Red Dusk and the Morrow · Chapter 5 (2/3)

But when Otto Pertz ceased there was a commotion in the throng. For some moments I was at a loss as to what was in progress, until at last a passage was made and, borne on valiant Communist shoulders, a guy, the special attraction of the day, was produced. The effigy, made of pasteboard, represented a ferocious-looking German with Kaiser-like moustachios, clothed in evening dress, and bearing across its chest in large letters on cardboard the name of the German Socialist,

Scheidemann.

At the same time an improvised gallows was thrust over the balustrade of the tribune. Amid curses, jeers, and execrations, the moustachioed effigy was raised aloft. Eager hands attached the dangling loop and there it hung, most abject, most melancholy, encased in evening dress, and black trousers with hollow extremities flapping in the breeze.

The crowd awoke and tittered and even the soldiers smiled. Dmitri, I could see, was laughing outright. This was after all worth coming to see. Kerosene was poured on the dangling Scheidemann and he was set alight. There were laughter, howls, and fanfares. Zinoviev, in tragic pose, with uplifted arm and pointed finger, cried hoarsely, “Thus perish traitors!” The bugles blew. The people, roused with delight, cheered lustily. Only the wretched Scheidemann was indifferent to the interest he was arousing, as with a stony glare on his cardboard face he soared aloft amid sparks and ashes into eternity.

Crowd psychology, I mused as I walked away, has been an important factor on all public occasions since the revolution, but appreciated to the full only by the Bolsheviks. Everyone who was in Russia in 1917 and who attended political meetings when free speech became a possibility remembers how a speaker would get up and speak, loudly applauded by the whole audience; then another would rise and say the precise opposite, rewarded with equally vociferous approbation; followed again by a third who said something totally at variance with the first two, and how the enthusiasm would increase in proportion to the uncertainty as to who was actually right. The crowds were just like little children. Totally unaccustomed to free speech, they appeared to imagine that anybody who spoke must ipso facto be right. But just when the people, after the Bolshevist coup d’état, were beginning to demand reason in public utterance and deeds instead of promises, down came a super-Tsarist Bolshevist censorship like a huge candle-snuffer and clapping itself on the flame of public criticism, snuffed it out altogether.

Public demonstrations, however, were made an important item in the curriculum of the Bolshevist administration, and soon became as compulsory as military service. I record the above one not because of its intrinsic interest (it really had very little), but because it was, I believe, one of the last occasions on which it was left to the public to make the demonstration a success or not, and regiments were merely “invited.”

I made my way to Stepanovna’s in the hope of meeting Dmitri. He came in toward the close of the afternoon, and I asked him if he had enjoyed the demonstration.

“Too cold,” he replied; “they ought to have had it on a warmer day.”

“Did you come voluntarily?”

“Why, yes.” He pulled out of the spacious pocket of his tunic a parcel wrapped up in newspaper, and unwrapping it, disclosed a pound of bread. “We were told we should get this if we came. It has just been doled out.”

Stepanovna’s eyes opened wide. Deeply interested, she asked when the next demonstration was going to be.

“Why didn’t more soldiers come, then?” I asked.

“Not enough bread, I suppose,” said Dmitri. “We have been getting it irregularly of late. But we have a new commissar who is a good fellow. They say in the regiment he gets everything for us first. He talks to us decently, too. I am beginning to like him. Perhaps he is not one like the rest.”

“By the way, Dmitri,” I said, “do you happen to know who those people were for whom we demonstrated today?”

From the depths of his crumb-filled pocket Dmitri extracted a crumpled and soiled pamphlet. Holding it to the light he slowly read out the title: “Who Were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg?”

“We were each given one yesterday,” he explained, “after an agitator had made a long speech to us. Nobody listened to the agitator⁠—some Jew or other⁠—but the commissar gave me this. I read little nowadays, but I think I will read it when I have time.”

“And the speakers and the guy?” I queried.

“I didn’t notice the speakers. One of them spoke not in our way⁠—German, someone said. But the guy! That was funny! My, Stepanovna, you ought to have seen it! How it floated up into the air! You would have split your sides laughing. Who was it supposed to represent, by the way?”

I explained how the revolution in Germany had resulted in the downfall of the Kaiser and the formation of a radical Cabinet with a Socialist⁠—Scheidemann⁠—at its head. Scheidemann was the guy today, I said, for reasons which I presumed he would find stated in Who Were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg?

“But if the Kaiser is out, why do our Bolsheviks burn⁠—what’s his name⁠—?”

“Ah, but, Dmitri,” I put in, “if you had understood the German speaker today, you would have heard him tell how there is shortly to be another revolution in Germany like that which happened here in November, 1917, and they will set up a Soviet Government like Lenin’s.”

As our conversation proceeded, Stepanovna and Varia stopped their work to listen, their interest grew apace, and at last they hung on to every word as if it were of profound significance. When I repeated the substance of Otto Pertz’s predictions, all three of my companions were listening spellbound and with mouths agape. There was a long pause, which at length Stepanovna broke.

“Is it really possible,” she exclaimed, slowly, and apparently in utter bewilderment, “that the Germans⁠—are⁠—such⁠—fools?”

“Evasive, Doctor, very evasive,” I said, as we sat over tea and a few dry biscuits the Doctor had procured from somewhere. “Yesterday evening he gave me some interesting information about industrial developments, alteration of railway administration, and changes in the Red fleet; but the moment Melnikoff is mentioned then it is, ‘Oh, Melnikoff? in a day or two I think we may know definitely,’ or ‘My informant is out of town,’ and so on.”

“Perhaps there is a hitch somewhere,” suggested the Doctor. “I suppose there is nothing to do but wait. By the way, you wanted a passport, didn’t you? How will that suit you?”

I have forgotten the precise wording of the paper he handed me, for I had to destroy it later, but it was an ordinary certificate of identification, in the name of Alexander Vasilievitch Markovitch, aged thirty-three, clerical assistant at the head Postal-Telegraph Office. There was no photograph attached, but in view of the strict requirements regarding passports, which included their frequent renewal (except in certain cases no passports might be made out for more than two months), and the difficulty of getting photographs, the latter were dropping out of general use.

“Shura procured it,” the Doctor explained. “A friend of his, by name Markov, arrived recently from Moscow to work at the Telegraph Office. A week later he heard his wife was seriously ill and got special permission to return. A week in Petrograd was enough for him anyway, for living is much better in Moscow, so he doesn’t intend to come back. Shura asked him for his passport and after Markov had got his railroad pass and paper showing he was authorized to return to Moscow, he gave it him. If they ask for it in Moscow, he will say he has lost it. He would have to have a new one anyway, since a Petrograd one is useless there. My typewriter at the hospital has the same type as this, so we altered the date a little, added ‘itch’ to the name⁠—and there you are, if you wish, a ready-made postal official.”

“What about clothing?” I said. “I don’t look much like a postal official.”

“There is something more important than that. What about military service?”

From my pocket I produced a new pamphlet on the soviet system. Opening a pocket of the uncut leaves at a certain page, I drew forth my blank exemption certificate and exhibited it to the Doctor.

“What are you, a magician?” he asked admiringly. “Or is this another gift from your friend Z.?”

“The certificates were born twins,” I said. “Zorinsky was accoucheur to the first, I to the second.”

In an hour I had filled in the blank exemption form with all particulars relating to Alexander Vasilievitch Markovitch. Tracing the signatures carefully, and inserting a recent date, I managed to produce a document indistinguishable as regards authenticity from the original, and thus was possessed of two sets of documents, one in the name of Krylenko for the benefit of Zorinsky, the other in that of Markovitch for presentation in the streets and possible registration.

Considering once more the question of uniform I recalled that at my own rooms where I had lived for years I had left a variety of clothing when last in Petrograd six or eight months previously. The question was: How could I gain admittance to my rooms, disguised as I was and with an assumed name? Furthermore, a telephone call having elicited no response, I had no idea whether the housekeeper whom I had left was still there, nor whether the apartment had been raided, locked up, or occupied by workmen. All these things I was curious to know, quite apart from obtaining clothing.

I enlisted the services of Varia as scout. Varia was the first person to whom I confided my English name, and doing it with due solemnity, and with severe cautionings that not even Stepanovna should be told, I could see that the girl was impressed with my confidence in her. Armed with a brief note to my housekeeper purporting to be written by a fictitious friend of mine, and warned to turn back unless everything were precisely as I described, Varia set out on a voyage of discovery.

She returned to impart the information that the front door of the house being locked she had entered by the yard, had encountered nobody on the backstairs, and that in answer to persistent ringing a woman, whom I recognized by the description as my housekeeper, had opened the kitchen door on a short chain, and, peering suspiciously through the chink, had at first vehemently denied any acquaintance with any English people at all. On perusing the note from my nonexistent friend, however, she admitted that an Englishman of my name had formerly lived there, but she had the strictest injunctions from him to admit nobody to the flat.

Pursuing my instructions, Varia informed the housekeeper that my friend, Mr. Markovitch, had just arrived from Moscow. He was busy today, she said, and had sent her round to inquire after my affairs, but would call himself at an early opportunity.

The one article of clothing which I frequently changed and of which I had a diverse stock was headgear. It is surprising how headdress can impart character (or the lack of it) to one’s appearance. Donning my most bourgeois fur cap, polishing my leather breeches and brushing my jacket, I proceeded on the following day to my former home, entering by the yard as Varia had done and ringing at the back door. The house appeared deserted, for I saw no one in the yard, nor heard any sounds of life. When, in reply to persistent ringing, the door was opened on the chain, I saw my housekeeper peering through the chink just as Varia had described. My first impulse was to laugh, it seemed so ridiculous to be standing on one’s own backstairs, pretending to be someone else, and begging admittance to one’s own rooms by the back door.

I hadn’t time to laugh, however. The moment my housekeeper saw the apparition on the stairway she closed the door again promptly and rebolted it, and it was only after a great deal of additional knocking and ringing that at last the door was once again timidly opened just a tiny bit.

Greeting the woman courteously, I announced myself as Mr. Markovitch, close personal friend and school companion of the Englishman who formerly had occupied these rooms. My friend, I said, was now in England and regretted the impossibility of returning to Russia under present conditions. I had recently received a letter from him, I declared, brought somehow across the frontier, in which, sending his greetings to Martha Timofeievna (the housekeeper), he had requested me at the earliest opportunity to visit his home and report on its condition. To reduce Martha Timofeievna’s suspicions, I assured her that before the war I had been a frequent visitor to this flat, and gave numerous data which left no doubt whatsoever in her mind that I was at least well acquainted with the arrangement of the rooms, and with the furniture and pictures that had formerly been in them. I added, of course, that on the last occasion when I had seen my friend, he had spoken of his new housekeeper in terms of the highest praise, and assured me again in his letter that I should find her good-mannered, hospitable, and obliging.

The upshot was that, though Martha Timofeievna was at first categorical in her refusal to admit anyone to the flat, she ultimately agreed to do so if I could show her the actual letter written by “Monsieur Dukes,” requesting permission for his friend to be admitted.

I told her I would bring it to her that very afternoon, and, highly satisfied with the result of the interview, I retired at once to the nearest convenient place, which happened to be the Journalist’s, to write it.

“Dear Sasha,” I wrote in Russian, using the familiar name for Alexander (my Christian name according to my new papers), “I can scarcely hope you will ever receive this, yet on the chance that you may⁠—etc.,”⁠—and I proceeded to give a good deal of imaginary family news. Toward the end I said, “By the way, when you are in Petrograd, please go to my flat and see Martha Timofeievna⁠—etc.,” and I gave instructions as to what “Sasha” was to do, and permission to take anything he needed. “I write in Russian,” I concluded, “so that in case of necessity you may show this letter to M. T. She is a good woman and will do everything for you. Give her my hearty greetings and tell her I hope to return at the first opportunity. Write if ever you can. Goodbye. Yours ever, Pavlusha.”

I put the letter in an envelope, addressed it to “Sasha Markovitch,” sealed it up, tore it open again, crumpled it, and put it in my pocket.

The same afternoon I presented myself once more at my back door.

Martha Timofeievna’s suspicions had evidently already been considerably allayed, for she smiled amiably even before perusing the letter I put into her hand, and at once admitted me as far as the kitchen. Here she laboriously read the letter through (being from the Baltic provinces she spoke Russian badly and read with difficulty), and, paying numerous compliments to the author, who she hoped would soon return because she didn’t know what she was going to do about the flat or how long she would be able to keep on living there, she led me into the familiar rooms.

Everything was in a state of confusion. Many of the pictures were torn down, furniture was smashed, and in the middle of the floor of the dining-room lay a heap of junk, consisting of books, papers, pictures, furniture, and torn clothing. In broken Russian Martha Timofeievna told me how first there had been a search, and when she had said that an Englishman had lived there the Reds had prodded and torn everything with their bayonets. Then a family of working people had taken possession, fortunately, however, not expelling her from her room. But the flat had not been to their liking, and, deserting it soon after, they took a good many things with them and left everything else upside down.