‘We might not have a couple of hours!’ I snapped at him, but he fastened up the back of the cart and we set off, the old man whispering a commentary to the donkey. ‘Yes-s-s, that’s a good leg, and the other one’s good, and that back one, pick it up nice and smart, yes, my beauty! Oh, you’re a fine old lady, twenty years and you trot like a schoolgirl…’
The tension twisted my insides as I watched the National slowly, slowly dwindling behind us.
‘Perhaps we’ll be able to catch a lift on a lorry if we see one,’ murmured Pasha. ‘And we’re resting here. If we have to get out and run, we’ll be faster than if we’d already walked five miles.’
We were at least inconspicuous on the cart. Huddled down and covered with a blanket, it looked as though the old fellow was simply returning home with an empty load.
In whispers under the blanket I told Pasha all of it – almost all of it, all that I could bear. At the end he was silent for a moment.
‘Don’t think you are going into the church alone,’ he remarked.
‘No, I need you with me. You’re going to use Pelyagin’s papers.’
‘What, me, impersonate that evil slug?’
‘Don’t be so vain.’
Pasha laughed and fell quiet again. ‘So Nikita had spent a day being interrogated when we saw him.’
‘Yes.’
‘He wanted us all to go to the hospital with Sonya, didn’t he?’
‘I think he did. He wanted to be alone when they came. That’s why he shouted at Anna Vladimirovna, and maybe why he didn’t want me to stay behind.’
‘They would have arrested all of us, I presume. Why didn’t they come back for us?’
‘Perhaps we’ll find out now.’
The last time we had seen him was over two months ago – when Sonya was still alive, when the IRT still existed. I had thought about him every hour, every minute since, obsessively going over the possible reasons for his disappearance. Every other feeling, I realised, had been pushed aside in order to concentrate on my hunt for Slavkin. With a grimace I remembered poor Sonya crying helplessly in the hospital, her thin, pale hands plucking at the blanket. ‘Where is he, where is he?’ Even while she was dying I burned with jealousy. Pasha was sobbing, trying to make her drink water, until Marina stopped him gently. ‘It’s no use, Pasha, the little bird has flown away.’
I had watched it all as if from a distance, and slipped away to find him. I had been determined to be the one to tell him she was so ill. I had wanted to see his pain, and then, no doubt, to comfort him myself, the loyal Gerty who can always be counted on, strong, capable – so different from the flighty little bird. Who needs a little bird in a Revolution!
And yet Nikita had loved her, despite himself – despite our ridiculous insistence that love was no longer relevant. What fools we had been. At least he and Sonya had found a few moments of happiness together – the night they walked together, the days and nights they spent in his workshop, while Pasha had watched me twisting and torturing myself with Revolutionary ideals.
And now, what of Pasha and me? Last night we had comforted each other. I had felt something astonishing, a sense of basking in another’s warmth that I had no memory of ever feeling before. Yet what did it really mean? Slavkin had carved himself into my heart so powerfully. The habit of placing him first in all my thoughts was deeply engrained. But I couldn’t tell whether it was love – or some kind of bitter longing for suffering, a poisonous egotism masquerading as devotion.
I tried to eat after writing this last chapter, but I couldn’t keep it down; every mouthful seems to smell like blondinka. Even a whole slice of bread is too much for me now. I’ve been welcoming in my hunger for so long that now I seem to have forgotten how to swallow. I’m a little dizzy when I stand, but if I sit and keep writing, I feel fine. Sophy rang, but I couldn’t speak to her. She’ll read this soon enough, and then… then we’ll see what she wants. Whether she’s willing to talk to me then.
At midday we finally trotted up to the Gate of the Saviour at Kolomenskoye. Pasha and I clambered out of the cart, aching and chilled, and blinked in astonishment. Since the morning the sky had cleared. The Church of the Ascension stood out, white as a swan against a cobalt-blue sky, on a high bank of the Moscow river. Behind it the snowy Russian countryside glittered and perfectly still columns of feathery smoke rose here and there.
The old man seemed agitated, and took our payment without demur. ‘Got to get my girl home,’ he muttered. ‘No good waiting around here.’ And he whipped up the old donkey and disappeared.
Neither of us particularly looked the part, but Pelyagin’s photograph was over-exposed and printed on poor paper – all that could really be made out was a man with a moustache and spectacles. Pasha put on Pelyagin’s glasses and grinned at me.
‘You see, the moustache turns out to be necessary after all.’
I laughed shakily.
‘Nu shto. Are you ready?’
I took a breath of the sharp, clean air, leant forward and kissed him. ‘Ready.’
We made our way to the main door of the church.
‘Open up, comrades!’ called Pasha.
A long pause. In the distance we could hear footsteps.
‘Open up!’
A young man, dishevelled and pale, looked out. ‘Forgive me, comrades, I was just… Oh,’ he looked at us in surprise, ‘I thought you were…’
‘You’ve kept us waiting,’ snapped Pasha, stepping inside. ‘Commissar Emil Pelyagin, from the Moscow Special Commission. Where is your commander?’
‘Oh, yes, well – he’s out, Comrade Commissar, he’s on a mission. They went during the night and they’re not back yet—’
‘Didn’t you get my telegram?’
‘T-telegram?’
‘I sent a telegram to say I would be coming this morning to inspect your set-up. I have heard poor reports of this outfit.’
‘Yes, no, comrade… They won’t be long. Perhaps the Comrade Commissar would like to drink a cup of tea?’ The poor fellow was shaking with fear.
‘Drink a cup of tea!’ bellowed Pasha. ‘I don’t have time to sit about and drink tea like a debutante! You’d better show us around. Come on.’
‘Yes, certainly.’ He led us into the aisle of the church, which was being used as a barracks. Shafts of red, blue and golden light, spinning with dust, fell on filthy piles of rags, broken bottles and ground-out papirosy. A girl was sleeping in a corner, bare feet sticking out from a blanket. ‘We use this as the mess room—’
‘Express yourself properly!’ barked Pasha. ‘Who’s “we”?’
‘First patrol, fifth division, South-East Moscow Region, Comrade Commissar!’ he shot back sharply, drawing himself up.
‘That’s better. You live like pigs, comrade. We need discipline to win this war.’
This was not what we were expecting. It was an ordinary Red Army post. I noticed the door to the vestry and moved towards it.
‘What’s through that door?’
‘Right away, Comrade Commissar… we have an office here… and a storeroom.’ He showed us through the empty rooms. ‘We keep ammunition in here—’
‘We were informed that there was a laboratory on the premises,’ said Pasha.
‘A laboratory? Well—’
A thin, high sound echoed suddenly through the walls. Pasha turned silently to the young man, his eyebrows raised.
‘Yes, sir, comrade, I was just going to take you,’ he stammered. ‘Through here, in the back courtyard – I have no authority, but of course you do—’
He unlocked a small door at the back of the vestry and led us out into the courtyard and a huddle of wooden sheds. We heard it again, more animal than mechanical. My stomach turned over. We crossed the snowy courtyard while the young soldier said over his shoulder. ‘They can’t control them, that’s the problem, Comrade Commissar.’ He pushed open the door and yelled, ‘Serafima! The Special Commission are here!’ He turned to us again and said, bizarrely I thought, ‘They should really just settle their accounts, there’s no place for them in our Revolution.’