Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (50 page)

Senda moaned and stumbled. Lightning bolts of pain shot
through her leg and starlike patterns danced kaleidoscopically
before her eyes. She shook her head to clear it. The pain
was severe, but the adrenaline pumping mightily through her
seemed to obliterate all else. A surge of power filled her,
blossomed, mushroomed. Without warning, she lunged, tackling Polenka around the waist, and the two madly scrabbling women crashed to the carpet, knocking over a table and lamp
as they rolled over and over. For half a minute, neither of
them had the upper hand. Then Polenka suddenly rolled atop Senda, caught her around the throat with her clawlike hands,
and began to choke her.

Gasping for air, Senda felt her face flowing with a red-hot
heat. She wheezed heavily, but no oxygen could pass her stran
gled windpipe.

'Should we stop 'em?' she heard one of the men asking
another.

'Hell no,' replied a second voice, laughing. 'Too good a
show. Haven't seen anything like it for a long time. Let 'em
have a go at it.'

A strange light-headedness came over Senda. The voices receded into the distance, sounding ever further away. Her
blood seemed to rush noisily through veins and arteries. In a
moment, she knew, she would surely pass out for lack of oxy
gen. If she allowed that, the crazed woman might kill her.

With a massive effort Senda clapped a splayed hand up into Polenka's face and dug her nails deep into the flesh. Grunting,
Polenka screwed her face into a grimace, but her clasp of steel
held on to the delicate throat. Desperate, Senda lowered her
crab grip on Polenka's face. Making a fist, and putting all the
force she could muster behind it, she smashed her knuckles
up into Polenka's face. There was the unmistakable crunching
of bone and cartilage. Polenka's screams rent the air. Her
fingers instantly loosened from round Senda's throat. While
Senda lay gasping for air, Polenka crawled hysterically on
hands and knees, a shrieking, wounded animal heading for
the protective lair offered under the belly of the grand piano.
She crouched there, her eyes looking in cross-eyed fascination
down at her nose. With her fingers, she gingerly moved it back
and forth, from one cheek to the other. Her eyes blazed with
horror as she screamed: 'My nose! You broke my nose, you
bitch! You b-broke it!' Suddenly she broke down and began
to weep.

A heavy silence hung in the room, punctuated only by
Senda's heavy panting and Polenka's quiet weeping. Gaining
her strength, Senda grasped a chair, pulled herself unsteadily
to her feet, and staggered to the piano. Leaning down, she
grabbed Polenka by her collar and slid her roughly around to
face the foyer. 'Get out of my house before I kick you down
the stairs,' she muttered thickly, her voice weak and scratchy
from the choking.

Polenka stared daggers at her through the wildly swaying
curtain of madly dishevelled hair. 'I'll kill you if it's the last
thing I do!' she swore. Her eyes darted wildly about like a
madwoman's, and as she pulled herself to her feet she spied the blue-and-white Oriental vase on the piano. Her eyes glit
tered in frustrated agony. Then she made a swift lunge for it,
but before her fingers could encircle the weapon, the porcelain
exploded in a roar.

Senda jerked around, staring at Padorin in surprise. Smoke
drifted out of his rifle barrel as he lowered the weapon. He
was looking at her peculiarly. 'You must excuse Comrade Petrova,' he apologized stiffly. 'She is quite passionate about
the cause, and sometimes allows herself to get carried away in
her enthusiasm.'

'I think somebody had best take her out of my sight before
her precious
cause
sees an end to her,' Senda advised him
grimly. 'She is mad.'

Dmitri rushed to his wife's side and fell to his knees beside her, tentatively examining her face. He glanced quickly at
Senda, who glared back at him without pity. Then, turning his
full attention upon Polenka, he pulled her solicitously toward
the foyer, consoling her softly.

At that moment Yevgeni came out of the bedroom. His
eyes were wide. 'Holy Mother of God, look at all this stuff!'
He held out a cylindrical tan leather hat box, its round lid
yawning wide. Into it he had stuffed all of Senda's jewels. The
jumble of rare gems, semiprecious stones, gold, and silver
sparkled and gleamed richly.

Padorin let out a low, impressed whistle. Senda's hand
instinctively touched her bare throat, and Polenka drew closer
to the box, reaching out to touch the jewels with a shaky hand.

Senda slammed the lid shut on her fingers. 'It's bad enough
that they're being stolen, but I'll be
damned
if I'll let you touch
them while they're still under my roof.'

Polenka glared venomously at her.

Senda turned to Padorin. 'In case you haven't noticed, their
value comes to a lot more than a hundred and five thousand
roubles,' she said. 'Each piece alone is worth at least that.'

'The Soviet can put it to good use,' he said.

Senda took a deep breath and drew her head up. 'You have
what you came to
steal.
What are you waiting for? If it's my
blessing, don't waste your time.'

Padorin frowned sternly at her. 'We are not stealing, Comrade Bora,' he corrected her in a slightly miffed tone. 'We are
requisitioning your property for the good of the people. I hope
you will come to understand that.'

'I understand nothing of the sort,' she said. Then she pushed
past him and went to stand at the open stairwell door, one
hand poised on the handle. She still breathed heavily from the
exertion of the fight, and her voice was shaky. 'Now, would
you leave?' she said with quiet dignity.

The men exchanged glances and began to file out, Dmitri
protectively hugging Polenka against him, but Padorin
stopped and looked levelly at Senda. 'Are you so insensitive
to the suffering of this country's people that money and jewels
mean more to you than food for their stomachs?'

She raised her chin stubbornly. 'No,
Comrade
Padorin, I
am not. For your information, for the first nineteen years of
my life there was not a night that I didn't go to bed hungry.
As did the rest of my village.'

'Then you, better than most, should understand what a
great time this is for Russia.'

'I understand what I was taught when we were poor.'

'And what is that?'

'That there is no excuse—none whatsoever—that gives us the right to steal, to plunder,' she said softly, closing the door
on him.

Emotionally and physically depleted, she slumped against
the door. Once again her fingers felt her bare throat. It felt
naked, as if something were missing. And of course there was.
She had no more jewels.

It was not the loss of the jewels she mourned, but what they
represented. Her nest egg. Her means of converting easily
transportable valuables into immediate cash should she, Inge,
and Tamara need to flee.

'Bastards!' Senda screamed suddenly, clenching her fists in
futility. 'Thieves!' Then she slumped once more and covered
her face with her trembling hands. 'Now what do we do?' she
whispered to herself. 'They took everything of value.
Every
thing.'

'No, not everything.' Inge had come to her quietly.

Slowly Senda lowered her hands. She looked at Inge with a
puzzled expression. 'What
...
do you mean?'

'I'll show you.' Inge gestured for her to wait, marched to
her own room at the other end of the apartment, and was gone
half a minute. 'Remember the yellow diamonds you wanted
to have reset?' she asked softly when she returned.

Senda drew a short breath. 'The ones you were going to
drop off at the jeweller's—' Her voice trailed off and she stared
at Inge.

'And the jewellery shop was closed because of the troubles.
Ja.'
Inge nodded and then smiled. Raising her clenched hands,
she held them out. Slowly she let her fingers uncurl. Nestled
in the palm of each hand was a scintillating jewel—a brooch with a garnet centre and yellow diamond petals in the shape
of a sunflower, and a matching ring.

Taking a deep breath, Senda reached out shakily to touch
them, to reassure herself that they were no mirage, no mere
hallucination.

The diamonds felt cold . . . and very real.

'Inge . . .how did you . . .'

'They were in my good purse, and with all that has happened, it slipped my mind to return them to your jewellery
box. Until now, I'd forgotten all about them.'

Senda closed her eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks.
The brooch and ring weren't much—especially not compared
to the jewels she'd had. But they
were
more than nothing.
Enough to tide them through an emergency.

'Inge,' she said softly with admiration, 'you just might well
have saved our lives.'

The situation in Petrograd kept deteriorating. The crowds tak
ing to the streets became ever larger and more violent. Blood
shed increased. Soon, Senda realized that unless she, Inge,
and Tamara fled the city—and left the country—they might
never live to see things return to normal.

'If we stay and something happens to Tamara, I'll never
forgive myself,' she told Inge.

'Nor will I forgive myself,' Inge replied.

They exchanged long looks. No words were necessary.

They both knew they needed Vaslav Danilov's help—if he
had any influence left.