The Jewel of St Petersburg

Eight

NURSE SONYA, WHAT IS IT LIKE?” “What is what like?”

“Being a nurse. Always helping someone.”

The woman inspected her with a kindly gaze. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I’ve decided to train to be a nurse.”

“A nurse? You?” Nurse Sonya burst out laughing, and Valentina felt it like a slap on the face. The older woman noticed her expression and silenced her laugh at once. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Have you told your father and mother?”

“Yes, I have.”

There was an abrupt silence. Outside in the garden, huge snowflakes were drifting down like white apple blossoms.

“Well? What did he say?”

Valentina tried to laugh. “Papa, would prefer that I marry an officer.”

“Valentina, you can’t be a nurse.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re too thin-blooded. You’re too fragile. You’d wither and die in the harsh reality of a hospital. They are not pleasant places, I assure you.”

“You survived it.”

“I was raised on a farm.”

There was nothing Valentina could say to that. She inspected her own hands, viewing their palms and their straight fingers. They didn’t look fragile to her or thin-blooded. They looked strong.

“Nurse,” she said as Sonya was leaving, “will you teach me things? About nursing, I mean.”

The nurse shook her head, her eyes soft and sad. “Nyet, no, malishka. I cannot teach you about nursing. That way we’d both end up being horsewhipped in the snow.”

The door shut quietly behind her. Valentina unlocked her drawer and took out her list.

SPASIBO, BARYSHNYA. THANK YOU, YOUNG MISTRESS.” THE kitchen maid bobbed a curtsy.

“Merry Christmas, Shastlivogo Rozhdestva, Alisa,” Valentina responded.

It was the annual Christmas evening ritual of presenting every servant with a gift from the Ivanov family. There were festive swathes of greenery and a brightly decorated Christmas tree from the fir tree market next to Gostiny Dvor. Valentina stood first in the line, passing out sweets and soap, shaking each hand in turn. Next to her, her mother wore gloves and a fixed smile as she handed out a length of good woolen material to each of the women, and a new razor and a pouch of tobacco for the men. Elizaveta Ivanova insisted that her male employees be clean shaven, even the gardeners. Her father stood with his back to the fire, legs apart, as he toasted his coattails and presented each member of his staff with a small velvet bag of coins. Valentina heard the chink of them as they landed in the outstretched hands and was curious as to how much they contained.

“Shastlivogo Rozhdestva. Merry Christmas, Miss Valentina.”

“Merry Christmas to you, Arkin.”

This was the first time she’d seen the chauffeur out of uniform. He was wearing a neat jacket and clean white shirt. He looked lean and athletic. A determined face. The forthright way his gaze met hers made her wonder what went on behind those cool gray eyes of his. She placed the absurd sweets and soap in his spotless hand.

“Spasibo,” he said, but the smile he gave her wasn’t quite a chauffeur’s.

“Arkin, you drove well the other day. When we were caught in the car on Morskaya. Thank you.”

He seemed about to say something but changed his mind and gave her a respectful nod of his head instead.

“Where is Liev Popkov this evening?” she asked. “I don’t see him here.”

His polite smile hardened. “Popkov is otherwise engaged, I believe. In the stables.”

She frowned. “Is a horse sick?”

“You’ll have to ask him, Miss Valentina.”

“I’m asking you.”

His eyes remained on her far too long for politeness. “I don’t believe it’s a horse that is sick.”

“Liev? Is he unwell?”

“Valentina, you are slowing the line, my dear,” her mother said firmly. “Come along, Arkin.”

Immediately he moved onward to accept his next gift. Something about this chauffeur, something carefully hidden under that polite exterior of his, sent a shiver down Valentina’s spine.

LIEV? LIEV?”

Where the hell was he?

“Liev Popkov!” she shouted again in the stables.

And then she found him. Eyes shut, heavy limbs lifeless. Stretched out on his back on a pile of straw in a vacant stall. Her heart stopped. Not again. First his father, Simeon, and now him. The smell of blood in her nostrils all over again.

She started to scream.

“For fuck’s sake, stop that racket, will you? You’re scaring the bloody horses.”

He had one eye half open, scowling at her while he scratched his armpit.

“You stupid dumb Cossack,” she yelled at him, “you frightened the life out of me. I thought you were dead.”

His scowl faded. He mumbled something unintelligible and lifted a vodka bottle to his lips, spilling trails of clear liquid down his throat and over the straw. The bottle was almost empty.

“Liev, you’re drunk.”

“Of course I’m bloody drunk.”

“I thought I smelled blood.”

“You always did imagine things.”

“I’m not imagining the trouble you’ll be in.”

He grinned at her then, his mouth a dark cave in the shadows, and upended the bottle to his lips.

“Liev! Don’t!” she scolded, but more softly this time.

He tossed the empty bottle toward her at the entrance to the stall, but it fell short. “What are you so frightened of?”

“I don’t want you whipped.”

“Hah!”

She held out the packet of sweets and soap. It felt absurd. “My father has a proper present for you.”

He laughed, a big guttural explosion that burst from his chest. “He’s already given it to me.”

“The pouch of roubles?”

His eyes narrowed into black slits. “Nyet, not the roubles.”

“What then? The razor and tobacco?”

In response the big man suddenly sat up, swaying violently, and yanked his black tunic up over his head, revealing a broad chest matted with thick black curls. Valentina couldn’t tear her eyes away. She’d never seen a man half naked before, not this close.

“You’re drunk,” she said again, but the words had lost their sting. “Put your top back on at once before you freeze to death.”

She might as well not have spoken. He threw the tunic aside and rolled over on the straw so that he was lying face down.

“Liev!” This time it came out as a faint gasp. She put a hand over her mouth and stared at his back.

The massive muscles were striped. Red tracks ran diagonally across them, so regular they looked as though they’d been painted on. The paint was still wet and glistening. Slowly she walked into the stall, where she dropped to her knees in the straw beside him. The lash cuts were deep in places, raw edges of flayed flesh laid bare. “Why?” she whispered. There was no need to ask Who?

Liev rolled away, seized his tunic, and pulled it over his head. She couldn’t understand how he could even move with a back like that.

“Why did he do such a thing?” She felt shame for her father, sour in her stomach.

Popkov ferreted out another bottle from under the straw. This one was full. “Yesterday,” he said, “I went to your sister’s room when the nurse wasn’t there.”

“Oh, Liev. I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged and poured more of the alcohol down his throat. “I wanted to give her a small gift for Christmas, that’s all.”

“But it’s her bedroom.”

“I’ve been in there many times to lift her in and out of her wheelchair.”

“But never without Nurse Sonya present.”

He snorted. “Nyet. Your father walked in when I was sitting on the end of the bed talking with her. So he whipped me.”

Suddenly Valentina was hitting him in a fury. Her fists hammered down on his chest, pummeling its granite muscles.

“You stupid dumb oaf,” she shouted, “you brainless Cossack, you’re crazy. You deserve to be whipped.”

He just laughed, then seized one of her wrists and pressed the neck of the vodka bottle into her hand.

“Here, have some.”

She stared at the innocent-looking drink, gave a deep bone-shaking shudder, and raised the bottle to her lips.

VALENTINA FELT VERY WARM. SHE COULD HEAR THE NIGHT wind scratching at the wooden stable walls. Something pleasant was floating around in her head, something with wings like a butterfly or a moth. Her lips no longer seemed to belong to her and kept curling up into vacant smiles. She was seated on the floor, leaning back against the side of the stall with a pile of straw tucked around her legs. How did all that heat get inside her stomach? Whenever she shut her eyes a whirring sound set off inside her skull and she found herself tipping sideways.

“Valentina, you’ve had enough. Go to bed.” Popkov kicked her, but gently. He slid his boot over the straw and prodded her thigh as though she were a pig. “Get out of here,” he growled.

“What did you give her?”

“Give who?”

“Tell me.”

He paused, staring down at the straw. “A horseshoe. I polished it and”-she could tell he was embarrassed-“and wove ivy and berries through it.”

Valentina thought it the most beautiful gift she could imagine. “Nothing for me?” she asked.

He raised his black eyes to hers. “You’ve got my vodka. What more do you want?”

She laughed then, and felt the world drifting in confusion out of her reach. “Mama and Papa are making me go to a Christmas ball,” she said, and closed her eyes. The darkness started to spin alarmingly, so she forced them open again. The wretched creature was watching her with amusement.

“You’re drunk,” Popkov said.

“Go away,” she muttered, the words slow and slurred.

The next moment she was floating in the air, her hands and feet weightless. When she squeezed her eyes open a crack she saw darkness whirling around her like dust.

“Liev, put me down.”

But he ignored her.

Dimly she was conscious of being carried into the dark house through the servants’ entrance, but her eyes slid shut and opened only when she was plonked on her own bed with no attempt at courtesy.

“Liev,” she murmured, struggling to keep the ceiling from somersaulting on top of her, “I don’t think-”

“Sleep,” he growled.

“Spasibo, Liev,” she said softly. “Thank you.” But he had already left the room.

PLAY FOR ME.”

Katya was in her wheelchair and they were alone in the music room. Valentina’s head still throbbed at the base of her skull but at least she could turn it now without it falling off. Vodka, she vowed, would never touch her lips again in this lifetime. She’d cursed Popkov. Cursed his uncorked bottle. Cursed the way he had led out the horses the next day, whistling a jaunty folk song with no hint of a brain pickled in alcohol.

“Please,” Katya said, “play something for me.”

“I won’t be good today,” Valentina muttered as she lifted the lid of the piano. Just the sight of the keys, lined up and quietly waiting for her, loosened the tension within her.

Katya laughed. “You’re always good, Valentina. Even when you say you’re bad, you’re good.”

Valentina was unaware of what she would play until her fingers found the keys. From under them came the opening bars of Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat, the piece she had played for the Viking. Instantly she forgot there was a world outside. Aching head or no, her music professor would be proud of her as she balanced the melodic line perfectly against the left-hand chords, producing a pure cantabile legato in the right hand, feeling the music flow with each beat of her heart. Through her lungs. Across her shoulders. Down to her wrists and fingers.

“Valentina.” It was her mother. When had she walked into the room?

“Valentina,” Elizaveta Ivanova said again, “it’s time to start getting dressed for the ball tonight. You agreed to go, remember?”

Valentina’s hands froze above the keys.

Number 5 on her list: Obey Mama.

Her hands sank down onto the keys in a harsh jarring chord. “Yes, Mama, I agreed.”

Carefully she closed the piano lid and walked over to a small silver box on the table beside Katya’s chair. She removed a brass key from the box, returned to the piano, and locked it, then walked over to the window. She opened it a crack and tossed the key out into the snow. Without a word, she walked out of the room.

VIKTOR ARKIN’S FACE WAS DISTORTED. ONE EYE SLID away into his hairline while his mouth stretched to the size of a wrench. For a second he stared at his reflection in the curved surface of the Turicum’s brass headlight and wondered what else in him might be distorted, somewhere deeper where he couldn’t see. It worried him how much he loved this car. It was dangerous. To love something or somebody that much-it created a weak spot inside you. He couldn’t afford weak spots. Nevertheless he smiled fondly at the gleaming blue curve of the front fender and ran a cloth along its graceful line.

“A visitor for you.”

Arkin looked around at the sound of Liev’s voice. The Cossack stood in the doorway. He looked amused. Not a good sign.

“Where?”

“In the yard.”

Arkin folded his polishing cloth and placed it on the shelf before moving past the Cossack and out of the garage into the yard where darkness was just beginning to fall, laying shadows like dead creatures on the cobbles. On the right stood the stables and the coach house, in front of him a water pump and trough, but to the left rose an archway over a path that led around to the front of the house. Just beside the archway stood a young woman. She wore a headscarf tied tightly under her chin against the icy wind and a long belted coat that looked as though it had once belonged to a man. Her manner was awkward, a self-conscious dip of her head.

“A friend of yours?” Popkov laughed and gestured to his own stomach, making a wide imaginary bulge over it.

The woman was heavily pregnant. Even under the coat it was obvious.

“Go and polish a hoof or comb a mane or something,” Arkin said, and went over to the woman. He greeted her cautiously.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m here with a message. From Mikhail Sergeyev.”

Immediately he took her arm. It was thin and unresisting. He led her into the garage, where, out of the wind, her face relaxed and she gave him a shy smile.

“I’m Mikhail’s wife, Larisa.”

In that moment, something came undone inside him. All that he’d been keeping so tight and orderly in his head seemed to shift out of place. The way she said it, so simply, so proudly. I’m Mikhail’s wife, Larisa. Her hand resting on her swollen stomach. He recalled his mother saying the same. I’m Mikhail Arkin’s wife, Roza, her hand resting on her swollen stomach. Two weeks later she and the unborn child were dead from septicemia because his father had no money for a doctor. It happened on his ninth birthday. With a sense of something close to pain, he found himself wanting a child of his own, wanting a woman with a swollen belly that carried that child, despite all that he’d said to Sergeyev about families being a thing of the past. He smiled at her, shaken.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

She nodded. Her lips were pale, her eyes dark-ringed and anxious. “It’s Mikhail. He was hurt in an accident at work.”

“Is it bad?”

“His arm is broken.”

He gave her a smile of reassurance. “It will heal quickly,” he said. “Mikhail is strong.”

But he knew what it meant for them. No work meant no money. For food, for rent, for the baby. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his last three cigarettes and a few coins. It was all he had.

“Here, give this to your husband.”

She let him place his offerings in her small hand. “Can you spare it?”

“Get him to Father Morozov’s church hall. There’s hot food there.”

“Spasibo,” she whispered. “His boss gave him enough roubles to pay our rent.”

“That’s unusual. Who is this man?”

“Direktor Friis.”

“Are you still working in the glue factory?”

She shrugged. “Da. Yes.”

He felt the fire in his gut kick into life, the one that burned to bring justice to this wretched city. One brass headlight. That’s all it would take. He could wrench it off the car and give it to her to sell. Enough to mean life for the new baby, enough to prevent its mother’s milk drying up from starvation.

“He’s worried,” she said nervously, “about… the job he has to do with you tonight.”

“Tell Mikhail from me not to worry. I’ll deal with it. Go home and rest. Eat something.”

“Spasibo.”

“Good luck with the baby.”

She smiled, a gentle hopeful smile. Slowly she set off back across the uneven cobbles with the rolling gait that belongs to a drunken man or a pregnant woman. Arkin watched her until she was out of sight, standing there in the wind. So the time had come. He felt a nerve start up on the edge of his jaw, and no matter how hard he tried to control it, he couldn’t. But he was ready for what he would have to do tonight.