Living My Life - Emma Goldman [269]
It was an ingenious scheme, recklessly daring, its adventurous quality enhanced by the beauty and youth of Makhno’s messenger. Presently Sasha and Henry arrived and we were all held spellbound by the passionate pleading of Gallina. Sasha’s conspiratory imagination caught fire and he was almost ready to consent. I also felt strongly tempted to accept. But there were others to consider, our companions of the expedition. We could not lead them blindly into something that was undoubtedly fraught with grave consequences. There was also something else that acted as a restraining influence. I had not yet been able to cut the last threads that bound me to the Bolsheviki as a revolutionary body. I felt I could not be guilty of deliberate deception towards those whom I was still trying to exonerate emotionally, though intellectually I could no longer accept them.
In the entire city there was no hiding-place for Makhno’s wife. My room offered scant security, but it was her only cover for the night. Tense and moving were the hours spent with Gallina. We sat in darkness, except for the pale moonlight that lit up now and then her lovely face. She seemed completely oblivious of the danger of her presence in my quarters. She was vital, and hungry for information about the life and work of her sisters abroad, particularly in America. What were the women doing there, she questioned, and what have they accomplished in independence and recognition? What was the relationship of the sexes, woman’s right to the child and to birth-control? Amazing was the thirst for knowledge and information in a girl born and bred in primitive surroundings. Her passionate eagerness was infectious and revived my own mainsprings for a while. The break of morning compelled us to part. Gallina walked out into the dawning day with brave and sure gait. I stood behind the portières, watching her receding figure.
After Gallina’s visit I no longer felt at ease in accepting aid even for our official mission. Not that I was conscious of any breach of confidence so far as the Bolsheviki were concerned. Makhno’s wife was in my estimation no counter-revolutionist; and even if I had thought her one, I should not have turned her over to certain death at the hands of the Cheka. Just the same, I realized that I had no business with the Revkom and I decided not to visit it any more. [ ... ]
On the way to Odessa we lost our good friend Henry Alsberg. Inadvertently he had caused his own arrest. Henry had joined the expedition without having secured the consent of the Moscow Cheka and he could have continued till the end of our journey without the eagle eye of the Soviet being able to discover his whereabouts. But he had added his signature to the telegram we had sent to Lenin in behalf of the arrested Albert Boni. As a result the All-Russian Cheka in the capital had at once sent orders to apprehend the criminal who had dared absent himself without its permission. Things moving at a snail’s pace in Russia, the command failed to reach Kiev while we were there. It was wired to every station along our route and overtook us in Zhmerinka. [ ... ]
Alsberg’s arrest proved the beginning of a chain of adversities that pursued us for the rest of our journey. Barely out of Zhmerinka we received the news of the defeat of the Twelfth Army and the advance of the Poles on Kiev. The line was clogged with military trains on their retreat, and at the stations