The Amber Rooms

by Ian Hocking

  А.

  л.

  л.

  а.

  Ego, she thought. Thank you.

  ‘Aliya,’ she said. Before she drew her next breath, the taps accelerated through a new sequence. The movement was as fast as a card sharp ruffling a deck. But Saskia understood as though the words had been whispered in her ear. ‘1st August, 1882. Rakitnoe.’

  The face of the Protection Department agent did not change. But the gendarmes seemed to feel that the tension had eased. One of them offered a bored look to the ceiling. Saskia followed his gaze to the vaulted darkness and heard the quiet but echoic conversation of the men around the terminal hallway. St Petersburg might have been a toy city, with Saskia and Pasha no more than miniatures trapped in its pretend streets, stalked by imaginary forces of a revolution that was itself the idle fiction of a spoiled child.

  They bowed to the frustrated Protection Department officer, and his gendarmes, and Saskia let Pasha lead her from Finland Station into the night. They joined a crowd heading north. Saskia sagged against him. As they walked, she tied a kerchief around her head.

  ‘Lenin is in Geneva,’ he whispered. ‘That is as much as I know.’

  ‘When can we leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. In the meantime, my family keeps rooms at the Grand. I’ll take you there and return for breakfast. Tonight, I have some business explaining my absence to my superiors at the Palace.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘Lidka will make the arrangements and tell everyone that I have taken to my bed with auras. You recall that I was incapacitated often as a child. No-one will doubt the story.’ He sighed. ‘I only hope I can return in time for the service.’

  ‘What about the inquest?’

  ‘There we are lucky. Our foremost investigating magistrate was an unsuccessful suitor to my sister. During their courtship, we became fast friends. If he is assigned the case, which all but certain, I will ask him to give me leave to collect evidence. I will tell him that it would be better for the family, and for Lidka, if I were to make some initial investigations.’

  ‘You have done excellently, Pasha.’ Saskia watched her feet. Her plum-coloured skirt seemed to wash over the pink pavement. ‘For my part, I’m so tired I can’t think straight. Are you sure you wish to help me?’

  ‘It is not revenge,’ he said, and the boyish haste in his voice made Saskia smile inwardly. ‘My father and I agreed on little. Reading his diary, I see we agreed on even less than that. I do not hold with these Marxist or anarchist ideas, and I consider it my duty to prevent these monies being spent on revolutionary activities. The sum is mentioned by my father in his diary: 250,000 roubles hidden in the base of the Frederick the Great model in the Amber Room, which is now missing. They have stolen a sum greater than the annual salary of the Tsar.’

  They continued in silence until someone in the dispersed crowd began a hearty recitation of Pushkin’s poem “Thoughts”. As though this was something he did not wish Saskia to hear, Pasha said, ‘How did you know my sister’s date of birth?’

  ‘A little bird told me.’

  ‘Well, thank goodness for little birds.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Saskia. ‘Thank goodness.’

  Ego fluttered against her chest, Morsing: You are welcome.

  The man reached the line in poem, “And where will fate send death to me? / In battle, in my travels, or on the seas?” before he faltered, and stopped with a laugh, accepting the backslaps of his companions with the modesty of the quietly victorious. Saskia nodded. As one of her last memories of St Petersburg, it would do well.

  ~

  Some hours later, wrapped in the luxury of the Grand, Saskia twisted in her bed. She could feel the silk sheets but also a breeze. She knew her eyes were shut but she could see the growing brightness of a shore and, beyond, a forest of birch. She could not move but her feet took her on a line parallel to the wood. Its interior was impenetrable. In this dream, despite its lucid nature, she could not command her vision to improve.

  Here I am again, she thought. Saskia Beta can communicate with Ute, too. Even the way the bark peels on the birch trees is the same. But no sparrows, this time.

  Saskia came across a girl building a sand castle. The girl was no more than twelve years and dressed for the beach: a black swimsuit with baggy blue shorts on top. She had a yellow, plastic spade and ignored Saskia as she put the last touches to the sand castle. It was a moated hummock with crude crenellations around the peak. Saskia smiled as she watched. The girl was recognisable as herself—that is, the body she saw in mirrors—and this scene had the pleasing nostalgia of a memory. They might have been on one of the islands to the north of Germany.

  ‘I like your castle, little heart,’ said Saskia.

  Ute looked up. The concentration on her face lingered for a moment. Then the inevitable fear swept across her. She jumped onto the castle and balanced on it, holding the spade like a sword.

  ‘You can’t get me here.’

  ‘I don’t want to get you,’ Saskia replied. She raised her palms.

  ‘No,’ said Ute. She screwed her eyes shut. ‘No spells.’

  Saskia frowned and looked at her hands. From her own perspective, they were identical to the hands she saw while awake, if a trifle pale and with longer nails.

  ‘What do you see, little heart?’

  Ute did not open her eyes. Wobbling, she said, ‘What I always see. A witch. Except …’

  Saskia spoke with a quiet voice. ‘Except?’

  ‘Today, you don’t have your awful cat.’

  ‘Which cat?’

  Ute opened one eye. ‘Ego, you call him. Sometimes he sits on top of your moving house and says unpleasant things to me.’ She opened both eyes. ‘Where is your house?’

  ‘Tell me about my house.’

  Ute lowered the spade and cocked her head at Saskia. She was the picture of suspicion. ‘Why should I need to? It’s your house. And an ugly house to boot.’

  ‘Ute, I want you to listen to me,’ said Saskia. She tried to invest as much kindness and beauty in her voice as she could. ‘Today, I’m different. The person who sometimes visits you looking like me … that person is gone.’

  The girl dropped to a crouch. She hugged her knees. ‘Is this a trick? Are you going to hurt me again?’

  ‘No, little heart.’

  Ute seemed to consider this. ‘I understand that some things can look the same on top but be different underneath. I’m not stupid.’

  Saskia smiled. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Your house has chicken legs and walks behind you. Some nights I hear it walking through the forest of birch.’

  Baba Yaga, Saskia thought. The witch of Slavic and German mythology.

  ‘How long have you been building that sand castle?’

  Ute shrugged and looked away to the horizon. There was weariness beyond twelve years. ‘It seems like forever.’

  ‘I like to pass the time with stories,’ Saskia said, sitting down cross-legged. ‘Why don’t you tell me one?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Ute said in a despondent tone. ‘I don’t know anything. I couldn’t tell you what’s in the forest or in the sea. Sometimes, I feel like this is the first time I’ve been here. But, other times, it seems like—’

  ‘Forever.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Saskia let a moment pass by. They looked at the waves. She was certain they would never retreat or encroach. This shore was tideless. The castle was safe.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about your dreams?’

  ‘They’re boring. They’re always the same.’

  ‘The same how?’

  ‘I always dream I’m the same person,’ said Ute, clenching and unclenching her toes in the sand. ‘In the dreams, I’m sad.’

  Saskia felt a sparkle of grief in her throat. She tried to swallow it down but soon her breaths were juddering. Tears collected in her eyes. She looked at Ute and opened her arms. The girl hesitated, but curiosity see
med to beat fear. She stepped from her castle and sat in Saskia’s lap so that they both faced the sea. Saskia put her arms around her.

  ‘I need to look at the sea,’ said Ute. ‘It’s easier than looking at you.’

  Saskia coughed. Then she said, ‘I understand.’

  ‘So you’re different on the inside but not on the outside?’

  ‘Yes. Tell me about Saskia.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your dreams, little heart. Who do you play in your dreams?’

  ‘I’m a spy, I think, or something like that. I do dangerous things for them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Meta.’

  Saskia frowned at the word. ‘Meta?’

  ‘Meta,’ said Ute. ‘M. E. T. A. They want me to travel in time and I do. I have a helper who whispers in my ear.’ Ute laughed. ‘And I can speak to foreigners! And I climb things, jump over things, and …’

  Saskia loosened her hug. When she turned to look at Ute’s face, she saw shock.

  ‘And what, little heart?’

  ‘Kill people,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not a nice person. Please, whoever you are, I don’t want to talk about my dreams any more. How long can you stay?’

  Saskia dropped her chin to Ute’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

  ‘Until the tide washes us away, little heart.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Saskia had never believed she would leave St Petersburg in so archaic a device as a steam locomotive. She had longed for the Amber Room to be her rescue. Yet here she sat, at a private table in one of the more comfortable cars, watching the retreat of the busy platform while Pasha handled the last of their arrangements. She wore a genuine Countess Ludmilla Nakhimov dress, which was a gift made at the insistence of Pasha’s sister. The layered honey silks made a cumbersome ensemble. The hat was a particular burden. The skirt was also a trifle short. She had, however, moved with some satisfaction through the Petersburgers and tourists in the baroque foyer of the Grand, regal as a swan at dusk.

  Saskia withdrew a book from her handbag and slit open its first ternion with a knife. She checked the carriage. It was furnished as three drawing rooms laid end-to-end. Paper screens separated her ‘room’ from those front and rear. She sat in a red velvet winged chair near the window. The remaining seats—two chairs and a sofa—were unoccupied. Hidden from view, she heard the polite conversation of new acquaintances behind the aft screen. There was no-one behind the fore screen. Her eyes moved down to her book—imperatives on the comportment of a lady in a series of dining scenarios ranked by number of guests—and she meditated on the ingredients of explosive charges. That might be the fastest way to destroy the money. A second part of her mind considered appropriate places along their route to Geneva for jumping from the train.

  ‘Ego,’ she whispered, as though noting an important directive on doily configuration, ‘I have become acquainted with Ute. She told me everything.’

  Ego vibrated to say, I doubt that.

  ‘It’s true. I know all about the meta.’

  For a moment, Ego did not move. Then he said, And yet you’re not aware that Meta never takes a determiner.

  Saskia turned a page and looked at a diagram of a dinner table. Its arrows indicated the preferred distribution of conversation between guests.

  ‘You helped me when I needed to tell Berezovsky Ludmilla’s middle name.’

  It was difficult to do nothing as you risked arrest.

  ‘I was doing fine,’ Saskia said, raising her voice. She settled herself and whispered, ‘Ego, I will need your help soon.’

  You will receive it only in exceptionally disastrous situations.

  Saskia looked out the window at a wood. ‘I enjoy our conversations.’

  Really? That surprises me.

  Saskia remained in the lounge carriage for another hour. Then she went to join Pasha in their private compartment. Two large windows gave the room plenty of light. There was a sofa, two chairs and a table. Pasha was reading a month-old Swiss newspaper on the sofa. He wore a charcoal suit with a bow-tie and a winged collar. His frock coat hung near the door to the washroom.

  ‘I’ve just thought of an English expression,’ said Pasha, standing up. His smile was undermined by his tired, vacant eyes. The absence of his moustache made him look too young for the task in hand. ‘“The die is cast.”’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Saskia. She was about to sit down when there was a knock at the door. She exchanged a glance with Pasha.

  ‘Come,’ he said.

  The door opened and a steward entered. He was a young Swiss of about fifteen years. He looked at the ceiling when he introduced himself and gave them a quite unnecessary tour of the compartment. He seemed particularly proud of the electrical lights. His gloved hands flicked every switch. When he had explained the schedule of the journey to Switzerland, including stops, he left with their lunch order.

  They planned to take meals in the compartment. Despite having shaved his moustache, Pasha did not want to risk identification in a chance encounter with a friend or family acquaintance, the circles of St Petersburg society being so small. The acquaintance might know about the death of his father and ask how he came to be travelling abroad when, as first son, his duty was to his household. At the least, those who knew him as an Imperial Guard would be perplexed by his civilian clothes.

  ‘Can we trust our new Swiss friend, Beat?’ asked Pasha.

  ‘I think so,’ said Saskia. She reached for one of the lilies on the table and brought it to her nose. ‘Still, it couldn’t hurt to imply that we are willing to pay him well for a certain privacy. Hints about an illicit affair should do it.’ She looked at Pasha over the flower. ‘Perhaps he should discover us in an embrace.’

  ‘It is a curious thing,’ he said, somewhat loudly. ‘That …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please excuse me.’

  ‘No, go on.’

  ‘It is a curious thing that my sister’s dress suits you so well.’

  Saskia looked at the darkening forest beyond the window. ‘It’s too short,’ she said.

  ‘The colours are fine.’

  ‘That they are.’

  He swallowed. ‘What do you see in the forest?’

  ‘Little of note. But it reminds me of a book.’

  ‘Which book?’

  Saskia had been recalling the scene, word by perfect word, in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina where Count Vronsky’s racehorse dies beneath him. But because this did not seem appropriate, she said, ‘It is A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘The story is set some years from now.’

  ‘Ah, a scientific romance, like the books of Jules Verne.’

  Saskia smiled and sat down on one of the chairs before the window. Pasha returned to the sofa.

  ‘Scientific romance,’ she said, pondering the phrase.

  One hour of silence followed.

  Then Pasha said, ‘Our lunch will soon arrive.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Ms Tucholsky?’

  ‘Yes, Pasha?’

  ‘Do you think that the two men who killed my father are on this train?’

  ‘No. Their priority was to leave the city.’

  ‘Do you really intend to kill these men?’

  ‘Yes. I mean to erase them utterly. To make up for my past wrongs, and theirs.’ She looked down at the hem of her skirt, which ebbed and receded across her shoes as the carriage rocked. ‘Does this worry you?’

  A curtain of rain crossed the window. Saskia stood up in the murky compartment. Pasha turned on his reading light. Saskia’s dress, some inches too short, scintillated like fool’s gold. An Allegory of the Future indeed. She looked at Pasha. His upper lip was reddish. His eyes were unfocused, staring through the rain. If he heard stories in his head, she could not tell which.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am a soldier.’

  Pasha left the compartment.

 
; Saskia considered searching his belongings for the diary. Instead, she turned to the window and watched the weeping diagonals of rain.

  She could still see the hatted shadow of Papashvily in the window of her attic apartment. She thought once more of her flight in the taxi and her arrival at the Count’s villa, empty but for the butler, Mr Jenner. How had that moment played for Saskia Beta? Without the i-Core, she must have defeated the Georgian hitmen without recourse to the strange infection that had allowed Saskia to control the actions of the dogs. That experience still sickened her. In one moment, the dog had locked its teeth around her forearm; in the next, she was seeing herself through its eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Before dawn on the fifth and last day of their journey, when the train was quiet and still rolling at its slower night speed, Saskia Maria Brandt wrote her message to Pasha on the reverse of the previous day’s weather report, placed it on the table beneath the window, and weighted it with a silver spoon. Two hours remained until the train reached Geneva. Soon, the steward would enter with breakfast. Saskia stood in the darkness, fully clothed, one shadow among many. She wanted to kiss Pasha goodbye, but the touch might wake him. She wanted to wake him as she had once woken Yusha, her lover, those months ago in Zurich. No doubt a version of her, and a version of him, were somewhere one. Saskia Omega and Pasha Omega. Her mind coasted. In the event, she watched him for ten, final minutes, then opened the door to the corridor, stepped out, and closed it behind her. She put the bridge of her nose to the door and sighed. She had no tears left.

  The note had read:

  Return to your sister. Be a good man among bad. I will finish it. Thanks for the dress & everything.

  Your friend.

  Saskia reached the end of the first class corridor and checked the open vestibule. It was empty. She stepped out into the cold. The air carried steam and smoke. Saskia looked to windward. As the train rounded a bend, she saw the furious coupling rods of the locomotive. Then the train straightened. She closed the button of her collar, tightened the straps on her canvas rucksack, and jumped.

  ~

  When she had been walking uphill for six hours, and as she was passing a berry into her mouth, Saskia looked down at the plate of Lake Geneva. She turned to follow the sound that she had been tracking for the last two kilometres. She walked higher, through the pines and towards the quiet, steady peal of cowbells. The animals were seven in number. She smiled at their incurious eyes. Beyond them, there was a boy in a black blazer and canvas trousers. Twelve years old, no more. He was leaning against his hookless staff and reading a leather-bound book. Saskia was twenty metres away and approaching when a flash of sky reflected on its embossed cover: Imago. Clever boy.