City of Shadows (16 page)

Theo was at the door, lumbering from foot to foot. “We lost her, boss. I was getting her coat, and she sort of slipped out—”

“Find her.” His fists drummed on the desk. He began hitting it with his head.

Esther tapped him on the shoulder. “Give me your car keys.”

He looked up. “What for?”

“She’s out there somewhere without a coat. Give me the stinking keys.”

“Oh,
fuck
it. Come on.”

On the way out, he shouted for Boris to take over. “And if Yusupov comes, give him the real Veuve Clicquot. The bastard knows his cham
pagne. Tell him I’ll be back.”

The number of people on the pavement had grown, as if the enter
tainment of seeing the rich and beautiful pass by kept them warm for a while. As had the peasants in Russia, Esther thought. Until they got too cold.

She slunk into the crowd and made her way around its back while Nick kept to the red carpet laid across the pavement, camera flashes flickering on his face.

A woman with a notebook stepped forward. “Prince Nikolai, I’m from
Film News.
Is it true you’re backing a movie about the grand duchess Anastasia?”

Suddenly he was surrounded with notebooks. “Is she in there? Is it true she’s alive?” “Do you know where she is?” “Where are you hid
ing her?”

“No comment.”

So somebody inside the club had spread the news of Natalya’s cha
rade. Esther crossed the road to where Nick parked his car. He’d changed it for a Daimler. She stood for a moment, looking up and down the Platz for Natalya and not seeing her, then slid herself into the front passenger side. Come on. Come
on.

Still shouting “No comment,” he jumped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and slammed the car into gear. “See what the bitch has done now? Fucking press.”

“Oh, shut up,” she told him. “Bismarck Allee. And quick.”

It was a straight run, and Natalya couldn’t have covered it in the time. She hadn’t gone home.

Opposite number 29, Nick did a violent three-point turn and began going back, facing a few cars that immediately started doing the same. “Shit,” he said. “See what you’ve done? You’ve put the fucking press on my tail. Where now?”

“The river.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know what she’ll do.”

Going slower now, watching the sidewalks, they went to bridges, to the canal, to more bridges. The cars behind them began to lose interest and drop away one by one. Nick was still swearing at them. Esther didn’t care whether they followed or didn’t. She was studying alleys as they passed, leaning out to look into black water.

Nick was agitating to get back to his party; it was nine o’clock, every
body would have arrived, and him not bloody there. “Shut up,” she told him. But the streets were empty and dark; another electricity cut was affecting the whole city. Little flakes of snow showed white in their headlights.

“She’ll be home by now,” Nick said. “I got to go, Esther. This is hope
less.”

It was. “All right, take me back.”

As he stopped outside number 29 and she got out, the last remaining car to follow them slowed and then went on down the avenue toward Bismarckstrasse.

Frau Schinkel and Anna were sitting in the downstairs apartment, playing cards by the light of a candle.

“Has Natalya come in?”

She hadn’t. Esther thanked the landlady, lit another candle from the supply kept in the hallway, and escorted Anna upstairs. “You away a long time,” Anna accused her. “Where you been?”

“Looking for Natalya. We can’t find her.”

“Maybe the Cheka get her.”

The apartment was cold. While Esther went to the cupboard for an
other candle, Anna took up her old position by the kitchen window. Her shriek shredded the silence and Esther’s nerves.

“For God’s sake, what is it?”

“He is there.”

“Who is?” Esther joined her at the window. Snow came down in little rushes, allowing patches of moonlight. The trees’ bare branches threw distorted shadows, none of them human-shaped. The doorway of the bookseller’s opposite gaped empty, though Anna, backing away, still pointed at it. She was moaning, “Keep him off, keep him off.”

“Keep who off? There’s nobody there, lovie.”
“Keep him off.” Anna kept retreating in terror and moaning.
Esther bolted the door of the apartment. “See? Nobody can get in.”
Anna began to chatter. “He’s there. He find me again.”
“Who has? For God’s sake, Anna, you’ve got to tell me.”
“At the asylum. He was there. I see his shadow, his face at the win

dow, always I see it. Like the forest.”

Esther sat her down, went and looked out, and then closed the oil
cloth curtains. “It was somebody passing. There’s no one there now.” A reporter, blast him, she thought.

In the candlelight Anna’s face was tight with terror. She was mutter
ing. Esther caught the words “forest,” “always,” and “canal.”

She poured a slug of the medicinal-purposes vodka she’d kept for emergencies into a glass for her. “Tell me,” she said. Anna shook her head, trying to guide the glass to her mouth with hands that shook so fast they were vibrating.

She’d seen
something.
Esther got up to take another look out the window, waiting for the moon to appear. Still no one there. Had it been real or a phantasm?

Oh, Jesus
Christ.
She hurried into the living room and snatched up her diary. What’s the date? With Nick away, she’d lost track. What’s the goddamned
date
?

It was January 13.
She did a quick calculation. Six weeks ago would be ...?
He was here.
“What you doing?” Anna had followed her, clutching her drink.
“I’m phoning the police.” Anna, Clara—the madwomen had been

right all along.
“No.”
Anna snatched the receiver out of her hand, spilling the vodka.

“No police.” “Of course the police. What else can we do?” “Theo. Get Theo. Police ...they check my papers. They ask ques

tions.”

“And about damn time you gave some answers.” Esther was afraid and furious. She snatched the phone back and began dialing. “Inspec
tor Bolle, please.”

She heard the policeman on the other end of the line call across what sounded like a large and busy room, “Inspector Bolle, off sick, ain’t he?” There was a reply. “Sorry, madam, he’s not here. This is the desk sergeant. Can I help you?”

She wished she could remember the name of the inspector who’d been kind to her at the Green Hat, but she couldn’t; the desk sergeant would have to do.

“Yes. There’s a man outside our house.” God, she thought, how often had some hysterical woman phoned in with that complaint? She tried to make her voice matter-of-fact. “He’s dangerous. I have reason to be
lieve that he’s committed murder.” Oh,
God,
Esther, can’t you put it better than that? What way
was
there to put it?

She glanced toward Anna, but Anna had curled up on the sofa and was holding a cushion over her head and ears as if against bom
bardment.

“Your name, please. Address?”

She told him.

“Ye-es,” said the voice at the other end of the line. She could hear a pen scratching, other voices. “And what’s this man’s name?”

“I don’t know.” She said desperately, “He’s a big man.”

“I see. A...big ...man.” More pen scratching. “Who did he mur
der, madam? And when?”

“A woman called Olga Ratzel. It was . . .” When was it? “It was in September. September ninth or tenth.” Four months ago. She could hear her credibility thinning to wispiness, even to herself.

“Ye-es. And he’s back again, is he? After you, this time, is he?”

“No, my flatmate. Look, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m not making this up. He’s outside in the street. My flatmate’s just seen him. You could catch him. I can make a statement.”

“Is he trying to get in?”

“Not at the moment.”

She thought, And he can’t, thank God, not unless he’s prepared to ax down two solid doors or clamber over garden walls around the back of the house and rise like a vampire to a third-floor window. Nevertheless, she looked down, out the rear window. Snow was beginning to settle, tipping the tops of walls and trash cans as if with an outline of white
paint. The thin covering on the yard below was without footprints. “But I want him caught. He’s dangerous. Can’t you send a patrol?”

“We’ll try, madam, but we got a riot at the Brandenburg Gate, half our men’s down with the flu, and we’re working by candlelight here.” He went on, playing to his own gallery. Esther could hear somebody in the background laughing bitterly. “You just lock your door now, and maybe he’ll go away.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Esther said. She slammed down the phone. “All right,” she yelled at Anna. “We get Theo.”

But the Green Hat’s line was busy. She waited a moment and tried the number again. Still busy—a jumping night at the club, Saturday.

Dialing and redialing, Esther watched Anna, still crouched on the sofa with the cushion over her head. What the hell is worth all this? she asked herself. Terrified of the hunter who knew who she was, terrified of the police who might find out who she was, the girl was being kept in a suspension of fear by two opposing forces. And Esther with her.

The Green Hat was still busy.

Putting the phone back, Esther went downstairs to tell Frau Schinkel not to open the front door if the bell rang.

Frau Schinkel, who rarely had visitors, especially at this time of night, was aggrieved. “I can’t open my own door now?”

“I want to see who it is first.”

“We never had this trouble in Berlin until you foreigners came.”

Suppressing a desire to point out that several capital cities could have said the same about the Germans during the Great War, Esther went back upstairs and persuaded Anna to go to bed.

“He can’t get in. When Theo comes, I’ll make sure it’s him before I open the door.”

The girl had recovered slightly; the cunning was back. “Is the Cheka, you know. They want to kill me.”

“Yes, I know. Get to bed.”

The compliance with which Anna obeyed was awful, as if Esther were her lone champion against the forces of darkness surrounding them.

Which, at this moment, she was.

She tried ringing the Green Hat again. Still busy. Wrapping herself in a blanket, she sat by the kitchen window, looking down on the deserted
sidewalks, watching snow drift gently against the gape of the book-seller’s doorway, waiting without hope for the police, waiting for Natalya to come home, responsible for two madwomen. What was I doing to let this happen? Three madwomen . . .

Something woke her, and she ran to the door to open it. “Nasha?” But her voice echoed down into an empty hallway.

She made another failed attempt to get through to the Hat.

In the kitchen Frau Schinkel’s wall clock said it was half past ten. “Send her home, God, please.”

She settled back by the window and tried concentrating on some plan whereby the three of them could earn their living now that their connection with Nick was severed. Natalya would have to go back to stripping. And little Esther could join a freak show. But that left Anna. Maybe the three of them could make a virtue out of these past months and become a singing group, wear kokoshniks: the Anastasia Sisters. Mileage in that.

This time when she jerked awake, there really was someone at the front door. She heard the key turn. “Nasha?” She leaned over the banister.

“Yes.”

She still couldn’t see her; Natalya had paused out of sight on the threshold; a draft of cold air came racing up the stairwell, flecks of snow blowing in on Frau Schinkel’s brown linoleum. “Where’ve you been?”

“What?” Natalya sounded preoccupied. “Oh, the Parrot. Saying good-bye. It’s closing tomorrow.” The front door shut.

Of course. Of
course
she had. “Are you all right?” Maybe she was drunk. Esther started down the stairs. Natalya was still in the doorway, reading something, a letter. Her hair was covered in snow, and she had a man’s coat on. Seeing Esther, she put the letter in its pocket. “Yes, I’m all right.” She gave a defiant sniff. “Had a nice time, actually. Old friends.”

“Where’d you get the coat?”

“Vlad at the Parrot lent it to me. One of the customers left it behind.”

They went upstairs together. Natalya
was
drunk, not very much, but so preoccupied that every answer to every question came after a delay. Esther’s account of how they’d looked for her, how they’d worried, how they’d been chased by the press, was met with lack of interest.

“And Anna said a man was watching the house.”