The orchestra struck up “The Internationale,” the Bolshevik anthem.

Klim cast a sidelong look at Pukhov staring dumbstruck at the satyr.

“How did that end up here?” Pukov asked. “That’s one of the sculptures from the bank, don’t you remember? It fell out of its box, and Tarasov gave it to you.”

Suddenly, there was a roar of engines, and two planes emerged from the clouds.

“The Whites!” shrieked a voice from the crowd.

The ranks of parading soldiers fell into complete disorder, and Klim and Pukhov dived down from the roof of the automobile and crawled underneath it.

“They’re going to bomb us!” wailed Pukhov, covering his head with his hands.

But instead of bombs, the planes showered Sviyazhsk with leaflets and disappeared with rifle shots ringing out after them.

Klim reached to take one of the leaflets, but Pukhov snatched it away. “Don’t you dare to touch it!”

He began hastily to gather up the leaflets, crumpling and shoving them into his jacket.

“Don’t panic! Fall in!” yelled the commissars, no less terrified than everybody else.

Klim crawled out from under the automobile and ran off behind the churchyard toward the road leading to the railroad station.

Pukhov is bound to ask Trotsky where he got the satyr, thought Klim. And then they’ll figure out between them that I am a deserter, a looter, and an imposter.

The conclusion that they would come to would be inevitable: the swift dispatch of two executioner’s bullets—one for Klim and one for Nina.

4

It was growing dark over the station. A choir of Red Army soldiers sang a song, and a small locomotive was being shunted along the sidetrack. Nina and the sailors were playing a game of Battleship, and she was giving them a thorough thrashing.

“Stop!” the nurse shrieked suddenly. “You can’t come in here now! Where do you think you are?”

There was the sound of footsteps and the crash of the wheeled table. The room divider was flung aside. Klim rushed up to Nina and bent over her.

“I have to take you away from here,” he whispered. “Put your arm around my neck.”

“What’s happened?”

Klim didn’t answer but picked Nina up along with her blanket.

The nursed tried to stop him. “I’ll tell the doctor!”

“You can tell the pope for all I care.”

The sailors stared at the two of them, their eyes wild with incomprehension.

Klim carried Nina out of the car and onto the cart waiting for them next to the platform.

“We’re going to go to Sablin,” he said, panting as he laid Nina in the hay and covered her with her blanket. “You can’t stay here. If anything should happen, you must tell everyone you don’t know me. You’re just a refugee from Kazan.”

Nina grasped his hand. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“I’ll tell you everything later. This is a bad road, I’m afraid. I hope you won’t be jolted too much along the way.”

Klim kissed her forehead and sat down on the box next to the driver.

“Here, take these,” he said, handing the driver a handful of cartridges. “But mind,” he added in a menacing voice, “keep your mouth shut about who you’ve taken and where, or I’ll wring your neck.”

Nina had never heard him talk like this before.

5

When the cart reached the hospital that had been set up in the ancient Cathedral of the Assumption, it was already dark. The room was full of wounded people lying side by side on the straw. Here and there, haggard faces loomed in pools of candlelight.

Sablin, disheveled and unshaven, showed Klim where to put Nina.

“Don’t worry. I’ll look after her,” the doctor said.

After the sterile hospital car, Nina was now laid on a bed of rotten straw along with a hundred lice-ridden men in stinking bandages.

Sablin squatted down beside her and brought a candle up to her face. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Nina said in a weak voice. But she was more dead than alive after her journey along the bumpy road.

Klim adjusted her blanket. His head was in a whirl. What was he going to do now? Maybe he could waylay and kill Pukhov to stop him from spilling the beans? Had he done the right thing by moving Nina here? Yes, you’ve found the ideal solution, Klim thought. She’ll come down with typhus in no time now.

The nurse called Sablin away to see another patient, and he went off, leaving Klim sitting beside Nina and holding her hand.

“Who is that?” she whispered pointing at a fresco depicting a holy knight with the head of a dog.

Stunned, Klim stared at it for a while. He thought the knight looked like Anubis, an Egyptian god from the realm of the dead. How had it ended up here in an Orthodox church?

Suddenly, a shell howled, and the cathedral walls shuddered from an explosion close by. All of the candles went out, and the room was plunged into darkness.

“What was that?” voices wailed in the gloom. “They’re firing at us!”

“Quiet!” Sablin shouted. “Don’t panic!”

Klim bent down to Nina. “I’ll be back soon. I have to find out what’s going on.”

He picked his way between the bodies on the floor and went outside.

Everyone had run for shelter, and the street was empty. From somewhere over by the railroad line, the roar of artillery fire could be heard, which jarred shockingly with the serenity of the clear starry sky and the golden domes that gleamed in the moonlight.

“Klim, is that you?” someone called.

He flinched. “Sister Photinia?”

“I’m glad I’ve found you.” She grasped Klim by the wrist and began to pull him after her. “You have to get rid of that devil of yours. You’re the one that brought his statue here, so it’s your responsibility. I’d try to remove it myself, but it’s too heavy.”

Klim looked around. “The Reds will notice it’s gone.”

“I don’t care. Take it away from here!”

They hurried off to Kafedralnaya Square.

Hiding the satyr is not such a bad idea actually, Klim thought. That way Pukhov won’t be able to prove that it’s the same sculpture that I took from the bank.

But when they got to the edge of the cliff, they found the monument to Lucifer gone and the marble pillar lying on the ground broken into three parts. Klim’s heart skipped a beat. Could Pukhov have taken the bust already? A moment later, he realized that the monument had been destroyed by a shell blast and that the satyr had probably fallen over the cliff.

“I hope I don’t end up breaking my neck,” Klim muttered as he clambered down the slope, his feet sliding on the wet grass.

“Can you see it?” Sister Photinia called from above.

The satyr had become lodged in bushes a little farther downhill. The nun went down by the steps and offered Klim a gunny sack. “Put it in here. Let’s drown it in the river and rid Sviyazhsk of this evil pagan spirit once and for all.”

Klim gave a wry smile. Throwing away thirty pounds of solid silver wasn’t the brightest idea he had come across.

“Well, actually, sister, this sculpture belongs to the science museum,” he said off the top of his head. “There was a man in Smolensk Province with horns, and we made a portrait bust of him for scientific purposes. But Trotsky took it and decided to call it Lucifer.”

Sister Photinia crossed herself. “Gracious heavens, what a dreadful thing! I don’t suppose that poor fellow could take his hat off in church without people laughing at him.”

“Let’s bury the sculpture in the sand,” Klim said. “When Trotsky leaves, we’ll dig it up and give it back to the museum.”

They made a shallow pit in the sand on the beach.

“It’s like burying a body,” Sister Photinia whispered. “Anyone passing by will think we’ve killed someone and are getting rid of the evidence.”

Klim smoothed the sand so that there would be no sign of any disturbance and put down a large piece of driftwood to mark the spot where the satyr was buried.

He and Sister Photinia went back up the steps. Over to the west, the sky was ablaze, and artillery fire and rifle shots rang out incessantly. Evidently, there was a fierce battle taking place over by the station.

“I think the Whites have captured the bridge,” Sister Photinia said.

Klim nodded. The unfortunate meeting with Pukhov had turned out to be an unexpected stroke of luck. If it hadn’t been for his former boss, he and Nina could well have been at the station when the Whites had attacked.

Skudra and Pukhov will be looking for me, Klim thought. And if the Reds win this battle, I’ll be accused of desertion.

The best thing would be to make a run for it, hide in the woods, and wait for the Whites to arrive. But how will Nina survive in that overcrowded army hospital without him to help her? Of course, there was Dr. Sablin, but he had so many other things to do that there was no counting on him.

Klim said goodbye to Sister Photinia and went back to the cathedral. On the porch, he met Sablin, who had stepped out for a smoke.

“Where have you been?” the doctor said angrily. “Nina is frantic with worry.”

The nurses had already relit the candles. Klim made his way back to Nina and sat down beside her.

“There’s a big fight going on by the station now, isn’t there?” she asked. “Is that why you took me away?”

“I didn’t know that the Whites were about to attack,” Klim said, exhausted. “That was just a coincidence.”

Each new salvo reverberated under the dome of the cathedral, causing the huge chandeliers to swing from the ceiling, their ancient chains creaking ominously.