The Jewel of St Petersburg

Three

GIRLS, MESDEMOISELLES, TODAY IS A GREAT HONOR FOR OUR school. A day to remember. I expect the best from each of you. Today you must shine brighter than…”

The headmistress stopped in mid flight. Her neatly drawn eyebrows rose in disgust. The girls held their breath, waiting to see on which wretched creature her wrath would fall. In her somber dress with its high neck and cameo brooch, Madame Petrova was marching up and down in front of the benches in the grand hall of the Ekaterininsky Institute, eyeing each pupil with the unbending scrutiny of a general reviewing his troops.

“Nadia,” she said crisply.

Valentina’s heart sank for her friend, who had dropped ink on her clean pinafore.

“Sit up straight, girl. Just because you are in the back row doesn’t mean you can slouch. Do you want the broom handle tied to your back?”

“No, Madame.” Nadia straightened her shoulders but kept her hands discreetly over her soiled pinafore.

“Aleksandra, remove that curl from your cheek.”

She glided farther along the ranks.

“Emilya, put your feet together, you are not a horse. Valentina, stop fiddling at once!”

Valentina flushed and stared down at her fingers. They were drumming on her knees, desperate to keep warm. She couldn’t play with cold fingers. But she folded them obediently on her lap. Her heart was hammering. It was always like this before a performance, but she had practiced the Nocturne till it accompanied her through her night dreams, the way the sound of screaming horses still did. She hadn’t ridden a horse since the day of the explosion and had no intention of ever doing so again, but still the sound of them wouldn’t leave her, however hard she thundered across the piano keys.

“Valentina.”

“Yes, Madame.”

“Remember who you are performing for today. The tsar himself.”

“Yes, Madame.”

This time she would play Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat better than ever before.

JENS FRIIS GLANCED AT THE DOMED CLOCK ON THE WALL. The afternoon was crawling past as though it had frostbite in its toes, and he was tempted to yawn.

He stretched out his legs and shifted position with irritation. He was tired of the interminable poems and songs, as well as uncomfortable on an absurd chair that was not built for someone like himself with limbs like a giraffe’s. Worse, he was annoyed with Countess Serova for dragging him to this schoolgirl frivolity when he was short of time. He needed to study the blueprints of the new construction that had only come in this morning and, damn it, it was cold here in this hall. How on earth did the poor wretches stand it? On the benches arranged along the wall, the rows of pupils sat stiff and upright in their dark frocks with white capes and pinafores, like delicate snow carvings.

His gaze moved dutifully to the institutka who was singing. Pleasant enough voice, nothing special, but the song was dull, one of those tedious German lieder he loathed, the ones that go on forever. He glanced at the door and wondered what the chances were of escape.

“Jens,” Countess Natalia Serova whispered next to him. “Behave.”

“I fear such elitist delights are above my churlish brain.”

She gave him a glare from steady blue eyes, then turned away. He could smell her perfume. Most likely from Paris, like her hat, a frivolous confection of silk and feathers that made him smile. Her long fitted coat in the palest of greens showed off her girlish figure though he guessed she must be about thirty, and emeralds glittered at her ears and throat. She had exquisite taste, no doubt about that. As the son of a Danish printer, Jens had grown up in Copenhagen with the stink of ink forever in his nostrils, but now at twenty-seven years old he was learning to appreciate the finer fragrances on parade in St. Petersburg.

“You are very provoking. Listen to Maria,” she murmured under her breath.

Ah, so this songbird was Maria, the countess’s niece. Vaguely he recalled her from the time the countess had dragged him to a concert here two years ago, when Jens had the honor of meeting Tsar Nicholas for the first time. Countess Natalia Serova had introduced him, he must not forget that. He owed her much, even if her husband did make good use in return of Jens’s skills as an engineer to do work on their estate.

This time Tsar Nicholas was sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair in the center of the hall, and it was impossible to tell whether he was bored or amused. The muscles of his face were so rigidly well trained. He was a small man and hid his weak chin behind a prominent chestnut beard, in the same way that he hid his slight frame inside a series of bulky military uniforms designed to impress. Today he was resplendent in a peacock blue jacket weighed down by an abundance of medals and gold braid.

Jens was not the only one who believed that Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov was the wrong man in the wrong job, unlike his big brash bullying father, Tsar Alexander III, a man who had stood six feet six inches in his bare feet and thought nothing of behaving like the iron fist of God. But now, more than ever before, Russia was in danger of slitting its own throat, in desperate need of a leader of wisdom and strength.

“Bravo,” the tsar called out. “Well done, Mademoiselle Maria.”

Applause burst out around the hall. The niece had finished, thank God. Jens breathed a sigh of relief because now he could leave and get back to work. But a grand piano that dominated the far end of the room suddenly stirred into life and music started to flow throughout the high-ceilinged room. Jens groaned inwardly. It was something by Chopin, one of his least favorite composers, always so plaintive, so full of despair, whining in your ear like a cat in heat.

He glanced at the pianist and saw that she was a slight young creature with a mane of dense dark hair pulled back from her face by a black hairband. About sixteen, he’d guess, maybe seventeen. She wore the Ekaterininsky Institute uniform and should have looked as shapeless and anonymous as all the other girls. But she didn’t. There was something about her that caused his eyes to linger, something in the way her hands moved with hypnotic grace. As if they were part of the music itself.

She had small strong fingers that flowed over the keys, connecting to something he couldn’t see, something that was part of her private world. The music soared, rising in a minor chord and flooding his senses with its beauty, then without warning, when he was totally unprepared, ripped his heart out. He closed his eyes, aware of the music alive inside him. Of its notes touching places within him, secret corners. With an effort of will he forced open his eyes and studied the girl who could transform music into such a weapon.

Her body didn’t sway dramatically on the stool. Just her hands. And her head. They moved as if they belonged to the music, rather than to her body. Her skin was palest ivory and her face almost expressionless except for her eyes. They were huge and dark, full of an emotion that to Jens looked closer to fury than rapture. Where had a girl so young found such powerful feelings? As if she drew them in with each breath.

Finally the music sighed to an end, and the girl hung her head. Her dark hair curtained her face from view, and she placed her hands quietly in her lap. Only one telltale tremor shook her spine, and then silence filled the hall. Jens looked at the tsar. Tears were rolling unchecked down Nicholas’s face. Slowly he raised his imperial hands and began to clap, and immediately applause echoed around the hall. Jens looked again at the young pianist. She hadn’t moved but her head was turned to one side and her luminous dark eyes were directed straight at him. If it weren’t too absurd to be true, he’d have sworn she was angry with him.

“Mademoiselle Valentina,” the tsar said, his voice thick with tears, “thank you. Merci bien. That was a magnificent performance. Unforgettable. You must come and play for my wife and my dear daughters when they are next at the Winter Palace.”

The girl rose from the stool and dropped a deep curtsy. “It would be a great honor,” she said.

“Pozdravlyayu. Congratulations, my dear girl. You will be a great pianist.”

For the first time she smiled, “Spasibo, Your Majesty. You are too kind.”

There was something about the way she murmured it that startled Jens. He almost laughed out loud, but the tsar seemed not to notice the faint rustle of mockery in her words.

“So,” Jens’s companion whispered. “At least you enjoyed the Chopin, if not the singing.”

Jens turned to Countess Serova. “I did.”

“Friis, good heavens, man, what are you doing here?”

It was Tsar Nicholas. He was strutting over to his entourage to stretch his legs before the next performance. Everyone rose to their feet. He was considerably shorter than Jens and had a habit of rocking up and down on his toes. The women ruffled their finery in greeting and the men ducked their heads in acknowledgment of his attention.

“Friis,” Tsar Nicholas continued, “you’re not here to flirt with the girls, I hope.”

“No, Your Majesty, I am not. I’m here as a guest of Countess Serova.”

“Shouldn’t you be hard at work? That’s what I expect of you, you know. Not to parade in front of Petersburg’s elite young ladies.”

Jens bowed, a crisp click of his heels and a dip of his head. “Then I shall take my leave.”

Nicholas’s manner became serious. “You are needed elsewhere, Friis. I can’t afford to waste a good man on”-he waved a jeweled hand at the school hall-“on this frippery.”

Jens bowed again and turned to leave. As he did so, he cast one more glance around, seeking out the pianist. She was still watching him. He smiled but she didn’t respond, so he tipped his head to her and walked out of the room. As the door closed behind him he felt as if something of himself still lay on the hall’s polished floorboards. Something he valued.

JENS!”

He stopped midstride. “Ah, Countess. As you see, I am in a hurry.”

“Wait,” she called. Her footsteps echoed along the school’s empty yellow corridor, hurrying to catch up with him. “Jens, I’m sorry. I didn’t intend that rebuke from the tsar to happen.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No. Forgive me.”

“Countess Serova,” he said, lifting her gloved hand and pressing it to his lips, “there is nothing to forgive.” But his voice was brittle with irony.

She exhaled sharply. “Don’t be so arrogant, Jens,” she said. “Not with me.”

She stretched up and placed a kiss full on his mouth. Her lips were soft. Tempting. But Jens stepped away. She gave him a reproachful gaze and walked back the way she had come.

Damn the woman. Damn her.

JENS WRAPPED HIS HEAVY RIDING CAPE TIGHTLY AROUND HIS shoulders. The dismal gray mist clung to his clothes and hair and even to his eyelashes. On horseback he drifted like a ghost through the city, over bridges that were illuminated by streetlamps day and night now it was winter. Carriages rattled past unseen in the fog and cars blared their klaxons at each other, while pedestrians kept a firm hold on their purses and wallets. It was a day for pickpockets and thieves.

The temperatures were harsh this year, harsher than usual in St. Petersburg. The Moika Canal had frozen over and the Neva River disappeared in a deathly pall that swallowed the city. It was a winter of bitter strikes in the factories and of shortages in the food shops. Unrest slid and slithered through the streets, workers gathered on corners and smoked their cheap makhorka cigarettes with resentful fury. Jens heeled his horse into a canter and swung away from the wide boulevards, leaving behind the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt with its sables and its silks.

The streets grew narrower, the houses meaner till dirt and despair hung in the damp air. A pack of three feral dogs snapped at the horse and received the tip of Hero’s metal shoe in exchange. Jens gazed along the street at the pinched faces and the blackened buildings. The cold was so intense it had cracked windows.

This was why he was here. Places like this. Streets that stank. No water to wash. Just wells that turned sour and backed up in the rain, and pumps that iced over. This was why he was here in Petersburg.

IT WAS FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING WHEN VALENTINA tapped the door with her fingertips.

“Vkhodite, come in, my dear.” The voice was soft and welcoming.

She turned the handle and entered Nurse Sonya’s private quarters, where shadows had settled on the carpet like tired dogs in the dim light.

“Dobroye utro, good morning,” Valentina said in greeting.

The nurse was in her fifties, seated in a rocking chair and tapping the floor with her foot in a steady rhythm to keep it in motion. Her large form was engulfed in a battered old housecoat and a Bible lay open on her lap, her finger trailing over each line she read.

“How is she tonight?” Valentina asked at once.

“She’s sleeping.”

Sleeping? Or just pretending? Valentina knew that Nurse Sonya was not good at knowing the difference. Katya had endured three operations in the last six months to try to repair her shattered spine, and since the last one her mobility had definitely improved, but still she was unable to walk. Not that she ever complained. No, Katya wouldn’t. But purple hollows gathered under her eyes and a sallow bruised look to her face betrayed when the pain was bad.

“What have you given her?” Valentina asked quietly.

“A little laudanum, the usual dosage.”

“I thought you were cutting back on it.”

“I tried, malishka, little one. But she needs it.”

Valentina made no comment. What do I know about laudanum? Just what I see in Katya’s eyes.

The nurse stilled the rocking chair and studied Valentina’s face with a look of gentle concern. “Guilt is a terrible thing, my dear.” She shook her head, and her hand trailed across the wafer-thin page open on her lap. “God forgives us.”

Valentina walked over to the window, pulled the heavy curtain to one side, and stared out into the night. Lights flickered as sleighs and carriages with bright torches continued to charge through the city that prided itself on its reputation for never sleeping, on its reputation for wild living and even wilder dying. St. Petersburg was a city of extremes. All or nothing. No one in St. Petersburg seemed to have any time for anything but their next drink, their next dissolute party, their next insane throw of the dice. She stared out at it all and craved something more for her life.

“No,” she murmured to the nurse, “it’s not God’s forgiveness I want.”

IT WAS STILL DARK. THE KIND OF DARKNESS THAT IS THICK and heavy, the kind that clogs the mind. The first muted sounds of the house coming to life drifted upstairs as servants laid fires and polished floors. Valentina was perched cross-legged on the end of Katya’s bed, a towel spread out over her lap.

“I hear Papa has bought a new car while I was at school,” Valentina said.

“Yes. It’s a Turicum. From Switzerland.”

“Isn’t that fearfully expensive?”

“I expect so. But Tsar Nicholas has just bought himself a new Delaunay-Belleville. You know what it’s like at court; they’ve made a big fuss of it and all rush to copy him.”

“Who is driving it?”

“Papa has hired a chauffeur. His name is Viktor Arkin.”

“What’s he like?”

“Very smart in his uniform. Rather quiet but I suppose good looking in a serious sort of way.”

“You always did like a man in uniform.”

Katya laughed delightedly, and Valentina felt pleased. Some days it took more than that to make her sister smile. But she noticed that Katya’s eyes were blurry this morning, as though the fog had slunk up the Neva River and slid into her head overnight. One of her feet was propped on the towel and Valentina’s hands were massaging its delicate skin, manipulating the joints, bringing a semblance of life into the paralyzed limb. A fine sheen of lavender oil eased the repetitive movement and scented the air, disguising the odor of a sickroom.

Katya snuggled into her pillows, her hair a haze of pale gold around her head. “Tell me again about the tsar.” She watched Valentina’s busy hands. “What was he like?”

“I’ve told you already. He was handsome and charming and complimented me on my playing.”

Katya narrowed her blue eyes, as if she were peering at something very small. “Don’t think I can’t see through your lies, Valentina. What happened yesterday? Why didn’t you like His Imperial Majesty?”

“Of course I liked him. Everyone likes the tsar.”

“I shall call for Nurse Sonya to throw you out of here if you don’t…”

Valentina laughed and paused in working oil into the pale toe-nails. Her sister’s foot lay on her palm as dead as a doll’s. “All right, all right, I admit it. You know me too well. You’re correct, Katya, I didn’t like Tsar Nicholas yesterday. But only because he strutted into the room as if he owned the whole world, not just the Romanovs’ half of it. Gaudy as a peacock. A small man in big shoes.”

Katya suddenly banged her hand on her forehead with mock annoyance. “Of course, I remember now. He told you he wanted you to play the piano for his wife and children when he heard you play before at the school two years ago. Didn’t he?”

“Yes. And I was stupid enough to believe him then. I practiced and practiced and practiced, waiting for the summons. But it never came.” She moved Katya’s foot down onto the sheet. “I have far more sense this time.” She smiled at her young sister. “You can’t trust a tsar. Lies come too easily to his royal tongue.”

Katya’s eyes opened wide. “Was he there again?”

“Who?”

“I remember that you told me there was a man with Tsar Nicholas when you played for him before.”

“No, I said no such thing.”

“Yes, you did.”

Valentina picked up the other foot, placing it on the towel. She dipped her fingers in the warm oil and started to massage the dry skin on the heel. “What on earth are you talking about?” She kept her eyes on Katya’s toes as she gently eased them apart, one by one.

“There was a man. With the tsar two years ago when he visited your school,” Katya insisted. “I remember, you said he was…”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You told me he looked like a Viking warrior.”

“That’s absurd.”

“With fiery hair and green eyes.”

“You’re imagining things.”

“No, you told me. He stood by the door, and you said…”

Valentina laughed and tweaked a toe. “I said a lot of silly things when I was fifteen.”

But Katya’s gaze was fixed on her sister. “You told me you had fallen in love with him.”

Valentina’s fingers pummeled the scrap of flesh behind the ankle bone. “If I said such a thing, it was just schoolgirl nonsense. I didn’t even speak to him. I scarcely recall now what he looked like.” But the blood had risen to her cheeks.

“You told me,” Katya said softly, “that you intended to marry this tall Viking warrior.”

“Then I was a fool,” Valentina insisted. “I don’t ever intend to marry.”