The Jewel of St Petersburg (34 page)

“How is Katya?” Jens asked. An unexpected question.

“She’s cross. Thoroughly bad-tempered.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s better at the moment. In less pain.”

“Isn’t that cause to be happy?”

“No. It means her tutor comes every day and makes her do mathematics, which she hates.”

He laughed. She loved his laugh. It was as much a part of him as his red hair and his long rangy limbs. The sound of it came to her sometimes at night and woke her. In her dreams, he sat on the end of her bed, his red hair shimmering in the moonlight, and told her things while his black shadow shifted from wall to wall. She was certain that what he told her was vital for her to know, yet each morning it all vanished the moment she raised her eyelids.

“Jens,” she said as they crossed a bridge, “how is progress on the collapsed tunnel?”

“Too slow.”

“It must be frustrating for you.”

He shrugged, but she wasn’t fooled.

“I’m taking this opportunity,” he added, “of using the Duma’s outrage to channel more funds into replacing another section of the old wooden sewage pipes and improving the gradients into Neva Bay.”

They had stopped at a crossroad, pausing as two heavy horse-drawn wagons trundled past, rain gleaming on the animals’ thick coats.

“Jens, why is it you care so much for your tunnels?”

“It’s my job.”

She laughed and shook her head. The hood of her cape slid down. She had removed her nurse’s head covering but was still wearing her hospital uniform. “Yes, it’s your job, but it’s obvious the tunnels mean more to you than that.”

She fastened both hands on his arm, holding him there on the curb though the road had cleared. The rain was growing heavier, streaking through the darkness, coating the roofs and puddling on the roads. Later it would turn to ice.

“What makes you want to build tunnels? Instead of bridges, like your Isambard Brunel in England. He built the beautiful Clifton Suspension Bridge, didn’t he?”

“I am impressed.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed his chin. A slight stubble felt rough against her lips. “Do you know what I think?”

“Tell me what goes on in that convoluted mind of yours.”

“I have a theory. I think you like to impose order on chaos.”

“Hah! That’s quite a theory.”

“A pile of bricks, you turn them into a tunnel. A city that needs pipes underground, you work out the gradients. A row of houses sinking in filth and flooded basements, you give them a sewerage system. Order out of chaos.”

His face was still, eyes intent on hers. Only his breath moved, lacing in and out of the raindrops. He lifted his head and stared up at the roofs of the city. Above them a blanket of low clouds blacked out any hope of stars. “Petersburg itself needs cleansing. Not just its water supply.”

“Come with me, Jens. I want you to see something.” She seized his hand and together they ran across the road.

A
RKIN PEELED HIMSELF OFF THE WALL OF THE SHOP DOORWAY. He slid out of the shadows into the sleeting rain as the headlights of a car picked out the figures of Valentina and her engineer. They were running, her cape flapping like wings, as if they could sense him stalking behind them, even though he was certain they couldn’t. He was too careful.

The rain served him well. People scuttled along the sidewalks under a wave of umbrellas that created a black barrier for him to duck behind. He tracked Valentina and Jens easily, following their twists and turns. He waited patiently in dark corners when they stopped at shops, curious about what lay in the bundles under their arms when they emerged.

He saw more than he wanted. The way they touched each other. The way they could not stop looking at each other, again and again, so often they could have stumbled on the road. The way their bodies never lost contact, as though drawn together by an invisible thread. He saw it all.

They were moving fast now, choosing unlit roads. Making it easy for him.

Twenty-one

I
T TOOK VALENTINA SOME TIME TO FIND THE RIGHT ROAD, but as soon as she turned into it she recognized the place. The wind had picked up, driving rain into their faces.

“This is the house.”

Jens showed no inclination to knock at the door where she had stopped. In fact he showed no inclination to be taking part in this expedition at all, but she had steered him into these backstreets, aware of his disapproval. His shoulders were set in a hard line.

“This is no place for you, Valentina. Your nurse’s uniform is not a disguise, you know. It doesn’t hide what you are. It’s not safe for you here.”

She laughed at him, provoking a frown. “Of course it’s safe. I’ve got you with me. Look, this is the door.”

Jens pushed at it, and it swung open with a grating sound. He led the way over the threshold and they were hit by the rank smell, so strong this time that Valentina lifted her handkerchief over her nose. The door to the left was closed, but this time there were no children to challenge her, so she walked over and knocked. There was no response from inside. Jostling his bundles, Jens tried the handle and it turned easily. The room was freezing cold and lay in semidarkness, just one stub of a candle spitting out a reluctant light. Valentina grew wary, knowing that the woman with the damaged skull had not welcomed her the first time.

“Varenka?” she called.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she took in the silence. There was no bustle of children or squawk of a baby. No noise at all except a hot harsh breath like the sound of a wheezy horse. The smell in the room was worse than in the hallway.

“Varenka?” she said again.

There was a movement on the bed. A hand tugged at a blanket and a face grayer than ash stared at them through slits of eyes. It was Varenka. She wore no scarf on her head, the scars visible in the semi-darkness, but she roused herself to a sitting position.

“Get out,” she hissed. “Leave me in peace.”

Valentina dropped the bundle of kindling she was carrying and hurried over to the bed, shaking out the thick folds of the woolen blanket she had brought. But Jens seized her arm and jerked her away from the bed.

“Don’t,” he said sharply. “I’ll light the fire and then we’ll leave.”

Valentina yanked her hand away. “No. Now I’m here I want to cook her some eggs and—”

“Go away.” The woman sank back down. There was no pillow. Just a bare soiled mattress and a patched blanket that stank of vomit and worse.

“I’m a nurse now,” Valentina pointed out. “I can help.”

She’d never lit a fire before. Never cooked eggs before. But she was determined to do so now. She calmly set about looking for a pan while Jens organized the fire. He was efficient in his movements, spreading kindling in the stove, using the paper bags that he’d carried the food in to catch the flame from his match. Instantly the fire’s glow cast more light into the room, and Valentina shuddered. The place was filthy, worse than filthy, with a metal bucket overflowing with excrement in one corner and yellow trails of dried vomit across the floor. She felt bile rise in her throat.

“Jens,” she murmured. “I expected that we would present her with the food, thank her again for her help with Katya, and leave. Debt canceled.” She looked around her. “But now this.”

His face hardened as he looked at the woman on the bed. “She’s sick, Valentina. You can smell how sick she is. If you stay here, you’re taking a risk. We don’t know what she’s got and you could catch—”

She put a finger to his lips. “Just a few minutes, Jens. We’ll be quick.”

“I know,” he said. “You won’t leave this sick stranger any more than you will leave your Katya. That’s who you are.”

He wrapped his arms around her as though the woman weren’t watching with envious eyes. He kissed Valentina’s forehead. It silenced the chattering of her teeth. “We’ll be quick,” she promised.

“You’re a nurse.” His smile, when it came, did something extraordinary to her insides. It made them hum, taut as piano strings.

T
HEY WORKED TOGETHER, SIDE BY SIDE WITH SCARVES looped around their noses and mouths, their hands safe inside their gloves. They took shallow breaths, gulping in air only when they ducked outside into the street. The night air tasted sweet by comparison, though in reality it was acrid with factory waste and God only knew what else.

The worst came at the start. Valentina approached the bed.

“Where is the baby?” she asked.

The woman seemed to convulse, her limbs twisted in pain. “Dead,” the woman said flatly.

“I’m so sorry.”

Valentina squinted into the gloom of the far side of the bed. Only then did she make out the three small bundles under the edge of the blanket, so thin and flat they looked no more than rumples in the material. She leaned closer. So there were the other children.

“Stay away,” the woman snapped.

Valentina took a quick look at the small bluish-gray faces and turned away. “I’ll find some water,” she said. “There must be a pump somewhere in the street.”

She snatched an earthenware bowl from a shelf and hurried outside. She only just made it. In the darkest corner she vomited up her day’s food, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and stood in the rain, her face turned up to the clean cold blast of it. The children in the bed were the ones who had accepted her coins with such eagerness. Now they lay there beside their mother, still and stiff. All dead. By the time she had found a water pump and was making her way back to the house, a stray dog was gobbling up her vomit.

T
HE DOOR SLAMMED OPEN, STARTLING VALENTINA AS SHE was boiling up another can of water on the stove. Even after boiling, the liquid still looked gray and brackish.

“Who the hell are you?” A man in an army greatcoat with the insignia cut off, dark at the shoulders from the rain, had kicked his way into the room.

Even without the swaying of his stocky figure, it was obvious he was drunk. He threw his cloth cap onto the floor, revealing a shaven head and skin that was mottled with brown speckles like birds’ eggs.

“What the hell are you doing in my house? Get away from my wife.”

Jens moved immediately. He took the skillet out of Valentina’s hand and swung her cape over her shoulders. “We’re just going.” He threw a hefty handful of rouble notes on the table. “Get your wife a doctor and your children a decent burial.”

“You.” The man was trying to focus on Valentina but had to blink hard. “Who are you? What’s a pretty thing like you doing in—”

“She’s leaving,” Jens said. His voice was as cold as the dog in the street.

“We came to help your wife,” Valentina said. “You should be here helping her yourself.”

“Shut up!” The man lunged for her.

She sidestepped him with ease. But before he could unscramble his feet, he was slammed against the wall with a crash that cracked the plaster and Jens’s forearm was jammed across his throat.

“Don’t push your luck,” Jens growled.

“Ivan,” the woman on the bed wailed. “Please, don’t hurt my husband.”

Jens released the man. “You are of no interest to me,” he said sourly. “Your wife once helped my friend here, and she wished to return the favor. That’s all.”