Authors: Mary Jane Staples
When Commissar Bukov returned to the room, she was gone, and the mistake he had made in not leaving the guard with her was something that, for years, ate like acid into his soul.
He had his men scour the town for her, of course, but they did not find her.
The Ekaterinburg Soviet was composed of men who had always been determined to murder not only the Tsar and Tsarina, but their children as well. Even they, however, did not like what Commissar Bukov had done. It was not because they felt sorrow or pity. The Revolution could not afford either of those emotions. No, the fact was that Bukov had made the mistake of being foolish. By his act he had outraged many citizens, and his soldiers had even had stones thrown at them. Further, the execution had not served the Revolution. He had extracted no information and had allowed the girl to get away. He was put under arrest, brought before a tribunal and sentenced to death. He asked for the sentence to be suspended so that he could find the girl. He
would find her, he said, and bring her back, no matter how long it took.
How long? One member of the tribunal permitted himself an ironic smile. Bukov was asking for the death sentence to be suspended, if necessary, for his lifetime.
However, his request was granted. Find the girl, the tribunal said, and the sentence would be reviewed.
It was one way of favouring a comrade who had wielded one of the Revolution’s more fiery swords.
They never thought, any more than Bukov did, of the question that for ever seared the soul of a girl who ran and hid.
‘If I had spoken, if I had told him, would I have saved you, Mama, would I have saved all of you?’
Berlin in 1925 was not the most cheerful city in the world. It was suffering the miseries of a post-war depression, made the more acute by the lingering bitterness of defeat and the imposition by the Allies of enormous reparations. But it had always had a robust heart, and that heart was still beating. Its café society still indulged in satire and self-mockery. Berliners had much the same kind of earthy resilience as London’s cockneys, and the same ability to laugh at themselves. Russians thrived on melancholy. Berliners thrived on satire. Their cartoonists were as brilliant at that as their cabaret stars.
Even so, one could not ignore the economic problems, the parlous plight of the unemployed, the power failures, the rising cost of food and the deteriorating look of a city too poor to afford even the cost of keeping its
streets clean. In the old quarter, near the river, the streets were particularly dirty and dingy, the tenements crowded with people miserably penurious. The housing shortage had been made worse by the influx of thousands of Russians fleeing the terrors of Bolshevism. They suffered, many of them, in being unable to find work. On the other hand, more than a few had managed to bring their fortunes with them. Their money, and their aristocratic titles, gave them power and influence in a city instinctively opposed to Bolshevism, and Berlin had become the centre of Russian counter-revolutionary organizations, including the monarchist factions.
Because of economies, only one public lamp gave light to the bridge over which the figure of a woman was walking on a quiet November night. She was heading towards the dark streets beyond the riverbank. A man in a black overcoat and fur hat passed her, going in the opposite direction. The woman, clad in a shapeless coat and shabby hat, did not look up. She hurried, as if he constituted a threat. Something made him turn as he approached the end of the bridge. He saw a dark figure emerge from the black shadows at the other end. The
figure approached the oncoming woman, his stride measured and slow. He seemed to be sauntering. But as he passed the woman, he turned swiftly and struck her from behind. He caught her as she fell, her hat dropping off. He placed her face down over the parapet. He stooped, took hold of her ankles and lifted her legs. Although the light was dim, his intention seemed obvious. He was about to toss her into the cold black river below.
But another blow was struck then, by the man in the fur hat, who had arrived at a fast, noiseless run. The blow rocked the assailant. He staggered back, letting go of the woman. She slid limply to the ground. Her saviour pounced to strike again. The assailant, undeniably a would-be murderer, ducked the blow, turned at speed and ran, disappearing, as he had come, into the darkness.
The man in the fur hat did not give chase. The bridge was deserted, the streets empty, the cold damp night unfriendly. He went down on one knee beside the woman, who was stirring and sighing. He helped her in her effort to sit up. She looked vague and disoriented, but she felt instinctively for her handbag. It was there, its strap looped around her wrist. Her instinctive
gesture was a sign of the times. These were the days – the years – when it was not uncommon for people who obviously had little to be robbed by people who imagined themselves to have less.
With the man’s assistance, she rose painfully to her feet. She sighed, as if life was a sad thing. With her hat lying on the ground, her black hair was disordered. An unruly mass of it framed her pale face. Dizzily, she put a hand to the back of her head and winced. He saw she was younger than he had thought, although her face was hollowed by privation and her eyes darkly ringed. Her coat was old and shabby, and looked as if it might have been given to her by some charitable dispenser of second-hand garments. Her lips, untouched by any rouge, were finely shaped, but pale.
Vaguely, she stared. In shock, she became aware of him, tall and looming. She put out a stiff arm and hand, as if to hold him off.
In accented but fluent German, she gasped, ‘You are a thief, a robber – but I have nothing to steal – go away!’
‘You’re quite safe, Fräulein, the unfriendly gentleman has gone.’ His own German was passable, although he sometimes needed
people to speak the language slowly to him in order to fully comprehend a conversation. He had picked German up during six months in a Bavarian prisoner-of-war camp.
The young woman swayed, her head in pain from the blow, her dizziness returning. He steadied her. She pushed him off. She was shocked and hurt, but she was also fierce. She gave him an angry and disbelieving look. It was always difficult to believe there were men who would rob people as poor as she was, but it happened, and frequently. The only consolation was that the robbers themselves were frequently victims of their own kind.
Her head hurt. This man had hit her. No. No, perhaps not. She realized then that there had been another man, different from this one: a man who had passed her in a casual way, only to turn and strike her head with something hard and solid. The blow had knocked her hat off and felled her. She remembered a long dark raincoat, the collar turned up, and a hat with its brim turned down. This other man was wearing a warm-looking black coat, with an astrakhan fur collar, and a fur hat.
‘What do you want? Go away.’ She was nervous and tense, but ready to fight if she had to.
‘Fräulein, are you all right?’ He felt concern. He felt, because of what he had seen, that he could not let her go on her way alone. She was obviously shaken, but just as obviously unaware of exactly what might have happened to her. ‘He hit you hard. So I struck at him and he ran off.’
‘What are you saying?’ She was dizzy and uncomprehending.
‘I hit him, Fräulein.’ The man spoke slowly, to get through to her. ‘I had to or he would—’ But he was not sure if he should tell her it had looked as if she was going to be pitched over the bridge and into the river. Should a young woman be casually told that someone had seemed intent on drowning her? Though why anyone should want to dispose so callously of such a sorry creature was a mystery. In the faint light of the lamp, she was not only desperately shabby, she was thin, pale and hungry-looking. There were smudges of dirt on her right cheek, and her dark-rimmed eyes were huge in her painfully thin face. She looked as if she might have been discarded by life, but not as if she ought to be drowned. One drowned unwanted kittens, but not young women, however wretched their appearance. ‘Can you swim, Fräulein?’
She stared in vague amazement at such a question at such a moment.
‘Swim?’ she repeated.
‘If you can’t, you should learn to.’ It was the nearest he could get to a broad hint concerning the fate she had narrowly escaped.
‘Now what are you saying?’ Her voice was faint because of weakness. But she was at least now aware that this man meant her no harm. It reached into her dizzy mind, the fact that he was a saviour and not another of Berlin’s countless thieves and footpads. She took her first real look at him. He had a firm and pleasant countenance, and an air of quiet reassurance, and his expression was one of kindness and concern. She had to thank him. She made an effort. She drew herself up. But her head throbbed and her limbs felt dangerously weak. Her condition was not helped by her hunger. She was badly in need of food. She sagged a little, and he at once put a hand on her arm.
‘Fräulein?’
‘I – I—’ She fought a sudden feeling of nausea. ‘I’m afraid I’m not very well.’
He thought there was something engaging about that little admission, something almost piquant, bravely piquant, and it touched him.
‘I believe you, Fräulein. You were struck very hard.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and gingerly fingered the back of her head again. There was no one else about, no one, and she experienced a strange little moment of wistful longing. It was a longing to have someone care about her, a longing born of this man’s kindness and concern, and his apparent inclination not to leave her until he was sure she was all right. He seemed a very distinguished person, and she desperately hoped that a new surge of nausea did not mean she was going to be sick in front of him. From out of the dark pit of hunger and weakness she dug up a further hope, a hope that he would not go away. It was an impossibly absurd hope, but it arrived and would not depart. ‘Life is so sad, mein Herr. It is very sad when a thief strikes a woman so that he can make it easier to rob her. It is even sadder when a woman has nothing but her papers, for such people will even steal those.’
‘Yes, I know.’ He had been in Berlin less than a week, but was already aware that identity papers were precious to people. It worried him that he knew what she did not, that there had been no attempt to rob her, only an obvious
attempt to drown her. ‘The world has not been a pleasant place for many years, Fräulein. Where do you live? You must allow me to see you home. Your family will be worried about you.’ His German was a little erratic in its grammar, but still passable. ‘Take my arm.’
She could not trust herself to walk yet, even with the aid of his arm. She was sure she would be sick. She saw him looking around. But it was very late, and there were neither trams nor taxis about.
‘I have no family,’ she whispered. ‘I have a corner in the passage of a house, where I’m allowed to sleep at night. I have one blanket, which I have to hide by day, or it would be taken. Isn’t that a sad thing, mein Herr? Oh, my head hurts each time I speak, and I think I’m going to be miserably sick.’
Her suffering stomach heaved then, empty though it was. She staggered to the parapet, leaned over it and gagged. It was fiercely humiliating, being so sick, and it racked her weak body. Her head seemed to burst with fiery light.
When she came to, she felt she was on a slowly moving swing. The sensation induced a return of the sick feeling for a moment. But almost at
once it was replaced by a feeling of comfort, and of a warmth that protected her from the damp coldness of the November night. She opened her eyes. The man looked down at her. Her head was resting against his shoulder. He was carrying her, his warm coat wrapped around her, his arms bearing her thin body without effort.
‘What is happening?’ she asked faintly.
‘I’m taking you to my apartment. I’m afraid you aren’t very well at all.’
‘I’m sorry I am such a nuisance.’
‘And I’m sorry the world is treating you so badly,’ he said. ‘You need something a little better than a corner in a cold passage. To start with, let’s say cognac and some hot soup.’
‘Oh, mein Herr, how kind you are.’ Her voice was a sighing ecstasy because of the promise of hot soup. She did not feel in the least afraid. He was a stranger with a foreign accent to his German, and he was taking her to his apartment. Wrapped in his coat, she felt very comfortable, and no, not in the least afraid. ‘I’m sorry I was so sick.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, and gave her a smile.
It was a warm smile, filled with reassurance. His eyes looked dark, because of the night,
but she could just discern the warmth, and the kindness.
Her heart turned over, painfully, and she felt very sad that shabbiness and privation had made her so unlovely.
It was well past midnight. The workers of Berlin were asleep, except for those who laboured by night. There were other people, however, rich and restless people, who were wide awake. They were the kind who preferred the excitement of night to the grey realities of day. They took themselves off to the clubs, the cafés and the restaurants, in company with gaudily attired female butterflies. The night lights of post-war Berlin drew the butterflies and scorched them, and when dawn came some lay in the ashes of their once bright wings.
While the compassionate man carried the suffering young woman through empty residential streets, the fashionable quarter of the city pulsated with life that was as artificial as tinsel, but as addictive as cocaine. And it had the same exhilarating effect as the drug. The cabaret shows glittered with fresh greasepaint and stardust. The satire was brilliant, brittle and irreverent. Whatever else had perished in the aftermath of defeat, cabaret had survived.
It flourished. It was wicked and outrageous, and, in some clubs, uproarious.
There were also night haunts with a special appeal for Russians. There were a hundred thousand Russian émigrés in Berlin. Berlin had received them sympathetically but sighingly, like a broad-bosomed hausfrau whose cupboard, unfortunately, was bare. Most of these Russian émigrés were either hoping for the Bolshevik regime in Moscow to collapse or actively plotting to speed its downfall. The monarchists were the strongest and most powerful faction, and the Supreme Monarchist Council represented the interests of all émigrés desiring a restoration of the Romanov dynasty. Following the murder of the Tsar seven years ago, his cousin, Grand Duke Kyril, had declared himself the rightful heir to the throne.