The Amber Rooms

by Ian Hocking

  She decided to tell Kamo that the money was in the base of the model. But as she moved to speak, Pasha interrupted her.

  ‘“For all ages,”’ he sang, ‘“with his heroic deeds / Stalin has glorified our own people …”’

  Pasha was swaying. His eyes were closed and his recital was mechanical, as though the words had been learned by rote by a non-native speaker. His tenor was, however, true.

  ‘“Over the world waves the Leninist flag / It summons to the path of battle and valour.”’

  Saskia saw, at the edge of her vision, a figure enter the room from the direction of the main staircase. The guests put away their pocket watches and listened. Kamo was enthralled, too. The word “Stalin” had not unsettled him to any extent that Saskia could detect. She doubted he had heard it before. His gun arm relaxed and the grimace of pain softened.

  ‘“Sunny expanses are open to us / The flames of victory light our country.”’

  With the slow, inexorable movement of a figurine turning atop a music box, Saskia turned towards the man who had entered the room. It was the photographer. How like a funeral director he looked; all but the black veil on his top hat. He wore a morning suit and simple, black mask. His collar was winged. Only his shoes were flawed: they were dusty. As she watched his soft steps, the hairs on her arms rose. She took a long breath. There was a stiffness in his walk, and his left arm was motionless.

  ‘“For our happiness lives Comrade Stalin / Our wise leader and dear teacher.”’

  The photographer, who had saved Kamo’s life with a flash of magnesium, but had allowed the situation to play out, approached Pasha and looked into his mouth, close enough to kiss.

  ‘What a wonderful lyric,’ he said. The Russian was fluent but curiously emphasised. It marked him as a native of Georgia, that land of poets and wine. ‘Sing on.’

  Saskia said, ‘No.’

  Pasha stopped. He remained entranced. His eyes were closed and his body swayed. The photographer turned from Pasha to Saskia. She swallowed. It was pointless denying her fear; the feeling seemed to begin at the soles of her feet and climb to her crown. That was the effect of his look.

  The photographer walked to her. Behind him, the remaining guests chuckled at this unusual musical interlude and drifted from the room in the direction of the main staircase, not to miss the unparalleled fireworks display in the square.

  Soso, the Georgian bandit who had not until this moment used the name Stalin, reprised a line from the song in his own, exceptional tenor. ‘“Stalin has glorified our own people.” A good name indeed.’ His gaze moved between Kamo and Saskia. He bowed, then gripped Saskia by the scruff of her neck and kissed her three times. He repeated the same gesture with Kamo but added a small touch of their foreheads, during which both closed their eyes. Kamo seemed to shrink in Soso’s presence.

  ‘I always preferred The Staggerer,’ said Saskia.

  Soso grinned. He seldom laughed, as she recalled, and preferred to hear jokes when they came from his own mouth. Once, Soso had been addressing a secret meeting at the Avlabar People’s Theatre when Saskia, who was on lookout, ran inside with the news that the theatre had been surrounded by police. It had been too late to escape, so Soso ordered the Bolsheviks to burn their papers. When the police entered the building, Soso announced to the inspector that they were rehearsing a play and would be delighted if the policeman could help them out with the role of a swine. Delight abounded among the conspirators. The embarrassed inspector said that he knew what kind of actors they were—but was forced to let them go. Soso had made pig noises as he left. That was the night Soso married Kato. That was two years ago.

  ‘Lynx, mythic beast who sees through falsehood to the truth beyond,’ said Soso. He grinned again. ‘A long time since our last meeting.’

  In a business-like tone, she said, ‘Look what happened in the meantime. You shaved your moustache.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘How is Kato?’

  ‘I once wrote a poem for you, Lynx. I compared you to the moon.’

  ‘Why are you here, Soso?’ she snapped. Since their first conversation, she had judged him to value assertiveness. Now, she wished to provoke him. ‘It is dangerous to spread yourself so thinly.’

  He touched his chin. ‘Life was ever dangerous. Do I need to tell you why it is, at this moment, particularly dangerous for you?’

  Saskia looked down the enfilade. She wondered where Draganov could be. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘you tell me.’

  She knew that Soso had a talent for appearing in control when he was not. So doing, he unbalanced his opponent until the reality mimicked its appearance. The technique had worked with informers, magistrates, and girlfriends alike.

  ‘You are here for the money,’ Saskia said. ‘Without it, you will be expelled from the Party. You think I know where it is.’

  The curve of Soso’s grin flattened by a degree. ‘But you do know where it is. Here, Saskia? In this room? Beneath this model?’

  Saskia shrugged.

  He turned to the panels. ‘Behind this, an allegory of touch? Shall I break it? We can dance on the pieces. What do you say, Kamo?’

  ‘We can dance on the pieces,’ said Kamo. He kept his eyes on Saskia. ‘We’ll have our own little quadrille.’

  ‘Or,’ said Soso, ‘to keep fuss to a minimum, we can take your boyfriend instead and break him, dance on his pieces.’ The grin had gone. Now, only narrow eyes regarded her through the slits of the mask. ‘Kamo?’

  Saskia did not move as Kamo put an arm round Pasha and pressed the gun into his ribs. Pasha was still entranced. Tears had fallen down his cheeks, though his eyes were not swollen, and his breathing was even. Saskia glanced around. The guests were no longer near the model. They had opened the tall windows to stand on the balcony for the fireworks.

  ‘Be careful,’ Saskia said. ‘You are handling the key to your future.’

  Kamo looked at Soso. Perhaps because their masks made their natural rapport difficult, Soso said, ‘We can kill him. If she put the money here, she can take it. She simply wishes to spare the boy. Kill him and loosen her tongue.’

  ‘I will tell you,’ she said, removing her hand from the warmer. Its sight drew the attention of both men. ‘Where does a lynx store its spoils?’

  Both Soso and Kamo looked around the room. Saskia watched them, smiling.

  ‘I am becoming impatient,’ said Soso.

  She lifted her hand, and when she was sure that the men were looking at it, she raised her index finger and pointed at the ceiling. Kamo said, ‘Of course,’ and both of them looked up.

  Saskia slowed her vision. She willed her mind to accelerate, to appreciate the small moments between the seconds. Kamo and Pasha were closest, and to her left. Soso was at her right. She crouched and swept her heel into the back of Soso’s legs. The impact lifted him from the ground. He was still falling when she moved into Kamo, punching down on the back of his hand. The gun clattered to the floor. She stepped aside as Kamo toppled Pasha’s body into her path. With the point of her boot, she punted the gun into the adjacent corner of the room and, keeping her weight on her left leg, leaned back to snap her foot against Kamo’s head. She was able to land the blow across his ear. She had time to catch Pasha and fall with him. He was a dead weight, as though he had fainted. They spilled against the floor, Saskia grunting with pain as she took the impact on her shoulder.

  She rolled Pasha aside. Kamo was already running for the far corner, where the small gun lay beneath a cabinet. Soso was sitting upright, clutching his shoulder. He had lost his top hat. Saskia slid on her knees towards him. She clung to his back like a turtle and wrapped arms and legs around him. She reached across to her left arm and tore away the threaded telephone cord that formed part of her costume. In one movement, she looped it around his neck, crossed the ends, and pulled one end with her teeth and the other with her hand.

  She grinned at Kamo to show him the cord. At the same tim
e, Soso held up a warning hand.

  ‘Stop!’ he gasped.

  From the corner, Kamo pointed the gun at them. Saskia knew he had personal experience of the garrotte. One strong tug and there would be no saving Soso.

  Saskia could say nothing. With care, Kamo placed the gun on the ground. When he made to reach into his jacket for the bomb, Saskia shook her head. The movement made Soso cough.

  ‘You always were impressive,’ said Kamo. He smiled, and Saskia saw that he was in that trough of post-battle excitement, the point at which he was the most human he could be. ‘I missed you.’

  Soso relaxed. His head, which was already close to hers, tilted against her cheek. She could smell his aftershave and the perfumed cream in his hair. She could feel the cartilage in his ear and the coolness of its lobe. How long ago had she shaved Kamo? The hours had passed like minutes.

  Saskia looked at the clock in the corner of the room. It had stopped. At that moment, Pasha sat up and said, ‘Zero, zero, zero,’ and the clocks of the Summer Place struck twelve. The fireworks split the air and a reddish glow lit the room. She felt the band on her arm grow cold, cold like the lobe of Soso’s ear.

  ‘Zero, zero, zero,’ continued Pasha.

  The band became icy.

  ‘Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero.’

  It felt like the band was burning through her arm. She remembered a travelling apprentice in Siberia who had once told her, ‘Hell is cold.’

  ‘Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero.’

  She pushed away from Soso. In her pain, she saw him scuttle towards Kamo, his hand outstretched for the gun. She hooked her fingers around the band—burning them—and worked it from her arm. The band did not bounce when it fell. It struck the floor with a crack. It rolled for a moment, then collapsed into a spin.

  Saskia looked up. Soso and Kamo were together. Kamo stood. Soso was crouched. His left hand gripped his left wrist to steady the gun, which was pointed at Pasha. Saskia had time to scream and reach towards Pasha. Then the shot was loose and Pasha flexed into a foetal position against the model. His cry was outraged, as though he had emerged from his trance with the impact. Saskia had no time to reach him. With a deft movement, Soso turned the gun towards her.

  It was clear that there would be no more questions. Soso was limiting the damage of the evening preparatory to his escape. Perhaps he would return for the money at another date. Perhaps he would abandon it altogether.

  Saskia placed her head directly in front of the gun. In one sense, she was staring at the barrel; in another, she was staring at the black eye of indifferent physical forces. Every effect must have a cause, as she knew, and as the unthinking eye of the universe could see.

  Pasha whispered, ‘Zero.’

  Saskia heard Soso’s index tendon contract.

  As one, the doors of the Amber Room slammed shut.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The band flashed brighter than the magnesium preparation that had illuminated Kamo and Saskia; brighter than the fireworks opening above the square. Saskia covered her eyes with her forearm. She heard grunts from Soso and Kamo. The gun discharged and its bullet roared harmlessly past her neck. She felt the nerves tingle.

  In her blindness, she scudded across to Pasha, blinked at the thundercloud of an afterimage on her vision, and hauled him around the base of the model until they were sheltered from the view of the revolutionaries.

  She slapped his face.

  ‘Pavel Eduardovitch Nakhimov.’

  Another bullet struck the wall.

  She braced her knee against his chest and ripped open his doublet. It was already sticky with blood. She blinked again, desperate to see, and tried to examine his wound with her peripheral vision. She could not.

  Saskia closed her eyes. She understood that the blindness was a temporary saturation of the light-sensitive cells on her retina. Other structures, planted by the i-Core, had grown there. These structures supplemented her vision at wavelengths above and below the human band.

  Help me, she thought. Let me see.

  She opened her eyes on a curiously monochrome world. The vasculature beneath her hand was visible: glassy, slimy, quick with blood after blood. She looked at Pasha’s waistcoat and saw that his pocket watch was twisted open. She smiled with the hope that the watch had saved his life. But the smile failed; the watch had disintegrated. Parts had travelled, with the bullet, into his abdomen. She tore open his shirt. The wound was hard to identify in the welling blood. She pressed upon it.

  Pasha coughed. His breath steamed. He was bleeding from his inferior vena cava, which would cause his death long before the septicaemia.

  Why was it was so cold?

  Saskia leaned around the base of the model. Soso had not moved. He was holding the gun at his hip, like a gunslinger. Kamo gripped his shoulder. It was clear from their hard blinks that both were still blind. Perhaps the blindness was permanent. Who knew what energies were radiating from the band? Perhaps none of them would see naturally again.

  The band spun on.

  Saskia slowed her vision to look at it, but the rotation was too fast. It had dimmed to a glow. She told herself that the rotation was part of its normal operation, but this was not consistent with its behaviour on board flight DFU323. Jennifer had used it to escape from the fuselage of that falling aircraft. The band had not lowered its temperature then. Neither had it rotated so furiously. Yes, Saskia thought: there was anger in its spin. Was it alive in some sense, like her former companion, Ego? Did it realise that Saskia was not Jennifer? Did it view her as a thief?

  A corona of white grew on the floor around the band. The dark and light woods of the floor began to buckle. Saskia felt a sharp pain in her ear. She swallowed and the pain cleared, but a stealing dizziness weakened her muscles. Her hand slipped from Pasha’s belly wound. Frowning, she put it back. The emptiness of the air reminded her of that pilotless aeroplane.

  A note was gaining volume. It had an unsettling quality, like a wet finger on a crystal rim.

  She took a breath and held it, trying to force the oxygen into her blood. Her heart was loud. Her breaths reminded her of drumming fingers. Impatience.

  The circle of ice expanded until it passed beneath her and Pasha. The cold reached her knees. She tried to jump into a crouch. She lost her footing on her underskirt and fell across the floor.

  Another shot was fired.

  She pushed herself upright and looked around the base of the statue. Outside, a group of fireworks exploded in an irregular series. Their light caught the huddled shapes across the room.

  No, she thought. That is Soso. And Kamo. They have collapsed.

  The ice wave reached the edge of the room, where the chairs, tables and cabinets had been placed. She heard their woods crack. The ice seemed to grow up the walls. It rose to the mirror pilasters. The glass shattered, falling like sand to the floor, leaving rectangles of dull wood. The amber panels creaked but held.

  The note of the band increased in pitch and volume.

  Saskia realised that she was panting. The periphery of her vision darkened. She looked once more at the spinning band and smiled. Its fury had defeated her. Her last sensation before falling unconscious across Pasha was not the note of the band, or the distant glow of the fireworks, but the crackle of her saliva as it boiled on her tongue.

  ~

  In the dream world, Saskia walked along the shore. Where the edge of the water withdrew, the wet sand bubbled. These reminded her of something that touched the edge of her memory. This dreamed world could be her death; the last reality conjured by a dying brain.

  A distant comma of sparrows turned to an exclamation point in the sky and Saskia said, ‘Ute?’

  ‘Don’t shout,’ said Ute. ‘I’ve been here all the time. Couldn’t you see me?’

  ‘I don’t remember what happened,’ said Saskia. It disconcerted her to see Ute walking at her shoulder. The woman wore jeans, white t-shirt, and a black leather
jacket: the simple outfit Saskia had worn so much at the beginning of the twenty-first century that it had begun to seem like a uniform.

  ‘I remember pieces,’ said Ute. ‘Something happened in the Amber Room.’

  ‘Yes—I couldn’t breathe.’ Saskia stopped. She let a wave wash over her feet. It felt neither cold nor wet. ‘Did something happen to Pasha?’

  Ute put her hands on her hips. Her face was firm, but motherly.

  ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘The birds need you.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Let them talk to you,’ Ute said, gripping Saskia’s shoulder. ‘Or we’ll never go home.’

  Saskia remembered nothing about birds. She remembered suffering from an illness, long ago, in whose fever her words were not her own.

  ‘Birds?’

  ‘The sparrows.’

  Keeping Saskia’s gaze, Ute pointed at the sky. Saskia looked up. In the sunless blue, the flock whirled in a question mark.

  ‘Let them talk to you,’ Ute said. ‘Through you.’

  Saskia closed her eyes. She listened for the sound of bird call through the surf. There was nothing. But she did feel an urge to speak; the words were not her own.

  ‘“Tyrants,”’ she said, feeling her mouth move automatically, ‘“conduct monologues above a million solitudes”.’

  ~

  As Saskia blinked, her lashes fluttered against Pasha’s waistcoat. She sat up. Within a moment, even as the dream of the beach faded, she understood that something was wrong with the Amber Room. She turned to the tall doors that opened onto the square. Through one pane, she saw a masked gentleman looking inside. He had begun to turn the door handle. Neither the hand nor the gentleman were moving. Saskia might have interpreted this as hesitation. But the red fireworks in the sky over his shoulder were motionless as bloodstains on a dark wall.

  By their light, with her unaided vision, Saskia saw that Pasha’s chest was still. She touched his cheek with her fingertip. It was cold and hard.