Rosa and the Veil of Gold (8 page)

“But the interview.”

“Em, we’re not going to make the interview,” he said, and she knew he was right.

Em sighed. “All right, back to the car. You lead the way.”

She followed him in the dark, nearly kicked her toe on the same rock again, and told herself that Professor Gergiev could be rescheduled. They broke from the trees, trudged up the gully to the road.

The car was gone.

Daniel spun in a slow circle. “Have we come out somewhere else?”

Em was momentarily so confused that she couldn’t speak.

“Em?”

“Where’s the fucking car?”

“We must have come out in a different spot.”

She pointed to the two posts. “This is where we left it. This turn-off. That old sign.”

Daniel dropped the bag with the bear in it and lowered himself to the ground. He put his head in his hands. “I can’t believe this. Our car’s been stolen.”

“How could someone steal it? It wasn’t even running.”

“This is a nightmare.”

Em put her hand out and pulled him to his feet. “Come on.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Daniel said. “I’m waiting here until daylight.”

“Yeah, I know. Let’s get closer to the road though, so we can flag someone down if they pass.”

Daniel picked up the bag and they walked out to the main road, found a tree to shelter against, and tried to make themselves comfortable.

“Thank God we have all our warm gear on,” Daniel said.

“Small mercies,” Em replied, lost in thought. It was impossible that they should be out here in the middle of cold nowhere, their car stolen, utterly lost. The unbroken darkness added a surreal cast to events, as though it were a strange dream. Nor could she shake a vague guilty feeling.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked.

She sighed. “None of this is okay, Daniel. But I expect we’ll work it out once the sun comes up.” She patted his knee. “Try not to worry too much. All right?”

Daniel pulled Vasily’s coat tighter around himself. “All right.” He reached into his pocket and peeled open the packet of cigarettes. “Do you want one?”

She shook her head. His lighter flickered in the dark. Overhead, the clouds parted on a moonless sky, and Daniel and Em sat close together and waited for dawn.

Rosa watched as the first light struggled through the crack between the curtains. Had she slept at all? Perhaps she had dozed briefly, but her body felt tight and poised, as though she may need to make a mad dash any second.

She rose, still dressed in the previous day’s clothes, and went back to Daniel’s door. He wasn’t there.

Richard, roused by her knocking, peered out.

“Not there, eh?”

“You haven’t heard from them?”

He shook his head and yawned without covering his mouth. Rosa flinched.

“Don’t worry,” he said, covertly glancing at her crumpled clothes. “He can look after himself. And if he can’t, then Em certainly can.”

Yes, Rosa thought as she returned to her room. If the problem was a flat tyre or a wrong turn, sure they could look after themselves. But in her memory now she saw the bear’s smile as malevolent, taking pleasure in evil thoughts. She slammed the door of her room behind her and paced the floral carpet. She should never have let them take the bear.

Then she stopped. All three of them had been marked, not just Daniel and Em. Rosa still had something to do with this.

She rummaged in her bag for the silver bracelet Daniel had given her. She had intended to give it back, but now she wove it tightly around her mother’s charm bracelet, making three knots. One for her, one for Daniel, one for Em.

“Please, please,” she muttered, not really knowing what she was doing, operating on instinct. “Let this work.”

Rosa sat by the window and allowed the dawn light to fall on her. The sills were painted with white enamel, layer upon layer which flaked at the touch of her fingernail. She found the tiny mirror charm on the bracelet. It was no bigger than the upper joint of her pinky finger, but she rubbed the surface gently. “Let me see him,” she said. “Where is he?”

At first, only the reflection of her own eye looked back at her, but then there was a shift. Her second sight opened up. She saw the magic working, invisible movements, like heat waves on a dry road.

“Where is Daniel?” she said again.

The mirror shimmered, her eye disappeared, and the surface clouded with fog. She focused harder, her stomach churning with anxiety. Was this a trick of her imagination? Or was the mirror telling her that Daniel lay beyond a veil of fog? Beyond death? She began to panic.

Rosa’s head hurt so she snapped her second sight closed. The fog cleared, her eye appeared in the mirror once again. She glanced away, out the window and onto the dirty street. A battered red car tried once, twice, three times to reverse park in a tiny space against the kerb, then drove off in embarrassment, its exhaust a grey cloud in the cold air.

There had to be another way to find him.

She turned once again to the bracelet, considering the charms one by one. The swallow gleamed in the half-light. She had the answer.

Rosa dressed in clean clothes then ran downstairs to the reception desk. The receptionist, a good-looking young man, whom ordinarily Rosa might have set her sights on to conquer, sat behind the desk with his chin in his hands.

“Do you have a road directory for this area?” she said.

“Arkhangelsk region?” he said.

“The route between here and Vologda.”

He pulled out a drawer and flicked officiously between files. “In Russian or English?” he said.

“It doesn’t matter.”

He handed her a map. “Ten roubles, thanks.”

“I only need to borrow it.”

“It’s ten roubles.”

“Charge it to my room. Five-nineteen.” She snatched up the map and went to one of the worn leather sofas in the foyer. Outside, a tour group was arriving, being herded off the bus in their overcoats, their breath fogging in the morning air. The sliding glass doors opened and a blast of cold air made Rosa shiver. She smoothed out the map and took off the charm bracelet, still knotted to Daniel’s silver one. She held it so that the swallow dipped downwards. The foyer was filling up now with noise and movement. Rosa opened her second sight and shut it all out.

“Which way did he go?” she said and held the bracelet very still.

The swallow spun once, twice, then settled on a direction, its beak dipping almost imperceptibly to a point on the map. Rosa marked the place with her fingernail and went directly to the reception desk, pushing through a crowd of bleary-eyed American tourists. Somebody shouted at her, but she wasn’t listening.

“I need a hire car, and quickly,” she said to the man behind the desk.

He drew his eyebrows down in irritation. “I can’t help you now,” he said. “I’m busy.”

“Look…” she started, then stopped herself. In a time like this, there was only one person who could make things happen.

From the privacy of her room, she phoned Vasily.

“Rosa, it’s very early,” he said.

“Uncle Vasily, you must listen to me, and you must try not to be angry.”

“I don’t like the sound of this, Roshka.”

“The bear hasn’t arrived, Uncle Vasily, and I know…deep in my bones, I know that it’s because something bad has happened.”

“What, Rosa? An accident? A burglary?”

She sighed and sank into the chair next to the dresser. “Worse, Uncle Vasily. I fear worse. I fear curses, and spells, and bad magic.”

A long silence ensued, and Rosa let it beat out. Vasily needed time to digest her words.

“Rosa?” he said finally. “I can trust you?”

“I love you, Uncle Vasily. I’m not crazy, or stupid. Daniel has disappeared behind a veil. I can’t find him in this world. I have to find the place he disappeared, I have to know if he’s—”

“You fear that he is dead?”

“I don’t know where he is,” she said, and her voice cracked over the words, “and I feel like it’s my fault.”

Vasily’s voice was tender. “Is this the boy, Rosa? The one you loved?”

“Please, Uncle Vasily, will you help me?”

“What do you need?”

“A car and a driver.”

“Pack your things and wait outside the hotel. I’ll have somebody there within half an hour.”

Vasily was true to his word, and the surly-looking Ukrainian driver showed no surprise at her insistence that he should take her to a point on the map decided upon by a silver swallow, and no irritation with her chain-smoking the entire five-hour drive.

They left the highway and drove through smaller and smaller settlements, out onto a pitted road. Rosa’s stomach grumbled
and her eyes were gritty. But she spotted it, long before the driver had.

“There!” she called out, slipping out of her seatbelt and leaning forward to thump the dash. “The blue car on the side of the road.”

The driver slowed, indicated, then turned onto the side road to pull in beside Daniel and Em’s hire car. She hoped to find them both inside, sleeping, wondering why she had bothered to come here looking for them.

“Wait here,” she said to the driver, opening the door and letting herself out into the warm morning. The sky was clear, and the sun dazzled off the windscreen. She put her hand up to shield her eyes, but could already see there was nobody in the car. The bear was no longer on the back seat with the suitcases. She tried the door; it was locked. She peered through the window. No sign of anyone: no note, no hint at all of what had happened.

Rosa stood back, glanced towards the immense woodlands, then to the road. Her second sight twitched, as though something nearby was signalling her. A chill ran over her skin. Her heart was in her throat. There was no sign of Daniel and Em.

Where in the world had they gone?

Ah, Rosa Kovalenka. Perhaps they are not in the world at all.

What do you think, reader? Do you have your suspicions? No doubt as you read further, some things may become clear. And then, some things may become less clear, and you will say, “Papa Grigory! You make the tale too difficult to follow!” Sometimes Totchka says that to me, when night is come and I draw up a chair beside her warm bed to tell her stories. I forget I am talking to such a little girl, and I confuse her with too many characters and times. She is only young after all, and the passing years bring her no more sense, nor understanding. I don’t mind, for nor do her coughs and wheezes worsen, nor her hands grow colder.

It is warm today, and I have all the wooden shutters opened to the light. Totchka’s little fingers struggle with wool as she wraps it tight around a peg, making a doll. She sits near the window on a worn rug. The sun falls on her dark hair and illuminates the velvet softness of her cheek. I could never look so perfect in such unfiltered sunshine. The years have worn me down. My beard is flecked with grey, my skin is ruddy and my soul is black, but I am good to Totchka. Believe what you will of the rest of my tales. I am good to Totchka because I love her.

You will be tired by now of my domestic affairs. I would like to tell you about my little painted house, and the fields which surround it. But you will arrive here soon enough, and I promised to tell a tale of the bear.

So I must transport you back in time to the tenth century, to Kiev, from where the Rus first ruled. We shall go to Olga’s palace,
but do not imagine a palace of gold and fine objects. Imagine pale bricks and unpainted wood, and narrow sunless windows. Imagine unevenly tiled floors and rugs imported from the south, and pagan frescoes high on the walls. Imagine the smell of pine and rain and woodsmoke, mixed with the salty smell of unwashed human bodies. And imagine, most of all, Olga herself. Her husband died in battle nine years ago. Her son is too young to take the throne. So she rules the Rus in his stead. She is a woman with a hard face and a soft belly; and somebody has her turned over on her belly right now. Bearded men look ridiculous naked, so we shall give him some clothes from the waist up, one of those blousy shirts fastened with a row of buttons up the spine. The bed lies on top of the big stove which keeps Olga’s chamber warm on rainy afternoons such as this.

Cast into a corner of the bed lies the Golden Bear. She is newly minted, and her eyes are wide and innocent. Yes, of course they are open: she only ever closes them to sleep, and we all know that bears can sleep a long time. The bear watches Olga and the Secret Ambassador, and she learns about things.

The bear thinks that humans are very odd indeed, and at no time more so than now: half-naked and grunting and rubbing themselves all over each other. She is only new to the world, cast in gold three weeks past, and brought from the misted lands with the Secret Ambassador. She remembers little about her birth; it is taking her a while to adjust to sentience. A flash of shadowy woodlands, of magical colours, of strong hands on her head. But since she arrived in Olga’s palace this morning, events seem clearer and make sense in chains.

At length, the grunting and rubbing stops and the Secret Ambassador collapses onto the dense mattress. Olga turns over to look at the ceiling and is lost in thought a while.

“Do you like my gift?” the Secret Ambassador asks.

“You know that I do. It’s very fine, but it is not a gift for me. I made that clear when I asked for it.”

The Secret Ambassador kisses Olga’s collarbone, accidentally gathering a mouthful of tawny hair. Olga’s narrow eyes do not leave the ceiling. The rain thrums on the roof and windows and, from somewhere deeper in the palace, a steady dripping has
started. The Secret Ambassador reaches for the bear and lays her gently between Olga’s softly sagging breasts.

“You should keep it,” he says. “I carved the mould with all the love I feel for you.”

“I need a suitable gift to impress Konstantin the Purple-Born. I’m taking furs and honey and wax and slave girls, but I want him to see that the Rus are not just barbarians eking a living out of the woods.”

“Konstantin has many gold objects.”

“None so fine as this, surely,” Olga says. The bear can hear uncertainty in her voice. Olga is stroking the bear’s belly. The pleasure is tainted by sadness: Olga intends to pass her on to somebody else.

Olga lays the bear aside and climbs down, naked, from the stove. The Secret Ambassador finds his clothes and follows her. Olga whistles low and melodiously. A thump and a scuttle sound from under the stove and a little domestic servant scurries out. This is no surprise for magic is common in the world; though it will not long be this way.

“My clothes,” Olga says.

The
domovoi
runs about, finding Olga’s shift and blouse and skirt and coloured vest, then begins to dress her, pulling her to a seat and crawling over the arms of it to fasten her buttons. The little magical being works quickly but inexactly, and Olga is forced to straighten her seams and rebutton her sleeves, affectionately complaining and calling him “grandfather”. While she is being dressed, the Secret Ambassador sits opposite her and puts his bare feet on a low table.

“When do you leave for Constantinople?” he asks. The bear surmises that this is her next destination, and thinks that Constantinople is not so beautiful a name as Kiev.

“Two days hence,” Olga says, dismissing the domovoi and casting a glance towards the opaque glass of the window. “Truth be told, I’m a little frightened.”

“I’ve heard the way is hazardous.”

“We must take a river craft so that it can be carried beyond the rapids across country. But then it is too light for the winds and waves of the Black Sea.”

“Take offerings for Perun and Veles.”

“We have fifty cocks to kill.”

“Then you will be safe. Our gods will watch over you, and you will return to me.” He smiles at her, and the bear sees Olga smile for the first time. It gives her hard face a cruel cast.

“I have to return, Secret Ambassador. My son is too young to take the throne by himself.”

“He was old enough to go into battle against the Derevlians.”

“They killed his father!” she exclaims. “He had to partake in our revenge.”

“As I hear it, the child was barely big enough to throw a spear.”

“He could throw a spear. He just couldn’t throw it above the horse’s head.” Olga laughs and runs a fingernail over the carved wood of her chair. “He will be a good prince one day. I love the boy.”

“Is he the only one you love?”

“You know it’s true.”

“But I love you, Olga.”

She lifts her shoulders and glances away. “Mothers only really love their sons and no-one else.”

“He is a lucky boy.”

“I want everything for him, Secret Ambassador. That is why my visit with Konstantin the Purple-Born must go well. I need to persuade him to lift the winter fishing bans, and to allow the Rus greater access to the silk trade. I hear of the immense wealth of the Byzantines, and I want some of that wealth for myself, for my son.” Her voice becomes infused with a ruthless tone. “If others have it, why shouldn’t we?”

“You have so much more here in your own lands.”

Olga sniffs derisively. “The Byzantines think we are barbarians. That we live in treehouses.”

“They don’t know of the richness of your secret world. They don’t know of the misted lands where your stories grow.”

“Stories don’t command coin.”

“Coin doesn’t command happiness.”

Olga laughs darkly. “Nothing commands happiness. Happiness comes willingly to some, and avoids others as she pleases. I have rarely met her.”

Olga stands and returns to the bed, where she nurses the Golden Bear against her bosom. “You have a sweet face,” she says to the bear.

The Secret Ambassador smiles. The face is Olga’s own, although she hasn’t recognised it. “Perhaps you should keep her,” he says.

“No, no,” Olga says. “Though I am glad to have her as my travelling companion.” The rain eases outside and Olga swings her legs over the edge of the bed so that her bare feet can press against the stove. “You should go now, Secret Ambassador. But I hope to see you on my return.”

“You do?”

She waves him away. “Don’t ask for promises of love. I won’t give them.”

The Secret Ambassador leaves, and the bear finds herself happily tucked in the bed of her new mistress.

The Golden Bear is sad to discover that she will be packed away for the long journey to Constantinople. She has enjoyed seeing things and learning things. But she soon realises that being packed away is no impediment; she can still see and hear things, just by closing her eyes. The grand sweep of the Dnieper River, which rolls and tumbles the boat beneath her, is as visible as though she were a crow flying above it. If she thinks hard, she can feel what Olga is feeling, or sometimes hear her thoughts. In fact, as the journey progresses, the bear finds that any mind is open to her and she delights in popping in and out of people’s heads: the merchants, the lesser princesses, the slaves shackled at the ankles.

I can know anything
, she thinks, and she knows why the Secret Ambassador carved her mould with a smile. To know anything is a wonderful enchantment.

Olga comes for her on the evening before they are due to leave the boat, finally in safer waters.

“Come, little bear,” Olga says, unwrapping the bear and tucking her under her arm. “Tomorrow you will meet your new master, the Emperor Konstantin.”

Olga sleeps poorly that night, tossing and turning in her narrow bed. She is cold, she is worried. She dreams of little Sviatoslav, home in Kiev, and imagines a monster shaped of attenuated bones
and cold shadows slithering across the floor to his bed. Poverty, hunger, helplessness surround her.

On waking, Olga dresses in her finest robes. A roll of gold silk constrains her wild hair. A flame-coloured chiton over a rich green tunic. Shoes of gilded kid. Her rarest fur, shimmering dark brown.

The lesser princesses dance attendance, cooing about her beauty and her grace. She narrows her eyes and draws her lips down in disdain. Any one of these little whores would steal her son from her; she would like to put them all to the sword. She wishes she could have brought her trusted domovoi, but it would be ill luck indeed to take the magic from the fireplace. The gangplank is lowered and the thump shudders through the boat.

Olga emerges from her dark chamber into a perfect warm morning. The sun is far away and high, the blue sky makes her eyes ache. Seabirds circle and a mist of insects catch the sun on their wings. Below her is the golden gate of Byzantium. Two tall pillars of marble support the magnificent arch. A delegation from the emperor awaits them. She takes a deep breath and strides towards land.

The Golden Bear rests in a carved box, but in her magical eyes she can see the narrow paved streets of Constantinople, the mighty sea walls, the monuments and columns. The bear sees a building, three times as tall as Olga’s palace, and knows that Olga is feeling more and more like the barbarian princess she loathes to imagine. The city is simply splendid. Wealth oozes from every intricately sculpted structure, from every merchant who passes in colourful silks, from the women with expensively perfumed hair who stare Olga down, expressing distaste for the stale smell of the fur she wears.

But more embarrassment awaits Olga. The small guard have stopped and now their commander (even he is dressed better than Olga’s interpreters) is ushering Olga and her forty-three travelling companions into a building he calls the Magnaura, just north of the Great Palace.

Up to the terrace they walk, then through the arch into the huge apsed hall.

Olga’s eyes grow as big as the moon.

The hall itself is marbled and tiled with mosaics in colours Olga has only imagined. Gold streaks every surface and one entire wall
is decorated with silver dirhams. In Kiev, men would kill each other for a handful of these coins.

Still more. The hall is dotted with gilded trees and in each tree mechanical birds with rare gems for eyes sing perfect tunes. Olga glances around her. Every member of her retinue is agog; the display of grandeur overwhelms them. And Olga knows she must keep her head.

She is led to another arch. Olga takes a deep breath and strides into the reception room.

This room is bright, lit by a window in the ceiling. The walls are bare, to draw attention to the throne in the centre. Up six steps, the throne is guarded by gilded mechanical lions. Konstantin sits, like a god, clothed in dazzling robes. Olga refuses to allow the display of gold and precious gems to crush her. The lesser princesses have already prostrated themselves on the cold floor, along with the merchants, the interpreters, the men of state.

But Olga stands firm, and offers Konstantin only a proud nod. In painstakingly practised Greek, she says, “It is my pleasure to meet you, Emperor.”

A lesser princess hurriedly rises and tries to hand the box with the Golden Bear to Olga. But Olga knocks her back, mutters, “Not now.” She knows she can’t present Konstantin with an odd, uneven bear moulded by magicians.

Konstantin the Purple-Born catches Olga’s gaze. The bear knows that he thinks Olga is, indeed, a barbarian princess. But he is intrigued by her dignity and her hard beauty.

“The pleasure is mine, Princess of the Rus,” he responds. He climbs to his feet, and everybody in the room throws themselves once again on the floor. Except for Olga.

Konstantin smiles at her. Olga smiles back.

By the second day, Olga is invited to dine at Konstantin’s table and to stay in the Grand Palace, a dazzling dream of marble and riches. Olga wonders if she will ever grow used to the wealth which weighs down every surface, every cup and plate. Even the food is rich, leaving Olga night after night with stomach cramps and foul gas.

Olga does not grow fond of Konstantin, though he is clearly growing fond of her. He is a cold man, with fingers like fish fillets
and an overly wet mouth. His robes are so stiff that he can barely move, and much of his time and energy is taken up with the religious observances and state duties which have made him boring.