“All right. We’re almost ready,” Galina said. “Charlotte, you and your friend take Lena Arkhipova and her baby to her sister’s house. It will be safe for you to leave her there so you can look for your little brother. We’ll take the others to their homes and stay with them as long as necessary.”
The worst part was going down the stairs. When one of the policemen fired his gun through the broken window and someone outside screamed, Lena Arkhipova nearly collapsed. Dmitri carried her the rest of the way down. I had her baby, a little girl who was sleeping through it all. The other babies were all crying.
“Hurry,” Galina said to the other women. “This way. Don’t look. We’re going out the back.”
The back courtyard was empty. Galina went first. Lena Arkhipova was in such a state that Dmitri continued to carry her. We split up at the street, Dmitri and me going one way with Lena Arkhipova and her baby, the others going in the opposite direction.
“Godspeed,” Galina said to me. I nodded my head, not able to find any words.
“Ready?” Dmitri asked me.
“Ready,” I said. The sooner we got the woman and baby to safety, the sooner I could look for Stepan.
We skirted the edge of the building until we were close to the front and then turned to go around the square. It was full of people shouting, but no one paid attention to us. Dmitri was still carrying the patient, and he was struggling, limping a little.
“Wait,” I said. I touched the woman’s face. “Lena, do you think you can walk? We can get to your sister’s more quickly if you can.”
She nodded, and Dmitri set her on her feet, keeping an arm around her for support. As we walked away, I looked back to see that the front door of the hospital had shattered. A crowd surged into the building through the door and the broken windows. There were shots but they didn’t stop. The man with the torch went inside.
All my mother’s work, everyone’s work—Dr. Rushailo’s, Galina’s, the other nurses’, Tanya’s—it would be all gone.
“There won’t be anything left, will there?” I murmured.
“I don’t know,” Dmitri said. “Don’t think about that now.”
The baby began to cry. I hugged her to me. Focus on the task at hand.
It was only a few blocks to the sister’s house. We got them settled in and tried reassuring everyone they’d be safe if they stayed inside. I finally had to tell them I needed to look for my little brother so they would let us leave.
When we got back outside, we were surrounded by soldiers. There were hundreds more than there had been even a few hours earlier.
“I didn’t know there were that many troops in the city.” I didn’t understand why the policemen were the ones firing on the crowds while the soldiers didn’t seem to know what to do.
“Better follow behind me,” Dmitri said. “Fourteen thousand Cossack troops were brought in overnight to bolster the army reserves already here. The authorities knew there was going to be trouble and the guard units stationed here wouldn’t be able to handle it. Most of the troops already in the city don’t even want to be soldiers. They’re just reservists. I don’t know if any of them will fire on our own people. I hope not.”
“How do you know all this?”
“My friends in the regiment have told me.” He shouldered his way through a clump of soldiers. I stuck close behind.
As we walked, I peered into the face of every small boy we passed. There were too many who had on coats similar to what Stepan wore, and since they were all bundled up with hats and scarves, it was nearly impossible to tell them apart unless I got close enough.
An image of Stepan popped into my head. I remembered his serious little face the first day we’d barreled into the house and his life. He’d just turned three. His mother, Papa’s second wife, had died when he was a baby, so he’d been brought up by a very old nanny. I remembered how in those first days he’d go hide in the attic at times, overwhelmed by the boys shouting and running up and down the halls when they weren’t sliding down the banisters.
Shouts came from a nearby street, and then the sound of a machine gun. We flattened ourselves against the nearest building. An automobile sped by, packed full of men. One was even lying on the running board beneath the doors, shooting off the machine gun he held.
Another rattle of a machine gun in the opposite direction made me jerk back, banging my head on the stone wall of the building behind us. The pain radiated forward and I saw black dots in front of my eyes. Even after the burst stopped, the sound continued to echo in my head.
We continued on, though it grew more difficult. Sleighs and automobiles had been turned over in the streets, blocking the way. We saw people carrying the injured away, and we heard more gunshots in the distance.
Dmitri flagged down a soldier running by. “What’s happening? Where are all the troops?”
“The Pavlovsky Regiment has mutinied!” the man yelled. The whites of his eyes were showing, and he was only wearing one boot. “They’re joining the revolution! If my regiment is next, I’m going to be there when they do. Those officers will see who is in charge now.” He ran on, trying to rip off his shoulder epaulets as he went.
I looked down to see a trail of blood drops zigzagging down the street in front of us. I heard a strange buzzing and it took me a moment to realize that the sound was inside my own head. A bad taste filled my mouth and I thought I was going to retch. I reached down and picked up a handful of snow and wiped it on my face. The cold helped. I shouldn’t have been so shaken by drops of blood. I’d seen plenty of blood before.
“Charlotte? Are you all right?”
“I just felt strange for a bit,” I said. “Let’s keep going.”
As we got close to the Krestovsky Prison, the crowds grew much bigger and the shouting was louder. When I’d gone by the prison in the past, I hurried, not wanting to look at a place of such misery, especially because the dirty red brick of the buildings always reminded me of dried blood.
As we came even with it, the crowd around us began to cheer. I asked a woman what was happening.
“Soldiers have gone in to let all the prisoners out!” she yelled.
We saw prisoners stagger out, both men and women, all wearing ragged prison uniforms and supporting one another. Some were shielding their eyes as if they were blinded, even though it was nearly dark.
Two men barely managing to support each other had tears streaming down their cheeks. All the prisoners were very thin, and many had white hair, though they didn’t look that old.
“I didn’t know there were so many,” a man next to me said.
“Hundreds of political prisoners were rounded up after the rebellion in 1905,” a woman said. “They’ve been in there ever since.”
Twelve years. Twelve years for speaking against the czar.
“Everyone is going to be free!” someone else in the crowd yelled.
“You fool!” the woman yelled back at him. “They’re letting out criminals, too! Murderers and rapists and thieves. You think the streets are dangerous now. Just wait!”
Some in the crowd ran into the prison and soon reemerged carrying stacks of paper. They threw them in a pile on the ground and lit them on fire. More and more stacks were brought out and added until the pile grew into a giant bonfire. With each flare of the flames, the crowd cheered.