The Jewel of St Petersburg (40 page)

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.

V
ARENKA 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.

I
T 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.

P
OPKOV 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.”