Lom scanned the faces in the crowd automatically, the way he always did. Looking for nothing in particular, waiting for something to grab his attention. There was a man striding with the crowd, not keeping his place but weaving through them, working his way slowly forward towards the front, handing out leaflets as he went. He was wearing a striking grey fedora. His overcoat flapped open and his pink silk shirt was a splash of colour in the crowd. He came within a few feet of Lom, singing the chorus from Nina in a fine tenor voice.
Lom felt a lurch of recognition. The man’s face meant something to him, though at first he couldn’t make a connection. Then it came to him. Long and narrow and pockmarked, with those wide brown eyes, it could have been Josef Kantor. This man was older — of course he would be — and his face was filled out compared to the lean features in Krogh’s old photograph. But it could have been Kantor. Lom was almost certain it was.
Lom’s heart was pounding. He could hardly go up and seize him. Apart from any doubts about the man’s identity, if he — in his uniform, with few other police around — tried to seize someone by force out of this crowd, things would get nasty. He’d be lucky to get out of it with his life. Certainly, he wouldn’t get out of it with Kantor. Lom walked on, watching the man who might have been Kantor make his way expertly through the crowd.
For a while Lom tried to keep up with him. The man was tall, and in his fedora he was hard to lose sight of. But he was working his way steadily deeper into the crowd. As Lom went after him, his uniform began to attract attention. People jostled him and swore. Twice he was almost tripped. If he fell, he would have been kicked and trampled. He was sure of it.
A strong hand gripped his arm and squeezed, dragging him roughly round. A fat, creased face was shoved close to his.
‘Idiot. Get the fuck out of here. What are you trying to do? Start a fucking riot?’
The man shoved him towards the edge of the crowd. Lom bumped hard against someone’s back. Something sharp hit him on the back of the head, momentarily dizzying him.
‘Hey,’ said another voice behind him. A quiet voice, almost a whisper. ‘Hey. Look at me. Arsehole.’
Lom turned in time to see the glint of a short blade held low, at waist level, in someone’s hand. He lurched sideways, trying to get out of range. He couldn’t even tell, in the crowd, who had the knife. Most of the walkers were still ignoring him, still walking on, ordinary faces wanting to do a good thing. Kantor, if it had been Kantor, had disappeared from view.
Shit. He needed to get out of there. Warily, watchfully, trying not to be jostled again, he edged himself sideways until he could step out of the slow tide of people, back onto the pavement. Lom realised he was sweating. He paused for a moment to catch his breath and tried to find his bearings, looking for a side street or alley that would let him get to the Lodka without getting caught up in the march again.
26
Unaware of Lom’s abortive pursuit of him, Josef Kantor continued to weave his way through the moving crowd. Kantor wasn’t the leader of the march. Nobody was. A dozen separate organisations had called for the demonstration and claimed it as theirs. There was a vague plan of sorts: to march up Founder’s Prospect to the Lodka and hold a vigil there, with speeches from the steps, then on to the Novozhd’s official residence in the Yekaterinsky Park to present a petition at the gates.
The chiefs of each marching organisation walked apart from the others, following their own colours, suspicious of spies and provocateurs. Kantor moved from coterie to coterie with a word of encouragement and support. He was everyone’s friend. Some of them wondered who he was. Some thought they knew him, though each one knew him by a different name — Pato, or Lura, or David, or Per, or simply the Singer. Some knew him as the go-between and negotiator who had drafted their petition, a masterpiece of inspiring words and lofty demands that meant different things to different people.
The size of the crowd grew as it went, exceeding all expectation, even of Kantor himself. Runners moved through it, passing back instructions and bringing forward news of the swelling numbers, until those at the front began to wonder what they had unleashed, and felt nervous. They were beginning to sense that something more momentous than they had intended was preparing to happen.
The song changed from Nina to the Lemke Hymn. Their breath flickered on the air, but their hearts were warm. They were no longer a hundred thousand separate, accidental people but one large animal moving forward with a strength and purpose of its own. A newly-formed being whose moment had come.
And then a hesitation began somewhere in the crowd, no one knew where, and spread, a gathering wave of silence and concern. The singing died away but the crowd kept on walking.
Kantor shoved his way to the front.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Dragoons are gathering at the Lodka. They have mudjhiks, and orders to fire.’
‘Rumours. There are always rumours.’
‘Maybe.’
Kantor moved on to another group. The Union of Dockers and Tracklayers was always up for a fight. He grabbed their Steward, Lopukhin, by his sleeve.
‘It’s only a rumour,’ said Kantor. ‘Keep them going. Get them singing again.’
‘Who cares if the dragoons are waiting for us?’ said Lopukhin. ‘They won’t attack us. We are fellow citizens. What a moment for us! Imagine. The dragoons refusing a direct order!’
But Lopukhin’s was only one voice among the leaders. Others were for turning aside and making straight for the Park. The argument continued all the way up Founder’s Prospect, and they were still arguing when they found themselves at the edge of the Square of the Piteous Angel.
The square was empty. On the far side, the huge prow of the Lodka rose against the sky. And between the marchers and the Lodka were two lines of mounted dragoons. A mudjhik stood at each end and another in the middle.
Those at the head of the march tried to halt and turn back, but the great mass of the crowd had a momentum of its own, and those behind, unaware of what was happening, kept on coming. The shoving and jostling started. Kantor found Lopukhin again and seized him by the shoulder.
‘Come on!’ he shouted. ‘This is your moment! Lead them, Lopukhin! Face the soldiers down!’
‘Damn, yes!’ cried Lopukhin. His face was flushed, his eyes bright and unfocused. ‘I will!’
Lopukhin shoved his lieutenants in the back, making them stumble forward into the empty square. He grabbed the colours of the Union and jogged forward, yelling and waving it over his head.
‘Come on, lads! Come on! They won’t shoot us!’
Some of the men followed Lopukhin willingly and others were pushed forward by pressure from behind. Kantor slipped away to the edge of the crowd and took up a position in the doorway of a boot shop. At first nothing happened. The dragoons didn’t respond, and the demonstrators grew confident. More and more spilled into the square. Then Kantor heard what he had been waiting for. From the back of the crowd a swelling noise rolled forward. At first it sounded like they were cheering. Then the screams grew clearer, and the crack of shots.