Eye of the Red Tsar

by Sam Eastland

  “Oh, yes!” answered Mayakovsky. “I have a different bedroom for every day of the week. But it is not this house.” He patted the stone on which he sat. “Not the one I swore I would own.”

  “Then the only thing driving you is greed.”

  “Do you think I would have been happier if I had bought the Ipatiev house?”

  “No. Greed does not rest until it has been satisfied, and greed is never satisfied.”

  Mayakovsky nodded. “Precisely.”

  Pekkala glanced up from his shaving mirror. “All right, Mayakovsky, what are you driving at?”

  “Since I do not own this house,” explained the old man, “the dream of owning it persists. I have come to realize that the dream of owning it is now worth more to me than the house itself. I tried to pretend otherwise. How can a man admit that his whole life has been spent searching for something he does not actually want?”

  Slowly, Pekkala lowered the razor from his face. “He can admit it, if he faces the truth.”

  “Yes,” agreed Mayakovsky, “if, like Occam’s razor, he can understand where the facts are pointing him.”

  “I pity you, Mayakovsky.”

  “Save some pity for yourself, Inspector.” Mayakovsky’s forged smile flickered on and off, as if it were attached to some faulty electrical current. “You also seem to be in search of a thing you do not really want.”

  “And what is it you think I’m looking for?” asked Pekkala.

  “The Tsar’s treasure!” spat Mayakovsky. Until now, the old man had been choosing his words carefully, but now they sounded like an accusation.

  “What do you know about that?” Pekkala wiped the soap from his blade onto a dish towel laid across his knee.

  “I know that the Tsar had hidden it so well that no one could find it. Not that they didn’t try. I saw them. The carriage shed in this courtyard was filled with the trunks the Romanovs brought with them. Beautiful trunks. The kind with curved wooden railings and brass locks, each trunk numbered and named. Well, the militia searched them and stole a few things, but they didn’t really know what they were looking for—just a bunch of books and fancy clothes. Those Cheka boys must have figured out that even if the valuables themselves weren’t in the trunks, they might discover a clue as to where they could find them. Every night, those Cheka guards sneaked out and searched those trunks, but they never found anything.”

  “What makes you think that, Mayakovsky?”

  “Because if they had found it, Inspector Pekkala, they would have no use for you. Why else would they have kept you alive?”

  “Mayakovsky,” said Pekkala, “I am here to investigate the possibility that the execution of the Romanovs was not fully carried out.”

  Mayakovsky nodded sarcastically. “More than a decade after they vanished. Do the wheels of bureaucracy in Moscow really turn as slowly as that? The Romanovs are a footnote in history. Whether they are alive or dead no longer matters.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “That is because you are also a footnote in history—a ghost searching for other ghosts.”

  “I may be a ghost,” said Pekkala, “but I am not searching for that gold.”

  “Then your emerald eye is blind, Inspector, because you are being used by someone who is. You said it yourself—greed is never satisfied. The difference between us, Inspector, is that I have faced the facts and you have not.”

  “I will decide that for myself, Mayakovsky.”

  As if prompted by some invisible signal, both men rose to their feet.

  “Katamidze is dead,” Pekkala said. “I thought you should know.”

  “People don’t last long in Vodovenko.”

  “He knew who murdered the Tsar. He may have been the only one who could have told me the name of the killer.”

  “I may be able to help you,” said Mayakovsky.

  “How?”

  “There is someone Katamidze knew, someone he might have spoken to before he disappeared from Sverdlovsk.”

  “Who?” asked Pekkala. “For God’s sake, Mayakovsky, if you know anything at all …”

  Mayakovsky held up his hand. “I will talk to this person,” he said. “I must go about this carefully.”

  “When can you let me know?”

  “I will see to it at once.” The old man’s voice was calm and reassuring. “I may have an answer for you later today.”

  “I expect it will come at a price. You must know by now that we don’t have much to give you.”

  Mayakovsky tilted his head. “There is one thing I’ve had my eye on, so to speak.”

  “And what is that?”

  He nodded towards Pekkala’s black coat, which hung from a nail on the wall. Just visible under the lapel was the oval of the emerald eye.

  Pekkala breathed out through his teeth. “You drive a hard bargain.”

  Mayakovsky smiled. “If I did anything less, I would have no respect for myself.”

  “What about your basket?”

  “Keep it, Inspector. Think of it as a down payment on that badge of yours.”

  WHEN PEKKALA HAD FINISHED SHAVING, HE WIPED THE LAST FLECKS of soap from his face, carefully folded the razor, and put it in his pocket. He walked into the kitchen and was surprised to find Anton sitting there with his feet up on the table, reading a copy of Pravda. “Look what I bought,” he said, without looking up.

  “That paper is a week old,” said Pekkala.

  “Even week-old news is news in a place like this.” Anton folded the paper and slapped it down on the table.

  “Mayakovsky was here,” said Pekkala, handing over the basket.

  Anton removed a loaf of dark rye bread and gnawed off a piece. “And what did our little house troll want for this?” he asked with his mouth full.

  “He says he might know someone who spoke to Katamidze on the night the Romanovs were killed. He might be able to get us a name.”

  “Let’s hope,” mumbled Anton, “that he’s more help to us than last time.”

  With the contents of the basket—a small partridge, a bottle of milk, some salted butter, and half a dozen eggs—Kirov put together a meal. He chopped up the partridge, tore the bread into crumbs, and mixed them together in a cracked bowl which he found under the sink. Then he kneaded in some butter and the yolks of several eggs. He stoked the stove until the iron plate on top seemed to ripple from the heat. He shaped the mixture into oval cakes and fried them.

  Afterwards, the three men sat around the stove, letting the fire die down while they ate with their hands and only their handkerchiefs for plates, scalding their fingers on the hot, buttery cakes.

  Pekkala ate as slowly as he could, letting each thread of the taste weave its way through his brain as the cakes dissolved in his mouth.

  “My family owned a tavern,” Kirov said, “in a town called Torjuk on the Moscow-Petrograd road. In the old days, with horse carriages passing through all the time, the place was very busy. There were small rooms upstairs for guests, and downstairs the windows were made from pieces of stained glass held together with strips of lead. It smelled of food and smoke. I remember people coming in half frozen from their carriage rides, stamping the snow off their boots and sitting down at the big tables. Coats would pile up by the door in heaps taller than I was. It was always busy in there, and the chef, whose name was Pojarski, had to be ready to cook meals for people whenever they came in, day or night. In winter, when things got quiet and the stove cooled down, Pojarski would sleep on the top of it. But when the Nikolaevsky railroad began running between the two cities, it didn’t pass through Torjuk. The road almost closed down, there were so few carriages traveling on it. But my family kept the tavern open. During the week, Pojarski cooked for the guests, if there were any, but on Sundays he would prepare a meal for me and my parents after we came back from church. This is what he used to cook for me. He seasoned it with vodka and sage and called it a Pojarski cutlet. I looked forward to it all week. What you are eating now is the reaso
n I wanted to become a chef.”

  “You went to church?” Anton had wolfed down his food. Now he was wiping the grease from his hands onto his handkerchief. “Not exactly good credentials for a Commissar.”

  “Everyone went to church in Torjuk,” replied Kirov. “There were thirty-seven chapels in the town.”

  “That’s all gone now,” said Anton.

  “Be quiet and eat,” whispered Pekkala.

  LATER THAT DAY, PEKKALA WAS ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES, SCRAPING the ashes from the fireplace. He had opened the curtains. Beams of sunlight fell in crooked pillars across the scuffed wood floor.

  When he paused to wipe sweat from his face, he saw Mayakovsky emerge from his house.

  Mayakovsky picked up a cardboard box lying on the doorstep. He opened it, smiled, and glanced towards the Ipatiev house. Then, carrying the box, he walked across the street. This time, he did not go around to the back of the house but came straight to the front door. The sharp, dry clacks of the brass horseshoe knocker echoed through the house.

  Before Pekkala could get to his feet, Kirov came out of the kitchen and opened the door.

  “Kirov!” said Mayakovsky. “My good friend, Kirov!”

  “Well, hello, Mayakovsky.”

  “I knew there was something special between us.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” replied Kirov.

  Pekkala rested on his knees, his hands mottled gray with ash, enjoying Kirov’s attempts to be polite.

  “We understand each other,” Mayakovsky continued, “and I won’t forget it. Thank you!”

  “You’re very welcome, Mayakovsky. I’m glad we’re getting on so well.”

  The door closed. Kirov stood in the doorway to the front room, arms folded, a bemused look on his face. “There goes another one who’s lost his mind. Just like everyone else in this town.”

  “He was thanking you for the present you left on his doorstep.”

  “I didn’t give him anything,” Kirov said.

  “You didn’t?” Pekkala looked out through the windows. “But I thought you said you were going to give him a present. To throw him off balance.”

  “I was, but I never got around to it.”

  Halfway across the road, the box still in his hands, Mayakovsky paused and turned.

  His eyes locked with Pekkala’s.

  A burn of adrenaline seared across Pekkala’s stomach. “Oh, Christ,” he whispered.

  The smile faltered on Mayakovsky’s face. Then he disappeared. Where he had stood, for a fraction of a second, was a pink cloud of mist. The windows rippled like water. Then a wall of fire blew into the house. The shock wave picked up Pekkala and threw him to the opposite side of the room. He hit the wall. His eyes filled with dust. Metallic-reeking smoke poured into his lungs. He could not breathe. He felt sharp pain in his chest. All around him, fragments of glass were bouncing off the walls, skimming across the floor, flickering like diamonds in the air.

  The next thing Pekkala knew, Kirov was dragging him out of the room. The front door had been blown open. Out in the street the cobblestones were scattered with debris. Whole tree branches lay in the road, the leaves curled into burned black fists.

  When they reached the kitchen, Anton was there.

  The two men lifted Pekkala up onto the table.

  Pekkala tried to sit up, but Anton held him down.

  A wet cloth smeared across his face.

  Anton was saying something, but he couldn’t hear a thing.

  Then Kropotkin was there, his mop of blond hair sticking out from under a police cap.

  Finally, like a radio whose volume was slowly being turned up, Pekkala’s hearing began to return. He pushed aside the wet cloth, now soaked in blood, heaved himself off the table, and staggered down the hallway towards the road. His face itched. He scratched at his cheeks; his fingers came away with tiny pieces of glass embedded in them.

  “You have to lie down,” Kirov insisted, following him.

  Pekkala ignored him. He reached the street and stopped.

  Where Mayakovsky had been standing, there was only a black circle on the stones. Above, in the shattered branches of the trees, hung shreds of the old man’s clothing.

  Kirov seized him by the arm. “We should go inside.” His voice was gentle and persistent.

  Pekkala stared at the scorched leaves, at the broken glass and shattered masonry. His toe nudged against something. He looked down and saw what looked like the broken handle of a white pottery jug. He picked it up. The surface was hard and slippery. A moment went by before he realized that it was a piece of Mayakovsky’s jaw.

  “Let’s go,” Kirov said.

  Pekkala looked at Kirov as if he could not recall who he was. Then he let himself be led back inside the house.

  Kirov spent the next half hour picking shards of glass from Pekkala’s face with a needle-nose pliers. They glittered in their tiny nests of blood.

  Kropotkin stood in the corner of the room, glancing nervously in Pekkala’s direction. “Is he well enough to talk yet?” the police chief asked.

  “I can talk,” Pekkala replied.

  “Good,” Kropotkin said. “Listen to me. I have offered you a police guard until we can get this cleared up, but this Cheka man”—he pointed at Anton—“says it’s not necessary.”

  “We don’t know who planted that bomb,” said Anton.

  “Well, it wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” Kropotkin’s face grew red.

  “I told them we should never have come back,” said Anton.

  “He’s right.” Kirov’s voice cut in. “We won’t need a guard.”

  “And why not?” demanded Kropotkin.

  “Because we are leaving first thing in the morning. We’ll head to Moscow and make our report. Then, if they’ll let us, we’ll return, this time with a company of soldiers.”

  “That will take too long.” Pekkala stood up. “We haven’t found what we are looking for.”

  Kirov rested his hands on Pekkala’s shoulders. “No. What we were looking for found us instead. You warned us this might happen, and it did.”

  “We weren’t prepared enough,” said Pekkala. “We’ll take more precautions next time.” He walked to the front room. Sunlight glimmered off pieces of broken glass, making the floor look as if it was scattered with patches of fire. The neat pile of ashes he had been collecting had blown across the floor like the shadow of a tornado. The wallpaper was ripped as if by the claws of a giant cat. He walked over to something embedded in the wall. As he wrenched it from the plaster, he realized it was the bowl of Kirov’s pipe. The force of the blast had driven it like a nail into the wall.

  Pekkala turned to find Anton standing in the doorway.

  “Please,” his brother pleaded. “We have to leave.”

  “I can’t,” replied Pekkala. “It’s too late now.”

  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, HE WOKE FROM A SLEEP IN WHICH HE could not breathe.

  Kirov was leaning over him, a hand over Pekkala’s mouth and nose. He pressed a finger to his lips.

  Pekkala nodded.

  Slowly, Kirov removed his hand.

  Pekkala sat up and gasped in a breath.

  “There’s someone in the house,” Kirov whispered.

  Anton was on his feet. He had already drawn his gun. He stood in the doorway to the hall, peering into the shadows. “In the basement,” he told Pekkala and Kirov.

  Pekkala felt a tremor run through him at the thought of something alive down there in the dried blood and the dust. He drew the Webley from its holster.

  Pekkala moved sideways as he descended to the basement, his bare feet gripping the wooden steps, which creaked as his weight settled on them.

  Behind him, Kirov carried one of the lanterns.

  “Don’t light that until I tell you,” whispered Pekkala. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Pekkala could hear nothing except the rasp of breathing from Anton and Kirov. Then, unmistakably, he caught the sound of someone crying. It
was coming from the room in which the murders had taken place.

  Now that his eyes were adjusting to the darkness in front of him, Pekkala could see the door was open.

  The crying continued, muffled, almost as if it was coming from inside the walls.

  Pekkala sucked in the musty air. Moving to the doorway of the old storage room, he peered inside and could make out the stripes of the wallpaper, but it was almost too dark to see anything else. The broken plaster looked like a sheet of dirty snow upon the floor.

  The sound came again, and now he glimpsed a shape in the room’s far corner. It was a person, huddled and facing the wall.

  Anton stood beside Pekkala. His eyes were shining in the dark.

  Pekkala nodded and the two brothers rushed across the room, feet kicking up the debris.

  The figure turned. It was a man, on his knees. His crying rose to a terrible wail.

  “Shoot him!” shouted Anton.

  “No! Please, no!” The man cowered at Pekkala’s feet.

  Anton pressed the gun against his head.

  Pekkala knocked it aside and grabbed the stranger by the collar of his coat. “The lantern!” he shouted to Kirov.

  A match flared. A moment later, the soft glow of the lantern spread across the walls.

  Pekkala yanked the man off his knees, forcing him onto his back.

  The lantern swung in Kirov’s grip. Shadows pitched and rolled across the bullet-spattered walls.

  The man held his clawed hands over his face, as if the light would burn away his skin.

  “Who are you?” demanded Pekkala.

  “Move your damn hands!” shouted Kirov.

  Slowly, his fingers slid away. The man’s eyes were tightly shut, his face unnaturally pale in the lamplight. He had a broad forehead and a solid chin. A dark mustache and a close-cropped beard covered the lower part of his face.

  Pekkala pushed Kirov’s arm aside, so that the lantern was no longer in the man’s face.

  At last, the man’s eyes flickered open. “Pekkala,” he murmured.

  “My God,” whispered Pekkala. “It’s Alexei.”

  “HOW CAN YOU BE SURE?” HISSED KIROV.