THE BIRTHDAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22498, 15 August 1936, Page 12 (Supplement)

THE BIRTHDAY

Short Story

ALEKHINE came into the room, and, after saying " Good evening" to Katrina, stood stamping the snow from his boots in front of the stove.

After a moment she got up and helped him off with his overcoat and took the rough tweed cap which he wore and hung Ihem up on the peg in the corner of the sleeping apartment on the opposite side of the

passage. Alekhine was allowed two rooms because ho was assistant commissar in the police commissariat in Rostov, and because ho used the living room as an overflow office.

When Katrina hung up the tweed cap on the pop; she noticed that there was an English name inside it; the cap had, apparently, hoen made in Manchester, and she wondered vaguely just how it was that a cap made in Manchester could get all the wnv to Russia. She went back into tho living room and went to tho samovar. Sho was busy there for a moment and then gave Alekhine his tea. There was no sugar, because tho allowance had not come through, and, although, by virtuo of his official position, he could have procured some with a little trouble, he would not do this. He had always been against officials getting extra supplies for themselves while so many of the people were hungry. Then she went back to her sewing.

Out of the corner of her eye she watched Alekhine as ho sat at the rough deal table, looking through the papers before him. It was obvious that something was worrying him; his blue eyes, deep-set in a lone, thin face that was lined with the thousand cares of the last ten years were even more tired than usual. She was sorry for Alekhine; she knew that he was disappointed, grieved, at the failure of the great experiment in which ho had so devoutly believed. Ho

of guerilla warfare in the countryside, living from hand to month on what they could steal from day to day.

As she .took his cup to refill it, he looked up at her and smiled. " Next Thursday is your birthday, Katrina," he. said ; " what would you like mo to give you for a present?" " It is nice of you to remember," sho said, " but 1 do not wfint anything, i have as much as we can have." Ho looked up at her. " I would like to give you something, Katrina," he said, " some little thing." He looked down at the papers before him. She could sco that ho was uncomfortable and unhappy. Sho went back to her chair. After a few moments ho spoke. " 1 am very sorry for yon Katrina," he said, "1 have some bad news tor you. I am unhappy because 1 must be the bearer of had news." Sho looked at him. " How can there bo bad news for mo?" she snid. He was looking at the papers before him when ho answered. " Yesterday," he said, "one of the Cheka detachments captured a guerilla hand near Torshok. They were bad people. They have pi von much trouble to us with their murdering?! and lootings. it is certain that they will bo shot. 1 am sorry to tell you that tho leader of this hand was Alexis Nikolas. I am very sorry." She did not speak for a few minutes; her eyes were riveted to the piece of) rough' cloth that she was sewing, but she did not see it. Through the tears which were blinding her she could see the face, young, laughing, of Alexis Nikolas and above it sat at a jaunty angle the fur head-dress of the I'sar s Own Siberian Sharpshooters. What a splendid figure ho had been! A cold rage possessed her. "Of course they will he shot"' she said. "And what else could they do but kill and loot? Either that or they starved to death! In any event, there was never anything before them but death; what does it matter how it CO 111 OS."

She put the piece of cloth on the chair and walked over to the table. She stood before Alekhine, looking straight into his eyes. " You wish to uive me something: for my birthday," sho said. " Very well,

Princess Paul Troubetzkoy

is the Author of This Story of a Woman's Bitterness (Copyright Resen'eJ)

was disappointed in the people, who merely went on being lazy, making no real attempt to help anything along, and merely doing all they could —each of them —to get as much as was possible for 1 himself, disregarding all the others. In a strange way, which she, herself, could not explain, Katrina had not been very unhappy during the ten years which she had spent with Alekhine as his wife. She knew, as he did, that she had merely married him to save her life; otherwise she would have met the Bame fate as the other well-born women who had been her contemporaries.

here is your opportunity. I have been a good wife to you. although you know that I do not love you; that I never have loved you. It is not difficult for you to save the life of this man whom 1 have always loved. You aro in the Police Commissariat. You have given years of your life, working for this ideal which seems to arrive nowhere. You have starved for it, working yoursplf to illness for it; and 1 have starved with you and I have helped you work. You can do this." He did not replj. He sat silently still, looking at the pile of papers on tho table, but she could see that his eyes were clouded with tears. Eventually he shook his head. " I cannot do it, Katrina," he said. "It would bo wrong. Perhaps I am sorry for Alexis Nikolas; perhaps 1 realise that he is one of those unfortunate people who have not been responsible for the things which have happened in this unhappy country. Nevertheles, tho law is made to be kept; it is our business to sco that the laws are kept; it is my own particular business to apply these laws. To you, Alexis Nikolas is something heroic, something beautiful, because you remember only his sull'erings. lint to me he is merely a criminal, a man who has broken tho law; and the law will condemn him."

Living with him had given her a certain tolerance, and understanding of what the men like Alekhine, who had Buffered so grievously under the Tsarist regime, were trying to do for Russia, bejng thwarted continuously by the majority of crooks and scoundrels who had inserted themselves into official positions in the Soviet, and who battened on the new regime, making it, in some ways, infinitely worse than the pld one.

She remembered how she had hated 'Alekhine; she remembered, too, that she had consented to marry him, in the first place, because at the back of her mind there wa3 an idea that she might, somehow, escape, that she might, by some miracle, find Alexis Nikolas, whom she had loved, and who was, at this time, somewhere within the confines of the Soviet, a member of one of those strange groups of bandits, consisting of a weird mixture of ex-officers and city scum, who still waged a kind

She laughed bitterly. " I knew you would say that," she said. " I. also know that you could do this for me if you desired to do it. You ask me what I would like for my birthday. 1 tell you that I woidd like the life of Alexis Nikolas. I do not want to see him, to speak to him; I only want to know that he is alive,

that he is no longer hunted like a dog." He shook his head. There was something quite final in the movement. " J cannot do it, Katrina," ho said. *##«■» It was two days later that Katrina learned that the 17 bandits, who had been trapped by a detachment of ( hcka troops in a disused quarry near Torsliok, had been tried and were to be shot 011 the following Thursday morning—-the morning of her birthday. There was a long list of crimes against these men, nine of whom were ex-officers ol' the Tsarist regime, tho remainder being dispossessed kulaks or of the sweepings of the cities —men without trades union cards and, therefore, without any means of subsistence. Specifically, they were charged with tho derailing of a train some three weeks before. They had pulled up the rails and in the uproar which had followed the accident —in which 20 people had lost their lives —they had looted the mail van. It was when she learned that the execution was to take place on tho morning of her birthday t hat she made up her mind that sho would kill Alexhine on the same morning. She came to this decision quito calmly. Sho regarded him as being representative of the Power which, having reduced Alexis Nikolas to the status of a robber, was now going to execute him for doing the only tiling he could do. Vaguely she found herself a littlo amused at tho thought that sho would kill Alekhine with tho stiletto with which sho had intended to kill him years before, when he had asked her to become his wife, when he had pointed out that if he did not marry her it would bo certain that sho would bo tried and executed with the rest of the batch of prisoners who had been corralled on a dozen different charges. She had consented, thinking that it would "bo good to live a little longer; that, somehow, having killed Alekhine, sho might rejoin Alexis Nikolas, that they might escape. Now it seemed to her that it was the only means of escape for any of them. Alexis was to die. Very well, then, let Alekhine die and she would die also. The night before the execution Alekhine camo home late. Ho looked very tired and verv ill.

hare overcoat hanging loosely about his thin logs, staring at t.lio jurnhle of neglected papers for a long time. He permed to have forgotten that he was .still holding his cap in his hand. Then he pot up and he wont out. It was late when he returned. Katrina. was already in her hod and under her pillow was the stiletto. She was wide awake, staring at the cracked ceiling, thinking, when he returned, lie did not put 011 the light. She heard him get into his own hod quietly, so as not to disturb her. She expected that he thought that she was asleep. She lay all through the night, staring into the darkness with eyes that saw only the smiling face of Alexis Nikolas, a lace which she know would still he smiling next morning when the executioner, with his big .Mauser pistol, came to fetch him.

At ten minutes to eight she got up and put 011 her dress. From the other side of the room came 1 lie sound of the tired breathing of Alokhine. Even when he was asleep he breathed as if lie were tired and unhappy. She had often thought that his breathing sounded like long sighs of unhappinoss.

When the clock in the corner of the room told her that it was eight o'clock she walked over to his bod with the stiletto in her hand. She looked down at the long, thin face, with the soft, carefully kept little brown beard and the blue shadows under the closed eyes. Strangely enough, she felt sorry lor Alekhine. Then she thought of Alexis Nikolas. They would bo killing him now. She put (he point of the stiletto just ahove the Adam's apple in Alekiiilie's throat and drove it home through the artorv.

He died quite quietly. She pulled tho army blanket over his face. Then she walked across into tho living-room. She felt very ill. She thought that she would make herself somo tea, and after that sho would walk round to the Choka Commissariat and tell them what she had done.

He came into the living room and stood, his odd tweed cap in his hand, looking at her as she sat in the corner, sewing.

"When sho got into tho living-room sho saw, standing on the corner of his table, in the centre of a space which he had cleared of pnjvors, a jar. In the jar was a little bunch of flowers, and beside it was an envelope. It was addressed to her. She opened it and took out the note. She road: "Kalrina, 1 wish yon many happy return* of flie day. I did not think that. I loved .von sufficiently to do what you asked me to 'in, lint I have been out to-night, and I have tradrd my years of devotion and work for the life of Alexis Nikolas. lie is to bo pardoned. " Mere, on my table, ts the order for his release, which I will sign for you in the morning, and you yourself can take it round to the prison. " I thought, at first, that T would tell you to-night, but you are so still that I know you are asleep. "Once again, many happy returns of today. "Alekhine."

"I am very sorry for you, Katrina," ho said: "I expert you have heard. I am very sorry that ifc must be tomorrow."

•She looked at him and smiled. He did not drink his tea and he did not eat. He sat at his tabic, his thread-