“Victor Yulievich said that all the Decembrists gave testimony, admitted everything honestly, because they thought the Tsar would understand them and change his policies,” Mikha said. He was eager to be seen in a positive light in this aristocratic company.
“Yes, they told the truth. Trubetskoy repented his actions bitterly during the interrogations, but never betrayed others. They never stooped to lying. As for Sergei Petrovich, many memoirs testify to the fact that he was loved and respected in exile. As far as I know, there was only one traitor among the Decembrists: Captain Maiboroda. He informed the authorities about the planned uprising three weeks in advance. I don’t know for certain—there may have been one or two others. But there were more than three hundred involved in the plot! Read about it, the interrogation protocols have been published. Informing on others was not in fashion back then, that’s the point I want to make,” Anna Alexandrovna said with peculiar emphasis, which only Ilya picked up on.
“Truth be told, it’s a story that recalls the Gospels. Maiboroda hanged himself—albeit many years later.”
“Like Judas!” Mikha said, revealing his knowledge of biblical history.
Anna Alexandrovna laughed. “Good going, Mikha! You’re a man of culture.”
Mikha grew bolder with the encouragement.
“Anna Alexandrovna, which Decembrist was the…” he began, then faltered. He wanted to say “best,” but decided it would sound too childish. So he said, “Your favorite?”
Anna Alexandrovna leafed through the book. It contained several reproductions. She removed a portrait on yellowing paper that had been cut out from somewhere.
“This one. Mikhail Sergeevich Lunin.”
The boys leaned in over the picture. They had already seen the face, it was part of Ilya’s collection. But in that picture he was young, full-lipped, and mustached, and in this one he was twenty years older.
“Look, he was decorated. See? There’s the cross, and there’s something else I can’t make out,” Ilya said.
“He took part in the 1812 campaign. The only thing I know about his decorations is that they were publicly cast into a fire when he was sentenced,” Anna Alexandrovna said, smiling. “But it didn’t prevent him from remaining a hero.”
“The bastards!” Mikha exclaimed. “War decorations—throwing them into the fire!”
“Indeed. He wasn’t even in St. Petersburg during the uprising. They caught up with him in Warsaw and shipped him back home. He was one of the organizers of the Northern Society, but by that time he had already ceased to play an active role in the conspiracy. He believed that they were not acting decisively enough. Lunin was among those who believed they should kill the Tsar, but others didn’t support him in this. And Trubetskoy, chosen subsequently as their ‘dictator,’ was opposed to the murder.”
“But if Lunin had been able to win them over to his idea the October Revolution would have happened a century earlier!” Mikha said, his eyes wide with excitement. Everyone laughed.
“It wouldn’t have been called ‘October’ then, Mikha,” Anna Alexandrovna said, curbing Mikha’s enthusiasm.
“Oh, that’s true. I didn’t think about that. And what happened to Lunin afterward?”
“Mikhail Sergeevich was arrested again, after serving his sentence to hard labor, this time for his letters. He had also analyzed the reports presented to the Tsar by the Secret Commission. These were published. That was why they arrested him a second time, and why he was sent to prison again. And there he died. Rumor has it that he didn’t die of natural causes, that he was killed on orders from the Tsar.”
“How despicable!” Mikha said. It took him several days to get over Lunin’s death. He wrote a poem called “On the Death of a Hero.”
* * *
This was the most beautiful, the most heroic page of Russian history. Under the guidance of Victor Yulievich, it became the cornerstone of what inspired them, the event that honed their young minds and hearts.
Mikha Melamid wrote an essay, quoting lines from Herzen:
I was present at the mass, and there, before the altar defiled by a murderous prayer, I swore to avenge the executed, and vowed to struggle against the throne, against this altar, against these guns. I did not avenge them; the guardsmen and the throne, the altar and the guns—all remain; but now, thirty years later, I am still standing under the same banner, which I have never once forsaken.
Later in the essay, the boy wrote, now in his own words: “And they remain unavenged till this very day.”
The teacher was moved by Mikha’s essay. Here was one of his boys grasping that moment of transition, the moral crisis of another adolescent, who had lived one hundred years before.
* * *
But life, of course, is more than just heady knowledge about the Decembrists. For instance, the New Year was coming up. It was the most important holiday, the only one that wasn’t for the greater glory of the state, the only one without red flags. It was the only completely human holiday, with the rehabilitated Christmas tree, sanctioned drinking (for adults), presents, and surprises.
This year there were no epidemics, and everyone was eagerly anticipating the New Year’s Eve party. For two weeks before the school celebration, planned for December 30, everyone was mad with excitement: all their dreams of love were about to come true.
This was the first party with girls. They weren’t wearing their uniforms. Instead, they came all dressed up, as colorful as butterflies, and some of them even wore their hair loose. The teachers were also dressed up. Victor Yulievich found it touching that the holiday excitement had affected everyone without exception. Even the principal, Larisa Stepanovna, was wearing high heels and had pinned a brooch to her collar. It was a butterfly with outspread wings—a creature she in no way resembled.
The older students had begun to make preparations for the party so long before, and so carefully, determined as they were not to overlook a single detail in their arsenal of sanctioned pleasures, that plans kept changing throughout December. At first they considered a costume ball. Then they changed their minds—instead of spending time on elaborate costumes, they would have a talent show. They even thought of inviting a real band, but their money didn’t stretch that far. Maybe skits would be a good idea—or a cultural program with poetry, and Natasha Mirzoyan performing Schubert? Or even a real play?
As often happens when there is an overabundance of ideas, it ended up being an incoherent jumble of everything, with no particular rhyme or reason. Those who were in favor of a costume ball or carnival threw on something funny or ridiculous. Katya Zueva, bringing to fruition a long-held plan, appeared in the guise of a postal worker, with a ticket-taker’s bag instead of a mailbag. On her chest she wore a piece of cardboard painted with the number 5, supposed to resemble a badge; instead of the official blue cap of the uniform, she wore a tricorne hat made of folded newspaper. On her back, for those who were completely slow-witted, she had stuck a piece of blue cardboard with a white inscription reading POST. Her friend Anya Filimonova dressed up like a gypsy in a colorful skirt, with hoop earrings, a necklace she had made herself, and a large shawl that her mother had dragged out of a trunk and warned her to treat with the utmost care, since it was very old. In her hand she held a deck of cards for fortune-telling—but she was too shy to use them. She hadn’t even wanted to dress up at first, but Katya had persuaded her to—she needed the moral support.
The evening also featured a poetry montage and a human pyramid, which the whole gymnastics team had practiced to perfection. Twelve people, balancing one on top of the others, representing a Christmas tree hung with ornaments.
* * *
The shop teacher, crippled Itkin, was wearing his war decorations, and the gym teacher, Andrei Ivanovich, for once appeared not in his everyday blue zippered working vest, but in a white sweater. Both of them smelled strongly of eau de cologne—Itkin of Troynoy, and Andrei Ivanovich of Chypre. They played records with old songs that only a trained circus bear could have danced to. When “Rio Rita” came on, the girls started to shuffle their feet, but no one dared to venture out into the middle of the room until the gym teacher invited the senior Pioneer instructor to dance. They danced “Rio Rita” together, the only couple, under the stern gaze of their older colleagues. Tasya Smolkina, an enthusiastic tenth-grader who was a member of the Komsomol committee, saved the day by initiating several games: Freeze Dance and Duck Duck Goose for the younger ones, and Love Mail for those who had romantic hopes for the evening.