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Kanin spoke to Fitzherbert in Russian. "We are now producing two new locomotives every week here," he said proudly.
"Amazing," said the English lord.
Grigori understood why these foreigners were so interested. He read the newspapers, and he went to lectures and discussion groups organized by the St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee. The locomotives made here were essential to Russia's ability to defend itself. The visitors might pretend to be idly curious, but they were collecting military intelligence.
Kanin introduced Grigori. "Peshkov here is the factory's chess champion. " Kanin was management, but he was all right.
Fitzherbert was charming. He spoke to Varya, a woman of about fifty with her gray hair in a head scarf. "Very kind of you to show us your workplace," he said, cheerfully speaking fluent Russian with a heavy accent.
Varya, a formidable figure, muscular and big-bosomed, giggled like a schoolgirl.
The demonstration was ready. Grigori had placed steel ingots in the hopper and fired up the furnace, and the metal was now molten. But there was one more visitor to come: the earl's wife, who was said to be Russian-hence his knowledge of the language, which was unusual in a foreigner.
Grigori wanted to question Dewar about Buffalo, but before he had a chance, the earl's wife came into the wheel shop. Her floor-length skirt was like a broom pushing a line of dirt and swarf in front of her. She wore a short coat over her dress, and she was followed by a manservant carrying a fur cloak, a maid with a bag, and one of the directors of the factory, Count Maklakov, a young man dressed like Fitzherbert. Maklakov was obviously very taken with his guest, smiling and talking in a low voice and taking her arm unnecessarily. She was extraordinarily pretty, with fair curls and a coquettish tilt to her head.
Grigori recognized her immediately. She was Princess Bea.
His heart lurched and he felt nauseated. He fiercely repressed the ugly memory that rose out of the distant past. Then, as in any emergency, he checked on his brother. Would Lev remember? He had been only six years old at the time. Lev was looking with curiosity at the princess, as if trying to place her. Then, as Grigori watched, Lev's face changed and he remembered. He went pale and looked ill, then suddenly he reddened with anger.
By that time Grigori was at Lev's side. "Stay calm," he murmured. "Don't say anything. Remember, we're going to America-nothing must interfere with that!"
Lev made a disgusted noise.
"Go back to the stables," Grigori said. Lev was a pony driver, working with the many horses used in the factory.
Lev glared a moment longer at the oblivious princess. Then he turned and walked away, and the moment of danger passed.
Grigori began the demonstration. He nodded to Isaak, a man of his own age, who was captain of the factory football team. Isaak opened up the mold. Then he and Varya picked up a polished wooden template of a flanged train wheel. This in itself was a work of great skill, with spokes that were elliptical in cross-section and tapered by one in twenty from hub to rim. The wheel was for a big 4-6-4 locomotive, and the template was almost as tall as the people lifting it.
They pressed it into a deep tray filled with damp sandy molding mixture. Isaak swung the cast-iron chill on top of that, to form the tread and the flange, and then finally the top of the mold.
They opened up the assemblage and Grigori inspected the hole made by the template. There were no visible irregularities. He sprayed the molding sand with a black oily liquid, then they closed the flask again. "Please stand well back now," he said to the visitors. Isaak moved the spout of the hopper to the funnel on top of the mold. Then Grigori pulled the lever that tilted the hopper.
Molten steel poured slowly into the mold. Steam from the wet sand hissed out of vents. Grigori knew by experience when to raise the hopper and stop the flow. "The next step is to perfect the shape of the wheel," he said. "Because the hot metal takes so long to cool, I have here a wheel that was cast earlier. "
It was already set up on a lathe, and Grigori nodded to Konstantin, the lathe operator, who was Varya's son. A thin, gangling intellectual with wild black hair, Konstantin was chairman of the Bolshevik discussion group and Grigori's closest friend. He started the electric motor, turning the wheel at high speed, and began to shape it with a file.
"Please keep well away from the lathe," Grigori said to the visitors, raising his voice over the whine of the machine. "If you touch it, you may lose a finger. " He held up his left hand. "As I did, here in this factory, at the age of twelve. " His third finger, the ring finger, was an ugly stump. He caught a glance of irritation from Count Maklakov, who did not enjoy being reminded of the human cost of his profits. The look he got from Princess Bea mingled disgust with fascination, and he wondered whether she was weirdly interested in squalor and suffering. It was unusual for a lady to tour a factory.
He made a sign to Konstantin, who stopped the lathe. "Next, the dimensions of the wheel are checked with calipers. " He held up the tool used. "Train wheels must be exactly sized. If the diameter varies by more than one-sixteenth of an inch-which is about the width of the lead in a pencil-the wheel must be melted down and remade. "
> Fitzherbert said in broken Russian: "How many wheels can you make per day?"
"Six or seven on average, allowing for rejects. "
The American, Dewar, asked: "What hours do you work?"
"Six in the morning until seven in the evening, Monday through Saturday. On Sunday we are allowed to go to church. "
A boy of about eight came racing into the wheel shop, pursued by a shouting woman-presumably his mother. Grigori made a grab for him, to keep him away from the furnace. The boy dodged and cannoned into Princess Bea, his close-cropped head striking her in the ribs with an audible thump. She gasped, hurt. The boy stopped, apparently dazed. Furious, the princess drew back her arm and slapped his face so hard that he rocked on his feet, and Grigori thought he was going to fall over. The American said something abrupt in English, sounding surprised and indignant. In the next instant the mother swept the boy up in her strong arms and turned away.
Kanin, the supervisor, looked scared, knowing he might be blamed. He said to the princess: "Most High Excellency, are you hurt?"
Princess Bea was visibly enraged, but she took a deep breath and said: "It's nothing. "
Her husband and the count went to her, looking concerned. Only Dewar stood back, his face a mask of disapproval and revulsion. He had been shocked by the slap, Grigori guessed, and he wondered whether all Americans were equally softhearted. A slap was nothing: Grigori and his brother had been flogged with canes as children in this factory.
The visitors began to move away. Grigori was afraid he might lose his chance of questioning the tourist from Buffalo. Boldly, he touched Dewar's sleeve. A Russian nobleman would have reacted with indignation, and shoved him away or struck him for insolence, but the American merely turned to him with a polite smile.
