Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (54 page)

'Half!' the maid cried. 'Half!'

It was like riding with the devil.

Miraculously, less than six minutes had passed since the
maid had last shouted 'Half!' Vladimir, drunk but spurred on
by the prospect of a thousand roubles, unerringly led them to the very car Ivan had warmed up, pulled on the driving gog
gles, and let out the clutch of the open-topped Hispano-Suiza
touring car. With a roar, the car shot out of the garages, its
left fender crashing into the partially open door, tearing it off its hinges. The car swerved as Vladimir steered drunkenly
toward the open gates. Then the wheels screeched in protest
as he slammed on the brakes to take the turn, skidding brilli
antly, as if he had chosen to do exactly that. After one and a
half revolutions, the hood nosed in the right direction, and
with a screech of tyres they were off.

'Careful!' Senda cried from the back seat, pressing Tamara's
terrified face into her bosom while beside her Inge, forgetting
herself, let out an indecipherable stream of thick German
which closely resembled the Lord's Prayer.

Petrograd flew past in a blur. One second, they were on the
near side of the Neva; the next, the car shot over the far side
of the bridge.

'This car and no traffic?' Vladimir turned around and
grinned at Senda. 'We might get to the train yet!'

'Just watch where you're driving!' she shouted back above
the roar of the wind. 'Don't look at me! Look at the street!'

Laughing wildly, Vladimir floored the gas pedal. Senda let
out a cry. Ahead of them, an angry crowd of protesters
blocked an intersection.

'Vlaaaadiiimiiiiir,' she yelled, shutting her eyes.

He headed straight for the centre of the crowd and leaned
on the air horn. The crowd flew apart.

'We'll get there!' he shouted again, swigging from an open
bottle of champagne.

Oh, God, let us hope so! Senda prayed, adding an amend
ment: In one piece, dear Lord. In one piece.

On its shunting, beyond the farthest reaches of the remote
Vyborg quarter, the Danilov train stood in readiness,
enormous white clouds of steam billowing up from the undercarriages of the locomotive, coaches, and boxcars before being
shredded to pieces and torn away by the wind. Inside the richly
appointed main carriage with its opulent panelling, shaded ormolu wall sconces and rich jewel-box furnishings, Vaslav
Danilov stirred restlessly in an armchair upholstered in crim
son brocade. The lace-draped table beside him held a silver
samovar, books, bibelots, a cigar humidor, and a large crystal
bowl filled with sevruga caviar set in a larger bowl of shattered
ice.

The Prince looked at the caviar, then the humidor. He had
little appetite for either food or tobacco. Suddenly he got to
his feet and crossed to the far window, cupping his hand
against the glass to shadow his own mirrored reflection. The
night was as dark and still and empty on this side of the train
as it was on the other.

He tightened his lips and cracked his knuckles. He was as
tense as a wound-up cat.

Princess Irina studiously kept her eyes on the open book in
her lap. 'Sit down, Vaslav,' she said gently, turning a page.
'Nervousness on your part will not help her get here any
sooner.'

He turned to her in surprise. 'You knew?' he asked
hoarsely. 'All along?'

'Whom we've been waiting for? And why?' She marked
her place carefully with the thin velvet ribbon she used as a bookmark and looked up at him. 'About her, yes. And the
others. Everyone knew. Why shouldn't I?'

'But . . . but you
never said
anything.'

'I could not blame you,' she said calmly, 'so why should I
have said anything? After all, I am not an especially attractive
woman.' She glanced down at her arthritically clawed hands
and sighed. 'These are not the hands of a model lover.'

He took the chair opposite hers, lifting his trousers with a
pinch of their knifelike creases, and sat forward with his hands
dangling between his splayed legs. 'I haven't been a model
husband to you, have I?'

She looked at him gently, reached out, and touched his arm.
'You have given me everything you were able to give,' she
said softly. 'You shared your life with me in every way but
one. Is that so bad?'

He grimaced painfully.

'I am not complaining, Vaslav. I only want you to know that
I have understood. Just as I understand now why you are
nervous that she is not here.'

'And you are not jealous?'

She permitted herself a tinkling little laugh. 'I am, I must
admit. Especially of her. The others . . . well, they did not
count much. But she must be very special. She was the first woman you saw monogamously for a period of more than three years.' She slipped across to his chair and sat on the
brocade arm, stroking his head with her deformed fingers.

'I have let you down,' he said stonily. 'I thought I was dis
creet—' His voice broke suddenly.

'And you have been. I have no complaints.'

The tears welled in her eyes as she regarded him with a fondly tilted head. She loved him so much, had given herself to him in every way that she could. What fault was it of his
that soon after their marriage the arthritis had set in and systematically destroyed her beauty? True, she still ached to feel
his body beside hers, inside her, but how much more could
she have asked of him than a steady if passionless love? She
herself was disgusted by her hands. How could she expect him
to want her to touch him?

'We'll wait for her as long as we can,' Irina said unexpect
edly. 'I wish her no harm. You must believe that.'

He took one of her hands and pressed it against his cheek.
'I will not see her again,' he promised, 'but I must help her. I
owe her that much.'

The Princess nodded. 'Yes, you do.'

They both looked up as they heard the door at the end of the
carriage sliding open and shut. Count Kokovtsov approached
them stiffly, his hands at his sides. 'We cannot wait much longer,' he intoned lugubriously. 'The danger increases with
every additional minute of delay. This train has been ready to
depart for half an hour.'

'We will wait twenty minutes longer,' the Princess said
firmly, cutting off any further argument.

She felt Vaslav's meaningful response in the way he pressed
her hand. It was his silent way of thanking her.

She turned to him and smiled at the way he was looking at her so wonderingly, and she waited until the Count was back
in the forward carriage before she kissed her husband quickly
on the lips.

'Sometimes I wonder why I deserve you,' he said softly.

'Because I love you,' she replied. 'That we cannot share
everything does not make my love for you any the less.' She
gazed into his eyes. 'Do you know how often I reminisce about
when we first met?'

'It was at the Bal Blanc, and I had a hell of a time getting a dance with you between all those handsome officers in their
tight uniforms and that chaperoning sphinx.'

'Aunt Xenia!' she whispered, delighted that he remem
bered.

'Yes, Aunt Xenia. A regular dragon. She never did approve
of me.'

'Hush. She liked you very much. She just never showed her
emotions.'

They both smiled, the memory as alive as though it had all
happened only yesterday.

Count Kokovtsov's face was devoid of emotion. 'Twenty min
utes have passed,' he murmured.

The Prince nodded calmly. 'Tell the engineer to pull out.'

Irina reached for her husband's hand and held it. She knew
he was feeling as if a part of him was being wrenched loose
from his body.

Now there is only me for him to love, she thought. I don't
have to share his affections with anyone else. The one mistress
he has truly loved is out of his life. I should feel elated.

Why don't I?

The Hispano-Suiza shot past the derelict warehouses and rat
tled over the expanse of deserted, horizontally laid rails. Each
time the tires hit the raised ties or rails, the car jumped and
Senda could feel her teeth jarring under the impact. Her face
was streaked with tears from the force of the wind. She kept
wiping her eyes and craning her neck. Where was that train?

Suddenly she saw it. 'There!' she cried. 'To the right! It's the train!' She pointed and stood up, clutching the leather-
upholstered back of the driver's seat with one hand for
support.

Vladimir wrenched the steering wheel and they rode
parallel to the rails now, the ties thumping beneath the tires.

'It's starting to move!' Senda screamed as the locomotive's
smokestack spewed a shower of sparks skyward. 'Drive faster,
damn it! Get closer!'

Vladimir took another swig of champagne, wiped his sleeve
across his mouth, and drew his lips back across his teeth in a grin. He floored the gas pedal, steering directly toward the train so that the car jumped from one track to the adjacent one, then steering forward again on a parallel course before
jumping to the next set of tracks. Still on her feet, Senda clung
to the driver's seat for dear life.

'Hurry!' she urged Vladimir. 'Hur-
rrrry
!'

The brightly lit windows of the three passenger coaches
glowed yellow in the night. The fierce pounding of her heart
and the rushing of her blood roared in her ears.

They were racing alongside the train now. The air smelled
heavily of smoke, and Inge pressed Tamara's face into her
bosom so that the child might be spared the stinging orange showers of sparks. She kept slapping her own face each time she felt the piercing barbs and screamed in German. Beside
the car, the slowly moving boxcars which comprised the rear
of the train flew past in a blur as the car started overtaking the
train. The last of the three passenger coaches behind the coal tender was coming up, the big square windows radiant with
light.