The Jewel of St Petersburg (18 page)

F
AILURE LAY LIKE COLD GRAY ASH IN HIS MIND.

“Well done.”

The words meant nothing. Arkin shook his head.

“No.”

“Viktor, the tsar will tread more carefully in future. You have frightened him and his government. They will be wary of rejecting our demands for—”

“You aren’t thinking straight, Father Morozov. Stolypin is still alive.”

“I know.” The priest rested a hand on Arkin’s shoulder, and his patient gaze sought out Arkin’s soul. “Don’t deny yourself the satisfaction of striking a blow for the new world we are building. You and I both know we have to tear down the old one first.”

“Stolypin will retaliate.” Arkin’s eyes darkened. “More deaths.”

“It is the price we must pay.”

“Tell me, Father, how do you think your God deals with that? How do you balance your religious conscience with planting bombs? What excuse do you give in your prayers each night?”

The priest lifted the engraved cross that hung around his neck and placed his lips on its battered surface, then leaned close to Arkin’s forehead. His lips were cool, and against his will Arkin felt a shiver of calm slide through the bones of his skull into the burning tangle beneath.

“The war we fight is a just war,” Morozov told him firmly. “Never doubt that. It is God’s holy battle for the souls of his people of Russia. He is our pillar of fire by night and our pillar of cloud by day. We wear his breastplate of righteousness.”

Viktor Arkin turned away. “Father, they will come searching for us.” He gestured around the basement room. “You should leave here at once.”

“I shall return to my village. It’s not far outside the city, so I can come back here quickly if needed. What about you?”

“I’ll stay close to my government minister. He will be angry after this attack on the prime minister, and when he’s angry he is indiscreet. He thinks of me as no one, a maroon uniform with nothing inside it, so in the car he says things out loud that would do better to stay in his head.”

“As I said, Viktor, God is on our side.”

Arkin picked his cap off the table and headed for the door. “You know we shall have to kill all of them in the end,” he said quietly. “Even the women and children.”

“Death is a beginning; look at it that way. The beginning of eternity for them, the beginning of a just and honorable new world for those who choose to build it here. Paradise on earth.”

Arkin saw in his mind a pair of large dark brown eyes and soft full mouth.
Do whatever you have to,
she’d said to him in the car when the marchers were coming close on Morskaya. Calm as a cat in the sunshine. Her little blond sister beside her on the blue seat, eyes huge as a child’s in a candy store.

All of them. Kill all of them.
That day would come. His hand shook as he seized the door handle.

Twelve

U
PSTAIRS THE CORRIDOR WITH ITS HIGH CEILING WAS cold. The wind raced straight through the attic, struggling under the roof tiles in an effort to push inside. Valentina heard the rattle of it and felt its echo inside herself, a wild kind of moaning that seemed to come from the forest.
Then we shall get on well,
he’d said. She smiled. She recalled the way his fingers held the reins, the smell of his coat. His hand on the back of her neck.
May I call on you?

No light came from under Katya’s door; nevertheless she opened it and slipped inside. Making no sound in the darkness, she kicked off her dancing shoes, raised a corner of the quilt, and slid into the well of warmth.

“Katya,” she murmured. She wrapped an arm around the still figure and held her sister close, twined their feet together, and laid her cheek beside Katya’s shoulder. She lay in the bed for several minutes before her nostrils registered an odor among the sheets, a sickly coppery smell that she knew too well. She sat up quickly.

“Katya.”

No answer. That was when she felt the moisture. It was all down her arm.

“Katya!”

She twisted around and frantically found the switch of the bedside lamp. Her own hand was bright red.

“No
^!
Katya!”

Her sister was lying peacefully on her back. On the far side of her was a pair of long-bladed scissors, and they were sticking upright out of her wrist. Like a knife in butter. Everything was red, the sheets drowning in scarlet, all from such a small jagged hole. Valentina leapt from the bed, seized the belt from Katya’s dressing gown on the chair, and bound it tightly around the limp arm, just above the elbow. The flood slowed. She tied a hard knot. The scarlet flow faltered and stammered to a trickle. Katya’s face was as white and as lifeless as her pillow, her blond curls the only part of her that seemed to possess any spark. Her eyes were closed.

“Katya.” Valentina cradled her in her arms for one brief agonized moment. Her heart hurt in her chest as she pressed her lips to her sister’s cold cheek. Then she ran for Nurse Sonya.

V
ALENTINA WAITED AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRCASE and watched the first spiny fingers of dawn sneak under the shutters. A thumbprint of pink sunlight appeared on the veined marble of the floor. She watched it grow and when it was the size and shape of a child, she heard footsteps descending the stairs. They were slow and ponderous, as though each foot were heavy.

“Dr. Beloi.” She looked up into a broad face with a neat little beard on the point of the chin. “How is she?”

The doctor plodded on down. His coat smelled of laudanum and two fingers of his left hand were badly stained with nicotine, but he was one of the finest medical men in St. Petersburg, as well as the costliest. He placed a hand on Valentina’s shoulder as if to pin down her impatience.

“She’s still alive. Your mother is with her now.”

Valentina released a small noise.

“Your sister will come through this ... aberration. God forgive her.” He shook his head and pinched a finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose as though he had a pain there.

“She won’t die?”

“No, don’t look so frightened. She won’t die. Thanks to you. You saved her life.”

“She won’t die,” Valentina murmured again.

“She’ll be weak for a while because she’s lost so much blood. You should go and change your dress. It’s covered in blood.”

He patted her shoulder again as if she were a fretful pet and plodded on across the hall. Valentina remained gazing up the stairs. As a footman swung open the front door, the doctor turned back and beckoned her to him.

“Valentina, come here.”

She came, reluctant to leave the stairs.

“Tell me, young lady, how did you know how and where to apply a tourniquet?”

“I read things.”

“Well, your parents will be thanking God on their knees that you went into your sister’s room when you did last night. She’d have been stone cold long before anyone found her this morning.”

Valentina just looked up at the galleried landing above. Her fingers couldn’t keep still.

“You did a fine job stemming the flow of blood. Worthy of a real nurse, my dear.”

His words drew her attention. “Dr. Beloi, how would I go about becoming a real nurse?”

“Good God, girl, don’t be absurd.”

“Would you give me an introduction to one of the hospitals, so that I can train?”

“Valentina, this is no time to be making jokes.”

“I’m not joking.”

He sighed and pinched his nose again. “I will do no such thing. Your parents are distressed and have enough problems without you adding to them. It’s just a silly notion you’ve got into your head because of this”—he waved a hand, clutching at straws—“this mistake by your sister.”

“You won’t help me?”

“Certainly not. Go and comfort your poor mother instead of coming out with such absurdities. Nursing is not for the likes of you.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t be foolish, girl. You know perfectly well why not.”

He pulled on his coat with a dismissive shrug and left the house.

V
ALENTINA PUT DOWN HER BOOK.

“I think we should forget about Mr. Rochester’s misfortunes now and talk about you instead.”

She was sitting on the edge of Katya’s bed, reading
Jane Eyre
aloud to her sister. It was one of her favorite novels, so packed with bird imagery that she constantly saw Katya fluttering through its pages, her wings damaged, her eyes bright and desperate.

Katya looked at her with muted defiance that brought faint color to her cheeks. “Let’s not,” she said.

“You’re going to have to tell me, my sweet sister.”

“I already have.”

“No, I mean really tell me.”

“What I said is true. I was tired. I’d had enough.” She put a hand over her eyes, the fingernails soft and white. Blocking out the world. “Enough of everything.”

Gently Valentina removed the hand. “Enough of me?”

The blue eyes blurred with tears. “That’s not fair.”

“What you did wasn’t fair.”

“I know.”

Valentina shuffled up until she was sitting next to Katya, an arm around her thin frame. She stroked the bandaged arm.

“Tell me about the ball,” Katya said.

“It was dull. Too many stiff military types. Too much testosterone.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s what men use instead of perfume.”

Katya chuckled. “You know so much.”

“No, I’ve just looked through some medical books.” She turned her head and placed a finger under Katya’s chin, tipping it to face her. “Katya, is that why you did it? Because of the ball?”

Her sister lowered her eyes, but Valentina continued to wait in silence.

“I knew you’d find yourself a husband there,” Katya whispered at last. “That’s what they’re for.”

“Rubbish, you silly thing. It was horribly dreary. I only went because Mama made me, you know that.” She entwined both arms around her sister and pulled her close, smelling the eucalyptus embrocation that Nurse Sonya had rubbed on her skin. She kissed her hair.

“I’ll not leave you,” she promised.

“You didn’t meet a husband then?”

“No, of course not. I just danced a bit. Drank lime cordial and looked at the stars.”

“The stars?”

“Yes.”

“Did you meet anyone special?”

Valentina pictured a pair of intense green eyes probing hers. And hard gray ones behind a rifle barrel.

“No,” she smiled. “No one of interest.”

V
ALENTINA AND HER MOTHER SET OFF TOGETHER TO GO to a bookshop. The sky was heavy with snow, the clouds like leaden weights sinking down to crush St. Petersburg. In the car Valentina could not keep her eyes from the back of the chauffeur’s head. She wanted to beat her fists on the stiff shoulders of his padded coat and say,
You frightened me. You frightened me so much I made a fool of myself in the sleigh. In front of a pair of green eyes. She wanted to say, Tell me what was under the tarpaulin.

Instead when he politely opened the car door for her to alight, she looked him directly in the face and said, “There will be no moon tonight. Unlike last night.”

She saw the sharp eyes grow blunt. Confusion made him blink.

Nothing more to say about my sweet arse? No rifle now to make you strong?