The October Cabaret

by Nancy Buckingham

  As a violet dusk drew on towards darkness, the glory of Prague’s architecture was heightened by the clever use of floodlights. We ended up at a cellar restaurant, where they served us a solidly excellent meal that I found the appetite to enjoy... roast goose flavoured with caraway, with dumplings and sauerkraut. Two fiddlers and a man with an instrument like bagpipes played peasant tunes—sometimes gay and lively, often melancholy. I drank rather too much of the red Frankova wine.

  “I like it here,” I confided to Peter. “That music really gets you, doesn’t it?”

  “The Czechs have music in their souls. I heard an old legend once that in Bohemia a newborn child would have a silver spoon laid by one hand and a fiddle by the other. If he reached for the spoon he’d turn out bad—either a rich man or a thief. But the fiddle foretold yet another musician, and everyone rejoiced.”

  “If only life could be that simple,” I sighed.

  We had been planning to walk back by way of the Vltava’s embankments to see the lights of the city across the river. But we found it was raining when we left the restaurant and had to abandon the idea. Taxis seem nonexistent, but we boarded a crowded tram, and this dropped us not far from the hotel.

  The heady effect of the wine was wearing thin, and as the gilt birdcage carried us up to our rooms the evening’s carefree mood deserted me. The interlude was over; tomorrow we faced reality. My fears came back to me in a rush and I felt a hard knot of panic in my stomach.

  Sensing my change of mood, Peter put his hands on my shoulders and drew me to him. The elevator juddered to a halt, but he made no move to draw back the gates. Slowly he began to kiss me—my hair, my cheek, my lips. I let myself respond, but my heart wasn’t in it. I drew back abruptly.

  “No, Peter. Please don’t.”

  “But I thought...”

  “No.”

  Regretfully, he let me go, and we stepped out to the corridor.

  “Perhaps you’re right, Tess. This is the wrong place, the wrong time.”

  I knew that the place would never be right, not the time. Not with Peter, because he wasn’t Ben. But how could I tell him that? When we reached my room I unlocked the door and slipped inside, alone.

  “See you in the morning,” I said.

  * * * *

  Flurries of rain still spattered against my windowpane when I woke, and the tips of the cathedral’s gothic spires were veiled in cloud. Peter and I breakfasted in the vast dining room under a ceiling full of sculpted cupids. It might have been the salon of some princely palace. I ignored the crisp rolls and cherry jam, but drank three cups of hot strong coffee.

  “We’ll visit the castle first,” said Peter. “Best to keep up the tourist act.”

  We donned rainwear and emerged into the grey morning streets. We walked a bit, took a bus, then walked some more, ending up at the vast conglomerate of squares and courtyards and buildings of every conceivable architectural style known as Hradcany—seat of the Czech kings (until there were no longer Czech kings) from the ninth century. As we wandered about aimlessly, hearing a cosmopolitan babble of tongues on all sides, Peter became withdrawn. His growing tension seeped through to me, adding disturbingly to my own.

  We stood for a few minutes at a spot on the castle ramparts, which gave us a breathtaking panorama of Prague. The sky seemed to be clearing, and through a break in the clouds came a pale searchlight of sun. It went flitting across the sea of red rooftops, the squat green domes had slender spires, and struck a silver sparkle from the waters of the Vltava that curved at the foot of the hill.

  Peter said with sudden purpose, “Well go now.”

  “Are you still not going to tell me who we’re going to see?” I said, not hiding my impatience.

  “You’ll soon find out.”

  Resigned, I fell in beside him and we zigzagged down from the castle by way of an endless series of steps. This ancient footway took us between enchanting little terraced gardens and high buttressed walls that were overhung with trees and creepers, the tawny stonework and the myriad shades of green brought suddenly to glowing life by the fitfully probing sun. Tourists were thick here, too, cameras at the ready to capture each new delight. But as we went on down, reaching twisting streets of crumbling houses, we left the crowds behind.

  Peter halted at the arched entrance of a tall, narrow building, and glanced casually around to see if we were being observed. He tugged the old-fashioned bell handle shaped like a sword hilt, and from somewhere deep inside I heard a muffled clanking.

  “I hope to God he’s at home, after all this,” Peter muttered, his mouth set hard. “He might even be away, I suppose.”

  “What’s his name? At least tell me that.”

  “Ludvik Kolder,” Peter said reluctantly.

  A man on a bicycle wobbled past on the irregular cobblestones, giving us a curious, suspicious glance from beneath his cap peak. A gust of wind whipped some yellowing leaves from a cherry tree and skittered them along the street.

  Without warning the heavy door was drawn open by a short, lumpish, ill-knit man who wore spectacles of such thickness that his eyes looked pale and grotesquely swollen. With his other hand he was leaning on a rough-hewn walking stick, and clearly he needed the support. Recognising Peter, he stared in a way that conveyed both astonishment and apprehension.

  “Guten Abend, Pan Kolder,” Peter began, and then I lost track of his German.

  The Czech was recovering from his surprise, but I didn’t at all like the look of dark suspicion he threw at me from behind those distorting lenses. After a question or two he moved aside for us to enter, then hastily shut the door as if he didn’t care for too much exposure to the outside world.

  He led the way, limping heavily, along a stone-flagged corridor that felt chilly and smelt of damp. The only light came from a window grille above the front door. We had to descend three steps to a small room that was so overcrowded with old-fashioned furniture and knickknacks it reminded me of my shop back in the Brighton Lanes. A narrow window with yellowing lace curtains offered a gloomy outlook onto some kind of canal. The man gestured us brusquely towards the chairs set round a table draped with a fringed chenille cloth, a vase of plastic roses making a dusty centrepiece.

  As we sat down, Peter said to me, “Mr. Kolder doesn’t speak any English, and I don’t speak Czech. So we have to communicate in German.”

  “‘I’d already gathered that.”

  I listened as they talked, vainly trying to follow what was being said. But I only recognized a few German words and by the time I’d recalled their meaning, I’d been left several sentences behind. Peter spoke in sparing phrases, his voice clipped and urgent. Ludvik Kolder had great command of German and spoke volubly, excitably, and sometimes overpoweringly. At one point he raised his stick and smacked it down across the table, so that I jumped half out of my chair and the plastic roses were set shivering.

  “What’s happening, Peter?” I demanded. “What’s making him so angry?”

  “It’s not us he’s angry with. Just leave it to me to sort out, Tess, I know what I’m doing.”

  Yet Peter was evidently finding it difficult to believe whatever the Czech was telling him, and Kolder’s temper rapidly degenerated to real fury. Finally, he levered himself to his feet and went swaying to the door, thrusting down on the stick against the weakness of his crippled leg.

  “Kommen Sie mit, Mister Kemp,” he shouted. “Ich sage, Kommen Sie mit!”

  It was the first complete remark I’d grasped. Not that I needed to translate it, his imperative gesture was message enough. Peter and I stood up and followed him out of the room.

  “Who is he?” I muttered. “How on earth do you come to know him?”

  Peter silenced me with a hand on my arm. We were led down a stone staircase that spiralled to a basement corridor. A naked bulb from the low arched ceiling lit our way, and the air was lifeless and stale. Kolder halted at a door of stout planks and took a key from his trouser pocket, inserting it in the
lock. Throwing the door open, he reached in to switch on the light, then waved us inside with an arrogantly triumphant gesture.

  The room was quite small and its whitewashed brick walls were lined with wide shelves. And then ... I could hardly believe my eyes as I took in what rested upon those shelves. The most magnificent porcelain, dozens of different pieces, clean and shining in their flawless beauty. Deep rose-pink and gold, embellished with miniature pastoral scenes in the oval reserve panels ... the priceless, legendary Romanov Cabarets. I caught my breath, caught it again until I was scarcely breathing at all. Then I glanced round at Peter and found him watching me. Watching my reaction.

  “What ... what’s it all about?” I stammered in a whisper, the power of my voice quite gone. “This can’t be true.”

  “You’re not dreaming, Tess. It’s true enough.”

  But I was still unconvinced. As the two men started talking again, Kolder’s tone harsh and argumentative, I went forward with nervous, jerky movements as if I were too large and clumsy to be let loose in such a treasurehouse. Slowly, timidly, I reached my hand forward and touched the bowl of a cream jug, traced the curving line of a teapot spout with my fingertip, ran it across the smooth surface of a tray.

  Though the pieces were not assembled in their sets, I judged there must be half of the total collection here, half of the dozen breakfast sets that Madame de Pompadour had commissioned from her Sèvresfactory as a gift for Tsarina Elizabeth. How had this fabulous porcelain, missing since the days of the Russian Revolution, turned up in the cellar of a mean back street in Prague? Had it been here all these years, ever since that desperate flight across the Black Sea in a small, overladen fishing boat?

  I turned to look at Ludvik Kolder in swift assessment. He was old enough, perhaps, to have been a youth at the time. Had he... or maybe his father, been a servant in the Grand Duke’s household? But how could any single individual have acquired such a lion’s share, considering that the fleeing servants had divided up the booty between them before they dispersed into war-ravaged Europe? By cunning, or by force? And to what avail, if the porcelain could never be sold for fear of the consequences and had needed to be kept locked secretly away?

  My raging curiosity exploded. “Peter, you’ve got to tell me...” I was checked by the fearful expression on Ludvik Kolder’s face. The rigidity of his squat body suggested that he’d had some kind of stroke, and those bulbous eyes behind their thick lenses were maniacally distorted. He made a weirdly inhuman sound, a tortured sob of rage, then suddenly he lunged towards me, staggering and stumbling, his stick brandished above his head. I raised my arm to ward him off... but I was not his target. Blundering past me, swaying wildly, he clutched for support at the wooden shelving. Then in a single clumsy movement he raked his stick along the entire length of one shelf, so that the exquisite porcelain was toppled like so much rubbish before a broom until it all tumbled over the edge and went crashing to the concrete floor. Those few pieces that still retained a recognisable shape were attacked again with a vicious swipe of his stick, then another and another until only tiniest fragments were left.

  I was so shocked, so filled with horror, that I watched this outrage in numbed silence. But as Kolder turned to attack another shelf I flung myself at the man, screaming in protest. He jerked me off with brutish indifference and sent me reeling.

  “Peter,” I yelled. “Why don’t you stop him? For God’s sake!” But Peter made no move to check this frenzied onslaught. Instead, incredibly, after helping me to my feet he still held on to my arm and prevented me from interfering. In a fury, I struggled desperately to get away from him, and the sound of further mayhem gave me strength enough to break free. By now Kolder was reaching up to the highest shelf, intent on wreaking the same savage destruction, there. Shrieking at him, I fought to stop it, but cripple though he was, he seemed astonishingly strong in his madness, and he thrust me aside with little effort. As I reached out in yet another attempt to grab his walking stick, I spotted one of the smaller pieces of porcelain teetering on the very edge of the shelf. Just as it overbalanced I managed to throw myself forward and save it in a low catch before it hit the floor, and I cradled the precious object against my breast. In that fraction of a moment I recognised it for what it was ... the sugar box of the October Cabaret—lidless now, but unmistakable by the miniature autumnal paintings in the panels.

  How, in God’s name, did it come to be here, in Prague? The same sugar box that had been stolen from Gervaise three days ago? Could Peter be the link? But if so, why had he brought me to this house? And how, for pity’s sake, could Peter... how could any sane man stand aside and permit such wanton destruction?

  As these questions fleeted through my brain, I saw that Kolder hadn’t missed my rescue action. He made an angry lurch towards me and grabbed by arm, shaking it to make me let go. But I clung to the sugar box with passionate determination. Thwarted, the man lashed out at my hands with the knob of his stick, and I felt my treasure splinter within my fingers, felt sharp edges cut into my palms. I felt no pain, though. This dreadful act of vandalism had shocked me beyond any awareness of physical pain.

  I was scarcely aware, even, of Peter coming suddenly to life and shoving the Czech aside so that he fell heavily to the floor on his hands and knees.

  “Tess, darling, are you hurt? I never thought he’d go as crazy as this.”

  My hands were still clenched tight together, and gently Peter pulled them apart, opening the fingers one by one. Flakes of porcelain adhered to them, stained with my blood. He began to pick them away carefully, and in a daze I let him do it, past argument, while silent tears ran down my cheeks.

  Chapter Twenty

  While I wept those silent tears, the desolate, stomach-wrenching sound of Ludvik Kolder’s sobbing filled the room, magnified by the bare brick walls.

  Peter said insistently, “We’ve got to get out of here, Tess.”

  “How can we? We can’t just leave him here like this. Besides, there’s talking to be done.”

  “Not now, though. Later. It’s best for us to leave, Tess, honestly. Here, wrap my handkerchief round your hands for now, and I’ll clean them up properly back at the hotel. We’ll find a taxi.”

  Grabbing up my shoulderbag from the floor, he bundled me, pushed me, dragged me out of the house into the narrow cobbled street. I was still protesting, and Peter rapped, “Keep quiet, can’t you? The last thing we want is to attract attention.”

  Miraculously a taxi appeared from nowhere as we turned the corner, and somehow I managed to contain myself until we reached my room at the Hotel Zobor. Then I exploded at Peter in a burst of anger.

  “How could you stand by and let that man do a dreadful thing like that? You could have stopped him if you’d tried. What in heaven’s name is this all about, anyway? You’ll have to tell me everything now.”

  Instead of answering, Peter began to examine my cut and bruised hands, but I brushed him off impatiently. “Leave that.”

  “I can understand you being upset,” he said. “It must have been a traumatic experience to see Kolder go berserk among that porcelain. But it wasn’t what you thought. It wasn’t the Romanov Cabarets he smashed.”

  I felt so frustrated, so bitter, that I wanted to hit out at him.

  “Why tell such a stupid lie?” I raged. “I got a close look at that piece I had in my hands. It was the sugar box—the one from the October Cabaret. The one in those photographs.”

  “No, it was a copy. All of it, every single piece you saw at Kolder’s house, was a fake. He made the stuff himself.”

  For an instant that knocked the protest out of me. Then I exclaimed incredulously, “That’s just crazy, how could he have done it? I mean, one man all on his own ... is that what you’re asking me to believe?”

  “Tess, it’s true. Ludvik Kolder isn’t an ordinary man at all. He’s a nut case, I grant you, but he’s also a bloody genius ... a superb artist and craftsman. To him it was the challenge of a lifetime to re
create the fabulous Romanov Cabarets from what photographs and drawings exist of the originals.”

  “You knew all this?” I was desperately trying to sort out the tangle that clogged my brain. “You knew it all along, Peter?”

  “I guessed a lot... from what I’d known already, and from what you told me on Friday night. And Kolder confirmed it all this morning.”

  “So how about putting me in the picture?” A new thought darted at me and, without waiting to analyze it, I rushed on, “Those cabarets in England... Ruth Willoughby’s and her sister’s. Were they fakes, too?”

  “No, those were genuine. At least...” He considered a moment, then shook his head. “No, they must have been genuine, for any of it to make sense.”

  “How do you fit into all this?” I asked, still just as bewildered. “Tell me that, for a start.”

  It was as if, mentally, Peter backed away from me. “I can’t, Tess, not yet. Please trust me a little while longer.”

  “That’s all you keep saying,” I flashed at him furiously. “Why in God’s name should I trust you, when you’re being so ridiculously secretive?”

  “I wish I could make you understand ...”

  “How can I, for pity’s sake, when you won’t tell me anything. It makes me think that you must be up to your neck in this business yourself.”

  I watched him flinch and his face turned pale. “No, Tess, you’re wrong.”

  “Am I?”

  Peter met my accusing stare, and said unwillingly, “I admit that I’m involved in a way ... but only to a very limited extent. I never guessed what was really happening, you must believe that, Tess, darling, or nothing would have persuaded me to... Oh God, if only I hadn’t.” He gave a despairing sigh. “I’ll explain everything late - that’s a promise - but just now ...”

  “No, Peter, it’s not good enough. I want to know right here and now. Everything there is to tell.”

  “No, I can’t... I daren’t.” He was shaking his head with desperate determination. “Take my word, it’s safer that you don’t know. There’s still too much guesswork, and until I’m sure ...”