The House of Special Purpose

by John Boyne

  I noted the cheerful countenance of the boy in the picture but was a little surprised by how thin he looked, how dark around the eyes. ‘I have no doubt of that, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘Naturally, there are many members of the Leib Guard who protect him on a daily basis,’ he said then, and to my mind he seemed to be struggling with his words a little, as if he was unsure how much he wanted to say. ‘And they take good care of him, of course. But I thought … perhaps someone a little closer to his age as a companion. Someone old enough and brave enough to protect him too, should the need arise. How old are you, Georgy?’

  ‘Sixteen, sir.’

  ‘Sixteen, that’s good. A boy of eleven will always look up to a lad your age. I think perhaps you might be a good role model for him.’

  I exhaled nervously. The Grand Duke had mentioned something of this to me when he had visited my sick bed in Kashin, but I had doubted that such a task could possibly be entrusted to a moujik. It seemed so far beyond my expectations of the world that I was sure that at any moment I might wake up and discover that this had all been a dream, and that the Tsar, the Winter Palace and all the glories contained therein, down to the beautiful Fabergé egg, would dissolve before my eyes and I would find myself on the floor in our Kashin hut once again, being kicked into consciousness by Daniil, demanding his breakfast.

  ‘I would be honoured, sir,’ I said finally. ‘If you think me worthy of the position.’

  ‘The Grand Duke certainly thinks you are,’ he said, standing up now, and of course I followed his example and stood too. ‘And I think you seem like a very respectable young man. I think you might perform well in the role.’ We walked towards the door and as we did so, he placed the Imperial hand upon my shoulder, sending a jolt of electricity through my body. The Tsar, the Lord’s own appointed, was touching me. It was the greatest blessing that I had ever received. He gripped the bone tightly and I felt so overawed and honoured that I did not mind the searing pain he was sending through my arm from the bullet wound which he was so casually pressing upon.

  ‘Now, can I trust you, Georgy Daniilovich?’ he asked, looking me deep in the eyes.

  ‘Of course, Your Majesty,’ I replied.

  ‘I hope so,’ he said, and there was a hint of utter desperation and misery in his voice. ‘If you are to undertake this responsibility, there is something … Georgy, what I say to you now must never leave this room.’

  ‘Sir, whatever it is I will take it to the grave.’

  He swallowed and hesitated. The silence between us lasted for more than a minute but I did not feel embarrassed now; I felt instead that I was at the centre of a great secret, something which the Lord of our land was about to entrust unto me. But to my disappointment, he seemed to change his mind for instead of confiding in me, he simply shook his head and looked away, releasing my shoulder and opening the door to the corridor.

  ‘Perhaps this is not the time,’ he said. ‘Let us see how you develop at your task first. All I ask is that you take the utmost care of our son. He is our great hope, you see. He is the hope of all loyal Russians.’

  ‘I will do everything in my power to keep him safe,’ I assured him. ‘My life is his in a moment.’

  ‘Then that is all I need to know,’ he replied, smiling again for a moment before closing the door in my face and leaving me alone once again in the cold and empty corridor, wondering whether anyone was going to collect me and where on earth I should go next.

  1970

  FOR THE FIRST YEAR after my retirement, I deliberately chose not to go anywhere near the library at the British Museum. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to be there; on the contrary, after spending my entire adult life closeted within the erudite comfort of that peaceful chamber, there was almost nowhere that I felt quite so content. No, the reason I chose to avoid it was because I did not wish to become one of those men who cannot accept that his working life has come to an end and that the daily routine of employment, which provides order and discipline in our lives, has been replaced by the utter confusion – or what Lamb chose to call ‘the deliverance’ – of the superannuated man.

  I could recall only too well the Friday evening in 1959 when a small party was thrown in honour of Mr Trevors, who had reached the age of sixty-five and was completing his last week of work at the library. Drinks and food were served, speeches were made, dozens of people showed up to wish him well with whatever was to follow. We offered the usual clichés that the world was now his oyster and felt no shame at our duplicity. The atmosphere was intended to be light and cheerful, but my former employer grew increasingly morose as the night wore on and wondered aloud, to the embarrassment of his guests, how he would fill his days after this.

  ‘I’m alone in the world,’ he told us with a wretched smile, pools of tears forming in his eyes as we all looked away, hoping that someone else would offer him comfort. ‘What do I have if I don’t have my work? An empty house. No Dorothy, no Mary,’ he added quietly, referring to the family who should have been a consolation to him in his dotage but who had been taken from him. ‘This job was my only reason for getting up in the mornings.’

  The following Monday morning, he arrived at the library as usual, precisely on time, shirt and tie in perfect order, and insisted on helping us with the more menial tasks that he had never concerned himself with in the past. None of us knew quite what to do – he still maintained an air of authority in our minds, after all, having been our employer for so long – and so did nothing to impede him. But then, to our discomfort, he came in the day after that too, and the following day. On the Thursday morning, one of the directors of the museum took him aside for a quiet word and told him that he had to remember that the rest of us were there to work, that we were paid to work, and couldn’t engage in conversation all day long. Go home and enjoy your retirement, he was told cheerfully. Put your feet up and do all those things that you could never do when you were stuck in here every day! The poor man did exactly that. He went home and hanged himself that very evening.

  Of course, as I considered my own retirement I had no intention of allowing anything like that to happen to me. For one thing, Zoya and I were lucky enough to be in good health. We had each other, as well as our nine-year-old grandson Michael to keep us young. There was certainly no question of me succumbing to depression or a feeling of uselessness. But nevertheless, a year after my retirement began, I started to feel a longing, not to go back to my old employment but to revisit the atmosphere of scholarship which I so missed. To read more. To learn about those subjects of which I remained ignorant. After all, throughout my working life I had been surrounded by books but had rarely had the opportunity to study any of them. And so I decided to return to the tranquillity of the library for a few hours every afternoon, making sure not to cause any trouble for my former colleagues, usually hiding away from their view, in fact, so that they would feel no obligation to talk to me. And I felt content with this arrangement, happy to spend whatever years I had left engaged upon the act of self-education.

  In the late autumn of 1970, however, shortly after my seventy-first birthday, I was seated at my usual desk one afternoon when I saw a woman – some thirty years my junior – I guessed, standing by one of the bookshelves, pretending to examine the titles when it was perfectly clear that she had no interest in them at all, but was intent on watching me. I didn’t think too much of it at the time; she was probably lost in her own thoughts, I decided, and unaware that she was staring in my direction. I went back to my book and thought no more about it.

  I noticed her again the following afternoon, however, when she sat at a desk three seats along from my own and I caught her glancing at me when she thought that I wasn’t paying attention, and I confess, I began to find the experience both unsettling and annoying. Had I been a younger man, perhaps I would have thought that the woman was in some way attracted to me, but there was no possibility of that in this instance. I had entered my eighth decade, after all. What little hair rem
ained on my head exposed a bumpy, speckled skull beneath. My teeth were my own, and remained passably white, but they added nothing to my smile, as they might have done when I was a younger man. And while my mobility had not been too badly impaired by ageing, I nevertheless had begun to employ the services of a fine Malacca cane, the better to ensure a steady balance as I walked to and from the library every day. In short, I was no matinée idol and certainly not a figure of desire for a woman half my age.

  I considered moving seats, but decided against it. I had been sitting in that same place every afternoon for the previous five years, after all. The light was good, which assisted my reading, as my eyesight was not quite as perceptive as it had once been. Also, it was peaceful there, for I was surrounded by bookshelves that contained such unpopular subjects that few people ever disturbed me. Why should I move? Let her move, I decided. This is my place.

  She left shortly after that, but not before hesitating as she passed me, as if there was something she wanted to say, but then thought better of it and moved on.

  ‘You seem distracted,’ Zoya said to me that night as we were preparing for bed. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, smiling at her, unwilling to go into the problem in any detail with her lest she thought I was imagining things and losing my mind. ‘It’s nothing. I’m just a little tired, that’s all.’

  Still, I lay awake that night, fretting about what this woman wanted with me. Thirty years before, even twenty, such a visitation would have filled me with paranoid fantasies about who had sent her to spy on me, what they wanted, whether they were looking for Zoya too, but this was 1970. Those days had long since passed. I could think of no sensible reason for her interest in me and began to worry that she was not in fact the same woman I had seen before, or that I had imagined her entirely and senility was setting in.

  That worry was put to rest the following day when I arrived at the library shortly after lunchtime, only to see the lady standing outside next to the great stone lions, wrapped up tightly in a dark, heavy overcoat, and she tensed noticeably when she saw me walking along the street towards her.

  In return, I frowned and felt immediately nervous. I knew that she was going to speak to me, but thought that if I simply walked past her without an acknowledgement, then she might leave me in peace. For by now, I knew exactly who she was. It was perfectly obvious. I had never laid eyes on her before she started coming to the library – I hadn’t wanted to – but now here she was, confronting me, which was a presumption in itself.

  Walk on, I told myself. Ignore her, Georgy. Say nothing.

  ‘Mr Jachmenev,’ she said as I approached her and I lifted my gloved hand a little in the air and gave her a half-smile and nod as I passed by, realizing as I did so that I truly had become old. This was the action of an elderly man, a royal personage passing by in a gilded carriage. It put me in mind of the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich offering a benediction to the gathered crowd as he paraded his horse through the streets of Kashin, ignorant of the dangers that lay ahead. ‘Mr Jachmenev, I’m sorry, could I have a word—’

  ‘I have to go inside,’ I said, muttering the words quickly as I hurried on, determined not to allow any contemporary Kolek to take aim at me. ‘I have a lot of work to do today, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It won’t take long,’ she said, and I could see her eyes welling up with tears as she stepped in front of me, blocking my way. She was nervous too, that was obvious from her expression, and the way her hands trembled could not entirely be ascribed to the cold weather. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, but I had to. I just had to.’

  ‘No,’ I muttered under my breath, shaking my head, unwilling to look at her. ‘No, please …’

  ‘Mr Jachmenev, if you tell me to go, then I’ll do as you say and I promise I’ll leave you in peace, but all I’m asking for is a few minutes of your time. Perhaps you’d let me buy you a cup of tea, that’s all. I know I have no right to ask anything of you, I know that, but please. I beg of you. If you can find it in your heart …’

  Her words trailed off as the tears came and I was forced to look at her now, feeling the great ache in my heart, that terrible pain that came upon me at the most unexpected moments of the day, times when I wasn’t even thinking about what had happened. Moments when I hated her so much that I wanted to find her myself, to wrap my ancient hands around her throat and watch her expression as I squeezed the life out of her.

  But now she had found me. And here she was, offering to buy me a cup of tea.

  ‘Please, Mr Jachmenev,’ she said and I opened my mouth to answer her, but heard nothing but a great cry of anger emerge from within, a mere fragment of the pain and suffering that she had caused me and that was twisted around my soul as tightly as any of my great secrets or torments.

  We had waited so long to have a child. We had suffered so many disappointments. And then one day, there she was. Our healthy Arina, who it was impossible not to love.

  When she was first born, Zoya and I would lay her down on the centre of our bed and sit on either side of her, smiling like people who had been touched by the moon. We’d place her feet in the palms of our hands, marvelling at how happy she was, astonished that we had finally been blessed in this way.

  ‘It means peace,’ we said when anyone asked us why we had chosen her name, and that was what she brought to us: peace, the satisfaction of parenthood. When she cried, we thought it shocking that someone so small could produce so musical a sound. For me, returning every day from the library, I could barely stop myself from breaking into a run as I walked along the street, so anxious was I to arrive home and see the look on her face when I stepped through the door, that expression that told me that she might have forgotten about me over the previous eight hours, but here I was, and she remembered me, and how good it was to see me again.

  Growing up, she was no more or less difficult than any other child; she did well at school, neither excelling at her studies nor giving cause for concern. She married young – too young, I had thought at the time – but the marriage was a happy one. Whether or not she faced similar difficulties to the ones her mother and I had faced I do not know, but it was seven years before she sat down before us, taking our hands in hers, to tell us that we were to become grandparents. Michael was born and his presence in a room was a constant joy. One evening over dinner, she mentioned that she would like to give him a younger brother or sister. Not immediately, but soon. And we were thrilled by the news, for we liked the idea of a house filled with visiting grandchildren.

  And then she died.

  Arina was thirty-six when she was taken from us. She worked as a teacher in a school near Battersea Park and late one afternoon, as she was walking home along the Albert Bridge Road, the wind took her hat and she ran out into the path of oncoming traffic without looking left or right and was hit by a car. As difficult as it is to admit, it was entirely her fault. There was no possibility that the car could have avoided her. Of course we had taught her to take care when running on to roads, it wasn’t as if she didn’t know that, but which of us does not get caught up in a moment and forget the things we have been taught? Arina’s hat was blown off her head; she wanted it back. It was a simple thing that happened. And she died of it.

  The first that Zoya or I knew of the accident was later that evening, when there was an unexpected knock on our front door. I opened it to see a pale young man standing outside, a man I half recognized but could not immediately place. He wore an anxious expression on his face, almost frightened, and was holding a brown cloth cap in his hands, which he passed between his fingers constantly. I didn’t know why, but it was something I focussed on increasingly as he talked. His hands were quite bony, the skin almost transparent, not dissimilar to how my own hands had aged, although I was forty years older than him. I watched them as he talked, perhaps to keep myself steady, for there was something in his expression that suggested I would not like what he had come here to say.

 
‘Mr Jachmenev?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know if you remember me, sir. I’m David Frasier.’

  I stared at him and hesitated, uncertain who he was, but Zoya appeared behind me before I had a chance to embarrass myself.

  ‘David,’ she said. ‘What on earth brings you over here this evening? Georgy, you remember Ralph’s friend, don’t you? From the wedding?’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ I said, recalling him now. Drunk, he had attempted to perform the Hopak dance, arms folded, kicking his feet out while trying to keep his body upright. He thought it was a symbol of unity, a mark of respect to his hosts, and I didn’t like to tell him that it was little more than an exercise to warm the body before battle.

  ‘Mr Jachmenev,’ he said, his face betraying his anxiety. ‘Mrs Jachmenev. Ralph sent me round. He asked me to get you.’

  ‘To get us?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean, to get us? What have we done to him?’

  ‘Ralph did?’ asked Zoya, ignoring me, the smile fading from her face a little. ‘Why? What’s happened? Is it Michael? Arina?’

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ he said quickly. ‘Now hopefully it’s not too serious. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, I’m afraid. It’s Arina. She was on her way back from school. A car hit her.’

  It occurred to me that he was talking in short, staccato-like sentences and I wondered whether it was his natural mode of speech. His diction was like gunfire. That’s what I was thinking of as he spoke. Gunfire. Soldiers on the Front. Lines of boys, English, German, French, Russian, side by side, shooting at everything that stood before them, taking each other’s lives without realizing their victims were young men just like them, whose return home was anxiously awaited by sleepless parents. The images floated through my mind. Violence. I focussed entirely on this. I didn’t want to listen to what he was saying. I didn’t want to hear the words that this man, this fellow who claimed he had been sent to get us, this boy who dared to suggest that he knew my daughter, was uttering. If I don’t listen, I thought, then it won’t have happened. If I don’t listen. If I think of something else entirely.