The Amber Rooms

by Ian Hocking

‘What do you think?’

  Kamo held her stare for a long moment. Then he released her hand and turned to the menu. ‘To whom does one give one’s trust? That is the question of today, and every day.’

  To whom.

  That word, Кому, was the pronoun he could not correctly modify as a child. Kamo. Like camouflage, she thought, drinking him in. With it, an identity. Brigandage, murder and high talk. Those skirted coats. Laughter and piracy. Princes without money. Dust. Milk.

  ‘But, of course,’ said Kamo, ‘I believe you. That is faith, after all, and faith cannot be the preserve of the zealot.’

  Saskia touched the band at her left elbow, one constant companion among so many. The train passed into a tunnel and a red gloom came to the carriage. The imperfect light of dusty bulbs could not match the sun.

  Russia was there. It waited to open up and to drink her in.

  Kamo leaned forward in the murk. His good eye wavered as though it had lost track of her. Criminal; master of disguise; bore. Par for the revolutionary course.

  She raised her eyebrows and drank more of the wine.

  Chapter Nine

  After many countries and many trains, Saskia and Kamo were passing through the last of the taiga south of St Petersburg. Low sunlight flashed. Late Russian spring: water everywhere, the chill at ebb. Saskia stood at the window of her compartment and leaned against the slowing of the carriage. The hood of the station roof was grey-black through the dripping window. Saskia was in no hurry. She watched the platform fill with people. She noted that the speed of an individual was correlated to his or her class. The moneyed were slow; the poor like oil, greasing them.

  Kamo looked at her from his bed. He was awake. A clicking in his throat suggested that he was choking, so Saskia rolled him onto his front and tipped his head. He coughed. One eye turned to her. Its pupil was a bloodspot in an egg.

  ‘I once knew another Simon,’ she said. She paused. There was a sense of repetition. Had she said this before, in a dream? ‘He was not real. Are you real?’

  Moving with the air of an artist adjusting her work, she unbuttoned his jacket and shirt. She took some port from a cabinet and wetted his beard and throat. Then she poured his half-drunk, poisoned wine onto the centre of the floor, in case a servant was tempted by it. She put the bottle on the floor.

  Let ten seconds pass. Do not appear to flee.

  ‘Bitter, is it not? The fungus is called the Destroying Angel.’

  He could not speak, or would not.

  ‘You thought I needed you. I don’t.’

  A train whistle, short, echoed through the station and spoke of other journeys. Saskia left the compartment. But at the steps, she paused, then returned to Kamo.

  ‘You saved my life,’ she whispered. ‘So the poison is not mortal. You will recover with no ill effects. I said it was the Destroying Angel, but that was a lie to finesse the trick.’

  Kamo growled.

  ‘My dear?’ she asked.

  He was unconscious. Resting at last.

  ~

  Travellers came to Nicholaevsky Station from Central and South Russia, from Siberia, Eastern Ukraine, and the Crimea. Chains hung from its high arches like funeral crepe. There was something opera about this place. A dwarf approached Saskia with a tray of tea and chocolate. She shook her head. Corinthian, too: the columns. The dwarf raised his hat and continued along the platform. Behind her, a train whistle blew a minor chord. Old women bent like ships under full sail. Gents placed the points of their umbrellas as they walked. Others wore scuffed, tilted hats in great variety. A man must have a hat. A child dashed a zigzag, powered by flippers of torn newspaper. The wealthier children wore knickerbockers and cloth caps: English, but the cuts suggested Russian interpretation. Waxed whiskers. Gypsies selling honey and flowers. An old man, holding his bleeding nose, looking for a culprit. A younger man, offering the flat of his hand to the air, frowning at the ceiling.

  Saskia was a quiet island. She sighed. The expansion strained at her corset.

  A woman screamed. Saskia turned. The woman was spinning a boy in her arms, delighting in his weight, while an embarrassed father looked at both of them with a pleasure that made Saskia hurt. Her pain disappeared when she heard something almost below the threshold of her hearing.

  Is.

  It.

  Her.

  The head of the platform was intermittently obscured by steam. Something inside Saskia isolated a frequency band near the microwave spectrum and showed her what was beyond the steam: two men. One appeared to be looking at her, when he could only be looking at the steam. His expression was anxious. He was either a secret policeman, which made her a suspect for the attack on Draganov, or from the Party, which made her a traitor. Either way, she had to lose him directly.

  Saskia beckoned to an attendant. He was an old fellow, stooped and with bad hips. She asked him to send her two hand-cases ahead to a hotel on the English Quay, which was some miles east. The man had a capable air. Saskia was glad of it. With luck, resources from her surveillance team would be diverted to the luggage. As for that, she did not expect to see it again, and did not care.

  The attendant lifted each of her cases and began to walk along the platform. Saskia maintained a position three metres behind him. Her right hand and left wrist were covered by her muffler. She breathed steadily and prepared herself to administer a short, vicious attack. They passed through the wall of steam. If the waiting gentlemen were surprised, their training belied this. They communicated their confusion with a single look. Neither reached for her. Indeed, the four of them parted to let her through. Saskia lifted her head and gazed imperiously from left to right. In that instant, she made a catalogue of their every detail. One of them wore a green ex-army greatcoat, which was so obvious as apparel for Security Section employees that revolutionaries often called them ‘Green coats’.

  The attendant turned left. Saskia turned right. The attendant had not seen her manoeuvre. He continued his wobbly gait into the crowd. Saskia mixed with the people on the concourse. It was heavy with foot traffic. Saskia walked randomly, as though looking for a friend. She observed the crowd in boutique windows, in unlit lamps, and patches of the floor made glassy by passing feet. From these observations, she identified three further Security Section agents: a young woman selling roses; a gentleman in a top hat carrying the Petersburg Gazette; a second man, dressed as a clerk. They formed a triangle that was pure Security Section. There was no sign of the two men who had watched her from the head of the platform.

  Saskia emerged onto Snamensk Platz. She narrowed her eyes in the smog, which was curiously bright at this time of day, and looked through the traffic of omnibuses and horse-drawn carriages to a poster box on the far side of the square. She walked towards it. Her steps were swift and she passed through the intersecting vehicles and cyclists with the confidence of a full-blooded Petersburger. When she had reached the poster box, she pretended to inspect a flyer for a student performance of Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, but instead watched the reflections of the Security Section agents in the windows of a jewellery shop on the corner of Ligowskaja.

  They were conferring.

  Saskia turned and walked towards the Kalashnikov Quay trolley car, which was approaching from the direction of the Admiralty. One glance confirmed that Gentleman and Clerk were following her. Saskia accepted the helping hand of an elderly gentleman at the rear of the tram. She thanked him and moved along the aisle. Through the smoked windows she saw Gentleman and Clerk separate. While Gentleman alighted the trolley car, Clerk jogged on towards the Alexander Theatre, where Saskia knew there to be a public telephone. These agents would know the location of all the public telephones in St Petersburg. Soon, he would spread the news of Saskia’s route to his confederates.

  Saskia confirmed this ten minutes later when two more agents joined the trolley car on Konnaya Street while Gentleman stepped down. Both new agents were young men and costumed as students. They di
d not so much as glance in her direction, and this made them unusual among the male passengers in the car. For Saskia, this, together with the departure of Gentleman, marked them as the Tsar’s Own. The specimen on the left was built like a boxer; his colleague had a naturally sleepy expression. She lowered her chin and thought hard about their conversation. The sounds of the trolley car muted and their words became clear.

  ‘Who?’ said the one. ‘You mean Brockhaus? You overestimate her.’

  ‘He’s waiting, isn’t he?’ said the other. ‘She must be important, despite her sex.’

  Saskia made a deliberate quarter turn and looked at the man, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘Oh, that face! I will marry her.’

  ‘She’s a bloody Bolshevik, Dmitri.’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect.’

  Saskia stepped from the trolley car one stop before the quay. She was not surprised to see Brute Force and Ignorance leaving with her. There was a line of market stalls. Saskia moved towards them. Behind her, and beyond her followers, a trio of soldiers was approaching on horseback. Ahead, a class of schoolboys were laughing and pushing their way towards her. The schoolboys would intersect the soldiers near a fishmonger’s stall. Saskia walked between the barrels that marked the edges of the plot and asked the fishmonger for three tails of monkfish.

  The fishmonger had one arm. He stacked the fish. He squinted against the smoke of his clay pipe and waved at a short woman behind him. She placed the fish on a scale. Saskia watched her every motion. She felt the nearness of Brute Force as though he were a draught.

  The soldiers were close, too. She looked again at her memory of them. They were Chevalier Guards, and probably heading towards their barracks near the Alexander Bridge. These three were cuirassiers. They wore black boots, white britches and piped-red breastplates that shone.

  And the schoolchildren. All boaters and garters.

  Saskia paid for the monkfish and placed the package within her muff. The fishmonger’s wife blinked at this oddity, but said nothing and dug into her apron for the change. Saskia backed away with a perfunctory, ‘The rest is for tea,’ before the wife could give her the money. Saskia turned, stumbling as she did, and fell against the horse of the first Chevalier. In the moment, her left wrist slid from her muffler and gave the horse a sharp blow across its nostril.

  The horse was not flighty; it recoiled with some grace. But its crossed sidesteps crushed the thigh of its rider against his colleague, who was immediately to his right, and the second man reacted with surprise. He wheeled his horse in a circle. Its shoulder struck Brute Force and pushed him into the crowd of schoolboys, who feigned outrage at the imposition, swatting him with their boaters. A boy shouted, ‘What’s all this! What’s all this!’ and his companions laughed.

  Saskia replaced her wrist in the muff and met the eyes of the first rider. The bronze peak of his helmet made his stare imposing, but he asked mildly, ‘Are you injured, madam?’

  Saskia smiled. Then, seeing that Brute Force had lost sight of her, she crossed the street, broke into a jog, and leapt onto the back-plate of the trolley car heading west, towards the Nikolaev Station, on the Nevsky Avenue. She saw a family of gypsies walking slowly behind a cart and shouted, ‘Hey, little paw!’ When the young girl looked up, Saskia tossed her the bundle of fish. She caught it with a delighted clap. Saskia shared a laugh with the receding face and turned back to the trolley car. Ignorance was sitting nearby, his legs crossed at the knee, and a copy of the St Petersburg gazette under one arm. He was applauding her silently.

  Saskia scowled. She sat alongside him.

  ‘These trams are electric now,’ she said. ‘We can talk.’

  ‘What shall we talk about?’

  He was immaculately shaved, but his nose had once been frostbitten, and there were inky dots of gunpowder embedded in his cheek. He was no older than twenty five.

  ‘That’s the irony. I have nothing to say. It does not bode well for any marriage, Dmitri.’

  Ignorance lost his colour. He opened his mouth to speak. He said nothing. When the bell rang, Saskia said, not unkindly, ‘Nice try. If you do not mind, I will not applaud.’

  She stepped from the trolley car. The man rose to follow her but he could not. His hand would not move from the metal armrest. He tugged once, twice, then examined the handcuffs as though baffled by their existence. He looked at the empty tube of his gazette, where they had been stored moments ago, and looked at Saskia. His expression of bewilderment did not change as the trolley car pulled away towards the admiralty.

  Saskia took a breath and looked around. The smog was lifting.

  Chapter Ten

  In due course, Saskia presented herself at a fine two-storey building on the Moika Canal. Its exterior was remarkable even among these grand residencies. The Imperial flag stood at full mast against the clouds, which rolled overhead like the cracked floes of the Neva. Below it was a second flag: Tsar Ivan’s double-headed eagle. A flight of marble steps lined with statues led to the entrance.

  She did not wait long for the footman to hurry down to the steps. He wore scarlet trousers, a gold-embroidered jacket, and a white turban. The costume echoed that of the Tsar’s Abyssinian guards.

  ‘I am Ms Tucholsky,’ she said with studied aloofness. She passed him a letter of introduction from her warmer. ‘I would be honoured to wait upon the Countess.’

  ~

  Saskia sat with a straight back, her knees bent and her ankles crossed. She held her wrist inside the warmer. She was in a library on the second floor of the building. In reaching it, she had passed through chambers and halls that marked every caprice of Petersburg architectural fashion. In one drawing room, she had counted forty paintings of the eighteenth century French School. Another held glass cabinets of porcelain. As for rooms, there could not be fewer than fifty. Most were arranged enfilade, without hallways. Saskia liked to know her spaces, particularly confined ones. The library room, unconfined by any standard, overlooked the Moika. It had the air of a museum gallery and the collections to match.

  She let her eyes move over the library’s grey, monochrome ceiling to the emerald-green wall hangings and birch panels. She was seated at the first of three distinct arrangements of chairs. A fire had been lit for her. Saskia took a deep breath and held it. Pine. She needed to see the Count directly. The pretence of her employment here—as a tutor for the Count’s sickly child, Pavel—was a constant discomfort. With luck, she would be on her way before any real test of her prowess as a tutor could be made.

  The eastern door was opened and Countess Charlotte Nakhimov entered. Saskia stood.

  The Countess was no older than thirty-five. She wore a décolleté gown of cyan velvet. Her eyebrows were plucked to hawkish lines. Her smile, however, was warm enough, and she held Saskia’s hand a breath longer than etiquette required following their brief meeting of cheeks. The Countess did not appear to notice that Saskia kept her left hand in the warmer.

  ‘May I speak French?’ asked the Countess.

  ‘Of course, Countess.’

  ‘Please,’ she said, settling on the chair opposite. Her laugh was false but artfully delivered. ‘You must call me Charlotte.’

  Saskia sat on the edge of a cushioned sofa. Her back was quite straight. ‘And you must call me Mirra.’

  The two women sat without speaking for a moment. Charlotte did not move her eyes from Saskia, who felt that—to use the phrase of a Georgian bandit of her acquaintance—there was enough ambiguity to be unambiguous. Saskia tipped her head a fraction. The gesture invited the Countess to speak with candour.

  ‘The truth is,’ she said, turning to the sunlit windows, ‘you are rather more beautiful than I had wished.’

  Saskia felt relieved. The introduction of another woman into the family unit would explain the Countess’s unease. Saskia had been worried that the Countess suspected her for a revolutionary. She leaned across the table and took her hand.

  ‘Let me be indelicate,’ she said. ‘I’m
used to it.’ She weighed the Countess’s expression. ‘My love and I are separated by an ocean greater than all the Russias. “Never to let this lose me grace / But rather bring you back to me—”’

  ‘“Amongst all mortal women the one / I most wish to see,”’ Charlotte said. Her eyes had reddened with tears.

  A look passed between the women. It was understanding, or its approximation. Saskia felt the ghost hand of her former mentor on her shoulder, and could imagine the Caucasian congratulating her on this flourish.

  ‘You are the perfect guest,’ Charlotte replied. ‘And I am failing as a hostess. Would you like tea?’

  Saskia’s reply was interrupted by the appearance of no fewer than three manservants. These were costumed in an English Georgian style. Saskia watched them approach along the central carpet. They wore slippers and walked in step. The tea they presented was English in style: ornate tea pots, a selection of scones, jams, fruitcake, and iced buns. They assembled this into an ornate mountain and departed the room as one.

  ‘I apologise for their clumsiness,’ said Charlotte. ‘We’re holding a ball tonight. My best people are scattered about the city.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  The Countess poured Saskia’s tea. ‘The Count will have told you that Pavel Eduardovitch has troubled several of his previous tutors. He has troubled them to the extent that they have left our service.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘He does, however, have an interest in mathematics and wishes to enter the Imperial University. He is a special case and must pass an interview in three days’ time.’

  Saskia sipped her tea. Despite her preoccupations, Pavel Eduardovitch was beginning to interest her.

  ‘I admire the piano. Does your son play?’

  ‘It was a gift from my father to my daughter, Ludmilla. She died before it was delivered. It is never played.’ The Countess turned. ‘Here is my son.’

  Pavel Eduardovitch opened the door himself. He wore a grey frock coat with embroidered lapels, and white broadcloth trousers. His collar-length hair was swept back. He approached the two ladies but did not sit down. Neither did he look at Saskia or his mother. His eyes were drawn to the windows. Saskia did not judge his indifference to be affected. She knew him to be seventeen years old, but he might have passed for fifteen.