The Commissar

The Commissar

The old man could see beyond the solitary window. The lime tree, stark and leafless in the winter sunlight, looked lost and homesick. It had been planted here before his birth by his former master, Count Kasparov. The old man had loved the Count; a big, florid handful of a man; kind to all his peasants in an uncomplicated, off-hand manner. Long gone. Swept from existence like chaff on a barn floor. The tree was his only legacy; that and the French windows. Every other architectural feature in the vast country house had been expunged with crusading zeal by the Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, Leninists, and Trotskyites. After the impulses of History had faded, the ripples brought the spent tide of revolution to the old estate.

The workers, determined to bear witness to his passing, drew aside as the youngest member of the council approached the bed. He brought an enamel basin and an open-razor, the steel catching daylight from the window. The old man liked young Sascha, a good farmer; a good worker in a community of indolent, lazy peasants. The Workers' Collective of Varishenko. A community almost bereft of workers. He snorted at the notion, which started a hum of animated conversation in the high-walled room. The old man had been Commissar of the Soviet Collective for more than fifty years. He had survived the Stalin Purges. He had lived to read of the first man in space. He watched the ravens gathered about the old tree. They had arrived in the morning, summoned by the aura of his coming death. They walked like hooded monks, pecking at the iron-hard ground. Seeing them, the old man asked to be shaved. The peasants had nodded, centuries of country knowledge in the gesture. Russian peasants know death.

Towering above the bed, Sascha was saddened to see how small the old man looked. Commissar Rushkov had been a tall, heavy set man. He had commanded respect by his size, his bearing and his inherent dignity. Propped up on high pillows, his arms in front of him on the white sheets, he looked like a little bird; a sparrow of the Steppes. He lathered the old man's face, rasping at the wispy grey-haired stubble. The Commissar turned to face the window.

‘Shave close Sascha,’ he whispered, ‘The Master is calling me.’

Sascha watched the old man's eyes flare in recognition, though Sascha could see nothing outside except the old tree and the gathering ravens. When they took to the air, Sascha closed the old man's eyes. The murmur of the witnesses told Sascha of their collective fear. How would they manage without the Commissar?

****

I hear your voices, 
held inside the wind.
The chant is hollow, 
empty as the Steppes. 
Love veiled but everlasting; 
my ancestry revealed, 
as starry-eyed 
I see into the past. 

You whisper 
needs left unfulfilled;
appetites beyond 
the ken of mortal sight;
and anger at lives lost, 
still incomplete. 
Behind this bitter song 
the sweetest melody
is carried by 
the leafless silver birch. 
A balalaika 
croons the old refrain,
rippling chords, 
vibrate against my heart.
And a chestnut's fallen leaves 
chatter like a child again,
'Come back to me, 
come back my darling boy'.
You urge my step 
to pierce the darkling veil.
And yet within your own 
sweet dulcet tone,
resounds a prayer 
much older than creation.
That you might leave behind 
the vale of shadows.

Is it that you would live in place of me?