Читать книгу Behind the Curtain - Philip Gibbs - Страница 10

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It was at this time that Lucy had the joy of meeting an Englishman who came from England. He came one day with two Americans. Vladimir opened the door to them. His father was in the Kremlin as usual at this time and his mother was putting little Olga to bed.

He saw the three men standing at the door and saw at once that they were not Russians. That was because of their clothes. Two of them looked like foreign soldiers in mud-coloured uniforms with riding breeches and long beautiful boots with a fine polish on them. He knew them afterwards to be the two Americans Colonel Heinckel and Major Hunt. The other wore a fawn-coloured felt hat and a raincoat of the same colour strapped round the waist. He had wonderful shoes with fat soles and brown shoe-laces not to be seen in Russia. He was an elderly man, at least in the eyes of the boy Vladimir. His hair was touched with silver grey at the sides. Perhaps, thought Vladimir, he was a bit older than his own father who was very old indeed—something like thirty. His name, as Vladimir knew afterwards, was Sir Timothy Petrie.

The three men seemed not to know quite what to say when the door was opened to them by the boy.

One of the Americans spoke in bad Russian.

“We want to see a young lady. English, they tell us.”

Vladimir answered them in English.

“That’s my mother perhaps. But she’s not young. She’s nearly thirty.”

The Englishman laughed quietly.

“We’re all older than that. Are you her son?”

“Yes,” answered the boy. “That’s why I speak English. But I’m Russian and my father is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Red Army. My name is Vladimir Michaelovitch Rogov.”

“Say, that’s a mouthful!” exclaimed Colonel Heinckel the American with a good-natured laugh. “Well, sonny, tell your mother that a distinguished Englishman just from London, England, wishes to speak with her, and two less-distinguished Americans would also like the pleasure.”

Vladimir was not quite sure about that distinguished stuff but he felt excited by this visit of three strange people.

“Come in, comrades,” he said politely, “I will fetch my little mother.”

He took them into the sitting-room and made them welcome.

“There are some quite good chairs if you don’t sit on that one with only three legs. Won’t you sit down, comrades, while I tell my Little Mother?”

“Fine little fellow!” said Major Hunt.

Vladimir made a bolt from the room and rushed to the bedroom where his mother was reading Olga a story.

“Little Mother!” he cried in a kind of whisper. “Little Mother!”

“What’s the matter, David?” she asked, looking up from her book.

“It’s very exciting. Downstairs are two Americans and one Englishman. The Englishman has come to Russia all the way from London. He wants to talk to you.”

He saw an unbelieving look in his mother’s eyes and then a look as though something wonderful had happened, something which seemed too good to be true. She rose from the chair where she had been sitting by Olga’s little bed. She touched her hair with the tips of her fingers as though to tidy it.

“An Englishman!” she exclaimed. “From dear old London? No, it can’t be true. It couldn’t happen. The English are not allowed into Russia.”

“He’s certainly English,” answered Vladimir. “He looks like an English gentleman—you know—the kind you used to tell me about in Hyde Park on a Sunday or walking down Bond Street buying pearls and diamonds for nursery governesses.”

“Good gracious!” cried his mother, laughing. “Did I really tell you stories like that?”

Her face had flushed a little with the excitement of this visit. Her eyes shone like candles in the dark.

“Are you sure, David? Did he say he was English?”

“One of the Americans said so.”

“Why has he come to see me? How does he know I am here?”

Her face lost its colour. A look of fear came into her eyes.

“Perhaps it’s a trap,” she said in a low voice. “Maybe he’s a secret agent or something.”

Vladimir felt frightened by these words.

He remembered now. The English were the enemies of Russia. They had sent soldiers to fight against the Red Army in the Caucasus.

“Perhaps he has come to kill us,” he suggested. “If only Father would come back!”

“I’ll go and see,” said Lucy. “Stay here with Olga, David.”

Olga set up a wail.

“Is there an ogre down there?” she asked. “Or a bad old witch?”

“No! No!” answered Lucy. “It’s all right, little Olga. Don’t be frightened.”

“I must be frightened,” said Olga. “David looks frightened.”

“I’m not frightened,” said David sturdily. “Father is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Red Army. I am his son. I don’t get frightened. Russians aren’t frightened of the English. They just despise them.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Lucy sharply. “No one can despise England or the English. And don’t forget I’m English, my son!”

“You’re the wife of a Russian,” said Vladimir. “You’re the mother of a Russian boy and girl. Don’t forget that, little Mother.”

Lucy thrust her fingers through his hair.

“What a brat you are!” she said, half angrily. “Stay here, you imp.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Vladimir. “I have to protect you, Little Mother.”

In the corner of the room his father had left a rusty bayonet. Vladimir grabbed it and followed his mother downstairs after speaking gruffly to Olga who set up another wail.

“Shut up, you little fool! You aren’t a baby any more, are you?”

He followed his mother downstairs. She had smoothed her dress—an old black frock creased and stained by hard wear.

She went into the front room and the three strangers rose as she entered.

One of them—it was the Englishman—spoke to her.

“We heard there was an English lady living here. The nurses in one of the children’s homes told us. I hope you don’t mind our calling on you?”

“It is kind of you,” said Lucy guardedly. She was not yet certain that this was not a trap. How did she know that he was not an agent of the Cheka? Yet he looked kind and honest, and her heart was beating at the sound of his English voice and the English look of him dressed in English clothes.

“My name is Sir Timothy Petrie,” he said, introducing himself with a smile. “I am here on a mission from the British Government to enquire into the famine. We get very little news out of Russia, and what comes through Riga is not always true. The British Government is not even sure that there is a famine.”

“There’s a dreadful famine!” Lucy told him. “Millions of people along the Volga are hungry and have no more food. The children are leaving the villages like rats. They swarm into Kazan in search of food.”

“Yes,” said Sir Timothy. “I’ve been to some of the children’s homes. They huddle together for warmth all naked like little monkeys. I’ve never seen anything so pitiable.”

“They have to burn their clothes,” said Lucy. “They’re all verminous, you know, and that causes typhus.”

Sir Timothy nodded.

“I know. It’s the very devil, this typhus in Russia.”

Lucy questioned him again.

“Why does the British Government want to know? What can they do?”

“We’ve a lot of stores left over from the war. We’re trying to help the stricken peoples of Europe.”

One of the Americans spoke. It was Colonel Heinckel.

“The same thing goes with the United States. The American folk will be glad to help the Russians and especially the children. Humanity cuts out political differences. We’re anti-Soviet—yes, sir!—but we’re keen to help the kiddies.”

“Oh, if you could only help!” cried Lucy. “It’s terrible here in Russia. It’s all beyond words.”

Her suspicions of these men faded from her mind. They had come to help. They had come to rescue the Russian children. They were messengers of mercy.

She had cried out in a tragic way, but now she turned to Sir Timothy Petrie, whose hair was touched with silver, and spoke to him emotionally with a light in her eyes.

“Have you come straight from England? How long is it since you have been in England?”

“Two weeks ago,” he told her. “I came by way of Berlin.”

“Two weeks?” She laughed with a sob in her throat.

“Only two weeks? How wonderful! I haven’t seen England for ten years, which is like a lifetime and like a nightmare. How’s dear old London? How does it look? Have the English people changed? Do the buses still roar along the Strand?”

“Not much change outwardly,” answered Sir Timothy. “But the war was very grim. We lost so many of our best young men. We still bleed from our wounds. But you wouldn’t notice it. There’s a lot of unemployment now—fellows who have lost their arms and legs playing bands at the street corners. But apart from that it all looks the same. It has been a long exile for you in war and revolution. Thank God England was spared a revolution. Tell us something about your own experiences.”

He smiled into her eyes and she saw pity and kindness in his smile.

“I couldn’t begin to tell you,” she said. “You would hardly believe it if I did. And anyhow it’s dangerous. One can’t speak freely in Russia.”

“You certainly can’t!” said one of the Americans, who was Major Hunt. “Maybe that’s always the case after revolution.”

Lucy turned to Sir Timothy again.

“Do you happen to know Clapham?” she asked with a nervous little laugh. “One of the suburbs, you know.”

Sir Timothy Petrie did not need to be told that.

“I have an aunt living in Clapham Park. I often go to see her and stroll on the Common. She lives in Thornton Road.”

Lucy’s face flushed.

“How extraordinary! My home was there. My father had a house at the corner. How wonderful to think you know Thornton Road!”

She laughed excitedly.

“This is like a fairy-tale. I haven’t seen an Englishman for ten years and he has an aunt living in Thornton Road, Clapham Park!”

Suddenly she realized that her guests were still standing.

“Oh, lord!” she cried. “I’ve lost all my manners. Do sit down. I’ll make you some tea in the old samovar.”

“Don’t worry about that, lady,” said Colonel Heinckel.

“We haven’t come here to drink your tea or eat your rations. Who’s that young fellow lurking behind the door?”

It was Vladimir who had been listening to all this talk still grasping the rusty bayonet but aware now that it would not be needed.

Lucy called to him.

“Come in, David! Come and talk your best English. Your hair looks as if you hadn’t combed it for a week!”

David advanced selfconsciously. He had dropped the bayonet outside.

“Good afternoon,” he said, politely but coldly.

“Your son?” asked Sir Timothy, turning to Lucy with a smile.

She nodded.

“My little Bolshevik!” she told him.

When Sir Timothy held out his hand young Vladimir did not take it and stood straight.

“England is the enemy of Russia,” he said. “I don’t shake hands with the enemies of Russia.”

Lucy caught hold of his right ear and pulled it.

“You little jackanapes!” she cried. “Haven’t I taught you good manners? Are you going to disgrace me before these kind gentlemen?”

Sir Timothy poured oil on the troubled waters.

“England is not the enemy of Russia, my dear boy,” he said.

“You sent your soldiers to fight against the Red Army,” said Vladimir. “We don’t forget that. Also you and the Americans belong to the corrupt and degenerate pluto-democracies.”

Colonel Heinckel laughed loudly.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” he said. “This small boy has learnt some very long words.”

Lucy was vexed and humiliated.

“Leave the room, David. Go up to bed. I’ll give you a whipping when I come up. If you don’t know how to behave——”

Vladimir strode out of the room with his chin up. He had, he thought, behaved nobly as the son of a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Red Army.

For an hour after he heard the voices of the three strangers deep and heavy and his mother’s lighter musical voice now and then. His Little Mother spoke excitedly. Several times she laughed in answer to one of the Americans. A smell of cigarettes made his nostrils tingle. Then they left and he heard them saying good-bye. He was awake when his mother crept up to her room where Olga was asleep in the other bed. She laughed at him when she saw his eyes open.

“You little varmint!” she said in a low voice so as not to wake up Olga. “You and your Lieutenant-Colonel of the Red Army! What about your little English mother?”

He held out his arms to her.

“You can’t help being English,” he said. “But you know they were the enemies of Russia, even if they’re not now.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” she told him, snuggling down for a moment with her cheek upon his. “England is the best country in the world and you ought to be proud to have an English mother.”

Suddenly she began to laugh quietly.

“Why are you laughing, Little Mother?” he asked.

“Fancy Sir Timothy having an aunt in Thornton Road, Clapham! It was where I was a little girl with my brothers and sisters before you were born, little David—before all this.”

“Why are your eyes wet?” he asked. “Why do you cry when you laugh?”