Zugzwang (9 page)

Anna was waiting at the corner of Admiralty Prospect. She was wearing a long, black woollen coat and black fur hat. The snow was dancing in light flurries, a last hurrah of winter. I pulled up in front of her and climbed out of the Renault to open the passenger door.

‘I'm sorry I'm late,' I said.

I felt her eyes on me as I helped her into the car and placed a rug over her lap.

‘I thought perhaps you'd changed your mind,' she said, ‘about seeing me.'

Why were we seeing each other? The ambiguity was disconcerting and I felt awkward under the frankness of her gaze. She seemed to sense the equivocation in me. I patted down the rug then got back into the driver's seat.

‘Where are we going?' she asked.

With everything that had happened, I had not had time to think of where to go. We would have to be careful. Like many big cities, St Petersburg was a small town. I was with a married woman, a patient. The chances of running into a neighbour or colleague were always high.

An idea struck me. ‘My favourite place,' I said.

She smiled, pleased at the thought that I was taking her to a place that had significance for me. ‘Where?'

‘I hope you'll like it,' I said.

I drove to Nicholevsky Bridge.

‘Something's wrong,' she said as we were crossing to Basil Island. ‘You seem distracted.'

‘There's nothing wrong,' I said, summoning a false smile. ‘What time are you expected home?'

‘Not too late,' she said. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘No, I have to get back myself,' I said.

She smiled weakly, as did I, neither of us confident enough to express the disappointment we felt that our time together would be short.

We continued north to Apothecary and on to Kamenny and Yelagin. At this time of year a strange, luminous light plays over their cold greys and blues. We left the car near the palace and walked down a long, deserted avenue of leafless great oaks. It was still and quiet but for the waters of the Gulf of Finland gently lapping the shore. The snow continued to fall. There was no wind. We came to the end of the avenue of oaks. Before us there was only sea thickened with snow.

‘It's beautiful,' Anna said. ‘Thank you for bringing me here.'

‘I used to come here after Elena died. I used to come here every day,' I said, not really meaning to tell her this. But the power of this place had a special compulsion for me. ‘She used to wear a long dark-red coat. It was so unusual and striking that I would see the coat before I saw her, in the street, in the shops, on the Nevsky. After she died, I looked for the coat everywhere. Wherever there were people I looked out for the red of Elena's coat. Sometimes I would see a similar coat and even though I knew it couldn't be her I would follow the woman until I saw her face. Only when I had satisfied myself that it wasn't Elena could I turn away.'

‘You came here because no one else does,' she said. ‘Because you wouldn't be tormented by the sight of a woman in a red coat.'

‘Even in the summer very few people come to this place,' I said.

She touched my arm. ‘Something's happened,' she said. ‘Tell me, please.'

‘The policeman – Lychev – came to my office this afternoon. Catherine was there as well,' I said.

‘My father promised you would be left alone,' she said, with a hint of self-accusation, as though she were the one at fault.

‘I believe he tried. Lychev, however, proves not so easily restrained.'

I told her everything, including the visit from Kavi and Tolya.

When I had finished, she said, ‘And you have no idea why all this has happened?'

‘None,' I said.

‘Why should they have taken Rozental's file?'

‘It makes no sense.'

‘The police must have you mixed up with someone else. With all the bombs and murders, they are arresting so many people. I don't imagine half of them are guilty of anything other than wanting to get on with their lives.'

‘When he left, Lychev said he had no further need of me, or Catherine.'

‘So, it's over?'

‘So it would seem,' I said. Neither of us believed it.

We stared out at the sea, at the great, slow, rolling waves. I stole glances of her. Her lips were red and soft. How hungrily I had kissed as a young man, how insistently my mouth and tongue worked. I could not be satisfied with the mere brush of lips but pressed and sucked and licked and bruised. I wanted then the very breath of my lover, and my kisses were reckless, long and demanding. I wanted to kiss her.

‘Your father asked me to give you a message,' I said. ‘He wants to see you. He said he would see you anywhere, at the time and place of your choosing, without any conditions on his part.'

Anna said nothing for some moments. ‘Did you tell him I was under your care?'

‘Yes.'

‘What else did he say?'

‘That he is at a loss to understand why you have severed all connection with him and that he misses you very much.'

She said nothing but kept her gaze fixed on the sea.

‘What happened between you and your father?'

‘It has nothing to do with my nightmares,' she said.

‘You can't possibly know that.'

Touching my gloved hand lightly, she said, ‘I had the dream again last night. It was the same as usual. I was in the house, alone. I had a raging thirst and I was going from room to room looking for water. I got to a door. I knew there was water on the other side and I started to pull at the handle. It was stuck fast and wouldn't open. I started to panic. I thought I was going to die of thirst if I didn't get through it. Then suddenly the door swung open and I found my grandmother waiting for me.'

‘So it was your grandmother's house after all?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘It may be that I only dreamed it because you had put the thought into my head.'

‘What happened then?'

‘Babushka was smiling, a big, happy, toothless smile. Then she gave me a glass of tea except it wasn't tea – it was vodka.'

‘Go on.'

‘I heard a knock. It was quite soft, more like someone tapping at a window pane than at a door, and I heard someone whisper my name.
Anna. Anna
. It was so frightening that I had to wake myself up. Even then, it seemed so real that I lay in the dark listening for the voice again, dreading to hear it. In the end, I had to get up and go to the window, just to convince myself there was no one there.'

‘Was your grandmother still in the room?'

‘I didn't see her go but …' She paused and bit her lip. ‘I couldn't get out of my head the idea that she had been …' – again, she paused – ‘that she was dead.'

‘Did you see her body?'

‘It was a feeling – a very powerful feeling. I felt guilty, as if I had done something very bad.'

I considered what she had told me, then asked, ‘Did you tell your husband?'

‘My husband?'

‘Last night. Did he not wake when you went to the window?'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘No. We don't sleep in the same room any more.'

I am not a fool; I can read between the lines – in many ways it is the essence of my profession. But still I was not sure what she was saying, if anything. I should have said something quickly, something honest, simple and direct – and I almost did – but what could I offer her? What was I proposing we do? She had a husband, a home, a life and reputation in St Petersburg. Had she said she loved me, I was not even certain that I would have been physically able to make love to her. I felt disadvantaged – by her beauty, by my lack of the same, and by the years that separated us.

The snow-swollen water slurred like a thick tongue. On the bare branches above us spectral white arms stretched up into the night.

‘I suppose we should go,' she said.

I wanted to kiss her the way I had kissed as a young man. Then I would not have cared whether we were in the street or in bed, whether we were overlooked or private. I would not have cared that my lover was married. I would not have cared about professional ethics. And since it would have been beyond my capacities to imagine the power and meaning of bereavement I would have kissed through a whole torrent
of grief-tears, hers, mine or anyone else's. I would have kissed her. I had been that man when I was young. He had often been selfish and self-absorbed; he had been capable of indifference, insensitivity, dishonesty and deceit. But he had also been vital. I was no longer him.

‘Yes,' I said, my heart heavy. ‘I suppose so.'

She lay on her back, head turned slightly to the wall, arms thrown up as if in surrender. I could not but smile at the improbability of this. When had she ever surrendered? When had she so much as entered into a compromise or truce? That will of hers. She made me proud, but afraid. Her eyelids flickered. She had always been a sound sleeper, even when upset or anxious, as though sleep were a safe harbour rather than the raging sea it is when we are at odds with ourselves and the world. But no one, not even Catherine, could sleep through this.

She pitched forward in a violent reaction. Her huge eyes were bewildered and exhausted; she had been crying before she had fallen asleep.

‘Where am I?' she asked, blinking; and then, seeing me at her bedside, ‘What are you doing? What is that noise?'

The pounding at the front door came again. Lidiya appeared at my side. I had expected her to be thrown into a panic; instead I saw her resolute and unafraid.

‘Shall I let them in?'

‘I do not believe we have a choice, Lidiya,' I said.

She called quietly on God and his saints to protect the house and all who were under its roof, then descended the stairs.

I heard the door burst open and the stamp of heavy boots in the hall, men storming into my house. There was the sound of breaking glass. I heard Lidiya's voice, stern and rebuking.

Two gendarmes, resplendent in their white coats and
brocade, and armed with carbines, entered Catherine's bedroom. They seemed confused, embarrassed I supposed, to find themselves in the bedroom of a respectable young woman. For a moment I almost thought they were about to apologise and excuse themselves.

Lychev came up behind them. He held a large revolver in his left hand. He looked us over with his baleful, pale eyes and said, ‘Get dressed, Miss Spethmann. You too, Doctor. You are under arrest.'

The door to my cell opened and Lychev stepped inside. He sat on the little wooden chair that was, apart from the cot in which I slept and the table at which I read, my only furniture.

‘Do you know on what day my birthday falls?' he said.

When I realised I had not misheard him, I said, ‘I really don't care about your birthday, Lychev. I want to see my daughter. I want to talk to her now.'

‘I was born on the 1st of March, 1881,' he continued, ‘on the very day Tsar Alexander II was being driven along the Catherine Canal Embankment to take afternoon coffee with his sister.'

Of course I knew the whole tragic story – which Russian doesn't? – but he went on anyway, eager to make his point, though this was as yet unclear to me.

‘The tsar was approaching the Theatre Bridge when the terrorist Rysakov threw his bomb into the imperial carriage. By the mercy of God, the tsar was unhurt, and Rysakov was caught before he could flee. The day should have ended well but the tsar, acting on impulses of kindliness and concern, stepped out of the carriage to offer what help he could to the injured. It was then the terrorist Hryniewicki, the Pole, threw the second bomb. It landed at the tsar's feet and ripped off his legs.'

Lychev paused reverentially. ‘My mother was in labour when she heard the explosions,' he continued. ‘The
disturbance brought on my birth. As the tsar was dying I came into the world.'

‘A remarkable coincidence,' I said.

‘It was no coincidence,' Lychev said.

For the first time I found myself confident in relation to the detective; his narcissistic delusion reduced him very much in my eyes. I looked on him as I might one who had revealed himself to be Alexander the Great or Ivan the Terrible. It crossed my mind to offer him psychotherapeutic treatment.

Instead, I asked simply, ‘What do you want from Catherine and me?'

‘I have established that the man calling himself Yastrebov was part of a terrorist cell planning to carry out a spectacular outrage in the near future.'

‘What manner of outrage?'

‘They intend to assassinate the tsar.'

He allowed the portent of this to lie between us for a moment before continuing, ‘You do not seem very concerned, Spethmann.'

‘There are always plots,' I said.

‘This time the threat is very specific. We have credible intelligence.'

‘What intelligence?'

‘If I were to reveal the details I would be compromising my sources.'

‘Even if this is all true, none of it has anything to do with me or my daughter,' I persisted. ‘I had never seen Yastrebov before you brought your hideous jar to my office.'

‘Ah, but Catherine recognised him,' he said. ‘You saw it too.'

I would have given anything to have been able to contradict him but I could not.

‘Obviously she knew him by a different name – probably his real name,' he went on.

‘How can you possibly know that?'

‘Because Catherine was Yastrebov's lover,' he said. ‘I assume you knew Catherine had a lover?'

I knew nothing of the sort but did not want to reveal ignorance of my daughter's life; nor did I want to claim knowledge of something which could be turned against Catherine all too easily.

Lychev went on, ‘I need to know what Catherine knows about Yastrebov – his real name, who his friends were, when he arrived in the city, how they met, what he told her.'

‘What has Catherine said?' I asked.