The Journeys of Socrates Page 9

  HIS ASCENT into the mountains took several weeks. It would be a cold winter in the high country, yet the mountains promised the solitude he needed.

  He searched for a more permanent camp and protection from the elements. By late autumn he found what he was looking for: a cave not far from a waterfall, with salmon and trout, and a beaver dam not far away. He built a sturdy lean-to against the face of the cave, which had an opening above his fire pit. He packed the lean-to with a thick clay to keep out the coming winds and snow. And before the streams froze and game grew scarce, he hunted and dried as much food as possible. That, with some ice fishing, would have to last him until the spring thaw.

  On the clear days Sergei explored the local surroundings, hunting or trapping what he could, but mostly he hibernated like the bear, and he slept, and he dreamed. Huddled in his burrow when the winds howled outside, he stitched together a fur coat and gloves lined with tufts of fur to keep his hands from freezing. He lined his worn boots as well.

  Most mornings Sergei would rub snow on his naked body, then exercise to maintain his vigor. Then he would slip back into his furs and burrow back into his cave. It was a long winter of solitude.

  The spring of 1889 was worth the wait. Sergei caught sight of a bear and her cubs in a meadow far below. Later, near dusk, he spotted a shy leopard passing like a shadow along a snow-covered ridge. He rarely spoke aloud, and then only to reassure himself that he still had a voice. But sometimes he practiced birdcalls, and he howled with the wolves at night.

  In this manner, the seasons passed into a second year of his mountain hermitage. Autumn came again, and one morning it struck Sergei how everything had changed—how he no longer belonged to a school, a society, a religion, a group, or even a culture. He was a woodsman. He hardly recognized himself when he stopped to drink in a highland pond and glimpsed a rippled reflection of his bearded, sun-burnished face. Even his eyes had changed and were somehow deeper. He was eighteen years old, but the face he saw was that of a mature man—a mountain wanderer.

  Once a visitor to the wilderness, he had become a part of it.

  IN THE SPRING OF 1891, nearly three years after he first took flight, Sergei was squinting directly into the rising sun as he threaded his way through a narrow canyon. Its vertical walls stood four meters apart, forming a narrow alleyway. He stepped carefully over stones left slippery from a recent rain. His senses were sharpened by necessity, but apparently they were not sharp enough: As he stepped around a huge boulder in his path, Sergei nearly found himself facing the largest bear he had ever seen.

  Its back was turned to him, but only for a moment. As the bear turned, Sergei backed away as quickly as he could while the creature snuffed the air and decided what to do. Fresh from her winter lair, well rested and full of terrible hunger, the bear saw him not as a man, but as a meal.

  Sergei did not, in fact, know whether he was about to be killed by a she-bear or a he-bear. But as the creature rose up and towered above him, this distinction seemed unimportant. Several things happened at once: The bear dropped to all fours and thundered toward Sergei, who pulled off his rucksack, threw it down, and scrambled up the nearest rock face. He had never known that he could climb so fast—that anyone could climb so fast.

  Throwing that rucksack gave him precious seconds, and his rapid climb had saved his life—at least for the moment. Just out of the bear’s reach, he hugged the sheer wall.

  The bear reached up and swiped razor claws within centimeters of his quaking boots. Sergei’s legs shook so badly he could barely retain his footing.

  The frustrated bear paced and growled, then tore open his pack. Sniffing for food and finding none, it lumbered off, disappearing down one end of the narrow passage. Sergei climbed down a few steps, listened as the seconds passed, then leaped. He landed hard and rolled to his feet. With a quick glance behind, he grabbed up his torn pack, knife, shovel, and other essentials, and sprinted away.

  He knew that if the bear returned, it would have no problem running him down; that thought provided a burst of speed that took him down the rugged course of that mountain.

  By late afternoon Sergei stopped to rest. He sat beneath a rocky overhang, sorting through the remains of his torn rucksack and ripped blanket. He built two fires, one on either side, to keep warm. Only later, when he reflected on his near-death encounter did Sergei fully grasp how close he had come to violent death. That incident affirmed, in a way no words could have done, the value of his life and the opportunity it represented.

  That night he fell into a troubled and restless sleep, in which his mind replayed his narrow escape from the bear, then two bears, and three, which shifted into human predators roaming the steppe, and villages burning…then the charred Abramovich cabin, the cries of innocent people as mounted men rode them down with whips and sabers…

  As the faint light of dawn illuminated the snowcapped peak of Mount Elbrus, Sergei went to the stream to clear his mind.

  Soon after, he began his long trek north, out of the mountains and up through Ukraine. It was time to return to St. Petersburg—time to seek the buried treasure that might take him to a new land across the sea.

  Part Three

  GAIN

  AND

  LOSS

  From the beginning,

  love has been my undoing…

  and my redemption.

  FROM SOCRATES’ JOURNAL

  .12.

  AS SERGEI IVANOV was setting out on his long trek north, a different sort of man, riding a stolen horse and carrying a Cossack saber, pursued another course. With a certainty possessed only by sages or zealots, Gregor Stakkos aimed to become a leader of men. “Leaders make their own laws,” he said aloud, rehearsing speeches waiting to be spoken, riding through southern Russia in the region of the Don Cossacks.

  His plan was simple: He would join, and eventually lead, a Cossack band. As a boy, he had heard of the Zaporozhian Cossacks—and the Kuban, Terek, and Don Cossacks as well—and of their clever tactics and fighting skills. He also knew that they often welcomed strangers who showed bravery in battle. He would find his place among these warriors; then he would rise above them.

  They would call him Ataman—leader—as Cossacks called those in power. Beyond this single-minded ambition, he had no other aim but one: to rid the land of Jews. He despised them for reasons not entirely clear, even to himself.

  Gregor Stakkos was not troubled by uncertainty. He feared nothing, except the screams that plagued him nearly every night. He hated falling asleep. In the waking world Gregor had no equal; against the netherworld he had no defense. Unable to turn away, he could not shut out the staccato shrieks and jagged, bloody images that appeared in the night. His limbs were strong, but he had no power to banish that grisly scene from his ninth year of life, when he had lost both parents in a single night—murdered by a monster.

  Gregor’s father was a former officer in the tsar’s army. Then, after an accident left him lame, he had smelled of vodka ever since. The colonel, as Gregor called him, had lived with his wife and young Gregor in the back of a small outpost store near the city of Kishinev.

  On a cold night in December, as on many other nights, Colonel Stakkos sat fuming in a drunken sulk. He sought a reason for his anger but found none, until Gregor ran inside to escape the great gusts of snow and went straight to the hearth, to sit quietly and whittle, trying to shape another hollow reed into a flute. It was all he did at night—whittle quietly and stay out of his father’s way.

  The colonel, startled by the slamming door, found an object for his smoldering rage. Which meant that Gregor would either have to flee outside into the cold until the colonel passed out, or he would have to take another beating.

  Such beatings were neither rare nor brief. And every time the colonel’s heavy belt raised welts on Gregor’s back, the boy’s mother would look away in dismay, busying herself with the cleaning, never raising a hand or saying a word in her son’s defense.

  The senior Stakk
os stood and tottered toward Gregor, blocking the exit. “Little bast’rd,” he muttered. “Come take y’r med’cine, you son of a dog…”

  “But I’m your son, Father,” said the boy.

  “Thass wha’ you think,” the colonel slurred. “’Bout time you knew. Took y’in when y’r father gave y’ away…some Jew kid…the mother’d run off’r died, dunno which…” The colonel fumbled with his belt buckle and pulled the heavy leather strap free. “Now come ’n’ get yer beatin’! Didn’t want no damn kid…wife said you’d help with the chores…dirty Jew…should’ve known…good f’r nothin’…useless…you owe us your—”

  The colonel never finished his sentence. Because on hearing these words and learning that he was a Jew, Gregor swiveled around and with surprising ease caught the belt and jerked it from his old father’s hand.

  “Get away from me!” Gregor screamed, striking out with all his might; then Gregor saw the whittling knife in his hand, glistening red, and his father, stumbling back, eyes wide. The colonel fell, grabbing blindly at the table, knocking over the chair, striking his head with a sickening thud on the cast-iron stove. He lay still, staring into nothing.

  Gregor turned to face his mother, who was gaping wide-eyed. “Oh, my God, my God!” she cried.

  I finally got her attention, Gregor thought, his hand shiny and red, as she began to scream again—but this time she cried out, “Monster! Monster! You’ve killed him!”

  That’s when the monster came, and Gregor saw a blade sink deeply into the woman’s belly, and she screamed, and the sound cut through him, and he saw a knife flash again, and the monster stabbed her until he was spent and the cries faded to a whimpering and she lay quiet.

  Gregor dreamed of a fire, the flames leaping high into the air and the smoke mingling with the falling snow. Neighbors came and found the ruins and the boy who had dreamed it all, sitting in the snow, and they took him in.

  .13.

  BY MIDSUMMER, Sergei had skirted the eastern edges of the Pale of Settlement, that region of Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea, where most Jews were required to live. In a few more weeks he would pass west of Moscow on his way north. Now nearly nineteen, with long hair and beard, he was no longer recognizable as the young, clean-cut youth who had fled the Nevskiy School, so he risked the open road, at times even riding in the wagon of a farmer or merchant.

  As he trekked through the summer heat, Sergei reviewed all that his grandfather had told him. He hoped that his memories of Grandpa Heschel’s map might somehow guide him along the way. He had committed the map to memory ten years before. He knew that something valuable was buried north of St. Petersburg…in a meadow…on the shore of the Neva River…ten kilometers north of the Winter Palace.

  In late September of 1891, on a muggy summer’s afternoon, St. Petersburg finally came into view. Sergei entered the city, walking along cobblestone streets. Some passersby, more accustomed to seeing aristocratic city folk than a wandering woodsman dressed in buckskin and worn boots, gave him wide berth. Their stares made Sergei self-conscious for the first time in a long while; he decided to get cleaned up to blend better into his new surroundings.

  Seeing city people in their carriages, and the lamplighters at their work outside shops and businesses reminded Sergei how long he had lived without any need to pay for food, clothing, or lodging. He hadn’t a single kopek in his pocket, but if he found the gift, he might then have the resources to afford a room, a hot bath, and a barber. That, and more.

  He made his way to the Neva River, not far from the Winter Palace, and headed north with a growing excitement. He now saw the map clearly in his mind’s eye: the river and, near its bank, bordered by forest on three sides, an x marking the spot beneath a large cedar tree. That tree, he remembered, was planted by his grandfather’s grandfather when Heschel was a boy. Sergei walked in the deepening darkness and finally lay down in a forested area just north of the city, on a bed of leaves on this humid night.

  Early the next morning Sergei found his way to the large meadow ten kilometers north of the palace and began.

  He searched for but found no lone cedar tree marking the spot—no tree of any kind.

  Just then, a sudden breeze at his back—or maybe an instinct developed in the wild—caused him to turn. He spied four riders in the distance, two hundred meters away and closing fast. It might be nothing, but when riders are racing toward a lone man, it is rarely a good sign. Sergei had nowhere to run in this open field, so he took a deep breath and did his best to relax. He couldn’t help wonder: Are they still hunting for me? What has happened to my instincts? Have I grown complacent?

  From this distance they looked like Cossacks, with black fur hats and capes flapping in the wind. As they loomed closer, he could see their red vests, loose black pants, and black boots. Then he saw the sabers hanging at their sides and rifles strapped across their shoulders.

  For a moment he thought they might ride him down, but at the last moment they reined in their horses, spread out, and surrounded him, as if they were hunting and he were the prey. The hairs stood up on the back of Sergei’s neck. He forced himself to take slow, deep breaths, willing himself to stay calm despite his pounding heart. His combat skills were strong, but against four trained men with sabers…

  “Greetings,” he said, forcing a confident demeanor.

  “Your name?” demanded their leader.

  “Sergei…Voronin,” he answered, reluctant to use his last name. Two of the men turned to look at each other, suspicious, but it ended there.

  “Do you live nearby?” the leader asked him.

  “No—as you see,” Sergei answered, “I’m just a traveler, come to visit St. Petersburg.” Then, speaking more boldly, he said, “Do you question every visitor to the city?”

  The leader answered curtly, “We’re looking for unauthorized Jews who might be wandering about.” He gave Sergei a hard look, searching for any signs of fear. “You haven’t seen any, have you?”

  “No, I have not,” he said with all the bravado he could manage, wondering if they knew about Zakolyev’s death…

  Sergei waited in silence. Then they all turned at the sound of wagons approaching on a nearby road. After a few moments, the leader apparently decided that Sergei might be more trouble than he was worth. “Let’s go!” he shouted, and they were off. Cossacks or not, they rode well—and could fight too, Sergei ventured. The way they were armed, if they had tried to apprehend him, things would not have gone well.

  THAT INCIDENT left Sergei troubled—something about how those two riders had looked at each other…

  Still, the incident had resolved itself well enough—and now he had more pressing business. Finding no cedar tree in the meadow, he hiked farther along the banks of the Neva, then backtracked in case he had passed the site. But Sergei found no other meadows that better fit his grandfather’s description. He was certain he had reconstructed the map in his mind. This had to be the meadow—but without the tree, how could he ever find the treasure?

  The September afternoon turned hot. Hoping to clear his mind, Sergei set aside his knapsack, removed his clothing, and immersed himself in the cold, clear waters. After a few minutes he waded up onto shore and squatted in the shallows, feeling the cold gravel between his toes as tiny waves lapped at his feet. He imagined his grandfather as a boy, floundering in these same waters, learning to swim…

  Sergei washed his clothing, hung it to dry, and rested in the sun. All the while, he pondered the possibilities: It’s exactly as my grandfather described, he thought—except for the missing tree. He could still recall his grandfather’s voice: “A small x by a lone cedar tree…a box is buried, on the side of the tree opposite the lake, between two large roots…”

  After putting on his still-damp clothes, Sergei crisscrossed the meadow, searching for any signs of the tree.

  He walked to the edge of the meadow, turned to face the center, and knelt down. Only then did he see a slight mounding in the soil near the c
enter of the meadow. He returned to that spot and found the trace of a tree root—a good-sized root, now dead and rotted, just below the uneven surface. Sergei’s pulse quickened.

  He fetched his shovel from his knapsack and dug, searching for any remaining roots. Soon he had cleared a three-meter circle and found a pattern of disintegrating roots that seemed to radiate outward, indicating where the tree must have stood.

  The map had shown the x between two roots and away from the lake. He looked toward the lake and stood on the opposite side of mound where the tree had grown. Then he marked off a square and began digging—shallow at first, then deeper, until the shovel hit something solid. He fell to his knees and cleared away the soil with his hands.

  With growing excitement, Sergei found a box and pulled it free of the soil’s tight embrace. “I found it, Grandpa!” he cried aloud, as if Heschel stood nearby. The box was bigger than he had imagined, and heavier as well. Kneeling on the rich earth, Sergei pried it open to find a large canvas bag inside. Would this treasure pay for his voyage across the sea—maybe allow him to purchase land or even a house?

  He opened the drawstring and reached inside, trying to guess by feel alone. It felt like wood. Another box? He pulled the object out to reveal…a clock.

  Sergei stared numbly, unable to sort out the mixed emotions. It made sense—Grandpa Heschel did make clocks as well as violins. And it was a fine clock, to be sure. But the truth was, he had hoped for something more valuable.

  Then he noticed something else: a small bag, tied to the back of the clock. He touched it and heard a clinking sound—it sounded like pieces of metal or—

  He opened the small sack to find five gold coins and a folded piece of paper. Eagerly he opened the paper and read: “To my dearest grandson, Socrates. Always remember that the real treasure is within.” It was signed, “Your loving grandfather, Heschel.”