Heart of Iron (14 page)

I slept surprisingly well that night. I suppose I should have fretted and been concerned for Wong Jun’s wellbeing and for my own impending and perilous trip. If there were to be a trip, if Jack managed to steal the necessary papers and we escaped the unpleasant attention of Dame Nightingale. Instead, I stretched like my mother’s tabby cat and went to sleep, not a worry in my mind…

… and it was morning with Anastasia whispering fiercely for me to wake up, wake up, miss, please wake up.

She got me dressed — I chose a sophisticated two-piece tweed ensemble trimmed with lace that simultaneously signaled refinement and naiveté—and made me breakfast. Eugenia had already gone for the day, and I wished I could talk to her a bit before leaving. Instead I had to content myself with admonishing Anastasia to not forget to take the message to all my professors, and not to spend too much time gabbing with Natalia Sergeevna.

The coach took me along the University Embankment, all the way around the eastern tip of Vasilyevsky Island, and turned north toward the Tuchkov Bridge to Petrovsky Island. I briefly considered the folly of building a city on several islands, and the dangers spring floods always presented. I had heard a few stories of the Neva and other rivers overflowing their banks despite the tall containment walls; hundreds of people drowned. I supposed the trick of living so close to water was to never contemplate the damage it could cause longer than strictly necessary. I stared out the window instead.

The coach traveled east and north, along Bolshoy Prospect, a crowded, noisy avenue that was not nearly as pleasant as Nevsky, and much dirtier. The northern wind brought clouds of acrid smoke and exhaust from the factories by the Malaya Nevka River, and I covered my nose and mouth with my handkerchief. The scent of lilac sachet was comforting and far less objectionable than the air. We turned east and traveled over a small wooden bridge to Zayachiy Island. The carriage stopped at the gatehouse of the fortress — a place of grim aspect — and the coachman assisted me out.

“I’ll wait for you here, miss,” the freedman driver said. “Here, on the outside.”

I could not blame him for not wanting to go into the fortress. I hesitated myself, suspicious this was all a ploy to lure me here. I soon realized that was rather irrational. Surely, a simple arrest would get me into jail just as securely and more efficiently than laying an elaborate trap. I knocked on the small side door by the gate.

A guardsman in full uniform the epaulettes as large as his face let me inside, and I admired the trees and the carpet of orange and red leaves lining what in the summer was likely to be a very soft lawn. The guardsman escorted me to the commandant’s house.

Commandant Mishkin, a stout, mustachioed man in shining black boots and very thoroughly pressed uniform, checked my papers and asked me a few perfunctory questions. As he walked me along one of the many twining paths toward the Ravelin itself, he smiled. “You know,” he said, “this fortress is quite prestigious, far as jails go. Some of the brightest minds have stayed with us at one time or another.”

I found the idea that the caliber of a prison was measured by the talents of those unjustly contained within terrifying and funny at the same time, a comical nightmare. I managed not to betray my thoughts but only nodded thoughtfully.

Commandant Mishkin smiled. “We have been undergoing some wonderful renovations. The emperor is very concerned about the humane treatment of prisoners. We just finished expanding the cells and introducing all possible amenities. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”

My suspicions revived again. “How do you mean? Surely, you do not expect me to evaluate these amenities by myself?”

He laughed, a great belly laugh suitable to a man much bigger and more rounded. “I should’ve known,” he said between guffaws. “You take after your aunt. She always makes me laugh.”

“You know her?”

“We are old friends,” he said, as if it was an obvious fact that should’ve been known to me. “I owe my position here to her — not in a direct way, of course, but still. It took her long enough to call on our acquaintance.”

“Why is that?”

“She always tries to do things the right way, no bribes, no calling in favors — unless there’s no other way, of course.” Mishkin stopped mid-stride to cross his eyes and give his mustache a critical look. He wetted his thick thumb and forefinger with his tongue and twisted the mustache tips into points. Satisfied with the results, he continued. “She is old fashioned, your aunt, no matter how much she loves progress. She still expects things to be as they used to — as they ought to. Only you and I, we both know that progress has its price, and this price includes the cost of doing business.” He winked. “And here we are.”

If there ever existed such a thing as a cozy jail, Alexeevsky Ravelin was it. Gone were the stone walls weeping cold and moisture from cracks in crumbling mortar, and the hallway between the doors — all padded with cheerfully colored cloth — was straight, well-lit and dry. Mishkin was not lying about Constantine’s humanitarian inclinations.

I followed him along several corridors, almost losing my footing when he turned the corner abruptly and entered another one. It was like traversing a labyrinth, and my suspicions intensified once more. The smell inside was also starting to bother me — not the clean cold smells of the river that surrounded the fortress like mother’s embrace, but a tepid, faintly rotted miasma that was bound to breed consumption and fevers.

Mishkin stopped outside of a door no different from any other. There was an observation slit in the door at eye level, and another one just above the ground, no doubt for passing through meals or other objects. I peered through the observation slot, steeling myself for the worst.

Wong Jun looked quite comfortable, sitting on his bed with a book in his hands. There was a wooden door separating his room from a small stall in the back — a garderobe, I assumed. Overall, it was rather more civilized than I expected.

Wong Jun was wearing a long silk robe in green and yellow, a bit frayed at the collar. His face was paler and gaunter than I remembered, and his mustache, still long, looked as frayed as his collar. In addition, his beard had been growing without much care or grooming, which gave him a slightly mad and hermitlike appearance. To be expected out of a political prisoner, I supposed.

I nodded to Mishkin and he let me in. He locked the door behind me, and I briefly wondered if he would be right outside, eavesdropping. “Wong Jun,” I said.

He looked up then — I supposed the clanging of the door was not unusual or promising enough to attract his attention.

Wong Jun startled at the sound of my voice, and his book fell to the floor. He jumped up and grabbed my hands as if I were a dear friend, not someone he met only a few times and spoke to once. But I found myself overcome too. After a moment when we both were at a loss for words, tears forced their way out of my eyes. Wong Jun embraced me and cried too.

“I am so sorry I couldn’t come and see you before,” I said. “When I made inquiries, they arrested me… ”

“And yet you are not in prison,” he interrupted, then grinned. “I apologize. It was not my intention to imply anything but my sincere joy that you remain free.”

“I had assistance,” I said.

He nodded. “I must say I am surprised to see you. I did not expect any visitors at all, except perhaps for a wayward Chinese diplomat who might remember I was in this godforsaken city. But tell me, what of Chiang Tse and Lee Bo?”

“I have not seen them,” I said. “I heard they escaped unharmed — I only pray they have reached their… your homeland by now. The man who saved them and me is my friend; he’s English. I don’t understand all of it, but the English are more influential in St. Petersburg than Russian aristocracy.”

He shook his head, mournful. “There are only two ways in which the English relate to the world — they either take what they want or they destroy what they don’t.”

“Not Mr. Bartram,” I said, rather defensively. “You see, he agrees the Opium War was a disgrace for his countrymen. In fact, he is helping me, and we are going to go to China, and… ”

“You must speak more slowly,” Wong Jun said. “And keep your voice down.”

I hesitated, realizing that if Wong Jun had a chance to buy his freedom in exchange for information, everything I told him could be just as well printed in the newspapers. Still, there didn’t seem to be anything to gain by not asking questions he had answers to. I sighed and related the plan Jack and I had devised with, omitting the details and keeping the general thrust — that is, our need to go to China and to reach someone in the position to gain the emperor’s attention.

Wong Jun listened thoughtfully, his eyebrows doming occasionally as if he were troubled. He made a sound only once — a small, disappointed moan when the fate of Crane Club slipped through my lips.

“I’m so sorry,” I said then. “But you do see why it is important. The English have your airship models.”

He looked at me as if my words made no sense. “Those were not secrets, they were there for display. No one had to steal them, they could go in and see.”

“But if they want to make something that works, they would need the models,” I said. I remembered my visit with Eugenia to the factory in Tosno, the illfated airship. I wondered what happened to it, if there were any more.

Wong Jun nodded. “I see. If something isn’t a secret, it doesn’t mean it cannot be stolen and used. I do have to say I think your idea to ally our countries against the British is a good one — China would certainly benefit from not having Russia as an enemy. And I will be able to help you. Do you have any paper? I used up my monthly allowance on poetry.” He gave a dry smile. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

I rifled through my handbag, and found the programme from a chamber music concert Jack and I had attended recently. Fortunately, the reverse side of it was blank, and I handed it to Wong Jun. Under his bed, he kept an inkwell filled with black ink and a brush — just a piece of bamboo splintered into fibers on one end. With these simple implements, Wong Jun started drawing symbols similar to those I’d seen at the Crane Club, but of course could not read. When he was finished, he handed me the paper and I folded it, feeling rather like either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Just show it to any official you see,” he said. “Or rather any who wear Manchu robes — Ming loyalists and most other Han are idiots, and they may decide this letter has better uses than helping two Europeans, one of whom is… English.” He said “English” as if it was the most distasteful word in the world. “But you need to get to a real official with that, understand? They will take you to the Xian Feng Emperor — I wrote that it is the matter of our country’s very survival. I wrote that you would help us stop the East India Company. Don’t make me into a liar.”

His smile, hidden by his beard so that only the corners of his eyes creased and his mustache lifted a bit, was unexpected but welcome. I had not realized how tense my back was, how tightly my hands clenched on my jacket sleeves until I smiled back and heaved a sigh of relief. “It’s a tall order, but we will do our best. Meanwhile, my aunt will keep asking for your release.”

“Please convey my deepest thanks to your aunt.” Wong Jun smiled still. It struck me, how stoic he was, how accepting and yet how brave. If I were imprisoned, I would be throwing myself at the door and screaming, I would be hitting my head against the walls that enclosed me… the violence of my reaction surprised me, as if the very thought of being imprisoned was enough to drive my imagination wild and make me panic with the possibility.

“I will,” I promised. “The commandant is a friend of hers, and I think he is a good man. Let me know if there is anything you need—”

“To be set free.” He gave a mournful smile. “But I suppose this is rather asking too much.”

“My aunt is trying.”

“Other than that, I am being treated well,” he said. “What is interesting to me is that no one is interrogating me. I was arrested and delivered here, and then left alone. If they really believed I was a spy, they would have at least asked me some questions, don’t you think? Instead, it’s just this.” He spread his fingers and raised his hands palms up.

“At least it is… agreeable,” I said.

“It’s a prison.”

“I know. I’m trying to be comforting.”

“You’re trying to absolve yourself from guilt of leaving me while you and your friends ran away.”

It was true, I realized, even though it was something I tried not to think about for a long time now. “I couldn’t have done anything to help you,” I said. “You know that.”

He kept quiet, smiling.

“Is there anything you can do to help us?”

The look he gave me was a hair short of annoyed. “I am doing what I can, but as you can see, I am rather limited by current circumstance. I will however offer you this advice: you Europeans have an unfortunate tendency to assume the rest of the world exists to assist you and to help you. But please remember as you travel that the Chinese people you will encounter have excellent reasons to neither trust nor help you. And the emperor — you must have compelling reasons for him to approve of your proposed alliance, he has his own problems, what with the East India Company and the Taipings. He is quite busy; but if you will, please let him know that I am well and my rescue is not an urgent matter, although I do hope he could get to it eventually — if your aunt’s attempts do not succeed, of course.”

I blushed — I could feel my cheeks heat up and glow crimson. “I did not mean to imply that I consider myself in any way more important than you.”

“Your Englishman certainly does,” Wong Jun said.

Just then there was a knock on the door, and Mishkin’s round, smiling face that reminded me of an especially ripe and red apple looked in. “I’m afraid I must interfere,” he said. “This visit had gone on longer than I agreed to, and the lady must be going.”