Hour of the Wolf

by Andrius B Tapinas

  Having spotted the Minister of Finance and the Chairman of the Department of Economics walking down the staircase, Chaim had raised his head in expectation. But he did not feel hurt in the slightest when the two rushed past him without even a glance in his direction. Chaim knew both Russian financiers inside out. He was now trying to recall how much money had been transferred to Minister Reitern’s personal account in a Swiss bank and when, as well as what the size of the next transfer was to be.

  There had been quite a few payments, and while attempting to calculate them all, Chaim lost all sense of time. The amounts started lining up in the messenger’s head – tens of thousands gradually becoming hundreds of thousands – but Chaim’s memory exercise was suddenly interrupted by a dry cough. Chaim Rivkind shuddered and looked up. Right in front of him was State Secretary Solskiy.

  “The State Office is happy to inform you that your request has been approved,” intoned Solskiy. “They also regret not being able to invite you to the Council Hall. The Council and the Chairman are extremely busy.” Solskiy waved a piece of paper in front of Rivkind’s face. “Documents attesting to our decision will be handed over to you in a place which is particularly suitable for such highly honoured guests. Here is the address.”

  Solskiy’s fingers released the paper, which fluttered down and landed on Rivkind’s lap. The State Secretary deftly turned on his heel and rushed off without a goodbye.

  Chaim followed him with his eyes, lifted the paper and slowly read the address. He got up, straightened his sourtout and put on the tall hat. He took in the luxurious staircase for the last time, strolled into the Palace square past the guards and then suddenly giggled to himself. He found the Russians even more hilarious than the Turks or the Austrians.

  Chaim Rivkind looked around and turned decisively left. He had unique visual memory. If he spent half an hour studying the map of an unfamiliar town, he felt at home as soon as he arrived there. So now, shoulders hunched against the biting wind that was blowing from the Neva River, he strode along the Palace Embankment, in the direction of Troitsky Bridge. The messenger’s destination was the building at the junction of two avenues – Kamenniy Ostrov and Kronverkskiy.

  In a short while Rivkind reached some public gardens, where he was expecting Alexandrov Palace to be, but what he saw instead left him dumbfounded. The Palace was indeed there, and it was rather elaborately decorated. But compared with other buildings it was more of a miniature, and had a sign above the door declaring it to be a “Common Use Villa”. In other words, it was a public lavatory.

  When Chaim recovered from his shock, he did exactly what he had done at the Hermitage; he entered a tiny waiting room, looked around and sat in the corner on a hard chair. The smell there was not particularly pleasant, and some men in hats scurried back and forth, but the messenger ignored them. He had never been to this building, before but he thought he recalled some rumours that had swirled in the recent past.

  A few years ago, a love affair of Merchant of the First Guild Alexandrov, who was a very affluent man and the owner of “joy houses”, had become a widely discussed and ridiculed topic among the members of St Petersburg’s high society. Alexandrov was head over heels in love with Baroness Goncharova and was spending money on her like water. The Baroness was very pleased when it came to receiving presents, but would only allow the love-stricken merchant to kiss her hand in return. Alexandrov had been courting the lovely lady for a while, but when he eventually lost patience, he cornered the Baroness and demanded her undivided attention to his persona. Goncharova was abrupt in her reply, “You are a peasant and I am a baroness. You can kiss my hand but that’s as far as you go.” The furious merchant Alexandrov promised to have his revenge on the capricious lady.

  Before long, a dainty castle with turrets and carved canopies was erected outside the windows of the Baroness’ palace. It was a perfect copy of Goncharova’s villa, where she would welcome only the most noble of her guests. In this miniature palace, Alexandrov set up a public lavatory and called it “Common Use Villa”. The deeply scorned Baroness relocated to a different palace, but thanks to the merchant’s endeavours, an identical villa sprang up outside her new home. Goncharova moved for the third time but Alexandrov remained tenacious and built the third lavatory. Chaim didn’t know how this story ended but he now realised that the title “Alexandrov Palace” in fact denoted one of St Petersburg’s three public lavatories. The Secretary Solskiy had sent him, the Rothschilds’ messenger, to one of them.

  The wait was long. By the time a collegiate accessor (an official of the lowest rank in state office), accompanied by a gendarme, appeared in Alexandrov’s villa, announced by the sound of his clicking heels, dusk was gathering outside. The accessor approached the Rothschilds’ messenger, but felt too superior to say hello. Chaim Rivkind was in no hurry to get up either.

  “What a place you’ve chosen, Sir. Yuck,” smirked the accessor, untying the ribbon on the thick bundle. He winked to the gendarme and both men laughed loudly. “But the good squire is probably used to this,” he added. “As they say, the smell of home, isn’t that right?”

  Rivkind gave a half-smile.

  “Pecunia non olet[3],” he said quietly.

  The accessor furrowed his brow.

  “What?” he extended the bundle with the documents to the messenger. “Here you are. Sign and seal it, confirming receipt.”

  Chaim took the papers and started to read them slowly, guiding himself with a finger; he checked every word, every line and, holding the papers very close to his eyes, scrutinised each signature and every seal.

  “Maybe you could hurry up a bit, Sir?” the registrar couldn’t bear it any longer. “It stinks in here.”

  It seemed though that Chaim didn’t hear the Russian. Only when he was satisfied that everything was recorded correctly and that all the signatures were in the right places, from inside of his sourtout he took a box containing a seal, blew on it and slowly affixed the Rothschild’s coat of arms – a fist with five arrows on a red shield. After completing his work, he hid the seal inside his sourtout, and only then got up and handed the agreements to the Russian, retaining copies for himself.

  “Pecunia non olet,” he repeated. “Money has no smell. These are the words of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. The one who contrived a tax upon Roman public lavatories,” added he with a smile, then turned away and walked out of Alexandrov Palace, leaving the baffled Russians behind.

  Rivkind was staying at the Northern Lights Inn, which was on the small Nevka branch of the river and not far from here at all: all he had to do was cross Alexandrov Park. It was already night and the park looked deserted and unfriendly, but the messenger took the gravel path without giving it much thought, or looking around.

  As soon as he set foot in the park, four dark figures emerged from a black gateway.

  “The gentleman is running late,” whispered one of them.

  “You should be happy that it’s dark,” muttered the other. “It will certainly help us. Look at the poor fool trudging peacefully in the park. Let’s butcher him, then drop him in the canal and the job is done.”

  “Don’t forget to get the papers,” reminded the third one. “And let’s be quiet.”

  “Let’s split up lads,” said the first figure. “And meet in the middle of the park.”

  The figures exchanged meaningful looks, then charged in different directions and vanished into the tree shadows.

  “The Russians are even more primitive than the Turks,” thought Chaim to himself walking into the thick of the park. He stopped and bent down to pick a piece of clay from the ground and fidgeted with it. “At least the latter showed some elegance: the luxurious ball, the poisoned wine, but these ones... Really primitive. Sending over some muggers with knives. The land of savages. What else can you expect from barbarians?”

  Chaim Rivkind was an experienced messenger: on the one hand he had a very clear idea of what to expect; but on the other, he liked to orchestrate e
vents himself. Therefore, upon arrival in St Petersburg, he had very willingly told everyone who was interested about his staying at the Northern Lights and his penchant for strolls in Alexandrov Park. The delay at the Common Use Villa had come in handy – the attackers’ confidence would have grown even more with the dark.

  The messenger took a slight left turn and shortly found himself in an alley swooping down to the middle of the park, and overgrown with tall and dense shrubbery.

  Dimly flickering gas lamps were gently blanketed by the rising fog. Rivkind looked at them with interest and smiled.

  Suddenly, he heard rustling in the bushes and noticed two figures emerging. He turned his head a little and saw two more; had he tried to run away, they would have blocked his way. The forms started to advance towards him slowly. They thought that a lonely traveller in the park, surrounded by darkness, would be easy prey.

  Chaim Rivkind stopped and gave a deep sigh. He crumbled the piece of clay in his hand and quietly said,

  “Im ba l’hargekha, hashkem l’hargo.”

  Suddenly the bushes rustled again. The baffled attackers paused. The eyes of the four opened wide with bewilderment, while their jaws simultaneously dropped. Two gigantic creatures emerged from the bushes, walked to the messenger and stood either side of him. Both giants were completely naked with no indicators of sex, and their skin was the colour of ochre. Metal plates shimmered on each body, giving the impression that the giants had been repaired with patches. Their faces had no noses or lips, and only their eyes glowed in red flame. These were golems[4] – a gift of the Prague Vitamancers to the Rothschilds.

  “Im ba l’hargekha, hashkem l’hargo,” repeated Chaim. “If someone is coming to kill you, wake up early and kill them first.”

  When one of the attackers eventually recovered, he ran up to the giant who was trying to protect Chaim, and stabbed him in the chest. The blade slipped in smoothly up to the handle, but the golem did not seem to mind it at all. He raised a massive fist, the knuckles bound in metal, and smashed the criminal on the head. It instantly turned into a mash of brain and crushed bones, soaked in blood. The golem turned his head to the other two creatures that were trying to sneak up on him from behind, and stretched out his arm. Something popped. A a miniature cannon attached to his arm released a small ball in a shower of sparks, and it hit one of the attackers. His astonished gaze slipped down to a hole the size of a fist that had opened in his chest; he didn’t even have time to gasp, as in a split second he was lying collapsed on the ground. The golems turned to the two remaining men and stepped towards them. When they took a step, gravel sprayed to the side like water, but the criminals didn’t linger long enough for the golems to come near them: they took to their heels and vanished in the dark, leaving only the crackling of branches for a while.

  The park became shrouded in silence again, and the golems went back to Rivkind. All they had to do now was see the messenger to the end of the park, and then freeze in the bushes. In the morning Rivkind’s servants would come, pack them in large boxes, write Careful – fragile on them in red ink, and send them back to Prague.

  Rivkind eyed the two mutilated corpses lying on the path. “There you go,” he murmured.

  “St Petersburg’s gendarmerie are getting an unsolvable riddle, I am getting a journey home and a short break, and the Rothschilds are getting the biggest adventure of the century.”

  It has been the Rothschilds’ old dream to take Vilnius and Reval into their hands and form an Alliance from a great arc of cities: Reval–Vilnius–Krakow–Prague–Constantinople.

  “Abducet praedam, qui occurrit prior[5],” murmured Chaim Rivkind and strolled down to the Northern Lights Inn.

  Chapter II

  Vilnius, evening and night

  21 04 1905

  Vanechka Skorik desperately wanted to go home.

  By home he didn’t mean that shack in Rabbit Hole belonging to the old hag Zofia, with its prevailing smells of cats’ urine, burned potatoes, sweat and, most of all, of steam. Yes, the smell of steam was the strongest of all.

  Generally Vanechka had nothing against steam – at home he would frequently go to the banya[6] and stretch out on the bench, enjoying its heat. The experienced banschik[7] Matvey would scatter the floor with the finely chopped branches of pine trees and pour water over the heated rocks, which would immediately fill the air with fragrant swirls of steam. What a wonderful thing the Russian banya is! Foreigners felt mesmerised by it to such an extent that they would become seized by enthusiasm and even try to imitate it back home.

  However, Vanechka hated Vilnius steam. When the westerly wind became stronger, grey lumps saturated with the smell of metal, soot, oil and supervisors’ foul language swept above Steam City. Above the Blots fluttered a barely detectable scent of opium, and above University Dominium, that of sulphur. The steam clouds would roam above the city for a while and then finally settle in the Troubles, dragged down by all the added weight of various components. According to some jokers, the locals there would scoop them into pots and make soup.

  “Hei, Russkiy, you’ve ruined half of the bolts again! You can wave goodbye to your wages at the end of the week,” shouted one of the apprentices across the hall, trying to make himself heard above the growling machinery. Vanechka, however, pretended not to hear the joker.

  He also hated his job. If only apprentices knew who the self-taught 4th category metalworker Vanechka Skorik really was, they would shut their mouths in an instant. But for the time being, Vanechka was labouring at Zimmermann’s cast iron foundry, which occupied the part of the central Vilnius industrial area called Steam City. He submissively endured the mockery his clumsily turned bolts attracted from the older apprentices.

  Suddenly the hall was filled with the wailing of a siren, which meant that the shift was over. The large iron pistons that had been ramming up and down all day started to slow, and finally reached a complete stop. That was what Vanechka had been waiting for – he quickly dropped his tools, left the darkness of the production hall behind, and slipped into the street.

  He lingered there for a while with his eyes half closed, allowing them to adjust to the sunlight, then glanced up at the sky. There wasn’t long left before the sunset, but he would probably have enough time to do what he had to.

  Vanechka Skorik moved through the strange city. With each step he looked around him and could hardly contain his disgust at the Lithuanians and Poles scurrying around and the Jews with payots parked in the doorways of their shops extolling their merchandise.

  “Disgusting!” grunted Vanechka and spat on the pavement. “Just think of it! A free city of the Alliance. It’s a joke, isn’t it? There is nothing good in this world anymore if rich Jews, without any punishment, can tear two cities from the Tsar, clog them with factories, fill them with beasts of the air and be so forward as to call themselves free. Ah, no order, no brain.”

  Skorik removed his dirty work apron and threw it under a bush. To hell with it, let them deduct it from his wages.

  Vanechka had been living in Vilnius for three months. This was the second time that he had done business in this city. The first time he had arrived as a young boy almost 40 years ago, when His Imperial Majesty Tsar of all Russia Alexander II had graced Vilnius with his presence as it was coming back to life following a revolt. Flags displaying the double-headed eagle fluttered all over the place, eyes rejoiced at congratulatory slogans in Cyrillic, and exceptionally well-trained city residents shouted Ura![8] in thunderous voices. If someone had dared to call Vanechka a Russkiy then, Skorik’s colleagues would have swiftly organized a few years in a labour camp for the daredevil. “These tramps would have lost all their courage in an instant”, thought Vanechka and smiled contently.

  Skorik walked briskly along Eight Street as far as the river and took a look around. Slightly to the left, spitting pale clouds of steam, lay the great banyas of Steam City, where factory workers could get a wash for as little as three copecks, and for two more have
their own bunch of birch twigs. Further down, behind the banyas, new arrivals and fugitives who were searching for work in free Vilnius hovered day and night. The official Steam City Labour Exchange was in a different place, but there they asked for documents and quizzed with unpleasant questions.

  Vanechka passed the turn for the banyas and proceeded down to the Neris River instead, where he thoroughly washed his greasy hands and joined the crowd of other workers who had finished their work in Steam City and were now striding in the direction of Green Bridge. It wasn’t the three copecks that he wanted to save, it was the time.

  After a long working day, people plodded along with their heads down, and the only thing they could think about was a hot supper and a pint of thin beer in some local inn. But Skorik walked with a spring in his step, shoulders and head raised, all serving as evidence that his day was only just beginning. If a stranger had cast a quick glance at Vanechka, he wouldn’t have given him more than 40 years, but a closer look would reveal the grey temples and deep wrinkles that betrayed Skorik as having lived through many more springs. The name Vanechka did not suit him at all but it was imposed on him by the old hag Zofia, and he didn’t argue.

  Closer to the bridge, the crowd began to thin out. Those making more money or the most exhausted workers jumped onto the steam trolley, while others continued to tread wearily over Green Bridge; still others, Skorik among them, stepped into the puzzling little streets of Snipiskes. Of course, they looked puzzling only to newcomers; compared to the labyrinths of the Troubles quarter, they were wide avenues. Skorik did not feel a stranger here, so he briskly traversed a few dirty passages, turned left and, following a hasty look around to check no one was following, slipped inside a wooden building, above whose door swung a battered sign reading Enzelman. Tobacconist and Confectioner.

  A moment later he stepped inside a small room with fly-stained windows, a wooden counter, shelves along one of the walls and a pile of boxes along the other. There was no sign of cakes or sugar pastries. But the shelves contained a dazzling display of countless tobacco packs and boxes. The room reeked of tobacco, the walls having absorbed the strong odour over the course of many years. A stout, hunch-backed old man sat behind the time-worn counter, carefully rolling a cigarette.