The Jewel of St Petersburg (31 page)

T
HEY WALKED SIDE BY SIDE, NOT TOUCHING. SHE HAD TO quicken her pace to keep up with his long stride because he made no allowance for her, as though he didn’t care whether she was there. Yet he had come to the hospital at the time of her appointment. She held on to that.

Jens looked a mess. A heavy gray dust was spattered over his coat and had burrowed into the black fur of his hat and into the red hairs of his eyebrows. She scarcely noticed where they walked, but there was a sense of purpose to his steps as he headed down Zagorodnaya Street. They barely spoke, yet she was acutely aware of him at her side. Aware of the crunch of his boots in the snow, and the sight of his breath spiraling out white and impatient into the cold air, and the triangular spot right in the corner of his jaw that clicked and jumped as though punctuating his thoughts. He looked directly ahead, shutting her out, and she wondered if he had forgotten her.

When they crossed the Moika Canal, she said, “Please thank Dr. Fedorin for me.”

“You can thank him yourself. It’s to his house we’re going.”

“Why there?”

“He wants to give you advice on what to expect at St. Isabella’s. He’ll explain how things are done and what you’ll have to learn. He can tell you where to get your uniform and teach you how to ward off the advances of male patients. Fedorin is a good man. He spends a lot of his time in the missions for the poor and in the hospitals for the destitute. He’s not just a doctor for the scented parlors of the rich and pampered.”

She wanted to say,
Thank you.
She wanted to say,
See, you do care. You wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t.
But instead she seized his arm, fixing her fingers on his dusty coat.

“Jens. Stop.”

She meant, stop all the words that were blocking the space between them. Stop refusing to look at her. Stop the ache that the cold edge in his voice set up in her throat. Stop. Stop. But it was her feet that stopped. In the middle of the bridge they jerked to a halt, and her hand was still attached to him, a shackle that he did not try to throw off. For the first time that day he looked straight at her.

“You promised me,” he said. “You swore you’d have nothing to do with Captain Chernov.”

Standing there in the street, she slowly undid the buttons of his coat, one by one, and slid her arms around his waist.

“I promise,” she said, “I promise on my sister’s life that my heart will never have anything to do with Captain Chernov.”

She rested her cheek against his chest, smelled the damp earthy odor of the dust on his clothing and felt the warmth of his body as he wrapped his coat around her, drawing her tight, pinning her to him. Below them on the frozen Moika canal, an elderly couple in matching beaver-skin hats skated sedately back down toward the Tauride, hand in hand. Valentina burrowed deeper, listening to the rapid beat of his heart.

T
HE DOCTOR WELCOMED THEM AND POURED JENS AND himself a glass of fine Georgian wine while Valentina and his little daughter, Anna, drank hot chocolate in front of the fire. She liked this man who was such a devoted father, liked his generosity and the way his bony fingers kept touching the diamond tiepin at his neck as he spoke. It was clear it meant something special to him.

“Now, young lady, let’s discuss what lies ahead of you.”

“I’m grateful, Dr. Fedorin, for your help.
Medsestra
Gordanskaya made it clear she expects me to fail.”

He took her chin in his hand and inspected her closely in the way he would inspect his own daughter. “You’ll do,” he said. “If it’s what you really want.”

“It is. I’ve already studied anatomy and—”

“One step at a time. Let’s talk first about the discipline of bed making, clean uniforms, and
Medsestra
Gordanskaya’s filthy temper.”

She sat and listened to him. He filled her mind with facts and figures about the hospital, its history, its rules. He told her the correct way to address a doctor, exhorted her to walk behind him at all times, and described with enthusiasm the wider range of drugs being developed, including the refinement of morphine to give more precise relief of pain. Again and again he emphasized the need for cleanliness, clean hands, clean linen, clean uniform. Sterile equipment. He talked about operations. Tested her knowledge with questions, all the time tugging on the ends of his mustache or stroking the bright diamond nestled in his cravat.

It was a strange sensation. In an odd sort of way she felt that his questions were opening doors within her that she didn’t know were closed. Across the room Jens and Anna were perched on the window seat playing cards, Anna pouncing with the squeal of a kitten whenever she won a hand.

Finally Dr. Fedorin leaned back in his chair, tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat and exhaled a sigh of satisfaction. “She’ll do, Friis. She’ll do very nicely.”

Jens smiled. “I know.”

Something in the way he said it unbalanced her. It was as though he were letting go of her. She wanted to rush over to the window seat and sit herself on his lap to prevent him slipping away. She wanted to smile up at him and hear him say,
She’ll do me very nicely.
She rose to her feet and took a step toward him.

“Jens . . . ,” she started.

“Anna,” Fedorin interrupted, “time for us to find your governess and see what she has planned for you today.”

The child pulled a face but planted a kiss on Jens’s cheek, bobbed a curtsy to Valentina, and scampered out of the room after her father.

“Jens,” Valentina said softly.

He patted the window seat beside him and she sat down, nervous. But as soon as she felt the warmth of him—his leg next to hers, his hip touching her dress, his shoulder solid beside her—she knew she’d be able to explain everything to him.

“Jens, listen to me.” She didn’t take her eyes from his hand as she linked her fingers through his. “It is my ace, Jens, my only high card. It’s all I have.”

“Using Chernov?”

“Yes.”

“To bargain with?”

“Yes. Without him I have nothing.”

“You have me.”

You have me.
She tipped her head against his shoulder and let it lie there, the three words safe inside it.

“You have to trust me,” she whispered. “It’s the only way I can train as a nurse. My parents will not permit it unless I entertain Captain Chernov.”

“Entertain?”

She rubbed her cheek on the material of his jacket. “A few smiles, a few dances, nothing more.” His hands released hers, and her fingers felt bereft. “Jens, it won’t be for long. He’ll soon tire of me and my silences. You and I can still—”

“Still what?”

“Still talk to each other.”

He made a sound, then wrapped his arms around her, lifted her onto his lap and tipped her back until she was cradled in his arms and looking up into his face.

“Now,” he said, “let’s
talk
to each other.”

He lowered his head and kissed her lips. She raised a hand to his hair, twisting fiery strands between her fingers. “You see,” she murmured as his lips brushed along the hollow under her ear and set a pulse racing in her throat, “I’m just like your tunnels.”

“Dark and difficult?”

She tightened her grip on his hair and shook it roughly like the scruff of a stray dog. “Not easy to destroy.”

T
HE REVOLUTIONARIES WORKED IN POCKETS WITHIN THE city, in individual cells that kept contact to a minimum to reduce the consequences of betrayal. Small furtive groups gathered in basements, huddled in back rooms that smelled of bad tobacco and bitter resentment. Arkin found it impossible to be patient. The food shortages were worse and prices were rising. Trade unions were being shut down, while all the time the gutters heaped higher each night with the sick and the homeless. The middle-class intellectuals continued to call for reform and needed to be taught that reform would never be enough. Only revolution would provide a decent life for Russians.

Beside Arkin sat Sergeyev. He was nursing his arm and smoking a pipe. God only knew what was in it, but it made the dingy room stink of horse dung. There were twelve of them at the meeting in the storeroom of a candle maker’s shop, and the air was thick with tallow. Arkin could taste it at the back of his throat, slick and greasy. At the head of the table sat Krazhkov, a shaggy bearded man who had fought in the Imperial Army against Japan and who spat every time Tsar Nicholas’s name was mentioned. He was older than the rest and had only one leg. He banged his fist down on the table and demanded silence.

“Arkin,” he growled. “You are quiet tonight. What news?”

“The reprisals have started.”

“The murdering bastards!”

“I overheard Minister Ivanov in the car talking to one of his assistants. He says that Stolypin has ordered the Okhrana to fill the prisons to overflowing.”

Anger spilled hot onto the table.

It was Sergeyev who brought them to order. “Comrades, the harder they crack down on us, the more the workers rally to our fight.”

“Sergeyev is right,” Krazhkov agreed. “Each time we plant a bomb or toss a grenade, the Okhrana and the tsar”—he spat on the floor, just missing his dog—“see our strength and fear us. But the proletariat see our strength and respect us. More and more will flock to our side when they start to believe we have the power to crush the rule of the cursed Romanovs.”

“Our problem is that we are desperate for funds,” Arkin pointed out quietly. “Without more roubles, how will we equip this proletariat army?”

But Krazhkov would not be sidetracked. “What else did you hear?”

“The police intend to make an example of the union leaders,” Arkin warned. “The minister was specific about that.”

“We will alert them immediately,” Krazhkov frowned. “We’ll have to get some of them into hiding.”

Sergeyev rapped the table with his pipe stem. “My nephew Yusev works at the Tarasov factory.” The Tarasov brothers owned one of the largest toolmaking factories in Petersburg and drove around in a glossy Benz limousine while their workers begged for bread on the street. “He swears the apprentices are ready to revolt. Just yesterday two more boys died when an overhead gantry snapped.” He pointed his pipe at Arkin. “One was the boy who did the train job with you.”

“Karl?”

“No, the short kid, Marat. He’s dead.”

Arkin’s rage was as thick and as stifling as the tallow in the air.

Krazhkov hunched forward with eager eyes. “What do you suggest, Comrade Arkin?”

“Tsar Nicholas may be ruthless enough to send his cavalry to hack and slash at his own people when they march on the streets, but not even he would slaughter the innocent children of Russia. It’s time to use the apprentices of this city.”

T
HEY LEFT THE MEETING IN PAIRS. FIVE MINUTES BETWEEN each Arkin and Sergeyev went first. They dodged quickly through the darkness along a series of back alleyways until they were far enough from the candle shop to slow their pace. It was snowing softly, and there was scarcely any wind, so that the flakes tumbled straight down from the black sky as gentle as feathers. Arkin welcomed the touch of them on his face. A pulse at the back of his eyes was throbbing, and he knew the dreams would be bad tonight.