Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

Which was all too depressing. She turned her mind to her other immediate problem, who was probably playing chess with the Grand Inquisitor.

It was weird dealing with the false Jack, who seemed to be making up his false history as he went along. In the saloon on the previous day, he had recounted an abortive attempt to learn the piano, waxed lyrical about the color of some far-off hills, and advised them all to taste the melons in Tashkent. He had never mentioned the former in their real life together, nor taken much notice of the landscape. She wondered if he’d even been to Tashkent, let alone acquired a taste for its melons.

Every now and then, she’d had glimpses of the Jack she remembered: a facial expression, a way of holding himself, a swiftly dimmed look of the eyes. This Jack was more disturbing than the false one, mostly because this was the one she had loved. Like no other, indeed. She remembered once telling him that only the world ending could tear them apart, and then the old world had duly obliged. Or so she and millions of others had thought.

Was there any hope for them? In spite of their being part of the hunt for her husband. In spite of the fact that they were probably still on different sides. And those were just the hindrances she knew about. He might have a wife by now, and his marriage might have a future—he hadn’t said anything, but why would he?

If she did want him back, there was no guarantee he’d want her. She didn’t think she’d take him back if he’d treated her the way she’d treated him.

Why was she even thinking about this? Because she still loved him? Because despite everything, he was still unfinished business as far as her heart was concerned?

There were so many reasons not to fall in love again or give him any sign that she was doing so. She might admit to herself that she wanted him, but acting on the thought was something else entirely.

And there was still Sergei to think of. She had loved him once, though not in the way she’d loved Jack.

She often regretted letting him know that. If she’d been more willing to play a part, he might have stayed on the rails and not gone rushing off to pastures new with a killer like Aidan Brady.

No, she told herself, Kollontai’s voice in her ear. The man had made his choice, and it looked as though both he and she would have to suffer the consequences.

Komarov watched Piatakova and theEnglishman share a stroll up the platform at Aralsk, politely forcing a passage through the throng of peasant saleswomen. The wares on offer—fish and bread, cakes and pastries, even the odd duck and goose—were certainly impressive and a stark reminder of how badly the war had affected distribution. Russia had enough food—the party just had to find a way of getting it where it was needed.

Maslov was walking toward him, holding a piece of paper and smiling. In his loose shirt and army breeches, he looked like a young, off-duty cadet, the sort who would have taken a young girl rowing on the Moscow River before the war.

“A message from Chairman Peters,” Maslov said, passing it over.

Komarov sat down on the carriage steps and read it. The renegades had known another anarchist in Tashkent. A man named Rogdayev, whom they’d robbed and killed. After which they’d taken off in a stolen Cheka car.

He sighed and swished a fly away from his face. It was beginning to look like he and Dzerzhinsky had erred on the side of optimism when it came to catching these men.

Piatakova and the Englishman were on their way back down the platform, laughing at something or other. He knew he should have pressed her harder about the agent she had admitted meeting in 1918, but had known in that moment that he was more than a little afraid of what he might find out. If a comrade with her record of service and devotion to the revolution turned out to be a traitor, there wouldn’t be many left to trust.

Piatakov and Brady arrived inSamarkand late in the afternoon. The last lap of their three-day journey had been spent in the back of a peasant’s cart, in the company of several hundred ripening melons. Dropped off in the heart of the old town, they just stood where they were for several moments, feeling hot and sticky, wondering where to go. Aram had forged them spare sets of papers, but the Russian town would be on full alert, with every available Chekist checking and double-checking each and every new face. This time staying in the old town made more sense.

This was easier to decide than arrange, but unsolicited help was soon at hand. The two men were sitting in a chaikhana , drinking tea and staring at the huge, half-ruined mosque that towered above them, when an old man came up and addressed them in heavily accented Russian. “It’s called the Bibi-Khanym,” he said, “after Tamerlane’s favorite wife.”

Brady offered him a seat.

The old man told them he was German by birth. A mercenary in the army of Czar Alexander III, he had remained in Turkestan after the Russian conquest of Transcaspia had been completed in 1881. He might have been a soldier by trade, he said, but he was a painter by inclination, and the Central Asian light… well, he had never known anything like it. He had lived in Samarkand for over thirty years, painting the old town and selling the finished canvases to visitors and Russian colonists. Or had until recently. Now, with the revolution, the market had more or less dried up; no one wanted the past on their walls anymore, not even a past as ancient and unthreatening as Samarkand’s. But there were still a few people with taste. “I am on my way to a customer now,” he said, patting the battered leather case by his side. “Would you like to see?”

“Of course,” Piatakov said.

The unwrapped canvas showed a long line of deep blue domes climbing a yellow-brown hill, set against a pale blue sky. The style reminded Piatakov of some German paintings he’d seen at an exhibition in Petrograd before the revolution, all bold colors and minimal lines. Expressionists, the artists had called themselves. He hadn’t known quite how to take them, but this… it had a simplicity that told no lies. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

The old German gave them an ironic smile but seemed pleased nevertheless. “The place is called the Shah-i-Zinda,” he said. “And it is very beautiful. About a mile over there,” he added, nodding toward the east. “And you?” he asked, rewrapping the canvas. “What are you doing with your brief time here on earth?”

Brady and Piatakov exchanged glances. “We are having a little trouble with the authorities,” Brady admitted with a smile. “We need somewhere to stay in the old town.”

The old man didn’t raise an eyebrow. “Any enemy of theirs is a friend of mine,” he said brightly, and gave them directions to a place where they should find a room. “Mention my name,” he said as he left, “Bertolt.”

The hostel proved easy to find, a caravansary set back from the crossroads at the old town’s eastern gateway; they had actually passed it on their way in. The lower floor was a chaikhana , above and behind which a long building with half a dozen rooms had been dug into the hillside. The proprietor, a morose-looking Uzbek, grunted on hearing the German’s name but took their money and asked no questions.

The room was on a corner, with unglazed windows facing north and east. Looking through the former, Piatakov saw a summer mosque on a flattened ridge, its colonnaded prayer canopy flanked by ornate minarets. Beside and slightly below it, there was a sprawling one-story compound, containing both inner and outer courtyards. Because of the hostel’s elevation, he had a view of the inner sanctum, albeit one interrupted by trees.