Again, that dry snap, over and over.
An unbelievable wail rose from our procession, unified at first, then shattering into one scream here, another there. A man not ten paces in front of me suddenly fell to the ground, his religious banner tumbling and ripping to shreds underfoot. I tried to stop but could not, so great was the force of the masses behind us. Glancing over at Father Gapon, I saw the horror in his eyes, then saw two of his bodyguards, the ones right in front of him, stumble and fall. And right above my Shura something exploded into a million pieces and she screamed… she screamed as the portrait of Tsar-Batushka was riddled with bullets.
“Shura!” I cried to the heavens.
There came another volley and yet another as the soldiers fired straight at us, and we all fell to the ground nearly as one, man atop woman, atop grandfather, atop child. Knocked down, I dug into the snowy street as the shots were fired over and over until their clips were completely spent.
At long last the guns were quiet. For the briefest of moments there was nothing. Then came something awful, wailing and sobbing that bubbled up all around me. Lifting my head, I looked around and saw a carpet of bodies. A young girl screamed to the heavens as she reached for her trampled mother. An old man tried to get up, stumbled, and fell again. Turning and looking back, I saw many people now fleeing, cutting into the side streets and running for their lives.
But my dear wife was just lying there, facedown and within reach, and I touched her, calling, “Shura! Shura! Come, we must run away! Get up!”
I scrambled to my feet as best I could and reached out, pulling at her arm. But why was she making no movement, why was she making no effort to get away? Why was she not rising?
“Shura!” I yelled. “Shura, get up!”
It was then that I saw that the snow in which my dear wife was lying was no longer white. No, it was a hot, steaming crimson, and she lay there in it, a rapidly growing sea of red snow, and I realized that I, too, was standing in it, a deep puddle of her blood.
And behind me a man cried like a child, muttering, “God has abandoned us and so… so has the Tsar!”
Chapter 9 ELLA
Sobbing, one of my ladies came in and told me the horrid news, and as soon as I heard it I rushed from my boudoir. Wasting not a moment, I scurried down the grand staircase, my dress dragging behind me, and burst through the doors of Sergei’s cabinet. Hurrying in, I found him not at his desk but gazing out a window at the Kremlin grounds, his hands clasped behind his back. Standing a few steps away was the military governor of the city, our very distinguished Count Shuvalov.
“Oh, Sergei!” I exclaimed. “Salvos were fired upon the marchers-I’m told many were killed!”
“Yes,” he muttered slowly. “Count Shuvalov himself has just brought me the news. I’m told nearly a thousand have died.”
“Oh, Lord!” I gasped, crossing myself. “Were they just workers, or-”
“Women and children, too.”
“No…!” I said, bursting into tears.
Sergei turned around then, his face paler than I had ever seen, his eyes red, for we both sensed what this meant for the country and what darkness it would bring.
He said, “Come, child, we must pray for the dead.”
We did just that. Leaving the Count, we headed directly to the attached church, where we were on our knees the rest of the afternoon and well into the night, offering blessings for the newly departed.
Sadly, only later was it proven that the vague rumors were actually true, that the workers had meant the Emperor no harm, that they had merely intended to gather at the Palace and present him with a petition requesting his help. Just think if it had been so… if the Tsar had met directly with his lowest, neediest subjects! Just think what wonderful things we could have done for our beloved country!
Instead, all went from bad to worse, and the strikes spread like a terrible fire, leaping from factory to factory.
Chapter 10 PAVEL
That was how my path started, right then and there on that Bloody Sunday as I reached for my beautiful Shura and found her lifeless. That was the day my sweet wife and unborn child died and that was the day the Tsar died, too. From then on I dedicated my life to revenge… and swore my life and soul to the Revolution. Day and night my cry was: Workers of the World, Unite! Down with the Autocracy! All Power to the People! So many innocents were killed that day, which proved to be the dress rehearsal for the Great October Revolution twelve years later. Yes, for decades if not a century Russia had been a boiling cauldron just waiting to explode, and explode it did with vicious power.
It was true, in a matter of moments all that I lived for was cruelly taken away, and there was no bottom to the depth of my pain. I do remember collapsing in the red snow and sobbing as I never had, I do remember a Cossack coming by and beating me with the flat of his sword, but… but suffice to say that, I don’t know, three or four days later I found myself hiding in an attic with a group of revolutionaries, for my transition to hatred was just that quick.
Of course, Father Gapon survived as well. But his bodyguards did not. Those men who had volunteered to protect the priest did just that, acting as a human shield and taking the bullets and falling for the Revolution. If only I’d thought to do likewise, to stand before my wife and protect her. But I didn’t, and to this day I still don’t understand how those bullets could have missed me, how I was not even grazed, and how my Shura, standing right next to me, could have been killed so quickly and cleanly. But that was what happened and that was how I lost my faith, for if there had been a God he would have spared her and our unborn baby and taken me instead. Or, perhaps best, taken all three of us together.
As for Gapon… within moments after the shooting had stopped a group of his ardent supporters rushed over and whisked him away. I vaguely remember seeing this, somehow remember watching as they hustled him down a lane, shaved his familiar beard, pulled his priestly garments from his body, then dressed him as an ordinary worker and sent him scurrying into hiding. I didn’t see him again or cross his path for almost two years until that one day when he was murdered in a dacha outside the capital. Hung from a hook, he was. No, it wasn’t the Tsar’s secret agents who did that. It was our people, revolutionaries who were so displeased with him for his betrayals, for it turned out that all along he’d had secret contacts with the police. I actually helped kill him, and I was glad to do so: four of us hung him from a hook on the wall, and when the hook proved not high enough from the floor, me and another comrade pulled on Gapon’s shoulders until he was strangled. The police didn’t find his body for a whole month.