Читать книгу Behind the Curtain - Philip Gibbs - Страница 12

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It was the next day or perhaps a few days later—he could not be sure of his dates—that Vladimir was called out of his classroom by his schoolmaster.

He heard his name called out.

“Vladimir Michaelovitch!”

“Yes,” answered Vladimir.

“You’re wanted,” said the young schoolmaster. “Someone wishes to speak to you outside.” He spoke as though something had scared him. There was fear in his eyes and his voice trembled.

A boy next to Vladimir nudged him and whispered.

“I expect it’s the Cheka. You’re for it, tavarish. You’re going to be liquidated all right!”

“Shut up!” said Vladimir fiercely but in an undertone. “When I come back I’ll twist your nose.”

But there was a queer feeling at the pit of his stomach. He felt as though he wanted to be sick. His hands went suddenly cold. He had never felt like that before. Was it fear? he wondered. Did people feel like that when they were afraid? Was that why his mother turned white when she was frightened?

“Go into the door opposite,” said the schoolmaster. “Don’t be afraid, little tavarish.”

“Why should I be afraid?” asked Vladimir, raising his head. “My father is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Red Army.”

He went out of the schoolroom. In the corridor opposite was a door leading into a little room where the school-books were kept—a few tattered old books which had to be handed round in lesson-time.

He opened the door and saw a tall young man standing inside. He had a pale face and hair as black as the leather jacket he wore over riding breeches and black boots.

“Good morning, little comrade,” said the man in a pleasant voice.

“Good morning, comrade,” answered Vladimir, staring at him.

“Come and sit down, little man. Sit on this wooden box. I wish to ask you a few questions. That is all. About your family and so on. Quite friendly questions, you know.”

“My father,” said Vladimir, still staring at him warily, “is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Red Army.”

The man in the black jacket smiled, and Vladimir saw that three of his teeth were missing on the right side of his jaw.

“Yes, I know that. A fine officer, no doubt. A very fine war record. You ought to be proud at having such a distinguished father.”

“That is true,” said Vladimir.

He was quite certain that this man belonged to the terrible Cheka of which he had heard much in whispers from the other boys. He belonged to the Secret Police. People who were summoned by the Secret Police did not always come back. They disappeared for ever. He thought of his mother and father and little Olga. He didn’t want to disappear from them for ever.

“Your mother is English, isn’t she, little comrade?”

Vladimir felt his feet getting cold like his hands.

So he was going to be questioned about his little mother. He would have to shut his mouth tight. He would have to keep a lot of things secret.

“Yes,” he answered, “my mother came from England a long time ago. She is now the wife of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Red Army. They were married before I was born.”

The man in the black jacket laughed loudly.

“That’s an excellent answer, little comrade! It shows your mother was a wise young woman. Though of course she belongs to the English middle classes—the bourjoi whom we don’t like here in Russia, the enemies of the Revolution have now been liquidated.”

“My mother,” said Vladimir, “no longer belongs to the middle classes. She is the wife of a——”

The man in the black jacket smiled and showed the gaps in his teeth again.

“Yes, I know that. The wife of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Red Army. You needn’t mention that again, little comrade!”

“Very good,” said Vladimir.

“Very good,” answered the man. “And now just a few questions to an intelligent boy—little friendly questions which I hope you will be able to answer.”

He glanced at some notes on a bit of paper which he pulled out of his pocket.

“On Thursday the fifteenth of March, at four o’clock in the afternoon, three foreigners called at your father’s house. Did you open the door to them?”

“Yes,” said Vladimir.

“I have their names,” said the man. “One was Sir Timothy Petrie, an Englishman. The two others were Americans.”

“That’s quite right,” said Vladimir.

“Your mother came down to see them and talked with them for more than an hour. Is that so?”

“That is so, comrade.”

“What did they talk about? You remember some of their conversation?”

“Not much,” answered Vladimir. “The Englishman spoke about the famine. He had come to help, he told my mother.”

“Did he discuss the cause of the famine?”

“I didn’t hear him do so.”

“Did he denounce the Red Army or the Soviet State?”

“Why should he?” asked Vladimir.

The man in the black jacket frowned at him, a frown which made a deep furrow across his forehead and narrowed his eyes.

“I’m asking you whether he did. Answer me, little comrade.”

“I’m not very old,” said Vladimir. “I don’t take any interest in political questions. I was more interested in the Englishman’s clothes.”

“But you must know if he talked any politics with your mother.”

“I don’t remember,” answered Vladimir.

The man in the black jacket put his face close to the boy’s and there was an ugly look in his eyes.

“Little boys who lie must be whipped,” he said harshly. “You lie when you say you don’t remember. Tell me at once. What did the Englishman talk about with your mother?”

Vladimir was frightened. That man’s eyes seemed to pierce into him and read the thoughts in his mind. He was afraid that he might read things about his mother—her hatred of Soviet Russia, those words in which she had denounced the Cheka, the things she had said that night when the ballet people came, and all the secrets he had promised to keep. It would be terrible if he gave her away to this man.

“I don’t remember,” he said again, with a trembling lip, on the verge of tears. “I didn’t listen. I know nothing.”

The man in the black jacket was staring with horrible eyes, glaring eyes with a red glint in them.

“We have ways of making boys remember,” he said. “If you don’t try and remember you’ll be sorry for it, little comrade.”

He took hold of Vladimir’s wrist and wrenched it round, hurting the boy abominably.

But it was not the pain, it was the fear in him which made Vladimir turn white and sick. He was sick over the man’s hand and felt very faint as though he would fall off the chair.

The man in the black jacket sprang away from him.

“Dirty little pig!” he shouted. “Go back to your class-room.”

Vladimir slipped off the chair and walked as though he were drunk towards the door. The floor at his feet seemed to be going round and round. There was a swimming feeling in his head. When he entered the class-room he could not see the master or the boys. He couldn’t see anything, but fell onto the floor in a dead faint. He heard afterwards that the master Anton Petrovich had rushed at him and undone his collars. The boys had stood up staring at the prostrate form of their small comrade, excited and scared.

Vladimir was sent home as soon as he felt better. His mother opened the door to him and was frightened by his look.

“Good gracious, David!” she cried. “Are you ill, my poor dear?”

He flung himself at her weeping.

“Little Mother, Little Mother. They are after you. They wanted me to tell. But I told them nothing.”

He spoke of “they” and “them” as though the man in the black jacket had been a dozen men.

Lucy was frightened. She felt her heart give a lurch inside her, and she put her hand to her side. But she spoke bravely.

“What’s all this about?” she asked. “Who has been trying to scare you?”

Vladimir wiped the tears away from his eyes with his sleeve.

“It was a man in a black jacket,” he said. “He had terrible eyes and they pierced into me like gimlets. He asked me many questions about you.”

“What did you tell him, little David? What did you tell this man in the black jacket? None of our little secrets, I hope.”

Her eyes were smiling at Vladimir but her face had gone as white as chalk.

“It’s all right, Mother,” he said. “I didn’t say anything. But they’re watching you. They don’t like the Englishman’s visits.”

He lowered his voice and spoke in a whisper.

“Little Mother! ... The Cheka.”

“No, no!” said Lucy. “Nothing like that. Don’t speak that word, little David.”

“I’m hungry,” he told her. “I feel empty in my stomach.”

She gave him some food, and he heard her singing in the little kitchen, but he knew that this was pretence. She was only singing to pretend that she wasn’t frightened.

Sir Timothy came once again in the afternoon when Vladimir was writing a lesson on some scraps of paper which he had found on a rubbish heap. There was printing on one side but nothing on the other side so that they were good for homework.

Sir Timothy looked over the boy’s shoulder.

“You write well,” he said in a friendly way. “I wish my handwriting were as good as that!”

Vladimir felt his face flushing at this praise.

“My mother taught me,” he told the Englishman.

Lucy laughed and came over to where her son was writing and put her fingers through his tousled hair.

“I taught him to read and write. I’m rather proud of him.”

“You ought to be proud of yourself,” said Sir Timothy. “I admire your courage, my dear.”

Lucy answered in a low voice, but Vladimir heard what she said. She used an English word which he didn’t know.

“David,” she said. “Go and do your lessons with Olga.”

She wanted to get him out of the room so that she could speak privately with this Englishman. He guessed that at once, but gathered up his papers and went out of the room. But he left the door open so that he could hear bits of the talk between his mother and the Englishman.

She was talking to him about the chance of getting out of Russia with her two children.

“My husband won’t go,” she said. “But I’ve made up my mind to go without him if there’s any chance. Do you think that wicked?”

Vladimir heard those words, and felt vexed with his mother. It was very naughty of her to think of leaving his father like that. He would stay with his father anyhow. If his mother went she would have to go with Olga. If his mother went ... That would be frightful. His Little Mother meant so much to him, almost everything. He would weep for her a thousand times.

They were talking in low voices, the Englishman and his mother. He missed a lot of what they were saying though he kept his ears open.

“I’m afraid it’s impossible,” said Sir Timothy presently. “It’s too risky. As a British official I daren’t falsify any papers.”

Presently his mother began to weep. He was almost sure of that. He was almost certain that she was sobbing.

“It’s all very tragic for you,” said Sir Timothy. “I understand perfectly. I hate leaving you here.”

“You leave me in misery,” she cried. “Won’t you take pity on me?”

Sir Timothy tried to comfort her but Vladimir, listening intently, could not hear his words.

It was at least half an hour afterwards when Lucy called to her son by his pet name.

“David! Come and say good-bye to Sir Timothy. He is going away.”

Vladimir put his papers straight and then went into his mother’s room.

The Englishman held out his hand and spoke in his soft voice.

“Take care of your mother, little man. Good luck to you all. God bless you.”

Vladimir stared at him gravely.

“So you’re not taking her away?” he asked.

Sir Timothy looked startled.

“No, no!” he said hurriedly. “What put that into your head?”

“You’ve been listening, David!” cried Lucy. “That’s mean. I didn’t think you were a little cad!”

“I didn’t listen on purpose,” answered Vladimir not very truthfully. “I just couldn’t help hearing you now and then.”

“I hope you won’t tell anyone what you heard,” said Sir Timothy nervously. “It might be very dangerous for your mother—for all of you.”

Vladimir raised his head proudly.

“I have already been questioned by one of the Secret Police. I didn’t tell him anything. I was a bit sick, that’s all.”

Lucy put her arms round him and held him tight.

“You’ll never give your Little Mother away,” she said. “You’ll never tell the secrets between us, all the silly things I say.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say them,” answered Vladimir. “It makes it very difficult for me, always having to hide things. You say terrible things sometimes, Little Mother. You make my hair feel funny. I get cold down the back. Sometimes I laugh at them inside myself but sometimes I get frightened.”

“What a funny boy you are!” cried Lucy, pretending to be gay. “But you’re a darling all the same!”

Sir Timothy said good-bye. Before he left he bent over Lucy’s hand and kissed it as though she were a princess.

“Courage!” he said in a low voice. “Courage, my dear!”

“Give my love to England,” she answered. Then she gave a little laugh with a kind of sob in it.

“Give my love to Thornton Road and to the ducks on the pond, and to the English sparrows hopping around.”

“I will,” said Sir Timothy.

For a moment there seemed to be a little moisture in his eyes when he took off his glasses and wiped them on his handkerchief.

Then he went away.