Assassination of E. Hemingway

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

April 1915 – Solikamsk, Russia

As if sensing a new presence, the priest in the blue cassock turned his head, c*****g it to one side. He stared at Pasha's features and slapped a hand to the side of his face. A smile flickered like the first small flames of kindling ready to burst into flame.

He rushed over and grabbed Pasha in a great bear-hug, lifting the boy off the ground.

"My God," he cried. I know you! You have to be Pasha. You look like..."He frowned, wavy lines wrinkling his forehead, his hand covering his mouth. “…your father." It sounded like a question, but the priest knew.

"The Cossacks," Pasha answered. No further explanation was needed.

"How long since you've had a proper meal? You need to put on some weight. You look like a broomstick."

Pasha looked over at the tables. "They're so many. I don't want to take from them."

"My nephew," the priest roared to the crowd, "wants to know if we have enough food for him."

This was greeted with laughter. "The Father is making a joke," someone yelled.

"He feeds us with loaves and fishes," another added.

"I'm preparing more soup, and I have bread fresh from the oven," a voice from what looked like a kitchen.

Pasha and his uncle tore a portion of a loaf of bread into two pieces. They scooped a slight hollow in the dough. They followed an ancient tradition of salt onto bread. "We serve bread to welcome you, salt to toast a long friendship."

"Khleb da sol! Bread and salt!"

"Bread and salt," Pasha replied, smiling for the first time since….

He couldn’t remember the last time.

Uncle Gennady, Father Gennady, rushed into the kitchen. Returning with a ceramic jug, he roared. "Vodka! Nostrovia!

Pasha wondered if his uncle was always this loud. "Nostrovia, cheers, he replied.

"Za fstrye-tchoo. To our meeting, nephew."

"Tell me about your journey, nephew," Uncle Gennady said later. They were alone, at a table in the kitchen. The warmth radiating from the cooking oven chased away any evening chill lurking at the open door. "You crossed over during the winter months. That is samyy opasnyy, the most dangerous."

"Ne tak uzh i plokho, not so ba…," Pasha started to say. His Uncle raised his hand and waved it in front of him to indicate he wasn’t hearing such nonsense.

"I know better. I've made that treacherous journey. It’s precarious even in excellent weather. The truth, nephew."

"Papa and I watched the Cossacks ride into Odilsk. They looked grand. Then father warned me. He told me the way through the forest, thickest in all Russia. He said Grass-landers, his name for people who tilled the fields, wouldn't know the ways of the trees. He drew a map and told me about the pass," the young man paused.

"As soon as it was dark…they dragged him…gunfire," Pasha said, unashamed of his tears.

Uncle Gennady closed his eyes, his face wrinkled in pain. Father Gennady gave the sign of the cross and told Pasha to go on.

"It was familiar until I got to the mountains. I had to put on my heavy coat, my fur hat, to protect me from the cold and wind.

Before starting over the mountains, I spent time hunting, wrapping meat for the days ahead." Pasha chuckled. "I had two skins for water, but soon they were frozen solid." He shrugged. "You know the Russian way." We don't linger on unpleasantness. It was one foot ahead of the other until I was laughing as I slid down the other side. I did have one or two bruises from hitting rocks, but I was delighted to be over the mountains."

His Uncle got up and carried a samovar to the table. Soon he was pouring out thick liquid. "Tea and honey, "chay i med? They sat in silence, finishing their tea.

"Papa warned me about strangers," Pasha finally said. "Papa said farmers might be helpful, but guarded. They would have little love for the Tzar."

Uncle Gennady tilted his head back as a roar of laughter ricocheted around the brick walls. "No love for the Tzar," he said. "No love for the Tzar. A funny man, your Papa.

"But peasants gave me shelter and what food they could share. There was always bread and salt. They told me how to avoid the soldiers on this side of the mountains, how they're conscripting men to serve in the Tzar's war against Germany. I’d never heard about a war. I know I wanted no part of it."

"That’s why it’s dangerous for you. Remain out of sight. As much as I love this nephew who walked into my life, you must walk out again.” The priest brushed tears from his face and beard.

“Why, Uncle?”

“Too many people think your father and I have dangerous ideas, dangerous to those in power. If they connect you to me, the police will begin snooping.

“I only talked to one person here,” Pasha said. “A Black Priest. He described the scowling man he met earlier.

“Blyad, f**k,” Gennady said in a low growl. “If anyone turns you in, it will be him. He hates me for feeding the needy and providing shelter to the boatmen and peasants.” He stood and motioned Pasha to do likewise. Holding his nephew in a long, tight hug, he whispered. “I will sleep and ask God for a scheme to get you away from this danger tomorrow.”

Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Pasha was immediately awake, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He raised his fists in self-defense.

“Easy, nephew.” Uncle Gennady helped him up. “We can’t delay.”

Pasha looked out at a layer of mist over the river, spreading like a curtain, hiding the city. He heard the sound of boats grinding against the pier.

“Dawn is hours away,” Gennady said as a bear of a man entered the kitchen. The two men held up their right hands in a sort of gesture or salute, then hugged.

“This is the nephew I told you about,” pointing to Pasha.

“You look like a strong lad. We can use men like you. “Zovi menya Kalya, call me Kalya.”

Pasha wondered, “We can use men like you. What did that mean?”

“Listen carefully, nephew. Change is coming. You can be part of it or merely swept up by it. The Tzar’s days are numbered,” seeing the shock on Pasha’s face. “Many of us have prepared the way. That’s why I’m a danger to them. I know what awaits me, but I have to stay. I can’t abandon those who need me here.”

Pasha noticed Kalya put a hand on Gennady’s shoulder as if to say, I know.

“Kalya will hide you on his boat. In the days ahead, he will tell you more about the coming change. You must make this journey for me. I’m too old. With you to continue, I will die knowing that my blood will flow through the coming revolution. I recognize a surprise in your eyes. Trust me, nephew. Your Papa would have been proud.

Little was said by way of goodbye or needed to be. Pasha and his uncle were of a people who spoke little, their emotion expressed by the sadness in their eyes. His lasting memory of his Uncle Gennady was the feeling of being squeezed in one of his uncle’s famous bear hugs.

The shock of leaving so abruptly layered over Pasha’s feelings. I will never see my uncle again. Pasha let go of the last remnant of his family. He met, then said goodbye in a mere twenty-four hours to an uncle he never knew about, his father’s twin brother.

With nothing to compare, Pasha smelled a powerful odor. Hiding in the bowels of the river barge, he attempted to identify the combination of offal, the by-products of edible organs of animals mixed with milled grains. Pasha sniffed at oils and strange scents.

Who am I to complain?

When cramping set in, Pasha stretched his legs as best he could.

Finally, he was allowed on deck. It was during his frequent talks with Kalya that Pasha began to understand what might be ahead.

Kayla told Pasha stories about men with names like Marx, Engels, Lenin. Kayla weaved ideas, using words like Socialism, Bolshevism and Revolution, until the words began to take shape in the young man’s mind.

“The knee of the Tzar had been on our necks far too long,” Kalya said. “A revolution is coming. Wait and see. Lenin and Bogdanov are remarkable men. I will teach you the basics, but others will teach you so much more. You’re going to become part of history, comrade.”

Using candlelight, Pasha studied the sealed envelope his uncle thrust into his hand as the boat pulled away in the early-morning blackness.

“It’s important, nephew. Make sure you give it only to this man. Nobody else. Will you promise me?”

Looking at the adressee, Pasha promised he would.

Lev Davidovich Bronstein

It was a letter to a man known in Petrograd as Leon Trotsky.