Sam Eastland - Red Icon

Petrograd

Rasputin’s apartment, located in a quiet section of the Gorokhovaya Ulitsa in Petrograd, did not belong to him. It was on permanent loan from one of his many benefactors, most of whom cared less for Rasputin than they did for his influence over the Tsar.

The power of Rasputin’s opinions, particularly with the Tsarina, had never been publicly acknowledged. It was, nevertheless, the worst-kept secret in Russia. Each week, Rasputin received dozens of visitors, who trudged up the stairs to his apartment, their pockets stuffed with cash, hoping for the Siberian monk’s help in currying favour with the Romanovs. Sometimes it was the matter of a military contract, supplying saddles for the cavalry or hobnails for a million pairs of marching boots. Other times, it concerned an unfavourable ruling of the court which could, with a few words from the Tsar, be overturned. The visitors pleaded their cases, while Rasputin lounged upon a threadbare couch, sighing and staring at the ceiling. As they departed, the visitors emptied their pockets, heaping stacks of money in a large blue-and-white washbasin, secure in their minds that their generosity would not go unrewarded. But the names of these people, along with their long-winded and carefully rehearsed appeals, were forgotten even before they reached the bottom of the stairs. And the money, with which Rasputin could have retired a wealthy man, would usually be given away to the next person he saw who looked as if they didn’t have enough.

Pekkala entered the courtyard, which was damp and gloomy and smelled of the mildew which clung to the painted stone. Shards of broken green glass lay on the cobblestones, the remains of bottles, pitched out of the window high above, which had once contained the sweet Georgian wine that was Rasputin’s favourite.

Rasputin had not always been a heavy drinker. This came only after the attempt on his life, when an insane woman named Khioniya Guseva, who had become convinced he was the anti-Christ, found him in the street and stabbed him with a butcher’s knife. Although Rasputin recovered physically from the attack, inwardly he was never the same. It was as if, in that moment when the knife blade pierced his flesh, he glimpsed the horrors that awaited him on New Year’s Eve of 1916, in the halls of the Yusupov Palace.

As Pekkala began to climb the stairs, a woman passed him on the way down. She was in her late forties, with a high forehead and small, deep-set eyes which she averted from Pekkala as she clattered down the steps in patent leather shoes. With a passing glance, Pekkala noticed that the buttons on her shirt had not been fastened correctly, and that loose strands of her auburn hair, spliced with threads of grey, hung down over her neck where it had been hastily bundled into place.

He knew at once that she was not one of those who had come to curry favour with the Tsar. She was one of Rasputin’s other guests, who were equally numerous, who sought absolution for their sins. Pekkala knew of highly ranked ladies in Petrograd society who had knelt at Rasputin’s feet for the privilege of cutting his toenails. These women saved the clippings and sewed them into ribbons of silk, which they used to line the necklines of their dresses.

Arriving at Rasputin’s apartment, Pekkala found the door open. He walked in just as Rasputin emerged from a back room, wearing only a long shirt and a pair of slippers. His face wore its usual scowl but, at the sight of Pekkala, he broke into a wide grin, showing his strong, white and unusually long teeth. ‘Inspector!’ he shouted, spreading his arms as if to embrace Pekkala, although the two men remained several paces apart. ‘Come in! Come in!’ he commanded, even though Pekkala had already entered the room. ‘Sit down!’

‘Where?’ asked Pekkala, looking around him. Every seat in the room was heaped with clothes and unwashed crockery.

‘Any chair will do,’ replied Rasputin, tipping a heap of laundry on to the floor and dusting off the cushion with his hands. ‘Here!’

For now at least, Pekkala remained on his feet. ‘That woman on the staircase. One of yours?’

Rasputin nodded as he gathered up a handful of olives discarded on a plate by the windowsill. ‘Irina Krupskaya,’ he confirmed, tossing an olive into his mouth.

‘The wife of the Finance Minister?’ asked Pekkala, unable to mask his surprise.

Rasputin held up a finger, begging for patience as he rolled the olive around between his teeth, peeling away the meat, before spitting the stone out of the open window. ‘Deputy Finance Minister.’

Pekkala nodded towards the back room. ‘And this is how you wash away their sins?’

‘Only God can grant her clemency,’ argued Rasputin. ‘What you, and the rest of this spiritually bankrupt city, fail to grasp is that only by sinning can one drive out the devil of sin. Without it, there can be no focus for her repentance and without repentance, there can be no remission of guilt. I have brought her soul to the edge of a great precipice, and now she must throw herself off. Her choice is clear now, in a way it never was before.’

Pekkala shook his head, marvelling at the contortions of Rasputin’s logic. ‘How selfless of you, Grigori.’

‘Irina Krupskaya thinks so,’ Rasputin waved at the doorway, through which the woman had departed, ‘and if she believes it, who’s to say it isn’t true? Trust me, Inspector. You and I are not so different.’

‘We are what time and circumstance have made us,’ answered Pekkala.

‘All the more reason why you should learn to trust me better than you do.’ With those words, Rasputin flopped down on the couch and swung his bare feet on to the coffee table. ‘Sit, for pity’s sake, Inspector! You are making me nervous, standing there as if you have come to make an arrest.’ Then he narrowed his eyes. ‘I take it that’s not why you’re here.’

‘The Tsarina has decided to loan you some artwork.’

‘She has indeed, Pekkala.’

‘Do not accept it.’

‘Too late!’ Rasputin boomed with laughter. ‘See for yourself.’

Pekkala turned in the direction of Rasputin’s stare. There, on the wall behind him, was the icon. Pekkala had never studied The Shepherd up close before, and was shocked at the intensity of the colours. He could not deny that there was something unearthly about this little painting.

‘It arrived this morning,’ Rasputin said cheerfully. ‘Seems as if this was a wasted trip for you.’

‘Not if I can persuade you to give it back.’

‘And this on account of your deep and abiding love of Russian icons,’ Rasputin remarked sarcastically. ‘The Tsar sent you, didn’t he?’

Pekkala nodded. There was no point in denying it.

‘That coward!’ hissed Rasputin.

‘He is a realist,’ replied Pekkala, ‘at least when it comes to his wife.’

‘Curious, don’t you think,’ sneered Rasputin, ‘that a man who would gamble the safety of his country on the power of an icon would not trust that same power to protect the icon itself? But if that is what the Tsar wants, he should come here and ask me himself.’

‘You know what will happen if word gets out that this country’s most sacred object is hanging on your wall like some old family portrait, and that the Tsarina herself ordered it to be delivered to your door.’

‘You think I haven’t considered this?’ demanded Rasputin. ‘I know exactly how much damage this could do.’

‘Then make her see reason, Grigori! You are the only one who can.’

Rasputin breathed in deeply, then exhaled in a long and melancholy sigh. ‘Don’t you see, Pekkala? I can only convince the Tsarina here,’ he tapped a bony finger against his chest, ‘if she is already convinced in here.’ He shifted the finger to his temple, drilling his long fingernail into the skin. ‘My power, if you want to call it that, lies in being able to predict what the Tsarina wants, before she knows herself what it is that she desires. I cannot change her mind once it has been made up. All I can do is convince her she is right. And that,’ grinned Rasputin, ‘is one of the reasons she loves me.’ As suddenly as it had appeared, the playful smile slid away from his face. ‘Go back to your master, the Tsar. Tell him I refused to yield. Tell him it is the will of God. Tell him whatever you like, but make him understand that there is nothing to be done.’