The woman is maybe in her late thirties. There’a a wry smile in the fine-boned face, framed by dark locks.
“Well, well! I travel six thousand miles from home, stand on a railway platform, and a Yankee steps up and starts talking to me.”
It’s rude, but my mouth drops open in surprise. The woman carries on. “I’m a Southerner, you see. New Orleans is my hometown. My name’s Emily Neale. Good to meet you both.”
I’m taken aback. “I thought you were Russian…”
“I first joined those protest marches on International Women’s Day, and I took part each day after that. I didn’t do it as a Russian, but as a woman and as a citizen of the world. It started as a march to protest about bread rations – but it became something much bigger than that. Let me buy you some tea, now that we’re allowed to use Nicky the Despot’s private waiting-room.”
As we step into the café, the professor looks into my face, then at the woman. “Miss Emily – you look alike! You could almost be Miss Agnes’ older sister.”
“Older? I never admit to being over twenty-one, Professor Axelson! But seriously – yes, I’m unusual, for a Louisiana-born girl. There’s nothing Creole about me. My family’s roots are in Ireland; we sailed to New Orleans in the 1700s.” She looks at me. “Have you heard of the Irish Channel neighborhood?”
“I have to confess, I’ve never been south of New York.”
The café is even more crowded than the platform; it’s small, but there must be a hundred or more people in here. But two men among the crowd draw my attention, because both of them are looking at us.
One is well-dressed, a commanding presence; he stands at the centre of a group of men, and they are listening to him. The other is very different. A much bigger man, almost a giant, he sits alone in a corner. He seems uncomfortable; not just with the situation, but with his suit and tie, as if he’s ill-accustomed to them. He wears a fixed smile, and steals a furtive glance at us.
In contrast, the well-dressed man comes over to greet us. “Good to see you, Comrade Neale!”
Emily smiles. “May I introduce Nikolay Chkheidze? He is Chairman of the St Petersburg Soviet – the council of workers’ representatives.”
The man grins. “I overheard Comrade Neale telling you of her southern roots. I’m proud to be a southerner too. I grew up in Georgia. But not Georgia, USA.” We all laugh at his little joke, but he carries on. “I insist on buying tea, for all of us. Because this is a day of hope.” He looks at the professor and me. “Are you also here to greet Comrade Lenin?”
I answer. “Sorry – who?”
Chkheidze smiles at me and Axelson. “I see that you are foreigners here, you may not know what is happening. All these people here at the Finland Station – we are not waiting to catch a train. We are here to see the turning of Russia’s destiny.”
I hear the noise of a whistle: a train is arriving. There’s an expectant hubbub of noise both in the café and on the platform. But the professor speaks quietly in my ear. “Russia’s destiny may indeed be arriving today at this railroad station. But what kind of destiny?”
“Professor, what do you know about this? I’ve never even heard of Lenin.”
“Lenin was exiled from Russia to Switzerland years ago, because of his extreme revolutionary ideas. But now, Kaiser Wilhelm has supported Lenin’s return, permitting him to travel from his exile in Zürich, through Germany, so he could reach Finland, and now Russia. Lenin travelled through the length of Germany in a sealed railway carriage. No-one got on, or off, that train.”
“It sounds a strange business!”
“Wilhelm did not want Lenin stepping onto German soil. He knew that Lenin would take any opportunity to preach revolution and rebellion to German citizens, and the Kaiser doesn’t want that! Instead, Wilhelm wants Lenin to incite revolution here.”
“But we’ve had a revolution already.”
“We had street protests. Now we have a Provisional Government of well-to-do, well-meaning gentlemen. That’s not what Lenin would call revolution.”
The cheering is now tumultuous; too loud for the professor to speak further. A gap in the crowd reveals a man stepping down from the train; he lifts his bowler hat to greet everyone. His eyes are steely, but otherwise he looks like an ordinary, middle aged man. Yet the excitement in the crowd is like electricity. Indeed, I find myself feeling a tremor inside, a little unexpected thrill. The quiet-looking man on the platform seems like the awaited savior, a messiah returning at last to his people. Every face in the crowd is open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
On cue, a woman steps up to Lenin with a bouquet of flowers, and a brass band is playing the Marseilleise. He is smiling warmly, waving to everyone. But after taking the flowers, he steps briskly towards our café.
The door is thrown open wide for him. He walks in, and Chkheidze steps forward, shakes Lenin’s hand, and looks around the expectant faces in every corner of the café. There’s suddenly a perfect silence: I can hear the deep breaths of every person in the room. The air of the café is alive with anticipation. Chkheidze clears his throat, and makes a speech of welcome.
“Comrade Lenin, in the name of the St Petersburg Soviet, we welcome you to Russia. We hope that you will join us in defending our revolutionary democracy.”
Lenin doesn’t immediately reply. I see him looking evenly around the room, catching every person’s eyes, one by one. He looks utterly confident. His eyes are hard and intense, but his face is relaxed, and he seems happy to take a few moments of quiet, before responding to Chkheidze’s welcome.
The silence goes on. Lenin glances casually up at the ornate ceiling, decorated with the Tsar’s double-headed eagles, and then he calmly rearranges the flowers in his bouquet. He’s showing everyone that he will answer Chkheidze’s greeting in his own time. And I feel that he knows exactly what to say.
“My train was late.” He looks around the crowded café; laughter breaks out.
“Of course, every train in Russia is always late. But my dear comrades, we all know that a railway cannot be fixed in a day. The so-called Provisional Government, who claim to have taken over authority from Tsar Nicholas, say they will mend not only the trains, but everything else that is wrong with Russia.”
There’s a murmur of agreement around the room, and Lenin smiles.
“Those rich gentlemen of the Government, who have just moved into the Tsar’s Winter Palace, enjoy their vodka, their caviar and their cigars. But they say that once they have finished smoking their cigars, they will get round to fixing the annoying problems that the rest of us face. Little problems, like war and starvation.”
Every head in the room is nodding; Lenin’s words are tailored exactly to match the feelings of his audience. I watch his determined, calculating eyes, looking round and assessing the mood of the room, before he continues.
“Maybe you all believe the Provisional Government’s promises. But I know that they are trying to deceive you and the whole Russian people.
The real answers are simple, my friends. Our troops are being massacred: the people need peace. Workers and their families go hungry: the people need bread.”
As he pauses briefly, people start to applaud. But he has more to say: his voice is clear as a bell, and rises to a crescendo of emotion.
“We must challenge the Provisional Government – until ordinary Russians have everything they need. Victory to the working people! Peace and bread!”
The café erupts in rapturous applause and shouting. Emily cheers and yells. Chkheidze applauds too – but then leans over to Lenin.
“Comrade Lenin, when you have a moment, I would like your view on a matter of extreme urgency. Since the disbanding of Okhrana, the St Petersburg Soviet has formed volunteer units, to act as police and keep peace on the streets – the Red Guards. They are struggling to cope. There is an epidemic of looting and violence in St Petersburg.”