Dmitri and the Milk-Drinkers Read online

  He shook his head and then turned to Anna Semeonova.

  ‘I know what to make of you, though, love. Like to come into the grass?’

  ‘You cut that out!’ said Dmitri.

  ‘No blows!’ cried Timofei, running forward.

  ‘He is a Milk-Drinker, then!’ said the sergeant.

  He caught Dmitri a little flick with his whip.

  ‘And you’re a trouble-maker, are you?’

  ‘I’m a lawyer,’ said Dmitri, ‘and I am returning to Kursk with my client. I have my papers with me.’

  ‘Like this?’ said the Cossack. Nevertheless he dismounted from his horse and held out his hand for the papers.

  He read them slowly.

  ‘So who do you reckon you are, then?’ he said, eyeing Dmitri.

  ‘Kameron. Examining Magistrate to the Court of Kursk.’

  ‘And she,’ said the Cossack, ‘would be …?’

  ‘I am Anna Semeonova.’

  The Cossack looked at the papers again.

  ‘Stolen,’ he said dismissively. He was uncertain enough, however, to give the papers back to Dmitri.

  And to take them, not to Tiumen, but to Ekaterinburg.

  ‘Boss,’ said the sergeant, standing outside the door of the Chief of Police’s office at Ekaterinburg, ‘we’ve got visitors for you.’

  The ‘Boss’ was purely honorific. The Chief of Police was not the sergeant’s boss. The Cossacks came under the Exile Administration. They were, however, inclined to refer to anyone who occupied an office as ‘Boss’. That didn’t mean that they didn’t despise them.

  ‘Bring them in, then,’ said a voice which sounded vaguely familiar.

  The Chief of Police was bent over a filing cabinet with his back towards them.

  ‘Well?’ he said, without looking at them.

  ‘We picked them up over by Virgonsk. We think they were running away.’

  ‘Why not run them back, then?’

  The sergeant hesitated.

  ‘Boss, it may not be that straightforward. They’ve got papers.’

  ‘Show me them.’

  The Chief of Police turned. His jaw dropped.

  ‘My God!’ he said.

  It was Novikov, ex-Chief of Police at Kursk.

  ‘But what are you doing here?’ asked Dmitri.

  ‘I was posted here,’ said Novikov, unable to keep his eyes off Anna Semeonova. ‘After the unfortunate disappearance of …’

  He pulled himself together.

  ‘But, my dear Anna Semeonova!’ he said. ‘Such a pleasure!’ He bent over her hand. ‘You’ll take some tea, of course? And cakes? Get some cakes, you fool!’ he said to someone in an inner room. ‘And tea! And – and some vodka. I rather think I need some vodka.’

  ‘What’s all this?’ said the Cossack, bewildered. ‘Cakes?’

  ‘Off you go!’ said Novikov, pushing him towards the door. ‘Off you go! Quick! There’s been some dreadful mistake.’

  ‘Mistake?’ said the Cossack. ‘Right, I’ll be off then. At once!’

  They heard his boots clattering down the stairs.

  ‘My dear Anna Semeonova! So pleased to see you! How is your father? And Dmitri Alexandrovich, too! Such a pleasure!’ He shook Dmitri’s hand warmly. ‘And’ – more doubtfully 0 ‘these two gentlemen …’

  ‘They have been helping me in my inquiries.’

  ‘Quite so. Delighted to meet you, gentlemen! Some tea, perhaps?’

  ‘Did I hear someone say vodka?’ asked Methodosius.

  Novikov produced a bottle from his filing cabinet and then, with a shaking hand, filled glasses.

  ‘For you, sir?’ he said, turning to Timofei.

  ‘He would prefer milk,’ said Anna Semeonova.

  ‘Ah, yes. Milk. And tea. And vodka. And – and cakes.’

  ‘I would like to sit down,’ said Anna Semeonova.

  Some time later Novikov rose, a trifle unsteadily, to his feet.

  ‘Dmitri Alexandrovich! Sir, a toast! To your continued success in your profession!’

  He drained the glass, tossed it over his shoulder, then clasped Dmitri warmly to his bosom.

  ‘My dear sir! I must congratulate you. This is really almost too much for me! To be there at the start, almost, one might say, to assist in the start, of a great career! Really …’

  He wiped his eyes and opened his arms again.

  ‘But I have to say, it is no surprise to me. Right from your first day I said to myself: “This young man will go far!” I said so to Peter Ivanovich, too. “Your Honour,” I said, “this man will go far! Such a mind! Oh,” I said, “they may be able to pull the wool over our eyes, but they won’t be able to do that with Dmitri Alexandrovich!” And I was right, wasn’t I? You were the one who worked it out. That Shumin! I don’t know what they were doing at the door to let a woman like that, a notorious terrorist, walk straight out. And, all the time, my poor, dear Anna Semeonova …’

  He burst into tears.

  ‘If only I had known, my dear! If only I had guessed! But it took someone sharp like Dmitri Alexandrovich to see – and I, I, fool that I was, let that dear, dear girl go into exile when I would have given my heart – ’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Anna Semeonova.

  ‘Not my fault!’ said Novikov. ‘Oh, my precious one, you don’t know what good it does me to hear you say that! Say it again, say it again, please!’

  ‘It really wasn’t your fault – ’

  ‘Oh, my dear!’ Novikov fell on his knees before her. ‘You will say that, won’t you, back in Kursk? To your father? To his friends? Even – yes, perhaps – to Prince Dolgorukov? And then one day – one day, maybe, just possibly – I won’t have to stay in this awful place any longer? It wasn’t my fault, you know, it wasn’t my fault. You will say that, won’t you?’

  ‘I will,’ said Anna Semeonova kindly.

  ‘Oh, blessed one!’ He seized her hand and kissed it. ‘Tell them that I helped you, that I would have helped you – oh, if I could only help you!’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact …’ said Dmitri.

  Methodosius climbed gingerly up into the train.

  ‘They didn’t have these when I was here before,’ he said.

  He and Timofei sat uncomfortably on the edge of their seats.

  After a while, Methodosius clutched at his stomach.

  ‘Barin,’ he said – he had taken to calling Dmitri “Barin,” much to Dmitri’s irritation – ‘I feel sick.’

  Dmitri and Timofei took him to the end of the coach, where there was a little platform. Afterwards, he returned to his seat and sat there pale and uneasy.

  At the next stop he and Timofei climbed down and walked about a little. When the train restarted they were nowhere to be found. Imagining they had boarded the train somewhere else, Dmitri walked the length of the train searching for them.

  ‘Perhaps it’s better like this,’ said Anna Semeonova. She was silent for a moment. ‘Perhaps it would be better for me, too,’ she said to herself, almost in a whisper.

  Perm was the city where the railway stage ended. It was also the city where Dmitri had had his brush with the Chief of Police. He brushed again.

  ‘Yes, your papers are all right,’ said the Chief of Police. ‘But what about hers?’

  ‘She is the woman referred to.’

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean she can travel without papers. Where have her papers got to?’

  ‘Such papers as she had are with the authorities at Tiumen,’ said Dmitri patiently.

  ‘Tiumen? I don’t like the sound of that! Is she a convict or something?’

  ‘If you read the papers again,’ said Dmitri, with heroic self-command, ‘you will see that she is not a convict but an innocent person wrongly transported.’

  ‘Yes, but she should still have papers. There ought to be papers of release. Otherwise she might be anyone, mightn’t she?’

  She might, indeed.

  Dmitri did everything he could to pers
uade the Chief of Police, but without success. The papers had to be sent for from Tiumen. The most he was able to achieve was that while they were waiting for them Anna Semeonova could be lodged in a hotel the same hotel as Dmitri.

  The same hotel as it happened, as judges used when they were on circuit in the remoter wastes of the border country. Such cities as there were did not merit a judge of their own and the province’s judges were perpetually travelling.

  As Dmitri and Anna Semeonova went into the dining room the following morning, Dmitri heard a voice which sounded vaguely familiar. It was taking issue with the waiter.

  ‘Haven’t you anything else?’

  ‘Cabbage soup?’ suggested the waiter hopefully.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Beetroot?’

  ‘Haven’t you anything which is, well, less traditional?’

  ‘Fish soup?’

  ‘What sort of fish?’

  The waiter scratched his head.

  ‘Well, the usual sort.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll go straight to the second course,’ said the judge. ‘Now – ’

  He looked up and saw Dmitri and Anna Semeonova. His jaw dropped.

  It was Peter Ivanovich, former Presiding Judge at the Court of Kursk.

  ‘But, my dear fellow, my dear young lady!’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Dmitri.

  ‘I was transferred here. After that unfortunate incident involving – ’

  He couldn’t take his eyes off Anna Semeonova.

  ‘But this is wonderful news!’ he cried, recovering swiftly. Swift recovery had always been something that Peter Ivanovich had prided himself on. Lately he had feared that the capacity was going.

  ‘Now, I really must insist! Please, please! I will not take “no” for an answer. You really must join me. Waiter! Champagne! One, two – no, three bottles!’

  After the first he took Anna Semeonova by the hand.

  ‘My dear!’ he said fondly. ‘How good it is to see you! And to see you looking so well! A trifle thinner, perhaps? What is the food like in … in … Where did you say the place was? Well, it can’t be worse than here. And now you are on your way home? Well, remember me to your father. Yes, yes!’ cried Peter Ivanovich, suddenly lighting up. ‘Remember me to your father! Do, do! Say that my dearest memories – my fondest hope – yes, my fondest hope would be to see his darling daughter restored again to the bosom of her family, yes, yes, to actually see it! See Kursk again, the blessed dome of the church, those hideous carvings on the front of the Court House – oh, if only!’

  ‘You wouldn’t care to do something for us, would you?’ said Dmitri.

  Dmitri had hoped to take advantage of the shining hour, at least so far as Anna Semeonova was concerned, during the long journey back up the Volga. Anna Semeonova had withdrawn into herself, however.

  ‘There are some things I’ve got to think about,’ she said pointedly.

  There were some things Dmitri had to think about, too; and a few more when at last the boat docked at Nizhni Novgorod. Men from the Ministry of the Interior were checking the papers of everyone as they disembarked. When they came to Dmitri’s and Anna Semeonova’s, they looked puzzled and went away for private confabulation. Then they called them aside.

  ‘They won’t do,’ they said.

  ‘Won’t do?’ said Dmitri. He took the paper that Peter Ivanovich had signed only a few days before back at Perm and waved it under their noses. ‘Look! Signed by a judge! Official release by the Ministry of Justice!’

  ‘Ah, but that’s the Ministry of Justice.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We’re Ministry of Interior. It’s got to be signed by us.’

  ‘Well bloody sign it then!’

  ‘Can’t do that. It’s got to be done by someone senior.’

  Dmitri fumed.

  ‘In any case …’

  They were looking at his papers now.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ one of them said to the other.

  The other shrugged.

  ‘Well, he’s the one to sort it out!’

  Dmitri and Anna Semeonova were taken not to the police station that Dmitri had visited before but to an altogether grander building. Ministry of Interior guards clustered at the entrance and were spread about the corridors inside. Two of them took Dmitri and Anna Semeonova up some stairs and along to a room with huge, imposing doors. They entered a small ante room with a door on the other side. One of the guards tapped discreetly and went in.

  ‘Bring them in!’ said a voice which Dmitri couldn’t quite place but which sounded –

  Inside, a man was sitting at a large desk with his head bent over some papers. He looked up.

  ‘Good God!’ he said.

  It was Porfiri Porfirovich, late President of the Special Tribunal at the Court of Kursk.

  ‘But I didn’t expect you to come back!’ said Porfiri Porfirovich.

  ‘Well, thanks,’ said Dmitri.

  ‘I didn’t imagine for one moment …’ His shocked eyes took in Anna Semeonova. ‘Is this the young lady? You found her? And brought her back? Here?’

  He buried his face in his hands.

  ‘What am I going to do? What am I going to do?’

  ‘Do?’ said Dmitri.

  ‘Well, I can’t just let you go, can I? Let you go back to Kursk? It would all come out. The whole thing! It would reflect so badly on the Ministry, on – on the system, on everything!’

  ‘You’re not going to send us back to Tiumen!’ said Anna Semeonova, stunned.

  ‘We-ell …’

  Dmitri leaned forward.

  ‘Porfiri Porfirovich, are you happy here?’

  ‘Happy? In Nizhni Novgorod?’

  ‘This is your chance,’ said Dmitri.

  13

  When they got back to Kursk, the first thing Dmitri did was to write two reports.

  In the first one he gave an account of his search for Anna Semeonova, described the difficulties he had faced, and made recommendations. Some of the recommendations were actually implemented and the report as a whole was officially welcomed. Since Anna Semeonova was now restored to the bosom of her family, and since, in the view of many, she had largely brought the whole thing on herself, not much further action seemed necessary. Those unfortunate enough to be caught with the responsibility – Porfiri Porfirovich, Peter Ivanovich and Novikov – had already been transferred, which was probably punishment too much. Dmitri did put in a word for them and in the course of time they were moved a few hundred miles nearer St Petersburg. On the whole, though, all parties – Anna Semeonova’s family, Anna Semeonova her slightly shamefaced self, and certainly the authorities – felt that the affair should be allowed to die as quickly as possible.

  Anna Semeonova’s parents proposed to take her abroad.

  ‘You need a good holiday,’ they said.

  But Anna Semeonova didn’t want a holiday. She wanted to testify, she said.

  In his second report, Dmitri described the incident in the forest, gave the names of those concerned, listed his evidence and cited witnesses. He sent the report directly to the Minister of Justice.

  After a while, when he heard nothing, he asked to see the Minister. A little unexpectedly – for he had expected to be fobbed off with underlings – an appointment was speedily made with the Minister himself.

  The Minister welcomed him warmly.

  ‘A good piece of work!’ he said approvingly. ‘On your part, at least.’

  ‘There will be a Public Inquiry, then?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that! An inquiry, certainly. I have raised the matter with my colleague, the Minister of the Interior, and he has promised to look into it.’

  ‘You have sent him my report?’

  ‘I have sent him extracts from your report. In years to come, you may be thankful for this.’

  ‘But the Ministry will do nothing!’

  ‘Oh, no, it will do something. Judging from your report, m
istakes have been made. It will want to look into these, alter its procedures, perhaps, reprimand those concerned …’

  ‘Reprimand?’ said Dmitri. ‘Not try?’

  The Minister hesitated.

  ‘I think you know the position,’ he said. ‘The Ministry of the Interior is, in a sense, a law unto itself. Its actions and its officers are regulated by administrative process, under the Special Provisions. I have no power to intervene.’

  ‘There can be no recourse to the courts?’

  ‘Unless the Tsar so decrees.’

  ‘They can get away with murder!’ said Dmitri.

  ‘I am afraid’, said the Minister, ‘that they can.’

  He held out his hand.

  ‘Your work has not been in vain,’ he said. ‘It has been noticed. I think you will go far in your career. Provided, of course, you keep within the necessary limits.’

  ‘So – so what’s going to happen?’

  ‘Nothing,’ replied the Minister.

  ‘Nothing!’ said Vera Samsonova, outraged.

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘But what do you say, Dmitri? What do you say?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re not going to let it rest?’

  ‘I don’t want to. But for the moment I can’t see what else I can do.’

  ‘You must publish it to the world!’ cried Igor Stepanovich.

  ‘Yes, but how? If I send it to the newspapers they won’t print it. If they did try to print it, the Ministry censors would stop them.’

  ‘Perhaps you could go round telling everybody?’ said Igor Stepanovich.

  ‘I’ve told you,’ said Dmitri, irritated. ‘Will that do?’

  ‘Of course it won’t!’ snapped Vera Samsonova. ‘I know what you mean, Dmitri, but surely there is some way in which we can influence public opinion?’

  ‘An underground pamphlet?’ suggested Igor.

  ‘That would get us sent to Siberia!’ said Sonya’s brother, Pavel.

  ‘Public meetings?’

  ‘The police would close them down.’

  ‘Surely there must be something we could do!’ said Vera Samsonova, frowning in thought.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘I know!’ said Sonya suddenly. ‘I’ll get my parents to take me abroad for a holiday.’