Ian Hocking - The Amber Rooms

For the first moments of their reacquaintance, he seemed uncomfortable. He did not reach to shake her hand.

‘I’m pleased to see you, Ms Tucholsky.’

‘Count Nakhimov,’ she said. ‘At last.’

He asked her to sit down. Saskia perched on the edge of a winged chair. She crossed her legs and looked into the fire.

‘Must we speak this language, even here?’ said the Count. ‘I feel I have forgotten all the words.’

‘I would prefer it.’

‘Are your quarters comfortable?’

‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘I arrived only this afternoon.’

‘I see. I apologise.’

‘What for? I had time to meet your son.’

‘That pleases me. Do you agree to tutor him?’

‘Count, you know that I must leave immediately for the Amber Room. I appreciate the cover story, but that’s what it must remain.’

‘Were you followed?’

‘From the station? No. But Soso’s men were waiting for me at your house in Zurich.’

‘And yet you successfully returned to the Empire with my help.’

‘I received the documents, obviously. Have you received word from Mr Jenner?’

‘The house is quite safe.’

‘I specifically ask after Mr Jenner.’

‘He is fine. Obviously.’

‘You’re angry with me.’

‘No.’ He touched his collar. ‘I am surprised that you survived the Georgian.’

Saskia closed her eyes. The connection, here, was clear. ‘You sent them, didn’t you, Count?’

‘The Georgian interrogated my go-between and discovered the location of my house in Zurich. That’s how he found you.’

‘That doesn’t explain how he located my garret in Aussersihl, does it?’

‘No,’ said the Count, worried. ‘It does not.’

‘What is your protection, Count? What keeps you safe? If they know your house in Zurich, they know your house here.’

‘My belief in the Party, of course. What keeps you safe?’

‘The edge of my wit. What had you given them?’

‘I told them I would bring you “in from the cold”, to use your phrase. That’s always been enough.’

‘Count, this is no longer about the money.’

‘Is it not? You’re talking about the greatest heist in the history of the world. Did you think they would have forgotten you?’

‘Once I enter the Amber Room, they will forget me.’

‘Is the money there?’

Saskia smiled. ‘Why do you ask me? You must be astoundingly incompetent if you have not already checked.’

The Count said nothing.

‘The Georgian nearly got me. You owe me. You’ve been playing double-agent with dangerous people, Count. The biter can always become the bitten. They almost killed me. They can kill you.’ She pictured sparrows falling from the sky. ‘I need the equipment I asked for and I need time in the Amber Room. Understood?’

‘If you get your wish, I must get mine.’

‘I will tell you the location of the money the instant my work in the Amber Room is done.’

‘Thank you. But, after that, what will keep you safe?’

‘Nothing.’

The following night, Saskia lay in her bed. Her eyes were fixed on her ceiling. A hunting scene had been rendered in grey plaster. Hints of light moved through the antlers of the stag. Saskia listened. Two floors down, a watchman continued his round. She could hear the hinge on his lantern handle and the respiration-like sound of his slippers. Inhalations shorter than exhalations. A limp, then. She thought about Papashvily’s bad ear, the dog that killed him, and the strong jaw of the English alpinist. She thought about Pavel Eduardovitch. He had been too ill to attend the ball and had spent the rest of the following day in bed. Saskia had given him no thought until now, when a sorrowful note had carried down the corridor. Its youthful tenor was unmistakable.

A second note. Then a third. By the fourth, Saskia had drawn her blankets aside and lit her bedside lamp. Her bare feet passed without sound across the cold floorboards. She took a perfume bottle from her dresser. At the door to her room—locked by habit—she stopped to listen. The singing had stopped.

She unlocked the door and passed into the empty corridor. It was even colder than her room. She considered returning for a gown to cover her night-dress, but the notes were too important. She tucked the stump of her wrist into her armpit and stepped onto the rug that ran the length of the corridor. The flame of her lamp guttered, but held.

Ahead, behind double doors, were the rooms of the Count and Countess. Pavel Eduardovitch slept next door to them. She approached his door, extinguished her lantern, and pushed it ajar by the smallest measure. There was nothing to see in his room but an empty fireplace. She put the nozzle of the perfume bottle against the upper hinge and pumped vegetable oil out. She repeated the treatment on the lower hinge. Then she opened the door fully and entered, closing it behind her.

The night was moonless, but Saskia could see from the scintillas of light around the window. She put her cooling lamp on the untidy bureau and approached the bed. Pasha lay twisted in his bedclothes. His mouth gaped. Saskia was reminded of the image that had filled her mind upon waking those minutes before, of a moustachioed nightmare creature sitting on the chest of the boy, trolling a lullaby as Pavel Eduardovitch suffocated. Now, fully awake, she had not expected to find that creature; but neither had she expected to hear a song of revolution coming from his lips: there, another note, making it certain that this was the song she recognised.

She remained at the foot of the bed. She waited, eyes closed, for the rest of the song. When it came, the notes carried her back to the days after she had first fallen to Russia. Those days had been so bright and alive that the memories of her previous life—of 2003, of 2023—had been reduced to a dream, or a story that faded in the telling. She had forgotten herself.

It had been raining on the day she met him.

Soso.

The singing stopped.

‘Is somebody there?’

Saskia opened her eyes. The boy was sitting upright in his bed. His eyes roamed unseeing. He reached his bedside lamp and Saskia, remembering that she wore only the night shirt, said, ‘Wait, Pavel Eduardovitch. Don’t be afraid.’

‘What?’

‘The word you are looking for is “pardon”.’

‘Ms Tucholsky?’

He reached for the lamp again. ‘No,’ Saskia said. ‘Don’t.’

‘Why not? I can’t see you.’

Saskia could see everything. She felt his electricities. The heat on his forehead was unusually distributed. Was it a function of his epilepsy? No: sweat droplets, cooling.

‘Pavel Eduardovitch, you were singing in your sleep.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘Tell me about your dream.’

‘No.’

Saskia sighed. She held her stump and thumbed the scar tissue. ‘You were singing in your sleep.’

‘I can’t sing,’ he said. His voice was louder. ‘Ask Mother.’

‘Be quiet. That song could get you into trouble.’

‘What song?’

Saskia rocked on her feet. She was cold and wanted to return to her bed. ‘Turn on your light.’

At first, Pasha did nothing. He frowned. There was an infantile petulance about him. The potential for manhood was clear in his lanky frame, but the adult qualities had not yet germinated. He was still a boy.

‘Do it,’ she said.

The electric light flickered. Pasha put a hand across his face, then slowly let it fall. Saskia was aware of his awkwardness. She waited while the boy looked at her. Then she raised her stump. The switch in his attention was palpable. His eyes fixated on the wrist.

Saskia walked around the bed. She crouched and held out the stump. ‘Touch it,’ she said.