To Kill a Tsar (25 page)

They walked on until they reached the interrogation cell. Peering through the eye in the door, Barclay could see Goldenberg fidgeting at the iron table, pulling at his wispy beard, a sorry sight in his prison greys. It would not be difficult. Give me two burly warders and an hour with him, he thought.

‘Tell Kletochnikov to send me what he can find on our English doctor,’ said Dobrshinsky at his back. ‘I’ll speak to Count von Plehve. Oh, and see if the name Hadfield jogs Madame Volkonsky’s memory.’

The special investigator nodded to the warder at the door who stepped forward with the key. As it swung open, Barclay saw the prisoner rise respectfully from his stool with a broad smile on his face. A cunning fox, he thought admiringly: if anyone was going to lure the Jew into an indiscretion it would be His Honour Anton Frankzevich Dobrshinsky.

H
er note found him in the middle of a consultation with a patient exhibiting symptoms of scarlet fever. Gathered about the bed were a dozen students and the matron in charge of Barrack Ward 1 at the Nikolaevsky.

‘This rash,’ and Hadfield pointed to the old man’s naked torso, ‘is characteristic of the condition. Usually accompanied by abdominal pain, vomiting, a sore throat and swollen tongue. Show me your tongue.’

The patient offered his large strawberry tongue to the students. As they shuffled closer to examine the inflamed papillae, Hadfield felt someone jog his elbow. His assistant, Anton Pavel, was standing at the edge of the circle, clutching a grubby envelope. ‘This was left by a babushka at the hospital entrance. She insisted I deliver it to you in person.’

Hadfield glanced at the handwriting then slipped it into his pocket.

The eyes of all in the room turned to him again.

‘In the case of a fever like this, it is important to keep the patient’s temperature under control,’ he said with a wry smile that must have puzzled his students. ‘Sponging the surface of the body with tepid or cold water should do it, or wet packing a sheet, but sometimes ice bags are needed.’

Later, he sat in the small study he shared with two other doctors, his boots on the desk, the little envelope between his fingers. Two anxious weeks had passed since their meeting and his visit to her house in Alexandrovskaya. He had expected his uncle to summon him to the English Embankment or the police
to insist on questioning him further, but life had gone on as always, his daily routine punctuated by winter festivities, sledging and skating and a particularly hectic round of parties.

The ambassador and his wife had invited him to accompany them on a bear hunt, no doubt to ensure the comfort of medical advice at all times. He had slept in a village hay loft with ‘the boys’ from the embassy. The third secretary, Lord Frederick Hamilton, had bagged a she-bear. By some miracle, and to the consternation of the shooting party, her cubs managed to escape. Hadfield had blasted away with the rest but was secretly relieved he missed everything he aimed at.

He was impatient to hear from Anna but it had never occurred to him that she would not contact him when she was able. Her note was to the point, as always: he was to be before the Church of St Boris and St Gleb at nine o’clock. He had arranged to spend the evening with Dobson and ‘the boys’ from the embassy. Dumping his feet from the table, he picked up a piece of the hospital’s headed paper and began composing his excuse.

He left the hospital at half past seven, in time to take a cab home and change into warmer, less conspicuous clothes. And as he dressed, he was conscious of a disturbing excitement, and of the need for extreme caution. He was to meet a woman implicated in a plot to kill the tsar, her name and description known by now to every police station and gendarmerie in the empire. From the wardrobe he took his old student coat and Swiss walking boots, and a peaked cap, every inch the petty bourgeois.

The dvornik gave him an uncharacteristically cheery ‘Good evening’ and tipped his hat as they passed at the door. Was he a police informer? The suspicion flitted through Hadfield’s mind even before the door had shut behind him. He dismissed it: he must be calm and watchful, yes, but too much suspicion – there lay the road to madness. He took a droshky to the
Nikolaevsky Station, then walked a short way before hailing another, instructing its driver to drop him on the Nevskaya Embankment. Judging it wise not to arrive before the appointed time, he stood in the freezing darkness, gazing blankly across the river to the cathedral on the opposite bank, his stomach tight with nerves. At exactly nine o’clock he made his way to the front of the church. The gangly boy with the red hair who had met him on his first day at the clinic was waiting in the discreet shadow beneath the scaffolding, shivering in a thin serge jacket and factory cap, a scarf tied about his ears.

‘Vasili, isn’t it?’

He nodded and, turning without a word, set off down one of the icy paths that chequered the square. Hadfield followed at his heels, passing along dimly lit streets and alleys and across open yards, walking in tense silence. They stepped below a ramshackle gallery and climbed a wooden stair to a door on the first landing. Vasili opened it and led him into a draughty room lit by flickering candles. It seemed to be home to four, perhaps five, families. A baby was crying somewhere and the room reeked of cabbage and stale sweat. They walked across the naked boards to a door at the far end and on into another room almost identical to the first. An old man with a long grey beard and rheumy eyes reeled drunkenly towards him but Vasili had him by the sleeve, drawing him across the room and on to a staircase. He rattled down it, paused at the open entrance and looked left and right along the street before crossing quickly to a door on the opposite side.

He knocked sharply, stamping impatiently and blowing on his fingers. The door was opened by an old lady in a shapeless bundle of shawls and blankets, her brown wrinkled face tightly framed by a scarf. She said something to Vasili in a low voice then stepped back to let them pass into the dark hall. But the boy shook his head and turned quickly away, breaking into a heavy-footed trot along the street. Hadfield followed the old
woman down the dark hall and slowly up two flights of stairs to a door on the right of the landing. Opening it, she led him through another series of interconnecting rooms with families living cheek by jowl, huddled about a table or a smoking stove. He felt as if he was in a peculiarly Russian dream, required to wander from room to dark corridor to room in search of Anna. Finally, the old lady swept back a curtain and he saw her sitting at a table with her head resting on her arms. Roused by the rattle of the curtain, she rose quickly with a smile:

‘You came.’

‘Yes.’ His voice sounded hoarse.

‘I’m glad.’

She was wearing a white blouse and navy blue skirt, a woollen shawl pulled tightly about her shoulders and upper arms.

‘You had no trouble on the way?’

‘No. No difficulty.’

They stood in awkward silence. He was conscious of the old lady beside him and of others within earshot, a shadow across a curtain, a whispered conversation, suppressed laughter.

‘Would you like some tea?’

‘Yes. Please.’

Anna spoke to the babushka in Ukrainian and she hobbled to the corner of the room and pulled back a drape. He caught a glimpse of two girls bent self-consciously over their sewing before the drape fell back into place.

‘Is it safe for you here?’

Her eyes twinkled in the candlelight: ‘As safe as it is anywhere.’

‘You must go away. I can help you.’

‘Let’s not talk of it.’

‘Switzerland . . .’

‘Please.’ Her dark eyebrows were knotted in a frown. What was she thinking? Hadfield tried to catch and hold her gaze but it flicked to his face and away. She would not look
him in the eye. The old lady came back with the tea, placed it on the table between them then left.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the library.’

‘Why do you want to see me?’

She glanced up at him reproachfully. It was enough for him to find some courage. Still she refused to look him in the eye, but she smiled as he reached a trembling hand to her face. He heard her breath quicken as he caressed her hair, his hand slipping to the nape of her neck. She took his other hand and squeezed it gently. Then she reached up to remove an ebony clip and shook her hair loose over her shoulders. She lifted her face, her eyes half closed, her lips parted, and he kissed her. Breathless, they broke apart. He folded his arms around her slight shoulders. She was scented like an evening rose.

‘Anna, I want you to . . .’

‘Shhhh.’ She lifted a finger to his lips. Then she picked the candle from the table and, taking his hand, led him across the room to an open doorway.

It was no more than a cubicle, a flimsy partition from the rest of the room with a single mattress on the floor and a stool. She bent to place the candle on the stool and he put his arms about her, even as she rose and turned to face him. They kissed, harder this time, and when they separated he could not help a groan of longing and joy and fullness. But again she pressed her forefinger to his lips: ‘Shhhh. They will hear.’

Then she turned her back on him and began to undress. Conscious that he was watching her, she leant across to the stool and blew out the candle: ‘Please.’

There was a quiet intensity to their lovemaking. He knew Anna was no innocent but he was surprised by her confidence and sensuality. Her lips and hands roamed freely and firmly about his body and, as she stooped to kiss him, the intoxicating scent of her hair fell about his face. He was lost inside her, consumed, without reason, conscious of nothing but the fierce
heat of her body and her hands on his chest urging him on until she came with a breathless whimper.

Later, he could not sleep. He lay with her small frame against his, her white shoulders just visible above the blanket, the dull weight of her head on his arm. He listened to the calm rhythm of her breathing, rising and falling like waves on a distant shore. He felt a stillness in her arms he had never felt before. He felt a tenderness he had never felt for anyone before. And he tried to push thoughts of morning away.

They made love again. He was careless they were without the dignity of privacy, losing himself in her once more. But he was conscious there was something of her that was separate, elusive, a part of her she did not want to surrender. Perhaps that was why he had to tell her he loved her. She smiled and leant forward to kiss him and stroke his face.

They talked in whispers, her breath on his cheek. She was living in the city with her comrades, she said, but she would not say where. She was not afraid of what would happen, their work was too important: Russia must change, it would change. He told her of his visit to Alexandrovskaya. She was cross with him, the deep frown returning to her brow.

‘Why did you go?’

He reassured her that he had said nothing and the police knew nothing. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

A little before sunrise, Anna told him he should go. He picked up his clothes from the floor and dressed, then bent to kiss her, naked still beneath the rough blankets. And he could not help lying beside her again.

‘Will you come away with me?’

Her face was grey with exhaustion in the first light of morning. She smiled but did not open her eyes.

‘When will I see you again?’

‘I will contact you.’

‘Can I contact you?’

‘No. It isn’t safe.’ She opened her ice-blue eyes and fixed him with a determined look: ‘Promise me you won’t try?’

‘I promise.’

And she leant forward to kiss him, her fingers brushing his cheek. ‘Now you must go.’

The boy Vasili was waiting to lead him to the stairs and into the street. They walked in silence. This is not me, he said to himself, not me. I am not here. He could feel her warmth still, smell his sex upon her skin, hear the words she whispered to him, see the comfort of her smile. But then Vasili spoke to him and held out his hand for money. And suddenly he was tied to the morning, to the here and now, to the empty square before him, to the shell of St Boris and St Gleb, left to find his own way back.

‘
D
id I mention the lodger downstairs, Alexander Dmitrievich? The milliner? A spy. I’m sure of it.’

Mikhailov nodded indulgently. ‘Yes, you did speak of her. We must all be careful, my dear fellow, especially when our cause is close to success. Now sit here beside me and tell me the news from the ministry.’

But Councillor Ivan Tarakanov was too agitated to sit for even a second, pacing his drawing room as if he was intent on wearing a hole in his expensive Persian rug.

‘I don’t know how you can talk of success. The papers are full of the arrest of Kviatkovsky.’

‘Yes. A great pity,’ said Mikhailov, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. ‘But The People’s Will has not been idle. You will see.’

‘Yes, but I . . .’

There was a sharp knock at the door, and the old man began prancing with anxiety and self-pity.

‘Calm yourself, calm yourself,’ said Mikhailov, rising from the divan. ‘It’s our friend.’

‘No – you must hide! Please,’ Tarakanov stammered. ‘It may be the police.’

Mikhailov shrugged. ‘Yes, of course.’ But as soon as the councillor left the room he settled back on the couch and reached across the table for the glass of claret his host had reluctantly poured for him. A moment later, Tarakanov was back with the new arrival at his heels.

‘You’re safe and you’re here.’ Mikhailov lifted his glass
in salute. ‘Comrade Councillor – this is my friend, the Director.’

‘It’s almost nine o’clock!’ said Tarakanov. ‘We were expecting you sooner.’

‘I’m sure our comrade would enjoy a glass of your excellent wine,’ said Mikhailov with an easy smile. ‘Then you must excuse us. We have urgent business.’

Tarakanov bit his lip and looked on the point of voicing resentment at being eased out of his drawing room. With the confidence of a man who is used to being obeyed, Mikhailov lifted his chin.