The Jewel of St Petersburg (22 page)

T
HE FRONT DOOR BANGED SHUT, ALERTING VALENTINA. A wave of chill air from outside ruffled the calm on the upstairs landing, and she ceased pacing. Instead she peered over the balustrade and inspected the floor below. Unaware of her above him, Jens was taking the stairs two at a time, the light from the gas lamp spiraling down onto his fiery hair. His hand flew up the banister rail, quick and purposeful. Did he always arrive home from work like this? So possessed by life?

“Hello, Jens.”

He stopped and darted a look upward. The moment he saw her, something shifted in his eyes. His mouth opened as if he were about to say something, but he didn’t. He bounded up the last stair and came forward until he was almost close enough for her to touch. His eyes scanned her face.

“Is something wrong?” he asked quickly.

“No. I just need to talk to you.”

Still, that gaze on her face.

“How did you get in here? Like a magic fairy you materialize outside my apartment door.”

She laughed. Saw his eyes watch her mouth.

“Your concierge let me in. I told him I was your cousin.”

He smiled. “Did he believe you?”

“I think so. He said I could wait up here on the landing in the warm instead of out on the sidewalk.”

“Then the dolt is more stupid than I thought.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re far too beautiful to be any cousin of mine.”

The words caught her off guard. He didn’t laugh when he said them, just tossed them out into the quiet dusty air and walked past her to unlock the door of his apartment. The building was an old one with ornate plaster moldings and a baroque extravagance of carvings and cornices, but it was tired now, its glory days behind it. Even the air tasted old and velvety, as though it had been breathed in by too many people over too many years. Valentina found it appealing that a man with such modern ideas chose to live in such an old-fashioned apartment house.

He opened the door with a flourish. “Would you care to step inside?”

She shook her head. “I think I’d better not.”

“Of course.” He inclined his head courteously. “We wouldn’t want to compromise your reputation, would we?”

He was laughing at her beneath that polite manner of his.

“Maybe,” she said with a flick of her dark hair, “it would be permissible ... as your cousin, you understand.”

The green eyes grew greener. “As my cousin,” he echoed.

She walked past him into the apartment.

I
T WAS LIKE NO OTHER ROOM SHE’D BEEN IN. THE FURNITURE was all pale honey-blond with such plain straight lines that for a moment she thought it was unfinished. The floor, made of sanded pine boards, was strewn with colorful rugs, and in front of the fire lay a large long-haired fur rug, as creamy as a dish of milk. On the walls were hung framed pictures of reindeer in snowy landscapes. It was hard not to stare.

“So, cousin, may I offer you tea?”

“No, Jens, thank you. I mustn’t stay long.”

He took both her gloved hands in his and studied them. “Such small hands.” His finger touched her palm. “Yet so much talent in them.”

She shook her head. Her lungs felt as if they were overheating.

“So,” he said, “what is it you need to talk to me about?” He didn’t release her.

“You said you have a friend who is a doctor.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“I need his help.”

His grip on her hands tightened. “Are you ill?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“What kind of help then?”

So she told him. About the hospitals. It all came rushing out, the scornful eyes across the desks, the rejections. She told him that all of them regarded her as
unsuited to nursing
. Despite needing nurses, none of them trusted her.

“Not even my own family doctor will help.”

She told Jens how angry it had made her and how she’d wanted to put her head down on the table and shout with frustration, but instead she’d walked all the way across town to this tree-lined avenue and waited for him. He listened without interruption, and when she’d finished he didn’t tell her to give it up. That was what she’d feared, that his voice would join all the others, would try to wrest her future out of her fingers without realizing how important it was to her. But he didn’t.

“Come,” he said briskly. “We’ll go and speak to Dr. Fedorin.”

“Spasibo.
Thank you.”

“He will help. Even if it means I have to promise to let him beat me at cards for the next month. But”—he leaned closer and studied her face intently—“are you sure this is what you want?”

She nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Very well. Let’s go and talk to the old quack.”

“May I have my hands back?”

He glanced down at them, surprised. As if they were somehow his now.

“If you must.” He raised one to his lips and gave her a formal bow over it. “To the future of
Sanitarka
Ivanova.”

Nurse Ivanova.

She was finding it hard not to love this man.

D
R. FEDORIN WAS SEATED ON THE FLOOR OF HIS DRAWING room playing cards with his five-year-old daughter when they arrived, scratching at his whiskers in an effort to concentrate.

“Excuse me if I don’t get up. My little Anna is thrashing me.”

The child grinned up at them, holding her cards pressed against her small chin. “I let Papa win one game.” But she crowed with delight when he played his last card and she promptly trumped it. Her eager little hands scooped up the pile of sugared almonds with which they had been betting and Jens laughed, ruffling her feathery blond hair.

“Anna, your father is the worst card player in Petersburg and you are going to be one of the best.”

She popped an almond in her father’s mouth, patted his cheek consolingly, and scampered off to the window seat with her winnings. The doctor ordered wine to be served.

“Now what can I do for you?” He inspected his guests with interest.

“This is Valentina Ivanova,” Jens introduced her. “She needs your help, my friend. She wishes to train as a nurse but the hospitals have turned her down as
unsuited.”

“Are you?” the doctor addressed Valentina.

“Am I what?”

“Unsuited to the task.”

“No.”

“Maybe that judgment is not yours to make.”

The words sounded harsh, but she didn’t object. How could she object to anything said by this man who, in his olive green trousers, sat sprawled like a long-legged grasshopper on the floor with his daughter and let her beat him at cards? She didn’t know fathers did that.

“Let me tell you why I believe I am suited to nursing. I have helped nurse my paralyzed sister for the past six months. I have learned the anatomy of the human body, and”—she cast about for something else that would decide it for him—“I play the piano.”

He blinked. She smiled. “I’ll teach your daughter to play ‘Für Elise’ right now.”

Against the far wall of the room stood an upright piano with books piled on top of its lid, obviously never opened. The child abandoned her sugared almonds and stood stiff as a soldier, holding her breath.

“My wife used to play,” the doctor said softly. “The piano hasn’t been touched since.”

“I am sorry about your wife,
Doktor.
I would be proud to play her piano and to teach her daughter. Is it a deal?”

His gaze lingered longingly on the mahogany piano stool where his wife used to sit. He nodded.

Anna skipped across the room to remove the books.

T
HANK YOU, JENS.”

He had driven her home in his carriage, but they had spoken little as the skies darkened and the lights on the bridges sprang into life. Winter afternoons were short-lived in St. Petersburg. Jens and Valentina stood on the gravel drive outside her house, their shadows shuffling awkwardly side by side. The words for
good-bye
wouldn’t come.

“I am looking forward to the visit to your tunnels on Friday,” she said brightly. The darkness stole parts of his face from her. “It will be exciting to see what you have engineered.”

“Good.”

The way he said it. It wasn’t right.

“Is there a problem?”

“Nothing I can’t deal with.”

She caught a glimpse of the weight he had to carry on his broad shoulders, the expectations he had to fulfill.

“It’s a responsibility, isn’t it?” she murmured. “Each day.”

“You will find the same when you’re nursing.”

“I look forward to it.”

That brought a smile at last. “I can’t wait to see you in your uniform.”

She laughed, but she could feel something wrong, like a knot in a smooth-running thread. “Thank you anyway for saving me from a fate too awful to contemplate. I would have died of tedium if I’d had to spend an afternoon watching grown men play with swords.”

“Epées. Not swords.”

She shrugged. “Both are boring.”

“And tunnels aren’t?”

“No, tunnels definitely aren’t. They have a purpose.”

He took a small step back. Away from her.

“Valentina.”

Her pulse slowed. She waited.

“Valentina, what did that Hussar want to speak to your father about?”

“Captain Chernov?”

“Yes, Captain Chernov.”

“He’s nothing to me. Forget him.” She trailed her fingers through the crisp air as though to flick any trace of him from their tips. No stars to gaze at. No moon.

“It’s not hard to guess what he wanted to speak to your father about. You.”

“He’s nothing to me,” she said again, more deliberately this time, and she stepped forward. “I will have nothing to do with Captain Chernov. Nothing.”

His fingers cradled her chin, tilting it directly into the beam of lamplight from above the door. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

She wanted to say,
Hold me
. Just
Hold me.

The sound of a car’s engine rumbled its way into the silence, and the crunch of wheels dug into the gravel. Her father had arrived home.

“Valentina,” Jens said in a low voice, releasing her chin, “don’t let others decide your life for you.”

The car door banged and her father came striding toward them. Valentina’s eyes caught those of the chauffeur sitting in the driver’s seat in his uniform, observing her sharply, but she turned her head away as though he were invisible.