Moscow was ripe with rumours about the dissolute lives of the anarchists in these mansions. Prim old ladies whispered in horror among themselves of abominable orgies. But these were not orgies, just the usual drinking bouts at which hooch instead of champagne was drunk to help wash down salted fish as hard as rock. They were a collection of riff-raff, strung-out youths and neurotic girls – a forerunner to the Makhno gangfn1 right in the heart of Moscow. The anarchists even had their own theatre. It was called Izid. Its posters advertised it as a ‘theatre of mysticism, eroticism and spiritual anarchy’ that was devoted to ‘an idea raised to the point of fanaticism’. What this idea was, the posters didn’t say. Every time I came across one of these posters, I thought to myself that Rachinsky must somehow be involved with the theatre.
I was writing my first novel and often stayed at the newspaper’s office late into the night or even until morning. I slept on our battered old editorial sofa with its broken springs. It sometimes happened that in the middle of the night a spring would snap and give me a good smack in the ribs. I preferred to write in the office instead of my sleepy and musty lodgings where the tap dripped in the bathroom and the landlady was always shuffling around outside my door in her slippers. The light in my room bothered her, and she got up several times during the night to check the electricity meter.
Back at the newspaper, I usurped Kuskova’s expansive, carpeted office with its large writing desk. Sometimes I fell asleep at this desk for ten or fifteen minutes and then woke up rested and refreshed. The office cat slept on the desk opposite me, his paws tucked in. Now and then he would open his eyes just wide enough to give me a friendly look, as if to say: ‘Working, are you? All right then, go on, keep at it! I’ll just have another little snooze.’ But then one night, the cat woke with a start. His ears twitched this way and that. He stared at me with eyes as green as gooseberries and let out a hoarse miaow.
I listened and caught the sound of gunfire. It crackled somewhere in the dark streets and then started to get closer. The intensity of the shooting made it clear this was not just some random street fight.
Just then the phone rang. The sound made me jump. The Moscow news editor was on the line. ‘They’ve started disarming the anarchists!’ he shouted into the receiver. ‘They’ve launched raids on the houses. It’s a good thing you’re at the office. I’m on my way, but in the meantime, do me a favour and head over to the Morozov house on Vozdvizhenka Street and see what’s going on. But be careful.’
I went out into the street. It was dark and deserted. Wild shooting was coming from the direction of Malaya Dmitrovka Street, where the anarchists were entrenched in the former Merchants’ Club and had even set up two field guns at the gate. I picked my way through some back streets until I came to the Morozov house on Vozdvizhenka Street. Every Muscovite knew this house with its grey, sea-shell-encrusted walls which looked like some sort of fanciful castle. The house was dark. It looked black and sinister. I climbed the granite steps to the heavy front doors, so massive they reminded me of the bronze doors of a medieval cathedral. I listened. Not a sound came from within. I decided that the anarchists must have left, but knocked, cautiously, just the same.
Suddenly, the door flew open without a sound. Someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me inside. The door slammed shut. I found myself in utter darkness. Several people held me tightly.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked calmly. The question sounded ridiculous, even to me. It was obvious what was the matter, and I could guess the matter might end quite poorly for me.
‘He’s obviously an agent,’ a young woman’s voice said close to my ear. ‘We’ve got to report him to Comrade Ognevoi.’
‘Hold on,’ I said, trying to talk my way out of this. ‘The days of the Count of Monte Cristo have come and gone. Turn on a light and I’ll explain everything to you. Please, just let me go.’
‘Well, ain’t that something,’ said the same woman’s voice. ‘He’d like us to let him go. You’re nothin’ but a rat, a Bolshevik spy, and you’re goin’ nowhere. But I promise not to touch a hair on that pretty lil’ head of yours unless you start something funny. Got it?’
It was clear this kind of talk was not natural to her. She had picked it up recently and was trying it out for the first time. I lost my temper.
‘Queen of Anarchy,’ I said in the direction of the invisible woman, ‘stop playing the fool. You’ve been reading too many cheap novels. It’s bad for you at your age.’
‘Search him and then lock him up in the corner drawing room to the left,’ she said in an icy voice, as though she had not heard me. ‘I’ll report to Comrade Ognevoi.’
‘Do what you like!’ I snapped. ‘Go ahead and report me to Comrade Ognevoi or whoever you want. I don’t give a damn what you do!’
‘Watch it. You’ll be sorry for talk like that, you rat!’ the woman said.
Two men led me down a dark corridor. One of them was wearing a leather jacket. It felt cold against my hand. Their mouths shut, they dragged me up and down several narrow flights of stairs, shoved me into a room, locked the door from the outside, took away the key and said that they would shoot me through the door if I tried to make any noise, and then they left. I heard one of them say to me in a surprisingly calm voice as they turned to go: ‘That’s no way for a spy to act, you Bolshevik scum. If you worked for us, I’d show you a thing or two.’
I had a box of matches with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to light one to have a look around. Who knew what these anarchists were capable of. They might think I was sending a signal and start shooting through the door. I went over and felt it. The door was covered with intricate carving. Next I began to run my hands over the walls. I caught a fingernail on some silk panelling and jumped with fright. Finally, I came to a large armchair, sat down and began to wait.
At first, I found the whole affair amusing. The anarchists really had taken me for a spy. I found this completely ridiculous, but there was nothing I could do about it. And what about this young woman? Her voice seemed familiar. I searched my memory and recalled once hearing an anarchist with the same voice at a demonstration near the Gogol Monument. She had a long black fringe, greedy, cocaine-addled eyes and huge turquoise earrings. The crowd shouted her down and wouldn’t let her finish, so she had pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and then walked off, swinging her hips and smiling contemptuously. Yes, of course, it was her.
I was happy to go on sitting in the soft, comfortable chair and to wait and see what would happen next. I was certain they would let me go the moment I showed them my press card from the People’s Power. Over an hour passed. I could hear rifle fire in the distance and once there was the muffled sound of a large explosion. I was dying for a cigarette. Finally, I couldn’t hold out any longer. I sat down on the floor behind the chair, pulled out a cigarette and struck a match. It flared up brightly, like magnesium, and for an instant illuminated the semicircular room. The flame bounced around the walls, reflecting off several mirrors and crystal vases. I hurried to light my cigarette and then blew out the match, at which point I noticed why it had burned so brightly – the head on it was double the normal size.
The next thing I knew the windows began shattering from rifle fire out in the street. Plaster showered from the ceiling. I stayed on the floor and didn’t move. The shooting was getting stronger. It occurred to me that the flame from my match might have served as a signal to the Red Guards who had quietly surrounded the house. They were mostly shooting at the windows in my room. Bullets hit the chandelier. I could hear the crystals shatter as they hit the floor. I had unwittingly played the role of a spy that the anarchists had cast me in. I realised now that my position was not a good one. If the anarchists had noticed the light from my match, they would soon burst through the door and shoot me.