The House by the Dvina (44 page)

The skies cleared. Sunbeams broke through the mist. And we, like chirping sparrows pruning their feathers after a storm, became our usual cheerful selves.

When Ghermosha and I returned to the house, we found our parents talking earnestly together. Their expression was serious. At first, being as we were wet and bedraggled, I imagined we were in for a raging, but instead Mother had startling news. After a long discussion with Father, she told us, they had both decided that she with Ghermosha and me must try to return to Scotland. “What about Pa?” I asked. “IТll be all right,” he cheerfully assured us. “If the worst came to the worst and the house was confiscated, as they say it might be, I would go and live with Uncle Sanya. Life is difficult just now, but once things settle down, you will, of course, return. Everything is bound to get better.”

Somehow I knew that all that he was saying wasnТt true and that he himself knew it, but I wanted to believe him. I wanted to be back in Scotland, away from all the searches, the fear, and this hungry existence.

My father had a lifelong friend whom we always knew as Aleksandr Aleksandrovich. He was a cultured man who spoke several languages including perfect English. It was he who always wrote my fatherТs letters when he dictated in English, and it was he who wrote the application to the authorities in Petrograd for an exit visa. This application, however, had to go through the office of foreign affairs in Archangel. I had the job of haunting this office, where the waiting room was usually packed with people like myself waiting to be interviewed. Eventually, after many visits and long hours of waiting, the commissar, a courteous young man, ushered me into his office and informed me that our request had been forwarded and was being considered. Meanwhile there was MargaТs wedding, planned to take place during July. Babushka, who from the time of DedushkaТs second arrest had lost all interest in the running of the house and garden, now pulled herself together. Come what may, Marga had to have her day. All the linen, china and articles which were once going to America, were now carried downstairs and carefully arranged in the cart by Arsyeny. The Van Brienen portrait was once more removed from the wall.

Everything was being transferred to MargaТs future home with Mitya.

Mitya lived with his aunt in a pleasant two-storeyed house situated on the main street. The aunt decided that she would live in the ground floor flat and hand over the floor above to the young couple. This convenient arrangement, they hoped, would prevent other people from taking over any of the rooms. As the date of the wedding drew nearer the bustle and the running between the two houses increased. Babushka was anxious that Marga should also receive her share of the silver. This silver, searched for by the Bolsheviks, was all the time hidden by YuraТs mamka in her village.

Babushka, forewarned by what went on all over Russia, was not so stupid as to allow the Bolsheviks to confiscate it and had made this arrangement with YuraТs mamka, a faithful soul, who returned it later and thus allowed Babushka to exist by gradually bartering it away. On the sunny day of MargaТs wedding, she set off for our church with Babushka, with the rest of the family following behind. She was wearing a dress altered by our dressmaker, Nastenka. It was the dress of white chiffon which she wore on the evening of her graduation dance Ч the dance that I had watched so eagerly while hiding behind the ballroom door. Babushka, with her magic fingers, had created a wreath of white flowers and placed it on MargaТs head over a gossamer veil, which Babushka herself had worn on her wedding day to my grandfather. Marga, tall, stately and radiantly happy looked beautiful.

Inside the vestry, Mitya was waiting. Both walked up together to the pink silk square placed in front of the lectern. Tradition has it that whoever steps first on the square will rule the roost. But when the time came I forgot to look at their feet, overcome by the sight of this unusually tall, good-looking couple and the great sanctity of the moment. Yura and one of MityaТs friends were the two groomsmen who held the crowns over the bridal pair when the priest, holding the clasped hands of the couple, circled thrice round the lectern.

In the evening Marga and Mitya left the house where there had been a small reception. Arm in arm they set off to walk along the river front to begin their married life. After Marga left, Babushka applied to the authorities for permission to join Dedushka in the depth of the country, where prison camps were springing up like mushrooms. During the rule of Lenin, as ruthless as it was, in certain cases wives were permitted to join their husbands. Perhaps Lenin remembered how he himself was allowed to have his wife beside him in Siberia, where together with their cronies they plotted the downfall of a reign which allowed this latitude. After her petition had gone through endless channels, Babushka received the permission and from that moment began to look for ways and means by which she could embark on her journey.

One early morning in late July, while everyone was sleeping, Ghermosha and I crept out of the house and joined our friends waiting outside the gate.

It had been arranged that we should take the road to a wood lying further away from the one we usually haunted and where, we had been told, grew masses of berries and mushrooms.

There had been several showers the previous day Ч a sign that mushrooms should be plentiful. It was better to pick them early before other people arrived.

Soon we were out of the town and following a dirt road flanked on one side by an open moor, on the other by barbed-wire fencing enclosing a young forest of aspens, conifers and slender birches. The fence led to a gate on which was a sign printed in large red letters, “Entry forbidden”.

As we approached the gate we heard tramping behind us, a small group of prisoners with their guards. As they drew nearer, we stood aside to allow them to pass. The prisoners, in civilian clothing, were carrying spades, their faces haggard, unshaven and deathly pale. Standing out among them was a boy with fair unkempt hair almost down to his shoulders. He was wearing a grey coat of the school uniform and might have been a pupil from our senior form. They walked past us without a glance in our direction and vanished inside the gate. We continued walking towards the dark crescent of the wood and there scattered within hearing distance of each other. The little bushes were completely smothered by berries. A few yards from me Vera, humming to herself, was on her knees filling her basket. All around us was the sweet fragrance of the berries, moist earth, pines and birches.

Suddenly the sound of distant shots broke the silence. A flock of frightened birds flew overhead and vanished to the north. Puzzled, Vera and I looked up and listened, but hearing nothing more, continued gathering berries.

Some time later, with our full baskets, we were winding our way back past the rough fencing, the strange gate and on to the road to the town. We were again overtaken by the same soldiers, marching briskly back towards the prison. There were no prisoners in their midst, but flung over their shoulders were bundles of clothing, including the grey uniform of the young boy. Everything fell into place. The prisoners, the gate, the shots, the birds flying overhead, the grey school uniform. We never again took the road which passed the gate with the threatening notice, nor went back to the area so close to that sinister wood.

As we continued on our way home and turned into Olonetskaya Street we saw Mother walking slowly in front of us. Ghermosha and I hurried after her, but when she turned to speak to us we noticed she looked upset and had been crying. During the morning she had met one of the officers from the icebreaker Canada who told her that Maisie Jordan was dead. She had died, he went on to explain, from typhoid, in Petrograd. He also added that Billy Jordan was missing and was thought to be in England. We could not understand this terrible story. Maisie, only twenty-three years old, beautiful, full of life Ч now dead; and dead in Petrograd. Why Petrograd?

The officer had no further information. A week or two later, an elderly lady called at the house and introduced herself as Aleksandra Andreyevna Ankirova. Madame Ankirova was the mother of the girl who had married the obliging Dane. Everything had worked according to plan. After arriving in Norway, they parted company and Mariya went on to France where she was met by her fiance, went through the proper orthodox marriage and was now happily settled down. Madame Ankirova, anxious to join her daughter, was, like us, waiting for permission to leave Russia. The purpose of her visit was to suggest that we should try to travel together and in this way perhaps help each other if need be. Mother, of course, readily agreed.

Aleksandra Andreyevna belonged to a family who had at one time owned fishing trawlers and were in the profitable fishing business. Her brother, although not the owner any longer, was still employed by the new government. Through him Madame Ankirova received a letter from Murmansk in which he described what happened when the three travellers arrived to board a ship for Norway. On the day of their departure, they were first taken to a customs shed, guarded by soldiers, where they were thoroughly searched, their trunks emptied and every article examined. When it came to MaisieТs turn, and her trunks were opened, they found the letters she was taking back to England. She was taken away for questioning, and arrested.

All her explanations, the DaneТs appeals, were of no avail. For some reason it was found necessary to take her to Petrograd. The last the young couple saw of Maisie was her being led away, weeping bitterly, and calling back to them, “I know that I shall never see Yorkshire now.” Maisie was young, perhaps frivolous, but never a spy. There is something about the story of her death that does not ring quite true. Certainly all over Russia, torn asunder, every disease and especially typhoid was rampant.

Maisie might well have caught some infection, but what was behind the purpose of taking her on a long journey to Petrograd? And was it not a strange coincidence that on arrival she should develop typhoid and die?

Only those who took this young woman away know the answer.

At last a letter arrived from Finland. Aunt Olga had startling news to tell us.

Uncle Oscar with his two young daughters went to Petrograd to report to the Kerensky government for further instructions, but no sooner had he arrived than LeninТs hostile government took over. Faced with no prospects of any position, suffering great privations, unable to return to Finland and already in ill health, he became worse and died, leaving his two daughters completely destitute. Zlata, fourteen years of age, tried to cross the border to Finland but was caught and thrown into prison where she suffered degradation and iniquitous treatment, but in the end, after numerous appeals, was freed to return to Finland. Her sister Ariadna found work as a nurse on a train carrying wounded, but on two occasions narrowly escaped being executed when the train, halting in various stations, was taken over either by the Bolsheviks or White guards and in each case she was accused of spying for the other side. She too eventually reached the safety of her home in Finland.

Meanwhile Aunt Olga, now a widow, married General Hjalmar Walinquist, who had been a police official under the TsarТs government but being a Finn still retained the same position under the new government of Finland. The general was an old friend of the family. Aunt Olga in the fullness of time produced her ninth daughter whom she christened Nina. During that eventful period my attractive cousin Militza, Aunt OlgaТs eldest daughter, having divorced Volodya Pasternak, had also embarked on her second marriage. All things considered, after reading this letter, the family arrived at the conclusion that Aunt Olga didnТt do too badly.

It was unbelievable how fast everything was deteriorating and how incompetent were those who governed us. People were living on the borders of starvation, suffering from scurvy and malnutrition.

The rouble completely lost its value and could buy nothing. Savings, investments, insurances vanished, leaving those who had worked and saved nakedly poor. As it was considered a waste of time to pay for admittance to cinemas, tramcars and whatever, tickets became a thing of the past.

People travelled free on overcrowded tramcars, which at times, depending on the whim of the driver, didnТt appear at all. Neither was it necessary to buy postage stamps for letters. People posted letters and just hoped that they might eventually reach their destination.

Meanwhile autumn was drawing nearer and with it the dread of the coming winter with its grinding frosts and hardships. In this great timber land, the greatest in the whole of Russia, if not the world, where wood was used as fuel to heat houses, run trains and industries, those who used to sell it were for some strange reason not allowed to do so any longer. Yet, as in all past summers, the timber rafts were arriving in front of our house and moving slowly down the river on their way to the sawmills. After they left there was the usual residue of loose timber, broken free from the rafts, either thrown ashore or bobbing on the surface of the water. Due to the shortage of fuel, people were now gathering on the shores collecting all they could. In this arduous profitable ploy the “Olonetskaya Companiya” joined wholeheartedly. At first it was comparatively simple to gather the small pieces on the banks, but later, having to wade out into the river and with the larger pieces slipping from our hands, we realised we had to find some ropes. Nearby in the garden of a house long since deserted, stood a maypole with ropes still attached to it. One morning the boys set off for the garden and while the solitary watchman was absent, scaled the maypole and returned with the necessary ropes. Logs were dragged out of the river, pulled up the stony shores, along the cobbled roadway and into our courtyard where they were sawn up in pieces and equally divided between us. But as the water became colder, the formidable task of swimming out for the timber, drifting further out each day, became more difficult.

Close by was the now abandoned Yacht Club, where inside a shed lay one or two scull-boats. By the simple expedient of “borrowing” a boat and rowing out to the drifting logs, we succeeded in towing some ashore. The hardest part of this activity was the dragging of waterlogged timber into the yard, and the sawing itself, at the price of blistered hands and aching limbs. Looking back, I sometimes ask myself where we found the strength to do all that we did. We were young, thin, undernourished, deprived of the necessary proteins and vitamins one hears so much of nowadays. Yet with great enthusiasm, day after day, we went down to the now cold and darkening river, and in the end, when there was no more to be gathered, were rewarded by the sight of a considerable quantity of firewood stacked in the woodshed.