Ian Hocking: Red Star Falling

‘Yes.’

Curiosity, or her: two reasons behind his urge to help. Saskia did not quite believe either of them.

‘Then fetch my shroud from the locker. I’ll put everything into the doctor’s bag, and we shall leave without further trace. Will you be able to lock the door behind us?’

Gaus nodded.

‘That reminds me,’ she said. ‘In the topmost drawer beneath the workbench in the locker room is a small leather wallet containing autopsy tools. I’ll have it, please.’

Before Saskia had marked five minutes, they were standing in the little garden outside the mortuary. There was a gas lamp at the end of the block and, like the one nearby, it illuminated no more than a circle around it. Beneath that lamp, Saskia could see a woman with two Dalmatians; she had stopped to check her pocket watch. The genteel street was otherwise empty. Gaus raised his storm lantern.

‘My automobile is in repair, I’m afraid. We should walk. It will take no longer than five minutes in the direction of the lake.’

‘Carry the lantern and I’ll take the bag,’ said Saskia. ‘That is more consistent with our roles. You are a doctor and I am a nurse.’

They walked to the end of the street. As they passed the Dalmatian walker beneath the streetlamp, Saskia put a gloved finger to the corner of her eye and inclined her head, concealing her face.

They turned right at the junction.

Quietly, Gaus said, ‘Your death certificate claimed you were Russian.’

Saskia could not know how helpful Gaus would be to her mission. For all she knew, he might be integral. She decided to be honest with him.

‘It did. But I’m not Russian. I’m from Berlin. I’ve just been playing a Russian for the past four years to get close to a person of interest to Meta.’

The street was broad and lined with poplars. Saskia felt every pair of eyes that passed.

‘My last memory before tonight,’ she continued, ‘is of standing in the Amber Room.’

‘The Amber Room?’ Gaus asked. His eagerness had returned. ‘You mean that you were in St Petersburg?’

‘In the Great Summer Palace, yes, which is some distance to the south of St Petersburg.’

‘How can that be your last memory?’ asked Gaus. ‘Were you drugged for the journey to Switzerland?’

‘I believe I was conscious,’ she said, wrapping the cape tighter about herself. ‘One cannot travel by train in a stupor. There are too many passport checks, meals, inquisitive guards. My memory of the last few days has been lost. It is a form of lacunar amnesia.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Simply the loss of memory for a specific event.’

‘Did you lose your memory because you…’ he trailed off.

‘Died?’

He held her stare. His confidence was growing. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Are we looking for the person who did that to you?’

Again, Saskia was reluctant to furnish Gaus with the information. But she compelled herself to do so. What difference could it make?

There are lessons to be learned from every scenario. One must generalise.

‘Persons, plural. Two Georgians. Both shorter than me. One has pock-marked cheeks, has a stiff left arm and walks with a limp. He answers to the names Soso, Soselo, Koba, Joe Pox, and others. The other is heavier in build; probably has a beard. That’s Kamo.’

A mounted gendarme trotted past them. Saskia felt the danger sharply, though she doubted her sluggish heart rate increased. Her mind and her body now operated at a remove.

‘Here,’ said Gaus. ‘The doctor’s practice is down this street. Half way along, I believe, where the blue cabriolet is parked.’

Saskia nodded as they turned. The street sloped down to the greyness of Lake Geneva. The mountains were a dim band beyond.

‘A question for you, Gaus. How long have you been an agent?’

‘Two years.’

‘That’s a long run. What do they have on you?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, looking surprised. ‘I like money.’

The practice was a handsome, two-storey building. It had a courtesy lantern burning over its front gate and a second inside its porch. As Saskia looked at the building, she experienced one of those moments when her identity as a time traveller struck her as a lens through which reality itself flipped between two interpretations like an ambiguous illusion: then or now; the lady is a young woman or an old crone; the wire cube faces down and to the left, or up and to the right.

These people are alive or dead.

She looked at Gaus. She had warned him that her eyes were dead. But she had forgotten that his eyes were dead, too, from one of her perspectives.

‘Go and knock,’ she said. The words sounded harsher than she intended. ‘I don’t want complications. Just get my belongings for now.’

Gaus hesitated. He seemed to detect her difficulty in attending to the moment.

‘Go,’ she repeated. ‘You want to help me, don’t you?’

Saskia waited beyond the circle cast by the street lamp. She could see Gaus’s approach through a gap between two trees. Despite the hour, Saskia was confident that the doctor, or his assistant, would be awake.

She was not disappointed. Moments later, the door opened on a short, young woman holding a lamp. She wore a loose cape over her nightclothes and her hair was netted.

‘Please excuse the hour,’ said Gaus. ‘I am Hans Motz. I need to the see the doctor.’

The woman looked at him with the air of someone experienced with night visitors. In a firm tone, she said, ‘The doctor is on a call. If you wish, I will telephone Dr Gafetti, whose practice is two blocks away. What is the trouble?’

Gaus did not answer. He turned to Saskia, who scowled at him. His mouth was no match for his lock picks. The woman held up her lantern and followed his sightline. She started when she saw Saskia, who approached her quickly on silent feet.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Saskia, as the woman’s expression changed from one of curiosity to shock. ‘You treated my sister. We were twins. It must be difficult to look upon me.’

‘Come inside,’ said the woman, looking from Gaus to Saskia. Her professional demeanour had crumbled. ‘Come, come.’

Saskia followed Gaus and the young woman into the house. She found herself in a dark parlour smelling of old woods and polish. The woman closed the door behind them and turned up the wick on her lantern. She led them through a hallway lined with chairs until they reached the examining room.

Saskia slowed on the threshold. The owner of this room was the person who had signed her death certificate. In the jagged signature she had seen a gentleman doctor of the previous age, and his examining room seemed to confirm that. Despite the recent establishment of the germ theory of disease, and the attendant importance of antisepsis, the room smelled like fresh meat and sawdust. The mortuary had been cleaner.

The woman hooked her lantern above the examination table on the far wall. Its light reflected in the glass doors of the nearby medicine cabinet. She watched Gaus wander around the room, touching the spines of medical journals and inspecting the countless knick-knacks given by grateful patients. The woman looked from him to Saskia and said, ‘Your husband can stay, but I must examine you.’

‘You do not need to do that. I just need–’

‘I’m sorry,’ said the woman. She folded her arms. Her stubbornness was plain, and it frustrated Saskia, who had few hours of movement left. ‘I am Ms Schild. You won’t recognise me. I was with Dr Vetsch when we treated your injuries earlier today. Lie down and let me attend to you.’