Chapter 1

June 28, 1914, in Moscow.

“Gentlemen of the jury, what is a father—a real father? What is the meaning of that great word? What is the great idea in that name?”

--Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

 

Bells were ringing in Moscow. They clanged out incessantly, worming their way into every street and nook and shop, providing background to every conversation, giving rhythm to every stroll down Ilyinka or Varvarka in Kitai-gorod. The tone rung out rich and deep and clear, striking reverence in every Moscow heart. No one could quite put a finger on the exact sound—for those lucky enough to hear it, it wasn’t a note or a chord, but a voice—the voice of God calling to them, booming out a reminder of his rule, that his dominion stretched even into the darkest recesses of a man’s soul.

            For those listening closely, each bell spoke a unique message. Hope rang out right next to despair. Redemption closely resembled depravity. The sounds slithered over each other, creating a layered harmony that wasn’t so much a song as it was a glimpse of the divine, of something just out of reach.

            St. Nicholas—the Great Cross—provided the backdrop to the scene, its baroque towers looming over the district, poking just into the sky. The golden stars seemed to pop out of the blue domes of the church on that summer day. St. Elijah stood just beyond, guarding the entrance into the district, but the open arches were more welcoming than foreboding, the arms of the arches opening downward as if preparing to embrace.

            The Moskva was busy snaking in and through the city, streaming quietly past the cluster of churches on Zaryadye, flowing deferentially past the Romanov residence. The river was doing its best to live up to its etymology, the turbid waters mirroring the sky, which was threatening rain.

            The streets in Kitai-gorod bustled with business, as the smaller sounds of the district mingled and mixed with the bells. The distinct smell of sausage wafted over from the butchers’ shops, colliding with the bread smell of beer. Wheels creaked along the brick roads and people rushed around and past, carrying boxes, calling out to each other, laughing, cursing, clapping.

“Eh? What do you think Ilya?!”

“Yes, she’s quite the woman!”

“Let me get one of those, those over there, yes, those. Two roubles! Two roubles! What’s wrong with you? They couldn’t be worth more than 80 kopecks!”

“Of course, the butcher shop over on Myasnitskaya. Which butcher’s shop? Polonsky’s or Pulatsky’s or Pilintsky’s—I don’t remember.”

“I’m telling you Prechistenka’s no joke. You should see the places they have over there!”

“Look’s like rain, eh chap? This city, it’s always something here. Too cold or too hot, snowing or raining. Is it too much to ask for one nice day?”

A tailor’s shop sat quietly on Varvarka Street in the middle of the flurry of activity. It was an unassuming little place, just a door and a window with the words Tailor’s Shop painted on in a slight arch. The door was kept open, letting the small breeze that had picked up in anticipation of rain to carry the ringing bells into the back of the shop, past the two tables straining under mounds of pants and coats, the discarded bottles of vodka, and the box of cheap cigars.

The sound hit the wall then began to swirl around the man standing on top of a box, staring at a mirror.

“I’m so sick of those bells,” he said. “Every day they beat out, every hour of every day, every minute of every hour of every day. Ouch!” he finished. He had been poked in the calf after shifting weight from one leg to the other.

“Eh?” the tailor asked. “Don’t move, Pyotr Petrovich.”

Pyotr Petrovich grimaced and stood erect, swearing when the tailor poked him again.

“Oops. My fault completely that time,” the tailor said after nicking Pyotr Petrovich’s ankle with a pin. The tailor was circling around him on his knees, pulling on the black slacks to straighten them, humming quietly to himself and letting out the occasional sigh.

Pyotr Petrovich Kulyagin, the collegiate counselor, was an imposing man. He stood more than six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a slightly hunched back. His square jaw line usually was haunted by the shadow of a beard, but it had been shaved off for the very same reason that he had come to the tailor’s: a cousin was getting married out in the country in two days. On trying his suit, he noticed the slacks didn’t quite fit around his waist anymore. He had tried to force the pants together, but to no avail.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” the tailor said. “We’ll fix these trousers up no problem. You’ve come to the right place.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Pyotr Petrovich grumbled. “No other tailor in the city would fix me up on such short notice.”

“Well, anyway, you’ve found your way back to the best tailor in Moscow. And I’m happy you’ve come back.”

“You’d better not do the job you did last time, Ivan Mikhailovich,” Pyotr Petrovich threatened. “That coat was a gift from my father on my wedding day.”

“Yes, yes, so you said before,” the tailor responded. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my friend. Hopefully that’s enough sorry for you.”

Pyotr Petrovich sighed, then focused on himself in the mirror. The bells had stopped, but his ears were still ringing.

“Those bloody bells,” he said. “They’re so loud! My ears will be ringing for hours.”

The tailor didn’t respond, and Pyotr Petrovich went back to staring into the mirror. He puffed out his chest, then, frowning, his stomach. He placed his hands on his belly and jiggled it a little, then tightened and pulled it up, so that the shirt over it creased unnaturally. With a large exhale, he slowly let it fall back out.

“Blasted woman with all that rich food,” he said to himself.

“Eh?” the tailor asked, looking up.

“Nothing…how much is this alteration going to cost me?”

“Well,” the tailor said, looking at the ground, his glasses slipping down his nose, “considering the extensive nature of the operation, and the short time frame in which to attempt it, I’d have to charge no less than seven roubles.”

“Seven rou…seven rou…,” Pyotr Petrovich stammered. “Seven roubles! That’s a robbery! That’s a theft! That’s high crime! Why, it shouldn’t cost more than two! Especially considering what happened last time.”

“Feel free, my friend, to go to another tailor. But I’m betting the price would be quite similar.”

“That damn woman! I wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for her!”

“Don’t blame your wife, Pyotr Petrovich, when it was you who ate all the food.”

“But it’s her fault! I come home from work, and all I want is a little cabbage soup with maybe just a small glass of vodka, and the woman sets in front of me huge meat pies, or stuffed cabbage, or beef stroganoff, or a whole duck, and then she places an entire bottle of vodka next to my plate. If I start to yell, or even inquire softly why she had to cook such a meal, tears start to well in her eyes, and she starts to whimper, crying that she just wanted to please me, that I requested it that morning…what am I supposed to do against that?”

The tailor had begun to smile, and was opening his mouth to say something, but Pyotr Petrovich went on.

“Then the woman has the gall to ask if I want dessert, and what can I say? So she brings out pancakes with all sorts of jam, or dumplings, or worse yet, puddings or tarts or cheesecakes. It’s as if she’s fattening me for the slaughter!”

“Don’t eat so much, then. Try smaller portions,” the tailor said.

“But then she’ll eat up all the food, and she’ll be the one getting fat. A plump woman is attractive, but a fat woman, ugh. You should see her mother…can barely fit through a door.”

“So it’s a sacrifice, then?”

“Exactly. And the woman doesn’t appreciate the things I do for her,” Pyotr Petrovich went on. “I buy a new suit once a month it seems just so that I’ll look respectable for her. But she complains, saying she wants a new dress when she already has plenty in her closet. The same thing happens when I buy a new cologne. She cries ‘perfume,’ even though our washroom is stuffed to the ceiling with them.”

“That all doesn’t sound so bad,” the tailor said.

“She’s driving me insane!” Pyotr Petrovich said. “I see mincemeat pies in my nightmares!”

“Well, my friend, at least she cooks for you. My wife kicked me out of my own home just because I came home drunk one night.”

“That’s awful,” Pyotr Petrovich said. “My wife encourages my drinking; she doesn’t mind at all when I come home with a little alcohol on my breath. She knows she can get money out of me that way.”

“My Maryushka, let me tell you,” the tailor continued, “It’s like the scythe running into the stone night after night. So I drink a little,” he gestured at the empty bottles. “It helps me focus on the work. So I come home a little tipsy every day? It’s my right, isn’t it? I pay for the food, I provided the home, I even give her the maid because she claims she can’t do all the housework by herself. It’s an apartment! Less than half a day to clean up! And she gets angry because I smile at Zina? Now that’s family trouble.”

Pyotr Petrovich let out a yelp, because during his verbal tirade, the tailor had pinned the slacks to his ankle.

“Your wife is right,” he said, gasping, “You shouldn’t be drinking. I’ll be full of holes by the time I leave here.”

“God in heaven, now you’re harping on me, too? I’m sorry, my friend, for poking you, but these things happen with any tailor. And let me tell you, that woman kicked me out! So I have to curl up in the back of this forsaken shop under that pile of clothes just to keep warm. Haven’t had a shave in a week! I haven’t had a decent meal in even longer! But you don’t see me complaining! You don’t see me crying about how I have to come home to an adoring wife who waits on me, who personally pours vodka down my throat, and stuffs me with pies and jams!”

“You just don’t understand,” Pyotr Petrovich said quietly.

“Well, maybe you’re right,” the tailor said, sighing. “Maybe it’s like Tolstoy said: ‘All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’”

Pyotr Petrovich looked outside, at the light drizzle that had begun to massage the pavement. The tailor resumed his work, humming quietly again as he slowly circled around the impatient collegiate counselor. The day grew a little darker suddenly, so that the tailor had to stand up, groaning as he creaked his back, and light a few candles.

“This weather, it’s frustrating,” Pyotr Petrovich said, trying to ease out of the thick quiet. “But at least the bells have stopped.”

The ringing had stopped, but a new sound was fast approaching the tailor shop’s open door. Voices on top of voices, competing and conflicting, rising and yelling and growing in intensity were galloping along the street. Within a minute, all of Kitai-gorod was enveloped in the thick cloud of human speech.

The tailor stopped working and stepped towards the door. Pyotr Petrovich also stepped down from his box and walked over to the window. Crowds had gathered in the street; everyone was looking over in the direction of Red Square.

A young man walking past noticed the two men in the shop and poked his head inside. “They’re saying the Tsar has been assassinated,” he said, before continuing on his way.

“Good God!” Pyotr Petrovich let out. “The Tsar! That can’t possibly be!”

Both men rushed outside to the nearest group. “What’s happened?” Pyotr Petrovich asked, gasping.

“No one knows for sure,” a faceless voice said, “But most people think it’s the king of Austria that’s been assassinated.”

“Not the Tsar?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Why would anyone want to kill the king of Austria?” Pyotr Petrovich asked.

“They’re saying a Serb did it.”

The tailor, who had been standing outside the group as Pyotr Petrovich squeezed his way in said quietly: “This is going to cause a whole heap of trouble for us.”

“Why would it matter to Russia whether the king of Austria dies or not?” Pyotr Petrovich asked, turning to him.

“You’ll see, my friend,” the tailor said. “They’ll tangle us up in it somehow, and before you know it, war. Now, come on back to the shop so we can finish measuring for that alteration.”

The two men walked back into the shop. Pyotr Petrovich had his head down, eyes on the pavement, hair tinged with just a little layer of rainwater. “You know, I think this whole thing will get straightened out. At least I hope so. What a thing to throw at me now, just days before my cousin’s wedding.”

“I hope so too,” the tailor said, getting back onto his knees and gesturing at the box, “But I have a bad feeling about this, like Russia’s about to be dragged into something that’s going to change her forever.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic.”

The tailor looked up at Pyotr Petrovich, swept his head around to look out the window at the people still standing in the rain, then smiled back up at his client. The wind that had picked up when the rain started had snuffed the flames of the candles out, so that the collegiate counselor didn’t catch this last action.

“I’m the one with the real problems, anyway,” Pyotr Petrovich said. “How is it coming along?”

“Pretty much finished,” the tailor said. “Just a bit more.”

“Excuse me,” came a voice from the door. “Excuse me, Ivan Mikhailych, are you back there?”

Both men looked up at the shapely silhouette standing in the doorway. A woman was peering into the back of the dark shop, trying to distinguish shadow from man.

“Back here,” the tailor called out.

“Vanya, your wife, she’s…Oh, excuse me,” the woman said, noticing Pyotr Petrovich looking in her direction.

“Eh?” the tailor asked, standing up. “Is that you, Zina? Yes? Well, what’s the matter with Marya Ilyina?”

“Ivan Mikhailych,” the woman said, dropping her voice almost to a whisper, so that it was difficult to hear over the amplified voices in the street, “Your wife’s gone into labor. She’s asking for you.”

“Labor? The child’s coming already?” he asked.

“Well, look at this. Russia will change forever after all, my friend,” Pyotr Petrovich put in. “She’ll have another fine tailor in a few years.”

“A child? Already?” the tailor went on. “Okay, alright. Go on, Zina, I’m coming.”

The woman left the shop, scanning the crowds as she went.

“Listen, Pyotr Petrovich, Petya, we have to finish this later,” the tailor said.

“But you said you were almost finished,” the collegiate counselor said. “And the wedding’s in two days.”

“Yes, yes. Come back tomorrow and it’ll be done. Right now, I have to run. My wife’s having a child.”

“Alright,” Pyotr Petrovich said, sighing. As he stepped down off the box, the tailor ran out the door.

 

The stairwell was creaking slower than the steady, heavy sound of his breathing. He stopped just a moment in the middle of the stairs and leaned over, trying to catch his breath, and could feel the shirt on his back bear down on him with the weight of the rain. All his clothes were wet; the little pellets of water seemed to grow larger and increase speed during his long sprint home.

He looked up, down the hallway, where doors were opening and closing, heads popping in and out. The screams grew louder and more prolonged. Pulling the shirt off his back, Ivan Mikhailych Bushkin climbed the final steps, putting on a big smile before he pushed his way into the apartment.

Once inside, he moved past the coat rack with its single tenant, past the dusty shelf with the radio, past the empty kitchen table, past the bed and the books stacked up in the corner next to it, to the back of the apartment, toward the source of the screams, to the large tub and the sweaty, angry woman inside it.

Her long brown hair was drenched and matted down in strands on her forehead. Just under, her eyes were shut tight and teeth clenched, her whole face scrunched in concentration and pain. Zina kneeled next to the tub, occasionally wiping the mother’s forehead, occasionally whispering in her ear, rubbing her belly, or taking a peek to see if the baby was coming yet. On noticing the husband coming in, she smiled and whispered into the wife’s ear.

“What?” the woman said, opening her eyes, and jerking her head around the room. She finally found her husband and looked at him for a moment, as if she were trying to remember who he was. He stood a few feet away from the tub, occasionally breaking into a grin but trying hard to look solemn and concerned.

“What took you so long?” she finally said, half yelling, unintentionally spitting onto Zina’s face.

He shrugged his shoulders, smiled, and took a few steps closer.

“Get out!” she screamed, closing her eyes again, her whole body stiffening and tightening up as the labor pains squeezed her stomach.

Bushkin took a few steps backward, as if reeling from the blow, keeping his eyes all the time on the little figure in the tub.

“Cheating, drinking b*****d!” she gasped through her teeth.

He scratched at his stomach, then, noticing that he was still shirtless, walked over to the other side of the apartment and grabbed a shirt, not noticing that it had originally been worn by a client just a week earlier. He stood for a moment, looking in the direction of the screaming and swearing, moving his eyes towards the front door, then to the kitchen. The bed was just behind him, and, looking at it, he suddenly plopped down and buried his head in his hands.

“Vanya,” Zina called. “Vanya!”

He glided over to her.

“Vanya, could you please get some towels? The baby is about to come.”

He nodded, then moved back to the open closet looking for towels. When he couldn’t find any, he rushed out the door and across the hall, pounding hard on the neighbor’s door, unaware that he was beating in rhythm with the rain, which was pouring down in torrents just outside, squeezing and shaking the building, drenching all of Moscow.

“What?” the neighbor asked after thrusting the door open. He was a small, mousy type of man, always unshaved, shirt always stained, breath always reeking of beer.

“Fyodor, I need towels. My wife, she’s about to give birth.”

The man squinted past him, but twitched to an ear-piercing scream.

“And whose child is it?” he asked, smiling, baring his yellowed teeth. His shrill laugh turned into a hollow cough.

“Come on, Fyodor, come on. There’ll be enough times for your jokes later. I really need those towels now.”

Fyodor slammed the door on him, but opened it a minute later with a mountain of rags in his arms. Bushkin grabbed them, turned around, but turned back.

“Thank you, my friend, thank you.”

“What a horrible day for a child to be born,” Fyodor said in response.

“Later, Fyodor…” Bushkin called as he rushed back into his own apartment.

He dropped the towels just next to Zina and stepped around her to see what was happening. The top of the child’s head was just pushing through, along with an awful scream from the mother.

“Almost there, Marya Ilyina,” Zina said. “Just a bit more then it’s all over.”

Her screams continued, occasionally cut by short gasps, only to come back stronger.

“Bells ringing, bells singing, Pyotr Petrovich…” Bushkin repeated to himself, standing over the birth scene, watching his child fight through.

With one final scream, the baby was out. Zina caught the child and cut the cord as the mother sank down. Within a few minutes, she had cleaned and wrapped the baby in the rags that Fyodor had donated. Bushkin held out his arms, smiling as he pressed the warm body up to his chest.

“It’s a boy, Vanya,” Zina whispered to him. She moved back towards Marya Ilyina and began to clean her up a little.

“A boy, a boy,” he said to himself. “A man, so small…‘He in his madness prays for storms,’” he quoted quietly, “‘And dreams that storms will bring him peace.’”

“Vanya,” Marya Ilyina called. “Vanya, where is my child? I want to hold my child.”

 

Author's Note

Dialogue, cliches, character development, anything that struck you, etc.

Reviews

[cloister]

I had some trouble working through all the Russian names. They're good names, realistic, but a lot of work for a non-Russian-speaking reader. I don't know if you can edit to use the names less often or whether that would sacrifice too much. Something to think about, anyway.

I want to make two comments about the piece generally, one on dialogue, and one on interrupting the action with irrelevant material. Both are evident in this little passage:

----
"Vanya, could you please get some towels? The baby is about to come."

He nodded, then moved back to the open closet looking for towels. When he couldn't find any, he rushed out the door and across the hall, pounding hard on the neighbor's door, unaware that he was beating in rhythm with the rain, which was pouring down in torrents just outside, squeezing and shaking the building, drenching all of Moscow.

"What?" the neighbor asked after thrusting the door open. He was a small, mousy type of man, always unshaved, shirt always stained, breath always reeking of beer.

"Fyodor, I need towels. My wife, she's about to give birth."

The man squinted past him, but twitched to an ear-piercing scream.

"And whose child is it?" he asked, smiling, baring his yellowed teeth. His shrill laugh turned into a hollow cough.

"Come on, Fyodor, come on. There'll be enough times for your jokes later. I really need those towels now."

Fyodor slammed the door on him, but opened it a minute later with a mountain of rags in his arms. Bushkin grabbed them, turned around, but turned back.
----

When writing dialogue, probably the one cardinal rule that must always be obeyed is "the dialogue must be true to the speaker's state of mind." Consider Vanya's state of mind: he's in a frantic hurry to find towels. My own experience of childbirth is that men feel particularly useless during it. The event is of such monumental importance to us, yet, we can't really do a damn thing to help it along. We are beset with worry and nerves the whole time. So, when Vanya is asked to get towels, at last! Something he can do to help! It's a little thing, maybe, but it takes on such magnified significance. Get those towels! The baby's life may depend on it! I know that sounds melodramatic, but that's a man's state of mind while watching his wife give birth.

So when he has to go talk to the neighbor, his dialogue should betray that sense of frantic hurry. Yet, the dialogue reads like a casual hallway chat. To convey the tension, the sense of speed and urgency, what you need is short, almost telegraphic, speech. Quick sentences and sentence fragments from Vanya. Consider just this one line:

> "Come on, Fyodor, come on. There'll be enough times for your jokes later. I really need those towels now."

I don't get a sense of urgency from that. But if we shorten it up, we do:

> "Come on! I need some towels!" (just urgency)

Or even:

> "Give me the towels!" (urgency + irritation)

Or even a dialogue + action response:

> "Nevermind" Vanya said, as he shoved into Fyodor's apartment. "I'll find them myself!"

Fyodor, on the other hand, is a different character with a different point of view and a different mental state. For him, this is just an interruption in his day. Possibly annoying, or possibly, amusing to see Vanya in this agitated state. His dialogue must reflect whatever mental state you want him to have. So, its patterns will be different than Vanya's.

On interrupting the action: As writers, we work hard to establish the particular pace of every scene. Some scenes are slow and reflective, some are faster and more action-packed. A slow and reflective scene has room and time in it to make poetic observations and connections. An action scene needs to be, well, fast. Events have to come one right after the other, bam bam bam!, without being interrupted by extraneous passages of thoughts or flowery narration. Consider this:

> He nodded, then moved back to the open closet looking for towels. When he couldn't find any, he rushed out the door and across the hall, pounding hard on the neighbor's door, unaware that he was beating in rhythm with the rain, which was pouring down in torrents just outside, squeezing and shaking the building, drenching all of Moscow.

The first sentence (although I think it can be made stronger) is an action-oriented sentence. Vanya is DOING things. The second sentence starts off that way, then veers suddenly off the road into a narrative observation that interrupts the action. There is a time and a place for being lyrical and poetic, but the middle of a crisis generally isn't it. And I know it's only towels, but for Vanya in that moment, no towels = crisis. Instead, let's try this:

> Vanya walked quickly to the open closet. No towels. Vanya checked again, pushing folded sheets and bars of dry soap out of the way. "Blei!" he swore under his breath. He rushed out the door and across the hall, pounding hard on a neighbor's door.

The first sentence eliminates any mention of towels because we already know what he's doing and what he's looking for. The second sentence gives the source of Vanya's crisis, a dramatic obstacle to be overcome. We give it in the shortest, most direct way possible, because that emphasizes the urgency of the scene. The third sentence shows a natural immediate reaction to the obstacle: denial. It's that "what do you mean there's no towels in the closet!" moment. In the fourth sentence, we don't _tell_ the reader there were no towels, we _show_ Vanya swearing instead, which amounts to the same thing. This also conveys that Vanya accepts the reality of the problem. Combined with the previous sentence showing denial, you've got a miniature form of the "five stages of grief," as they are called, that capture how people react to bad news. That whole business about denial, bargaining, anger, acceptance, moving on. In this case, it's a minor crisis, but we can stil cram four out of the five stages in there. There's no room for bargaining--who would he bargain with? Pray to god to miraculously make towels appear in his closet?--so we can omit it, but we get a hit of the rest. We get denial (looking again), anger and acceptance together (uttering a mild explitive). The fifth sentence is good action as is, and gives us the last of the five stages, moving on (when he then acts to solve the crisis by going to the neighbor). It does, however, need to have the bit about the rain deleted because that brings the action and urgency to a dead stop.

Anyway, copy that revision next to a copy of the original paragraph and see which one you think conveys a greater feeling of action.

[Gabriela]

"No one could quite put a finger on the exact sound-for those lucky enough to hear it, it wasn't a note or a chord, but a voice-the voice of God calling to them, booming out a reminder of his rule, that his dominion stretched even into the darkest recesses of a man's soul.

For those listening closely, each bell spoke a unique message. Hope rang out right next to despair. Redemption closely resembled depravity. The sounds slithered over each other, creating a layered harmony that wasn't so much a song as it was a glimpse of the divine, of something just out of reach.
Oh my God, yes, this names were so hard to follow.
I'm the worst person at names, so maybe it's just me."

That was pure genius, at least on my interpretation.

And as for the actual review, the names killed me.
I had the hardest time remembering them, but don't ever take them off. They give your writing an edge.
I think that your hospital scenes needed a bit more tension.
But that is all.
The story is really going great.