The Bear And The Diva

By John Namnik

The Latvian, Andrej Yakovlevitch Namnik, landowner and bachelor approaching middle age,
takes time out from his business trip to Russia to take in the sights of the magnificent city
of St. Petersburg. Within twenty four hours he rescues a beautiful Bohemian woman, Marie
Subrtova, finds himself involved in a Revolutionist meeting, escapes a subsequent police raid only to find himself locked up in the dungeon prisons of the Fortress of St Peter and St Paul.
Marie, a young striking musician and singer, reciprocates Andrej’s loving attentions but Andrej is sentenced to exile to work on the Great Siberian Railway.
The Bear and The Diva is at once a love story and an historical adventure with events supported
by historical documents. It tells the story of the re-uniting of Andrej and Marie and their
various involvement in murder, several wars, extreme deprivation, terrorism and fortunes both
great and tragic.
Andrej and Marie will take readers on an emotional ride from the frozen steppes of Siberia to the tropics of Singapore and on to their new home in Australia. What happens to their little
Amelia, the apple of Andrej’s eye and the only girl amid four brothers? How does the Namnik
family find themselves one child short and can they get him back? Will Marie get to sing with
Dame Nellie Melba when she returns from her tour in Java? And, what would prompt Andrej,
at age 59, to enlist in the Australian Army?
This narrative does not conclude on the last page. Readers can look forward to a follow-up
book, The Sable Provenance, that will continue the Namnik story in the context of a wider
ancestry entwined with convicts, Celts, nobles and rogues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Namnik
• Release date: Jan 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465783547

Book preview

THE BEAR AND THE DIVA

FROM SIBERIA TO CIVILISATION

by

John Namnik

***

PUBLISHED BY CHARGAN AT SMASHWORDS

This book available in print from

www.chargan.com

The Bear and the Diva

From Siberia to Civilisation

Copyright © 2012 John Namnik

Graphics, 2009, Steve Whitfield

www.idstudios.net.au

Cover Design by Benjamin Namnik

ISBN: 978-1-4657-8354-7

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

John Namnik has asserted his right under the Copyright Act 1976 to be identified as the author of this work.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

***

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Epilogue

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Dedication

***

Foreword

Readers may justifiably be confused by the variations of spelling used for the same name. These are not typos; they were a fact of life for the characters, and a further explanation is given in the Afterword.

I have ignored expert opinion which advises writers to forget slavishly following facts when writing a novel based on actual events - either write a novel or write a history. My intention is not to write a commercial, popular novel or display some literary ability; my intention is to record a family history in a readable and entertaining fashion.

I hope that it works for you.

John Namnik

***

Chapter One

‘Do you have a name, friend?’

My grandfather knew that the enquirer was simply extending friendship but he had woken to the cold light in a fractious state because the wolves had disturbed his sleep with constant mating howls. Besides, it was an inane question. Who didn’t have a name? Was there a choice in the matter? Moreover, the man’s Russian was tainted with a German inflection. Andrej resented Germans, but only on general principle since he had several German friends back home. It was even possible, according to his father, that the family had at least one German ancestor. He wasn’t in the mood to make friends today, even though he was in the land where one needed friendship and solidarity to survive.

There was no choice but to walk alongside this fool as they made their way from the tool depot to the railhead. Andrej flicked up his collar in a vain attempt to combat the chill breeze.

‘No, friend, nobody in Latvia has a name. The Germans who run our country simply whistle us when they need us, unlike the Russians who think they run our country - they simply point to where they want us to go. Latvians have no need for names.’ Andrej could be a charming gentleman; this was not one of those times.

The pair went quickly and quietly into that cold day, cold in more ways than one.

When they reached the first of the telegraph poles that required the installation of insulators, Andrej hoisted his ladder to rest against it. His work companion rested his on the opposite side. Andrej extracted two glass insulators from the barrow and gave them silently to the other, taking two wooden pegs and a hammer for himself and ascended his steps.

The German had an insulator in place on the crossbeam while the Latvian belted a peg through its centre to affix it. The silence was cracked apart like a sheet of ice by the greatcoated figure below.

‘You don’t have the time to blow on your hands. You are falling behind the post-installing team. By the time you take off your glove and blow on your hand, another insulator could have been fixed!’ The Cossack’s voice was gruff Georgian.

Andrej sucked in a breath to give ammunition to a retort but the German, his new junior partner, beat him to it.

‘How would you like me to jam your bayonet up your arse? Go and shoot some Tatar babies and let us get on with it!’

‘And how would you like to keep an appointment with the Controller and manage on half rations?’

‘Half of nothing is nothing!’

One did not talk to one’s jailers in this way unless one was masochistic, knew Andrej. And he thought Germans were only sadists! He flushed with a new-found admiration for his partner even though Germans were forward and abrasive by nature, he believed. Still, he would have to save the day.

‘Private,’ Andrej called below, ‘if the posting team are getting too far ahead, it is because they are installing too far apart. In this area, with the snow, the poles must not be more than 120 feet apart…’ he continued as he descended the ladder. ‘Any greater distance and the snow will drag the wires to the ground. Why don’t you tell them that, if you want us to catch up.’

‘Tell them yourself! Aren’t you the foreman of this derelict team? How did you get to be foreman?’

‘By killing a Cossack. I out-danced him.’ He couldn’t help the retort. It would only exacerbate matters and have the opposite effect of his conciliatory intention. Oh well, that’s me Andrej thought, hoping that his workmate wouldn’t begin guffawing.

‘If we are to report to the Controller, I will be duty-bound, I’m afraid to report, that you are missing a button and that there is the stench of alcohol on your breath.’

‘Get on with your job Latvian peasant!’

As the soldier walked away - half marching to redeem lost pride - Andrej suggested a brisk walk to the poling team up ahead to warm up as much as to check on the distance between installed poles. ‘Then we will back-track to the team laying the wire to check on their progress.’ As expected, there was compliance but no reply.

Andrej broke the silence presently. ‘I know you are German so I wish to apologise for my previous remarks. I am rather irritable this morning. My name is Andrej Yakovlevitch Namnik. Don’t bother with Russian protocol...’ referring to the use of both first names as the normal form of address, ‘… call me Andrej.’

‘Dieter Braun’ came the response.

‘And how did you win a holiday to beautiful Siberia to spend your time laboring on the great Trans Siberian Railway?’

‘I live in Ventspils and worked as a shipping clerk. A crate of alcohol that I was logging in was broken. My Russian boss caught me with a secreted bottle of vodka. Voilà. Two years in paradise. And you Andrej?’

‘So Dieter, we are neighbours. I am from Riga.’ He referred to the fact that Riga and Ventspils were port cities of Latvia, merely 200 kilometers apart. Latvia had been occupied historically by many countries: Poland, Sweden, Germany to name a few, and now by Russia. The Germans had entrenched themselves, during their rule, into the top positions of government and commerce, and were culturally dominant. The Latvians had found themselves the inferior citizenry of their own land, and now Russia administered the country, notwithstanding that there was local government at central and district levels. The problem was that there were but two Latvian representatives in a large Duma dominated by Germans and Russians. The locals had been overcome and pushed into the background. But for a few, they were looked upon as peasants. As a landowner, Andrej was one of the few, yet the Russians classed him officially as a peasant. But there was talk now of revolution: revolution throughout all Russia and its dominions. And it was this talk that saw Andrej land in Siberia.

He intended to reciprocate to Dieter with the reason why he too had been banished as he had divulged to many other exiles. But he had no intention of confessing the whole story.

‘It seems I went to a meeting to listen to people that were considered by the Tsar to be seditious. In fact, I was really only following the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. She too was at the meeting naively but she escaped prosecution. For my passion I have an open-ended sentence, held indefinitely at the pleasure of Tsar Nicholas II.’

No, he had no intention of divulging the full story, specifically the events in the aftermath of that meeting. He held out a hope that he would one day be freed. Should the Russian authorities ever find out what happened after the ‘revolutionary’ meeting, he would never see freedom. And, one could never be sure that one was not confiding in one of the Tsar’s secret police, the Okhrana. After all, a spy had put him, and others, into exile.

‘Would this meeting have had anything to do with one of my own race: somebody by the name of Marx?’ asked Dieter.

Andrej stopped suddenly. He stared into the eyes of the young man. ‘You’re new here: a tip for your survival. You are here as a criminal serving a finite sentence. If you want to be here forever then just let the wrong person hear certain names come out of your eating hole: Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Minchevik, Stalin. I say eating hole deliberately - use it for eating and never talk about politics or revolution. In fact, don’t even brag that you are a Russophile and admire Russia’s great artists and literists such as Leo Tolstoy.’

‘But he is a great patriotic author surely?’

‘Of course he is. But do you know that he walks from his home, one hundred and fifty miles, to the Administrative Centre to gain approval to operate a school for peasant children. He believes in free education for all. He and his wife teach all-comers anyway. For that, he is viewed as a revolutionary. But I swear that my great grandchildren will study or enjoy his ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Anna Karenina.’

And he was right. Almost a century later, Tolstoy’s literature was still being reprinted and made into award-winning films.

‘You have a working intellect Dieter. If it is too active you will be detected as an intellectual. Then you will be watched constantly as I am. Everything you say will be scrutinized. Whoever you are seen talking to will be offered rewards by the authorities to give up the content of your conversations. Act like a dumb peasant. I have less to lose than you and can get away with much. Understand?’

‘Shit! What a country! What happened to your previous off-sider?’

‘Brodyagi!’

‘Which is?’

‘Escapee.’ replied Andrej. ‘He thought he would take his chances. Security here is often lax, so there is always the temptation to simply walk off. But to do so is to misunderstand this country. Here, life in captivity, is far easier than free-running. The officials and soldiers in Siberia are nowhere as severe as the natural elements. I have never heard of a successful escape. If you do not turn up to work and cannot be found, they do not even bother to chase you. If you run there are only four directions. Go east or west and you will simply run into Russian garrisons. Run north and you will never survive in the Tundra. Go south and the Mongols, Chinese or Turks will slaughter you. The only other two directions are into the earth - which is not possible, or you go out there, into space. And that is why, my friend, I believe a Russo / Slav will be the first man to fly into space.’

‘You dream.’

‘What else does a man have? What does the Bible say? Let old men dream dreams.’

‘So did you hear of the outcome of your last partner’s venture? Did he fly into space?’

‘I deserve your wit and facetiousness but no. He returned to camp within ten days. Bear scratches down his back were weeping with green pus. His fingers, toes and penis had turned black. An eye was missing. He returned to the camp, I suppose, to make a statement - a statement that was pointless.’

‘So he died?’

‘I cut him down from the telegraph pole that I was due to work on that day. He returned in the night and I found him hanging by telegraph wire.’

‘Jesu Christi. Ora pro nobis!’

Having checked and corrected the pole installation down the line, the two men retraced their steps, footsteps that were still visible in shallow snow. Andrej filled the silent walk with the memories just stirred by his mention of the girl he had met three very long years ago. And memories of their meeting’s unmentionable aftermath.

Chapter Two

It was a pleasant afternoon for January, Andrej thought, as he strolled down Nevsky Prospekt - Russia’s most famous thoroughfare of St. Petersburg, capital city of the great empire of Rus. The city conjured up reminders of his history lesson given at the Riga Mechanics Institute twenty years ago. As he gazed across the frozen Neva River that snaked its way through the city, he marvelled at the Fortress of Saints Peter and Paul that towered over the waterway on its own island - the fortress built by Peter the Great after he had routed the occupying Swedes: a fortress whose dungeons he, Andrej, would unwittingly be thrown into very soon.

On his left was The Admirality, with its guilded spire, house of the Russian Navy from which, in twenty years would come the main support to the Communist coup and later, in an about face, through the Russian sailors, insurrection against Lenin’s Communism in a bloody civil war of White Russian against Red Russian. The sailors would in fact meet their Alimo and make their last stand at the Fortress before the Bolsheviks overcame them.

And next to The Admirality was the magnificent Bronze Horseman, the depiction of Peter himself ruling over Ploshchad Dekabristov - Decemberist’s Square - named after an attempted revolution against Alexander I and Nicholas I in December 1825, just 37 years before Andrej was born. Even now, Andrej mused, revolution is in the air once more with the dissatisfaction of the Tsar’s rule and the present cultural revolution in his own country of Latvia.

To his right, nestled in the Palace Square, stood the sumptuous Winter Palace with its 1,057 rooms. Even more striking in the Square rose the Alexander Column to a height of 48 metres with the triumphal Arch that commemorates Russia’s victory over Napoleon in 1812 - a victory achieved rather perversely by burning down Moscow so that Napoleon was dissuaded from advancing to St. Petersburg.

Andrej quickened his step as he made for his room at the hotel. Just over the bridge that crossed the Moyka tributary, he marveled at the Stroganov Palace resplendent in shades of green and former home of the industrialist, Stroganoff. He at once felt peckish, but not for tough Russian yak, rather the tender fresh venison from his own farmlands.

He was pleased with his visit so far. He had managed to secure orders from a boutique furniture maker for oak and elder wood. Such deciduous trees were uncommon in Latvia, even though five million acres, one third of the country, was wooded but mainly by coniferous forests. In fact, Riga was the world’s greatest timber port. There was even less oak however around St. Petersburg. And the wealthy would turn up their noses at pine furniture, while his own countrymen could afford little else.

As well, he had made purchases of bolts of cloth for there was no textile industry in Latvia. Not that Andrej was involved