Rosa and the Veil of Gold
Read Rosa and the Veil of Gold Online
Authors: Kim Wilkins
Luka
Net mesta takovo zhe strashnovo i takovo zhe chedesnovo, kak voobrazhenie rebyonka.
All the years I have lived in this world and in the other I have been known by many names: Koschey the deathless; the Siberian wolf; the mad monk;
Chyort
, the Devil himself.
But today I am simply Papa Grigory for that is what my little Totchka calls me. I see her now; she stands in a ring of young daisies and the sun is on her dark hair, and her arms are stretched out like a swan’s wings. Inside this old house of stone and wood, the glazed stove burns warm and the dried nettles at the windows keep away the encroaching shadows. I watch my little girl and everything dear and bright is already with me. Hush, and hear the silence of a contented man.
Perhaps…perhaps the silence will never break.
This morning I was holding Totchka while I brushed her hair. She complained and wriggled, and I became fascinated by the contrast of my hands—mottled blue with age; gold rings trapped forever below swollen joints—against the supple flesh of her white arms. I am old, and Totchka is young. Totchka is young, yet will not grow old. How is that so? I ask you this: how are many things so?
How is it that Totchka, this speck of a girl whose real name is lost to the years, is mine yet not mine?
How is it that I was stabbed, poisoned, shot, drowned and buried and yet I still live?
And why does the Snow Witch want the Golden Bear?
I rush ahead. You don’t yet know of the Golden Bear. You don’t yet know of Rosa Petrovna Kovalenka and the young man who loves her and the thrice-nine lands they both must wander.
I know many things that I will not tell, not yet. I am a storyteller, and any good storyteller knows not to give too much away too early. I will tell you some things now, some things later. Then, at the end, when all is revealed, you need not feel guilty or sad or responsible for terrible things.
You did not know.
Yes,
I
know. Let it be my burden.
Totchka runs towards the house. Clutched in her hand is a bright flower and she is calling my name. I must go to greet her.
As for you now, look around you. You are in St Petersburg with its wide, overgrown squares and decayed splendour. In an old bathhouse—long imagined a place where magic is conjured—something rare and mysterious is about to be found.
“Across the secret world of spirits,
Across this nameless chasm,
A veil of gold has been draped
By the will of the great gods.”
FYODOR TYUTCHEV
Rosa Kovalenka was beautiful and clever, but nobody knew the truth about her.
Not Daniel, not Uncle Vasily, and certainly not the American foreman who caught his breath from the run up the stairs before speaking.
“There’s been an accident,” he said.
Rosa leapt up from her desk. “Is anybody hurt?”
“Not that kind of an accident.” He removed his hard hat, revealing sandy curling hair. “I’m sorry, Miss Kovalenka, but we’ve mistakenly knocked a hole in one of the walls.” His eyes flicked around nervously. “Is Vasily here?”
“No, Jamie, Uncle Vasily is at lunch.” She offered a reassuring smile. “Show me. Maybe it’s not so bad.”
Rosa followed Jamie from the office and down the worn stone steps to the street. She had been working in Uncle Vasily’s business for the past six months, and she knew his temper was legendary, which accounted for Jamie’s anxious body language as he strode ahead of her. Two doors up stood the bathhouse. A nineteenth-century structure which had been boarded up for forty years, it was the current object of Vasily’s unstoppable desire to transform every old building in St Petersburg into luxury apartments.
“It’s the sub-contractors,” Jamie was saying in embarrassed tones. Rosa knew that Jamie nursed a crush on her and revealing this lapse of judgement clearly pained him. “We speak English, they speak Russian. Something got lost in translation and they started pulling out a wall.”
“Well, they’ll have to put it back,” she said gently.
“They’ve destroyed the plaster work, cracked all the tiles.”
“Uncle Vasily won’t be pleased.”
“The men were hoping you’d tell him.” Jamie pushed open the door to the bathhouse; inside was dim and cold. One wall remained uncleaned, the mould of centuries gathered in its antique crevices. The tiles imparted a glassy echo to every sound.
“There’s something else,” Jamie said, leaning close, his clear green eyes holding her gaze. “Inside the wall.”
“What’s inside the wall?”
“We didn’t want to move it. But it looks like gold.”
Rosa brushed Jamie aside and hurried to where the assembled crew stood scratching their heads, arguing in Russian and English. A bright spotlight had been angled directly into the gaping hole. She snapped at the crew to stand back, and leaned in.
Rainbow colours, golden mist, swirls of starlight patterns. An old song, half out of tune. A falling sensation beneath her ribs, an extra breath pressed into her lungs.
Rosa blinked. She had always seen things others didn’t see: the magical world was laid bare to her, where it remained cloaked to most. This hollow in the wall was brimming over with magic. She peered closer and saw why. Shoved upside-down between two bricks was a bear made of gold.
Rosa gasped. “It’s beautiful,” she said, reaching into the cavity. Dust and mould blackened the lower three inches of the bear, but the top half was clean. Rosa’s fingers brushed against it and electricity snapped up her hand and forearm. She snatched her hand away.
The workmen exchanged nervous glances.
“It’s enchanted,” she said, then repeated herself in Russian for the benefit of the locals. One or two of the crew snickered, probably the Americans.
The door to the bathhouse flew open and Vasily stood there, outlined by the sunlight from the street.
“What has happened!” he shrieked in Russian.
“Uncle Vasily, calm down,” Rosa said, hurrying over and taking his fleshy arm. “I think the damage is not so bad, and they will be able to fix it easily. Come, you must see. A wonderful object has been found.”
Vasily shook his head. “Ay, Roshka. Can I not go to lunch without a disaster befalling me?”
“It’s not a disaster, Uncle Vasily. It’s a blessing. You’ll see.”
She led him to the cavity and reached in for the bear. This time there was no electricity. The bear had already marked her. She drew it from its hiding place and Vasily hushed.
“Do you see?” Rosa said. “A hole in a wall is easy to repair. The bear wanted us to find her.”
“Is it gold, Rosa?”
“I think so.”
Vasily touched it and Rosa noted that no electrical charge passed between the bear and her uncle.
“Is it very old and precious?” he said.
“Perhaps.”
Jamie, obviously made curious by their hushed Russian, broke in. “You should take that to a museum.”
“What did he say?” Vasily snapped, though Rosa suspected he knew what was being said. He was too proud for misunderstandings, instead relying on Rosa for precise translations.
“Jamie suggests a museum.”
“It is mine!”
“I know, Uncle Vasily.”
Vasily turned on Jamie and roared in darkly inflected English, “I am developer. I am not historian.”
“It’s all right, Jamie,” Rosa said to the foreman. “We know what to do. Get your men to fix this wall. Uncle Vasily thanks you for your honesty.” She slipped off her jacket and wrapped the bear, then put out her hand to Vasily. He took it firmly.
“I won’t take it to a museum, Roshka,” he said as the door to the bathhouse thudded shut behind them.
“I know,” she said, then tried to cheer him out of his temper by teasing him. “Uncle Vasily, how is that dark cold place ever going to be made into luxury apartments?”
“You sound like your mother,” he muttered, and Rosa’s heart tumbled.
“Skylights?” she said, mock-brightly.
“Skylights. And heaters. And thick carpet. Somebody will buy them. Somebody always does.”
She pushed open the heavy wooden door to their offices, and followed Vasily up the bare stone stairs. The first floor was an unfinished demolition site. The second floor was carpeted in green and wallpapered in cream and gold. Behind a partition, draftsmen and secretaries and engineers and accountants worked quietly. Vasily ushered Rosa into his private office and closed the door.
“Show me again,” he said.
Rosa carefully unwrapped the bear and stood it on the desk between the piles of plans and the streaming in-trays. “I think it’s very old, Uncle Vasily,” she said.
“Why do you think it, Rosa?”
Rosa wouldn’t say that she just
felt
it, because her mother had
felt
things and Vasily already spoke too much about Ellena Kovalenka. Her sad shade seemed always in mind.
“The face on the bear looks odd, almost like a human face,” she said.
Vasily ran his fingers over his chin, pulling his bottom lip. His black hair, heavy with hair oil, flopped over his left eye. “Yes, yes,” he said. “She could be worth a fortune.”
“We should find out how much. We could ask a museum—”
“It’s mine, Rosa. I won’t hand it over.”
“I don’t want you to hand it over. I want you only to authenticate it. They won’t take it from you. It was on your property.”
“I don’t trust historians!” he exclaimed, shooting out of his chair and adopting his customary brooding frown. “I don’t trust museums! They are thieves of the dead.”
Rosa scratched some of the black muck from the bear with her thumbnail. “I know somebody,” she said quietly. “Somebody who may be able to tell you if it’s authentic or not. He would be discreet.”
“Who is it?”
“An old friend. He’s in Novgorod. He’s a…researcher.” She avoided the word
historian
, malign as they were in Vasily’s view. She couldn’t remember Daniel’s specific job appellation anyway. All she knew was that he was working for a major British television company, that they were making a documentary, and that he had left his phone number on her answering machine two
weeks ago when he had arrived in Russia. She had written it down, never intending to use it but too superstitious to release the numbers into silence.
Vasily paced, peered through the blinds, returned to the table and sat. He spread his hands before him. “I trust you, Rosa. If you think he is a good man—”
“Oh, he’s a good man. There is no doubt.”
Vasily nodded. “Do what is right, Roshka.”
“I’ll see if he can come to St Petersburg.”
“You think he might?”
Rosa hid a smile. “Yes, I do. Don’t you worry about a thing, Uncle Vasily.”
Daniel closed out the afternoon cold and fished his room key from his pocket. The guesthouse smelled of cabbage and warm spices and he wondered what artery-clogging delights Crazy Adelina was cooking for dinner that night. He hadn’t yet witnessed anything proving that Adelina was crazy, but four of the crew, who had been on the receiving end of a tirade about smoking in their rooms, assured him it was only a matter of time.
The note had been slipped under his door. It was flipped over on its face between the scarred writing desk and the dreary checked bedspread. Daniel stooped to pick it up, his heart taking an unexpected jump to see her name written there in Russian letters.
Rosa Kovalenka called.
Rosa called? Daniel had resigned himself to the certainty that she would never call. He sat on the bed and studied the note as though it might provide more details. What was she feeling and thinking?
The door to his room was still open, and he heard footsteps on the narrow landing. Em Hayward, the writer and presenter of the series. Daniel was supposed to work closely with her, editing the scripts, but despite her dark prettiness and her polite smile he felt inexplicably intimidated by her. Something wasn’t quite right about her, as though the soft facade masked a steely intensity.
“Hello, Em,” he called.
“Hello, Daniel,” she called back, and closed her door.
He did the same, then turned to the telephone. He picked out Rosa’s number nervously, each digit acquiring new significance: 8, the number of times they had made love during their brief affair; 1, how often he’d said “I love you” before she disappeared; 2, the presents he had given her—a silver bracelet and a deep blue scarf the precise colour of her eyes. The other things he couldn’t count in single figures. Train trips between Cambridge and London to see her; desperate phone calls that went unanswered; gin and tonics consumed to obliterate the pain. But Rosa hadn’t stayed. Rosa had escaped to her uncle’s place in St Petersburg, and Daniel hadn’t heard her voice in more than six months.
Still, he knew it when he heard it.
“Hello,” she said. The soft curves of a Canadian accent—that was, after all, where she had grown up—but always lingering underneath that, the kiss of the exotic place from which she drew her heritage.
“Rosa?”
“Daniel,” she said cautiously, and her caution iced his fantasies of reconciliation before they could grow too hot. “Thank you for calling me back.”
“It’s been such a long time. How are you?”
“I’m doing okay,” she said. “I’m doing fine. And you?”
Did he mistake the tender note in her voice? Probably. He took a breath and calmed himself. “I’m well. I’m busy. I’m still having trouble with my Russian possessive partitives.”
She laughed. “I’m sure you’re underestimating yourself. You were my star pupil.”
“The teacher who replaced you was very dreary. I didn’t bother going back to lessons once you were gone.” He winced, realising he had said too much.
She left a beat of silence before saying, “Daniel, we found an interesting object bricked up in a wall at Uncle Vasily’s latest development site. I have a feeling that it’s very old.”
“How old is the building?”
“Mid-nineteenth century. But this object…It looks much older, almost primitive. It’s a gold bear about eight inches high, has an interesting design across its stomach. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Daniel tried to picture it. He picked up the phone and took it to the bed to sit down. “Is it solid? Full-round or relief?”
“It’s bear-shaped, round. It’s heavy and smooth.”
“You say it looks primitive.”
“Almost…pagan.” Her self-conscious laugh echoed down the line. “But I know nothing about art or history.”
“No, no. The Scythians did a lot of animal figures, but usually reliefs, not full-round sculptures. The early Slavs were very fond of bears.”
“It looks almost human in the face. Odd eyes. They’re closed and she’s smiling, like she’s thinking about something she likes.”
“It could even be ancient Altai. They believed spirits could slip between humans and animals, and they used an eye motif…But it sounds too large. I don’t know, Rosa, it’s impossible to say without seeing it. You could take it to a museum.”
“Uncle Vasily won’t hear of it.”
Daniel hesitated. “Do you want me to come and look at it?”
She surprised him by answering quickly and enthusiastically. “Would you? It would mean a lot to Uncle Vasily if he could find out what it is. Who knows, maybe it’s just a piece of junk.”
He took a second to catch his breath. Talking to her was one thing, but seeing her in the flesh was entirely another. It occurred to him, urgently and brightly, that he hadn’t made any progress at all in getting over her.
“Of course I’ll come,” he said. “I’d love to see you.”
“Daniel, it’s just the bear, you understand.” Her voice grew soft. “If we hadn’t found it, I might not have called.”
It stung, but he was grateful for her honesty. “Yes, I understand,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’ll call you when I know which day I’m coming. All right?”
“Okay. I look forward to it.”
Daniel replaced the phone in its cradle, feeling flat and disappointed. He knew the feeling well, and didn’t want to descend into the melancholy haze that ordinarily followed it. Voices drifted up through the window, and he snatched up his room key and let himself out. Downstairs, behind the guesthouse, lay a tiny courtyard where his co-workers gathered to drink and share cigarettes.
“Here’s Daniel!” called Richard, the chief sound operator, already half-drunk and in shoulder-slapping mode. Daniel slid onto the bench beside him and looked at the shiny new leaves on the birch spreading above them. “Isn’t it supposed to be summer soon? When will it warm up?”
“Have a vodka, that will warm you up.” This was Aaron, the producer, who had worked with Daniel on another project four years ago. Was that the last television job he had done? No wonder he had trouble making the rent. Aaron thrust a drink into Daniel’s hand. Five other men sat on the bench or on the flagstones under the tree, and their voices echoed around the walls of the buildings which bordered the courtyard.