Chapter 24
PAVEL
With the money we killed for and stole, we created
so many spies. If the Tsar thought he had many secret agents
watching us, why, within months we had more than him, an entire
secret army watching him and his. People were sick of the way the
Romanovs had treated us, sitting upon us and trading us like we
were cords of wood. But no more, we had stepped forward and we
would fight back! Yes, and so we had spies spying on people, and
people spying on spies, and so on and so forth. Frankly, there was
only one problem: I never knew which comrade to trust.
Our Poet was soon taken to the Boutyrsk Prison,
where with a few bitter words about capitalism and a fistful of
rubles we managed to convert some of the guards to our side. We
wanted—we needed—to know how Kalyayev was getting along, not just
because we cared for him but more importantly because we needed to
know if he’d cracked and revealed anything about us, which, as we
learned, he hadn’t. That he continued to be the perfect
revolutionary and remained loyal to the Organization came not as a
surprise, just more of a relief, and his unbroken dedication to the
overthrow of the Tsar inspired us more than ever.
There was only one thing that caused us distress,
news of which came directly from Kalyayev in a smuggled letter. He
was incredibly angry. Tormented. And in the smallest handwriting on
a scrap of paper, he told why, that it was because of her, that
Romanov woman, the Grand Duchess who should have died with her evil
husband. What filled him with bitter regret was that news of his
meeting with her was passed up and down the street, and appeared in
every newspaper, each version more strange and different than the
last.
“Comrades,” he wrote to us, “please forgive me my
foolish deed, please don’t think ill of me! I should not have met
with her . . . it makes me feel a traitor to the
Organization!”
So upset was he that in short time he even wrote
her a letter, a copy of which he made sure our spies got to us, for
he wanted us, his comrades, to know what really happened.
Princess—
I did not know you, you came to me of your own
accord: therefore the responsibility for the consequences of our
meeting lies solely with you.
Our meeting took place, to all outward appearances,
in circumstances of intimacy. What passed between us was not meant
for publication but concerned us alone. We met on neutral ground,
at your own direction, tête-à-tête, and were thus entitled to the
same right of incognito. How otherwise to explain your selfless
Christian feeling?
I trusted your nobility, supposing that your
exalted official position and your personal merit would provide suf
ficient guarantee against the kind of malicious intrigue in which
even you, to some extent, have been implicated. But you were not
afraid to be seen involved: my trust in you has not been
justified.
There is malicious intrigue and tendentious
versions of our private meeting. The question arises: could either
have happened without your participation, albeit passive, in the
form of nonresistance, when your honor dictated the opposite course
of action? The answer is contained in the question itself, and I
protest vigorously against a political interpretation of my decent
feelings of sympathy for you and your grief. My convictions and my
attitude to the Imperial House remain unchanged.
I fully recognize my own mistake: I should have
reacted to you impassively and not entered into any conversation.
But I was gentle with you, and during our meeting I suppressed that
feeling of hatred, which in reality I feel for you. You know now
what motive guided me. But you have proved unworthy of my
magnanimity. Because for me there is no doubt that you are the
source of all the stories about me, for who would have dared to
reveal the substance of our conversation without first asking your
permission (the newspaper version is distorted: I never admitted to
being a Believer, I never expressed the slightest
repentance).
The fact you remained alive is also my victory, and
one that made me rejoice doubly when the Grand Duke had been
killed.
—Kalyayev
Ha! Talk about a real man, talk about
honesty!
Actually, though, that last part was not quite
right. His victory? Not really, more like my little mistake. And
back then I was quite sure she never, ever realized it—that that
Romanov woman never knew that the reason she lived past her husband
was not because of some God or Kalyayev, but because of me, a
cowardly revolutionary who was afraid to act as she traveled to the
opera. Oh, and when I read that letter I came up with a fat wish,
that one day our paths should cross and I could . . . could . .
.
Yes, my revolution burned with the hot embers of
revenge.
A few months later, that May, actually, Kalyayev
was secretly transferred to the capital and from Peterburg to the
Shlisselburg Fortress way out on that small island, where they
planned to take his life. I saw it all, too, for I killed someone
else, a stupid merchant. Sure, I cut that guy’s fat neck, stole all
his money, and then used those rubles to bribe one of the guards to
get my way into the fortress just so I could watch them kill my
great hero.
The execution of Our Poet was supposed to be
secret, because they wanted no one of the people to know, because
the bigwigs were afraid that riots would break out. And so at two
o’clock in the morning, just as the first of the northern morning
light was beginning to color the sky, they brought Kalyayev out. In
the yard there were only a handful of officials, some guards, some
prison people, and me, too, standing way at the back in the uniform
of a yard worker. I wanted to wave, to call out, to say, “Don’t
worry, I will witness your end and spread word far and wide of your
bravery!” But I kept quiet. To my eyes he looked thinner, otherwise
normal. And he mounted the scaffold without hesitation or
assistance. Yes, true to his word, he was eager to die for the
cause.
At the top of the steps he was met by a
gray-bearded priest robed in black, who asked, “Would you like to
address a last prayer to God, my son?”
Kalyayev shook his head, turned to the few of us
there, and shouted, “I am happy to die for the cause of the
Revolution! I am happy to have retained my composure right until
the end!”
His words made me smile with pride, and I’ve always
cherished the thought that maybe he recognized me out there, for I
saw something—a grin of recognition, perhaps even a wink—when he
looked my way. The next moment he was led up onto the block, and
the beasty executioner, wearing a white shroud and red bonnet,
smiled as wide as an opera singer. Having done this hundreds of
times if not more, the executioner threw a rope over Kalyayev’s
neck—and then in the blink of a second he knocked away the very
block on which my hero was perched.
But the rope was too long!
Oh, dear Lord, it was so cruel the way Kalyayev
fell, dropping through the air until his feet hit the ground. He
cried out as he choked and struggled and half tumbled over, yet the
rope kept him kind of upright. It was disgusting to see the way
that young man twisted this way and that like a fish hanging from a
pole and slapping the ground! Even the officials cried out in
shock! Even I shut my eyes, so painful was it to see Our Poet
stretched between life and death! It was only when the idiot
executioner in his red bonnet and two others hoisted desperately on
the rope, yanking Kalyayev completely up into the air, that they
finished the job, either breaking his neck or choking him, I
couldn’t tell which. Radi boga, even I had never been so
mean, even I had always done a better job of killing someone.
And though our beloved Kalyayev met an early end,
our young Revolution, its roots fed by his blood, was bursting with
violent life! And I’ll shout it again and again, “Da zdravstvuet
revolutsiya!”