Red Lotus

by Joseph Lerner
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Red Lotus
by Joseph Lerner

© Copyright 2010 by Joseph Lerner

Red Lotus [ 3 ]

One

I
scrambled across the frozen field, past trees shattered by mortar fire, the ground strewn with ord-
nance and mangled corpses. I writhed beneath barbed wire, crossed trenches sheathed in mud and
ice, and finally reached the main encampment about midnight.
I passed soldiers huddling beside meager fires, steam curling from cups of tea or borscht, hands
scrabbling to light cigarettes and pipes. Their stares bore right past me, as if I were invisible or already
dead. Even the soldiers guarding the colonel’s tent merely glanced in my direction before turning
away: they were used to me entering his tent and hadn’t been told I’d been banished to sentry duty.
Just inside, a tripod brazier flared, while beside it on a bench a Victrola played a mazurka’s final
notes over and over, the needle scrawling across the grooves.
I slid out my dagger from beneath my tunic.
The colonel lay on his back, his eyes closed and snoring softly, despite the camphor lamp flicker-
ing from the ridgepole overhead. His arms were folded, his greatcoat draped over him, and his boots
stood at the end of the cot gleaming as if they’d just been polished—and I wondered who his new
orderly was.
[ 4 ] Joseph Lerner

Suddenly a gust of wind blew in; it clawed at the lamp, metal clanging against metal, the light car-
oming about the tent. Still he did not stir. I thought: why had the colonel chosen me among the scores
of recruits? Had he seen something in me—the curve of my cheeks, the shape of my nose, the color of
my hair and eyes—that reminded him of someone? He said he knew my family, but was it my mother
who he most likely knew, and, like so many men, had fallen in love with her?
I let out my breath. My hands stopped trembling. I held the knife close to his throat. I smelled his
familiar cologne, watched his breath condense in the air. I lowered my dagger. I couldn’ do it, couldn’t
kill him. Instead I leaned closer and brushed my lips against the man who I thought might be my
father and hurried from the tent.
Red Lotus [ 7 ]

Two

A
s the railway tracks curved behind us, I saw from our compartment the long column of
coaches flash as sunlight struck the roofs and glazed the dirt-streaked windows. Steam curled
from the lurching wheels to dissipate in the fog, while above the steppes the Ural mountains
gleamed hazy with snow as they faded from the horizon.
There were ninety-five coaches in all, with ten thousand soldiers aboard and more trains to come,
bearing, all told, a half-million men to the front. About thirty soldiers were assigned to our coach
(most others carried more than a hundred soldiers each), orderlies like myself as well as cooks, war-
rant officers, file clerks, and other aides. Our coach was fourth-to-last; behind us were the adjutants’
and general staff ’s, and behind theirs a dining lounge and mess coach. The last two coaches, 94 and
95, belonged to the General and his mistress.
We orderlies were treated nearly as well as the officers, often feasting on wild boar and pheasant,
sipping from aperitifs and flutes of champagne, and smoking cigars from the general’s own humidors.
And late at night drifted strands of Rimsky-Korsokov, Tchaikovsky, or Mussorgsky, the general’s mis-
[ 8 ] Joseph Lerner

tress playing them on her baby grand.

Rarely did we venture past Coaches 90, 89, and into the bowels of the train. But once before dawn
and unable to sleep, I entered Coach 88. I felt my way in the dark, trying not to stumble over the
soldiers sprawled in the aisles. Pipes and cigarettes glowed within a reeking pall of tobacco smoke,
unwashed flesh, and human ordure. I tried to read the faces of the soldiers (who, in this coach, were
all Don Cossacks): raw-boned, ruddy, and red bearded, with eyes set close beneath beetle brows and
with hatchet-thin noses jutting above pale, thin lips.
Back in the compartment (my bunkmates still asleep) I began to draw what I’d seen. I filled page af-
ter page of my sketchbook with faces in full or in profile, with close-ups of hands and boots and pipes,
with soldiers in greasy overcoats leaning against each other like brothers or lovers.
Later I tried sketching from earlier memories: my fifteenth birthday; my family’s dacha on the Be-
laya river near Ufa; my mother and grandfather, still in their doctors’ smocks, on the garden terrace;
the sunlight stippling the dogwood and crocus, crabapple and iris.
Red Lotus [ 11 ]

Three

M
y father had been a captain in the Preobrazhensky Guards, presumed dead (his body never
found) after a skirmish in the Caucuses near Grozny in 1888. I was born several months
later, and soon after that my grandfather, a renowned surgeon with the Royal Hospitals
in St. Petersburg, left with my mother for Ufa. There they founded a rural clinic to treat victims of
cholera and other infectious diseases caused by widespread famine and drought. But unlike the thou-
sands of other volunteers, they stayed on and, over the years, as my grandfather’s health declined, my
mother assumed more of his responsibilities.
But he was now free to pursue his other passions, such as lepidoptery, ornithology, and taxonomy.
The two of us, armed with field glasses, sketch paper, and charcoal or graphite pencils, would hike to
a nearby meadow or glade and draw the flora and fauna. But his heart continued to worsen, and so,
last April, my mother shut down the clinic to return to St. Petersburg to seek medical advice.
We never heard from her again. Three months later grandfather died.
I hid all summer and early fall in the woods beside the Belaya river, rarely setting foot in town. I
had no other family and, because of my mother’s and grandfather’s reputations as freethinkers and
[ 12 ] Joseph Lerner

socialists, I didn’t trust the mayor or local nobility.

Once after dark I sneaked back into our dacha and clinic. Windows had been smashed, medicines
ransacked, and my grandfather’s books trashed and burned. But our sketchbooks, which I’d hidden in
the cellar, hadn’t been found. I gathered them in my satchel and hurried from the house.
Later than night a girl I knew, Marya, met me beneath the bridge outside of town with a loaf of
bread she’d stolen from her father’s bakery.
“What will you do when winter comes?” she asked.
“I’ll stay with Olga.” Olga, our former servant, lived in a nearby village.
“She has her own husband and children to care for.”
“Then I’ll go to St. Petersburg, look for my mother—” My voice broke and I began to cry. She
kissed me and we lay beneath the blankets she had brought.
At sunrise Marya scrambled into her clothes and hurried back to town. I wasn’t surprised at her
abrupt leaving, she’d been taking a terrible risk and I was grateful for all she had done for me. Marya
wasn’t the first girl I slept with, and I wasn’t in love, but I would miss her when I left Ufa, which I was
now determined to do as soon as possible.
I left for the dacha again, this time to retrieve photographs of my mother and grandfather to take
with me to St. Petersburg. I planned to walk the whole way, though I hadn’t yet figured out how to
keep myself from starving or freezing to death.
As I was leaving the cellar, I heard the clatter of hooves in the yard, and then a window breaking
and footfalls echoing in the passage above. I seized a long jagged shard from the floor and retreated
behind a wine rack.
At the top of the stairs the door creaked open; in the angle of light I glimpsed boots, military
breaches, a sidearm.
“Gregory Gregorovich!” the man shouted from the top step. “I’m here to help you. My name is
Major Yuan Lee. Look!” He brandished an envelope. “You’d recognize your mother’s handwriting,
wouldn’t you?”
Red Lotus [ 13 ]

“How do you know my mother?” I yelled.

“I’m a military attache with the Chinese consulate in St. Petersburg,” he continued in fluent Rus-
sian. “I know many officers in the Preobrazhensky Guards, where your father is still fondly remem-
bered.” I emerged from behind the wine rack. “Good! Now come upstairs and we’ll talk.”
In the kitchen the officer set two steaming glasses of tea before us. He was thin and tall, with a
narrow face and eyes the color of sand. “I’ve been looking for you for days,” he said, handing me the
letter. “That girl, the baker’s daughter, told me where I might find you.”
I opened the envelope.

Dear Gregory,
I have written to you often, but fear none of my letters have reached you. Major Lee assures me, how-
ever, that this one will.
I am well, despite my detention at the Peter and Paul Fortress in Petersburg. Please don’t be alarmed!
Friends of the family have come to my aid, and I’m confident of my imminent release.
Your grandfather and I never told you the real reason why we left Petersburg: he had been exiled be-
cause of his political beliefs, though when I returned to the capital I did not think anyone would remem-
ber or care, much less arrest me.
As for my leaving you and your grandfather—what was I thinking? But I meant to return within the
month, and I knew he was in your good hands.
Please don’t blame yourself! Or think I’ve abandoned you, my darling boy!
We may stay separated a while longer, so obey Major Lee as you would your grandfather or me. He is
a good friend and can be trusted no matter what.
Love, Mother.

I set the letter down. My hands trembled and tears ran down my cheeks. “She’s all right?” I asked.
Major Lee nodded. “And you’ll take me to Petersburg?”
[ 14 ] Joseph Lerner

“We can’t return just yet. I’m to deliver you into the care of another army officer, Colonel Chierden,
also of the Preobrazhensky Guards, and once a good friend of your father’s. The plan is to rendezvous
with him at the railway station in Perm, where we’ll then board a troop train for Manchuria.”
“Manchuria!”
“The war against the Japanese will end soon, and you shouldn’t be in harm’s way, not anywhere
near the front. And then we’ll return west to Petersburg.”
“How do you know the war will end soon?”
“Didn’t your mother say to trust me?” He sipped his tea. “You’ll wear a uniform and hold the rank
of private. But that is for show. A disguise, if you will.” He winked.
“And I’m to pretend and not let on?”
“Exactly!” He slapped his knee. Then we finished our tea and set our unwashed cups in the sink. As
if we were planning to return, I thought, stifling a tear.
I gathered my satchel and followed him outside where two horses waited.
They were Mongolian, a chestnut and a black, small as ponies but fast and strong. I swung myself
onto the chestnut and followed Lee out into the road. Staring back at the house, my eyes grew moist
again, but when I saw the major turn to stare at me I flicked the horse’s reins and trotted after him.
It was Sunday and the villages and hamlets were quiet. Church bells echoed across the fields as
scores of peasants filed past the sheaves of wheat and flax toward prayer. Dust swirled across the road.
By late afternoon the sky had darkened and an icy rain began to fell, turning the road to mud.
We stopped just once to rest and water the horses. Major Lee brought me bread and tea from a
nearby inn. My hands were frozen and throbbing. I ate fast and went to the stables to retrieve our
horses.
Later it began to snow but I fell into a light sleep despite the weather and the stiff Mongolian sad-
dle. We reached Perm around midnight, the station little more than a hut with a stove and telegraph.
Lee wired the train ahead while I watered and fed the horses again.
When I rejoined Lee, he’d built a fire in the stove. We finished the last of our tea and bread. The ma-
Red Lotus [ 15 ]

jor opened his pocket watch. “Chierden should have been here by now. We’ll have to board whether
he comes on time or not.”
A train whistle shrieked from down the tracks. I led the horses onto the platform. Major Lee fol-
lowed. The whistle blew again and the locomotive’s headlamps, a blurred halo of smoke and steel,
pierced the dark.
Then a horse and rider burst into the clearing. The officer dismounted and bounded to the plat-
form. He and Major Lee embraced.
“Colonel,” Lee said, “Meet your new orderly.”
Chierden was a large, heavy-bearded man in an army greatcoat and fur hat. He crossed his arms.
“How old are you, son?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen! And small and frail-looking too—”
My hands curled into fists, but I didn’t raise them.
Lee chuckled. “Maybe a little mangy and feral. But frail, I think not.”
“Is that so?” Chierden stared at me again. “Well, we shall see.”
I brought the horses to the livestock coaches near the rear of the train. A gate clattered open and
a soldier leaped down. He looked even younger and thinner than me. He jammed a ramp in place,
and, grabbing the horses’ reins, led them into the coach. The other horses bucked and snorted, their
breaths icy swirls.
“I’m Vladimir Perov,” he said.
“Mine’s—”
“I know. Gregory Gregoravich Sandiuesky. Come with me.”
The train began moving, rattling the tack and other gear dangling from the stalls. Beside the coach’s
rear door were stacked cages of pullets, ducks, and other fowl. Perov reached inside one cage, grabbed
a goosling by the neck, and shoved it under his arms.
The next two coaches were empty. As we entered the third, Perov said that this was the officers’
[ 16 ] Joseph Lerner

kitchen and mess.

Cooks and cooks’ assistants, their bare arms glistening, rushed about in the smoke and steam.
Perov stopped before one soldiers dozing on a stool, his legs sprawled in the aisle, his paunch strain-
ing against his smock. Perov wrung the neck of the gosling and flung it at him.
“What do I do with this?” he yelled, toppling from the stool, the goose squirming in his grasp.
“What do you think? Dress it and save for later.”
“And who’s this guy?” He nodded toward me.
“Gregory Gregoravich, meet Dmitri Alexovich Chernovsky. Gregory’s our new bunkmate.”
We left. Coaches 85, 86, and 87 were also empty, the seats removed to cram in more soldiers, Perov
said. The next coach was ours, a Pullman coach from America.
I stared in disbelief. Pelov laughed. “A quirk of the general’s, the Pullmans. Not for the rank and
file.”
He showed me our compartment, which was small, of course, with a bench, samovar, table, and
desk. Above were four bunks, the lower two tidy, the top two unmade and strewn with dirty clothing.
“That top right’s yours. Just dump that junk on Chernovsky’s bunk, they’re his. When you get your
own gear, stow it in the locker.”
I heard him riffle in the bunk below mine and then leave. I fell asleep and awoke hours later, staring
into Chernovsky’s face. He grinned and stuck in my hands a mug of tea and piece of black bread.
“You missed breakfast. But this should tide you over till supper. There’s goose tonight, surprise!
Pelov thinks we’re being gorged like that poor gosling as recompense for the slaughter to come. That’s
ridiculous, of course. I doubt our officers plan to eat us. Right, Melnikov?”
Another soldier lay in the lower bunk across from mine. His long legs stuck out and a book was
propped in his lap. He wore spectacles and he blond hair was long and unkempt. “From what I’ve
heard, it’s the Japanese who plan to eat us.”
Chernovsky laughed. “I’d like to see one of ‘em try to take a bite out of me! Well, have to go. Got
kitchen duty again.”
Red Lotus [ 17 ]

After he left, Melnikov said, “Don’t be fooled by Chernovsky. Both he and Pelov are quite capable of
violence.”
“And you?”
He smiled. “I’m a pacifist.”
“What are you reading?” He raised the book. “God and the State, by Mikhail Bakunin. Not a paci-
fist,” I said.
“Great. Another intellectual.”
He returned to his book. I reached in my satchel for Tolstoy’s (who was a pacifist) What I Believe,
but the small volume’s pages were damp and stuck together.

For the first few days I had little to do. Chernovsky worked in the kitchen, and Pelov and Mel-
nikov, like myself, were orderlies assigned to officers of the general staff. But I hadn’t seen Major Lee
or Colonel Chierden even once since we had boarded. So I used the time to brush up on the English
and French I had been taught: the Americans Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, and Gustave Flaubert
and Victor Hugo. The books were Melnikov’s; he also had ones by Proudhon and Kropotkin as well as
Bakunin, but these I ignored.
For fresh air I’d stand on the platform between coaches and stare at the whirling snow. The train
inched along, mostly eastward but often detouring down spur lines and branches south and west to
link up with coaches and troops at stations even farther remote than Perm: Betsk, Abulak, Aktobe,
Kandagach, Zhem, Zhanazhol, Nogi-Tem.
One morning Chernovsky shook me awake. “Your presence is requested elsewhere,” he said. “Or-
ders from Major Lee.”
It was still dark. Groggy, I quickly dressed and followed Chernovsky outside. The train was idling
beside the Nogi-Tem station, where, he said, the last ten coaches, with a thousand more soldiers
aboard, had been hitched the previous night.
We dodged gouts of steam until reaching Coach 10, which was coupled behind the locomotive’s
[ 18 ] Joseph Lerner

tender. A few soldiers lingered nearby, but none paid us any attention. Chernovsky knocked at the
door and Melnikov unbolted it from inside and slid it open a crack.
“Get in quick,” he said, glancing at the soldiers.
The coach was crammed with crates of munitions: carbines, side-arms, grenades, mortars, and
shells, from which the smell of ozone, grease, and saltpeter wafted. Pelov sat by an overturned crate
and read from a bill of lading while Melnikov placed the firearms, one by one, inside a coffin-like
locker.
“I could have used Sandiuesky earlier.” Pelov scowled. “We’re about done.”
“Gregory Gregoravich is not here to work,” Chernovsky said. “He’s to be treated as a Guest of the
State, the major said.” He slipped a revolver inside his tunic before Melnikov could shut the locker.
“Regular troops,” Pelov explained, “are forbidden to carry arms while in transit. We’re exempt from
that rule.” He shut the ledger and pocketed a Colt semi-automatic that lay on the overturned crate.
Melnikov reached for the revolver beside it as well as a short Kizlar knife. All three soldiers then
turned to me. The only weapon left was a small-bore pistol.
I picked it up, felt its unexpected heft and warmth, nestling it in my hand like a small, trembling
animal.
Red Lotus [ 21 ]

Four

A
whistle shrieked and brakes squealed as the coach shimmied and teetered. My head
slammed against the bulkhead, crunched metal and shattered glass ringing in my ears.
Gear and clothing whirled about the cabin. I clung to my bunk, bracing for another impact.
After the train finally lurched to a halt, the four of us stared at each other in fear and relief.
We fumbled into our clothes and hurried outside. Smoke and flames billowed along the tracks
ahead. Cinder and debris careened in the night air. Dazed and freezing, we joined other soldiers
beside an oil drum that had been set alight and which blazed like a giant pyre.
We blew into our hands and stamped our feet. Soon a master sergeant appeared, accompanied by
a slight, goateed man wearing spectacles and a Red Cross armband.
“My name is Dr. Irgun,” he shouted. “Your train bore only minor damage, but the one ahead of
yours was not so lucky. Have any of you nursing or other medical experience?” Chernovsky pushed
me forward. Irgun turned to me. “What is your name?”
“Gregory Gregoravich Sandieusky.”
“And how did you come by your experience?”
[ 22 ] Joseph Lerner

“My mother and grandfather ran a medical clinic in Ufa.”

“Ufa,” he repeated. He scrunched his brow. “By chance is your grandfather Dr. Alexei Alexeivich
Balin?”
“Yes. He died several months ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I trained under him long ago. We should talk, but for now please follow
me.”
The Kyzyl railway station was a large ramshackle structure built on stilts above a frozen bog.
Stretcher-bearers ferried the wounded inside, where scores of soldiers already lay on blankets and
straw pallets. The floorboards keened, an icy wind buffeting from below. I spent the morning fetch-
ing towels and compress, gauze and water. I changed patients’ dressing and once pinned down a flail-
ing soldier as Dr. Irgun sawed at his leg. I joined medics bringing in more wounded and gathered up
bloody bandages and other waste to heap outside and set afire.
At Ufa there’d been typhoid, cholera, and dyptheria; rickets, diarrhea, and malnutrition; bodily
injury, miscarriage, tumors, and cancers. I helped mother in the clinic and infirmary, and she often
discussed cases with grandfather over supper, or in the parlor or garden. So I was not unprepared for
Kyzyl and believe I acquitted myself well.
By late afternoon, the worst over, Irgun thanked me and said I could leave. It had stopped snowing
and a full moon shone. I walked toward where the other train’s coaches had been derailed. Soldiers
were still hauling out debris and repairing the tracks.
I eventually found Chernovsky, Pelov, and Melnikov warming themselves by a small bonfire.
“Thanks, Chernovsky,” I said.
“If I knew we’d be stuck in the cold all day I’d’ve volunteered myself.” He pried open a tin of beluga
(or foie gras or some other delicacy he’d scrounged from the wreck) with Melnikov’s Kizlar knife.
Melnikov was oiling his revolver. He spun the chamber, and squeezed the trigger (an audible click,
the chamber empty), aiming at Chernovsky.
Pelov seized the barrel. “Fool. Didn’t they teach you anything during training?”
Red Lotus [ 23 ]

“Like our friend Gregory Gregoravich, I’m a guest of the army.” He frowned. “Or was. By the way,”
he said to me, “your officer’s been asking for you.”
“Colonel Chierden? Do you know where he is?”
“See that shed where the tracks converge?”
“The switching station?” Melnikov nodded. “Did he say why?”
Chernovsky guffawed, spraying food. Pelov struck a match on Melnikov’s sleeve and lit his pipe.
Melnikov glowered at him and then turned to me. “Go and find out.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it. I turned and walked down the tracks, soon skirting the
blast crater and wrecked locomotive, the air thick with cinder and burning metal. I saw a lamp flicker
in the hut’s window and the silhouettes of three men.
I drew nearer. One of them was gagged and bound to a chair. He writhed and jerked his head to
and fro. Then one of the other two men slid a knife across his throat. Blood spattered the window.
I stumbled and fell, and, on hands and knees, retched in the snow. I heard the door bang open and
Lee or Chierden shout my name. But I pretended not to hear and instead scrambled to my feet and
hurried away.
Red Lotus [ 25 ]

Five

T
he wind roared from the sky, snow and hail scurrying across knobs and rucks of ice, the per-
mafrost raveling toward distant, shimmering peaks.
Lake Baikal.
The coaches rocked, wheels squealing, rails heaving beneath them. I sat up, groggy and shivering.
Chernovsky and Melnikov were still asleep, but Pelov was not in his bunk. All three had stayed up late
drinking and playing cards (I had heard arguing, shouting and even a shoving match as I fell asleep).
Later I awoke and saw out the window (the train barely moving) three soldiers grappling in the snow.
A blade glittered, a man fell, and then the other two raced back to the train, blood fluorescing where
the third man lay.
Or had I been dreaming?
The train stopped. A master sergeant jogged beside the coaches, pounding on windows and order-
ing everyone outside.
Later, when I saw Melnikov and Chernovsky in line beside a mobile kitchen that had been set up in
the snow, I asked, “Where’s Pelov?”
[ 26 ] Joseph Lerner

“Haven’t seen him,” Chernovsky said. He gulped his tea and turned to Melnikov. “Didn’t he look for
another card game last night?”
Melnikov shrugged and bit into a biscuit. “Maybe he deserted.”
“Deserted? Here?” I said.
“Where else? The front?” said Chernovsky.
“We should tell someone!”
“Why?” said Melnikov. “You think they’d send a search party? If they did, it’d only be to shoot him
on sight.”
“You sound like you don’t even care. You’re his comrades!”
Menikov and Chernovsky exchanged looks. “We didn’t know you were,” Chernovsky said.
I walked away. I thought of telling someone, not Chierden but maybe Lee. At least ask his advice,
though I thought I knew what he’d probably say: do nothing, say nothing, don’t get drink or gamble
with them, always carry a weapon. In a few more days you’ll be at the front.
Yes, and that would be a relief, wouldn’t it?
I saw Chierden and Lee alight from Coach 96 behind the general and his mistress. All four then
climbed inside a well-appointed troika and drove away.
They didn’t seen me. I walked behind the train. Then a sergeant grabbed me and several other
soldiers and ordered us to the rear of the train, where the ice had softened and the rails had sunk into
slush.
I didn’t protest. We climbed into Coach 97, the general’s carriage, and began removing the furnish-
ings: oil paintings, tapestries, rugs, an antique credenza, a four-poster bed. The coach adjoining it,
Number 98, was similarly appointed: a canopied (single) bed, a small upright piano, and a large trunk
from which a dollhouse and children’s books peered.
I picked up an illustrated book of fairy tales. “ These belong to the general’s courtesan?” I asked.
“She’s his niece, you pampered whelp!” The sergeant slapped my hand (the book went flying) and
then the side of my head. “When you’re done I’ve other work for you.”
Red Lotus [ 27 ]

My ears rang and my head throbbed. When the coaches were emptied, I was ordered to another
gang dragging ties and rails across the lake. By mid-afternoon Colonel Chierden rode up to us on
Lee’s Mongolian gray.
“I’ve been looking for you. Didn’t you tell the sergeant you were assigned to me?” he said.
“I’m not afraid of a little work.”
“Keep it up and you’ll get a real taste of hardship.” I grabbed the hand he offered and swung up be-
hind him. “Look in my saddlebag. I’ve got your sketchbook and pencils. The general is curious about
you.”
We rode toward the farther shore and then to a narrow marsh and bay. Nearby gurgled hot springs
which melted the adjacent ice. The general’s troika, its runners sunk in sand, hunkered nearby. He
had exchanged his fur coat for a leather jerkin and stamped about, smacking his hands and grinning
as if it were a beautiful day to be out and about. Major Lee grabbed several shotguns from the back
of the troika and handed one each to Chierden and to the general and kept one for himself. The girl
stood near the horses, feeding them treats.
The three officers left. I got out my sketchbook and began to draw. The girl walked over to me. She
looked in her furs and jewels as if she were about to step out to a ball or cotillion on Nevsky Prospect
instead of being stranded in the Siberian wilderness.
She sat beside me, her hands curled in her muff. “Can I see?” I felt my cheeks burn and my legs
wobble. “My name’s Irena.”
“I’m—”
“I know who you are. Gregory Gregorovich Sandieusky. See?” She pointed. “Your name’s even on
your sketchbook!” I shrugged and passed it to her. She began turning the pages. “Is that your mother
and grandfather?” I nodded. My throat tightened. “Colonel Chierden and Major Lee told me about
them. I’ve been hoping we’d meet.”
“Why?” I asked, confused.
“Because we’re alike. My mother died of pneumonia, you see, when I was twelve, and my father’s
[ 28 ] Joseph Lerner

gone off to America—”
Suddenly geese scrambled into the sky and the air echoed with gunfire. Why was she telling me
this? I didn’t want the general to return and find us like this. Yet I couldn’t leave, I kept thinking of the
warmth of her leg against mine, the rise and fall of her breasts, her lips.
A second, third, and fourth troika appeared. As they drew near, cooks and orderlies jumped out,
lugging linen, china, and folding chairs and tables.
Chierden, Lee, and the general returned. More sleighs appeared, these with officers, subalterns,
NCOs. Lanterns and braziers were lit, pitchers of mead and kvass passed around, followed by pots of
sturgeon, veal and wild boar. And for dessert, torts and puddings with samovars of coffee and black
tea.
Irena smiled at me, torchlight reflecting in her eyes, her cheeks round and dimpled like a child’s.
She kissed me.
The general, drunk on kvass, came over and shoved me aside so he could sit next to Irena. He
whispered in her ear, Irena shook her head, and he grabbed her arm. I tried to jump up, not a little
drunk myself, but Major Lee, sitting on my other side, pushed me back down. I squirmed in his grasp
while Irena, with Chierden and the general, walked back to their troika.
Red Lotus [ 31 ]

Six

W
e’ll be in Harbin tomorrow,” Chierden said, staring at our reflections in the mirror. I held a
tray with a straight razor, strop, and shaving brush and soap. He set down the scissors he’d
trimmed his beard with and rubbed his stubbled face.
The train, after its long slow climb into the Altai mountains, had begun its descent. Bottles and
jars rattled atop the shelf above the wash basin, but my hands remained steady as I lathered his face,
stropped the razor, and commenced shaving him. I fell in with the train’s rhythms, but when I raised
the blade to his throat he seized my wrist.
“I can do this myself,” he said. “Though I don’t doubt your fingers are nimble. You are the son and
grandson of surgeons.”
“You include my mother. What else do you know about my family?”
With several deft swipes the remaining stubble was gone. He set down the razor. “It was your father
who I knew. And your mother. Your grandfather didn’t much care for me.”
“Why not?”
“He was a pacifist.”
“My father was a soldier too.”
“Your grandfather didn’t care much for him either.” He wiped his face and tossed the towel on the
[ 32 ] Joseph Lerner

tray. He sat down on his bunk.

“Then how—”
“Your father and I were cadets together in the Preobzhensky Guards. He first saw your mother on
the Marsovo Pole parade grounds where we were drilling. He knew a duchess who knew an aunt and,
well, that’s how introductions are made in St. Petersburg.”
“How old was my mother?”
“Sixteen. But we weren’t much older. Twenty, twenty-one.” He closed his eyes. “They courted
through spring and summer. In autumn our regiment was dispatched to quell a rebellion in the Cau-
cuses. I was the last to see your father alive. After the battle I even returned to look for him.”
“Maybe he was taken prisoner.”
“Maybe. But wouldn’t we have heard from him by now if he were still alive?”
“You tell me.” I stared at his face: this was the first time I’d seen him clean shaven.
“You’re insolent, undisciplined, and ungrateful,” he said. “That will change. Once at the front you’ll
act as my orderly. You will say ‘sir.’ You will salute. In other words, you’ll comport yourself like a sol-
dier.”

A Tatar horseman raced beside the train, hooves tracking oval shadows in the sand, sunlight
glinting from his tunic, leggings, and pummel. I fell into a deep sleep and, when I awoke, desert had
become grassland, barren mountains fields stippled with larch and pine, and tents and corrals walled
houses, pagodas, gardens, shops, and inns.
Harbin City.
Chernovsky, Melnikov, and I lugged our kit-bags from our compartment and jumped from the
train. The station platform was crowded with soldiers coaxing horses from livestock coaches and
wheeling trunks and crates onto barrows and wagons.
A sergeant-major checked our papers and marched the three of us away from the station toward
an idling motor-truck. We didn’t protest or question our orders. For one, this was a good sign that we
Red Lotus [ 33 ]

still retained the special status that set us apart from the fates of the other soldiers; and for another,
any camaraderie we might have shared had vanished back at Kyzyl station and, especially, Lake Bai-
kal, so we were loathe to speak to, much less confide in each other.
As we climbed in back, an icy drizzle began to fall; we huddled beneath a leaky tarp, the rain seep-
ing inside our overcoats and boots. Artillery fire echoed from the nearby mountains. We rode for sev-
eral hours, the truck jouncing over ruts and boulders. Eventually we reached a temple or monastery,
its wooden gate carved with half-effaced icons and gods but with a Russian Orthodox cross affixed to
its crest.
A hooded monk (Russian? Chinese?) hurried into the yard. He bowed and showed us inside, where
we shrugged off our packs and unraveled our bedrolls. He lit a fire in the grate. We were too tired to
cook and so ate tinned cold biscuits and jam before climbing into our sleep-sacks. The monk bowed
again and left.
I couldn’t sleep. I thought again about poor Pelov, though no doubt his death, in one sense, was ac-
cidental, the victim might just as easily have been Chernovsky or Melnikov.
And who were their benefactors, if not also Chierden or Lee? Or were Chierden and Lee agents
acting on someone else’s behest? But why no protest, no investigation into Pelov’s disappearance? Un-
less his death was utterly inconsequential. Then of how much value was my own life?
Around dawn Chierden shook me awake and gestured for me to follow him. Upstairs was a long
narrow hall empty save for a pair of bedrolls and packs propped beside a large trestle table covered
with military maps scored with notes, erasures, cross-outs, and other marks.
Chierden said, “I don’t expect you to sympathize with what Major Lee and I do. You’re the son and
grandson of pacifists and I’m sure you’ve been inculcated since birth with their nonsense.” He pointed
to the map. “This is the result of our latest intelligence. See those red arcs and lines in the mountains
in the east? That’s the Japanese Army of the Yalu poised to cross the Han River. And the plains to the
west? That’s the Japanese Third Army, moving north to Tish-ling.”
He paused, as if for effect. But this was no performance, Chierden was incapable of bombast or
[ 34 ] Joseph Lerner

hyperbole. I remembered what I’d read in one of Melnikov’s books. “A classic pincer’s move.” I swal-
lowed.
“That’s right. A trap. If I had known earlier—” Again he paused. “I suggest you memorize as much
of this map as you can: landmarks, elevations, troop movements, and so forth. See in the southwest?
The forests? No Japanese there, nor any within a hundred versts. That should not change. Do you
understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so.”
“You shouldn’t rely on me henceforth. You need to make your own way. South to our forces in
Mukden or—”
Shots rang out in the courtyard below. Chierden grabbed his pistol and crawled to the window. I
followed. We saw Melnikov and Chernovsky below, practice shooting at a row of Buddhist statues
against the courtyard wall. Heads and torsos burst and clattered along the paving stones.
“Go down and tell them to stop, damn it,” Chierden said, holstering his pistol. “And then find Ma-
jor Lee. I need to talk to him.”
I went outside. Chernovsky said, “Have you heard? We’re going to the front. Every cook, orderly,
and clerk to the trenches.”

I found Major Lee near a chapel, unfinished and already a ruin, its cross and copper dome glinting
with rust in an icy patch of brush and thistle. He was smoking a cigarette and watching me.
“Colonel Chierden—” I began.
“Wants to see me?” I nodded. “No doubt he’s shown you the map. Well, our situation is not as dire
as he believes. How do you think we’ve acquired such intelligence? By our diligence in convincing
many Chinese that Japan is the far more dangerous enemy.” He flicked the butt in the snow. “Please
come with me.”
We trampled through the brush for about a verst until reaching a half-collapsed mill with a water-
wheel suspended above a frozen creek. Smoke curled from its chimney. A narrow, steep path led to a
Red Lotus [ 35 ]

low-slung doorway. Inside, an old man and a young girl squatted by a furnace while another woman
crouched nearby, a squalling infant in her lap.
Cinders and smoke blew about the small stone room. My eyes teared and I choked from the fumes
as Lee edged closer and talked to the old man, who replied waving his hands about and shouting. Lee
spoke some more, always calmly, and eventually the old man nodded, frowning, as if he still wasn’t
convinced or mollified.
The major said to me, “I just told Uncle Chu you may be staying on after the colonel and I go.
It will be safer than your striking out on your own.” Before I could ask why he’d been shouting, he
turned to the girl. “Mei-Ying?” She looked up him. “Gregory Gregorovich here will need your help
when we’re gone.”
“Yes, Kai-yu Lee,” she said in Russian, her eyes lowered.
“Good. Thank you. I must return to the monastery .” He rose to leave.
Mouth agape, I stared after the major. Mei-Ying tugged at my jacket. “Come with me.”
I followed. She wore only a padded tunic, silk trousers, and slippers. She couldn’t have been more
than twelve or thirteen years old. Dodging rafters, we climbed slippery stairs down into a dark cellar.
Beyond a chink of rock, waterfalls plunged and ice shattered.
She kept up a steady banter (in fluent Russian!) as if as a diversion: about how she knew Major Lee
(he was a distant cousin), about the local partisans (Communist, Nationalist, anti-Japanese, anti-Rus-
sian), and about how her own family and neighbors fared as victims of so much factional violence.
“And how did you learn Russian so well?” I asked as we climbed outside to the down to the creek
bed.
“From cousin Lee. I lived with him in Peking when I was very young. Uncle Chu and aunt Ting are
really country cousins—”
Of course, there was much more to her story. But I was cold, tired, and frightened. And where were
we going? And what had Major Lee said, exactly, to Uncle Chu?
We passed the chapel, beyond which was a courtyard I hadn’t seen before, also ruined but obvious-
[ 36 ] Joseph Lerner

ly ancient, with a mausoleum and tombstones and, in the middle, a great bronze bell that must have
been hauled here from a great distance. Inside the bell was a larger-than-life statue of the Buddha.
From nearby frozen weeds the girl plucked a fresh crimson flower and, bowing, set it in the statue’s
lap.
“A flower that blooms in winter,” I murmured.
“For the Buddha Avalokiteshvara, the ‘Holder of the Lotus,’ goddess of compassion and love.”
“Is this why you brought me here? To show me this?”
“No. The mausoleum there? It would be safer for you to stay there than with us. But I will come
every day with food and firewood.”
I shoved the door open and entered the tomb. I crouched inside. Was Mei-Ying afraid of me or was
it just her uncle Chu? But didn’t Chierden have the better plan after all?
I could hear Mei-Ying outside—chanting, perhaps, a prayer to Avalokiteshvara. But for whom?
Me? Herself? Her family?
I shivered, the nausea I felt earlier returning. I left the mausoleum and began to walk back to the
monastery.
Melnikov and Chernovsky were gone, including their effects. So were Lee and Chierden, though
their gear (and maps) were still upstairs. I stashed my own gear next to theirs and built up a fire in
one of the grates. I read and sketched the rest of the afternoon and fell asleep soon after sunset.
Later that night screams awoke me. I scrambled into my clothes and rushed outside. A woman, na-
ked and in flames, raced about the courtyard and then fell into the snow. She writhed about, scream-
ing, even after the snow extinguished the fire. Chierden and Lee were standing over her. Chierden
fired his revolver and at her head.
I fell to me knees and vomited. They heard and turned to me. I hurried back inside, quickly packed
my gear, and lit out from the monastery.
Red Lotus [ 37 ]

End of Sample

Photo Credits (Permissions by CreativeCommons):

Cover & back cover: Somanatha Temple at Somnath, Prabhas Patan, in Gujarat, from the west, from the Archaeological
Survey of India, taken by D.H. Sykes in c.1869.
Page 2: Hurried work at a Russian field hospital. Credit: Underwood & Underwood, c1905.
Page 6: CN railway tracks, photo by Marcus Obal.
Page 10: 10th Century, Dunhuang. Detail from an illustration of Sakyamuni’s temptation by Mara. Source via book “The
Genius of China,” Robert Temple.
Page 20: From “A Century of Japanese Photography,” page 134.
Page 24: Lake Baikal. Credit: National Science Foundation.Page 6: CN railway tracks, photo by Marcus Obal.
Page 30: Central seated Sakyamuni and disciple, Hidden Stream Temple, Longmen grottoes (Mt. Longmen), Luoyang, Henan,
China. Credit: Pratyeka.