by Ian Hocking
‘Pasha?’
He opened his eyes. ‘I heard myself saying numbers.’
‘Do you remember them?’
‘It hurt to speak.’
Saskia rolled her sleeve down. ‘You hurt yourself. Don’t touch things you shouldn’t.’
‘There were twenty five in total.’
Coldly, she said, ‘Forget them.’
‘Ms Tucholsky…’
‘I said, “Forget them”.’
Pasha reached out to her. ‘I don’t mean that. It’s your arm. Something is happening to it.’
Saskia looked at the band. It was glowing beneath her night shirt. A new coldness bit into her skin and she gasped, clapping a hand over it. The room seemed to brighten for a moment. In alarm, Pavel Eduardovitch sat upright. His eyes were fixed on the light coming from the band. Then the filaments in Pasha’s bedside light flared and died. The band darkened, too.
The room was utterly dark once more.
‘I can’t see.’
‘It’s all right.’
Saskia stepped back from the reaching hands of the boy. Silently, she walked to the foot of his bed. ‘Good night,’ she said.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Tell me what the number represents.’
‘I don’t know what it represents.’
‘That’s a lie. Remember I was honest with you.’
Saskia sighed. She admired his curiosity and felt a duty to cultivate it.
‘It is a secret. Do you agree to tell no-one?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said brightly.
‘The zeros and ones make a sequence of twenty-five, as you guessed. They describe, I believe, a base-two number system known as binary notation.’
‘Precisely,’ said Pasha. His voice was hurried. ‘It’s of the form invented by Leibniz, yes?’
‘No. The system is the invention of Pingala, an Indian scholar who died several centuries before Christ.’ She paused. ‘If the binary notation is standard, then the number represented is large. I received the first number in the autumn of last year; the second I received slightly afterwards. Those two occasions gave me reason to understand what the large number represents.’
Saskia backed away.
‘What does it represent?’ Pasha stage-whispered.
‘Simply the time, in seconds, until a particular date.’
‘When?’ Pasha asked in Russian. Then, noting Saskia’s silence, he said in English, ‘What will happen?’
‘I have to leave.’
Saskia opened the door.
‘Who sent the message? Where do you need to go?’
‘Shhh,’ she said. ‘Good night.’
‘Good night.’ Pasha lay flat and put his hands against the back of his head. ‘Please, don’t tell Mother about my dream.’
‘Of course, Pavel Eduardovitch. Likewise, don’t tell her about my band, please.’
‘You may call me Pasha.’
She held her arm as she left his room. The band felt cool. She had no idea why it had reacted to the boy. Its influence typically told on systems with chaotic properties. What was different about his brain? Was it linked to his epilepsy? Perhaps it would have reacted in such a way to anybody, had Saskia permitted another person to touch it. But why had she allowed Pasha? As if in answer, she heard, once more, the song. This time it was the idling of her memory.
As she closed Pasha’s door, she heard a squeaking hinge at the end of the corridor. She turned. The door to the master bedroom closed with a gentle click.
She returned to her room and took a heavy blanket from a chest. She threw this across the bed and climbed inside.
Immediately, she knew that there was something in the bed with her. She rolled out, pulled back the bed clothes and pawed once at the switch for the electrified chandelier. The room exploded with light.
She released her breath. There was crumpled note at the base of her pillow.
Ms Tucholsky,
I would be obliged if you were to accompany my son to the Tsar’s Village tomorrow morning for a tour, which forms part of our small efforts in the furtherance of his education. I do, of course, remain,
Yours,
Count Nakhimov
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, a maid knocked at the door and entered with brass cans of hot and cold water. Sleepily, Saskia introduced herself, but the maid said little and left. Saskia slid from her bed and performed several sets of push-ups, squats and sit-ups. Then she put her forehead against her shins and slowed her breathing. She wondered if she could avoid taking Pasha to the Summer Palace that morning. She was not safe in St Petersburg and she did not trust the judgement of the Count. However, if the Count’s connections were using him, they would not wish to harm his son.
Saskia stood tall and closed her eyes. The traffic noise was loud. She considered the Monty Hall Problem of counter-intuitive probability, both as a method of emptying her mind and as a mathematics lesson for Pasha should the need arise.
When the maid returned with tea, pancakes, sour cream, hot kasha porridge and the Gazette, Saskia was fully dressed. Her right hand gripped her left wrist within the warmer. She waited for the maid to leave. Then she discarded the warmer to sip the tea. It was black and excellent.
In the Gazette, she could find no mention of Kamo being discovered on the train. Her eyes lingered on the date. The day to come, the 17th May, 1908, might be her last in this time. What would it be like to skip those coming decades? She already knew: physically, it would be as mundane as passing from one room into another. Tomorrow might see her reconnected. The future was home, and that was enough, but Saskia planned to rescue her friend David Proctor from whatever had befallen him. The plan was impossible without paradox, maybe, but she would try.
She looked at herself in the mirror and adjusted her frilly cuffs and collar. The impression of the outfit was appropriate to her role as tutor: a sensible, dark affair with an embroidered blouse. The Countess had provided a choice of three hats, each belonging to a previous tutor. They had been adjusted to accommodate Saskia’s head. She was glad that the fashion for wide, tall hats was fading. She was quite tall enough. She opted for a narrow, flat hat with two trailing ribbons.
Saskia smiled at the woman in the mirror; not her.
The circle is closing.
~
Saskia and Pasha walked alone towards Tsar’s Village Station. It was mid-morning and some of the urgency had left the streets. The day was light but chill. Pasha, who had wanted to take a coach, was sullen.
‘What happened to your previous tutor?’ asked Saskia, watching a horse bus. ‘Did she resign on account of your extended silences?’
The boy said nothing.
‘Come,’ said Saskia. ‘If you talk to me, I’ll buy you a lollipop.’
‘I’m not a child.’
‘Clearly. A child would lack the energy to keep up such a miserable façade. Your adult qualities are almost fully developed, I’m sorry to say.’
Pasha frowned over her words. ‘“Miserable”?’
‘Убогий.’
‘I’m not miserable. I’m tired.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve been walking less than ten minutes.’
‘Why are you so fit? Did you used to be an athlete?’
‘Did you use to be.’
‘Use to be.’
‘But, Pavel Eduardovitch, how rude of you to use the past habitual, and with a stative verb, for shame. I’m still an athlete. Present continuous.’
‘Prove it. Run and find us a taxi.’ Pasha took a cigarette from his waistcoat and gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Imperative.’
As he placed the cigarette in his mouth and patted himself for a matchbook, he noticed that Saskia was no longer beside him. He looked back. She had stopped under the awning of a jeweller’s shop. She was not, however, looking at the window. She was looking at him. He sighed and walked back to her.
‘I’m sorry, Ms Tucholsky. I didn’t mean to be rude.’
&n
bsp; Without taking her eyes from his, Saskia drew her leg to the level of his face and swatted the cigarette from his mouth with the tip of her boot. She held her leg at this startling angle for a moment longer. Then she dropped it and, once more, she was just another window shopping lady. Her umbrella had never left the crook of her elbow. She adjusted her hat.
‘Imperative is mood,’ she said, ‘not tense. Now pick up your feet or we’ll miss the train.’
Pasha’s mouth still pouted around the missing cigarette. ‘What?’
‘The train.’
‘No, not the train. How did you do that?’
‘Yes, the train. Pasha?’
‘What?’
‘The word you’re looking for is “pardon”. Look, you dropped your cigarette. Pick it up and place it in a bin, please.’
By the time Pasha had found the cigarette and given it to a drunkard, Saskia had vanished. He looked up and down the street until her voice called from far away. She was riding the rear of a trolleycar. Pasha rushed into the traffic. He swerved around a coach and horses and intercepted the trolleycar on the corner, as it slowed. Saskia helped him onto the deck.
‘Well done,’ she said. ‘Athletic, even.’
‘I can’t breathe.’
‘Lean forward, if you must. Let your lungs inflate.’
Pasha’s bloated face stared up at her. ‘I think I deserve that lollipop now.’
~
On the train to the Tsar’s Village, once a grand Swedish estate, Saskia and Pasha ate blini sandwiches and a cold meat salad. They occupied a small but comfortable private booth. It seemed that Pasha had been told by his father to demonstrate his knowledge of local history, so Saskia had listened to a collection of facts and anecdotes about the Village.
‘Will the Tsar be at home?’ Saskia asked.
‘The Imperial family are resident in the Alexander Palace only over winter. Today, they are in Peterhof. My father has been making arrangements for their cruise on the royal yacht, Standart. If the family keep to their routine, they will visit Poland over the summer. Then they’ll return to their estate in the Crimea, and finally back to the Alexander Palace.’
‘Is the Tsar a good man?’
Pasha looked at her as though the question was unanswerable. It was, Saskia reflected, possibly treasonous. ‘Ms Tucholsky, he is the Tsar.’
‘I suppose his life must be a little dull.’
‘He is a private man. He wishes to keep a distinction between his public and private lives. Fatherhood is important to him.’
‘As Freud tells us, fatherhood can be a cryptic condition.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Cryptic; скрытый. Mysterious. Don’t you find your own father mysterious?’
Pasha took a bite of his sandwich and shrugged. ‘My father doesn’t speak to me about his business. But he’s brave. He fought in the Russo-Turkish War. When Kars fell, he was entrusted with bearing the news of victory to His Majesty, Alexander II. The Emperor made him an Aide-de-Camp. My father has been attached to the Imperial household ever since. One day, he might be Grand Marshall of the Court. Think of it!’
Grand Marshall, thought Saskia, of the Court of Nicholas the Last.
‘I will. Meanwhile, tell me about the Tsar’s children.’
‘I seldom see them. The Tsarina prefers to keep them away.’ He waved his hand seriously. ‘They are, so to speak, cryptic.’
Saskia smiled inwardly. ‘Sensible,’ she said.
At the Tsar’s Village, they alighted as rain began to fall. Pasha took Saskia’s umbrella and held it above her while they walked to the taxi rank. The face of the foremost driver was no more than a nose between hat and collar. He nodded at Pasha, who opened the carriage door, kicked down the steps, and waited for Saskia to ascend. He followed her inside. They sat opposite one another in the luxuriant gloom. Rain crackled against the roof. The carriage started off with a jolt. They rode in silence. Half way to the Summer Palace, Saskia felt Pasha’s ankle resting against hers. She moved her leg.
The cab stopped on Dvortzovaya Street. Outside, Saskia could see the gate to the palace square.
‘Do you agree,’ asked Pasha, ‘that it should be acknowledged as a wonder of the world?’
Saskia gave him a wry look.
‘Your question has an overworked quality, Pavel Eduardovitch. Much like the palace.’
Chapter Fourteen
A man descended the marble stairway of the atrium. He was bow-legged, middle-aged and wore polished shoes. He was dressed like a clerk, not a member of a grand household. When he spoke over his clasped hands, his Russian was slow and he had difficulty with the rolling ‘r’. Saskia knew he was German before he introduced himself.
‘Mr Mülheim.’
Saskia accepted his bow with a nod. ‘Tucholsky,’ she said. ‘I am the tutor of Count Pavel Eduardovitch Nakhimov.’
Mülheim looked at her handwarmer, and the two hands she appeared to conceal. The weather was wet, after all—not especially cold. Saskia wondered if he had checked the visitors’ book. She had not permitted Pasha to sign it. As for her own name, she had jotted something unreadable. But Mülheim wore only an expression of studied servility. If he had suspicions, he withheld them.
‘Good morning, your honour,’ he said to Pasha. ‘We’ll begin at the First Suite of Apartments.’
‘I hope we will have time to see the Grand Ballroom,’ said Saskia, ‘and its enfilade.’
Mr Mülheim nodded graciously as though its introduction would take a particular skill that he was happy to exercise. Then, he led them up the staircase.
Over the next few minutes, a peculiar tinnitus began to distract Saskia. Her first thought was that an insect, perhaps a fly, was trapped behind a hanging. But the buzz persisted as they passed from room to room. When they were standing in a small bed chamber that overlooked the park on the south side of the Summer Palace, Saskia noticed a growing clearness in the sound. The snowy component of noise was fading. It was replaced by an irregularity. It might have been a radio transmission.
Then it stopped.
Mr Mülheim led them through an illuminated door. This opened onto a church hall. Its walls were pale. Through one of the watery windows, Saskia could see the palace square. The horse guards were returning from their patrol to the main gate. She watched the second rider wheel his horse in a Caucasian flourish that returned her, with an ache, to the unchanging and endless days of her last horse-rides overlooking the Black Sea.
Saskia and Pasha exchanged a smile. The memory of the tinnitus faded.
At length, accompanied by Mülheim’s narrative, which was heavy with architectural terms, they passed through the apartment of the Empress Elizabeth Alekseyevna and came upon the choir gallery. The church of the Great Palace was, thought Saskia, a marvel, and outshone the somnolent words of Mülheim. She turned her head to the painted ceiling as Mülheim described the Te Deum sung on November 1st, 1768, in thanksgiving for the recovery of Empress Catherine II.
‘In the Sacristy,’ he said, speaking now to himself, ‘we find the Holy Cross, the chalice, and the Holy Gospel, which is made of pure gold. We also find a nine kilogram chalice of gold.’ Saskia sighed through her nose. Why did he prefer “We find” over “There is”, suggesting a doctor at an autopsy?
Some soldiers passed them.
~
There had been a fire in 1820, said Mülheim, but its cause remained unknown to her; his next words were rendered insignificant by the light and beauty of a hall whose length matched the width of the palace. Three windows at the north end overlooked the square; three at the south overlooked the gardens. Its style was modelled on that of Louis XV, Mülheim reported, almost to himself. The epic ceiling, representing Olympus, had been restored by an academic following the fire.
‘Fire,’ said Saskia. The word was an idle reflection of her thoughts, and neither Mülheim nor Pasha acknowledged her. They walked ahead. Their feet clopped like hooves on the parquet. The wa
lls were crammed with pictures; a single glance lighted on hundreds. ‘Tell me,’ said Saskia, ‘is the Amber Room close?’
‘It is,’ said Mülheim.
Saskia remembered looking through the window at the rider who wheeled his horse in the manner of an arch showman. She turned once more to the window. The courtyard was empty.
A thread of fear twisted through her abdominal muscles. She could not be explicit about the source. Simply, her comfort was slipping away, replaced by dread.
‘Are you leaving?’ asked Pasha.
‘What?’
She blinked. Pasha’s expression was hard to interpret. It might have been reproach. Why had he asked her if she were leaving? Did he know something about the Amber Room? Arctic, she told herself. Cool as. This is no more than anticipation. Mülheim was about to admit them. She should not kick open the door, or rush, or do anything that might compromise the position of her tutee, Pasha. He, after all, would have a life when Saskia was gone. She did not wish to make it difficult.
Mülheim inclined his head to nearby door.
Is that the Amber Room? she thought. Am I this close, finally?
‘What’s all this?’ asked Mülheim. He frowned and turned to a horse guard, whose loud approach was spoiling the quietude. Saskia turned, too. She noted the rich black of the boots, the white tunic and its red cuffs, and large hat and the bearded face beneath it.
The soldier was limping. He had a familiar blemish in his left eye.
Here was the dread; here was disaster.
‘Run,’ said Saskia, shoving Pasha.
The boy stumbled and looked at her, ready to smile.
She took a deep breath.
‘Yes, what is it?’ asked Mülheim. His eyebrows were raised. They hardly fell when Kamo withdrew his sabre and pushed its tip through his waistcoat. Mülheim tried to turn but the sabre held him. Kamo slid it clear. The small German man, who was so particular on points of architecture, slumped against the wall with his legs tucked beneath him, neat for death, coughing and looking at Kamo as though his behaviour was the height of rudeness. Then his expression faded.
