POV: Nikolai Vasilievich Tikhonov
Imperial Security Directorate Headquarters, Shpalernaya Street. St. Petersburg.
Nikolai Vasilievich Tikhonov arrived at ten to eight, as he did every day. He hung his coat on the rack by the door, adjusted his shirt cuffs, and sat down at his desk, the third in the left-hand row, next to the window that overlooked the inner courtyard, with serenity.
He was thirty-four. Of medium build, dark brown hair combed back with discreet brilliantine, gray eyes that rarely rose from documents. He wore simply cut suits, always in dark tones, always impeccable. He wore no rings or visible watch chains. He did not smoke. He drank his coffee black, no sugar. He was, in short, the kind of man one could have in front of one for hours without later remembering the exact color of his eyes.
That quality being forgettable, was precisely what had made him a valuable analyst for the ISD.
And it was also what had made him a useful instrument for Metropolitan Pitirim.
Tikhonov opened the top drawer of his desk, took out the previous day's logbook, and began reviewing the entries. It was a hardcover notebook, bound in black cloth, with pages numbered by hand. It contained the summary of every document that had passed through his hands in the last twenty-four hours: surveillance reports, interrogation transcripts, analyses of intercepted correspondence, summaries of foreign press.
His work consisted of reading. Reading and classifying. Reading and summarizing. Reading and deciding what deserved his superiors' attention and what could be filed without further ado.
It was a silent job. An invisible job. A job no one thanked him for because no one knew it existed.
But it was a job from which everything could be seen.
Tikhonov turned the pages of the notebook with his usual meticulousness. Report on the Narva cell: nothing new. Transcript of the interrogation of a messenger intercepted on the Finnish border: data confirmed, medium relevance. Analysis of the British ambassador's correspondence: no significant anomalies.
Then he reached the last entry from the previous day. It was a two-line summary, written in his small, precise handwriting:
[File: Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov. Passive surveillance authorized by the Director. Contents: intercepted letters with a correspondent in London, bank transactions in Monte Carlo, contacts with the Russian colony in Paris. Classification: high interest. Restricted access]
Tikhonov read those two lines twice. Then he closed the notebook.
There was nothing unusual in Kirill's file. The aristocracy always had something to hide. Gambling debts, lovers, compromising correspondence. The ISD accumulated such files the way a collector accumulates stamps, not because it had an immediate plan to use them, but because it knew that someday they might be useful.
What was unusual, what had made Tikhonov stop, was the phrase restricted access. That meant the file was not in the general archive. It was in the Director's safe. And only three people in the entire ISD had authorization to consult it... Tatiana Nikoláevna, Arkady Koshko, and the head of the analysis section, a man named Voronov who had been out for two weeks with the flu.
That meant that, in practice, the file was beyond Tikhonov's reach.
Until that moment.
. . .
The morning passed without incident. Tikhonov processed fourteen documents, summarized three surveillance reports, classified two foreign press transcripts, and filed a stack of irrelevant correspondence.
At ten thirty, a field section agent, a young woman named Volkova, whom Tikhonov had seen a couple of times in the corridors, approached his desk with a folder under her arm.
"Tikhonov, I need you to review this". she said, placing the folder on the table. "It's the analysis of the railway sabotage. The Director wants an executive summary for tomorrow".
Tikhonov took the folder. He opened it. He read the first pages.
"Is it complete?"
"Yes. The technicians finished yesterday. Only the summary is missing. And the Director wants you to do it because you already know the case".
That was true. Tikhonov had been the analyst assigned to the sabotage file from the first day. He had read the technicians' reports, compared the wood samples, cross-referenced the data with the contractor companies' records. He knew the case better than anyone except Volkova herself.
"I'll have it ready before noon". he said.
Volkova nodded and left. Tikhonov returned to the folder.
The railway sabotage case was one of the most complex that had passed through his hands in recent months. Three points of damage to the sleepers, worked with a specific tool, on a line transporting a ministerial carriage. The contractor company, the Compagnie Générale d'Entretien des Voies Ferrées, had legitimate access to the section. Its workers had reported the deterioration weeks before the incident. The company had filed the report away.
Everything pointed to sabotage planned with inside knowledge. But no one had been arrested yet.
Tikhonov read the full technical analysis. Then he reread the section on the Belgian company. Then he took his notebook and began writing the executive summary.
As he wrote, he thought of Pitirim.
The messenger arrived at eleven forty-five. He was not an ISD messenger. He was a young man, in the uniform of the telegraph company, who entered headquarters with a leather folder and asked for Mr. Tikhonov.
"I have a telegram for you". he said, handing over a sealed envelope. "It's from Kiev. From your family".
Tikhonov took the envelope. He opened it carefully. Inside was a sheet of paper with a brief text, written in the cramped hand of a telegraph operator:
[Mother is ill. Come when you can. -Aunt Vera]
Tikhonov read the message twice. Then he folded it and put it in the inside pocket of his jacket.
"Thank you". he said to the messenger.
The messenger nodded and left.
Tikhonov returned to his desk. He sat down. He looked at the executive summary he was writing. The words floated on the page without his mind registering them.
[Mother is ill. Come when you can. -Aunt Vera]
His mother had died four years earlier. He had no Aunt Vera.
The message was a signal. A signal he had been waiting for for months without knowing when it would come.
Pitirim was calling him.
. . .
Tikhonov delivered the executive summary at twelve thirty. Volkova read it, made two minor corrections, and took it to the Director.
Tikhonov spent the next half hour organizing his desk. Then he asked permission to go out for lunch.
No one asked him where he was going. No one asked him when he would return. He was an analyst. Analysts came and went without anyone paying attention.
He went out onto Shpalernaya Street and walked east, toward the Neva. The February cold hit his face with its usual insistence, but he did not notice. His mind was elsewhere.
He walked for twenty minutes. He crossed the Liteyny Bridge. He reached the northern bank of the Neva. He kept walking to a small church with peeling walls and a greenish copper dome, one that appeared in no tourist guide to the city.
He went in.
The interior was empty. An old priest, with a white beard and a threadbare habit, was praying before the iconostasis. He did not turn when Tikhonov entered. He did not turn when Tikhonov sat in the last pew. He did not turn when Tikhonov took a small envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and left it on the pew beside him.
Tikhonov remained seated for fifteen minutes. He did not pray. He did not look at the icons. He only waited.
Then, when the priest finished his prayer and withdrew through a side door, Tikhonov picked up the envelope, which was no longer on the pew, and left the church.
Inside the envelope was an address. A street in the Vasilievsky district. An apartment number. And a time: seven in the evening.
Tikhonov put the envelope in his pocket and walked back to ISD headquarters.
. . . . . . . . .
The apartment was on the fourth floor of a gray stone building, on a narrow street with no electric lighting.
He knocked on the door. A middle-aged woman, with a kitchen apron and her hair tied in a bun, opened it without saying a word. She gestured for him to come in. Then she left through an inner door and left him alone in a small room furnished with a table, two chairs, and an icon on the wall.
Pitirim was sitting in one of the chairs.
"Sit down, Nikolai". said the Metropolitan.
Tikhonov sat. He did not shake Pitirim's hand. He did not greet him. He only sat and waited.
Pitirim looked at him for a moment. Then he spoke.
"It has been four years since we last saw each other. How are you?"
"Fine". said Tikhonov.
"Your work at the ISD?"
"Fine".
"Your wife? Your children?"
"Fine".
Pitirim nodded slowly. He took a sip of tea from a cup on the table. He did not offer one to Tikhonov.
"I did not call you to talk about your family". he said. "I called you because the moment has come".
Tikhonov did not answer. He only looked at Pitirim. His hands were on his knees, motionless.
"The work I am going to ask of you is simple". continued Pitirim. "You do not have to do anything heroic. You do not have to risk your life. You only have to do what you already do... read documents. Classify them. Summarize them. And, from time to time, share with me what you consider relevant".
"What kind of documents?" asked Tikhonov.
"The files on the nobility. The reports on ministers. The investigations into members of the Church. Anything the ISD is planning against the traditional institutions of the Empire".
Tikhonov was silent for a moment.
"That is treason". he said finally.
"That is loyalty". corrected Pitirim. "Loyalty to the Russia that gave you birth. Loyalty to the faith that baptized you. Loyalty to everything the Tsarevich is destroying with his decrees and his machines".
"The Tsarevich is saving Russia".
"The Tsarevich is selling Russia to the highest bidder. To the bankers of London. To the atheist scientists of Berlin. To the Jews of New York". Pitirim tilted his head. "Do you know how many Russians have died in the last two years because of the reforms he has pushed? Do you know how many families have been displaced? How many peasants have lost their land?"
"That is a lie". said Tikhonov. "The reforms are improving people's lives".
"The reforms are improving the lives of the people who live in the cities. Of the Putilov workers. Of the engineers of St. Petersburg". Pitirim pointed with his chin toward the window. "But in the provinces, in the villages, in the towns where neither the railway nor electricity reaches, people are still dying of hunger. Still burying their children. Still praying that the next winter will not be so harsh".
Tikhonov did not answer.
"The difference". continued Pitirim. "Is that before, when they died, they died with the blessing of the Church. They died knowing that their suffering had meaning. They died in the faith. Now they die with nothing. Without God. Without hope. Without consolation. The Tsarevich has taken from them everything they had".
"The Tsarevich has given them schools. He has given them work. He has given them bread".
"He has given them bread so they will not ask for freedom". Pitirim leaned forward. "And he has taken away their faith so they will have no choice but to depend on the State. It is the same pact the devil offered Christ in the desert: all the bread in the world in exchange for worship".
Tikhonov looked at his hands. They were an analyst's hands. Hands that had not known physical labor for years. Hands that had signed papers, turned pages, written summaries.
Hands that had stolen eight hundred rubles.
"And if I refuse?" he asked.
Pitirim looked at him with an expression that was neither cruelty nor threat. It was the expression of a man who had made this calculation many times and already knew the result.
"Then your confession will reach the ISD. The theft of military funds is a serious crime. The penalties range from five to fifteen years of forced labor in Siberia. Your wife will be left without a husband. Your children will be left without a father. And your name will be erased from history as that of a traitor".
"My family has nothing to do with this".
"Your family will have everything to do with it. A traitor's wife is a traitor's widow even if the traitor is still alive. And a traitor's children inherit their father's shame". Pitirim paused. "This is not a punishment, Nikolai. It is the natural consequence of the decisions you made four years ago. You stole. You repented. And now you pay".
Tikhonov closed his eyes.
He remembered that winter of 1908. The doctor's letter. The words he did not want to read again: the treatment is costly, but without it, your mother will not live to see spring. His salary as a military supply clerk was not enough. His savings were insufficient. Loans were impossible. And then, in a moment of desperation, he had opened the supply funds drawer. Eight hundred rubles. Enough to pay for three months of treatment.
His mother had died in March anyway. The money had served to prolong her agony, not to save her. Tikhonov had returned the eight hundred rubles over the following two years, replacing them with personal savings, until the account balanced again. No one had discovered it. No one knew.
Except the chaplain of the Kiev supply department, who had received his confession. And the chaplain was a man of Pitirim's.
"What happens if I accept?" asked Tikhonov.
"If you accept, your secret is safe. Your family is safe. Your career is safe. You only have to do what you already do... read documents. And, from time to time, share with me what you consider relevant".
"And if they discover me?"
"They will not discover you. You are not on the list of suspects. You have done nothing to draw attention. You are a competent analyst, discreet, without political ambitions. The ISD trusts you. The Grand Duchess trusts you". Pitirim smiled slightly. "That is precisely what makes you valuable".
Tikhonov opened his eyes. He looked at Pitirim.
"And if the Tsarevich discovers what you are doing? If he discovers that the Church is conspiring against him?"
"Then the Tsarevich will have to choose between the Church and his machines. And if he chooses his machines, he will lose the support of millions of Russians who still believe in God". Pitirim rose from the chair. "The Tsarevich is intelligent, Nikolai. But he is a child. And children do not understand that there are forces older than reason. Forces that cannot be modernized. Forces that cannot be reformed".
He approached Tikhonov and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You are part of those forces. Even if you do not know it. Even if you do not want it. You are part of the Russia the Tsarevich is trying to destroy. And you have the opportunity to save it".
Tikhonov did not answer. He only looked at the icon on the wall. The Virgin of Kazan, with the Child in her arms, looking at him with eyes that seemed to understand everything.
"What do I have to do?" he asked finally.
Pitirim smiled. This time, the smile reached his eyes.
"Tomorrow, when you arrive at your desk, you will find a folder with Kirill Vladimirovich's file. The Grand Duchess will have assigned it to you. Read it. Summarize it. And, when you finish, leave a copy on the bench of St. Nicholas Church, on the northern bank of the Neva. One of my men will pick it up".
"How do you know they will assign me that file?"
"Because I have made sure they do". Pitirim withdrew his hand. "Agent Volkova is a competent woman, but she has a weak point... her father is ill and needs money for treatment. A treatment the Church can provide. In exchange for a small favor".
Tikhonov felt a chill. Not because the news surprised him, corruption in the ISD was a known fact—but because he had just understood the magnitude of the web Pitirim had woven. It was not an improvised conspiracy. It was a structure that had been building for years. And he was only one more piece.
"Is there anyone else?" he asked.
Pitirim looked at him with an expression that was not exactly approval but resembled it.
"That question has no answer, Nikolai. Not even for me. Each link knows only the next. And you know only yours".
He headed for the door. Before leaving, he turned.
"One more thing. The Tsarevich has a new project. Something related to the railways. The Westinghouse. Automatic brakes. The Grand Duchess will ask you to analyze the technical reports. I want to know everything there is to know about that".
Tikhonov nodded.
Pitirim opened the door and left. The woman in the apron appeared again and gestured for Tikhonov to follow her to the exit.
Tikhonov went down the four flights with slow steps. He went out into the street. The February cold hit his face. He walked toward the Neva, toward the Liteyny Bridge, toward ISD headquarters.
He did not look back.
. . .
Tikhonov arrived at his apartment at nine thirty. His wife, Anna, was sitting in the kitchen, mending a shirt. She looked up when he entered.
"You're late". she said.
"I had work".
Anna looked at him for a moment. They had been married twelve years. She knew her husband better than anyone. She knew when he was tired, when he was worried, when he was hiding something. But she did not ask. She never asked. He worked in a place he could not talk about, and she did not ask.
"Dinner is in the oven". said Anna. "The children are already asleep".
Tikhonov nodded. He sat down at the table. Anna served him dinner: cabbage soup, rye bread, a piece of herring. He ate in silence.
As he ate, he thought of his mother. Of the last days of her life, when cancer consumed her and the pain made her cry out in her sleep. Of the nights Tikhonov had spent at her side, holding her hand, praying for the suffering to end. Of the morning she had died, with her eyes open and her mouth slightly curved in something that might have been a smile.
His mother had been a deeply religious woman. She had gone to Mass every Sunday. She had fasted during Lent. She had prayed the rosary every night. And on her deathbed, she had asked to be buried with her icon of the Virgin of Kazan.
If she knew what her son was about to do... would she understand? Would she forgive him? Or would she curse him from heaven?
Tikhonov had no answer. He only had the certainty that, whatever he did, there was no turning back now.
When Anna went to bed, Tikhonov stayed in the kitchen. He took from the inside pocket of his jacket the black-covered notebook he used for his personal notes. He opened it to a blank page. He wrote in small, precise handwriting:
"February 3, 1912. The Metropolitan has called me. The secret remains the secret. The debt remains the debt. There is no way out."
He read what he had written. Then he tore out the page, folded it in four, and put it in the stove. He watched the paper turn to ash.
He closed the notebook. He turned off the lamp. He went to bed.
In the darkness of the bedroom, with Anna breathing softly beside him, Tikhonov remained awake for a long time. He thought of the Tsarevich. Of the boy who had read more science books than theology. Of the boy who had expelled Rasputin. Of the boy who was building a new Empire on the foundations of the old.
He thought of Pitirim's phrase: 'The Tsarevich is intelligent, but he is a child. And children do not understand that there are forces older than reason'.
Tikhonov was not sure that was true. The Tsarevich seemed to understand many things adults did not. He seemed to see the world in a way no one else saw. He seemed to know what was going to happen before it happened.
But the Tsarevich was a child. And children, no matter how intelligent, were still children. They still made mistakes. They still trusted the wrong people. They still believed that the world could be changed with things no one was used to.
Tikhonov had stopped believing that long ago.
He turned to the other side. He closed his eyes. And, for the first time in four years, he did not pray before sleeping.
. . .
The next morning, when Tikhonov arrived at his desk, he found a blue leather folder on the table. He opened it. Inside was the file of Kirill Vladimirovich Romanov.
On the first page, written in Tatiana Nikoláevna's cramped hand, was a note:
[Tikhonov, I need an executive summary of this file for tomorrow. The information is sensitive. Do not discuss its contents with anyone. -T.N.]
Tikhonov read the note twice. Then he closed the folder.
For a moment, he stared at the wall. The analysis room was empty at that hour. The other analysts would arrive in half an hour. He would have enough time to make a copy of the file before the shift began.
He opened the top drawer of his desk. He took out a blank sheet of paper. He took out a pen. He took out a bottle of ink.
Then he opened the folder again. And he began to copy.
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