Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [445]
For the first few minutes, the conversation was hesitant. Nicolai was curious about what his former friend had been doing but Popov gave him evasive answers, while Ulyanov seemed content to sit quietly watching them. Nicolai gathered that Popov had spent some time abroad, but that was all.
Yet it was a pity to let the opportunity go. He’s sure to be up to something, Nicolai thought. And then he’ll mysteriously disappear for another twenty years. So after a few more indirect passes he suddenly asked bluntly: ‘So tell me, Yevgeny Pavlovich, are you still working for the revolution – and when is it coming?’
He noticed Ulyanov look at Popov questioningly, and saw Popov answer with a little shrug. But nobody said anything. A few moments later, Ulyanov got up and left them for a while.
‘There’s an interesting man,’ Popov remarked pleasantly, after he had gone. ‘Where does he come from?’
‘Nowhere important: a small provincial town in the east, on the Volga. He actually owns an estate there – just a small one with a few poor peasants.’ Popov smiled wryly. ‘So he’s both a landowner and noble, technically. Don’t you recognize his name?’
Nicolai mentioned the student who was executed.
‘Exactly. This man’s his brother. The whole family were devastated at the time, of course. Vladimir was very shaken.’
‘He wouldn’t get mixed up in a plot like that himself?’
Popov grinned. ‘Vladimir Ilych is a lot more cautious.’
Nicolai commented on the lawyer’s Asiatic looks and Popov nodded. ‘You’re right. Actually, on the mother’s side I believe he’s part German and part Swedish; but the father’s family are Asiatic, certainly. They were Chuvash tribesmen.’
Of course. He should have guessed from the hair. The Chuvash were an old tribe of Asiatic origin, settled on the Volga, who frequently had reddish hair. ‘I was sure he wasn’t Russian,’ Nicolai said.
‘No. Actually, I doubt if he’s got a single drop of Russian blood in his veins.’
‘And what’s your interest in him?’ Nicolai asked.
For a moment, Popov only gazed at him blandly, saying nothing. Then, very quietly, he murmured: ‘I will tell you this, Nicolai, whatever this fellow may be, I have never met any man like him before.’
Just then, Ulyanov returned and this interesting discussion had to end. Nicolai was rather sorry. He had just been becoming curious about the quiet Chuvash lawyer-landowner. But any sense of disappointment he had was soon forgotten as Popov turned back to him and remarked with a faintly ironic smile: ‘So, Nicolai Mikhailovich, you were asking about the revolution.’
In after years it always seemed to Nicolai that the hour that followed was the most interesting he had ever spent in his life.
Popov spoke quietly, and well. Though from time to time Nicolai recognized flashes of the cold, conspiratorial fellow he had known in his student days, it soon became clear that Popov had developed into something broader since then – a man of larger ideas. A few details of his personal life also emerged. He had been married, but his wife had died. He had been sent to Siberia for three years and spent another year in prison. He had visited a number of European countries, including Britain.
Nicolai knew that, over the years, quite a number of Russian radicals had had to leave and live abroad. He had some idea of their life: constantly on the move, often travelling with forged papers and different identities; agitating, attending revolutionary conferences, writing articles