Heart of Iron (18 page)

I had seen people drink before, and I tossed my shot back rather confidently and took a quick bite of one of the thoughtfully supplied pickles to keep from coughing.

They asked me about my life and I answered truthfully that I traveled with a friend — an Englishman, I hinted, of considerable importance. I was his local guide but said I could not tell them more.

They nodded that they understood, and I could almost see the ideas forming in their skulls, the slow, laborious movement of minds used to only the simplest of operations — they saw my uniform and heard the word “Englishman,” and assumed I was on a secret mission of a great military and governmental importance. In fact, I was. In any case, I was grateful to be spared any additional lying. They started talking about their squadron — Rotmistr Ivankov was their leader— and I, relaxed by alcohol and warmth and fatigue, let my mind drift.

I thought of my conversation with Jack and wondered if I had been too harsh with him. If, really, one could not help but take the side of one’s country. And then I thought of the letters to the queen written by Commissioner Lin, and I felt so angry — one of the passages Chiang Tse quoted to me from memory spoke of sameness, of how essentially alike the Chinese and the English were. It was the English and the Russians who kept denying the similarity, and instead they found Professor Ipatiev and others like him who wrote stupid books about beastliness of everyone who was not them.

The word “Turkestan” caught my attention and brought me back to the table. My new friends spoke of their impending departure to that distant province, and lamented the fact it would take the cavalry so much longer to get there than the train.

“We’ve been there before,” the rotmistr told me, his voice made soft and intimate by alcohol. “You won’t believe what it’s like there, lad — steppe, yes, but also a desert. Not a single tree as far as the eye can see, just golden dry grass and red clay ringing under the hooves and the blue mountains on the horizon.”

One of the cornets (I had forgotten which was which) leaned on the table with both elbows and whispered to me, “I wonder sometimes, what right we have… The Turks who live there, they live on horseback and always move around. They take their yurts with them, and they just go — Turkestan, Mongolia, China-land… all the same to them. And there’s such beauty all around, I wonder why we have to take it and call it ours.”

“That’s empire building,” the other cornet said, without any noticeable trace of irony. “If the tsar-emperor wants it to lay a railroad through, then he can take it. Not like those people are doing anything with that land anyway.”

“Commissioner Lin was sent to Turkestan,” I slurred, both my memory and my tongue getting away from me. I felt his hurt, his puzzlement: If you know it is poison, why are you bringing it to us? If you know that opium destroys lives, if you know enough to make it illegal in your country, why do you keep selling it to our people? I felt like crying — I recognized that puzzlement of a noble man in the face of betrayal, I recognized it from Chiang Tse’s look back in the Crane Club. The inability to recognize such callous, cynical disregard for truth and justice because he was as unable to harbor such feelings as I was unable to fly.

“Cheer up, lad,” the rotmistr told me. “There’s hope for the empire yet. Now, how about a toast to the emperor’s health?”

Jack came down the stairs, concern written clearly on his long face, to find me in the company of three fairly drunk hussars — truth be told, I was getting a bit tipsy myself, because they kept calling me a bare-faced youth and buying me drinks. I consumed tremendous quantities of gherkins and pickled herring attempting to stave off intoxication, but by the time I saw Jack, my vision was blurred, I laughed quite readily, and the hussars had persuaded me to join them in a song.

“This… this is my charge,” I explained to my new friends, while poking Jack in the chest repeatedly. Then I swept my arm in the air, indicating the rotmistr and both cornets, and informed Jack, “And these are my friends. We were just singing ‘God Save the Tsar’.”

“How nice,” Jack said. “We do have to turn in — we have a long day tomorrow.”

“Just one more drink,” the rotmistr said in passable English. “Please, join us for one drink, and then we’ll return your boy.”

“Very well.” Jack pulled up the chair and shook hands.

I felt misty-eyed, so happy everyone was getting along so well, and that Jack did not seem inclined to snub anyone. I also missed my mother with a sudden intensity, and wished we had taken a long route to Moscow, stopping by Trubetskoye. I decided to write her a letter instead, as soon as I could hold a pen. Meanwhile, Jack and the rotmistr started a discussion about Asia.

“The thing is,” the rotmistr was saying, swaying a bit with liquor, a fire of righteous conviction bright in his eyes, “Russia needs to embrace its Asian nature. Scythians, yes? Our ancestors, and yet Asiatic. We need to embrace that.”

“Is that so?” Jack said, smiling. “It seems to me that Emperor Constantine along with Peter the Great and a few others tsars are quite intent on being embracing Europe.”

I rolled my eyes: this was a discussion I had heard many times, and even participated in myself. It did not seem to have a resolution or even any purpose beyond providing a thin excuse for discussing Russia’s destiny as a nation and its delicate position perched as it was between the East and the West, like a Georgian circus rider between two horses. Their voices buzzed in my ears as my mind drifted to the train ride with Chiang Tse, who seemed so curious then of the entire notion of westernization. I was half asleep by the time Jack tapped me on the shoulder and dragged me upstairs, to the accompaniment of the hussars’ laughter.

The next morning I woke up with a headache and a sense of calamity; there was an uncomfortable sensation burning in the pit of my stomach as if I had done something inappropriate the night before but couldn’t quite remember it. I had slept in my clothes, and my shoulder hurt where my reverse corset had rubbed it raw. I sat up and stretched, trying to readjust everything that had shifted during sleep. My mouth tasted especially foul.

The other bed was empty, and I worried until the door opened and Jack appeared with two plates of fried eggs, cheese, and bread and butter. “Eat this,” he said and set one next to me. “Believe me, there’s nothing better for a hangover than a full stomach. I’ll get tea.”

He disappeared again and I ate, my mind clearing as eggs and bread and butter smothered the queasy feeling in my belly. I was glad to have Jack on my side.

“What are we doing today?” I asked when he returned with two glasses of very strong and sweet tea.

“I would suggest staying where we are,” he answered, and started on his breakfast. “I went out this morning, picked up newspapers and a few penny dreadfuls — some French ones, and
The String of Pearls
.”

“I like those,” I said. A day spent indoors reading appealed to me; I also saw an opportunity to talk to Jack about some of the conversation from last night.

We read most of the morning; both of us felt anxious to keep on our journey and yet eager to hear from Eugenia. We scanned the newspapers, but apart from a brief mention of the robbery of the St. Petersburg house of a visiting British dignitary, it contained nothing pertaining to us. Finally, I had got a grasp on the elusive memory that had been nibbling on my mind on and off all morning. “Jack,” I said. (It was easier for us to be on first name basis when we both were men; I suspected we would revert to the polite form of address once I was back in proper clothing.) “I heard what you said last night to the rotmistr.”

He put down the magazine he was flipping through. “What exactly are you referring to? If memory serves, the rotmistr and I had quite a prolonged talk.”

“You said that you’ve been to China. And you mentioned something about East Turkestan.”

“They all served in West Turkestan,” Jack said. “They said they were going there again.”

“And Commissioner Lin was exiled in East Turkestan. And you went to China. And there was no mention of you in those newspapers before 1841. About ten years ago.”

“What are you asking me?” He had such a direct, steady gaze, it was difficult to suspect him of anything unsavory.

“Have you ever worked for the East India Trading Company? Did you return to London in 1841 after the hostilities started?”

“You are astute,” Jack said. “I was never involved with the smuggling; I was a mere youth, a member of the crew on a merchant ship. We were caught in Canton Harbor in March 1839 when the Chinese demanded the surrender of all opium and detained all foreign ships so that the smugglers could not escape the country. We were only allowed to leave after all opium was destroyed.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

He shrugged. “I have told you more about myself than I ever told anyone, except under duress. I worried that your… idealism would not allow you to judge me kindly. And, to be quite honest, you already had quite a lot to contend with: my criminal past and my neglect of the natural sciences.”

I had to smile at that. I could also understand his omission — he did want me to like him, of that I had no doubt. “I understand,” I said. “I was simply curious, and never had intention of judging you.”

He laughed, visibly relieved. “Oh, thank you,” he said. “I should’ve known that your infatuation with Commissioner Lin would lead you to the truth of the matter. I’ve never been to East Turkestan myself, but I do have an acquaintance who has — who went there to see Commissioner Lin.”

“Who was it?” I awaited the answer with a superstitious dread that I had already guessed it.

“Dame Nightingale,” Jack said. “She does not miss a chance to see an old enemy of the British Empire humiliated.”

I put my book away. “But you told me she’s not really interested in China.”

“That’s what she told me.”

I searched through my satchel to get my pen. “Fine, but now I need to write a letter to my mother.”

“Make sure you do not mention where we are in case it gets intercepted.”

“You need not tell me things I already know,” I said. I tried not to be uncivil — he did bring me breakfast, after all; I just disliked being treated as a child. Somehow it was more acceptable from the hussars: at least, they thought I was sixteen and fresh out of a military academy. But even so, they spoke to me in a way men had seldom spoken to me before — as if I were their equal, to be teased a little due to my youth, but otherwise as one of them. I worried I might get used to it.

Jack went back to his reading as I contemplated my letter. I was supposed to uphold the lie of staying with friends, and I could betray neither my whereabouts nor my concerns. Instead I poured my anxiety into the only form available to me, which, by happy coincidence, was something she would most likely understand. I did not think my mother a dull woman, but her interests lay firmly in the sphere of the domestic and the courtly.

“Dear Mother,” I wrote, “I miss you every day, and I cannot wait for the summer when we will be able to spend our days together in the happy embrace of our home. I hope your cats and servants are well, and your days are filled with serenity and contentment. Is the river frozen yet? I hope it is, and that the village children skate and amuse you with their merriment.

“I have to confess I write to you not only because I am feeling deprived of your company or because it is my duty as you daughter, but I also hope to receive advice from you on matters of the heart. Even though Eugenia visited with me before my departure, you know well she is not the one to advise on courtship matters.

“I confess also that despite my great interest in my studies and my hopes to continue them until I accumulate enough courses to be called a Baccalaureate, two young men came recently to my attention. Both are of foreign origin and both possess pleasant qualities; although neither had proposed, I feel reasonably confident that at least one of them might be compelled in that direction with a most subtle demonstration of my benevolent interest.”

“Sasha,” Jack called from his bed, where he sprawled, reading. Apparently, the change of costume on my part allowed him to dispense with any semblance of courtly behavior — which was an asset, I supposed, since traveling together and being elaborately polite seemed unnecessarily taxing.

“What?” I answered, also unceremoniously.

“Did you know that the Masked Temerain could peel his face off?”

“He was burned to the crisp, as I recall, and disfigured. What of it?”

Jack smiled at me fondly. “I just wondered if you knew. He is quite an extraordinary creature, that Temerain.”

“So are you,” I said, still a bit uneasy about Jack’s leaping prowess. “Maybe I should write a penny dreadful about you.”

His grin grew wider and he folded his long arms behind his head, staring dreamily into the ceiling. “Someone ought to. As long as I don’t die in it.”

“You can’t die in a serial,” I told him. “Maybe if someone wrote about you they would explain how you were able to do the things that you do.” It started to snow outside, and I felt grateful to be inside, where it was warm and cozy. I pulled the woolen blanket around my shoulders, making a nest of sorts for myself, my ink bottle, and my unfinished letter. “Well? Are you going to tell me?”

“You’re busy,” Jack said.

“I’m not. I can finish this letter later.”

He sighed then. “No, I wasn’t always capable of leaping over buildings. I was born poor, and quite undistinguished in any way. My parents managed to make ends meet, and I helped as I could — sometimes I worked in a textile factory, sweeping the floors and cleaning up; sometimes I stole. When I was fifteen, I left home and got hired as a sailor on a ship named
The Oxford
, and we left for China. I had a propensity for languages, and I learned a smattering of Cantonese from a Chinaman traveling with us by the time we landed in Canton. This was in 1839, when things were deteriorating so badly. My ship stayed anchored at Canton, unable to take cargo or unload, because no one was not even thinking about anything that wasn’t opium.”