I could tell that she was about to make some unnecessarily disparaging comment about that good-hearted oaf, but the soldiers were starting to approach now and we could make out the lead officers, sitting tall on their horses as they paraded slowly along the street, resplendent in their black double-breasted tunics, grey trousers and heavy, dark greatcoats. I stared at the fur shapkas on their heads, intrigued by the sharp V cut through the front of them, just above the eyes, and fantasized about how wonderful it would be to be part of their number. They ignored the noisy cheers of the peasants who surrounded them on either side, calling out blessings to the Tsar and throwing garlands before the hooves of the horses. They expected nothing less from us, after all.
Little news of the war ever came to Kashin, but from time to time a trader might pass through our village with information about the military’s successes or failures. Sometimes a pamphlet might arrive at the home of one of our neighbours, sent by a well-intentioned relative, and we would each be allowed to read it in turn, following the advance of the armies in our imaginations. Some of the young men of the village had already left for the army: some had been killed, some were missing, while others still remained in service. It was expected that boys like Kolek and I, when we reached seventeen, would be called upon to bring glory to our village and join one of the military units.
The great responsibilities of Nicholas Nicolaievich were well known to all, however.
The Grand Duke had been appointed Supreme Commander of the Russian forces by the Tsar, fighting a war on three fronts, against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, against the German Kaiser, and against the Turks. By all accounts he had not been tremendously successful in any of these campaigns so far, but still he commanded the admiration and absolute loyalty of the soldiers under his command, and this in turn was filtered down through the peasant villages of Russia. We considered him to be among the very finest of men, appointed to his position by a benevolent God who sent such leaders to watch over us in our simplicity and ignorance.
The cheers grew even louder as the soldiers passed us by, and then, approaching like a glorious deity, I could make out a great white charging horse at the centre of the throng and seated atop the steed, a giant of a man in military uniform, his mustachios waxed, groomed and teased to a fine point on either side of his upper lip. He was staring rigidly ahead, but lifting his left hand from time to time to offer a regal wave to the gathered crowd.
As the horses passed before me I caught sight of our revolutionary neighbour, Borys Alexandrovich, standing among the crowd on the opposite side of the street and was surprised to see him there, for if there was one man who I thought would refuse to come out and pay tribute to the great general, it would have been him.
‘Look,’ I said to Asya, nudging her shoulder and pointing in his direction. ‘Over there. Borys Alexandrovich. Where are his fine principles now? He is as enamoured of the Grand Duke as any of us.’
‘But aren’t the soldiers handsome!’ she replied, ignoring me and playing with the curls of her hair instead as she studied each man that passed us. ‘How can they fight in battle and yet keep their uniforms so pristine, do you think?’
‘And there’s Kolek,’ I added, noticing my friend pushing his way to the fore of the crowd now, his face a mixture of excitement and anxiety. ‘Kolek!’ I cried, waving across at him, but he could neither see me nor hear me through the noise made by the marching horses and the cheering of the villagers. At any other time, I would not have thought anything of this unremarkable fact and would have turned to look back at the parade instead, but there was an expression on his face which confused me, a look of utter disquiet that I had never observed on the countenance of this thoughtful boy before. He stepped forward a little and looked around until he had reassured himself that his father, the man whose approval meant more to him than anything else in the world, was among the watching crowd, and when he was certain of Borys Alexandrovich’s presence he turned back to stare at the Grand Duke as the white charger marched towards him.
Nicholas Nicolaievich was perhaps twenty feet away, no more, when I saw Kolek’s left hand reach inside his tunic and remain there for a moment, trembling slightly.
Fifteen feet away, when I saw the wooden handle of the gun emerge slowly from its hiding place, my friend’s fist wrapped tightly around the grip, his finger hovering over the trigger.
Ten feet away, when he drew the gun, unobserved by any but I, and released the safety catch.
The Grand Duke was only five feet away when I shouted my friend’s name – ‘Kolek! No!’ – and tore through a gap in the passing riders, running across the street as the heads of the soldiers, aware of something untoward taking place, turned in my direction to see what was happening. My friend saw me now too and swallowed nervously before lifting the gun in the air and aiming it in the direction of Nicholas Nicolaievich, who was before him now and had finally deigned to turn his head to look at the young man to his left. He must have seen the flash of steel in the air but there was no time for him to draw his own gun, nor to turn his horse and make a quick escape, because the pistol went off almost immediately with a loud thunderclap, sending its murderous gunpowder in the direction of the Tsar’s cousin and closest confidant at the very moment when I, failing to consider the consequences of such an action, leapt in front of it.
There was a sudden flash of fire, a piercing pain, a scream from the crowd, and I fell to the ground, expecting to feel the shod-hooves of the horses crush my skull beneath their enormous weight at any moment, even as a pain unlike any that I had ever felt before seared through my shoulder, a feeling that someone had taken an iron rod, smelted it in a furnace for an hour and driven it through my innocent flesh. I landed hard on the ground, experiencing a sudden sensation of peace and tranquillity in my mind before the afternoon went dark before my eyes, the noises became hushed, the crowds appeared to vanish into a misty haze, and there was only a small voice left whispering to me in my head, telling me to sleep – sleep, Pasha! – and I obeyed it.
I closed my eyes and was left alone inside an empty, soporific darkness.
The first face I saw when I awoke was that of my mother, Yulia Vladimirovna, who was pressing a wet rag across my forehead and staring down at me with a mixture of irritation and alarm. Her hand was trembling slightly and she seemed as nervous to be offering maternal consolation as I was to receive it. Asya and Liska were whispering in a corner while the child, Talya, was watching me with a cold and disinterested expression. I did not feel a part of this unusual tableau at all and simply stared back at them, confused as to what had taken place to inspire such a display of emotion, until a sudden explosion of pain in my left shoulder caused me to grimace and I let out an anguished cry as my hand reached across to ease the pressure on the injured area.
‘Be careful there,’ said a loud, deep voice from behind my mother, and the moment it spoke, she jumped noticeably and her expression transformed into one of frightened anxiety. I had never seen her so intimidated by anyone before and thought at first that it was my father, Daniil, who was ordering her to make way, but the voice did not belong to him. My vision was slightly blurred and I blinked several times in quick succession until the haze began to dissipate and I could see clearly again.
I realized then that it was not my father who was standing over me; he was positioned towards the back of the hut, observing me with a half-smile on his face, a look that betrayed his confused emotions of pride and hostility. No, the voice which had addressed me was that of the supreme commander of the Russian military forces, the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich.