Dazzle - The Complete Unabridged Trilogy

by Judith Gould

  She tried to smooth back his filthy, blood-matted hair with reassuring fingers, and leaned closer to his face. This was not the Schmarya she knew and loved. Instead of the familiar, youthfully healthy face of the man she had loved, the face which stared uncomprehendingly back at her was that of an aged man, lifeless and swollen and beaten. His usually clean-shaven cheeks bristled with the stubble of a beard, and his jutting, proud cleft chin had somehow receded in pain and misery.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the horror. 'Schmarya, Schmarya,' she whispered as she wept, 'what have they done to you?'

  But he only continued to stare at her blankly.

  Recovering herself, she dried her eyes. Bending low over him, she embraced him ever so lightly, just enough to comfort him, let him know she cared, but not enough to cause him pain. She wrinkled her nose at the sickening, offensively putrid odour emanating from his body.

  'I'll get you cleaned up as best I can,' she began chattering in a low voice, as much to keep her own tortured mind occupied as to soothe him if he could hear. She swiftly lifted her skirt, and without hesitating, tore at her petticoat, shredding off a large piece of it, and deftly began dabbing at his face with it. She tried to smile bravely. 'And I've started working on your release. I'll see if I can bring some food and blankets in the meantime, maybe even get you transferred to . . .'

  She lifted the thin, moth-eaten tatters serving as his blanket to fold it double, and then she let it slip suddenly through her fingers. 'God!' she screamed, squeezing her eyes shut against what she thought she had just glimpsed. 'God, don't let it be true!' And then she took a deep, foul breath of air and began gabbling to herself in a frenzy. 'No, no, it isn't possible. It's a trick of the lighting. Yes, that's all it is. It's so dark in here it's no wonder I didn't see right.'

  Shaking, she knelt by his side, unable to look again and double-check to see if her eyes had somehow tricked her. Then, after a long moment, she gathered up her courage, forcing herself to lift the blanket with infinite care from his leg again to investigate the wound more closely. But even as she sat back on her legs and forced herself to shoot a swift anguished look at his left leg, she wanted to scream, and scream, and never stop screaming. She knew then that what she was seeing was no trick, no hallucination. It was a very real nightmare come to haunt the waking hours.

  Her mind screamed in protest. His foot! His left foot was gone!

  For all that remained of Schmarya's left leg was his thigh, knee, and a small portion of his calf that ended in a stump wrapped in dreadfully filthy rags. From there emanated the festering sweet smell of decay.

  She thought of how he had always walked, so proudly, so swiftly, each footstep a stride. She recalled that terrible afternoon of the pogrom, when he had raced to the village, trying to warn everyone of the impending slaughter. He had always treasured his freedom and his health so, and now fate had conspired to deprive him of both. If he did not die, he was surely badly crippled for life.

  'I have to help him,' she thought slowly, regaining her wits. 'It's up to me to see that he doesn't die.'

  Carefully she began unwrapping the wounded leg, holding her breath as she released a horrible miasma of decay. She quickly turned her head away and vomited. Maggots crawled in the wound. The flesh and bone were not neatly severed and cauterized. The wound was green and black, and even to her untrained eye, definitely gangrenous. Whoever had wrapped the tourniquet around his leg would have done him a greater favour by letting him bleed to death.

  Tears flowed silently from her eyes. Schmarya was barely conscious, barely alive. With trembling fingers she lovingly smoothed his head and murmured soft words of comfort. Sweat stood out on his forehead in bold relief, his temperature raging from the infection, although he could surely freeze to death in his cell. As it was, he wouldn't have long to live. Suddenly she caught her breath. He was no longer deliriously moaning, but completely silent.

  Then with immense relief she heard his wheezing breath and saw the faint rise and fall of his chest. He hadn't died yet, at least. He had gone back into shock.

  Her eyes now totally accustomed to the darkness, she glanced around in a desperate search for anything with which to make him more comfortable, but the cell was barren. There wasn't a stick of wood, an extra rag, a lumpy pallet. The food bowl on the floor had been overturned, its contents in all likelihood devoured by the rats. The water in the tin pitcher had long since frozen into a block of unyielding ice.

  Nothing, she thought in disgusted despair. There was nothing with which to even cover him other than that thin rag of a blanket. On impulse, she slipped out of her coat and spread it over him. The smelly, icy air instantly hit her full force, chilling her to the bone, but he needed the warmth it provided far more than she.

  What he must have, she knew, was immediate medical attention. And that was something she was helpless to provide.

  She felt frustrated, useless.

  It was then that she heard the soft skittering sound beside her. Without moving her body she ever so slightly turned her head. The audacious rat which had confronted her upon entering had crept up beside her. With horror, she saw that it had begun gnawing through the tourniquet of Schmarya's ruined leg.

  It was eating him!

  A shiver ran through her and for a moment she froze. Then she screamed as she threw herself at the rat. The rodent eluded her and snapped its jaw at her, backing up a few steps, watching intently, its eyes glittering.

  Senda drew a deep, shuddering breath. Where was that damned guard? How long had she been in this godforsaken freezing and festering hellhole anyway? She had to leave this instant and get Vaslav Danilov to arrange for having Schmarya immediately moved to a hospital. Rage and worry alchemized into action. She flung herself up and on flying feet attacked the iron door, beating on it until her clenched fists ran bloody.

  Where was that guard?

  Why wasn't he waiting outside for her signal?

  Then she remembered. I specifically told him that I wanted more than ten minutes with Schmarya, she thought miserably. Now each extra minute he's giving me has become Schmarya's enemy, precious wasted minutes during which his life is running out.

  At last she heard distant footsteps. She pounded on the door with renewed fury. When the guard finally got the door open, she pushed past him and raced up the stairs, oblivious of the precarious ice and the cold assaulting her now that she no longer had her warm coat. Schmarya's impending death gave her impetus, terror somehow gave her strength.

  The following days were sheer torture. Even after the Prince miraculously arranged for Schmarya's transfer to a hospital, it was only the beginning of Senda's sleepless, nerve-racking vigil. Only by spending every waking hour near Schmarya could she keep her sanity intact and self-recriminations at bay.

  She realized that she was laying the blame for what had happened to him at her own doorstep, but she felt she deserved to blame herself. If I had done as he wanted, she rationalized, and joined him in producing socially significant plays, then I could have watched over him more closely. Seen to it that he didn't get involved with the wrong people and come to any harm. He would have his leg. Tamara would have a father.

  Here she was now, a physical and emotional wreck, camping out in the hospital's chilly waiting room. Schmarya's leg had been amputated far above the gangrene, halfway up his thigh. She was missing her lessons, her rehearsals and performances. But of what consequence were those?

  Schmarya would never walk like a man again.

  Chapter 16

  Senda jumped up from the waiting-room bench as the nurse approached. 'How is he?' she asked anxiously.

  'Why don't you go see for yourself? You may visit him now.' The nurse's voice was cold and professional, but her grey eyes crinkled warmly. 'Five minutes, not a second more.'

  Senda was unable to contain the flood of excitement. 'Thank you!' she blurted so fervently that the nurse scowled, said 'Ssssh!' sharply, and placed a warning finger on her lips.


  But nothing could dampen Senda's rising spirits. She had the sudden devilish urge to laugh and sing. As she rushed to the ward, it seemed her feet never touched the floor.

  Schmarya was out of danger! He would make it!

  Miracles did indeed happen.

  When she got to the ward, she suppressed her excitement, opened the door slowly, and peered inside. Her heart sank when she didn't see him immediately. A sea of enamelled iron beds, each squeezed as close to the nightstand of the next one as possible, fifty along each wall, one hundred in all, with an icon above each headboard, met her confused gaze. Her eyes scanned the many faces from afar, her ears assaulted by moans, whimpers, and occasional cries. All the beds were filled, and she could almost feel the roiling, invisible cloud of pain which hung over the ward. The patients looked so pathetic, she thought, so helplessly vulnerable, not so much like grown men as like . . . like frightened children.

  She shut the door softly behind her, and frowning studiously, moved slowly along the row of beds, shifting her gaze from left to right, left to right, as she searched for Schmarya's familiar face. She had to step right up to some of the beds in order to make out the features of the men who seemingly lay asleep. Many were awake and greeted her arrival hopefully; then, realizing she had not come to visit them, they would lie back resignedly once again. She would favour them with a smile, a kind word or two, and move quickly on.

  And then her heart gave a symphonic surge.

  There he was, his head turned sideways on the crisp white pillow, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. Sleeping peacefully.

  For what seemed like countless minutes she just stood there silently, staring down at him. She felt a warm glow radiating inside her. His skin was sallow from loss of blood, and his face was gaunt and haggard, but she could see he'd been scrubbed antiseptically clean, and his hair shone golden. Someone had even gone to the trouble of combing it.

  This was more like it, she thought; this was the Schmarya she loved. Not that broken, filthy, frightened shell of a man she had found at the prison fortress. She quickly dismissed that terrible scene as a nightmare from which they'd both awakened happy, so jubilantly happy that he had rejoined the ranks of the living that she wanted to yell it to the world. He'd lost one leg, she thought. Well, thousands of other men had lost theirs and functioned quite well with wooden prostheses. It was remarkable, the inventions the doctors and engineers had come up with nowadays. All that mattered was that he was alive, that the gangrenous rot had been severed from his otherwise healthy body, and that he was recovering from the ordeal of the operation quite nicely. One leg or two, she loved him the same.

  Senda was so relieved at seeing him that tears shone in her eyes. Close up, he still looked shockingly bloodless, but she was thrilled beyond belief that he had recovered this much in three days' time. If she knew Schmarya, he'd be up and about as soon as he was fitted with an artificial limb.

  She looked around for a chair, spied one on the other side of the room, and tiptoed to get it. When she returned, she stared down at him again. His eyes were still closed and his breathing, quiet but regular, indicated a relaxing, convalescing slumber.

  Slowly, without taking her eyes off him, she felt for the chair and lowered herself into it.

  Her expression was rapt with tenderness as she watched him sleep. For the time being, he was going nowhere. He belonged to her. And she had never felt happier, more relieved, or fulfilled. She could feel the radiant glow of her love for him strengthening and burning with a pure white intensity, and after what she knew he'd been through, she felt a fierce maternal protectiveness toward him which she had never before known. She saw him in a different light now, as more vulnerable and infinitely more human. As precious as life itself. Now that he was stripped of his forbidding strength and independence, she felt herself more a part of him than ever before.

  Her love for him was nearly unbearable.

  With a jolt she realized that he had opened his eyes and was staring warily at her.

  'Schmarya,' she breathed softly, bending forward and kissing him. She moved her hand to take his, but he moved it away, slid it under the sheet. Perplexed at this bizarre behaviour, she nevertheless continued smiling and moved the chair closer to the bed. 'You look so much better,' she said warmly, trying to make her voice cheerful.

  He grunted something unintelligible.

  Undaunted, she quickly continued. 'When I found you, you were half-dead. It's a miracle that you're recovering so fast.'

  He gave an ugly, savage bark of a laugh. 'You want to talk about miracles?' he snarled, his voice weak but intense. 'Let me tell you about a miracle, something the Okhrana does to Jews.'

  'Please, Schmarya,' she begged, fighting back the tears but feeling them sliding down her face nonetheless. From the beds all around came the rustling of linen, the eavesdropping stares and quick turning of heads. She could feel the piercing scrutiny surrounding her, and she wished Schmarya would lower his voice. 'Say what you want,' she said in a low voice, 'but for heaven's sake, does everyone here have to be party to it?'

  'Well, damn it . . . I'll show you! Then you tell me whether I should keep quiet or not!'

  Stinging under the rebuke, she bit down on her trembling lip, fighting to hide her private agony from the prying eyes around her.

  'Look . . . closely, if you like . . .' His voice rose shrilly in the stillness of the ward.

  Flustered, she looked away as he grabbed the corner of the sheet.

  'Look, damn it!'

  She turned slowly as he flipped the sheet in the air. It billowed like a soft cloud before settling slowly at his solitary foot. She could see that he wore only a long striped nightshirt. He couldn't wear pyjama bottoms because of the thickly bandaged stump. The thickly bandaged, even shortened stump. 'Oh, God,' she moaned silently, 'did they really have to cut off so much?'

  He watched her closely as he lifted the tail of his nightshirt. 'Look!' he hissed.

  She looked. And the world exploded in a million fragments. She clapped a hand over her gaping mouth.

  His crotch was as heavily bandaged as the stump of his leg, with only his shrivelled penis exposed for the necessary ablutions. And as Schmarya and the bed reeled in her vision, a whirling dervish out of control, the rush of his words slammed into her: 'They castrated me, the bastards!' he sobbed, tears flowing unchecked down his face. They cut off my goddamn balls so that I'll never be a man again!'

  She held her hands pressed against her mouth, her face white.

  He stared at her, his sobs increasing. 'Why didn't you leave me there to die?'

  She crumpled to her knees, one hand still clamped over her mouth, the other desperately searching under the bed for the chamber pot. Then she closed her eyes and retched. Between the rushes of lumpy bile she heard the nurse come running, comforting her, wiping her mouth, pulling her to her feet.

  'Please, Madame Bora,' the nurse urged in a whisper. 'You'll only upset everybody . . .'

  Senda stared back at Schmarya even as she was gently pulled out of the room. A hundred faces were turned toward her, two hundred prying eyes witness to her anguish. Her tears seemed to boil, searing her eyes.

  She wanted to burrow away somewhere, into a dark, warm void, a womb where she would be sheltered and untroubled and safe.

  But there would be no time for mourning Schmarya's terrible loss. Not tonight, at least.

  Whether Schmarya liked it or not, the Prince had saved his life.

  And tonight she had to pay the piper.

  Like a hidden jewel, the mansion was tucked away behind high stone walls that hid it from prying eyes.

  Senda stood at a window, her warm breath making a halo of fog, burning a perfect circle through the thin frost sheathing the windowpane. The night was dark, but she could see a rim of light from the window of the octagonal garden pavilion below, its sloping roof and steeple mounted with smooth drifts of new snow, its fretted white gingerbread eaves hanging like perforated icicles
. Suspended incongruously inside the bare, unheated, glassed-in interior were the crystal swags of an elegant chandelier.

  'When I was a child, I would have loved that little folly,' she murmured wistfully. 'All those glass panes, the chandelier, the steeple . . . like a tiny play castle of one's own.'

  The Prince stood behind her, so close she could feel his every breath rippling on her bare shoulders. 'You like it still,' he said softly, 'and so do I. Exquisite, isn't it? It brings out the child in us all.'

  She turned slowly. 'I cannot believe there is a child inside you still.'

  'There is one in us all. Only the games we play are different when we grow up. That, or we forget how to play at all.' He paused. 'So you like this house?'

  She inclined her head. 'Very much.'

  'Good.' He smiled. "Then you must move in here, and we will use your apartment for a meeting place. It is a pity to maintain this large house for only occasional lovemaking.'

  She did not reply and he traced a finger lightly along her profile.

  'A beautiful woman,' he said, 'is like a masterpiece in a museum. She deserves beautiful surroundings to show her off.'

  Senda did not reply, but walked past him to the lit bateau, the enormous mahogany-and-ormolu boat bed draped with heavy blue-and-gold silk hangings. She scooped her champagne glass from the nightstand and sipped.

  She knew that it was time. To do what she had come to do. There was no use delaying it further. The sooner it was over with, the better.

  'Your daughter,' he was saying. 'Perhaps the garden folly will please her also?'

  She would not allow him to use Tamara as a pawn in this game. It was simply another way to get her to owe him even more. She looked at him over the rim of her glass. 'She would, but we like where we live now. Besides, you have done more than enough for us already, Vaslav.' She paused. 'I cannot repay you for all your kindnesses as it is.'

  He came to her, stroked her creamy shoulders, then held her at arm's length. 'Being with you is repayment enough,' he said softly.