Trailing her, I couldn’t stop, didn’t dare.
She had remarkable energy, that one, for she was moving so quickly that I had to trot along to keep up with her. She was all business, and yet people smiled and nodded at her as they passed, perhaps not recognizing how high and mighty she really was, only seeing the strange light robes and knowing that she was from there, that community that had become so well known and, too, so well loved throughout Moscow. Pure and simple, she was a vision of Godliness to all who laid eyes upon her, that much I could tell. Or perhaps she was just a simple reminder that some still believed with all their hearts in a better world. And yet still I couldn’t tell what she was doing, just where she was going in such a rush.
I wondered of course if she had some kind of business in Kitai Gorod, the Chinese town, but after we crossed a kanal and turned to the right, it was clear she wasn’t going that far. No, we were descending into the lowlands in and around the Yauza River. And from the mist in the air and the stench that soon filled my nose, I understood that this stupid, foolish woman was heading straight into the Khitrovka, the famous slums of Moscow, which sprawled around a dangerous market selling rotten food and stolen goods, not to mention young girls, even young boys. Bozhe moi, my God, this was the most hellish corner of the country, and even I wanted to run up and tell her, No, stop, it’s too dangerous! Don’t go in! Word was that ten or twenty thousand pathetic souls lived in this Godforsaken area, a collection of thieves and robbers, beggars and murderers. If anyone escaped the labor camps of Siberia, they didn’t stay out in the forests. No, they snuck all the way back here, because both the police and the soldiers were too afraid to go into the depths of the Khitrovka and flush them out. Even my revolutionary pals told me that if I was ever found out, if I was ever chased, this was where I should run, straight into these slums. Of course, the lowlifes in and about might cut my throat for a ruble or plunge a knife in my back for pleasure, but at least the police wouldn’t catch me, oh, no!
But the nastiness of the Khitrovka seemed not to faze her in the least. In fact, the misery ahead seemed to draw her, and this sister of the Empress, this princess who had once danced the mazurka on the finest parquet floors in the greatest palaces, this greatest of European beauties, stepped through an open sewer along which slowly ran human waste of the nastiest sort. When she came to the corner of a crumbling building, she turned left, obviously certain of where she was going. Wasting no time, I hurried along, turned the corner, and nearly ran into her and three big, thick policemen, for there she stood, this woman in robes, talking to the giant men.
“Please, Matushka,” said one of the uniformed ones, “in a block or so you’ll enter the heart of the Khitrovka, and this is as far as the three of us dare go. We ask you again and again, please, no farther! If something happens in the streets ahead, we will not be able to go in to help you.”
“My dear men, you are always too kind to me and I so appreciate your good thoughts,” she replied in the gentlest of voices. “But, once again, I am needed in these parts.”
“Yes, but-” began another constable.
“Please, my boy, do not worry. My life is in God’s hands, not yours.”
With a kind wave and smile, she pressed on, going where certainly no princess had ever gone, deep into the filthy Khitrovka. I myself thought of turning back, but curiosity had hooked me, and I tailed her into a dark alley where the sun was all but blotted out. I couldn’t help wondering, if those policemen back there on the edge of the Khitrovka knew her by sight, just how often did she come here and what in the name of the devil was her business? Might it not be with spies and Germans?
As I traipsed after her, nearly losing her from sight, I heard screaming, then breaking glass. From another direction came drunken laughter and crying children. As I passed a traktir-the cheapest of taverns-its doors were shoved open by two men, laughing and stumbling, and a stinky cloud of stale beer and boiling cabbage overwhelmed me. A few steps later I came to a man slumped against a building, lying in a puddle of his own vomit. All this I saw, and a woman with a painted face who stood in a doorway marked with the required red lamp. When I glanced at her she pulled open the top of her dress and showed me her huge naked breasts.
“Right this way, handsome,” she called, licking her lips.
I looked away. This place was nothing but a pile of roaches feasting on one another, and like an insect myself I scurried on. Rounding a corner after the princess nun, I watched as she proceeded down a lane of disgusting shops, this one selling something that was supposed to be sausages, another grimy bread, and there, a guy chopping chickens on a huge stump and throwing the carcasses on the floor. Next I saw a handful of tailors working frantically away as they transformed stolen fur capes and coats into unrecognizable hats and muffs. Up and down the passage were gathered clumps of men, too, and great wafts of smoke from papirosi-the cheapest cigarettes-curled into the dark air, mingling with the scent of sour sunflower oil that came from every kitchen. Time and time again they greeted this lowly Romanov not with a sneer or snarl or the least bit of coarseness-let alone a threat of any kind-but with a simple and polite nod of the head.
“Good afternoon, Matushka,” these forsaken souls called one after another.
A row of five fat, toothless babushki sat upon huge iron pots of lapshi, and though the old women didn’t rise-their one and only job was to sit tight on the pots so that their big thighs and thick skirts would keep the pots of noodles warm-all of them bowed their heads to the princess nun and crossed themselves. When I passed by, however, the women and every questionable guy about gazed at me the way a starving man stares at a hen. I pulled up my collar and wrapped my arms around myself, and probably the only reason they left me alone was how ragged I looked-it was obvious to anyone that I had nothing to offer, not even a dirty kopeck to my name.
Up ahead I suddenly saw a boy appear out of nowhere, a filthy street urchin covered from head to toe in grime. The princess stopped and greeted him, they exchanged a few words, and the boy pointed in one particular direction. The little one then reached up with his dirty paw, and she, not hesitating in the least, reached out with her clean white hand and took it. Obviously nervous and scared, the boy quickly led her off through a series of small streets that got narrower and dirtier with each step. I pushed on, for neither of them suspected that someone, namely me, was following.
A few minutes later the boy and the nun came to a crumbling grayish stone house and disappeared inside. When I approached the building, I saw the name “Petrov” written in faded, peeling paint, and guessed that this place was like the one where me and my wife had lived, and entering I found out, sure, I was correct. This Mr. Petrov, who owned the building, rented out small corners, measured perhaps by the arzhin-the length of an arm or two-to the poorest sorts. Coming to one grimy curtain, I slowly pulled it back, seeing nothing and no one, only a couple of wooden bunks and some torn clothes. Drawn by voices, I moved on past the stairs and in a nook found myself staring at three men who, like me, looked as if they hadn’t been to the banya in months. Gathered around a wooden crate, they were munching on sunflower seeds, and scattered around them on the floor lay what looked like a rug of dead beetles but was actually a carpet of husks. There were cards strewn in front of them, and off to the side was a jug of cloudy vodka. They stared up at me like wild dogs ready to pounce, and one of them reached down for a knife sticking out of his boot.