and keep her secret.
A party of Cossacks clattered by on their horses on their way back to barracks, capes pulled tightly round them against the autumn chill.
When had it all begun? At the very start, perhaps: she had married Peter Suvorin when she was still depressed. That was her fault. Yet she had loved him passionately. No, she thought, she could pinpoint the real beginning. It was in 1900, when little Dimitri was five and the letter had come from America.
Since her marriage, Rosa had had little contact with her family in Vilnius. Four years afterwards, her mother had unexpectedly died, and then her elder brother and his family had emigrated to America. Then, in 1899, her other brother had followed. Their departures had not surprised her. Tens, hundreds of thousands of Jews were leaving; indeed, by 1914 some two million Jews would leave Russia for the United States, and the tsarist government was glad to see them go. Rosa had been happy that her brothers had crossed the Atlantic to find happiness; but their lives, by now, seemed far removed from hers.
And then came the letter. It was from her second brother, who normally disliked writing and from whom she had not heard since several months before he left. Yet now he wrote at length, giving a detailed account of the crossing and news of the family; and his letter also contained a long final section.
We came to Ellis Island. It was frightening for a moment. When I saw that great slab of a building and saw the rows of other immigrants waiting for inspection in the huge hall I thought – My God, it’s going to be like Russia only worse. It’s a prison. But it was soon over and then we were out.
And then… This is why I had to write to you, dear Rosa. Then we were free. Can you imagine the feel of it? It’s hard to describe. To know that you are free. There are no gendarmes watching you for the Ministry of the Interior, no police spies looking for enemies of the regime. You can go where you please. Everyone can vote. And a Jew has as many rights as anyone else.
The Americans are like the Russians. They are simple and straightforward, and speak from the heart – the Russians at their best, that is! But also they are unlike Russians, because they are free, and they know it.
And this is why I am writing to you now, dear Rosa. For being here, I can’t help thinking of you. Of course, you have converted and you live in Moscow. But are you sure, are you really sure that this truly makes you safe? And little Dimitri: apart from your conversion, which I know was done for expediency, in Jewish eyes the son of a Jewish mother is a Jew. It’s not that I’m personally religious: you know I’m not. But all I mean to say is, if things get bad in Russia, for God’s sake come to America. Legally or illegally, you can always arrange something. Come and join us, I beg you, here where all your family will be safe.