A Waltz with Traitors

She had no objections to shopping with Filip, but going into a crowded marketplace gave her pause. Would anyone from the Cheka be there? And would they recognize her?

“It’s just that I know next to nothing about women’s clothing. And you’re the one who will wear it.” His face showed less hope now, more embarrassment. Did he think her reluctance had something to do with him?

“Will you take your rifle?” Not that one rifle could adequately protect her from a group of Bolsheviks. And if it came to a threat, would Filip consider her worth the risk? He’d already risked his reputation, but this was different.

His lips parted, and he seemed to understand. “No one will hurt you, I promise. There’ll be other legionnaires about. I wasn’t planning to bring my rifle, but I’ll bring this.” He patted his holstered handgun. “Will that do?”

She nodded. She’d been so foolhardy at her aunt’s estate, riding off on old Konstantin all by herself. Now she was scared to go to the market with an armed escort. She had to gather her courage. It wouldn’t do to live her life in fear.

“Wait here a moment.” Filip stepped over the coupling between two boxcars and disappeared for a minute. Nadia glanced around. She had to stop being so nervous every time she was left alone, but after the executions and the attack in the stables, hostility seemed to loom everywhere.

Filip returned and held out a head scarf. “Would you feel safer with this? It would make you harder to recognize. I doubt any of those men are here, but if it makes it easier to go out . . .”

She took the scarf from him. “Thank you.” Filip Sedlák was a rare man. He understood, but he didn’t judge. She wrapped the scarf over her head and accepted Filip’s arm when he offered it.

They took a few steps, and then she stopped. “Filip, I don’t have any money.”

“I know. I’ll take care of it.”

She should say something. But how could she ever adequately thank him? Did he have a lot of money? Or would buying a blouse for her mean he couldn’t buy things he needed for himself? The silence drew on, but she couldn’t find words to fill it, not the entire walk from the trains.

Each market in Russia was different, yet they were all similar enough to feel familiar. Stalls and shacks lined a frozen road. People came to shop, but more than that, they came to talk and debate, and groups of them congregated all around the market. Someone in the crowd wore a long black coat. Nadia stiffened before realizing it was wool, not leather. Just a normal person going about his business, not a member of the Cheka.

“I don’t know that we’ll find anything new.” Filip looked around. “The longer the war drags on, the harder it is to find new things.”

“I’m not in a position to be picky.”

“It’s just that you’re probably used to nice things, and I don’t think we’ll find them here. Even if we did . . .” Filip felt something in his pocket. His money? “What do you need most?”

Her face heated, but she had to say it. “Drawers and a chemise.” Having only one pair was a considerable problem, one that would get worse with time and warmer weather. She could do without a corset and a corset cover. Another petticoat would be useful for warmth, but she had one, and that was enough. “More stockings. A blouse or two. Mine is . . .” She hadn’t told him the details of her escape, just that Dima had helped her. “One of the Bolsheviks tore it. Veronika helped me stitch it, but the repair is obvious. I suppose it sounds vain, but . . .” It wasn’t so much the damaged blouse as the memory that came with it. She’d tried to wash it, but blood stained the cuffs. She didn’t want to look at her parents’ blood whenever she extended her wrists or remember Kuznetsov whenever she noticed the repair.

“I can get you another blouse.” His voice had an edge to it. He stood a little closer to her and eyed the crowd. At first, she thought him angry that she hadn’t told him the entire story. If he thought she’d been compromised . . . But he seemed more protective than upset.

Filip led her to one of the larger shacks full of secondhand clothing. “See if you can find something that will fit.”

She sorted through the items until she found a dress and two blouses.

“Would these work?” Filip handed her a wool skirt and another dress.

They looked about the right size. “Yes. Thank you.” She put the dress she’d picked out down. She didn’t want him to have to buy two, and maybe he preferred the one he’d selected. She didn’t care one way or the other. She loved neither. That would be the new normal. She’d once taken great pleasure in new clothing, but there would be no more dresses of damask or velvet in exquisite cuts and daring colors. Now she would blend in, wearing what was practical, warm, and tidy.

Filip stood before the merchant, somehow holding the dress she’d put aside. “I’ll need several pairs of stockings as well. And drawers and chemises.”

As the man presented the items, Filip felt the thickness and checked the ends of the stockings. He motioned her over and took the items she held. “See which of these will fit.” He nodded at the underthings.

There wasn’t a place to try anything on, so she did her best to hold them up and guess. One chemise was stained to a gray-yellow hue under the arms, so she put that one aside. “Any of these others will do.”

Filip put a pile of clothes on the counter. In addition to the skirt and dress he’d picked out, he had the two blouses and dress she’d chosen, a coat, two headscarves, a fur cap, a belt, a hairbrush, two blankets, and a leather attaché case. He added the stockings and underthings and motioned for the shopkeeper. “I’ll take all these, for this.” He held out a pocket watch.

The merchant took the watch and examined it skeptically. “You ask a great deal for one watch.”

“Yes, but it was made by the finest watchmaker in Prague. It keeps excellent time and has gold detailing. See?” Filip pointed to something, but Nadia was at the wrong angle to view the craftsmanship. “And look at the work here.” Filip opened the watch to show the inside.

The merchant considered it. “Yes, it’s a nice piece, but you’ve picked out a lot of clothes.”

“You’re getting the better deal, my friend. If I weren’t in a hurry, I’d sell the watch and go from stall to stall. And I’d get far more by doing it that way. But since you are so convenient, I’m willing to let you have it. It’s a wonderful watch. My grandfather gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday. See how well it’s held up?”

He was trading a watch from his grandfather? That was too much to ask. “Filip, I don’t want you to give up a present from your grandfather for me.” She would have treasured any keepsake from her family—knowledge that she’d allowed someone to steal her brooch still cut deeply, and that hadn’t been anything special.

Filip caught her eye. “I’m not sentimental about it. I just want to receive its full value.”

The merchant weighed the watch in his hand. “How old is it?”

“About eight years.”

“No scratches . . .”

“Hard to believe I carried it through the trenches, isn’t it? It’s extremely durable. Ought to last someone a lifetime.”

The man looked from the clothing to the watch. “The watch for these.” He separated the clothing into two piles and pointed to about two-thirds of the original amount. Nadia was inclined to accept the offer, grateful for anything. But she’d gotten her hopes up that she would have two dresses and two blouses, and a warmer coat. She could make do with less, so she forced her face into a neutral expression. She wouldn’t sully Filip’s generosity by showing disappointment.

Filip chuckled. “All of it, or the deal is off.”

The merchant hesitated. “I’ll give you the entire pile in exchange for your handgun.”

“Not a chance.” All mirth left Filip’s voice. “My weapons are not options for bartering.”

Slowly, the man shook his head. “Who would I sell a watch like this to?” It was the same complaint Nadia had heard in Piryatin when she’d tried to sell her brooch.

“Plenty of rich people are leaving, wanting items they can easily carry. You could get a noblewoman’s entire wardrobe for something like that watch. Or a few paintings stolen from a manor by an enterprising peasant. But if you don’t want to risk it, we’ll go elsewhere.” Filip’s expression suggested that he didn’t care one way or another. He held his hand out for the watch.

The merchant opened the watch again and traced the detail work with a delicate finger. “I’ll make the trade.”

“Good.” If Filip was relieved, he didn’t show it, but Nadia felt like applauding.

After the man wrapped the purchases in paper and tied them, they left.

“I don’t know how to thank you.” She needed the clothing, but she hated to think of the cost. “I’m sorry you had to give up the watch.”

“My grandfather is a watchmaker, and he made two watches for me. I prefer the one I wear on my wrist.”

“Your grandfather is a watchmaker?” She would have been grateful to him even if his family were the poorest of farmers or the lowest of factory workers, but she could more easily find something in common with a family of craftsmen.

“Yes. His father, too, and his father. I apprenticed with him. If I ever get back home, I’m to take over the business.”

“I thought the shopkeeper would say no. Is the watch really that valuable?”

Filip shrugged. “I doubt he paid much for the clothes. Probably stole them or bought them cheap from someone desperate for a little cash.”

Nadia nodded. She would have traded a trunk of her clothes, all of them far nicer than the ones they’d just purchased, for a train ticket or a few loaves of bread. “Is your father a watchmaker too?”

Filip opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Yes.”

It was a simple question, and he’d given a simple answer, but not without hesitation. “But you’re to take over your grandfather’s business, not your father’s?”

Filip’s steps slowed but only for a moment. “My father’s not . . . well, he . . . he’s not really up to it. He spent eight years in prison. Since then, he’s been good at drinking.”

Her father-in-law, at least in name, was a criminal and a drunk. She hadn’t expected that. Awkward silence stretched out between them, so she filled it. “What was his crime?” She wasn’t sure it was any of her business, but she was curious.

“Conspiracy against the crown.”

Maybe she and Filip weren’t so alike after all. Did he share his father’s beliefs, and had his father been doing in Austria what the Bolsheviks were now doing in Russia? “What are prisons like where you come from?”

“About as awful as they are here.”

“I’m sorry.” She meant for his father’s suffering but also for Filip’s apparent uneasiness about the subject and for all the wrongs the wealthy had inflicted on the rest of society. Some nobles inherited lands and vast fortunes. Nadia had inherited the revenge of the lower classes, a resentment built up over generations. She wished her remorse could somehow be sufficient restitution.

“I didn’t learn a lot about watchmaking from my father. But he taught me something important: it’s a tragedy to lose your life for a cause you believe in. It’s an even larger tragedy to survive and live with failure for the rest of your life.”

What a melancholy childhood her husband must have had. “Was your father a Marxist?”

“No. A Nationalist.”

“And you?” She hoped he wasn’t a Bolshevik. He’d proven himself far kinder than the men from the Cheka, but what if his beliefs grew more radical? She’d seen it happen before—a peasant who wanted his own land being whipped into a fury and wanting not only land but noble blood as well.

“Me? I’ll be happy to see the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That’s why I joined the Družina. And why I’ve convinced a few hundred men to join the legion.”

Revolt. Revolution. They were closely tied. She was safer with the Czechoslovak Legion than she was with the Cheka, but she couldn’t relax. They might be her traveling companions, but they were not sympathetic allies.

The journey to Vladivostok would normally take eight days, but the legion was large, so it would move slowly. The Trans-Siberian Railroad had fallen into disrepair with the war, and she’d seen a portion of the motley collection of passenger coaches and freight wagons the legion had gathered so far. Most were old. The journey would take longer than usual. Significantly longer if any of the local authorities slowed them down. She would have to be vigilant until they reached the Pacific Ocean.

Penza and the surrounding villages were full of legionnaires gathering for the journey to France. The number of foreign troops must have made the Soviets nervous, because they’d set up a checkpoint manned with red guardsmen. She’d grown used to the Bolshevik soldiers, even if she didn’t feel at ease around them, but she stopped in her tracks when she noticed that the man commanding them wore a black coat—a leather one.

It was a Cheka agent. And she recognized him.

“What is it?” Filip asked as people behind them bumped into and brushed past them.

Nadia swallowed and managed a whisper. “That’s the man who killed my parents.”

Filip’s hand went to his pistol. “Is he the one who ripped your blouse?”

“No.” But the other man might be nearby.

“We’ve been ordered to stay neutral in Russian affairs. I can’t provoke him.”

“You aren’t going to turn me over to him, are you?”

“No! No, but I can’t confront him, not in a crowd.” Filip pulled her along toward the man. He shifted the packages into one arm and put his other arm around her shoulders. “If we move against the crowd, we’ll attract more attention, so we’ll have to go through. Pull your scarf down a bit and look at the ground.”

Nadia tugged on the fabric and kept her eyes away from the Chekist.

“Good, now hunch your shoulders like you grew up working in the fields. We’re just a couple returning to the trains. Try to relax your muscles a little.” His hand brushed her shoulder. “There, like that.”

Nadia’s chest felt tight. Her knees still bore bruises from kneeling before the agent and pleading for mercy. Not that it had done any good. The man had been absolutely merciless.

“Breathe,” Filip whispered.

She focused on that, filling her lungs with air and then emptying them. Now wasn’t the time to think of her parents’ desecrated bodies or of the man who’d attacked her in the stable. She had to trust Filip to get her through the checkpoint. Nadia moved closer to him, pretending they were a happy couple, just like Veronika and her husband or Larisa and hers.

“We’ll make it.” Filip handed her one of the packages. “And if not, I’ve got my pistol.”

“I thought you were supposed to stay neutral?”

“That changes if someone threatens my wife.”

It seemed she had acquired not just a husband but also a defender. Her money and her family had once protected her, but now they were gone. She never would have expected a Czech corporal to take up that role.

Filip’s arm relaxed on her shoulder. “We’re past.” With his words, Nadia felt relief and gratitude settle into the internal spots that had so recently been occupied by fear and worry.

***

Dalek had worked as a telegraph clerk in the Austro-Hungarian Army, so he wasn’t surprised when Kral sent him to the Penza telegraph office. “Any messages for the Sixth Regiment?” he asked when he arrived.

“No.” The Russian official didn’t even look up from his desk.

Dalek nodded and was about to leave when the equipment behind the man caught his eye. It looked brand-new, far better than anything he’d used before. The man at the desk wasn’t paying attention, so Dalek went to take a closer look. “May I?” he asked a clerk.

Excitement lit up the man’s pockmarked face. “We replaced the hammer just yesterday and shined up the wiring post. I’ll show you.” Then he frowned and placed a hand over the left side of his headphones. “In a minute.”

A blast of cold air swirled around the room as someone walked inside. Dalek looked over his shoulder to see a Cheka agent in a black leather greatcoat clicking his heels together and saluting.

“Comrade Abramov,” the Chekist said.

“At ease, Comrade Orlov.”

“I was told to report.”

“Yes. What would you suggest we do with the Czechs?”

Dalek forgot all about the fancy telegraph equipment and focused on the conversation going on behind him. He took his cap off so the red and white ribbon members of the legion wore wouldn’t be noticeable. The clerk was still writing out the incoming telegram, so Dalek grabbed another pair of headphones and pretended he worked there. The legion was clothed in surplus Russian uniforms, so if he kept his mouth shut and if Abramov forgot he’d come in asking about messages for the Sixth Regiment, he might get away with it.

The Cheka man took his time answering. “What would you suggest, comrade?”

Abramov chuckled. “Answering a question with a question?” Papers crackled. “The first orders we received said to get them out of the way as soon as possible. Free the railroads, remove a potential threat.”

“A threat?”

“There are a lot of them. And they have better training than most guardsmen.”

“Yes. Their discipline is admirable, something I wish more of my men had. There is wisdom in that order. Let them clog up the rail lines in Vladivostok or Arkhangelsk. We need local rails to function with speed.”

Dalek hoped that meant they’d be given the engines they needed soon.

The clerk finished his message, put it aside, and motioned to the telegraph key. “Now this—” He stopped as another incoming message sounded, then he sighed and returned to his work, hunching over as if the new position might improve his hearing.

Behind them, Abramov rustled his papers. “The next instructions suggested we keep them nearby, on this side of the Urals, where there is plenty of bread. We could use them, should we wage war against the Germans again. Or against the White movement, for that matter. The local commissar is eager to recruit from their ranks.”

Dalek forced his hands to relax. The Reds wanted the legion to fight for them? Not a chance. The legion was just passing through Russia on its way to France. They weren’t here to fight the Bolsheviks’ opponents.

Orlov’s voice was quiet. “So that is what we will do. Use them to further the revolution.”