Kate Furnivall - The Jewel of St Petersburg

“We walk,” he said. “All the way if we have to.”

“To where?”

“To China.”

Her mouth dropped open. He was watching her, smiling at her reaction, and she knew that with this man she would walk to the North Pole if she had to.

“China it is,” she said.

“Where is China?” Lydia asked.

“At the end of Russia where it falls into the sea.”

“Not far?”

They both smiled at her. “You’ll have to walk fast,” Jens said, and she nodded, speeding up her small steps.

It was in the next street that they saw the first roadblock, manned by figures in gray with wide red armbands and nervous jittery rifles. Valentina felt her spine stiffen with dread, but Jens didn’t break stride as he turned smoothly down a side road and doubled back to try a different approach. Each time it was the same. In every direction. Each time they were forced to retreat. Lydia sheltered in the folds of her parents’ long coats and stopped chattering to her father about how she had learned to play poker from the boys downstairs. After an hour Jens stopped in the shadow of a church, its onion dome a dull amber under the overcast sky as ashes from last night’s fires still swirled in the wind. They rested their packs on the ground.

“Jens, we’re trapped. The travel permits are worthless here.”

“The soldiers here are hard-bitten Bolsheviks. They’d take no notice of a signature on a form if they decide it’s their job to put a bullet in one of the oppressors . It’s too risky to use them here.” He leaned against the wall for a moment, turning his head as though to check the other end of the road, but it meant she could no longer see his face. “Why did he agree to release me?” he asked.

Her mouth went dry. She laid her head against his shoulder. “Does it matter?”

For a long moment he said nothing, and Valentina felt a weight like lead in her chest. Then he rested his bristly chin on her head and released the breath he had been holding.

“No, my love,” he said softly, “it doesn’t matter. As long as we are together.” He kissed her forehead. “And now let’s move.”

“Where?”

He tilted her chin so that her eyes met his. “Do you really think I spent eight months in that stinking cell thinking of nothing? I planned our route and have trodden each step a thousand times.”

He picked up his pack and swung his daughter onto his back. “There is a way out.”

JENS BENT DOWN AND LEVERED UP THE METAL HATCH IN the middle of the road. Some of them were locked, but he knew the bolt on this one was broken.

“Quickly! Climb down.” He saw Valentina hesitate. “It’s safe.”

The last time she was in a sewerage tunnel, she almost drowned. He climbed into the black hole himself, holding on to the metal ladder fixed to the brick wall, and from a shelf on one side he removed a kerosene lamp. The matches that were supposed to be there were gone, but Valentina had given him a box for his pocket. He lit the wick, and instantly a muted yellow glow made sense of the shadows.

“Lydia, come on, sweetheart, your turn next.”

The small face appeared over the edge warily, and then she slid her feet onto the first rung and scampered down the ladder like a monkey. When she saw the black tunnel stretching ahead, she didn’t whimper but edged herself close against him, staring unblinkingly into the darkness.

“It’s quite safe,” he said, patted the top of her felt hat to reassure her, and reached up to help Valentina. Without being asked, she drew the hatch back over the opening as she descended, and the darkness swallowed them whole. The solid silence was punctuated by the sound of water dripping and a distant murmur that he knew was a nearby pumping engine.

“How far?” Valentina asked.

“As far as we can.”

He raised the lamp to look at her face because he couldn’t help himself. And he could see changes there that were new, but he kissed her lips and set off with Lydia on his back. At first Valentina sang to them as they walked, a clear sweet sound in the oppressive darkness, but as the going grew harder and they had to crawl on their hands and knees, dragging their bags through icy, foul-smelling water, it became impossible to do more than force themselves forward.

Jens was annoyed that he found it hard to focus in the shapeless tunnels because it was so long since his eyes had enjoyed the luxury of darkness. He stumbled time and again but refused to let Lydia climb down from his back despite Valentina’s urgings. His daughter clung to his neck and to his hair with an eagerness that satisfied something dried and parched within him.

They didn’t talk of what they were doing, of what they were giving up and what they were leaving behind. Now was not the time. Only once did he ask, “Your parents? Where are they?” She’d looked at her daughter who was listening to every word and shook her head. He didn’t ask again. When they passed under another metal hatch Jens climbed the ladder and peered through the small holes in the cover. He saw feet running, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. After eight months of only his own company day after day, the concept of such numbers seemed almost incomprehensible to him. When the tunnels forked and he took the left-hand one without hesitation, Valentina laughed with astonishment, startling him.

“How can you possibly know your way around this maze of openings and inlets? It’s impossible.”

“They’re my tunnels, Valentina. I built them. Of course I know how to find my way around them.”

Lydia had been silent for too long. He turned to her, trudging behind him through the water ankle deep, and saw that her eyes were huge.

“Papa,” she asked in a whisper, “where does the dragon sleep?”

“There’s no dragon down here, malishka,” Valentina said quickly.

“There is. I can smell its breath.”

Jens took his child’s hand in his. It was cold and clammy. “I think,” he said, “it’s time to go up into the light.”

THEY WERE NOT FAR FROM THE NEXT HATCH. THE TUNNEL ceiling was higher here, and he raised the lamp to cast its faint glow as far ahead as possible. The water reflected slick and oily.

“It’s not in front of us, Papa,” Lydia whispered. “The dragon is behind us.”

“No, Lydia, my sweet, there’s no-”

“Listen,” she hissed.

He listened. Valentina put a warning hand on his arm. From somewhere behind them came the unmistakable sound of feet slushing through water, moving fast. Immediately Jens blew out the lamp. He pulled Valentina and Lydia behind him and they stood in silence, waiting. After a minute he heard voices.

“The light has gone.” It was a young boy’s voice.

“They’ve vanished. Listen.”

An elderly man speaking. And for a moment the feet were quiet. They had no light but must have been following Jens’s. When the feet started again they were slower and grew louder until they were almost upon them, and Jens felt Valentina press something cold and heavy into his hand. It was a gun. His pulse kicked. He aimed the gun at the blackness.

“Whoever you are, stop right there,” he called out.

The noises ceased.

“Who are you?” Jens demanded.

“No one,” the boy answered. “Who are you?”

“Travelers.”

“Maybe we’re on the same journey,” the older man suggested.

“Maybe we are. Do you have a light?”

“We have a lamp but no matches.”

“Stay behind me, Valentina, and light our lamp.”