Excerpt from" Beyond the Pale," Chapter 9

Chapter 9

1890, Kiev, Russia

Jov Baklanov tossed a tattered, leather boot at the black, long-haired mutt perched up against the sofa. She barked wildly out the window at a white cat that pranced about in the littered alleyway, seemingly enjoying the dog’s frustration.

“Someone shut that dog up. Before I kill it.” Jov said. He winked at the dog, as in actuality, the two were best buddies.

Her tail curled under, the dog whimpered and ran along the old, but well cared for sofa, jumping into Axel’s lap.

“She’s all right. Aren’t you lady?.” Axel stroked her back then growled at the dog to play along with Jov’s puffed up aggression.

“Dasha, get this dog out of here. Damn it!” Jov fought back a toothless grin and continued delving into his stack of papers.

“Like I said . . .” Axel cleared his throat. He felt embarrassed rushing his friend. “I need something right away.”

So far, it looked as if Saint Petersburg was his only answer. Contacts might shed news on the fisherman; they’d have a rundown on safe houses, some printing sources, possibly an exchange for a few gems.

“Sure, I understand. Important business our friend has.” Jov thumbed through some more papers. “You’re masquerading as one of us then, eh?

“One of you?”

“A gentile.” Jov smirked. “I barely recognize you comrade.” But neither the absence of a beard nor mustache really threw Jov. After pawning a diamond for a mere fraction of its worth, Axel had a new look tailored in town, something more “establishment”, less traditional – stiff, high collared white shirt, black trousers, matching vest and coat. Getting around in Saint Petersburg meant looking the part.

“Of course, a gentile.” Axel tugged at his bow tie in discomfort. “Something to get me across the border,” he admitted, then butted noses with the dog he had known since she was a pup.

“Well, I’m your man.” Jov waved a piece of paper about. “Here’s one Filip Kakovka . . . No, he’s sixty-five.” Jov shook his head before he cleared his throat and spit into a tin can on the table. “How about Mishenka Rachek? Thirty-six, Moscow. Sure, he fits you. Brown hair . . . eyes brown. What color your eyes comrade?”

“His eyes are blue,” Dasha said. She surprised the two as she stood in the doorframe and silently admired Axel’s affection toward her dog. “Steel blue.” Dasha smiled and waved to Axel, not to further interrupt her husband.

“Good to see you Dasha.” Axel pushed the dog from his lap and stood to greet the woman.

“There you are. Now get that mutt out of here.” Jov sneered at the dog before returning to the task at hand. “Errr. I know I’ve got a perfect passport for you somewhere.”

Fiddling with the waistline of an oversized, second-hand dress, Dasha took a seat next to Axel on the sofa. “This new look suits you,” she said. “If I hadn’t known, you’d gone and found yourself some kind of official position – with the government perhaps?” She patted her leg for the mutt who jumped up into her lap and showered her face with kisses. “Oh, Sabina, that a girl. Calm down. Yes, calm down, puppy.”

“How about Fyodor, thirty-one? Wait . . . no good.” Jov eyed the dog and shook his head smiling. “Good; I’m glad to see that what the man of this house says goes.” He pulled another stack of papers from the floor and barked at Sabina. The dog yiped back, to which Jov let out a hearty laugh.

“You should come around more often,” Dasha said in a lowered voice. Her dark hair fell on bare shoulders where the neckline had slipped off. She blushed and looked away, using one arm to quickly pull it back up over her milk-white shoulder.

“Stefan, twenty-nine. No . . .”

Axel squeezed Dasha’s hand. Her eyes darted to her husband who shuffled still through his jumbled stack of counterfeit papers.

“Always a pleasure seeing you both. You know that.” Axel patted the couch for Sabina who eagerly switched laps to shower an abundance of licks upon his face.

“That damn dog still here?” Jov swatted at a fly that lingered about his face. Suddenly his hand shot up and snatched it midair.

Dasha shuddered, Axel’s grin displayed some amusement.

“Damn Fly,” Jov grumbled, and threw it to the ground where it lay lifeless. “Now where was I? Dog out, fly dead. Yes. Here it is,” he said. “Alek Raskolnikoff, thirty-six, brown hair, blue eyes.”

Dasha threw her head back and laughed. “Sounds like a character out of a novel,” she said. “But then again, our friend here is just like a character in a novel. Wouldn’t you say, Jov?”

“Eh?”

“Dasha, our resident romantic.” Axel shook his head in mock pity for all poor romantics amongst Mother Russia. Funny he didn’t realize he was one himself. Romantics seldom ever do. Sabina hopped from his lap, her tail wagging, she nudged at his feet as if she agreed.

To signal that Dasha knew darn well Axel was a romantic too, she sneered and rolled her dark eyes away from him when she stood to grab at her dog. Who in the movement wasn’t a romantic? One had to be in order to take the crazy risks involved with subversion.

“Come on Dasha, knock off that book stuff will you? We’ve got business to conduct. Take the mutt and leave.” Slapping Dasha’s rear with his spare hand, Jov handed Axel his new identity.

“Oh, she’s harmless, let’s go Sabina.” Dasha leaned forward and hugged Axel. “Stop through on your way back,” she said. “Stay a few days.”

Jov agreed and extended the welcome. He slapped Axel hard on the back. Then with both hands he grabbed his friend’s shoulders and turned him to face head to head before he kissed both of Axel’s cheeks.

Axel embraced Jov a bit longer than customary. He didn’t leave before he paid his friends generously – a quarter-karat diamond for their services, double what he’d planned on paying. Said he hoped he’d be back by fall. Then departing, he sadly reflected on whether he’d see them again, or whether like the fisherman back home, and so many like him, they’d disappear in the night.

* * *

The train parted a thick layer of fog as it rolled into Saint Petersburg. Axel peered out his compartment window, scrutinizing strangers’ faces. A small group of people walked in and out of the mist on the platform. An old man sat hunched over the stool of his shoeshine, reading a newspaper as he waited for the morning rush.

Axel waited for a good portion of the travelers to exit the train before disembarking himself. When he did, he made a deliberate attempt to appear confident – as if he belonged there. He had mastered the look. His strides were long, his attention forward, in a straight line for the dispersing crowd. The conductor’s uniform a dark blob in the corner of Axel’s eye, vanished with distance.

“Paper! Get your paper here,” hollered the paperboy who was not actually a boy. Thinning, gray hair indicated middle-age. Yet he measured a little over three and a half feet tall.

“Get your paper here!”

A policeman emerged from the fog, casually meandering toward the train. He stopped to chat with two women who waited for their luggage. The women were pretty and young, batting eyelashes at the officer as he lit his pipe. The officer’s presence did not appear to shake Axel, who kept up his pace on past the “paperboy”. He would have kept on walking right through the station and out, directly to his contact’s flat downtown, had a single finger tap on his shoulder not stopped him short.

“Excuse me,” the conductor said looking over the rim of his glasses. Axel sensed a tinge of hostility in his voice. “Please sir. What does it take to get your attention?”

“I’m terribly sorry,” Axel said. “How can I help you?”

The conductor sighed. “Double checking passports,” he said. “You walked right past me on the ramp. Now, please. Your passport, Sir.” He held out his palm.

“Why, certainly.” Axel set his bag on the ground. Making an effort to appear unconcerned, he stepped back from the conductor to gain some space.

“Mandatory re-check. With this cholera outbreak, never can be too sure. Just last week we caught a quarantined family of four trying to enter our city with false papers. Can you imagine?” The conductor shook his head, apparently disgusted.

“I can assure you . . .” Axel pulled at his tie, then abruptly stopped fiddling.

“Passport?” The conductor held out his hand again.

“Paper! Get your paper!” The paper boy held the headline page up above his head. “Twenty-five traitors face the firing squad . . . Read all about it here!”

His attention torn between the news and the conductor, Axel reached into his coat to retrieve documentation. With it he pulled a watch from his vest pocket. “I’m already running late,” he said feigning annoyance by the delay. His strategy: intimidate with a slight air of authority. That usually worked for him. Only once did he need to outrun a touchy situation. That happened in Kiev when he was twenty-five years old, ten pounds lighter, and his feet could carry him practically as fast as a horse. Axel wasn’t so confident he could do it again.

Briefly looking up from Axel’s finely counterfeited papers, the conductor waved over the officer who still chatted with the ladies. “Ah, Mikel,” he hollered. “I have one for you to clear.”

Excusing himself, Mikel lit his pipe and made his way to the men. “On time for once,” he shouted. “I believe that’s some kind of record. Three times this month, if I’m not mistaken.” The officer let out a laugh and continued so laughing until he reached the two men on an increasingly crowded platform. “Let me have a look.” Mikel took a puff from his pipe and grabbed the passport. He looked over Axel, then diverted his eyes to the bag beside him on the ground.

“Alek Raskolnikoff is it? And what are your plans in our fine city?” He puffed on his pipe, staring intently at Axel.

“Why Gentlemen.” Though Axel didn’t as much as blink, his gut tightened, tiny beads of sweat formed at the back of his neck. “I have the pleasure of visiting your gorgeous city on a matter of business . . .”

Mikel exhaled a puff of smoke at Axel’s face. “Business of what type?”

Axel fanned the smoke away with his hand. The hair at his nape seemed to rise. And he could feel the sweat beading at his temples. He also felt the presence of someone standing behind him, but dared not turn around. They had him trapped now. His best chance, he thought, was to grab his bag and try to outrun these goons. But he’d have to move quickly else lose the element of surprise. A strong hand pressed down onto his shoulder before he could make that move.

“Professor Raskolnikoff, there you are.”

Both the conductor and police officer recognized the man behind Axel. No doubt, Axel recognized Stefan’s voice at once – just like in their school days, Stefan’s influence preceded him.

Axel’s shoulders relaxed. He took in a breath, ready to play the game. But he couldn’t help but wonder what the chances were of meeting his friend again so soon. How could Stefan possibly have known he’d be there? He had after all, deliberately misled his friend about his travel plans when they met on the train.

“Paper! Get your paper here.”

“We were afraid you didn’t make it.” Stefan leaned into Axel and kissed each of his cheeks. A neatly groomed mustache and well-combed hair contrasted the disheveled drunken Stefan he met on the way to Kiev. Though a hint of vodka lingered on his friend’s breath.

“Appreciate you meeting me here,” Axel said.

“Ah, Stefan.” The officer cleared his throat. He puffed out his chest. “You can vouch for this man?”

The conductor eyed Axel suspiciously.

Stefan put his arm around his friend and with the other picked up his bag. “Why certainly, we’ve been eagerly awaiting to hear more about the professor’s thesis at the university.”

“Is that so?” The officer gave Axel a look over again and glanced behind his shoulder to the conductor.

“Say, Mikel,” Stefan said, “you might have caught his piece in The Petersburg Quarterly”

“The Petersburg Quarterly you say.”

“Certainly, you must have seen it – “Why the peasant refuses to better his lot” – I know you appreciate the intellectual articles.”

“Oh sure, now that you mention it,” he said not looking directly at either of the men. “It’s a pleasure making your acquaintance, Professor Raskolnikoff, is it?” Mikel’s face reddened as he returned the passport. “Sorry to have kept you.”

“Not a problem,” Axel said, anxious to take his chance at an exit. “Just doing your job.” He adjusted his bow tie.

“Come.” Stefan slapped his friend’s back. “I have a coach waiting.”

(c) Lauren D. H. Miertschin

Excerpt from "Beyond the Pale," Chapter 6

Sevastopol, Russia 1889

Six year old Joshua picked up a stone and threw it so that it skipped along the rippling edges of the sea. All the neighborhood children, and even some adults, tried to beat the record, eight skips – set by thirteen-year-old Yerik Levy two summers ago. No one even came close.

“Three hops. Did you see?” Joshua ran up shore and unwittingly kicked sand into his uncle’s lap.

“Well look at that!” Axel set his papers face down on a leather bag and grabbed for a flat round rock. “Give her a try.” He tossed it against a gentle sea breeze.

Joshua leapt, caught the rock midair and ran off toward the bay’s mouth. Then he sent it soaring barely an inch above the water where it touched down, hopping not three, but four times before plunking into the sea.

“Wow! Did you see? Did you see?” The boy paid no attention to the sand that flew up from his running feet and slapped at his face.

“Now that’s a champion’s throw.” Axel applauded his nephew. He glanced about casually, his actual attention focused off shore – up the bay where a lone fisherman rowed in toward the docks. “Say . . . I heard a certain someone’s mother is making pancakes dipped in sugar and cinnamon.”

“You don’t say!” Joshua ran up the sandy slope to the road and took off running as fast as his feet could carry him. He halted and turned back to the beach. “Are you coming or not?” He shrugged his shoulders and let out a laugh before racing home.

Axel picked up his papers and resumed translating articles he wrote for Witness into the German language. His underground publication was into its sixth year running. Not one issue missed since start-up. He prided himself in that; authorities gnashed their teeth over the same fact.

The fisherman pulled up to dock as Axel worked the final page. He waved to Axel who nodded. He scribbled out one last line as the old man tied his boat to the weatherworn dock.

Shoving the papers into his bag, Axel remained in the sand and watched. A man and woman fished from the shore down a ways, while their little girl dug for sand crabs. A group of teen boys worked at breaking Yerik Levy’s rock skipping record further down shore. Axel waited until a commercial fishing vessel sailed past the several rundown private docks on its way out to sea. Then he casually walked down the beach as the old man heaved two sacks of piked dogfish, lethargically twisting and turning amongst themselves up onto the dock.

“Good catch today?” Axel knew the answer – the old man was an expert fisherman.

“Better than you know.” The setting sun lit up the old man’s tired, leathered face. He spit onto the dock’s wood planks and diverted his eyes to the sack in his rickety boat.

“Let me get these for you.” Axel grabbed the sacks on the dock and threw them over his shoulder with little effort. The fisherman pulled the other from the boat and the two made their way up to the wood shack close to the road where the fisherman gutted and cleaned his catch before he would sell it to a mid afternoon crowd. As long as Axel could remember the old man had been supplying locals with their fill of fish.

Axel dumped the fish from his sacks into a tattered metal bin filled with sea water outside the shack. He then followed the fisherman into the building further behind a canvas curtain into a back room. A small desk stood against the wall where the fisherman counted his earnings out each night, made notes about the fishing conditions that day and what he predicted for the next.

He offered Axel a seat, took his at the desk. He lit his pipe and hesitated before speaking. “It’s got to be ready today,” the old man said finally. “I set sail in the morning.”

“Have it right here.” Axel pulled out the final draft of Witness, written out in three languages: Russian, German and Yiddish.

“Excellent.” He took a puff from his pipe. “Give me a look.” The fisherman flipped through the pages that reported anonymously on the pogroms, on the Tsar’s callous response. It listed names of men and women wrongly accused. It promoted resistance and strikes, but also showed another side of the argument that Axel still felt uneasy about – that is men have the responsibility to rid itself of bad governments. But how to do that mercifully, Axel spent many a night pondering and writing about. Witness used France and America as examples –dangerous comparisons to make in a world such as his. Lesser words if traced to Axel would certainly cost him his life.

“Oh, yes. I like this . . . ‘Campaign of Terror’.” The fisherman read on silently. “Oh, and this,” he slapped his thigh. “ ‘Holy Mother Russia Frowns in disdain.’ You should have been a poet mate.”

Axel chuckled. He took back the empty leather bag and held it close to his heart.

“Great stuff. But you scare me mate, working this close to deadline.” The old man lit his pipe again and grinned, revealing three or four gaps where teeth had rotted and simply fallen out.

The bag draped over his arms, Axel rubbed his hands nervously. He looked over his shoulder twice before speaking in a low tone. “Any word on materials? Not much paper to last.”

“Leave it to me. Next week maybe. Take one of those fish for now. And this sack too; thirty-five pounds of sugar here.” The fisherman pulled a key from his trousers and turned his back, situating himself purposely to shield Axel from the desk drawer where he secured his papers. If all went well, by nightfall the next day, Witness would be in the hands of university students, in the hands of bankers and other businessmen, and perhaps even the Tsar himself.

Axel took the sugar, Rebekah, he thought, would appreciate this, but the fish, its skin was smooth, no scales. He found it endearing that the old man couldn’t remember that Jewish Law didn’t allow Axel to eat such meat. So, as usual Axel had it cleaned and smoked and gave the fish to the old Turkish woman who lived in the wood crate on the edge of town. She refused to live elsewhere, despite a couple of offers from kindhearted families in town. On the average, most people shunned her. She did not adhere to any divine law, but what did that matter, Axel thought, when you’re starving?

* * *

Axel and his brother, Jared, along with several longtime neighbors rebuilt the Levin home in the same spot it burned down seven years ago. It was two stories, still modest, but made mainly of stone this time instead of wood. The shed out back survived the fire, though it leaned to one side due to years of weathering. The neighbors offered to build a new one while they rebuilt the house. Axel declined. Grass covered the hillside now between their home and the shore where homes once stood. A small creek once diverted by those families who used to live there, had finally dug its way back through, bound for the Black Sea.

Though many left town after the pogrom of ’Eighty-Two, a great number remained and rebuilt. The city also had many newcomers. People from Odessa, and as far as Brest-Litovsk traveled to Sevastopol to set up a home. Many businesses were back and running. And the Russian Navy brought much needed revenue with sailors who took leave in this scenic, waterfront city of Sevastopol. The widow, Ruth, who lived across the street from the Levins, made a good business selling poppy cakes to famished, half-drunken sailors. She often stopped by the Levins with a batch as well.

Sugar was quite a luxury and certainly not cheap, which explained Rebekah’s gratitude. Joshua screamed with delight because sugar meant the future held treats. But neither Jared, nor Rebekah asked Axel how he came upon riches such as this. They never asked him where he got the money or goods he brought home on a regular basis. Both suspected though, that it had something to do with the writings he produced working late nights in the shed out back.

“Let’s tell him,” Rebekah said after packing away the sugar. She looked at her husband and smiled. “We have wonderful news.”

“Well?” Axel leaned in forward.” I’m always in the mood for good news.”

“Soon . . .,” Rebekah blushed. “Soon,” she giggled, “another Levin baby will fill our days.”

“And nights,” Jared chuckled.

Axel slapped his brother’s back and reached out to Rebekah.

“Hooray!” Joshua jumped up from the table and holding tight onto his pancake ran circles around his mother. “I’m going to have a brother . . . A baby brother!”

“Or sister.” Rebekah pulled her son in close.

“I’d say we have cause for celebration.” Axel lifted his nephew and plopped him on his lap. “So you’re going to have a brother or a sister? Won’t your grandmother be delighted.”

“Hooray!” Joshua yelled again. He blew a wisp of hair away from his eyes.

“About mother . . .” Jared interrupted. “There’s something, I mean, oh hell Brother, we need to talk.”

Rebekah and Jared looked to one another. She nodded to her husband.
“Has she grown worse?” Axel’s smile faded.

“No, nothing like that,” Rebekah said. “She’s upstairs resting now, she wanted us to talk to you first.” She moved in close to her husband to provide a united front.

“We’ve been thinking,” Jared continued, “and well, we would like to take Mother with us.”

“With you?”

“Yes. Please. We can’t put this off much longer.”

“Put what off?”

“We want to leave, Axel”

Axel opened his mouth to speak. No words escaped.

“Now look, before you say anything. Doesn’t look like its going to get much better here. In Pinsk last week a man was dragged from his home. They beat him to death.”

“I know, I know.” Axel shook his head, fearful where this conversation was leading. Though he once pleaded with his father to leave Russia, Axel could not leave now. He felt his father was right; he did belong in Russia, this was their home.

“It’ll take years for Russia to recover from what’s happened. And I’m afraid, well, you know more so, the worst is yet to come.”

Axel pushed his nephew’s dark hair away from the boy’s eyes. He stared at his brother and nodded his head in regretful agreement. “But this is your home.”

“Axel, please.”

Jared took his wife’s hand. “You understand,” he said. “I want my son free to enter any profession he desires, attend a university if he wants. And Mother, no she hasn’t gotten worse, but she hasn’t got any better.”

“Come with us,” Rebekah pleaded.

“What do you say?” Jared held out his hand to Axel. He winked at his son who with sugar in the corners of his mouth concentrated on the pancake.

“Oh, Axel do.”

“I urge you to consider, Brother. We’ll leave for Berlin in a week . . . we can stay with Rebekah’s sister until we decide where next.”

“She has a lovely home,” Rebekah piped in.

Axel kissed Joshua’s head and set him on the floor. “You can stop,” he said.

“Why? What are you saying?” Jared looked anxiously at his brother.

“I have only one thing to say.”

“And that is?”

“My prayers will be with you,” Axel said. “The journey will be long.”

Tears fell down Rebekah’s cheeks. Despite it, she smiled, leaned forward and hugged Axel. “Come Joshua.” She grabbed her son’s hand. “We have much to do

(c) Lauren D.H. Miertschin

Excerpt from "Beyond the Pale," Chapter 14

1900, Kiev

Five boys threw dirt clods at each other in the hills above the valley. For cover they hid behind the bronze St. Vladimir who carries a cross overlooking the village. They ran circles around the statue, hollered out racial slurs to each other in jest. Then they tromped through the damp grass, blazing a trail up the hillside. White butterflies went unnoticed flittering between wildflowers as the eldest of the group, Mikhail, took off running toward a cave. The others kept close behind. The boys always kept close behind Mikhail.

“I’m not going in there,” said twelve year old Dimitri upon reaching the cave.

"Ah . . . are you scared?” Nicholas asked. He gave Dimitri a shove.

“Come, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” Mikhail slapped Dimitri’s back then tugged at the boy’s arm. His eyes told Nicholas to let him handle this. He possessed a certain talent convincing boys to do any number of things. Mikhail once in fact, convinced them to stow away on a passenger train all the way to St. Petersburg. All of the boys all got quite a whooping that night. But not one told their parents who instigated the scheme.

“Scared! Says who?” Dimitri lurched forward to return Nicholas’s shove.

“Sure, you’re not scared.” Mikhail placed himself between the two, straightened his back and puffed out his chest. “It’s just a little old hole. Nothing to be scared of.”

“Dimitri’s scared. Dimitri’s scared,” the remaining three boys sang. But then they quickly hushed with a look from Mikhail. Nicholas darted off and disappeared into the cave. Inside he hollered as all young boys do in caves – just to hear their voices bounce off the walls. Mikhail patted Dimitri on the head then casually took off behind the other boys to find Nicholas. He didn’t want to walk off too fast as he knew that Dimitri would soon follow. Couldn’t be too obvious either, so he picked up his pace slightly. The laughter that streamed out of the cave’s mouth enticed Dimitri. But he plopped himself down on a boulder instead of following the others, and rested his face in his hands.

“I am not scared.” Dimitri kicked at the pebbles in the dirt. “Am not, I say. Who do they think they are anyway?” He scooped up a handful of gravel and chucked it down at his feet. Then he stepped cautiously into the wide mouth of the cave and followed the playful sounds that echoed through the halls. Two tunnels branched off into darkness. He arbitrarily chose the left hoping that both led to his friends. After a few steps the tunnel curved to the right and daylight completely disappeared. Dimitri hesitated. He waved his hand an inch in front from face and could not see even the outline of his fingers. Only his admiration for Mikhail kept him moving forward. Running his hand along the moist walls, he stepped over a floor he could not see, then stopped to listen for the others. All Dimitri could hear was his own heavy breathing, and the slow moisture drip from the ceiling above.

“Mikhail,” Dimitri called out. “Stop fooling with me.” He took another step then swung around and scurried back to find the light. Before reaching the bend in the tunnel his foot caught a solid lump that he’d managed to side step on the way in. He flew forward landing face down in the cool dirt. With a shrill scream Dimitri scrambled forward on his belly.

Sounds of laughter echoed up the tunnel.

“Give me a match to light my cigarette.” Mikhail patted down Nicholas in the dark.

“Sure, sure, got one here.” Nicholas struck the match. In an instant the tunnel lit up.

“Look here,” Mikhail said puffing on a loosely rolled cigarette. “What are you doing there boy? Stand up and show some dignity.”

The others laughed as Dimitri jumped to his feet and brushed off pebbles embedded into his knees and elbows. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, his face flushed from a mixture of embarrassment and fear.

“What’s that there?” another boy asked.

“Here Nicholas, give us more light.”

Nicholas lit another match and the boys inched forward to a lump in the dirt. It first appeared merely a pile of dirty clothing. Then Dimitri let out a yelp. “Look there,” he said pointing to what appeared to be a hand caked in blood protruding from the pile.

“What is it?”

“No! Can’t be.”

Mikhail moved forward and with his foot flung off a coat from the pile. “My God,” he said. “It’s a boy.” He grabbed Nicholas’s matches and lit three at once. He shuddered before he pushed his comrades aside for a closer look.

A boy indeed – stabbed in the neck and torso forty-three times, a coroner later concluded. A school bag nearby identified him as Andrei Krestyanov, a local fourteen year old missing for several days. His murder scandalized Kiev. All the newspapers wanted to interview the boys who discovered him. But none of their parents would allow it.

Plenty of stories were written about the poor boy’s murder. Jews, people said, the Jews were to blame for Andrei’s murder. The day of his funeral, a group of Russian citizens distributed leaflets throughout Kiev that claimed Jews murdered Christian children for blood to mix with their matzos. And the press repeated the rumor that the Jews practiced organized ritual murder. Like so often before, Russian sentiment toward the Jewish population disintegrated even further. Politicians argued against granting civil and religious rights to them. Others signed petitions demanding that the government bring justice to these “criminal Jews.” Many who thought otherwise feared saying so.

* * *

Axel Levin pulled closed his tattered coat and shivered. He shivered not because of a chill in the air, but from the blood thirst he witnessed from the barefoot peasants and jewel clad aristocrats packed into the courtroom, eager to see Efrat Mindel sentenced to die.

“Poor loser,” Axel said beneath his breath. He wondered how many more times Witness would report on an innocent man or woman sent off to Siberia, or worse yet, blindfolded before a firing squad.

“Mindel, Mindel, drinker of Christian blood,” yelled a toothless woman dressed in rags. She stood beside Axel in the jammed courtroom.

Axel knew damn well that Mindel was innocent, as did half the nation for that matter. The prosecution’s witnesses had been so poorly coached, their testimonies read like bad plays. Mindel’s terrible luck was that he just happened to work in a Jewish owned factory located near the caves where the boys discovered Andrei Krestyanov’s bloody corpse.

The crowds jeered the defense and hissed at the accused as he walked into the courtroom each day. All the while, Mindel sat at the defense table never turning his head to look back at the spectators. No, he stared straight ahead, straight into the eyes of those on the witness stand who spun outright lies. He never even spouted out in protest – proof, some said of his guilt.

A young woman with a child in her arms rose from the audience. “Give them the chance, they’ll murder your child too!” She spit at the defense attorney’s back. Many in the room gasped. Some clapped, then the courtroom momentarily fell quiet as the judge glared at the spectators. Silence prevailed until the judge ordered the peasant woman and her child thrown out.

Several spectators booed. When the judge ordered silence the shouts died out, but a quiet murmur persisted, especially when the prosecutor questioned a certain lady of the night, Sinovia. She swore that Mindel confessed to the murder after he paid her for a particular undisclosed favor. Several women in the crowd scowled and shook their heads at the revelation. A few men smirked, knowing exactly what sort of “favor” Sinovia was famous for. They would have preferred a bit more detail. But those who knew Mindel, had told Axel that he was not the sort of man to visit such women. Those who really knew Mindel were never called to the witness stand. And had they been, they might not have showed anyway. Witnesses for the defense had the habit of disappearing in the night.

Amidst this commotion, Axel noticed a striking woman who sat two rows behind the prosecution’s table. Dressed in the finest blue satin, her hair neatly waved, she inconspicuously patted tears from her face with an embroidered handkerchief. A teenage girl, Axel guessed to be a daughter, sat at her side. Something about that woman, the honey-color shade of her hair, the shape of her neck perhaps, drew him in. He saw the woman take the girl’s hand. The girl viciously pulled away. Her body language revealed disdain.

Axel had no more connections with the bourgeois, especially since Stefan’s betrayal. Yet he felt he knew this woman who wept at the trial of a Jewish man. He watched her back intently as she held her head low, as if ashamed to be seen in the courtroom. She did not turn to watch the scuffle that broke out in the back of the room. She did not participate in, nor did she acknowledge any of the outbursts that entire afternoon.

One man rushed forward. Kill them all!” he screamed. “Until not a single one’s left.” His face red and trembling, blue veins throbbing at his neck, he plowed his way through the crowd toward the defense.

“I will not have this in my courtroom,” the judge finally yelled out. “Clear my court this instant.”

People mumbled beneath their breaths as armed guards herded them out of the courtroom doors. The defense attorney put his arm around Mindel and whispered into his ear, while the prosecutor made his way through the crowd to the woman dressed in blue. Axel watched as she bowed her head before the prosecutor, a man in his late sixties, clean shaven and dressed in an expensive tailored black suit. He kissed the woman’s forehead then received the teenage girl with open arms.

“Oh Father, you will send that dreadful man away won’t you?”

“With any luck Sweetheart, he’ll never have the opportunity to kill again.”

Arm in arm, Father and daughter followed the crowd out of the courtroom doors, the woman taking up behind. She looked to the ground and patted her face dry with the handkerchief.

Axel obeyed an impulse to follow her through the crowd. She had a lightness to her walk that he found familiar, compelling, urging him to follow until he found himself with only a few people between him, the woman, daughter and prosecutor.

“Father, I do hope you will allow me to attend the shooting. I want to see that disgusting man die.” Unable to contain her excitement, the prosecutor’s daughter hopped from foot to foot.

The girl’s mother shook her head in protest. Taking the cue from his wife, the prosecutor held his daughter’s hand, moved stray hairs from her face and said something that Axel could not make out.

She yanked away from her father. “You ruin everything,” she screamed at the woman who had so drawn Axel. “I hate you!”

The girl pushed her way through the crowd, squeezing tears from her eyes. She blindly crashed into Axel just a few feet away. His eyes met hers – a deep brown, void of recognition.

“Out of my way, you bum,” the girl screeched and pushed onward.

Outside the courthouse spectators lingered about in hopes of the trial re-adjourning. Axel moved away from the crowd and rested at the feet of a larger than life statue of Alexander the Third upon his throne. Tearing pieces from his bread, Axel ate while contemplating the fate of Mindel. Absentmindedly he tossed the remains of his loaf to the ground.

Just as dozens of birds perched upon Alexander the Third’s stone robe swooped down to devour the crumbs, the woman from the courtroom stepped out from the Tsar’s backside. She held her head down and wrung her hands as she anxiously looked behind her.

“May I assist you?” Axel said. He found himself not looking at her, but past her, for the prosecutor and the teenage girl.

“Please.” Her eyes downcast she held onto the diamond and sapphire choker around her neck. “I have the means. I can pay,” she said.

Hints of something familiar in her voice, Axel clumsily rose to his feet. With one hand he swept his lap for breadcrumbs. “Pay? Dear lady,” he said. “You must have me mistaken for someone else. Why don’t you tell me who you are looking for and . . .”

“Axel, please,” the woman snapped. She rushed forward into his space. “I haven’t much time.”

Axel stepped back, stumbling over his feet. “I don’t understand.” He scanned the area quickly. “My name,” he said with urgency, “how did you know?”

“I beg you Axel, please take me away, help me escape.” She took the crumpled handkerchief from her closed fist and sobbed into it.

He studied the wrinkle in her brow, the strain in her pale blue eyes. He knew immediately that he had gazed into those eyes before, dreamt about those eyes before. But the eyes he remembered seemed stronger, more full of life.

“Ivana, could it be?” Axel quickly recoiled from the woman. “Some kind of trick.”

“No, please,” she said. “I promise, no trick.”

It was her eyes that convinced him. When he looked further into them, everything else fell away – the diamonds, the satin, the finely manicured hair. It was the woman he once knew who cried out from those eyes – the woman so passionate about their cause . . . the woman who he could not save from the wretched hands of Stefan.

Axel grabbed her shoulders, startling even himself.

“Yes.” She lifted her chin, tears welled in her eyes, she looked up into his. Her painted lips formed a faint smile.

“Ivana,” Axel cried in a hushed voice. “My God, you’re alive.”

(c) Lauren D. H. Miertschin