The Jewel of St Petersburg

Thirty-three

RAIN DRIPPED INCESSANTLY. COLD RIVULETS OF IT BURST through the roof of the izba cottage and fell like gunshots into the zinc buckets. Viktor Arkin hardly noticed the sound. His feet paced the rotting floorboards and his mind chased a thousand answers to the questions that pounded through his head.

Were they coming?

How much did she know?

What had she seen?

Was the girl a pigeon laid out by the Okhrana to ensnare him?

Who could he trust?

It was always the same, this looking over his shoulder. It was the price he paid.

He had prepared the room. But she would not be like her sister. She would be a constant danger; he had to tread warily. He had perceived the strength behind the wide dark eyes and despite her young age he knew she would tear him limb from limb if he gave her the chance. Yes, he was prepared.

He ceased pacing and stared out of the small grubby window. Three o’clock in the morning, what did he expect? The blackness outside was impenetrable, drowning any other sounds under the relentless onslaught of wind and rain. The peasant’s cottage was flimsy, its rooms small, but it did the job well enough. Far from anywhere, it sat in the middle of a flat ocean of marshy land through which ran one single dirt road that was raised above the level of the fields to avoid flooding.

For an hour he stood at the window, ears alert for the rumble of a cart, but all the time he could not keep their mother from his mind. She slid in uninvited. The secret pale hollows of her skin, the mound of glorious curls at the base of her stomach like a vivid splash of butter. The taste of it in his mouth. And now the memory of her blue eyes would not let him rest. Wide with glazed shock. Her voice calling his name as he ran from the theater through the rain with her daughter in his arms. He had to make her hate him, so that he could be free of her.

An hour later, they still hadn’t arrived. Arkin lifted the kerosene lamp from its hook on the beam and unlocked the door behind him. The sulfur-yellow light leapt in ahead of him, crawling up onto the ceiling and tunneling into the solid blackness that lay like a wall across the room. The girl was huddled on the bed. He called her the girl in his mind, never Katya. It was better that way. Safer. That way he could look at her and not feel sick for her. The girl.

He raised the lamp high. Her eyes stared back at him, huge and accusing, her lips trembling.

“Go away,” she whispered.

“Are you cold?”

She shook her head.

“In pain?”

Another shake. Liar, he thought.

“Go away,” she whispered again.

If he went, the darkness would be absolute once more because he couldn’t risk leaving her even a candle. So he leaned a shoulder against the door frame, put the lamp on the floor, and lit himself a cigarette, exhaling loudly to cover the soft panting of her breath.

“Don’t die on me,” he said.

She pulled the meager blanket up over her face. “Go away,” she whispered a third time, and it came out as a muffled hiss, no louder than the hiss of the lamp. For a full minute he studied the unmoving shape on the bed, and he waited for her to shout at him. But she didn’t, so he took up the lamp, left the room, and locked the door. It was easier that way.

THEY BROUGHT IN THE OLDER SISTER FROM THE CART, handling her with a roughness that made him want to slap them. He’d chosen these three men for the job because they were not so hotheaded and would keep their hands off her. But they had been driving the cart in the teeming rain for too many hours, changing routes and doubling back through the forest to avoid being followed. Now they were wet and bad tempered, and they took it out on her.

She looked small, far smaller than he remembered. Soaked to the skin, hair plastered to her head, and teeth chattering, which she tried to hide. Yes, he reminded himself, this girl above all others would hate for him to think she was frightened. They pushed her into the chair at the table, the blindfold still in place, her hands fastened behind her back with a leather thong. He could see it biting into the skin of her wrists, carving red weals like candy stripes.

He took the chair opposite her.

“I know who you are,” she said before he had spoken. “Don’t think you can hide.”

He waited. Imagining the things in her head. Blind and drenched, thrust into a room that smelled of men, listening for their breath to count how many. Her words were her only weapons. Somewhere she had lost her coat and had no idea how her wet evening gown clung to her body, its pale silk almost transparent, outlining her slender curves and turning her into one of those dolls that children dress and undress at will.

“I know who you are,” she repeated. Her voice was controlled, but he heard the rage in it. “You are Viktor Arkin. You were my father’s chauffeur.”

There was no reason to add those last words, except to remind him that he was dirt. He yanked the blindfold from her face and watched her squint against the sudden light, long strands of her dark hair clinging like tendrils to her throat and cheeks as though they could protect her.

“As you see,” he said pleasantly, “you are correct. How shrewd of you.”

Her eyes adjusted, pupils slowly shrinking, but she could not quite keep the scorn from her face. “It wasn’t hard.”

“Count yourself lucky to be alive at all after that blade you stuck in my side.”

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

Her mouth tightened with anger. “Where is she?”

“Asleep.”

“I doubt that.” She rose to her feet, and immediately two of the men seized her arms. They could have snapped them with no effort. “Take me to her.”

“After we’ve talked.”

“Please, Arkin.” Her voice remained quiet. “Please take me to her. We can talk tomorrow when I am dry and you have had some sleep.”

Did it show so clearly? That he had not put his head on a pillow for three nights. Each movement of his eyelids felt as though they were rolling over brick dust. He nodded curtly toward the door with the key in the lock. She was across the room, her forehead jammed against the wooden planks before he had time to give the order.

“Let her in,” he snapped.

He walked into the other musty bedroom and lay down on a bare mattress in the dark, but he didn’t sleep.

KATYA!”

Valentina wrapped her arms around her sister on the narrow bed, aware of the animal smell of the sweat on her, though her skin was like ice.

“I’m all right,” Katya said.

But Valentina knew that voice, the one when her back teeth were clenched against the pain. “Of course you are.” Valentina pulled the blanket up around her. It stank of urine.

“Why are you here?” Katya asked, bemused. “Did they take you too? It’s Arkin, do you realize that, the chauffeur? What is he going to do with us? Does Papa know? Valentina, you’re wet, take your dress off, you mustn’t…”

“Hush, my sweet, hush.” She took her hand. “Calm down, we’re together now. There’s no need to be frightened. Arkin won’t hurt us.”

“He will.”

“No. I will speak to him in the morning. When it’s light. Tonight he wasn’t…”

“Why us?”

“Oh, Katya, I don’t know. He must intend to pressure Papa into doing something.”

Katya groaned. “Papa will never do anything against the tsar, not even for us.”

“Hush, we don’t know yet. Let’s wait until morning. It can’t be long now. Try to sleep.”

“You must take your dress off. You’re shivering.”

“No. Not with those men outside the door.”

The room was in darkness, but a thin rat’s tail of lamplight crept under the door and even squeezed between its planks in places where the wood had warped. Valentina slid off the bed, went over to the door, and banged on it with her fist.

“Open the door,” she shouted.

No answer.

She banged again. “I want to speak to you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” an unknown voice growled.

“Open the door.”

“Shut up, bitch.”

She kicked the door viciously, and it rattled on its hinges. “I want dry clothes.”

“Piss off.”

“Dry clothes and another blanket. A bucket. And a candle.” She kicked the door again and swore under her breath.

She waited. When she was sick of waiting she started with her fists again.

“Stop that.” It was Arkin.

A key grated in the lock and the door swung open. At once the light bounced in and Valentina caught sight of Katya on the bed, her teeth clenched so tight on her lower lip that there was a trickle of blood, like a spill of black ink on her chin.

“Here,” Arkin said sourly. “Clothes, a blanket, a bucket. No candle.”

The door started to close.

“Wait.”

It paused.

“My sister needs medication for her pain.”

“No.”

The door slammed shut.

“Damn you, Arkin,” Valentina yelled, and kicked the door hard. “I hope you burn in hell.”

THE WINDOW WAS SHUTTERED. AND INSIDE A HEAVY grille had been bolted across it, but nevertheless the air in the room shifted from black to gray and a whisper of daylight trickled through its slats. They both used the bucket. Valentina had to support her sister on it. As she held her upright on the floor, she noticed that Katya was taller than she was. When had that happened?

They spoke in low voices. Hands clasped. Katya kept her eyes fixed on Valentina, as though she feared she might not be real, and let her massage her feet to keep the blood flowing through them.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Katya said. “It doesn’t matter if something happens to me, but how will Jens survive without you?”

“Nothing will happen to us, silly. I wasn’t going to let you run away from home without me.”

Katya laughed, a soft bubble of sound, and rubbed the back of her neck. “You didn’t want me to have all the excitement.”

Valentina stroked the small hand. “Tell me, Katya, do you curse me every day for going riding that morning at Tesovo?” It was a question she’d never asked before.

“Of course not.”

“You wouldn’t have gone into the study if I had remained at home.”

“Yes, I would. You’re not the one who sent me there to fetch a pen.”

Valentina’s heart stopped. “Who did?”

“Papa.”

VALENTINA KEPT HER HANDS IN FRONT OF HER ON THE table as instructed. They were tied together with a leather thong, but not as tight as last night in the cart. It had made her fingers swell. She flexed them now, the flesh raised in white bars across the knuckles, and she let her mind escape for just one fleeting second to the ivory keys.

“Valentina!”

She looked at his hands, which had thick spade-shaped tips on the fingers and a wide hardened span across the palm. A worker’s hands? A killer’s hands?

“Valentina, you are not paying attention.”

“I am listening.”

She pictured Jens’s hands. Long-boned and muscular, touching the skin of her belly.

“You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“I will be back this evening. One of my men will remain here in the meantime. I will know by then whether your father will pay.”

“How much?”

“Half a million roubles.”

She gasped. Half a million roubles.

“Arkin.” Her eyes fixed on his face. It was tense, stubble darkening his jaw. “Arkin, you are crazy if you think my father has that kind of money.”

He leaned back in his chair. He was smoking a cigarette and exhaled a curl of smoke with annoyance. “You forget,” he said, “that I have been inside your house. I have seen the paintings and the statues, the silver and the gold that lie unnoticed by you in every room. I’ve seen your mother’s diamonds as big as turtle eggs, so don’t-”

“No. He has no money.”

“The minister can sell a necklace or two.”

“He can’t.”

“He’ll have to.”

“You are too greedy.”

“It is you and your kind who are greedy. You want to own all of Russia and divide its spoils between you. The millions of Russian workers and peasants have nothing because you have stolen it all.” There was no doubting the ruthlessness of this man’s conviction.

“You are one of the Bolsheviks,” she stated flatly.

He did not bother to answer.

“Is the money for the revolution?”

“Of course. To finance the socialist cause. Did you think otherwise?”

This time it was she who didn’t answer.

“Why did you shoot Jens Friis and Captain Chernov at the duel?”

A faint smile crossed his face, and for a moment she saw something of the polite chauffeur he used to be. “That is not important now.” He rose to his feet. “I will be back here by this evening.” He nodded at the man beside the door, whittling a stick with a knife. “Mazhik will guard you.” Again that slight tilt of the mouth. “Don’t annoy him.”

Mazhik grinned and cleaned his blade on his beard.

“What will you do, Arkin, when my father says no?”

“You had better hope he doesn’t.”

She didn’t push him further. “Before you go, will you please order Mazhik to open the shutters of our room?” She added, “We cannot escape. The metal mesh is enough. The light would make this… this”-she gestured to the locked door of the bedroom-“more bearable.”

To her surprise he nodded curtly. No argument. She stood up. Gently, tread gently. “And medicine? Would you bring back some morphine, please, for Katya? She’s… desperate, though she doesn’t show it.”

He nodded again and rubbed a hand over his stubble. It was the gesture of a tired man. “I promise you this, if I get money from your father today, she will get her morphine.”

“If not?”

He shrugged and moved to the door that led outside. The overnight rain had dragged itself northward, and an empty blue sky hovered above as though waiting for something. Silky shreds of mist hung over the flat landscape, trailing gray fingers in the marshes where waterbirds squabbled as they bathed. As he strode down the steps he glanced back at her to ensure she wasn’t trying to escape, but she remained standing meekly by the table. He studied her slight figure in the rolled-up trousers and bulky checked shirt.

“Those clothes look better on you than they ever did on me.”

She clamped her tongue between her teeth and managed not to spit.