“I know what you mean, though,” Shahumian went on. “He really loves it. He was like that in Ukraine. And maybe you wouldn’t want him to marry your sister, but if you’re in real trouble…”
“And when he’s the one who got you into it?”
“He wasn’t. We all agreed, remember?” The Armenian winced as Piatakov cleaned the wound. “And don’t mourn for Ivan Vasilyevich,” he said a few moments later. “He was dying anyway—we all knew he was. And he made his death count.”
Piatakov was winding the improvised bandage around the Armenian’s waist. “I know, but…”
“This is not going to be easy, Sergei,” Shahumian interjected. “It will probably be the end of us. But if it is… Sergei, I lost my Anna, and I lost my children, and we’re losing the revolution they died for. I’m quite willing to give up my own life, but it sure as hell is going to cost someone.” He got to his feet, stood there testing his strength. “A blaze of glory, my friend,” he added softly. “If going down is all we can do, then we’ll do it in a blaze of glory.”
Caitlin put the magazine proofs away in a drawer, stretched her arms above her head, and decided that was enough for the day. She’d been at work for over twelve hours, and all her colleagues had long since gone home. Rahima and her sister, who slept on a mattress in one of the upstairs rooms, were out at a Dutch comrade’s birthday party, but Fanya had made sure they had a key.
At least Caitlin was spared the walk home. She had a meeting at the Serpukhovskaya office early the next day, and Fanya had pointed out that she might as well take the department car home for the night and save herself a trip across the river in the morning.
It had been a good couple of days, she thought, as she gathered her things together, turned out the lights, and took the key from the hook in the antechamber. An up-and-down week, but one that had ended well. Since Caitlin’s sobering talk with Kollontai, Sergei had seemed almost his old self, as if he’d overheard the conversation and was trying to do better. They’d even had sex the previous night. Drunken sex admittedly, and not very good sex at that, but it was something. A new start perhaps.
And things had gone well at work. There’d been no fresh news from Kollontai on the business in Orel, but the Orgbureau was proving more willing than usual to accept the department’s requests, and the latest recruitment figures were up all over the country.
She let herself out the back door, and into the yard that housed the Renault CG. After checking the petrol, she took a deep breath and turned the engine over, praying it would burst into life.
It did. After carefully maneuvering the car down the narrow alley that ran beside their building, she emerged into Vozdvizhenka Street and drove up the mostly empty thoroughfare, passing a posse of workers who were busy hanging banners in celebration of international solidarity. The wheel of the open-top car felt good in her hands, the cool night breeze fresh on her face. For all the things that were getting worse, she thought, there were others that were getting better. Earlier that day, as she and Fanya had been eating their lunch in the park near their office, they’d heard the strains of a distant orchestra. They’d looked at each other and burst out laughing with pleasure. Perhaps the sound of Mozart floating through the streets was all the justification the NEP needed.
She remembered something her American friend and comrade Jack Reed had once said—that in normal times, only one in a thousand people were actively engaged in politics. In a revolutionary period, fifty times as many people were involved, a leap in numbers huge enough to create the impression, particularly in the minds of those involved, of a whole society on the move. But the impression was misleading, because fifty out of a thousand was still only one in twenty. And 95 percent of the population was still busy doing things they thought more important, like eating and sleeping and making love.
Caitlin missed Reed, and his penchant for speaking his mind to any and every audience. She wondered what he would have made of Kronstadt and the NEP. Kollontai had used the occasion of his funeral to reaffirm Reed’s belief that the revolution was nothing if it wasn’t a selfless endeavor, and Caitlin had never been prouder of her Russian friend than she was on that day.
But eight months on they were where they were. She could only hang on to what she knew was true. She had to do her job, had to trust herself. The Zhenotdel was making a difference—she was sure of it. And if the time ever came when she thought otherwise, then that would be the moment to do something else.
She left the car outside their building and hurried upstairs, hoping that Sergei would still be at home.
Their room was in darkness, and the electric light failed to go on. Either the power was off, or their wiring had finally succumbed, either to age or the rats.
She found one of their precious candle stubs, lit it, and stood for a moment enjoying the dance of shadows on the wall. Then her eyes caught sight of their bucket, not in its usual place.
On the floor beside it was something white. She walked over for a closer look. It was a shirt she didn’t recognize, and it was covered in something dark and sticky.
Blood.
McColl mopped up the last morsels of buckwheat porridge with a chunk of black bread and contemplated the bowl of rather sorry-looking apples that adorned the center of the table. The Filippov Café on the hotel’s ground floor was filled with the babble of foreign tongues, but the Indian comrades were nowhere to be seen. It looked as if the cruise had lasted longer than expected.
Picking out the least-bruised apple in the bowl, he poured himself another cup of tea and kept a watchful eye on the entrance doors. The mix of nationalities was certainly impressive—whatever you thought of the Bolsheviks, their revolution clearly had global appeal. Some of the people on view had come an awfully long way.
But not the Indians, he reminded himself. They’d been in Moscow ever since the closure of the school in Tashkent. More to the point, he couldn’t be certain that one or more of them wouldn’t recognize him from his time in Calcutta six years before. When he and Cumming had gone through the list of names, none had rung a bell, but the risk was there. And if anyone showed any sign of recognition, he could think of only one appropriate response. He would simply have to make for the door and the street and hope he could outrun any pursuit.
This wasn’t a comforting prospect, and as the minutes dragged by, he found himself almost expecting such an outcome.
The room was nearly empty when they finally arrived, all dressed in European clothes, all looking tired out. Scanning the Indians’ faces as they lined up to get their supper, McColl was more than a little relieved to see none he recognized.
Only twelve of the fifteen were there. And Cumming’s man, Muhammad Rafiq, was one of the missing three.
When McColl introduced himself, the reception was almost overly warm. A translator was what they’d been praying for, not of course that one actually prayed anymore. Each Indian insisted on shaking his hand, and if any man had the slightest recollection of seeing McColl’s face before, he should have been on the stage. McColl wouldn’t have to run for it. Or at least not yet.
McColl took his time sipping his tea while they ate their suppers, and eventually asked about the discrepancy between his list of fifteen and the twelve men present. The other three, he was told, had not been on the cruise. No one knew why they’d been absent, but the fact that both Habib Shankar Nasim and Muhammad Rafiq had found themselves Russian girlfriends might have been significant. As for Durga Chatterji—he was, one Indian suggested, not the most reliable of comrades.