Interlude
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Maxim Ippolitovich Ganfman, walking this brisk late winter morning to his law office, was a very worried man.
Rumors flew constantly. Who could know what was really happening? Even Max couldn’t, and he was a lawyer by training, as well as a man of vast intelligence. Indeed, he sat on the board of the prestigious Saint Petersburg magazine, Pravo. He had a flair for literary and newspaper editorial work.
The rumors? Oh, that the royal family was dead, on the one hand, that they were alive, on the other, or that they were some of them dead and others alive.
Me? thought Maxim, What do I think? I think some are alive and others dead. I also think that the Reds’ reaction is a lot more consistent with that than with anything else. Why else dispatch a column to a solidly Red city like Yekaterinburg unless they had reason to worry about it? Indeed, why crack down on us here, in barely less red Saint Petersburg, except that the Reds are running very scared, indeed.
Max stopped at a street stand to try to pick up a copy of one of the local newspapers. Unfortunately, all the real papers were gone—and he didn’t think they’d been sold out—so the only one available for purchase was the Saint Petersburg edition of Pravda. He picked up today’s edition with an audible sigh, a sigh of longing for better days, either in the past or still to come.
And Pravda, of course, means “Truth,” thought Max, putting his folded copy under his arm. And, indeed, you can find the truth there . . . provided you assume every word printed in it is a lie, then the real truth, the opposite of what Truth claims, will stand revealed.
With no other sign beyond that perhaps ill-advised sigh, Maxim continued on his way to work.
Here in Saint Petersburg was far beyond the Pale of Settlement, the area first decreed by Catherine the Great, and since modified from time to time by her successors, where Jews were allowed to live. This didn’t affect Maxim; he was a convert to Orthodoxy. As with many or even most converts, Maxim deeply loved his church and its faith.
He didn’t need any conversion, though, to be Russian. He’d always loved Russia, to include even the Empire, could it have been reformed, along with the Russian language and the Russian people. Thus, his devotion to Russia’s laws, and to his editorial work in the Russian language.
He also loved the truth, even when he had to gain it by reference to the lies.
Entering the warm, tiled hallway from the windy and cold street, Maxim walked the single flight of stairs to his office. There, taking his chair and putting his feet on his desk, he began to read today’s “Truth.”
He read the whole paper, end to end, and, when he was finished, said softly, “We are in serious trouble. I’ve got to get Ekaterina and our children out of here. Trouble? What a gift for understatement I have! No, don’t fool yourself, Maxim; Russia is going to have a civil war.
“But where can I take them? No place inside of the rump of the Russian Empire left by the Germans will be safe. Finland is already showing signs of breaking out in civil war. Germany? The next time I’ll trust the Huns will be the first.
“Go back to the United States with Ekaterina? She knows the place, after all. But, no, too far from my own country, which is this one, and my own people, who are also these. From someplace closer, like the new Baltic states, I could hope someday to visit.
“Tallinn? Vilnius? Kiev? Maybe Kiev. I wonder if Milyukov is still planning to start a newspaper there? I could do that. And Ukraine is not so very far after all. Maybe Kiev.”
Maxim’s wife, Ekaterina, was Orthodox, which probably had a good deal to do with his claiming to be Orthodox in University. As to whether he’d ever been baptized, the Russian Orthodox church thought he had, but his family was not so sure. This may have been a bone of contention between Max and Ekaterina.
In any case, she was waiting for him at home, cooking dinner, with her daughter, Eugenia, in attendance. Cooking was not a skill Ekaterina’s upper class background had imparted to her; she was still learning the techniques, one culinary faux pas at a time. Max had promised her a servant when it became possible again She remained skeptical.
The girl ran to her father as soon as she recognized his footsteps. Her mother called out a “Welcome home,” but was otherwise too employed.
Maxim entered the kitchen and said, “Mother, I’ve been thinking.”
“A dangerous pastime,” she replied, while stirring a bright copper pot.
“I know,” Maxim agreed. “But it’s important. After dinner, you and I need to sit down and discuss getting away from the Reds.”
“I don’t want to return to New York,” she insisted. “It’s warmer than here but a colder place all the same.”
“No, no; I agree. Kiev?”
“Maybe Kiev.”