The Jewel of St Petersburg

Twenty-four

SANITARKA IVANOVA.”

Medsestra Gordanskaya stopped Valentina as she was leaving the ward at the end of the day. The older nurse looked tired, something bruised about her eyes as though the day had taken too harsh a toll.

“Sanitarka Ivanova, you did well today. You have the makings of a decent nurse.” Her features softened. “I admit, you surprised me.”

“Thank you, Medsestra.”

“Now go home and wash today away with scalding hot water and a slug of vodka, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Yes, Medsestra.”

A decent nurse. She pulled her cape over her shoulders. A decent nurse.

On the steps outside she bumped into Nurse Darya and immediately asked her, “Do you know the priest who was here today?”

“Father Morozov? Yes, he’s often here. Can’t stand his preachy stuff myself”-she pulled a face and snatched off her headdress-“but he brings the patients food as well as comfort. They love him.”

“No, not him. Another one. Dirty and repulsive. With hypnotic blue eyes and a very expensive-looking crucifix.”

“Oh shit, that bastard. Didn’t touch you, did he?”

“No.” The lie slipped out.

“Don’t worry, that creep isn’t here often. Only when he feels like slumming it for a change.”

“What do you mean? Where does he normally spend his time?”

Darya poked Valentina in the ribs. “Jesus Christ, don’t you realize who that stinking bastard is?”

“He claimed he was a starets, a poor holy man.”

“Like hell he is. I wish I was that poor.”

“Who is he?”

“That’s Grigori Rasputin. The so-called miracle worker who spends his time at our fragrant empress’s side. Tell me you didn’t let him put a dirty paw on you.”

“Miracle worker?”

“That’s what he calls himself.”

JENS, WHAT KIND OF WOMAN IS THE EMPRESS?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering what kind of person she is.”

“Tsarina Alexandra? She has a cold and aloof manner and behaves like the arrogant German princess she is. But I’m not so sure how deep it goes.”

He swept his hand up the delicate curve of her naked hip and walked his fingers one by one up her ribs. He was sitting upright beside her on his bed because he loved to let his eyes feast on her. Feast. It had always struck him before as an absurd word for eyes, for how could eyes feast? But now he understood. His eyes felt hungry when she was not with him. No woman had ever done this to him, made him hoard the images of her like jewels inside his head. He tried now to work out what it was that had triggered this interest in the tsarina.

“I believe,” he explained, “that a part of it is that she’s shy. The tsarina may be an aristocrat, but she has no idea how to make small talk, so she shuns the court’s social life and they resent her for it. But there’s no doubt that she’s a very determined character.”

“Determined in what way?”

“She keeps Tsar Nicholas shut away with her down in Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo most of the time. He works from there. I know it’s only twenty miles from Petersburg, but it’s twenty miles too far when there is so much unrest in the city. He has a duty here.”

She nodded as though this were something she had given thought to. “Their four daughters, the young grand duchesses, they are shut away as well?”

“Oh yes. Everyone says they all enjoy family life together, riding and sailing and playing games. They love tennis. And of course taking care of the boy. He’s the center of their universe.”

“Yes, the boy, Tsarevitch Alexei.”

He lowered his head and planted a gentle kiss on each of her knees. She buried her hand in his hair, drawing his face closer to hers.

“What are you staring at?” she frowned.

“You. I’m trying to work out exactly how you are put together.”

“Why? Are you thinking of taking me apart?”

He kissed her lips. “As an engineer, it would be an interesting challenge.”

She sat up facing him and coiled her legs around his waist. He scooped his hands under her buttocks and pulled her closer. Her skin smelled faintly of carbolic soap.

“Tell me about the monk, Rasputin,” she said.

“For heaven’s sake, Valentina, why on earth do you want to know about that vile man?”

“Tell me.” She was serious. Her forehead rested on his collarbone so that he couldn’t see her face, but he could feel her breath on his naked chest, small shallow puffs of warm air. “He came to St. Isabella’s,” she told him.

“Keep away from him. He’s done enough harm.”

“What kind of harm?”

“Grigori Rasputin is widening the divide between the tsar and his people.”

“Jens, my love, don’t be angry. Tell me about him.” Her tongue touched a patch of his skin.

“He claims to be a holy man of God, sent by Christ to guide the people of Russia, particularly to guide the tsarina. And through her, to guide the tsar himself.” This was a subject that roused him to despair. “Tsar Nicholas is a fool. The monk is meddling in politics, turning His Imperial Majesty against his appointed advisers and-” He halted.

“And what?”

He shrugged. “Forget about him. Let’s have no more of Petersburg’s problems. The battle lines will form soon enough.”

“Are you so sure it will come to that?”

He tumbled her back on the pillows. “None of us can be sure, so…”

“Don’t placate me, Jens. I’m not a child.”

The way she said it chilled him. Her eyes had witnessed too much today in that damn hospital of hers. Where was the girl who had gazed at the stars with him on a cold winter’s night in the forest? He caressed the smooth slope of her shoulder. He sat back against the pillows, reached over to the bedside table, and lit himself a cigarette.

“Valentina, my love, the tsar’s court is a corrupt melting pot. It is dissolute and degenerate.” He kept his voice matter-of-fact. “Grigori Rasputin is a failed monk, but he struck lucky. Tsarina Alexandra has few friends other than the mild-mannered Anna Vyrubova, and he gained power over her. Some say that he has healing powers that help her son. Or that he hypnotizes her. Maybe even a sexual bond between them.”

Valentina blinked. “How could anyone want to go to bed with such a repulsive man?”

“You’d be amazed. The women at court scratch each others’ eyes out to oblige him.”

“But he smells.”

Jens’s laugh was harsh. “A strong-smelling peasant, a ragged moujik who doesn’t wash or change his clothes. Clearly a man of God!”

“Jens”-Valentina took the cigarette from his fingers and inhaled its pungent smoke-“do you think Rasputin really has healing powers?”

He removed the cigarette from her hand and stubbed it out. “No. So don’t even think of taking Katya to him.”

“I wasn’t thinking of it.”

But the lie hung in the air as transparent as the smoke.

VARENKA WASN’T DEAD. THAT WAS SOMETHING, AT LEAST. The street was no better and the front door was still split, the odor as overpowering as ever in the unlit hallway. But she wasn’t dead.

“I’ve brought more food,” Valentina said as she placed a bag on the table. Beside it she tucked a purse. Neither mentioned it.

“So I see.” Varenka smiled. It was nothing like a real smile, just a shifting of facial muscles, but it would do.

“I’ll make us some tea, shall I?” Valentina suggested.

The woman with the scarred scalp was slumped on the floor, wrapped in a threadbare blanket. A whisper of flame struggled in the stove and she hunched in front of it, mouth slightly open, as if she would devour the yellow flame.

Valentina yanked a bundle of kindling from the bag. “Here.”

The woman eagerly extracted three sticks and laid them with care in an arch above the flame. When they crackled at her, the thin face smiled back at them as if they were friends, while Valentina boiled a kettle and provided tea. The dainty cakes from her mother’s kitchen looked ridiculous in this setting, but the woman didn’t seem to notice. She ate three of them before she spoke.

“What have you come for?”

“To make sure you are still here.”

The woman made a strange noise in the back of her throat, and it took Valentina a second to realize it was a laugh.

“You think I could be anywhere else?” Varenka asked.

“Do you work?” Valentina asked.

“I did.” The woman shook her head. “In a mill. But I was fired when I took a day off because my boy was sick.” Her eyes were hard. No tears.

“I know a dressmaker who is looking for a cleaner. I could speak to her. If you want the position.”

“Of course I want it.”

There was a stillness in the room, each expecting something of the other. Valentina spoke first.

“Then I shall ask her. But you will have to be clean.”

Varenka looked down at her filthy hands. “The water pump in the street is frozen again. I melt snow for tea.”

Valentina’s stomach turned as she looked at her own half-drunk cup. “Dogs piss in the snow.”

Once more the rusty chuckle rattled out. Varenka looked at her new friend. “What is it you want? You’re not here just to feed me.”

Valentina removed a pot of apricot conserve from the bag, and a loaf of black bread. If Jens knew she had come here alone, he would be angry. “I want you to warn me.”

“Warn you of what?”

“When the danger is coming.”

“What danger?”

“This revolution of yours.”

It was as if she had spoken a magic word. The deadness vanished and Varenka’s eyes, her mouth, her dull skin, all changed. It shocked Valentina that one word could have such power.

“This is my address.” She pushed a sheet of paper across the table.

Varenka didn’t even glance at it. “I can’t read. And anyway I wouldn’t come near the kind of mansion you must live in. Even your servants would spit on me. Think of something else.”

“There is a notice board I’ve seen by the bus stop in St. Isaac’s Square. Pin a piece of a scarf on it to let me know.”

“A red scarf?”

“If you want.”

Varenka nodded. “Whatever the men say, it will not be soon, this revolution of theirs.”

“I once saw an army of stinging ants swarm over a vole and kill it,” Valentina commented. “Maybe your ants aren’t ready to be an army yet.”

“Tell me, what is it you do to make your fingers look so strong?”

“I play the piano.”

Varenka prodded Valentina’s fingers as if she could coax music from them. “I’ve never heard anyone play the piano.”

Her words made Valentina want to weep.

IT WAS AN ACCIDENT. JENS HAD NOT INTENDED TO CALL ON Katya. It happened because he had spent an evening playing poker at a friend’s house. Dr. Fedorin was there, and between losing hands at cards he told him of a new treatment for spinal injuries that was being tried out at the spa resort of Karlovy Vary. He had heard good reports. Fedorin had in mind the apprentice boys whose brittle young backs had suffered the brunt of the saber blades, but Jens immediately thought of Katya.

When he was out riding the next morning and spotted Valentina’s wild Cossack prancing through the watery fog on the back of a jittery mare, it was only natural to comment on his mount.

“She’s an elegant creature, Popkov, that’s certain. But not exactly your style, I’d have thought.”

The Cossack swayed his head from side to side, like a horse himself. “The animal is not for me,” he said gruffly.

“Ah! A surprise for Miss Valentina perhaps?”

“Nyet.”

Jens kicked his own horse into a longer stride, but the young wheat-colored mare had taken a liking to Hero and quickened her pace to keep abreast of him. The Cossack loosened her reins, allowing her to toss her mane at Hero and pick up her feet as prettily as a ballerina.

Jens couldn’t resist a laugh. Even the Cossack cracked a smile indulgently and they rode side by side through the damp streets, Jens placing Hero between the mare and the traffic, giving reassurance when the crossroads made her nervy. The fog wrapped its thin gray arms around them all the way to the Ivanov house.

POPKOV WAS RUBBING DOWN HERO’S COAT, AND HE HANDLED the big horse well. Jens liked a man who could sense an animal’s mood through the tips of his fingers and knew where to scratch a fold of skin to produce the wide-nostril whicker of a contented horse.

“I won’t be long,” he told the Cossack.

The man grunted.

Jens filled up a bucket from a tap in the yard and placed it in front of Hero, who pushed his great black nose into it with relish. Jens stood and watched the animal for a moment.

“Popkov,” he said, “you are in a privileged position in this household.” He glanced around at the big man with a wry smile. “As a thick-headed Cossack, I can’t image why you are permitted inside the house or given access to the young Ivanova ladies.” Jens ran a hand down Hero’s muscular neck. “It must be because of your natural charm, I suppose.”

The Cossack’s mouth split open in a wide grin, revealing white tombstone teeth. “Go to hell.”

I’VE NEVER SEEN VALENTINA SO HAPPY.”

Jens smiled at Katya and balanced the tiny teacup on his knee. “It’s working in the hospital that has done it. She has gained a sense of purpose.”

“That’s what Mama says.”

“Your mother is probably right.”

“Mama does not know her as well as I do.”

“What is it,” he asked carefully, “that you know, that your mother doesn’t?”

“Jens, I may not have the use of my legs but I can still use my eyes.”

“So what is it you see?”

She laughed. “I see the way her skin glows when it should be gray and weary from long hours at the hospital, how her step grows heavy when she is forced to spend the day at home. I see the way her mouth smiles a secret smile when she thinks no one is watching, and the way her breath catches. She’ll be in the middle of a sentence and suddenly she can’t speak.” Katya’s voice grew wistful. “I believe it happens when she has just remembered something.”

“What kind of thing?”

“A moment. One that invades her mind.”

“Katya, what an acutely observant girl you are.”

“She’s my sister. I love her.”

Their gaze held. “So do I,” he said softly.

She nodded, bouncing her blond curls. “I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know Valentina. She is in love, and she is loved.”

“I will take great care of her, Katya.”

She smiled at him. “I believe you will, Jens. But be careful. If Papa finds out that she prefers you over Captain Chernov, he will deny you entry to this house.”

“Thank you for the warning.”

It could not be easy for Katya to give him her sister so readily.

JENS HEARD THE UPROAR FROM THE STABLES BEFORE HE reached them. Fearing for Hero, he moved quickly. Shouts and crashes were reverberating off the wooden walls, and he found five men beating the hell out of Popkov. The big man was lumbering and lunging like a drunken bear, blood pouring from a gash above his eye. The other grooms had fled, and that meant only one thing. They knew exactly who these men were in their black coats and polished boots, and knew enough to keep away. But five against one struck Jens as harsh odds.

He seized one attacker’s shoulder, spun him around, and received a fist in his stomach as a thank-you. He grunted. Before another fist could come his way, he rammed his head into the other man’s chest, knocking the bastard off balance. A quick upward jerk of Jens’s neck and his head cracked the man’s jaw. A scream ripped through the damp air, setting the horses into a frenzy of kicking and whinnying. Curses and crowbars crunched down on Popkov’s shoulders till he hit the ground, but he took two men with him. Boots thudded and chests heaved with effort.

“For Christ’s sake,” Jens shouted, “stop this now. You’ll kill him. What’s going on here?”

One head half-turned. A face with heavy features and a mulberry birthmark glared at him from eyes that were nothing but dense black pupils, deep greedy pits of enjoyment.

“Get lost. Unless you want some of the same.”

A crowbar swung from the side and threatened to smack against Jens’s skull. He had no idea what this fight was about, but he no longer cared. He ducked, snatched the knout from a hook on the wall and unleashed it. Its lash was tipped with metal barbs.

The first crack of the whip ripped open a man’s back; the second sliced a strip of flesh from an unguarded neck. Blood spurted onto the straw. The two men, who were still standing, abandoned their Cossack prey and turned on Jens, but another flick of his wrist curled the length of rawhide through the air in elegant swinging loops. They backed off. Too late they became aware of the wounded man on his feet behind them. The stolen crowbar in his fist slammed down first on one head, then on the other, and they dropped like stones.

“Fuck them!” Popkov bellowed.

“Fuck you!” Jens muttered, breathing hard. “What the hell did you do to start this fight?”

They were both looking at each other, trying not to grin. Unexpected blood brothers.

“Damn it,” Jens said, “what have you gotten me into?”

A quiet voice came from behind him. “Put down that whip. And you, oaf, drop that metal bar.” No threat in it. Just a quiet statement. “Or I will put a bullet in your brain.”