Shadow Pass (29 page)

As he drank, a taste of plums blossomed softly in Pekkala’s head, filling his mind with the ripe fruit’s dusty purpleness. “You know,” he said, after the fire had left his breath, “this was the only liquor the Tsar would touch.”

“It seems unpatriotic,” replied Kirov, his voice gone hoarse from the drink, “to be Russian and not to like a drop of vodka now and then.”

“He had his reasons,” said Pekkala, and decided to leave it at that.

Pekkala stood out in the wide expanse of the Alexander Park
.

It was an evening in late May. The days had grown longer, and the sky remained light long after the sun had gone down
.

The pink and white petals of the dogwood trees had fallen, replaced by shiny, lime-green leaves. Summer did not come gradually to this place. Instead, it seemed to explode across the landscape
.

After a long day in the city of Petrograd, Pekkala would finish his supper and walk out on the grounds of the estate. He rarely encountered anyone else this time of night, but now he saw a rider coming towards him
.
The horse ambled lazily, its reins held slack, the rider slouched in his saddle. He knew instantly from the man’s silhouette that it was the Tsar. His narrow shoulders. The way he held his head, as if the joints of his neck were too tight
.

At last, the Tsar came up alongside him. “What brings you out here, Pekkala?”

“I often walk in the evenings.”

“I could get you a horse, you know,” said the Tsar
.

And then the two men laughed quietly, remembering that it was a matter of a horse which had first brought them together. In the course of Pekkala’s training with the Finnish Regiment, he had been ordered to jump his horse over a barricade on which the drill instructor had laced a coil of barbed wire. By the time the exercise was halfway through, most of the animals were bleeding from cuts to their legs and bellies. Blood, bright as rubies, speckled the sawdust floor. When Pekkala refused to jump his horse, the drill instructor first threatened, then humiliated him, and finally attempted to reason with him. Pekkala had known before he said a word that a refusal to carry out an order would mean being thrown out of the cadets. He would be on the next train home to Finland. But it was at this point that the sergeant and cadets realized they were being watched. The Tsar had been standing in the shadows
.

Later, when Pekkala led his horse back to the stables, the Tsar was waiting for him. One hour later, he had been transferred out of the Finnish Regiment and into a special course of study with the Imperial Police, the State Police, and the Okhrana. Two years and two months from that day when he led his horse out of the ring, Pekkala pinned on the badge of the Emerald Eye. Since that time, he had always preferred, whenever possible, to travel on his own two feet
.

That spring evening, the Tsar removed a pewter flask from the pocket of his tunic, unscrewed the cap, took a drink, and handed the flask to Pekkala
.

That was the first time he ever tasted Slivovitz. The aftertaste reminded him of a liquor his mother used to make from a distillation of
cloudberries, which she gathered in the forest near their home. They were not easy to find. Cloudberries did not always grow in the same place year after year. Instead, they sprouted unexpectedly, and for most people, finding them was so much a matter of chance that they often did not bother. But Pekkala’s mother always seemed to know from one glance at the undergrowth exactly where cloudberries would be growing. How she knew this was as much a mystery to Pekkala as the Tsar’s reasons for making him into the Emerald Eye
.

“It is my wedding anniversary tomorrow,” remarked the Tsar
.

“Congratulations, Majesty,” replied Pekkala. “Do you have plans to mark the occasion?”

“That is not a day I celebrate,” said the Tsar
.

Pekkala did not have to ask why. On the day of the Tsar’s coronation in May 1896, the Tsar and Tsarina sat for five hours on gold and ivory thrones while the names of his dominion were read out—Moscow, Petrograd, Kiev, Poland, Bulgaria, Finland. Finally, after he had been proclaimed The Lord and Judge of Russia, bells rang out across the city and cannon fire echoed in the sky
.

During this time, a crowd of half a million had gathered on the outskirts of the city, at a military staging area known as Khodynka field, with a promise of free food, beer, and souvenir mugs. When a rumor spread that the beer was running out, the crowd surged forward. More than a thousand people—some said as many as three thousand—were trampled to death in the panic
.

For hours afterwards, carts loaded with bodies raced through the streets of Moscow, while their drivers searched for places where the dead could be kept out of sight until the wedding cortege had passed. In the confusion, some of those carts, with the legs and arms of the dead lolling out from under their tarpaulin covers, found themselves both ahead of and behind the royal procession
.

“That afternoon,” the Tsar told Pekkala, “before the wedding ceremony began, I drank a toast to the crowd on Khodynka field. That’s the last time I ever touched vodka.” Now the Tsar smiled, trying to forget
.
He raised the flask. “So what do you think of my alternative? I have it sent to me from Belgrade. I own some orchards there.”

“I like it well enough, Majesty.”

“Well enough,” repeated the Tsar, and he took another drink
.

“It wasn’t your fault, Majesty,” said Pekkala, “what happened on that field.”

The Tsar breathed in sharply. “Wasn’t it? I have never been sure about that.”

“Some things just happen.”

“I know that.”

But Pekkala could tell he was lying
.

“The trouble is,” continued the Tsar, “that either I am placed here by God to be the ruler of this land, in which case the day of my wedding is proof that we are living out the will of the Almighty, or else”—he paused—“or else that is not so. Do you have any idea how much I would like to believe you are right—that those people died simply because of an accident? They haunt me. I cannot get away from their faces. But if I believe it was just an accident, Pekkala, then what about everything else which happened on that day? Either God has a hand in our affairs or he does not. I cannot pick and choose according to what suits me best.”

Pekkala saw the torment in his face. “No more than the plum can choose its taste, Majesty.”

Now the Tsar smiled. “I will remember that,” he said, and he tossed the flask down to Pekkala
.

Pekkala had been carrying that flask five years later when Bolshevik Guards arrested him at the border, when he tried to flee the country after the Revolution had begun. Although his badge and gun were eventually returned to him, the flask vanished somewhere along the way
.

Since that day out in the twilight in the Alexander Park, the glassy green of Slivovitz had taken on a meaning almost sacred to Pekkala. In a world where a Shadow Pass allowed him to do almost anything he chose, the taste of ripe plums served as a reminder to him of how much he did not control
.

L
ATE THAT NIGHT, AS
P
EKKALA SAT ON THE END OF HIS BED, READING
his copy of the
Kalevala
, the phone rang at the end of the hall. There was only one phone on each floor and the calls never came for him there, so he did not even look up from his book. He heard Babayaga’s apartment door open and the patter of Talia’s footsteps as she raced to grab the receiver.

Nobody liked to be the one who had to go out and answer the phone, especially when it was so late, so an unofficial arrangement had been made that Talia would pick up the call and notify whoever it was for. In exchange for this, the child would receive a small gift of some kind, preferably something made with sugar.

Then there was more pattering and Pekkala was surprised to hear Talia knocking on his door. “Inspector,” she called, “it’s for you.”

The first thing Pekkala did when he heard this was to look around the room for something he could give Talia as a present. Spotting nothing, he stood and rummaged in his pockets. He inspected his handful of change.

“Inspector,” asked Talia, “are you in there?”

“Yes,” he answered hurriedly. “I’ll be right out.”

“Are you finding me a present?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you can take your time.”

When he opened the door a moment later, she plucked the coin from his hand. “Come along, Inspector!” she urged.

It was only as Pekkala picked up the receiver that he had time to wonder who might be calling at this hour.

“Inspector?” said a woman’s voice. “Is that you?”

“This is Pekkala. Who am I speaking to?”

“It’s Yelena Nagorski.”

“Oh!” he said, surprised. “Is everything all right?”

“Well, no, Inspector, I’m afraid it isn’t.”

“What is it, Yelena?”

“Konstantin has learned the reason why my husband and I were splitting up.”

“But how?”

“It was Maximov who told him.”

“Why would he do a thing like that?”

“I don’t know. He showed up here this evening. Maximov had gotten the idea in his head that he and I should get married.”

“Married? Was he serious?”

“I think he was completely serious,” replied Yelena, “but I also think he was completely drunk. I wouldn’t let him in the house. I told him that if he did not go away I would report him to the guards at the facility.”

“And did he go away?”

“Not at first. Konstantin came out and ordered him to leave. That was when Maximov told him what had happened between me and Lev Zalka.”

“But how did Maximov know?”

“My husband might have told him, and even if he didn’t, Maximov might have figured it out on his own. I always suspected that he knew.”

“And where is Maximov now?” asked Pekkala.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I think he drove back to the facility, assuming he didn’t run off the road on his way there. Where he might have gone from there I have no idea. The reason I’m calling you, Inspector, is that I have no idea where my son is either. When I had finally persuaded Maximov to leave, I turned around and discovered that Konstantin was gone. He must be out there in the forest. There’s nowhere else for him to go. Konstantin knows his way around those woods in daylight, but it’s pitch-black out there now. I’m worried that he’ll get lost and wander too close to the facility. And you know what is out there, Inspector.”

An image flashed into Pekkala’s mind of Captain Samarin, impaled upon that rusty metal pipe. “All right, Yelena,” he said. “I’m on my way. In the meantime, try not to worry. Konstantin is a capable young man. I’m sure he knows how to take care of himself.”

O
NE HOUR LATER, AS THE HEADLIGHTS OF THE
E
MKA BULLDOZED
back the darkness on the long road that bordered the testing facility, Pekkala felt a sudden loss of power from the engine. While he was trying to figure out what might have caused it, the engine stumbled again.

He stared at the dials on the dashboard. Battery. Clock. Speedometer. Fuel. He muttered a curse. The fuel gauge, which had registered three-quarters full when he left the city, now slumped against empty. He remembered the mechanic who had told him the fuel gauge appeared to be sticking and should be replaced. Pekkala wished now that he’d taken the man’s advice. The engine seemed to groan. The headlights flickered. It was as if the car had swooned.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” snapped Pekkala.

As if to spite him, the engine chose that moment to die completely. Then there was only the sound of the tires rolling to a standstill as he steered the car to the side of the road.

Pekkala got out and looked around. He cursed in Finnish, which was a language well equipped for swearing. “
Jumalauta
!” he roared into the darkness.

The road stretched out ahead, shining dimly in the night mist. On either side, the forest rose black and impenetrable. Stars crowded down to the horizon, hanging like ornaments from the saw-blade tips of the pine trees.

Pekkala buttoned up his coat and started walking.

Fifteen minutes later, he reached the main gate.

Outside the guard shack, the night watchman sat on a little
wooden stool, stirring a stick in a fire. The orange light made his skin glow, as if he had been sculpted out of amber.

“Good evening,” said Pekkala.

The guard leaped to his feet. The stool tipped over backwards. “Holy Mother of God!” he shouted.

“No,” said Pekkala quietly. “It’s me.”

Clumsily, the man regained his balance and immediately rushed into his shack. He reappeared a moment later, carrying a rifle. “Who the hell is out there?” he yelled at the dark.

“Inspector Pekkala.”

The guard lowered his rifle and peered at Pekkala through the wire mesh. “You scared me half to death!”

“My car broke down.”