The Red Gods Read online

  “Just burned him a little, Comrade Commissar,” Marina said.

  “He has told us that Krasnov is in retreat, Comrade Commissar,” Galina said, eagerly.

  The man stooped beside Joseph, held his chin to raise his head. “What is your name?” he inquired.

  Joseph could not speak, he could only dribble. “He told us his name, Comrade Commissar,” Galina said. “It is Captain Joseph Cromb. We were told to interrogate him,” she added.

  “Joseph Cromb,” Trotsky muttered. “Dress him and bring him,” he commanded.

  Men came forward to release Joseph and pulled up his pants. He moaned in agony, tried to hold himself, but they pulled his hands away. “You will make it worse,” one told him.

  “We were told to interrogate him, Comrade Commissar,” Galina repeated. “You cannot punish us.” Marina gazed at him with enormous eyes.

  “If I decide that you should be punished, you will be punished,” Trotsky told her. “Place them under arrest,” he commanded.

  “We were told...” Galina started to shout as the men took away her gun and pulled her arms behind her back.

  “Swine!” Marina snapped.

  Trotsky slapped her across the face. She gasped and blood dribbled down her chin. “You will certainly be punished for that,” he told her. “Send them to headquarters,” he instructed his men.

  Others were half-carrying Joseph towards the command car, while he moaned and writhed. They placed him on the back seat, and Trotsky sat beside him. “You will not fuck for a while,” he remarked. “But only a while. You will recover. There is someone who will wish to speak with you.”

  Joseph was in such agony he had very little idea what was happening to him. He kept telling himself that it would wear off, but it did not seem to be doing so. “Water,” he muttered.

  “That would probably not be a good idea,” Trotsky said. “Until you have seen a doctor.”

  Joseph licked his lips in an effort to find some moisture, but even his tongue was dry. Then the car stopped and he was lifted out and carried into a large house. Once again he was surrounded by people, peering at him, asking questions, but he was carried through them and into a room where there was a bed. On this he was laid, and inspected by a man who pulled down his pants to look at the burn. “Water,” Joseph muttered.

  “The Commissar did not think it would be good,” said one of his escort: Trotsky had not accompanied them into the room.

  “I think it is necessary,” the doctor said, and a mug of water was brought. Joseph was raised to a sitting position. “When you pee it will be very painful the first time,” the doctor told him. “But it will prove that you can still pee. If you cannot...” he shrugged. “You must die.”

  Joseph didn’t care as long as he could have something to drink. He gulped at the water and realised his genitals were being bathed, also in water, although with some kind of syrup added. Nothing had ever felt so good. The door opened, and two people came in. “Will he live?” Trotsky asked.

  “Oh, he will live, Comrade Commissar,” the doctor said. He seemed about to add something to his statement, but Trotsky’s companion stepped past him to stand above the bed.

  “Joseph Cromb,” Sonia said. “Do you remember me?”

  Joseph gasped. Beauty such as that possessed by Sonia Bolugayevska was not something a man ever forgot. He had not seen her for eight years, but it might have been yesterday. And he was sufficiently old-fashioned to be acutely embarrassed at encountering her again in so exposed a condition. “Aunt Sonia,” he muttered.

  “You poor boy,” Sonia said, and bent to kiss his forehead. “How did this happen?” she asked as she straightened.

  “Some of my women got hold of him,” Trotsky explained. “Well, he is a White officer. Serves with Krasnov, so he will be able to give us information. He has already told us that my plan is working and Krasnov is in retreat.”

  “Then there is no need to ask him anything else,” Sonia said.

  “He can give me the make-up of Krasnov’s army.”

  “And if he refuses to do that?” They stared at each other. “He is Patricia’s son,” Sonia said. “And my nephew. At least by marriage.”

  “He is a White officer.”

  “I wish his life, Leon.”

  Another exchange of glares, while the doctor bathing Joseph’s genitals and the orderlies assisting him pretended not to be listening. “We will discuss it later,” Trotsky said at last.

  “Have him brought upstairs,” Sonia said, and left the room.

  Trotsky now glared at the doctor, and then grinned. “Well, do it. He is in no condition to cuckold me, is he?”

  Joseph was lifted up the stairs into an apartment on the third floor of the building; here there was even a suggestion of luxury. Sonia was waiting for them. “You may leave him,” she said.

  “But he will need to be bathed constantly,” the doctor protested.

  “I will see to it.”

  The doctor looked over his shoulder. But Trotsky had not followed them. “As you wish, Comrade,” he said, and beckoned his orderlies to leave with him.

  Sonia closed the door behind them, then sat on the bed beside Joseph. “Is it very painful?”

  “Seeing you again eases the pain, Aunt Sonia.”

  She looked up, and smiled at him. “I had forgotten that men could be romantic.”

  “They told me you were dead.”

  Sonia went to the washstand and brought the ewer back to pour more water into the basin. “I imagine it is better that they should think so,” she said.

  “But you are...”

  “I have been Trotsky’s mistress, on and off, for seven years. Oh, yes,” she said, gently stroking him with the water, “I have for a long time led a secret existence of which the family is quite unaware.” She smiled at the movement beneath her fingers. “You are feeling better!”

  “The pain is easing, yes. Is it...” he was afraid to look. To be stroked, sexually, by a woman such as Sonia Bolugayevska...but, then, she was not actually stroking him sexually, he supposed.

  “It is burned,” she said. “But it will heal.” Another smile. “Trotsky is optimistic in assuming you would not be able to perform. But he always has been an optimist. Tell me, you were in Sevastopol before coming here? Did you see my children?”

  “I saw Anna. She is living with the Princess...” he bit his lip.

  Sonia shrugged. “She is the Princess, Joseph. She is very beautiful, is she not?”

  “Oh, yes. But...not more beautiful than you, Aunt Sonia. Only different.”

  Sonia glanced at him. “There is really no need to flatter me. Has no woman ever played with your penis before?”

  Joseph swallowed. “I was not flattering. And no woman as lovely as you has ever touched me.”

  “That will do for now,” she said, folding him into a soft towel. “At the moment, ejaculation will be just as painful as urinating. How was Anna?”

  “She looked very well.”

  “And did you learn anything of Colin? And Alexei?”

  “I was with them, last night.” This time her head came up, sharply. “They are with Krasnov. I was Prince Alexei’s aide-de-camp.”

  “And they are retreating?”

  “I imagine so. Prince Alexei was commanding the rearguard. He sent me out on the reconnaissance.”

  Sonia went to the basin to wash her hands. “Would you like vodka?”

  “I would. But...”

  “It will make you want to pee, and that will be painful. But you have to, some time soon, to make sure the passage is not blocked. Are you afraid of this?”

  He would never have imagined he could be having such a conversation with such a woman. “Not with your support.”

  She smiled. “You will have it. They are unhurt, Colin and Alexei?”

  “Oh, yes. What will happen when they capture you?”

  Sonia handed him a glass of vodka and took one for herself, then sat in a chair. “You should rathe
r ask what will happen when we capture them.”

  “Because we are retreating? It is only to fend off a threat to our line of communication from some Reds to the east. Once we have done that...”

  “You are not going to do that, Joseph. Do you not realise this entire business has been planned, first to suck the White armies forward, and then to cut their communications?” Joseph frowned at her, the pain temporarily forgotten. “That is not a Red ‘unit’ probing west, as you imagine,” Sonia went on. “It is an entire Red army, commanded by General Tuchachevsky, one of our best soldiers. Your cause is lost.”

  “But...who could have devised such a plan?”

  Sonia smiled. “Why, Trotsky, to be sure. He may not have fought in the Great War, but he knows more about soldiering than all of your generals put together.”

  “And you are proud of that!”

  “Yes,” Sonia shrugged. “As I have tied my destiny irrevocably to his, I am proud that he is the best.”

  “And Prince Alexei? And Colin? Your husband and your son?”

  “Prince Alexei is no longer my husband. That was his decision. Colin is, and always will be my son. I pray for them both to survive. Just as I pray for a rapid victory to bring an end to this terrible war.” Another shrug. “Am I not the most tormented of women?” Then she gave her glorious smile. “But it is you we must be thinking of right now.”

  “Can you save my life?”

  “I would need to do more than that. To save your life, as a prisoner of the Reds, would hardly be worthwhile. You would then be subjected to a living death, and be of absolutely no use to mankind.”

  “You can say that of the people you support?”

  “Do you suppose that for a Red to be a prisoner of the Whites would be any different? If I am to save you, I must find some means of returning you to the Whites.”

  Joseph licked his lips. “Can you? Would you?”

  “If I felt that yours is a life worth saving, yes. But you are of no use to me, or anyone, until you have recovered from your injury. I have time to consider the situation. How is your penis?”

  “Sore.” He was trying desperately to determine what she might want from him. Sex? He could not believe that. Not Aunt Sonia. But what did he really know about Aunt Sonia, save what he had been told by other members of the family? That she was a fallen woman? Even Mother, her closest friend in the days before the world had fallen apart, had not wanted to talk about her. But...Trotsky’s woman? She would not dare.

  He slept from sheer exhaustion; he had had no sleep the previous night, and before then had been travelling, and for several days doing nothing more than catnap. When he awoke, with a start, it was dark and there were lanterns burning in his room. Sonia stood by his bed. “How do you feel?”

  “Almost human.”

  “There is food.” She indicated the table.

  He sat up. The pain had eased a good deal. “My clothes!”

  “There is no necessity for clothes. It is perfectly warm.” Cautiously he swung his legs out of bed. “You undressed me?”

  “I took off your tunic, shirt and vest, if that is what you mean.” She held up the scarf. “Why did Priscilla give you this?”

  “I...how do you know it is hers?”

  “It is the sort of thing she wears, and it carries the sort of scent she wears, too. Did you seduce her?”

  “She is a chaste and faithful woman.”

  “Still?” It occurred to him that she was jealous of her replacement as Princess Bolugayevska. Now, to his consternation, Sonia began to undress. He could not stop himself staring at her as he drank a glass of vodka. “I am sure the rest has done you good,” Sonia said over her shoulder. Joseph licked his lips as he watched the skirt settle about her ankles; she had quite beautiful legs. “But you cannot rest in here any longer,” she said, and took off her blouse. “Trotsky will be coming up in a few minutes, and that is his bed.”

  Joseph realised he was staring at his aunt’s breasts, full, heavy, and crying out to be held. He gulped, and raised his head. “Have you never seen a naked woman before?” Now the drawers joined the skirt.

  “Never one even remotely as...”

  “Lovely as I?” She smiled. “You will be telling me next that you have fallen in love with me.”

  “I think I fell in love with you the first time I ever saw you, Aunt Sonia.”

  Sonia lips twisted. “Do you know, someone else said that to me, once. And I believed him. I am old enough to be your mother. Had Joseph Fine sought me out in Irkutsk, instead of Patricia, I would have been your mother.”

  “I know. I thought that myself, quite recently.”

  She turned her head. “Did Patricia speak of me?”

  “Often,” he lied.

  She came across the room towards him, naked, and he held his breath. She sat on the bed beside him; their naked thighs touched. “Did she tell you that it was I who sent your father to her?”

  “No. She did not say that. Why did you do it? Did you not love him?”

  “Love?” Sonia gave a twisted smile. “In Irkutsk one’s only emotion was hate. Never love. One drew on one’s companions’ hatred to sustain one’s own. But perhaps, if I had been capable of loving any man, it would have been your father. I sent him to Patricia because I knew she needed sustaining more...and because I loved her more. Can you understand those things?”

  Joseph licked his lips. “I think so.”

  “You cannot, because you have never experienced such hatred, such emotion. But I believe you may understand them more, for having been a prisoner of the Reds. And perhaps I am, after all, grateful that you are not my son. That we are not even related.” She took his face between her hands and kissed him on the mouth. His own hands moved involuntarily to stroke across her thighs and then up over her rib cage to hold those breasts. They both gave a little sigh of pleasure, then she was lying on her back, and he was covering her, seeking an entry, but even as she parted her legs the door opened. Joseph would have sprung up, but Sonia’s arms were round his back and she held him against her. It was the only way she knew to save his life, at least in the short term.

  *

  Trotsky closed the door. He drew his revolver, advanced to the bed, and put the muzzle against Joseph’s ear. “You recover quickly, Comrade,” he remarked. Joseph made an effort to free himself, but Sonia was a strong woman. The revolver moved down his back, scoring his flesh, and then across his right buttock, and then moved between. “Shall I unite you, in death?” Trotsky asked.

  “This is my doing, Leon,” Sonia said, her lips moving against Joseph’s cheek.

  “A miracle cure, is that it?”

  “He has not entered me. I do not know if it is possible. We...spoke too much of the past.”

  “The past,” Trotsky snorted. “You asked for his life, to have sex with him.”

  At last Sonia’s arms relaxed; she knew that once Trotsky started arguing the immediate crisis was over. Joseph rolled off her and sat up. He felt more confused and ashamed than ever before in his life. Sonia also sat up. “I did not mean to have sex with him, Leon,” she said. “It just happened.”

  “You are old enough to be his mother.”

  “So I have committed incest. Punish me, not him.”

  Trotsky glared at them both. Then suddenly he grinned. “So, Comrade, you make a rapid recovery, eh? Well, then, I know what you will like best. Come with me.” Joseph got up, reached for his clothes. “What do you want with clothes, when you are after sex?” Trotsky demanded. “Come as you are.”

  Joseph glanced at Sonia. “You are not to give him to your men,” she said.

  “Ha! Anyone would suppose you commanded this army, not I. I am not going to give him to my men. I am going to give him great satisfaction, and anyone can see he desperately needs that.”

  “I will wish to see him, after,” Sonia said.

  “So you shall, my pet. So you shall. Come along, Comrade.” Joseph looked at Sonia again, and received a quick
nod: there was a limit to how far she could control her lover. He followed Trotsky on to the landing. An armed man stood there, but came to attention as his general emerged. His eyes rolled as he saw Joseph, but he did not move his head. By now he had a good idea where they were going, as they descended a flight of stone steps leading beneath ground level. At the foot there was another guard, and a closed door. “How are they behaving?” Trotsky asked.

  “I think they have run out of breath, Comrade Commissar. They have stopped shouting.”

  “Open up,” Trotsky commanded. The guard unlocked the door. The guard took the lantern from its hook and held it in front of him as he went into the cell. Trotsky followed and Joseph followed them both. The lantern revealed the two women, lying on the floor. They had been stripped of their clothing, and were hog-tied, their arms carried behind their backs and their legs bent so that their wrists and ankles were secured in the middle of their backs with the same rope, leaving them incapable of any movement more than a single roll to and fro, and at the same time utterly exposed to the whim of anyone who might choose to torment them.

  They blinked at the light and then focused, staring at their captors. They did not immediately see Joseph in the gloom at the back. “What a pretty pair,” Trotsky remarked.

  “What are you going to do with them?” Joseph asked.

  Now for the first time he came into the light and Marina hissed her fury.

  “I shall probably shoot them, in due course,” Trotsky said.

  “They were carrying out orders.”

  “You can sympathise with them? That, Comrade, is one of the reasons why you will lose this war. They swore at me, their commanding general.”

  “She did not.” Joseph pointed at Galina, who appeared to be holding her breath.

  “What are you, an advocate for the defence? Perhaps I will only shoot the blonde one.”

  “You are a mother-fucking bastard,” Marina spat at him.

  “Well, perhaps I will not shoot her, after all,” Trotsky said. “I will hang her, slowly, leaving her hands free so that she can hold on to the noose until she runs out of strength.” Marina panted. “But first,” Trotsky said. “You will fuck her, Comrade.”