Pasha’s Story
London, England. July, 1938
It had been decades since Leonard had seen a sidearm levelled at him. And here in his well-to-do office, so many years later, the same man who had held the weapon then rested his finger on the trigger now.
‘Why don’t you put the gun down, Pasha?’
‘This is just a cheap single-action Nagant. Not one of the double-action versions that they gave to officers. But you know, in Russia these days, they make a few with the Red Star embossed on the handle. Right there. The award of such a gun is supposed to be one of the greatest honours that can be bestowed on a Party member. Isn’t that . . . hilarious? Or sick? I don’t know.’
Leonard watched his old friend in silence.
Pasha gestured to their surroundings with his revolver. ‘You’ve tried to bring a little of Russia to England. Jesus! All the tchotchke. The lace. That watercolour of the Urals. Why are you trying to remake what you once loathed?’
‘Because, even after all these years, I suppose it’s still home.’
‘Home sweet home, yes. A place of madness. Your words!’ Pasha extended his arm so the revolver was closer to Leonard’s face. He shouted, ‘You despised Russia and made a new life here! But now you’re trying to recreate the past!’ He breathed deeply. Lowered his voice. Lowered the sidearm. ‘Well, I can help you with that, comrade.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re a lucky man.’ Pasha smiled.
To Leonard, it looked like regret. Very gently, he asked, ‘What happened after I left?’
‘It was a shit-show. The truck broke down. Some of the soldiers broke down. We got rid of the bodies in the end. But . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Yurovsky went to work in a museum. A bloody museum! Can you imagine?’
‘Did he find the book he was always after? That he spoke of when he was in his cups?’
Pasha nodded. ‘That’s why he didn’t follow with the bodies immediately that night. He returned to the prisoners’ rooms, eventually found it. But . . . they say he went mad with remorse. Gave the thing away. It’s lost. Probably forever. It’s a good thing! Everything from that bloody time should have been lost. You know it’s all cursed, right?’
‘Are you saying that in the end . . . Yurovsky felt contrition?’
Pasha paused. Coughed. Thudded his chest with his left fist. ‘They say he felt horror and regret for his part in the slaughter. Good for him. Remember Ermakov?’
‘A monster. Of course.’
‘Did you know he murdered a man and chopped his head off for kicks, even before the revolution? That was the upstanding citizen they placed in a position of power. He’s still around, of course. People like that are always still around. Boozing and boasting about his role in the massacre.’
‘What about the others who had a hand in that night? Stepan Vaganov . . . Pavel Medvedev . . . Sergei Broido?’
‘Vaganov got a bullet through his brain in 1918. The next year, I think it was, Medvedev died in prison. The authorities said it was typhus. His widow said he’d been shot.’ Pasha shrugged. ‘Broido got his last year. Convicted of being a Trotskyist and . . .’ He aimed the Nagant at Leonard and made a motion of shooting it. ‘All dead.’
‘The younger men?’
‘Netrebin was only seventeen at the time. He . . . disappeared.’ Pasha started to pull a face, but a short fit of coughing interrupted him. ‘And the kid,’ he said as he caught his breath, ‘Nicholas Sadchikov . . .’
‘A rare guard, trusted by Yurovsky and the Romanovs.’
‘Yes. When he heard about their murders, he was inconsolable. Took his own life. At least, that’s the story. No, Leonid, out of all of us, you were the phoenix that flew from the flames. You’re a lucky man.’
‘Why do you keep saying that? Because of the past?’
‘No. Because of the future. Your near future. I married, by the way.’
‘Inessa?’
‘I forgot. Yes, you met her once, didn’t you? We married in ’19.’
‘Children?’
‘No.’
‘Is that why you say I’m a lucky man?’
‘No. She was the love of my life.’
Leonard picked up on the past tense. ‘And how is she? Is she—’
‘You’re to blame, Leonid. In that clearing, you looked at the savagery and said the world had gone mad. But you were part of that savagery! Leaving without sharing. Leaving me to the madness. You were to blame. You were part of it!’
‘I did what I had to do to protect Maria and George! They’re everything to me! I never—’
‘I was working on the railways. When I got back, she was gone. It was as simple as that. Everyone claimed they didn’t know what had happened to her, but we all knew. She’d been critical, you see. And so we all knew that she’d been taken to a gulag. I learnt years afterwards she’d died there. A nameless number on a list that was later misplaced. Her death, or I should say her removal from our life together, was so . . . perfunctory. I think that’s the word. She was there. She was gone. There was nothing to mark my wife’s passing. That is crushing.’
Leonid’s breathing became strained. ‘Oh, my God . . .’
‘Every day. Crushing. That’s why I say, you’re a lucky man, comrade.’