Shadow Pass (6 page)

Reluctantly, Pekkala put on the jacket.

Kirov helped him into it. “There!” he announced. “How does it feel?”

Pekkala raised his arms and lowered them again. “All right, I suppose.”

“You see! I told you! And there’s a shirt there and a new pair of trousers too. Now no one will be able to call you a fossil.”

Pekkala frowned. “I didn’t realize anyone called me a fossil.”

Kirov patted him on the shoulder. “It’s just an expression. And now I have something else for you. A real present this time.” He held his arm out towards the windowsill, where a small plant sagged under the weight of bright orange fruits.

“Tangerines?” asked Pekkala.

“Kumquats,” corrected Kirov proudly. “It took me months to find one of these plants and more than a year to get it to bear fruit. Are you ready?”

“Kumquats,” said Pekkala, still trying out the word.

Kirov reached out and took hold of a fruit between his thumb and first two fingers. Gently he twisted until the ball came away from its stem, then held it out to Pekkala.

Pekkala plucked the kumquat from Kirov’s fingers and sniffed at it.

“Eat!” said Kirov, his cheeks flushing red. “That’s an order!”

Pekkala raised his eyebrows. “An order, Kirov?”

“I do outrank you.”

“But I don’t have a rank!”

“Exactly.” Kirov flapped his hand at Pekkala as if he were shooing a fly. “Don’t make me ask you again!”

Pekkala took a small bite, tearing through the thin, glowing skin of the kumquat and into the yellowy segments beneath. His eyes closed tightly as the sour taste flooded his mouth. “It’s inedible!”

“It’s perfect,” said Kirov. Then he went back to the windowsill and traced one finger lovingly over the deep green, shiny leaves.

“You need a girlfriend, Kirov. Or a wife. You’re spending too much time with these kumquats. Now please go down and bring the car around front.”

“Where are we going?”

“We have a rendezvous with thirty tons of Russian steel. Nagorski has offered to give us a tour of the place where the tank is being designed. He is anxious to prove to us that the facility is secure.”

“Yes, Inspector.” Kirov picked up his keys and headed out the door.

“Did you remember your gun?” Pekkala called to him.

Kirov groaned. His footsteps came to a halt.

“You forgot again, didn’t you?”

“I don’t need it this time,” Kirov protested.

“You never know when you will need it. That’s why there are regulations, Kirov!”

Kirov trudged back up the stairs and into the office. Then he began rifling through the drawers of his desk.

“Have you lost it?” asked Pekkala.

“It’s in here somewhere,” muttered Kirov.

Pekkala shook his head and sighed.

“Ah!” shouted Kirov. “Here it is!” He held up a Tokarev automatic, standard issue for army officers and members of state security.

“Now go and get the car,” Pekkala told him.

“On my way!” Kirov swept past and clattered down the stairs.

Before Pekkala left the office, he removed the new jacket, replaced it in the box, and put his old coat on again. As he fastened the buttons, he went to the window and looked out over the rooftops of Moscow. Late-afternoon sunlight shone weak and silvery upon the slates. Crows and pigeons shared the chimney pots. His gaze returned to the plants on the windowsill. Glancing back to see if Kirov had returned, Pekkala reached out and plucked another kumquat. He put the whole thing in his mouth and bit down. The bitter juice exploded in his mouth. He swallowed and let out a gasp. Then he made his way down to the street.

A
GENTLE RAIN WAS FALLING
.

Kirov stood beside the car. It was a 1935 Emka, with a squared-off roof, a large front grille, and headlights mounted on the wide and sweeping cowlings, giving it a haughty look. The engine was running. The Emka’s wipers twitched jerkily back and forth, like the antennae of an insect.

Kirov held open the passenger door, waiting for Pekkala.

As Pekkala shut the battered yellow door behind him, he turned and almost barged into two women who were walking past.

The women were bundled in scarves and bulky coats. They chattered happily, breath condensing into halos about their heads.

“Excuse me,” said Pekkala, rocking back on his heels so as not to collide with the women.

The women did not break their stride. They merely glanced at him, then returned to their conversation.

Pekkala watched them go, staring at the woman on the left. He had caught only a glimpse of her—pale brown eyes and a wisp of blond hair trailing across her cheek—but now the blood drained out of his face.

Kirov noticed. “Pekkala,” he said quietly.

Pekkala did not seem to hear. He walked quickly after the women. Reaching out, he touched the shoulder of the brown-eyed woman.

She wheeled. “What is it?” she cried, instantly afraid. “What do you want?”

Pekkala jerked his hand away as if he’d just been shocked. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I thought you were somebody else.”

Kirov was walking towards them.

Pekkala swallowed, barely able to speak. “I’m so sorry,” he told her.

“Who did you think I was?” she asked.

Kirov came to a stop beside them. “Excuse us, ladies,” he said cheerfully. “We were just going in the opposite direction.”

“Well, I hope you find who you are looking for,” the woman told Pekkala.

Then she and her friend walked on down the street, while Kirov and Pekkala returned to the car.

“You didn’t have to come after me like that,” said Pekkala.
“I’m perfectly capable of getting myself out of embarrassing situations.”

“Not as capable as you are of getting into them,” replied Kirov. “How many times are you going to go galloping after strange women?”

“I thought it was …”

“I know who you thought it was. And I also know as well as you do that she’s not in Moscow. She’s not even in the country! And even if she was here, right in front of you, it wouldn’t matter, because she has another life now. Or have you forgotten all that?”

“No,” sighed Pekkala, “I have not forgotten.”

“Come on, Inspector, let’s go have a look at this tank. Maybe they will let us take one home.”

“We wouldn’t have to worry about someone taking our parking spot,” said Pekkala, as he climbed into the rear seat of the Emka. “We’d just park on top of them.”

As Kirov pulled out into the stream of cars, he did not see Pekkala look back at the empty road where he had stood with the women, as if to see some ghost of his old self among the shadows.

Her name was Ilya Simonova. She had been a teacher at the Tsarskoye primary school, just outside the grounds of the Tsar’s estate. Most of the Palace staff sent their children to the Tsarskoye school, and Ilya often led groups of students on walks across the Catherine and Alexander parks. That was how Pekkala had met her: at a garden party to mark the beginning of the new school year. He had not actually gone to the party, but saw it on his way home from the station. He stopped at the wall of the school and looked in.

Of that moment in time, Pekkala had no recollection of anything else except the sight of her, standing just outside a white marquee set up for the occasion. She was wearing a pale green dress.
She did not have a hat, so he could see her face quite clearly—high cheekbones and eyes a dusty blue.

At first he thought he must know her from somewhere before. Something in his mind made her seem familiar to him. But that wasn’t it. And whatever it was, this sudden lurching of his senses towards something it couldn’t explain, it stopped him in his tracks and held him there. The next thing he knew, a woman on the other side of the wall had come up and asked him if he was looking for somebody. She was tall and dignified, her gray hair knotted at the back.

“Who is that?” Pekkala had asked, nodding towards the young woman in the green dress.

“That’s the new teacher, Ilya Simonova. I am the headmistress, Rada Obolenskaya. And you are the Tsar’s new detective.”

“Inspector Pekkala.” He bowed his head in greeting.

“Would you like me to introduce you, Inspector?”

“Yes!” Pekkala blurted out. “I just … she looks like someone I know. At least, I think she does.”

“I see,” said Madame Obolenskaya.

“I might be wrong,” explained Pekkala.

“I don’t suppose you are,” she replied.

He proposed to Ilya Simonova exactly one year later, down on his knees in the same schoolyard where they first met.

A date was set, but they were never married. They never got the chance. Instead, on the eve of the Revolution, Ilya boarded the last train heading west. It was bound for Paris, where Pekkala promised to meet her as soon as the Tsar had granted him permission to leave the country. But Pekkala never did get out. Months later, he was arrested by Bolshevik militiamen while attempting to cross into Finland. From there, his journey to Siberia began, and it was many years before he had another chance to leave.

“You are free to go now if you wish,” said Stalin, “but before you make your decision, there is something you should know.”

“What?” asked Pekkala nervously. “What do I need to know?”

Stalin was watching him closely, as if the two men were playing cards. Now he opened a drawer on his side of the desk, the dry wood squeaking as he pulled. He withdrew a photograph. For a moment, he studied it. Then he laid the picture down, placed one finger on top of it, and slid the photograph towards Pekkala
.

It was Ilya. He recognized her instantly. She was sitting at a small cafe table. Behind her, printed on the awning of the cafe, Pekkala saw the words
LES DEUX MAGOTS
. She was smiling as she watched something to the left of where the camera had been placed. He could see her strong white teeth. Now, reluctantly, Pekkala’s gaze shifted to the man who was sitting beside her. He was thin, with dark hair. He wore a jacket and tie, and the stub of a cigarette was pinched between his thumb and second finger. He held the cigarette in the Russian manner, with the burning end balanced over his palm as if to catch the falling ash. Like Ilya, the man was smiling. Both of them were watching something just to the left of the camera. On the other side of the table was an object which at first Pekkala almost failed to recognize, since it had been so long since he had seen one. It was a baby carriage, its hood pulled up to shelter the infant from the sun
.

Pekkala realized he wasn’t breathing. He had to force himself to fill his lungs
.

Quietly, Stalin cleared his throat. “You must not hold it against her. She waited, Pekkala. She waited a very long time. Over ten years. But a person cannot wait forever, can they?”

Pekkala stared at the baby carriage. He wondered if the child had her eyes
.

“As you see”—Stalin gestured towards the picture—“Ilya is happy now. She has a family. She is a teacher, of Russian of course, at the prestigious École Stanislas. She has tried to put the past behind her. That is something all of us must do at some point in our lives.”

Slowly, Pekkala raised his head, until he was looking Stalin in the eye. “Why did you show this to me?”

Stalin’s lips twitched. “Would you rather have arrived in Paris, ready to start a new life, only to find that it was once more out of reach?”

“Out of reach?” Pekkala felt dizzy. His mind seemed to rush from one end of his skull to the other, like a fish trapped in a net
.

“You could still go to her, of course.” Stalin shrugged. “But whatever peace of mind she might have won for herself in these past years would then be gone in an instant. And let us say, for the sake of argument, that you could persuade her to leave the man she married. Let us say that she even leaves behind her child—”

“Stop,” Pekkala said
.

“You are not that kind of man, Pekkala. You are not the monster that your enemies once believed you to be. If you were, you would never have been such a formidable opponent for people like myself. Monsters are easy to defeat. With such people, it is merely a question of blood and time, since their only weapon is fear. But you, Pekkala—you won the hearts of the people and the respect of your enemies. I do not believe you understand how rare a thing that is. Those whom you once served are out there still.” Stalin brushed his hand towards the window of his study, and out across the pale blue autumn sky. “They have not forgotten you, Pekkala, and I don’t believe you have forgotten them.”

“No,” whispered Pekkala, “I have not forgotten.”

“What I am trying to tell you, Pekkala, is that you can leave this country if you want to. I’ll put you on the next train to Paris, if that’s really what you want. Or you can stay here, where you are truly needed and where you still have a place if you want it.”

Until that moment, the thought of staying on in Russia had not occurred to him. But now Pekkala realized that his last gesture of affection for the woman he’d once thought would be his wife must be to let her believe he was dead
.