Эльвира Барякина - Russian Treasures

In the center of the boxcar was a small stove surrounded by plank beds. The passengers sat on them packed as tightly as herrings in a barrel.

“Close the door!” the bagmen yelled. “There’s no room for any more!”

The door banged, they heard the rasp of the lock, and then everybody began to examine the cuts, bruises, and torn clothes they had received in their rush to board the train.

It was only now that Klim noticed there were no women among them. That made sense. No lady worthy of the name would ever have been able to brave the crush to get onboard, let alone countenanced traveling in a boxcar without a lavatory.

I can’t imagine Nina here, Klim thought. How on earth will I get her to Petrograd when I get her visa?

Anton Emilievich was still panting for breath. In the struggle, somebody had elbowed him in the ribs and winded him.

“At least I’m in one piece,” he said as he examined the torn handle of his suitcase. “I never thought I was capable of such behavior. Isn’t it incredible how suddenly everyone forgets their upbringing and thinks only of themselves? When I used to meet my neighbor on the stairs, we would bow to each other and let each other pass, ‘Please, after you!’ And now just look at us all like pigs fighting to get at the trough.”

The train set off, and the passengers began to unwrap their food and take out their tobacco pouches. Soon, the boxcar was filled with pungent smoke. Klim was lucky to have gotten a place next to a wall perforated by a string of bullet holes. An icy breeze came through them, but at least it was refreshing.

Now, everything in the boxcar—clothes, luggage, and faces—were covered with a white film of dust.

“That’s flour,” Anton Emilievich whispered in Klim’s ear. “These bagmen are carrying food to Moscow and Petrograd—the food shortage there is much worse than in Nizhny Novgorod. The boxcar is shaking so much that some of the dust is escaping out of their bags.”

Klim looked around him at the stern, bearded faces. The Soviet press liked to paint these bagmen as weak, cunning idlers, but nothing could be further from the truth. Those political pen pushers sitting in their offices would never understand what it took to travel across the country in a crowded boxcar carrying heavy bags and risking one’s life on a daily basis. Bagmen were the only people now providing the hungry cities with the provisions that the Bolshevik government was so spectacularly failing to supply.

When the train stopped, the passengers refused to open the door of their boxcar. They could hear the soldiers outside striking the sides of the train with their rifle butts and threatening to throw a grenade under the boxcar.

“There’s no room!” cried the passengers.

They passed out a kettle through the little window under the ceiling to the local boys, asking them to bring boiling water, and paid them with a dried crust of bread.

The passengers amused themselves on the long journey with gambling, scurrilous jokes, and stories about the stationmasters at the different railroad stops—which of them were kind and which of them were corrupt, tight-fisted brutes.

Gradually, the voices subsided. Surrounded by the snores of his fellow passengers, Klim buried his head in his folded arms and dozed, daydreaming sleepily about the previous night.

Nina’s room had been warm. The green glow of the lamp had been reflected in the porcelain horses on her chest of drawers and the mirror tiles on the glass door of her closet.

For Klim, a sense of desperation—as though before a fatal step—had been mingled with the warm, aching joy of holding Nina in his arms. He had felt the gentle touch of her finger on his unshaven cheek and heard her voice.

“I’m drawing your portrait with my fingertips,” she had said. “Here’s your cheekbone, and your eyebrow… and now, your murderer’s earlobe—”

“Why murderer’s?” Klim had asked.

“They say that people with adherent earlobes like yours are capable of the most terrible things.”

Nina had known that Klim had no choice but to carry out the plan they had concocted, but despite herself, she had reproached him for being able to leave her even for a short while.

Klim had blamed himself too, but for other reasons. He should have gotten Nina out of Russia that autumn and away from all of that danger and uncertainty.

“You’d be better off drawing me big muscles,” he had said, trying to distract her. “I’m afraid that soon I’ll be as skinny as a rake, living on these Soviet food rations.”

“I won’t,” Nina had refused. “A man should be athletic but lean. Good breeding implies elegance.”

I was insane to have removed myself willingly from that paradise, Klim thought. I should have stayed with Nina even if it meant death—at least we’d have passed away together.

He dozed fitfully as the wheels of the boxcar intoned, “You have to, you have to, you have to.”

1

It took Klim and Anton Emilievich a week to get to the capital.

Every now and then, their train would stop for no apparent reason, and nobody knew what was going on. Later they learned that they were making way for the trains going in the opposite direction, carrying refugees.

The Bolsheviks had promised the deserters that they would demobilize the Tsar’s Army and offer Germany a peace treaty without annexations and reparations, but the Berlin government just laughed in their faces. And now, German troops were advancing on the defenseless Russian capital.

In Petrograd, a crowd was besieging the ticket offices of the Nikolaevsky railroad station.

“The Germans are coming! The Germans!” Klim heard people shouting.

When he and Anton Emilievich turned down Ligovsky Avenue, they saw a line of loaded carts stretching as far as the eye could see. Writing desks and folded banners stuck out from under the tarpaulin covers. Women and children sat on top of the carts wrapped in fur coats and shawls. Cart drivers yelled at one another, whips cracked, and horses whinnied.

Anton Emilievich glanced at Klim. “What kind of exodus is this?”

“The Bolshevik government is moving to Moscow,” a gentleman in an astrakhan hat remarked. “Along with their families, servants, and concubines.”

Mounted soldiers rode toward the excited, anxious crowd.

“Move on, move on!” they shouted in thick foreign accents.

“Latvian riflemen,” said the gentleman in the astrakhan hat with a disparaging shrug.

“What are they doing here?” Klim asked.

“Guarding our new rulers. They are deserters like all the other soldiers. But the Russian deserters have gone back to their villages, and the Latvians can’t go home since it’s become occupied by the Germans now. That’s why they’re willing to work for the Bolsheviks in exchange for their food ration. People say they make ideal mercenaries because they barely speak a word of Russian, so you can’t even bribe them.”

Anton Emilievich knew Petrograd well and told Klim how to find the Argentine Embassy.

“I’m going to visit the Bolsheviks headquarters now and get my pass to go abroad,” he said. “See you tonight at Khitruk’s. Do you remember his address?”

Klim nodded. Khitruk was an old friend of Anton Emilievich, and they were hoping he would let them spend the night at his apartment.

2

Klim hurried along the street, looking at the beautiful buildings that adorned central Petrograd. Handwritten advertisements had sprung up all over them like mold growing on plaster. The Bolsheviks had issued a decree forbidding advertising in any opposition newspapers to deprive them of their profits, so now all the announcements of items “For Sale” or “Wanted” had spread over the walls and lampposts of the city instead.

Hunched, shivering figures hurried past Klim. Half the shop windows had been broken, and the vacant dark shops looked like caves. Klim saw a sign in place of a storefront that announced in huge letters, “Citizens! Save Anarchy!”

So, now we even have to save anarchy, Klim thought, grimly.

It didn’t take long for him to find the six-story columned building that housed the Argentine Embassy. Polish soldiers in square peaked caps and long cloaks were guarding it. Klim showed them his passport, and one of the guards shouted up for the secretary, a tiny woman with black hair.

Klim told her that he had come to Russia on family business and now wanted to get back to Buenos Aires.

“Follow me,” she said, inviting him in.

The windowsills and cabinets in the lobby were covered with half-burned candles.

“The electricity is only intermittent,” the secretary said. “To tell the truth, it can be frightening at night. A few days ago, some crooks broke into the Italian Embassy and took the ambassador’s wallet and fur coat right off his back. We are lucky to have the Poles here, but if something terrible happens, there’s not much chance they’ll be able to protect us. None of the foreign powers recognize the Bolsheviks and their Soviet government, and in return, they don’t recognize our diplomatic immunity.”

Klim had not expected to find foreign diplomats to be quite so powerless.

“Can I talk to Señor Ambassador?” he asked.

“I’ll announce your arrival,” said the secretary. “Please take a seat and wait a moment.”

The embassy was silent. Even the pendulum of the wall clock hung motionless.

Klim walked around the room and picked up a copy of Pravda newspaper dated February 23, 1918. A banner headline splashed across its front page read: