City of Shadows (2 page)

“Sweet,” said Esther. “What did she do then? Grow wings?”

“That’s the trouble with you Jews,” he said. “No soul. She’s wandering alone in Siberia, she’s found by true Russians, they smuggle her over the border, she’s helped again, crosses Poland, arrives in Berlin. She’s hurt, destroyed by grief, lost her mind and memory for a while maybe
.. . .
”

“Please don’t tell me what I think you’re going to tell me,” Esther pleaded.

“Yep. She ends up in a German loony bin. It makes sense.”

“Oh, it absolutely does,” she said. “And which of the grand duchesses is she? Olga, Tatiana, Marie, or Anastasia?”

“Tatiana. One of the inmates recognized her from a magazine.”

“That proves it, then,” she said. “How did you hear about her?”

“Word gets around,” he said vaguely. Nobody had his ear pressed more firmly to the ground than Prince Nick; he could hear a penny drop in Kazakhstan—and make a profit from it.

She laid her hand on his sleeve. “Don’t do this, Nick. Whatever’s in it for you, don’t do it.”

“This is sacred, Esther, in the name of God. You think I’m out to make money from it?”

“I bloody know you are.”

“You hurt me.” He put his foot on the accelerator. “All right, maybe she
is
Tatiana, maybe I help her to her inheritance, and maybe I take a percentage, but I tell you . . .”

He took his hands off the wheel to slam them on his chest. “If I do this, I completely do it for my dead czar, for the soul of Russia, for the Holy Church.”

“Oh, shut up,” she said.

It’s another of his schemes, she thought. Like the time he tried to marry the kaiser’s aunt. It’ll come to nothing.

He was driving like a mad thing now, punishing her. People came out of their doorways at the sound of the car, only to find it had already gone by, leaving them in its dust.

It didn’t worry her. She’d got used to being out of control and cling
ing on to life as it dragged her helter-skelter through its scrub, lucky when she didn’t encounter anything too hard, not yelping when she did. At the moment it wasn’t hurting too much, which was all she could ex
pect of it. Numbness was her chosen state; after being in hell, limbo had much of heaven’s attraction. Anyway, her body enjoyed being whipped by warm air. Physical sensation was the thing.

He was slowing now to look at some written instructions that he had, and crawled until he saw a sign above some gates, then turned into them, fast. She had just time to read the word “Dalldorf ” before they were haring up the drive, scattering pigeons and rooks.

Dalldorf, then. A place with such echoes that its name had entered the Berliners’ language as a euphemism for madness.
He belongs in Dalldorf. Let you out of Dalldorf, have they? Carry on like that, you’ll end up in Dalldorf.

The building was large and, on a day like this, didn’t look oppressive, though one felt that it would if it could. A few people wandered the lawns at its front, watched by a man in a white coat.

The front door was opened by a large porter; their names and busi
ness were inquired into before they were allowed into a big hall smelling of antiseptic. The place was ordered and almost empty. Noise—a lot of it—was somewhere in the building, but not here. They were shown into the office of the matron, a large woman with starched white cuffs and cap, who asked them what they wanted. She had a bunch of keys hang
ing from her belt.

Nick kissed her hand. “Prince Nikolai Potrovskov, madam. This is my secretary.”

He never gave her name at first meetings in case its Jewishness put people off. He catered to anti-Semitism in other people without having any himself; Jew, goy, black, white—they were all the same to him as long as they served his purpose. Esther often wondered whether his to
tal amorality caused his total lack of prejudice, or the other way around.

Anyway, he’d discovered that people were flustered by her face and that this was useful, because they then obliged him in their embarrass
ment for having been caught staring at it. Their initial reaction always amused him. “Like introducing Medusa,” he would say.

The matron didn’t spend much time on it; in a hospital like this, there were other horrors. “What can I do for Your Highness?”

“Madam, here you have unidentified lady patient. With your permis
sion, we see her, yes? Maybe she is compatriot of mine.”

“Frau Unbekkant?” The woman’s lips compressed. “I am sorry. This business is attracting too much attention for her own good. We’re not permitting visitors.”

Esther watched Nick slide a hand under the matron’s arm and lead her to one side. It was merely a matter of waiting. The woman would do what he wanted; women always did.

Three minutes later they were on their way through bare, disin
fected corridors tiled to waist height in pastel green. Some doors were open, showing people sitting at tables, weaving baskets, or doing jig
saw puzzles.

All very tidy, very decent, very German, she thought. In Old Russia a place like this would have been a snake pit.

They stopped at double doors with windows that were netted with wire as if against a bomb blast. In the anteroom beyond, a nurse sat at a desk, writing.

They went in. “These people want to see Frau Unbekkant, Klaus-nick,” the matron said. “How is she today?”

“No different, Matron.”

The matron nodded with satisfaction. “She won’t talk to you,” she told Nick. “She’s not said a word to outsiders since she’s been here.”

“How long?”

“Two years. Very well, Nurse Klausnick will look after you. I have things to do.” She bustled off.

Klausnick unlocked the door to the ward, and the noise came at them in a roar—the screechings, screamings, moanings of anxious ani
mals in a zoo.

It was a long, clean room, hot from the sun coming in through barred windows. Antiseptic mixed with the smell of urine. It was full of women. Iron beds ran along each side, and two of the patients were jumping from one to the other, yelling like high-spirited children and being shouted at. Two more were rolling on the floor, pulling each other’s hair.

Klausnick drew in a breath and roared, “QUIET!” from not inconsid
erable lungs.

Everything stopped—the jumping, fighting, the moaning. Heads were turned to where they stood in the doorway and then, after a while, turned away.

Klausnick separated the two women on the floor and began pursuing the ones who had resumed jumping. She flicked a thumb toward the bottom of the ward. “Last bed,” she said.

But they’d already seen Mrs. Unknown. She was the only still person in the room and the only one who hadn’t looked up at their entrance. Her bed was a reservoir of quiet. She’d built a barricade of pillows around it, and they could just see the profile of her face upturned to the ceiling.

She was aware of them, though; as they approached, she pulled the gray hospital blanket over her mouth and hugged it there with tiny,
nail-bitten hands. Huge and very blue eyes continued looking at the ceiling from a little skull like a marmoset’s.

Nick spoke to her in Russian. “Madam, we have come to talk to you. I am Prince Nicolai Potrovskov, here is my secretary.”

The woman’s eyes didn’t move.

He repeated what he’d said in German. There was a flicker, but no response.

“How old do you reckon, Esther?” Nick said. “Your age, maybe?”

“Maybe.” The forehead skin was unlined, like her own, but youth had gone out of both of them.

“Recognize her?” Gently, he disengaged the blanket from the woman’s grip and pulled it down. Immediately, her hand came up to cover her mouth again.

“Should I?”

He shrugged.

A woman had come up, adjusting the band that held back her long, gray hair—she’d been one of those fighting—and stood at the end of the bed. She was tall, bony, and aggressive. “You want to talk to her, you talk to me. She don’t talk to just anybody. She’s royal.”

Nick turned to her. “I am also. Prince Potrovskov, at your service.”

The woman stared at him for a moment, then ran up the ward, scrabbled under a mattress, and came back waving a dog-eared mag
azine.

“It was me,” she said. “Clara Peuthert, you remember that, Your Highness. It was me recognized her.”

Other patients were gathering around the bed, their eyes avid.

“Sure, Frau Peuthert. I’ll remember.” Nick took the magazine, an old edition of the
Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung
that had been turned back to a full-page family picture. The accompanying story on the opposite page had a headline: “The Truth About the Murder of the Czar.”

Clara jabbed her finger on one of the pictured faces. “See? That’s Ta
tiana.” She transferred the finger to the quiet shape on the bed. “And
that’s
Tatiana. Recognized her right off. You remember that. I been writing to every bit of family that’s left. The czar’s poor mother in Den
mark and the czarina’s sister, Princess Irene of Prussia. ‘I found the Grand Duchess Tatiana,’ I told ’em. Been waiting and waiting for one of

’em to come. Knew they would. Sent you, did they? Supreme Monarchy Council?” “Sure.” Nick was turning pages, his eyes going from the magazine to

the woman on the bed. “You want to look at this, Esther?” “No.” He shrugged. “She ain’t the believing type,” he told Clara. The big woman transferred her attention to Esther, grabbing one of

Frau Unbekkant’s unresisting hands and waving it like an exhibit. “You can believe this. See this? How fine is this? That’s a grand duchess’s hand. See mine?” A thick, raw fist was brandished. Clara was getting angry. “Common, that’s a common hand, and it can punch your snotty nose, miss. Who’re you, you ugly thing, coming in here and telling me—”

The rising voice was an alarm bell, and Nurse Klausnick was at Frau Peuthert’s side. “Calm, now, Clara. Calm yourself. You don’t want soli
tary again.” She led her off.

Nick jerked his head at Esther. Everybody to be kept away; this was private. Esther approached the women gathered at the end of the bed. “Tell me, ladies, have you been here long?”

Gently, she shepherded them up the ward, listening to the answers. One tiny woman could make only inarticulate sounds but made them with such urgency that Esther had to turn to Nurse Klausnick.

“What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing much. She’s just deaf. Never learned to talk.”
“And she’s in here how long?”
“Forty-two years.”
Esther said, “There are ways to help the deaf now.”
“Too late for her.” Klausnick hurried away.
Clara Peuthert was crying into her pillow. At the end of the ward,

Prince Nick had his head close to the unknown woman’s. He’d given

her a piece of paper and a pencil. On the way home, he was subdued. “What do you think?” “Sad. Horrible.” “Know why Unbekkant covers her mouth like that?” “No.”

“She had toothache. They pulled some of her teeth out. Cheaper. But we can fix that, good dentist, nice dentures, all dandy.” He shot a look at her. “You think she’s the grand duchess Tatiana?”

“No.”

“You’re right. Know who she thinks she is? Feel in my left pocket.”

He smelled of pomade and the artificially scented carnation in his buttonhole. She pulled out a piece of paper.

He yelled, “I wrote down the names of the four grand duchesses. Told her to scratch out the ones that weren’t her. Look at it.”

She looked. Three names had been struck through. The one that re
mained was “Anastasia.”

“Shook me,” he said. “I was expecting Tatiana. Know when Unbekkant was born? Hospital register says 1901. Know when Anastasia was born?”

“In 1901?”

“That’s right.”

They stopped for lunch at a Spiesehäuser. He liked plain eating houses. The weeks of starvation that he’d endured trying to get out of Russia while dodging the Bolshevik army had instilled in him a passion for German food at its weightiest. With his wealthier clients and his fancy women, he ate French food at the Eden or the Adlon; with her he fell on pork and potatoes.

“You’re not going to be difficult, are you?” he said.

“She’s not Anastasia.”

“Why isn’t she?” he said. “Pass the salt. Right size, right eyes, hair, everything. I tell you, kid, she shook me. You notice her ears?”

No, Esther said, she hadn’t noticed Unbekkant’s ears.

“Exact same shape as Anastasia’s in the photograph. You can’t fool around with ears.”

“She’s not Anastasia,” Esther said.

“By the time I’m finished with her, she will be. Empress Granny will fall on her neck: ‘Vnushka, my long-lost little one. Here are the jewels of the Romanovs.’ And I happen to know”—he tapped his nose— “there’s a fortune the czar put for safekeeping in the Bank of England. You leaving that herring?”

She leaned forward and wiped food from his chin with her napkin. “She’ll have relatives who know who she really is.”