In the dark he thought of Petersburg receding behind them and tried not to think of Moscow ahead at the end of the arrow-straight railway line.
‘Out of the frying pan,’ Sofya had said. Well, he’d been in worse spots, he supposed. Or would have thought so at the time. In the trenches, though, you knew where you stood — or cowered, more like — with the Hun flinging a barrage at your head. There at least you knew why he wanted to kill you, even if it was for no better reason than you were English. Here it seemed as if everyone was after your blood simply because you might support some vague variant of the ideological soup of the day. Here it wasn’t the whining shell one had to listen out for but the knock on your door in the middle of the night. But hadn’t that sort of thing always been prevalent in Russia? The tsarist police had, by and large, been fairly incompetent in their pursuit of revolutionaries and were just as likely, if they happened to catch one, merely to give him a slap on the wrist and pack him off to Siberia for a spell. They sometimes hanged a few now and then for form’s sake — Lenin’s elder brother among them. A decision Paul supposed some had since come to regret — or, more likely, regret they hadn’t strung up the whole family while they were about it. But they wouldn’t have done that, of course. Lenin — Ulyanov — had come from good stock, minor nobility, rather like the Rostovs themselves. But then that had been the case for many of the revolutionaries, the theorists, at least; Kropotkin had been a prince, top of the tree so to speak, and Paul didn’t suppose anyone had ever thought of hanging him. No, political fever had always been abroad in Russia, a fever to which most of the populace were oddly susceptible. Although whether that was due to the authorities lack of dispensing the final cure he couldn’t say. It was obvious to him now that both his mother and father had suffered a mild form of the fever all their adult lives, even if they had apparently avoided infecting him, their son, with the disease. Not that that was going to make any difference now, whether he had caught it or not. So much for immunity; now it looked as though the damn fever was going to kill him just the same.
A grey light was seeping through the curtains of the compartment but it wasn’t this that had woken Paul. It was Sofya shaking his shoulder the way terriers shake rats.
He grunted. She was leaning over him, dressed only in a thin slip, her slender shoulders and her arms bare. He pushed himself up onto an elbow, the sight of her stirring something in him.
‘Wake up,’ she was saying.
‘I am awake. What’s the matter?’
‘Slepynin. He recognised me.’
‘What?’
‘Regrettably true,’ said Valentine, stepping into the compartment behind Sofya.
There was something different about Valentine and it was a moment before Paul realised he had shaven off his goatee. Paul swung himself out of the bunk. He hadn’t bothered to undress. It was hardly novel for him to have to sleep in his clothes and, without the lice to bother him here as they did in the trenches, hardly an imposition.
Across the aisle Slepynin’s bunk was empty.
‘Where is he?’
‘He went to the lavatory,’ Valentine said.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘We’ll be all right unless he’s already told someone. Even then they’ll be looking for two men and a girl, so I think it best we split up.’
‘Can’t we get off before Moscow?’
‘This is the express, old man, it doesn’t stop at outlying stations. Too late, anyway. We’ll be in Moscow in twenty minutes.’
‘But Slepynin will point us out even if we spilt up.’
‘No, we’re all right there,’ Valentine said.
Sofya looked back warily over her shoulder at him.
‘I’d better stay with Sofya,’ Paul said.
‘No, they’ll expect that, being family,’ Valentine countered. ‘You and I should take our chances together. Sofya can look after herself.’
‘That’s—’
Valentine cut him off. ‘She is Russian, old man. She knows what she’s about.’
Meaning I don’t? Paul felt like asking. Instead he said, ‘It’ll be dangerous for her.’
‘It’s dangerous for us all.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Sofya said. ‘Valentine’s right.’
Valentine slipped into the corridor. ‘I’ll take a walk along the train and see how the land lies. Get yourselves ready to be off as soon as the train pulls in.’
‘He’s killed him you know,’ Sofya said as soon as Valentine had gone.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Slepynin. Valentine killed him.’
‘What?’
‘Earlier. The fool took him aside and asked how long I’d been his secretary. For some reason he didn’t suspect Valentine. Because he’s a member of the Party, I suppose. They all think they’re so pure in heart…’
‘But how did Slepynin know who you were?’
‘He used to carry ministry papers to and from the house for Papa. I don’t remember him but then I wouldn’t. There were always government people coming and going. They weren’t the sort of people Papa would introduce me to.’
She reached up to the top bunk for her dress.
‘Here,’ Paul said, pulling up his shirt, thinking quickly for once. ‘Take this.’ He undid the money belt holding the gold imperials and Masaryk’s letter.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s money and a letter. If they catch me I’m dead anyway. You’ve got a better chance on your own. Give the letter to Mikhail if you find him but if there’s any chance they’re on to you destroy it. They’ll have nothing against you, then, will they?’
‘Except being a Rostov and leaving Petersburg with you,’ she said.
‘They won’t know for sure you left with me. No-one saw us together.’
She looked at him doubtfully.
‘Take it,’ he insisted, holding out the belt.
‘Until we’re out of the station,’ she said reluctantly, taking the belt and putting it around her waist. The straps were too long and she couldn’t buckle it properly.
‘Here,’ he said. He reached around her waist as she stood in front of him, arms raised. He felt her stomach fluttering against his hand through the thin cloth of her slip. Her colour rose as he finished tying the belt. ‘I’ll go outside while you dress,’ he said.
‘Oh don’t be stupid, Pasha. We’re past that, aren’t we?’ Stepping into the dress, she turned. ‘Button me up.’
He fumbled the buttons while she looked at him over her shoulder.
‘Which way will you go?’
Sofya meant at the railway station but he said, Kazan, without thinking.
‘Kazan?’
‘Yes. The Czechs are in Kazan.’
‘But you said Mikhail went south.’
‘I have no idea where Mikhail went,’ he admitted. ‘He probably followed Kornilov.’
‘But he’s dead.’
‘The Czechs are in Kazan,’ Paul said again. ‘And what’s left of the Constituent Assembly. Valentine says they’ve raised an army but we’ve got to get through the Red Army to get there. You’ll be safer if you go south and look for Mikhail.’