The Jewel of St Petersburg (55 page)

An hour later, they still hadn’t arrived. Arkin lifted the kerosene lamp from its hook on the beam and unlocked the door behind him. The sulfur-yellow light leapt in ahead of him, crawling up onto the ceiling and tunneling into the solid blackness that lay like a wall across the room. The girl was huddled on the bed. He called her
the girl
in his mind, never
Katya.
It was better that way. Safer. That way he could look at her and not feel sick for her.
The girl
.

He raised the lamp high. Her eyes stared back at him, huge and accusing, her lips trembling.

“Go away,” she whispered.

“Are you cold?”

She shook her head.

“In pain?”

Another shake.
Liar
, he thought.

“Go away,” she whispered again.

If he went, the darkness would be absolute once more because he couldn’t risk leaving her even a candle. So he leaned a shoulder against the door frame, put the lamp on the floor, and lit himself a cigarette, exhaling loudly to cover the soft panting of her breath.

“Don’t die on me,” he said.

She pulled the meager blanket up over her face. “Go away,” she whispered a third time, and it came out as a muffled hiss, no louder than the hiss of the lamp. For a full minute he studied the unmoving shape on the bed, and he waited for her to shout at him. But she didn’t, so he took up the lamp, left the room, and locked the door. It was easier that way.

T
HEY BROUGHT IN THE OLDER SISTER FROM THE CART, handling her with a roughness that made him want to slap them. He’d chosen these three men for the job because they were not so hotheaded and would keep their hands off her. But they had been driving the cart in the teeming rain for too many hours, changing routes and doubling back through the forest to avoid being followed. Now they were wet and bad tempered, and they took it out on her.

She looked small, far smaller than he remembered. Soaked to the skin, hair plastered to her head, and teeth chattering, which she tried to hide. Yes, he reminded himself, this girl above all others would hate for him to think she was frightened. They pushed her into the chair at the table, the blindfold still in place, her hands fastened behind her back with a leather thong. He could see it biting into the skin of her wrists, carving red weals like candy stripes.

He took the chair opposite her.

“I know who you are,” she said before he had spoken. “Don’t think you can hide.”

He waited. Imagining the things in her head. Blind and drenched, thrust into a room that smelled of men, listening for their breath to count how many. Her words were her only weapons. Somewhere she had lost her coat and had no idea how her wet evening gown clung to her body, its pale silk almost transparent, outlining her slender curves and turning her into one of those dolls that children dress and undress at will.

“I know who you are,” she repeated. Her voice was controlled, but he heard the rage in it. “You are Viktor Arkin. You were my father’s chauffeur.”

There was no reason to add those last words, except to remind him that he was dirt. He yanked the blindfold from her face and watched her squint against the sudden light, long strands of her dark hair clinging like tendrils to her throat and cheeks as though they could protect her.

“As you see,” he said pleasantly, “you are correct. How shrewd of you.”

Her eyes adjusted, pupils slowly shrinking, but she could not quite keep the scorn from her face. “It wasn’t hard.”

“Count yourself lucky to be alive at all after that blade you stuck in my side.”

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

Her mouth tightened with anger. “Where is she?”

“Asleep.”

“I doubt that.” She rose to her feet, and immediately two of the men seized her arms. They could have snapped them with no effort. “Take me to her.”

“After we’ve talked.”

“Please, Arkin.” Her voice remained quiet. “Please take me to her. We can talk tomorrow when I am dry and you have had some sleep.”

Did it show so clearly? That he had not put his head on a pillow for three nights. Each movement of his eyelids felt as though they were rolling over brick dust. He nodded curtly toward the door with the key in the lock. She was across the room, her forehead jammed against the wooden planks before he had time to give the order.

“Let her in,” he snapped.

He walked into the other musty bedroom and lay down on a bare mattress in the dark, but he didn’t sleep.

K
ATYA!”

Valentina wrapped her arms around her sister on the narrow bed, aware of the animal smell of the sweat on her, though her skin was like ice.

“I’m all right,” Katya said.

But Valentina knew that voice, the one when her back teeth were clenched against the pain. “Of course you are.” Valentina pulled the blanket up around her. It stank of urine.

“Why are you here?” Katya asked, bemused. “Did they take you too? It’s Arkin, do you realize that, the chauffeur? What is he going to do with us? Does Papa know? Valentina, you’re wet, take your dress off, you mustn’t ...”

“Hush, my sweet, hush.” She took her hand. “Calm down, we’re together now. There’s no need to be frightened. Arkin won’t hurt us.”

“He will.”

“No. I will speak to him in the morning. When it’s light. Tonight he wasn’t ...”

“Why us?”

“Oh, Katya, I don’t know. He must intend to pressure Papa into doing something.”

Katya groaned. “Papa will never do anything against the tsar, not even for us.”

“Hush, we don’t know yet. Let’s wait until morning. It can’t be long now. Try to sleep.”

“You must take your dress off. You’re shivering.”

“No. Not with those men outside the door.”

The room was in darkness, but a thin rat’s tail of lamplight crept under the door and even squeezed between its planks in places where the wood had warped. Valentina slid off the bed, went over to the door, and banged on it with her fist.

“Open the door,” she shouted.

No answer.

She banged again. “I want to speak to you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” an unknown voice growled.

“Open the door.”

“Shut up, bitch.”

She kicked the door viciously, and it rattled on its hinges. “I want dry clothes.”

“Piss off.”

“Dry clothes and another blanket. A bucket. And a candle.” She kicked the door again and swore under her breath.

She waited. When she was sick of waiting she started with her fists again.

“Stop that.” It was Arkin.

A key grated in the lock and the door swung open. At once the light bounced in and Valentina caught sight of Katya on the bed, her teeth clenched so tight on her lower lip that there was a trickle of blood, like a spill of black ink on her chin.

“Here,” Arkin said sourly. “Clothes, a blanket, a bucket. No candle.”

The door started to close.

“Wait.”

It paused.

“My sister needs medication for her pain.”

“No.”

The door slammed shut.

“Damn you, Arkin,” Valentina yelled, and kicked the door hard. “I hope you burn in hell.”

T
HE WINDOW WAS SHUTTERED. AND INSIDE A HEAVY grille had been bolted across it, but nevertheless the air in the room shifted from black to gray and a whisper of daylight trickled through its slats. They both used the bucket. Valentina had to support her sister on it. As she held her upright on the floor, she noticed that Katya was taller than she was. When had that happened?

They spoke in low voices. Hands clasped. Katya kept her eyes fixed on Valentina, as though she feared she might not be real, and let her massage her feet to keep the blood flowing through them.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Katya said. “It doesn’t matter if something happens to me, but how will Jens survive without you?”

“Nothing will happen to us, silly. I wasn’t going to let you run away from home without me.”

Katya laughed, a soft bubble of sound, and rubbed the back of her neck. “You didn’t want me to have all the excitement.”

Valentina stroked the small hand. “Tell me, Katya, do you curse me every day for going riding that morning at Tesovo?” It was a question she’d never asked before.

“Of course not.”

“You wouldn’t have gone into the study if I had remained at home.”

“Yes, I would. You’re not the one who sent me there to fetch a pen.”

Valentina’s heart stopped. “Who did?”

“Papa.”

V
ALENTINA KEPT HER HANDS IN FRONT OF HER ON THE table as instructed. They were tied together with a leather thong, but not as tight as last night in the cart. It had made her fingers swell. She flexed them now, the flesh raised in white bars across the knuckles, and she let her mind escape for just one fleeting second to the ivory keys.

“Valentina!”

She looked at his hands, which had thick spade-shaped tips on the fingers and a wide hardened span across the palm. A worker’s hands? A killer’s hands?

“Valentina, you are not paying attention.”

“I am listening.”

She pictured Jens’s hands. Long-boned and muscular, touching the skin of her belly.

“You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“I will be back this evening. One of my men will remain here in the meantime. I will know by then whether your father will pay.”

“How much?”

“Half a million roubles.”

She gasped.
Half a million roubles
.

“Arkin.” Her eyes fixed on his face. It was tense, stubble darkening his jaw. “Arkin, you are crazy if you think my father has that kind of money.”

He leaned back in his chair. He was smoking a cigarette and exhaled a curl of smoke with annoyance. “You forget,” he said, “that I have been inside your house. I have seen the paintings and the statues, the silver and the gold that lie unnoticed by you in every room. I’ve seen your mother’s diamonds as big as turtle eggs, so don’t—”

“No. He has no money.”

“The minister can sell a necklace or two.”

“He can’t.”

“He’ll have to.”

“You are too greedy.”

“It is you and your kind who are greedy. You want to own all of Russia and divide its spoils between you. The millions of Russian workers and peasants have nothing because you have stolen it all.” There was no doubting the ruthlessness of this man’s conviction.