“That’s a great idea,” Klim agreed. “Let’s share. You’ve had your rifle for a while; now it’s my turn.”

The lad smirked. “Think you’re smart, don’t you?”

“So, you don’t want to share after all, do you? Then how did you end up with this lot?”

“The factory closed, and there was nothing to eat. And here they pay us.”

They heard footsteps on the mezzanine floor and a voice shouting, “Hey, look what I’ve found!”

Sablin’s heart sank. The man in the pince-nez slowly entered the dining room holding a portrait of Nicholas II in his hands.

“Who is the owner of this?” he barked, shifting his gaze from one face to another. “Well, well, well—it seems we’ve found ourselves a nest of monarchists.”

“It’s mine,” said Klim abruptly. “Put it back and leave it alone. I’m a foreign correspondent and have a right to take historical souvenirs abroad with me.”

The man was caught by surprise. “A foreigner? Why is your Russian so good?”

“I went to a special Russian school.”

“Show me your documents!”

The Argentinean passport perplexed the raiders. Klim started talking through his hat about some Foreign Press Committee and how he knew Lenin personally and would instigate criminal proceedings against the wrongdoers.

“What are your names?” he asked in a stern voice.

The man in the pince-nez pulled out his pocket watch and looked at it. “We’ve got other fish to fry. Let’s go, boys!”

The gang poured out into the street. The doctor bolted the door and leaned his back against it. He was drenched in sweat.

“I don’t get it,” he moaned. “Shoot me on the spot, but it’s beyond my comprehension.”

“It’s all as clear as day,” muttered Klim. “That scoundrel holds some petty government position. He hasn’t received his paycheck, so he’s decided to try to squeeze something out of the bourgeoisie. The rat knows he won’t be punished. Nobody will stand up for the bourgeois. As for being a foreigner—who knows? For all he knows, perhaps I have shaken hands with Lenin.”

Klim took the illicit bottle from his inside coat pocket. “Have some wine, doc. You’re looking a bit peaky.”

He put on his scarf and buttoned his overcoat. “I’ll go to Crest Hill and spend the night there. Don’t open the door to anyone and burn that portrait of the Tsar. Tell Lubochka not to leave the house alone, especially at night.”

3

But when Lubochka came back, she wasn’t alone. Osip Drugov had walked her to her porch, saluted, and disappeared into the blizzard.

She stood in the ransacked hall, looking around in shock. “What happened here?”

Sablin, exhausted and drunk, appeared in the doorway with a bottle in his hand. “Good evening, sweetheart. Would you like a drink? Klim brought us champagne and managed to hide it under his overcoat while they were searching the house.”

Slowly, Lubochka undid her headscarf and let it drop to her shoulders.

“I’ll ask Osip to get us a certificate of immunity or something,” she said in a trembling voice.

4

“We’ve had visitors today,” said Nina as soon as Klim entered her house.

“Who?” he asked.

“Our friends the comrades. Who else?”

Nina’s house had been trashed as well. Klim had been wrong: it hadn’t been a private raid but a premeditated campaign.

“Did they find our wine?” he asked.

Nina shook her head. “If they had, we wouldn’t be here. But they’ve taken all our valuables and almost all our clothes, and they’ve stamped our documents. Now, none of us can leave Nizhny Novgorod without their permission.”

“But why?”

“The rail strike is over, and the Bolsheviks can’t let the bourgeoisie run away just like that. They can’t do without their class enemies to blame for their own blunders.”

Zhora came into the hall too.

“That’s for the best,” he said. “We can’t just sit around anymore. We have to fight.”

“They’ll kill you, you little fool!” Nina moaned. “If you’re not afraid for yourself, at least think of Elena and me.”

She turned to Klim looking for his support.

“I’ll go to Petrograd,” he said, “and ask the Argentine ambassador to help me get you all out of Russia. He won’t turn me down since I’m well-known in Buenos Aires and have important connections.”

“Only rats desert a sinking ship!” cried Zhora. “I won’t go without Elena. What am I going to do in Buenos Aires? Do you want me to become a street sweeper instead of a student? I don’t know a word of Spanish.”

“Sometimes people have to make difficult decisions,” said Nina in a whisper.

5

Nina, Klim, and Zhora sat side by side in front of the fireplace until midnight. Klim tried to coax some heat out of the meager embers with the poker. The lurid reflection of the glowing coals flickered across his gloomy face.

How can I go with them? Zhora thought. What am I going to tell Elena?

What if Klim didn’t keep his word and didn’t take them away to Argentina? Maybe he had had enough of the Bolsheviks, and his trip to Petrograd was just an excuse for him to escape?

Zhora understood him perfectly well though. At first, Klim had seen the Bolshevik coup as an amusing adventure worthy of a couple of wry articles in his newspaper, but now, he had realized that it was no joke anymore. Klim was not foolish enough to take responsibility for so many hungry mouths, especially now when he had neither a job nor his father’s money.

The more Zhora pondered about their situation, the more he prayed that Klim would never return from Petrograd. We will be fine, he thought. Nina is smart, and she will find a way to manage our situation.

He was sure that there would be an anti-Bolshevik rebellion soon, and the usurpers would be overthrown. Everything would be just fine. University, marriage to Elena, and a brilliant diplomatic career—that was the future that awaited him.

But it was painful to look at his sister. She was sitting pressed close to Klim, and it seemed she was too afraid to move.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be in Petrograd,” Klim said. “And I have no idea if I’ll be able to write to you. But I promise I’ll come back for you. Whatever it takes.”

Nina nodded and looked at him, her eyes full of tears.

“You won’t leave me alone tonight, will you?”

As they left, Zhora remained by the fireplace, feeling shocked and ashamed. Nina was about to spend the night with a man whom she wasn’t even married to. Klim may have been a good man, and she may have been deeply in love with him, but this was scandalous.

Sofia Karlovna appeared in the doorway with a flickering church candle in her hand.

“I knew that something like this would happen,” she said. “First, your sister had a relationship with Mr. Fomin and ruined her reputation, and now, men see her as nothing more than a strumpet. They will lie to her saying that they’ll marry her, but they are only really after one thing.”

“Times have changed,” Zhora replied in an unsteady voice.

But Sofia Karlovna just shook her head sadly. She picked up the portrait of her son that had been thrown on the floor by the raiders and dusted off the cracked glass over the photograph.

“See, Vladimir,” she said, “what kind of a woman you have brought into our house.”

6

Klim insisted that Nina did not come to see him off at the station.

“You’ll only be asking for trouble with the Red Guards,” he said. “What if they ask you for your documents?”

She stood on the porch and watched him tying his suitcase onto the sleigh.

Anton Emilievich, in his enormous fur coat, was already waiting for Klim in the driver’s seat. On finding that his nephew was about to leave for Petrograd, he had decided to join him. He intended to travel on to Finland, which had declared independence from Russia and the Bolsheviks in the nick of time.

“You’ll have to forgive me, old man, but I can’t live in this chaos,” he had told Klim. “I’ll sit out the revolution in Helsingfors. I have friends there.”

Klim went up to Nina. Her eyes were swollen with tears, and her lips were trembling.

“Promise you’ll come back,” she whispered.

He embraced her and put the key to his house in her hand. It was next to useless because after the raid at their house, Lubochka had ordered that a new steel-enforced front door be installed.

“What is it?” Nina asked.

“It’s the key to my heart,” Klim said, smiling. “At the moment, I have nothing else to give you.”

“Hurry up, or we’ll be late!” Anton Emilievich cried.

Nina made the sign of the cross over Klim.

“Go inside, or you’ll catch your death of cold,” he said, trying to lead her to the door.

But she stood trembling in the wind until his sleigh was out of sight.

7

It had been impossible to get tickets for a sleeping car. The Bolsheviks had issued another decree abolishing all classes on the railway thus making all passengers equal.

“Let the bourgeoisie enjoy the comforts of the third-class car,” their propagandists said.

But there weren’t even any third-class cars. The train consisted of red boxcars with notices on their sides proclaiming, “Capacity: eight horses or forty people.”

The passengers took the boxcars by storm. The train stood high above the platform with no steps, but Klim was one of the first to manage to get inside. Someone gave him a leg up, and then he helped others load their luggage and pulled in the other passengers, most of them were so-called bagmen, small traders who carried their goods in burlap bags.