Эльвира Барякина - Russian Treasures

On January 7, 1919, a riot took place in Buenos Aires, ending in clashes with the police. Many blamed the communists, and in the days that followed, the crowd carried out a pogrom against the houses and shops of immigrants from Russia. More than seven hundred people died during the massacre, and more than four thousand were wounded.

Lubochka snatched the paper from her father’s hands and headed for the door. “I need to show this to Klim.”

“Don’t!” Anton Emilievich cried. “If you do, he’ll stay here forever.”

Lubochka looked at him, her eyes narrowed. “That’s fine by me.”

3 EL CUADERNO NEGRO ^{Klim Rogov’s little black notebook}

In the past, I found it hard not to reproach Nina for not coming with me when it was still possible to leave Russia. I thought that if we’d gone then, we could have saved not only ourselves but also Zhora. But evidently, Nina’s instinct of self-preservation is keener than mine. If we’d been in Buenos Aires, we’d probably be dead by now. After all, everyone there knows I’m Russian.

Seven hundred killed. It’s impossible to grasp that the good old porteños are capable of such a crime.

I feel helpless. Nina and Sofia Karlovna think they’ll find a safe haven in France. Like hell they will. It’ll just be more of the same. We’re condemned everywhere to be outsiders—an unknown quantity and, therefore, guilty of all the troubles of the universe.

The world has gone mad, and we have nowhere to run. Except perhaps to the end of the earth, Patagonia, where you can go for months without seeing a single soul. All you see are the blue snow-capped mountains, crystal-clear lakes, and the grass rippling in the wind. We could set up an estancia and farm sheep—that would be the life, all right. But I’ll never get my wife to agree to it. Sofia Karlovna has already seduced her with her Parisian scheme. Nina isn’t daunted at the idea of France—she knows some French, and she’s been there before. As for me, to be honest, I no longer care.

After my public lecture, everyone in the house attacked me, accusing me of stupidity, selfishness, and short-sightedness. Nina reminded me how harshly I had condemned her for her participation in the underground resistance movement.

“But what you are doing,” she said, “is utterly suicidal. Do you have some kind of a death wish?”

In fact, I suppose I have a “life wish”—a craving for a normal life, and it’s very difficult to suppress it. If I have something to say, and I see other people ready to listen, it’s the most natural thing in the world for me to get it off my chest.

For the same reason I want to put my heart into my teaching.

“What are you trying to prove to your sailors?” Nina asked me. “They’re hopeless savages, and you can’t improve them.”

But I’m not interested in trying to improve anyone. I just show my students that there are many ways to live their lives. We’re all different, and we all have a right to exist so long as we don’t cause troubles for our neighbors.

People at war become deaf and dumb. To keep one’s mouth shut and stop even trying to explain yourself is to maintain a state of war. If all I see when I look at my sailors are violent degenerates, then I’m at war with them. But we can all get along together! They’re simply different from us, and we need to accept them as they are. Then everything will fall into place.

I’m not saying that everyone has to love one other. Say what you like, but I can’t stand Lubochka. I’m not fond of Uncle Anton either. Still, I’m talking about basic principles: if you don’t like a person, avoid them by all means, but don’t try to destroy them or remake them in your own image and likeness.

There’s no point in me scribbling these angry notes. Nina believes it’s another sign of my careless nature—to keep a diary that might cost me my life. Well—I did promise her that I would be careful. And in any case, it’s too late to lament our fate.

4

Nina came into the room and loosened the knot of her headscarf. “Have you been burning papers?” she asked.

Klim was sitting by the stove stirring at the coals with a poker. An empty leather binding lay on the floor beside him.

“What happened?” Nina said, alarmed.

“Nothing.” Klim sighed. “I just decided to get rid of a witness.”

Nina sat down next to him. She picked up the leather cord that Klim used to bind his notebook.

“Once Zhora wrote a poem,” she said.

The strings of life are tied in a knot?

It doesn’t mean they break or rot.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t,

But you must survive, no matter what.

Nina decorated the cord with several ornate knots and then tied it around Klim’s wrist.

1

The spring and the early summer of 1919 were fraught with expectation and filled with frantic activity. Klim managed to obtain official permission for a railroad car for his propaganda efforts. The car had once been used as a mobile chapel and was now lying disused in a siding. But although the cogs of the bureaucratic machine continued to turn and meetings were held to decide on programs and budgets, no locomotive could be found to pull the propaganda car. All serviceable engines were working at maximum capacity, transporting troops, ammunition, and food.

Admiral Kolchak was advancing from the east, General Yudenich was coming in to attack the Bolsheviks from the north, and General Denikin was moving up from the south. The newspapers were reporting that “the ring of the frontline is closing in.”

Clearly, things were looking bad for the Soviets to judge by the panic and frenzy in government offices. The city was in an agony of suspense, and senses were heightened. No one knew in which direction the Whites were moving, how strong they were, and which of the “damned imperialists” was giving them support.

Nina tried to remain skeptical. A year earlier, it had also looked as though the defeat of the Reds was inevitable. There was nothing for it but to wait and listen, to keep their ears and eyes open.

Klim drew up the staffing plan for the members of his propaganda team himself. He now had a number of official documents covered in stamps and signatures, according to which Dr. Sablin was charged with explaining the health benefits of personal hygiene to Red Army soldiers, Sofia Karlovna was to handle supplies and requisites, Nina Kupina was to work as an administrative assistant, and Klim himself was to provide ideological leadership.

“We’ll need to hope Osip doesn’t check the staff list,” he said. “Otherwise, he’ll realize in no time that we’re planning to bail out.”

They bided their time and waited for their chance, saving what they could for scraping together an “escape fund.” They sold Sofia Karlovna’s earrings, but by spring of 1919, the Russian ruble had lost all of its value. The People’s Bank might as well have been printing candy wrappers—nothing to be ashamed of perhaps for those who espoused the Bolshevik view that the communist state would eventually have no need of money. In the meantime, banknote printing became the most efficient and fastest growing industry in Russia. The only thing that kept a check on rising inflation was the availability of paper.

“Soon, we’ll see announcements in the street,” Klim said, “for sale: an elegant snuffbox for your monthly food ration and a large wheelbarrow for your monthly wages.”

But the situation had serious implications for their “escape fund,” which had to be kept in foreign currency if they wanted it kept safe. Meanwhile, the deutsche mark, the French franc, and the British pound were all losing value due to postwar inflation. And in any case, the banknotes rustled if you hid them in your clothes, as Nina soon found out.

“If the Cheka searches us, they’ll definitely find the money,” she said after a few experiments. “Perhaps we should try dollars.”

But while it might still have been possible to find European currency at the flea market or in the alleys beside the railroad station, American dollars weren’t to be had at any price, and there were provocateurs and counterfeiters on all sides. Once Sablin brought home a forged banknote signed by the “Komissar of Finanse.”

In the end, they decided it would be best to convert their savings into alcohol. Klim and Sablin made a wooden field kit with slots for tubes, and Nina labeled each tube with a label saying, “Caution! Typhoid bacteria!” On the side of the box, she wrote, “Medical equipment of vital importance.”

The question of clothes was a worry. Should they buy them or not? On the one hand, it would be good to take as many clothes as possible because garments could be swapped for food. On the other hand, anyone traveling with luggage was asking to be robbed by local commissars eager to requisition “bourgeois property.” At the very least, they needed military uniforms for Klim and Sablin so that they could pass themselves off as frontline soldiers. It was rumored that the barrier troopers were afraid of them.

The most difficult problem of all was how to disguise the old countess. Sofia Karlovna was horrified at the thought of pretending to be a simple old peasant woman. Moreover, since the death of Anna Evgenievna, the old countess’ mind was beginning to wander, and on occasion, her tongue ran away with her.

“Good gracious, their butler has a mustache!” she exclaimed upon seeing a policeman in the waiting room at the Executive Committee offices. “When did you ever see a butler with a mustache? He should wear side whiskers.”