The Jewel of St Petersburg

Nineteen

IT IS STRANGE, VALENTINA THOUGHT, HOW LITTLE IT TAKES to tilt the world. As she retraced her steps along the mottled green floor and down the front steps of the hospital, nothing looked the same. As though she had been viewing it through a distorting mirror before but now saw it clear and pin-sharp. Her heart felt tight, drumming loudly in her ears.

Before leaving she had stopped at the heavy swinging doors to one of the wards and peered through its glass panel, astonished at the huge size of the room. It seemed to stretch away forever with endless rows of beds like long white coffins. She was tempted to push open the door, to enter this unfamiliar world where pale faces lay on rumpled pillows. Some were talking; others lay flat and silent with eyes closed.

“Out of my way.”

A young nurse barged out of the ward, holding an enamel bowl piled to the brim with bloodied bandages.

“What are you gawking at? Got your lover in there?” the girl grinned. “Don’t worry, I give ’em all a kiss good night. He’s in safe hands with me. I’m Nurse Darya Spachyeva, in case you don’t know.”

She was taller than Valentina and wiry as a weasel, with the broad cheekbones and swarthy skin of a southerner. Black stalks of hair escaped from under her headdress, but her hands looked capable, a peasant’s large-knuckled hands. Her smile was open and easy.

“Got a tongue in your head?” she demanded.

“I’m going to be training as a nurse here.”

The girl raised the bowl of bandages, thrusting it under Valentina’s nose. It stank. “Get a whiff of that. That’ll be your new perfume when you work here.”

“I’ve smelled worse.”

The untidy nurse rolled her black eyes in her head. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Valentina smiled. “I won’t.”

“It’s hard on the legs too.”

“My legs are strong.” All those years of horse riding. “If it’s so bad, why are you here?”

The girl wiped a hand on her apron, adding a stain to the others. “It beats milking fucking goats halfway up a fucking mountain.” She tucked the bowl in the crook of her arm as naturally as if it had been one of her newborn goats and scurried off on muscular legs.

Valentina had never heard a woman swear like that. She smiled and hurried down the front steps of the hospital, and that was when she saw Jens. He was standing stiff and stern in the shade of a lime tree, arms folded across his chest, face unsmiling. Waiting for her.

THEY WALKED SIDE BY SIDE, NOT TOUCHING. SHE HAD TO quicken her pace to keep up with his long stride because he made no allowance for her, as though he didn’t care whether she was there. Yet he had come to the hospital at the time of her appointment. She held on to that.

Jens looked a mess. A heavy gray dust was spattered over his coat and had burrowed into the black fur of his hat and into the red hairs of his eyebrows. She scarcely noticed where they walked, but there was a sense of purpose to his steps as he headed down Zagorodnaya Street. They barely spoke, yet she was acutely aware of him at her side. Aware of the crunch of his boots in the snow, and the sight of his breath spiraling out white and impatient into the cold air, and the triangular spot right in the corner of his jaw that clicked and jumped as though punctuating his thoughts. He looked directly ahead, shutting her out, and she wondered if he had forgotten her.

When they crossed the Moika Canal, she said, “Please thank Dr. Fedorin for me.”

“You can thank him yourself. It’s to his house we’re going.”

“Why there?”

“He wants to give you advice on what to expect at St. Isabella’s. He’ll explain how things are done and what you’ll have to learn. He can tell you where to get your uniform and teach you how to ward off the advances of male patients. Fedorin is a good man. He spends a lot of his time in the missions for the poor and in the hospitals for the destitute. He’s not just a doctor for the scented parlors of the rich and pampered.”

She wanted to say, Thank you. She wanted to say, See, you do care. You wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t. But instead she seized his arm, fixing her fingers on his dusty coat.

“Jens. Stop.”

She meant, stop all the words that were blocking the space between them. Stop refusing to look at her. Stop the ache that the cold edge in his voice set up in her throat. Stop. Stop. But it was her feet that stopped. In the middle of the bridge they jerked to a halt, and her hand was still attached to him, a shackle that he did not try to throw off. For the first time that day he looked straight at her.

“You promised me,” he said. “You swore you’d have nothing to do with Captain Chernov.”

Standing there in the street, she slowly undid the buttons of his coat, one by one, and slid her arms around his waist.

“I promise,” she said, “I promise on my sister’s life that my heart will never have anything to do with Captain Chernov.”

She rested her cheek against his chest, smelled the damp earthy odor of the dust on his clothing and felt the warmth of his body as he wrapped his coat around her, drawing her tight, pinning her to him. Below them on the frozen Moika canal, an elderly couple in matching beaver-skin hats skated sedately back down toward the Tauride, hand in hand. Valentina burrowed deeper, listening to the rapid beat of his heart.

THE DOCTOR WELCOMED THEM AND POURED JENS AND himself a glass of fine Georgian wine while Valentina and his little daughter, Anna, drank hot chocolate in front of the fire. She liked this man who was such a devoted father, liked his generosity and the way his bony fingers kept touching the diamond tiepin at his neck as he spoke. It was clear it meant something special to him.

“Now, young lady, let’s discuss what lies ahead of you.”

“I’m grateful, Dr. Fedorin, for your help. Medsestra Gordanskaya made it clear she expects me to fail.”

He took her chin in his hand and inspected her closely in the way he would inspect his own daughter. “You’ll do,” he said. “If it’s what you really want.”

“It is. I’ve already studied anatomy and-”

“One step at a time. Let’s talk first about the discipline of bed making, clean uniforms, and Medsestra Gordanskaya’s filthy temper.”

She sat and listened to him. He filled her mind with facts and figures about the hospital, its history, its rules. He told her the correct way to address a doctor, exhorted her to walk behind him at all times, and described with enthusiasm the wider range of drugs being developed, including the refinement of morphine to give more precise relief of pain. Again and again he emphasized the need for cleanliness, clean hands, clean linen, clean uniform. Sterile equipment. He talked about operations. Tested her knowledge with questions, all the time tugging on the ends of his mustache or stroking the bright diamond nestled in his cravat.

It was a strange sensation. In an odd sort of way she felt that his questions were opening doors within her that she didn’t know were closed. Across the room Jens and Anna were perched on the window seat playing cards, Anna pouncing with the squeal of a kitten whenever she won a hand.

Finally Dr. Fedorin leaned back in his chair, tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat and exhaled a sigh of satisfaction. “She’ll do, Friis. She’ll do very nicely.”

Jens smiled. “I know.”

Something in the way he said it unbalanced her. It was as though he were letting go of her. She wanted to rush over to the window seat and sit herself on his lap to prevent him slipping away. She wanted to smile up at him and hear him say, She’ll do me very nicely. She rose to her feet and took a step toward him.

“Jens…,” she started.

“Anna,” Fedorin interrupted, “time for us to find your governess and see what she has planned for you today.”

The child pulled a face but planted a kiss on Jens’s cheek, bobbed a curtsy to Valentina, and scampered out of the room after her father.

“Jens,” Valentina said softly.

He patted the window seat beside him and she sat down, nervous. But as soon as she felt the warmth of him-his leg next to hers, his hip touching her dress, his shoulder solid beside her-she knew she’d be able to explain everything to him.

“Jens, listen to me.” She didn’t take her eyes from his hand as she linked her fingers through his. “It is my ace, Jens, my only high card. It’s all I have.”

“Using Chernov?”

“Yes.”

“To bargain with?”

“Yes. Without him I have nothing.”

“You have me.”

You have me. She tipped her head against his shoulder and let it lie there, the three words safe inside it.

“You have to trust me,” she whispered. “It’s the only way I can train as a nurse. My parents will not permit it unless I entertain Captain Chernov.”

“Entertain?”

She rubbed her cheek on the material of his jacket. “A few smiles, a few dances, nothing more.” His hands released hers, and her fingers felt bereft. “Jens, it won’t be for long. He’ll soon tire of me and my silences. You and I can still-”

“Still what?”

“Still talk to each other.”

He made a sound, then wrapped his arms around her, lifted her onto his lap and tipped her back until she was cradled in his arms and looking up into his face.

“Now,” he said, “let’s talk to each other.”

He lowered his head and kissed her lips. She raised a hand to his hair, twisting fiery strands between her fingers. “You see,” she murmured as his lips brushed along the hollow under her ear and set a pulse racing in her throat, “I’m just like your tunnels.”

“Dark and difficult?”

She tightened her grip on his hair and shook it roughly like the scruff of a stray dog. “Not easy to destroy.”

THE REVOLUTIONARIES WORKED IN POCKETS WITHIN THE city, in individual cells that kept contact to a minimum to reduce the consequences of betrayal. Small furtive groups gathered in basements, huddled in back rooms that smelled of bad tobacco and bitter resentment. Arkin found it impossible to be patient. The food shortages were worse and prices were rising. Trade unions were being shut down, while all the time the gutters heaped higher each night with the sick and the homeless. The middle-class intellectuals continued to call for reform and needed to be taught that reform would never be enough. Only revolution would provide a decent life for Russians.

Beside Arkin sat Sergeyev. He was nursing his arm and smoking a pipe. God only knew what was in it, but it made the dingy room stink of horse dung. There were twelve of them at the meeting in the storeroom of a candle maker’s shop, and the air was thick with tallow. Arkin could taste it at the back of his throat, slick and greasy. At the head of the table sat Krazhkov, a shaggy bearded man who had fought in the Imperial Army against Japan and who spat every time Tsar Nicholas’s name was mentioned. He was older than the rest and had only one leg. He banged his fist down on the table and demanded silence.

“Arkin,” he growled. “You are quiet tonight. What news?”

“The reprisals have started.”

“The murdering bastards!”

“I overheard Minister Ivanov in the car talking to one of his assistants. He says that Stolypin has ordered the Okhrana to fill the prisons to overflowing.”

Anger spilled hot onto the table.

It was Sergeyev who brought them to order. “Comrades, the harder they crack down on us, the more the workers rally to our fight.”

“Sergeyev is right,” Krazhkov agreed. “Each time we plant a bomb or toss a grenade, the Okhrana and the tsar”-he spat on the floor, just missing his dog-“see our strength and fear us. But the proletariat see our strength and respect us. More and more will flock to our side when they start to believe we have the power to crush the rule of the cursed Romanovs.”

“Our problem is that we are desperate for funds,” Arkin pointed out quietly. “Without more roubles, how will we equip this proletariat army?”

But Krazhkov would not be sidetracked. “What else did you hear?”

“The police intend to make an example of the union leaders,” Arkin warned. “The minister was specific about that.”

“We will alert them immediately,” Krazhkov frowned. “We’ll have to get some of them into hiding.”

Sergeyev rapped the table with his pipe stem. “My nephew Yusev works at the Tarasov factory.” The Tarasov brothers owned one of the largest toolmaking factories in Petersburg and drove around in a glossy Benz limousine while their workers begged for bread on the street. “He swears the apprentices are ready to revolt. Just yesterday two more boys died when an overhead gantry snapped.” He pointed his pipe at Arkin. “One was the boy who did the train job with you.”

“Karl?”

“No, the short kid, Marat. He’s dead.”

Arkin’s rage was as thick and as stifling as the tallow in the air.

Krazhkov hunched forward with eager eyes. “What do you suggest, Comrade Arkin?”

“Tsar Nicholas may be ruthless enough to send his cavalry to hack and slash at his own people when they march on the streets, but not even he would slaughter the innocent children of Russia. It’s time to use the apprentices of this city.”

THEY LEFT THE MEETING IN PAIRS. FIVE MINUTES BETWEEN each Arkin and Sergeyev went first. They dodged quickly through the darkness along a series of back alleyways until they were far enough from the candle shop to slow their pace. It was snowing softly, and there was scarcely any wind, so that the flakes tumbled straight down from the black sky as gentle as feathers. Arkin welcomed the touch of them on his face. A pulse at the back of his eyes was throbbing, and he knew the dreams would be bad tonight.

“Viktor,” Sergeyev said at his side, “don’t blame yourself. For the danger to union leaders in retaliation for the attack on Stolypin.”

“How can I not?”

“We always knew we would have blood on our hands. Trotsky warned us of that.”

“Did he warn us of-” He stopped his tongue. His companion had enough problems of his own. “Tell me, my friend, how is your wife? Has she given birth yet?”

“Any day now.”

Arkin could hear the pride in Sergeyev’s voice and felt again that unexpected spike of envy. Like a nail hammered under a rib. One day, he told himself, one day you’ll have your own woman. And your own child.

“Give her my best wishes,” he laughed, “and tell her-”

A hand seized his shoulder. He was slammed against a brick wall, knocking the breath from his lungs. His own fist shot out, his knee rammed into a groin. He heard his attacker grunt, felt the hand on his shoulder grow slack, and a body slid to the ground. Another figure loomed out of the darkness.

“Stand still or I’ll put a fucking bullet between your eyes.”

Arkin stood still. He glanced quickly to his right to check on Sergeyev, but his friend was already motionless, his shoulders gathering snow. He was bent over, hugging his arm in its sling as if it had taken a beating.

“What do you bastards want?” Arkin demanded.

“We want some answers from you.”

The man with the Mauser in his hand was broad chested with a beer belly and rolls of flesh instead of muscle. The other, shorter one was sprawled on the icy ground clutching his groin and cursing. They wore black leather coats, shiny as snakeskin, and possessed the cold focused eyes of hunters. They were the Okhrana. No one else.

“It depends,” Arkin said politely, “what the questions are.”

The one on the ground did not take kindly to Arkin’s response, so he stumbled to his feet and slammed an elbow into Arkin’s gut.

“Keep this bastard off me,” Arkin growled, “or I’ll tear his balls off.”

“Vroshchin, back ofl!”

“What questions?” Arkin repeated.

“What are you doing roaming the streets at this hour of the morning?”

Arkin shrugged. “A card game. Nothing sinister. The only trouble is that my stupid friend here lost his rent money and is bleating like a lamb at the thought of telling his wife. Isn’t that so, Mikhail?”

Sergeyev grunted. Arkin laughed and had the satisfaction of seeing the hard mouths of the secret police pull into a sneering smile. The trigger finger relaxed.

“He’s in enough trouble already,” Arkin added, and slapped Sergeyev on the back, straightening him up. “Let me take the poor idiot home.” He tucked his arm under his friend’s good elbow and started to swing him away a few paces. “Good night. Spokoinoi nochi, my friends. It’s too cold to hang around here.” The snow fluttered down thickly, and he was thankful for it.

“Wait.”

A few more steps and the snow would swallow them. “Yes?”

“Stand against the wall, hands behind your head.”

“But why-”

“Against the wall.”

Arkin backed against the wall, drawing Sergeyev with him, but he noticed his friend was shaking. The Okhrana officers proceeded to search them with rough hands, turning out their pockets, opening their coats, and Sergeyev kept a protective hand curled over his sling. Arkin’s mind was racing. Something wasn’t right.

“Where have you come from?” demanded the fleshy one with the gun.

“I told you, a card game.”

“Or one of the meetings of revolutionary scum?”

“No, nyet, of course not. I work for one of Tsar Nicholas’s government ministers.”

That made them blink, and the fierce grip on his sleeve loosened a fraction. Sweat trickled down his back despite the cold. In the thin ridge of light that fell from an upstairs window, cutting a yellow slice out of the darkness, he could see the misery on Sergeyev’s face.

“Here! What’s this?” The shorter policeman was yanking at Sergeyev’s injured arm, dragging off the sling. “This fucker has something hidden in here.” The man pushed his fingers under the top layer of bandage and drew out a small pistol that fitted in the palm of his hand. It gleamed pearl white in the falling snow.

Damn you, Sergeyev. Damn you.

The men in black coats showed their teeth. The one with the pistol slammed its butt against Sergeyev’s arm, and he buckled with no sound, but Arkin seized him before he fell and swung him back like a battering ram against the two men. Their eyes opened in surprise as Arkin threw his weight behind the push, and they skidded backward on their heels, arms flailing. The ice underfoot won. Both crashed to the ground. Arkin heard a skull hit concrete, but he didn’t stop to ask whose brains had been rearranged. He snatched the small gun from where it lay on the ground and seized Sergeyev’s good arm.

“Run.”

They ran. Skittering in and out of alleys, pounding down slippery banks, throwing themselves over railings and under archways, hearts straining in the freezing night air. Always they kept to unlit streets. Arkin was slowed by his wounded friend but refused to release his grip on him while behind them they could hear their pursuers’ shrill shouts and foul-mouthed curses. Only once did Arkin risk a glance over his shoulder, and he saw that the shorter one was in the lead, face sharp as a hound on the scent. The fatter one was struggling to keep up but failing. Four shots rang out, but it was too dark and each time the bullet whistled wide.

They kept running and dodging, twisting and turning.

With Sergeyev in tow he scrambled down to a spot beneath a canal bridge and they crouched under its arch, lungs dragging in freezing air. Underfoot the ice crackled if they moved so much as a knee.

“Where are we?” Sergeyev whispered in his ear.

“No idea, but stay quiet.”

For thirty minutes they remained immobile, no more than shadows, disturbing only a cat on its nocturnal run across the thick ice of the canal. When eventually they climbed up the frozen bank, everywhere was silent. The snowfall was heavier, stinging their eyes and gathering in mounds on the toes of their boots. They hurried through the streets, heads ducked down, keeping to the darkest areas of the city, and when they finally reached the Liteiny district they stopped.

Through the lace curtain of snow Arkin peered at his friend’s strained face. “How’s your arm?”

“It’s still attached.”

“Did those bastards do much damage?”

Sergeyev shrugged. “Wherever the Okhrana go, they do damage.”

“You shouldn’t have been carrying the gun. Why did you have it?”

“I swapped a good spade for it in a bar. I thought I’d be safer.” He shrugged again. “I was wrong.”

Arkin thrust the dainty pistol into Sergeyev’s pocket. “Sell it,” he suggested. “It will only get you killed. Buy some food for your wife instead.”

“No.” Sergeyev returned it to him with an apologetic grimace. “You keep it.”

Arkin didn’t argue. Sergeyev was less likely to get into trouble without it. “Take care, my friend.” He rested a hand on his shoulder. “Tell your wife from me, good luck with the baby.”

“It’s what I’m fighting for. To build my son a better future. Thank you, comrade.” He said it awkwardly. “For helping me. My wife will starve if I’m thrown in prison.”

Arkin nodded, an image of her swollen belly vivid in his mind as he drifted away into the night, the snow so thick now that the air was almost solid. In his pocket his hand curled around the pearl-handled gun. Sergeyev was right. It did make him feel safer.