Twelve (28 page)

'No,' she whispered, with a smile I could not see. 'It's obvious.'

The following morning, I walked her back to Degtyarny Lane. It was almost midday. We had lain in bed for a long time – neither of us having occupations in which early rising was a requirement – talking about very little.

Then I was free until my appointment – and how I wished that I could really use a word that gave it such certainty – with Vadim. I found myself some lunch and then wandered around the streets, judging the degree to which Moscow was recuperating from its occupation.

It would, I believed, recover. Petersburg had become our capital only a hundred years ago. Nine years before that, it had been a swamp. It had taken the determination of a great man, the greatest in our history, Tsar Pyetr the First, to build the earliest structures on that swamp and then to make it his capital within so short a space of time. Today, there was no man alive that was his equal, not just in Russia but in the whole world. Bonaparte had aspired to inherit those laurels, but long ago he had proved himself unworthy of them. His retreat from Moscow was the final evidence of his failure to attain such status.

So today, we had no Pyetr to rebuild our city for us, but we had thousands – hundreds of thousands – of Petrushkas; little Pyetrs, who by themselves could no more raise Moscow from the ashes than I could raise the dead from their graves, but who together could restore it to its former greatness, so recently lost. And they did not even have to build it from nothing. They had their memories and, despite what had been lost to the fires, they still had the essential shape of the city. You can burn buildings, but it is harder to burn streets. Thus the plan of a city may survive.

And, of course, a third of the city had survived intact. I was walking down one of these undamaged streets when I noticed three cobbler's shops, huddled next to each other as one often sees with rivals in the same trade, sharing each other's warmth, but envying each other's custom. I peered through the window of each one. Not seeing what I was looking for, I went into the third and spoke to the shopkeeper.

'Have you ever come across a shoemaker by the name of Boris Mihailovich?'

'Boris?' replied the man. 'Yes, I know him.'

'Is his shop around here?'

'No. No, it's not.'

'Do you know where it is?' I asked.

'It's not anywhere. It was burnt down on the first night of the fires.'

'But he survived, I know that. Have you seen him recently, or his daughter?'

'Ah, so it's Natalia you're interested in, is it? Well, I saw them both about a week ago – after the French had gone – but not since.'

'Maybe they've disappeared,' suggested his assistant, who had been sweeping up around us, 'like the rest of them.' He emphasized the word 'disappeared' as though it were new to him, or had taken on a new, more specific meaning.

'"Disappeared"?' I asked.

'People have been coming into the city, but not staying,' explained the shopkeeper without much concern. 'I think they've just decided that there's no business to be had here and have gone off somewhere else. Oleg Stepanovich, the baker from up the street, is the only one I've known personally. Came back to Moscow, opened up his shop, closed it in the evening and didn't open it the next day. I reckon he's gone chasing after the army because they'll pay more for his bread, but he didn't tell his wife, so it may be more than just the army he's chasing.'

'
I
reckon Bonaparte's left some of his men here, hidden, to pick us off one by one as we come back,' suggested the assistant, leaning on his broom.

'Well, if they pick you off, Vitya,' said the cobbler, 'it'll be a long time before anyone notices much difference round here.' The sweeping was quickly resumed.

I thanked the men and went on my way, knowing from what they had said that the Oprichniki were still in town. What had been said was vague, but it was also chillingly similar to the stories that had emanated from wherever the Oprichniki happened to be. It was, of course, an assumption to suggest that that was what had happened to Boris and his daughter, but I knew then that, for them and for anyone else, the city was not safe.

That evening's rendezvous was at the Church of Saint Clement. As I waited outside, I recalled the last time I had been there, exactly six weeks before, and my encounter with Ioann and Foma. Ioann was now dead, I knew – deader even than he had been when we had met – but I still felt the dread that Foma might return that night to take his revenge. By now they must have been aware that four of their fellows had died within the space of a few nights. It would take little genius – and they didn't have much, particularly now there was no Iuda to do their thinking – for them to deduce that I might in some way be responsible. But whatever they had deduced, none of them showed up. Neither did Vadim.

To make matters worse, Domnikiia did not visit me that night. It is remarkable how quickly one can become accustomed to not sleeping alone.

In one way, Domnikiia staying away had been a good thing. The next morning I received a letter from Marfa. It was dated over three weeks earlier, but in the confusion of the French occupation and retreat, it was a miracle that it had made it through to me at all.

While in Yuryev-Polsky, I had sent her several letters, but they had evidently crossed with this one. Her concern for my safety showed between every line she wrote. She told of the news that they were hearing in Petersburg and of the fear there that Bonaparte would soon be marching towards them. Marfa felt reassured that as long as the tsar stayed in Petersburg, they would be safe. Ostensibly, the implication was that Aleksandr would protect them, but her real meaning was that, as soon as he scarpered, then they'd know they were in trouble. Her understanding of politics was, as ever, remarkably clear-sighted, certainly for a woman.

Dmitry Alekseevich had been a little unwell, but was better now. He had been asking when I would be coming home. I resented being told that. I felt that Marfa was using our son to voice her own desires. Not that it was untrue that Dmitry wanted me home, nor was it unreasonable that Marfa did as well. I just resented the way that she impinged on my desire to have it all. Strange that I resented only Marfa, not Dmitry, but then I did not have a rival son here in Moscow.

She did not write very much on the matter of Maksim's death, but the little that she did put managed in its own way to express much the same feelings as I had. Marfa's approach was simply to ignore the reasons that had led to Maks' execution. She could describe her sorrow without ever facing the unpleasant fact that Maks had been a traitor. She would have written the same words if he had died by a French sword at Borodino. It was of unspeakable comfort to read her words about Maks, as if he had died a decent soldier's death. She was spared, in her mind, the embarrassing subtext of his treason, and I was momentarily spared my own condemnation for my abandonment of him.

The final piece of news was that Vadim's daughter, Yelena, had given birth to a baby boy on 6 September. He had been born a little earlier than expected, but was completely healthy, and was named Rodion Valentinovich. Marfa anticipated that I knew all this already, since I would have heard it directly from Vadim, but I could tell she was hoping that that would not be the case and that not only would she have the pleasure of being the first to tell me, but I in turn would have the pleasure of being the first to tell Vadim.

It would have been a delight to be the two hundredth to tell Vadim, just to have had the pleasure of seeing him at all.

I wrote a quick response to Marfa, saying very little except that I was safe and back in Moscow. I said nothing of Dmitry or Vadim, since to say only that Dmitry was safe would imply that Vadim was not, and I saw no sense in raising undue alarm. For all I knew, he could have headed straight back to Petersburg and be doting over his beloved grandson, cradling him in his arms at that very moment.

I went to Degtyarny Lane to find out what had happened to Domnikiia the night before. When I arrived, I was told she was occupied. I knew she was still working, but the reality of it remained nonetheless unpleasant. That, I suppose, is why she had said we should not meet there. I went back outside and truculently began to throw pebbles up at her window. Soon, her head popped out. I immediately felt concerned that I was intruding on her territory, that she would brusquely send me away, much as I would have done if she were to interrupt me on the battlefield – a bizarre image.

Her face, however, was a portrait of delight at seeing me.

'Are you all right?' I asked.

'I'm wonderful, Lyosha. How are you?'

'What happened to you last night?'

'Things just got busy. I'm sorry.' She pulled a sorry face as she said the word.

'I wasn't complaining. I was just concerned.'

She smirked. 'You're scared of me, aren't you?'

'Scared of losing you. I wish you didn't seem so happy.'

'Charming! Shouldn't I be happy to see you?'

'So you were miserable until you opened the window?'

'Wretched,' she grinned.

'Good. Now
I'm
happy.'

I heard the call of a man's voice from within her room. 'I have to go,' she said.

'I'll see you tonight?' I asked.

'I'll try.' With that she was gone.

That evening, I went to the Stone Bridge, still clinging on to the receding hope of seeing Vadim. Even over the three days that I had been back in Moscow, it was already just perceptible that more people were returning to the city. Like the complexion of a man drained of almost all his blood, but not quite to the point of death, the colour was beginning to return to Moscow's cheeks. Although the hour was late, the bridge was still busy, busier even than in happier times as the amount of work that people found themselves faced with increased the hours that they put into it.

As I stood there on the bridge, it began to snow. This was the first real snowfall of the winter; heavier than we had seen in Yuryev-Polsky and still scarcely settling, but a portent of what was to come. It was another sign that winter was to be early that year, but Muscovites – and all Russians – are well prepared and would take the winter in their stride whenever it came. In retreat, out to the west, the same could not be said of the French.

I waited for over an hour, inspecting every face that passed me, but Vadim's was not among them. I headed north, back to my bed and, I hoped, to Domnikiia. I was just gazing up at the towers of the Kremlin when I heard the voice of someone very close behind me whisper in my ear.

'Murderer!'

I turned, but saw no one near. A few steps away from me, I saw the back of a tall, shabby man who was marching directly away. It could only have been he who had spoken. I followed him. Although he never had to run, his long legs carried him with enormous pace, forcing me to break into a trot. As we headed on to the Stone Bridge, I found my pursuit of him hindered by the crowd, bumping into them in my rush to keep up. For him, the crowd offered no such obstacle, seeming to open before him like the sea before the bow of a ship as he strode purposefully across the bridge.

We were across the river and the Vodootvodny Canal before I caught up with him. I put my hand on his shoulder and he offered no resistance in turning to face me. He was tall and pale, with many small scars on his face. His shoulder-length hair was loose and unkempt. His dark, black eyes looked towards me, but seemed to see nothing. There was no specific reason for it, but I knew in my heart that I was standing face to face with a vampire – moreover, a vampire that was not one of the Oprichniki. I had thought that my task had been reduced to having just five more of these creatures to face, but now – as my grandmother had told me they could, and as I had hoped she had made up – the vampires had bred. And if they had produced this one offspring, then how many more might there be? They would become unstoppable.

The creature looked fixedly into my eyes for a few seconds and then turned away and continued his journey. I stood in shocked immobility for a moment, considering the prospect of the number of vampires that I might have to face; considering that I had helped to introduce them into a city where they might now stay for ever, neither noticing nor caring that the language spoken by their food supply had changed from French to Russian. The monster that I had been following might be just one of dozens of innocent Muscovites, picked at random, who had not only been denied life, but subsequently denied a true death as the hideous plague spread.

And yet somewhere at the back of my mind, I recognized the face into which I had just been staring. It was certainly not one of the Oprichniki, nor anyone that I knew very well. It was someone that I had previously seen in Moscow. Then it hit me; a corpse that did not decay. Weeks before, when the dead and wounded of Borodino had been arriving in the city, I had looked briefly into those same dark eyes to verify that the grenadier was indeed dead. The priest had declared it to be a miracle that the body did not putrefy, but I knew now it was no such thing. The corpse did not decay because the body had survived the death of the soul. Presumably one of the Oprichniki, during our first foray out to the west, had transformed him into one of their own. The process must take some time. When I had seen him, he was somewhere between the two states of existence – dead as a human but not yet alive as a vampire. But now he was fully a
voordalak
.

I continued my pursuit of him, but now more stealthily, reenacting how I had pursued Foma, Matfei and then Ioann. This vampire displayed little of their discretion, walking openly down the streets without any show of fear. Indeed, what was there to fear? The city was free again. He had no need to worry about being stopped by French patrols and he could walk about without obstruction, as free as any other Russian. I, too, was in a better position for the French having left. I could once again wear my sword which, though it gave me some comfort, I knew was not the best weapon at my disposal. Tucked inside my coat was the wooden dagger that I trusted would be of far greater use. I reached in and grasped it firmly, reassured and emboldened by the texture of the chiselled wood.