Exile

by J. B. Hogan

conclusion

“Prisoners,” Grigoriev laughed. “Criminals. The worst kind. Enemies of the state. We committed the crime of free-thinking. Oh, yes, that was our crime. We talked like children, each week at Petrashevski’s. We blithered on about Fourier, Socialism, Pushkin. Terrible criminals we are.”

“How long have you been here? In this jail?”

“Since the spring.”

“It’s winter now?”

“Yes. It is winter.”

“And only for...” Stephen started, but was stopped by the man’s long-fingered, uplifted hand.

“Shh,” he whispered. “I hear something.”

Stephen listened intently. There was a sound. The sound of boots in the outside corridor. Of cells being opened. Of people speaking.

“Oh, my Lord,” Grigoriev said, wringing his hands. “They are coming back. They’ve come for us.”

“Come for us?” Stephen wondered.

But the gaunt prisoner did not get the opportunity to say anything more, for the cell door was being unlocked and then seconds later swung widely open.

“Nikolai Pavlovich Grigoriev,” the same military guard who had brought the prisoner in before said without expression, while tossing a handful of what was obviously warm weather clothing at the man, “put these on immediately and follow me.”

* * *

It was bone-chilling cold in St. Petersburg’s Semenovsky Square when the carriages bringing the prisoners arrived there just at sunrise. Blanketed by almost a foot of snow, it would have been a beautiful sight were it not for the huge, imposing scaffolding, with black crepe hung all around, set in its center.

The prisoners, at first chatting with each other as much as their guards would allow, were shortly silenced by military officials who corralled the men at the base of the scaffolding, which was ringed completely by armed soldiers. The prisoners could not miss seeing several stakes driven into the ground at the side of the scaffolding, stakes unmistakably used for firing squads.

Stephen stood behind Grigoriev in one of two lines the guards ordered the prisoners to form. It was all too strange for him. He could feel the cold, the wetness of the snow on the ground, the horrible tension among the prisoners — and yet no one but Grigoriev seemed to pay any attention to him. Listening intently, he caught several threads of conversation among the highly agitated prisoners.

“They are going to shoot us,” someone behind Stephen said.

“Hush,” another man said. “They can do no such thing.”

“I don’t believe,” the first man said, “that I have ever thought more clearly than at this moment.”

“You’ll no doubt turn it into a story, ey, Fedya,” a man in front of Grigoriev called back.

“Who are these men?” Stephen whispered.

“The very tall, confident man at the front of us,” Grigoriev replied, “is Petrashevski himself. It was his little circles that brought us to this point. This man directly before me: Speshnev, the most radical in the group.”

“What are you mumbling about Nikolai Pavlovich,” the man called Speshnev said, a little angrily. “Have you gone mad?”

“It would not be so strange, would it,” the one called Fedya spoke up. “Eight months of boredom, isolation, filth. Could anyone stay sane?”

“Feodor Mikhailovich,” Grigoriev said quietly to Stephen, “is a great writer. He is the most famous, and talented, of us all.”

“Stop jabbering, Grigoriev,” Speshnev said.

“Oh,” Grigoriev said, with a child-like laugh.

At that moment there was a sudden commotion. A high-ranking officer rode up on a dark, fine horse. A soldier ran to hold the reins as the man dismounted.

“A general,” Grigoriev told Stephen.

“Shut up,” Speshnev growled.

As the newly-arrived officer prepared to make some sort of pronouncement, Stephen managed a quick look at the other prisoners. He counted some twenty other men. All of them wore very old-fashioned clothes, all of which were far too light for the freezing, heavy snow conditions. Stephen shivered, wondered again at the peculiar situation he found himself in.

“Quiet,” the voice of the general burst into Stephen’s icy reverie. “The prisoners will be silent. At once. Be still!”

Conversation among the prisoners ceased. The general walked back and forth before them, swinging a riding crop by his side. He seemed to be impatiently awaiting something. The prisoners watched the general’s every step.

Shortly, another official arrived in the square. This time he was a civilian, however, but he carried several documents with him and had an air of authority about him that was even more pronounced than that of the general. Reading from those documents, he called each prisoner by name and ordered them to line up in the sequence their names were read, Petrashevski and Speshnev at the head, with Grigoriev, and Stephen — praying fervently that only Grigoriev could still see him — in back of the two leaders of the group.

Finally, a priest came up, holding a large cross, and he intoned a prayer for the prisoners and then began walking towards the stairs leading up onto the scaffolding. The prisoners understood to follow.

Up on the scaffolding, the prisoners were divided into two groups, again with Petrashevski, Speshnev, and the unstable Grigoriev at the head of the first group. Stephen continued to hide behind Grigoriev and two men behind them was the writer called Feodor Mikhailovich, or Fedya.

Shortly, the civilian official cleared his throat and began reading the prisoners’ sentences. They were all the same and the official stopped before each prisoner and read quickly, almost unintelligibly from his papers.

“The law has condemned you to death by firing squad,” he repeated some twenty times, only the first few times drawing any reaction from the growing crowd below the scaffolding, “and the Tsar has given his confirmation of the sentence.”

“They cannot mean to execute us,” Stephen heard the writer Fedya say to the man directly behind him, Stephen. “Can they, Durov?”

The man named Durov simply pointed at a cart beside the scaffolding that was covered in straw matting.

“Dear Jesu,” Fedya moaned, “coffins. God cannot mean to do this to us.”

“God has little to do with this, my friend,” Durov told Fedya.

“Hush, you men,” the priest said, coming up to the front of the two lines of prisoners. The men hung their heads. “Brothers,” the priest went on, before your death you must repent. Repent in the name of Jesus Christ. Confess. Repent.”

“Repent, hell,” Speshnev spit at the priest.

“God forgives you, brother,” the priest said.

But when the priest moved among the condemned men, nearly all kissed the cross, even virulent Speshnev and stoic Petrashevski, who Grigoriev explained to Stephen were the staunchest atheists among the condemned.

Suddenly, guards appeared and grabbed the first three men from the first line: Petrashevski, Speshnev, and Grigoriev — Stephen attempting to hide in the folds of the gaunt man’s worn and tattered clothing — and dragged the men down off the scaffolding and tied them to the stakes set out there. Durov and Fedya saw that they would be next in line.

“Lord help us,” Fedya cried, staggering against the wooden rail of the scaffolding.

Down below, a squad of young soldiers, rifles in hand, stood before the men tied to the stakes. They raised the weapons up, toward the staked out prisoners, who stood without blindfolds but wore hats to cover their heads from the cold air.

“Goodbye, Speshnev,” Petrashevski said calmly.

“And you,” Speshnev managed a whispered reply.

“Can’t you save us,” Grigoriev demanded of Stephen, turning his head to look directly at his panic-stricken “guardian angel.” “You must save us. Please, Lord, help me. I don’t want to die. Stefan Davidovich you must find a way. Please.”

“Grigoriev’s gone mad,” Speshnev said to Petrashevski.

“A good place to be now,” Petrashevsy replied. “Poor Nikolai Pavlovich.”

Grigoriev continued to loudly entreat Stephen, moaning and groaning and talking wildly.

“Shut him up,” the old general yelled at a young soldier in the firing squad. The young soldier broke ranks and came up to Grigoriev.

“Please be quiet, sir,” the young soldier said politely. “You’re upsetting everyone.”

Grigoriev continued to jabber but quieter then. He turned once more to Stephen, begged him to save them both, to help him escape. The young soldier, feeling the hair stand up on the back of his neck, looked past Grigoriev as if there might be someone there that the madman was speaking to. For just a moment, the boy thought he did see something just beyond the big prisoner. With a small yelp, the young soldier leapt back from Grigoriev, turned and hurried back to his squad.

“What was it?” one of his mates asked.

“Nothing,” the young soldier said, unable to take his eyes off the area around the madman. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything.”

“Attention!” the general called to the firing squad. The men presented their rifles at their side. The prisoners staked out waited for the end. “Present arms!” An involuntary groan escaped the lips of most of the condemned.

Suddenly, a rider dashed into the square, waving papers in one hand. The civilian official walked over and joined the general by the firing squad. The two men smiled at one another. Then came the roll of drums, beating the sound of retreat.

“Dear God,” the writer Fedya cried from the scaffolding. “We’re saved.”

The new rider leapt from his horse and addressed the general.

“His Worship, the Tsar,” the man said, “in the kindness of his great soul, has commuted the death sentence of these men. Here are the new sentences.” He handed the papers he carried to the general.

“Very well,” the general said magnanimously, “release the men at the stakes.”

On the scaffolding there was a great wave of joy, followed by tears and the near collapse of many of the prisoners. On the ground, the men at the stakes were released. Guards helped them back towards the scaffolding.

As they walked back, Speshnev had to be supported on either side by soldiers and even Petrashevski, attempting defiance to the last, stumbled as he got to the stairs leading back up to the scaffolding. But Grigoriev was inconsolable. He could not bear up.

“Why did you not help me?” he kept repeating to Stephen as the big man was drug back towards the scaffolding stairs. “How could you desert me, Stefan Davidovich. How could you?”

“I’m not who you think I am,” was all Stephen managed to say, trying very hard to stay behind Grigoriev and in his shadow. “I don’t even know what’s happening. I’m sorry. I would help you if I could.”

“He’s gone completely mad,” the general commented. “Utterly insane.”

“Too late, the Tsar’s reprieve,” the civilian official said, unable to hide a smile, “ey?”

“Ha, ha,” the general laughed, with little humor. “From death to exile.”

“Look out, sir,” the young soldier who had attempted to quiet Grigoriev suddenly cried out. “Look out beside the madman.”

“Oh, hell,” Stephen muttered, making eye contact with the young soldier. “Son of a...”

“What is it?” the general said.

The young soldier sprung forward with his rifle raised, butt first. He aimed squarely at Stephen’s forehead and jabbed forward with all his might.

“Damn it,” Stephen said, trying to grab onto Grigoriev’s ragged shirt, “I don’t...”

* * *

Stephen felt someone patting his cheeks softly with something cool and soft. His head hurt and he was reluctant to open his eyes. There was a bright light on the other side of his eyelids and it was painful to look at it. Finally, after another moment or so, the pain began to subside and the light dimmed. Stephen slowly opened his eyes, fearful of where he might find himself.

“Stephen,” Grandma Barton was saying to him, “Stephen, are you alright?”

“Oh, thank God,” Stephen said, closing his eyes again and taking a deep breath.

At least he knew where he was again. He was back home, back in his own town, not in some frozen Russian square surrounded by prisoners and facing firing squads. Yes, he was starting to feel very much better. When he ventured to look at the world again, he saw Tom Harris staring down at him from behind Grandma Barton.

“Are you okay, buddy?” Tom asked.

“How long was I out?” Stephen wondered.

“Just a few minutes,” Tom told him.

“Really? My God, it seemed like a long time.”

“We were getting ready to call the paramedics, young man,” Grandma Barton interjected.

“I’m sorry,” Stephen said sincerely.

“Let me go run some more cold water on this cloth,” Grandma Barton said, “you just stay there on the couch. I’ll be right back.”

“You’re looking better,” Tom said, when his grandma had left the room. “We were worried about you there for a minute.”

“I was worried about me, too,” Stephen said, slowly pulling himself up to a sitting position.

“What happened?”

“Man, I don’t know. I was gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean? Where gone?”

“I was in another place, man,” Stephen tried to explain, “I was like in Russia or something, a long time ago.”

“Russia?” Tom laughed. “I’m not gonna let you eat Grandma’s glese again.”

“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” Stephen admitted, shaking his sore head.

He leaned back on the couch and stretched, reached his hands behind his head.

“That’s funny,” he said, pulling his right hand back to where he could see it.

“What is?” Tom asked.

Stephen looked down at his right hand. Between the index and middle fingers was a piece of ragged, off-white, coarse cloth — just as mad Grigoriev had worn.

“It can’t be,” he mumbled to himself.

“Can’t be?” Tom asked. “What did you say?”

Stephen rubbed the cloth in his fingers, held it to his nose, smelled its pungent odor. Saw the terrible, cold square again, the frightened, emaciated men.

“What do you have there, Stephen?” Tom asked.

“It’s nothing,” Stephen said, pocketing the cloth. “Nothing at all.”

“I don’t understand,” Tom said, with a quizzical look for Stephen.

“Neither do I,” Stephen said truthfully, “neither do I.”