But the photograph the recruit showed me was nothing like these family waxworks. It showed an open carriage with a fine black pair. The recruit, young and handsome in a velvet waistcoat, sat on the box. In his strikingly long arms he held the heavy reins, while in the carriage, turned to face the camera, sat a young and incredibly lovely young peasant woman.
‘Light another match,’ I said to the recruit.
He hurriedly struck another one, and I noticed that he was looking at the photograph with the same attentive surprise as me. The young woman in the carriage was dressed in a long calico dress with a frilly collar and a white kerchief pulled down low over her forehead like a nun’s coif. She was smiling, her lips faintly parted. There was so much tenderness in her smile I felt my heart skip. She had large, sensitive eyes, which appeared to be grey in the photograph.
‘I worked as a coachman for the landowner Velyaminov for two years,’ he whispered. ‘We had our photograph taken in his coach, in secret. That’s my bride. Right before our wedding.’
He fell silent.
‘Well, what’s wrong? Aren’t you gonna say something?’ he said all of a sudden in a rough, challenging voice. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve seen many beauties like her before.’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Never, not once.’
‘My little Ryabina,’ said the soldier, calmer now. ‘She died right before the war. In childbirth. But we did have a daughter, and she’s just like her mother. Come and visit, my friend, you’re always welcome. I’m from Orël province …’
Just then the crowd surged forward, and we were separated. Sheepskin hats and caps flew into the air. Wild cheering erupted near the platform and swept back through the hall before echoing out into the street. I caught sight of Lenin, surrounded by soldiers, walking briskly towards the doors. He was laughing, one hand pressed over his ear to keep from going deaf, and saying something to the scrawny soldier whose forage cap kept falling down over his eyes. I looked around for the young recruit in the milling crowd, but unable to find him I walked out. Cries of ‘Hurrah!’ still rang out in the side street. Apparently, the soldiers were cheering Lenin as he was being driven away.
I walked home through the long dark streets. The rain had stopped, and a wet moon shone among the clouds. I thought about Lenin and the huge mass movement being led by this surprisingly simple man whom I had just seen making his way through a churning crowd of soldiers. I thought of the recruit and of the young peasant woman, and I felt almost as though I had fallen in love with her across the years, just as I loved Russia, and there was something that united all three – Lenin, the movement, this couple – in my mind, and together they captured my spirit and filled me with happiness. I could not quite understand what it was about this recruit, his dead wife and our shared connection to Russia that had made me feel this way. Perhaps it was just the excitement of those unprecedented days we were living through and the sense of a better future. I don’t know.
The façade of the Hotel Metropole, just below the roof, was decorated with a mosaic reproduction of Vrubel’s The Princess of the Dream. The mosaic had been badly damaged by gunfire.
It was in the Metropole that the Central Executive Committee (TsIK), the parliament of the time, met. The TsIK held its sessions in what had formerly been the restaurant. A cement fountain devoid of water stood in the middle. To the left of the fountain and in the centre (as viewed from the dais) sat the Bolsheviks and Left SRs, and to the right the Mensheviks, SRs and Internationalists, small in numbers but quite vociferous. I often attended the sessions. I loved to arrive quite early, before they had started, take a seat in a recess not far from the dais, and read. I enjoyed the hall’s dim light, its echoing emptiness, the two or three bulbs glowing in the crystal wall sconces deep in the corners and even that hotel smell of dusty carpets that no amount of airing could dispel. But most of all I enjoyed waiting for that hour when the merciless debates and brilliant speeches began and the empty hall would be transformed into an arena of stormy historical events.
Rozovsky and Shchelkunov were among the journalists regularly attending the sessions. Rozovsky had a knack for predicting the exact amount of heat an upcoming debate would generate. ‘Hold tight!’ he would warn us. ‘There’s going to be fireworks today.’ At other times he would say with a bored yawn: ‘They’ve got tea at the buffet, let’s go. They’re just going to be splitting legislative hairs for a while.’
For some reason Shchelkunov was afraid of Sverdlov, chairman of the TsIK.fn2 He was particularly disturbed by Sverdlov’s intense, piercing gaze, and if he happened to direct it at us journalists, Shchelkunov immediately looked away or ducked behind his neighbour’s back. A short, pale man in a shabby leather jacket, Sverdlov conveyed an impression of iron will with every word and gesture. His deep bass, which belied his sickly appearance, could subdue even his most resolute and fearless opponents, such as the Mensheviks Martov and Dan.fn3
Martov sat closest to the journalists, and we managed to examine him thoroughly. Tall, thin and fierce, a torn scarf wound around his sinewy neck, he was always jumping up, interrupting the speaker and shouting out impatient words in a hoarse, staccato voice. The instigator of every storm, he could not be silenced except by being stripped of his right to speak or suspended for a few sessions. He was rarely in a peaceful mood. On those occasions, he would join us journalists, borrow a book from somebody and lose himself in it, oblivious to time, space and whatever was going on around him in this hall with a fountain.
One day he borrowed A History of Islam from Rozovsky. Engrossed in the book, he sank deeper and deeper into his chair, his long spindly legs stretched out in front of him. A decree on sending workers’ brigades out into the countryside to requisition grain was being discussed. Martov and Dan showed no signs of derailing the debate, and so slowly everyone relaxed. Newspapers rustled, pencils scratched. Sverdlov removed his hand from the bell and, smiling, listened to his neighbour’s remarks. That more than anything else set everyone at ease, for Sverdlov almost never smiled. The list of speakers was nearing the end when Martov stirred and asked for the floor in an apathetic voice. The audience tensed and began muttering in anticipation.
Martov, shuffling slowly from side to side, made his way up onto the dais, cast a pair of vacant eyes over the hall and began to speak, softly, almost reluctantly, noting that the decree on the dispatch of workers’ requisitioning brigades needed, if you please, greater precision, both legalistically and stylistically. For example, clause such-and-such in the decree must be expressed more clearly, cutting a number of unnecessary words, such as ‘in the interest of’, which would read better as simply ‘for’, while clause such-and-such contained a clear repetition of something already said in a previous section of the decree.
Martov dug around in his notes for a long time but couldn’t find what he was looking for and shrugged his shoulders in annoyance. The audience convinced itself that there would be no outburst. Newspapers began rustling once more. Rozovsky, who had predicted an explosion, couldn’t believe it. ‘He’s simply evaporated, like so much liquid ammonia,’ he whispered to me. ‘Let’s go to the buffet.’
Suddenly, everyone sat up. At first I didn’t understand what had happened. Martov’s voice was thundering from the dais, practically shaking the walls. It seethed with rage. He had torn his dull, dry notes to pieces and flung them in the air, and they were now falling softly like snowflakes and settling on the chairs in the front row. Martov was shaking his clenched fists and shouting so hard he was practically choking.