Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [527]
However, if Vladimir Ilich wanted his Committees of the Poor, he should have them. Popov looked about him. ‘You,’ he suddenly pointed to young Ivan, ‘your mother’s a widow. What land do you hold in the village?’
It was true that, as an orphan and with no help from his uncle, Ivan actually had the smallest holding of any male in the village just then.
‘I am putting you in charge of the Committee,’ Popov said with a smile. ‘How’s that?’
There would be a Committee on paper, anyway. He wondered how long the boy would last.
It was late afternoon when Popov, satisfied with his day’s work, returned to Russka. On his way, he passed the monastery. It was empty now. The monks had been forced to abandon their home after the confiscations of January; but strangely enough, hoping that the government might relent or be overthrown, they had left everything in place. An old priest who still resided in the town kept an eye on things.
Since he was here, it occurred to Popov he might as well inspect the monastery too. ‘We’ll go in,’ he said.
It was entirely empty and very quiet. The kitchens and storehouse had been ransacked at some point, and a few of the windows had been broken, but otherwise the monastery had not been harmed. Popov walked all over it, carefully, by himself. When he had finished, he was glad he had taken the trouble; he made a brief note: ‘Monastery at Russka will make an excellent small prison or detention house. Inform Cheka.’
He had certainly done a good day’s work.
When he returned to the entrance, he found that the soldiers had built a small bonfire. The young commissar was busy carrying things out of the church to burn. Popov looked at him in mild surprise: the objects he was carrying were icons. ‘I didn’t know you were so strongly anti-religion,’ he remarked mildly.
‘Oh, yes. Aren’t we all?’
Popov shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
He glanced at the icon the fellow was tossing on the fire. It looked vaguely familiar. ‘I think that one may be rather good,’ he remarked.
‘No such thing as a good icon,’ the other replied.
‘Perhaps.’ He watched the little object begin to burn. Its lines had a remarkable grace.
And so disappeared the greatest gift of the Bobrovs to the little religious house: the icon by the great Rublev.
As darkness fell that summer night, long after the little bonfire in the monastery had died down, a single figure emerged from the woods below the village to the river bank where Arina was waiting with a small boat.
Ivan had been hiding since the soldiers left. After the events of that afternoon, he had no choice. Would the sons of Boris Romanov forgive him for getting their father killed? Would the villagers forget he had given away their grain? As for this position the Bolshevik had just given him on this Committee – that in itself might have been his death warrant. ‘If I’m here in the morning, I’ll be dead,’ he had told his mother, and she knew it was true.
Now she helped him into the boat.
‘Which way are you going?’ she asked.
‘South. I daren’t go past the village. I’ll get down to the Oka, then follow it to Murom, I dare say.’
‘And what will you do?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Join the army maybe.’ He smiled despite himself. ‘Seems the safest place to be!’
‘Here’s money.’ Arina kissed him. ‘You’re my only son,’ she said simply. ‘If you die, I want to know. Otherwise I shall believe you are alive.’
‘I’ll live.’
Once again he embraced her, then got into the boat.
There was a quarter moon, away to the south. He pushed the boat out and began to row, slowly up the silvery stream towards it.
1920, October
It was getting cold but the work was nearly done: a simple mopping up operation. The truck and the artillery piece before them were little more than charred metal. Half a dozen bodies lay there, and one man apparently alive. An officer.