The Spaces in Between

by Collin Van Reenan

There was nowhere to run to, and nowhere to hide.

  Now, the first of the riders was clearly visible; behind him a dark mass of galloping horses and men, snow flying off them like sea spray. The starlight glinted off their drawn sabres, and clouds of steam swirled about their horses.

  At first, all was silence, then I fancied I could discern a rising, high-pitched yell that curdled my frozen blood and rooted me to the spot. I wanted to vomit but could not move, even for that. A strange shiver ran up my bowels and I felt a warm wetness soak my trousers and I knew that I was about to die.

  Still I did not, could not, move. The blood was frozen in my veins and I prayed the cold would take me before my imminent execution.

  Relentlessly, the yelping horde bore down on me, poor petrified creature that I was.

  Suddenly, the awful waiting was over. They were there, all around me, steaming horses snorting and pawing the snow, breathing hard, the smell of their sweat increasing my nausea.

  The leader rode a pace towards me. I had not moved and he, thinking that I had frozen to death, or died of fear, probably felt cheated. Eventually, I managed to look up at him…a cruel, gaunt face, young, so very young, the red star on his fur hat the only colour on his grey uniform, the greatcoat powdered with snow.

  He did not speak. His horse, tense from the gallop, moved its head from side to side, snorting and jerking at the reins.

  Without a word, the commissar began to raise his sabre, the frozen, polished steel gleaming in the clear starlight. It stayed, poised above his head, as if frozen there for all time. Then a blinding flash exploded against my head and I sank, gratefully, into blackness…

  Someone was calling my name, distant at first but then loudly and insistently. A circle of light showed against the blackness, coming closer and closer and gradually resolving itself into the glowing shade of an oil lamp.

  Images appeared. Madame Lili’s face loomed up close to mine. She was tapping my cheek and shaking me.

  ‘Nicholas! Nicholas!’

  It was Anya’s voice; she was holding my arm and calling softly. Slowly, very slowly, the room came into focus – the fire, the oil lamp, the small table. Madame Lili and Anya were holding me up, concern etched on their faces.

  Voices, more voices, a deep voice. Strong, masculine arms gripped me…the familiar smell of leather and tobacco told me that Serge was there. Now Madame Lili’s voice:

  ‘Nicholas seems to have been taken ill…a malaise…help Anya to get him to his room. I will ask Dr Voikin to give him something to help him sleep.’

  I was moving, climbing upstairs on legs of jelly, my weight supported by Serge and Anya; he silent, she whispering encouragement. Then I was on the bed, shaking, focusing on Anya, though Madame Lili’s heavy perfume told me she was there too, and I could hear the voice of the doctor. A slight sting in my arm and then a feeling of wellbeing and calmness swept over me, bringing with it the oblivion of sleep.

  The sun was well risen when I awoke and, believing that I would be late for Natalie’s classes, I leapt out of bed, only to fall in a heap on the floor as my knees buckled! I started up, giddy and with my head pounding, and sat on the end of the bed. Slowly, my mind started to clear, and I rose and made it to the washstand and tipped the cold water from the ewer over my aching head.

  My suit lay carefully folded on a chair and, never having possessed pyjamas, I was naked and shivering from the shock of the cold water. Glimpses of the evening before flitted across my mind, and I blushed at the realisation that whoever put me to bed must have undressed me.

  I cut myself shaving, my hand still shook so much. Still only half awake, I began to worry. I had all the symptoms of a mighty hangover, but one glass of red wine at dinner and a couple of vodkas with Serge should not have produced that effect on me. Again, I wondered at the wisdom of drinking Russian tea.

  The events of the evening were gradually coming together in my mind: the snowy, endless wasteland, the steely cold, the steaming horses and the violet starry sky edged with black firs… Instinctively my hand went to my face, half expecting to feel shattered bone and blood. Nothing. I shuddered again and gripped the bedrail, unable to move.

  A gentle tapping at my door brought me back to reality – if, indeed, anything in this strange House could be called ‘real’. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I opened the unlocked door. Anya stood in front of me and I saw her eyes widen as she took in my wild, semi-naked appearance. Anxiously, she looked down the hallway and whispered, ‘You’d better let me in!’

  In the room, she sat down on the bed, turned her eyes up to me and, for the second time, I noticed that one was brown and the other almost green. She managed a half-smile.

  ‘Nicholas, do you feel as terrible as you look?’

  ‘Worse! Christ, Anya, what the hell happened to me last night?’ And without giving her a chance to reply, ‘Did I do something really bad? Will they give me the sack? What about Natalya’s lessons…?’

  ‘Calm down, Nico!’ I noticed the use of the endearment. ‘It’s Saturday.’

  She stood up and suddenly touched my face where I had nicked it with the razor.

  ‘Oh, you silly boy! What did I tell you when you first came here? Madame Lili is not just the Duchess’s companion, she is her spiritual guide, and I also told you that she has the gift.’

  ‘Yes, so you said! What, you mean, “second sight” and all that rubbish? That she’s, what – a medium? Come on, Anya, this is 1968, not the Dark Ages…’

  ‘Stop!’ she cut me off abruptly, her finger against my lips. There was not a trace of amusement in her face. ‘Stop, Nicholas! How can you ridicule what you don’t understand? Especially after what she did to you last night!’

  I made to speak but she held up her hand.

  ‘I saw you, Nicholas. I helped put you to bed. You were absolutely terrified; so much so that we feared for your sanity.’

  ‘We?’ I asked.

  ‘Serge and myself. Even Madame Lili seemed concerned. Listen to me now, Nicholas: she is very, very dangerous. Better to have her for a friend, even if it means compromising your secular beliefs. This is a strange House and you cannot fight it. You could be happy here but only if you open your mind and accept…accept even what you cannot understand. You have been too long around your precious Bergson, Sartre and Camus. Here is not the “Age of Reason”. Here is the spiritual and the unknown. Accept us, and you will learn much – much that you will not find elsewhere.’

  Not knowing how to answer this obviously well-intentioned sermon, I just nodded.

  ‘Now finish dressing and come to the kitchen for coffee. Amélie will cook you something to perk you up.’

  I opened the door for her, still holding the towel over my nakedness, and she turned and gave me a sisterly peck on the cheek before moving away towards the servants’ stairs.

  As I stood at the door watching her walk away, a slight movement from my right made me turn around, almost losing my towel in the process, and just in time to see Natalya dart from an alcove and disappear towards the other wing of the House.

  Great! I thought. Now she has seen her tutor half-naked! Can my day get any worse?

  I felt steadily better as the day wore on, did a bit of private study for my course and sat and leafed through the old photographs in the Russian history books that Anya had left for me. By dinnertime, seated round the table in the kitchen, I was back to normal and enjoying Amélie’s Russian cuisine, while being careful to give Sergei’s home-made vodka a miss. Anya left us for a moment and, when she returned, she drew me to one side.

  ‘Nico, I have been mending fences for you. Madame Lili is currently in the library, alone. I think you would do well to make your peace with her. She believes you were spying on her the other night. Come along, use some diplomacy and that “boyish charm” and apologise, even if you think you didn’t do anything wrong…please, for me, and the smooth running of the House.’

  I couldn’t refuse Anya. She had been so good to me. So,
straightening my tie, I headed with some misgiving along the dimly lit corridor towards the front of the House. The oil lamps there spread a warm yellow glow and gave off considerable heat on that slightly chilly spring evening, and I was surprised at how quickly I had become used to their smell, which had been so noticeable when I first came to the House.

  When I pushed open the library door after a couple of timorous knocks, Madame Lili had her back to me sitting at the small table.

  ‘Good evening, Nicolai Feodorovitch,’ she said, without turning round, as if somehow she had seen me come in.

  ‘Good evening, Madame Lili,’ I said hoarsely, my throat suddenly dry. She looked up at me as I walked around to face her, her long, dark hair drawn away from her face in a sort of ponytail, her lips parted against those big white teeth in a cold smile.

  Suddenly, as she brought her dark eyes up to mine, I felt a frisson of fear run up my spine, and I tried to look away from her steady, penetrating gaze, telling myself not to be so stupid. She lifted her hand for me to kiss and it gave me an excuse to avoid those eyes. Her perfume seemed to hit me in waves and again, in spite of all my efforts, I began to feel light-headed.

  ‘So nice to see you, Nicholas. We have been concerned – you seemed unwell last night. Some sort of malaise – a nightmare perhaps? Please do sit down.’

  She smiled again. This time there seemed to be some warmth in it.

  ‘Madame Lili…’

  I hesitated, and she leaned forward and arched her eyebrows for me to continue.

  ‘Madame Lili, I fear that I may have inadvertently upset you…the other night, here in the library, in the presence of your guests…’

  I trotted out the formal little apology I had rehearsed coming down the passage. ‘I didn’t mean to spy on you, though I understand that that is how it must have appeared. It was thoughtless of me, and ill-mannered. I can only ask you to excuse my…er…lapse…’

  For a long moment she said nothing but looked at me intently, as though trying to decide whether I was sincere. Then, having apparently made up her mind, she exclaimed, ‘Bravo, Nicholas, elegantly put! I accept your handsome apology. Now, we will be friends. Would you like that, Nicolai?’

  Her sudden warmth threw me a bit and I just nodded vigorously.

  ‘Good. That’s settled, then. You must, of course, now that we are friends again, come to one of my séances; I would be most hurt if you did not…’

  And that was it. I’d dropped neatly into her trap! Now I was to join in with the mumbo-jumbo! Not, of course, that I gave any indication of my scepticism to Madame Lili. But Anya’s words kept ringing in my ears: You could be happy here but only if you open your mind and accept…accept even what you cannot understand.

  My thoughts refocused on the room and on Madame Lili. She seemed quite relaxed now, at her most charming. The spider had caught her fly. She flashed a heartwarming smile at me and I had to admit that she was indeed a very beautiful woman. Perhaps a séance or two with her might not be so bad…all that holding hands in the dark. And who knew, she might even conjure up my great-grandad so that I could ask him what happened to the family fortune!

  But, in spite of my attempted flippancy, a little voice in my head was saying, Careful, Nico, careful.

  After some more small talk and my polite refusal of the inevitable glass of tea from the samovar, we parted; friends now.

  And I opted for an early night.

  Once I was in my room, a great feeling of relief came over me, washing away the earlier anxiety. I told myself I had my own bed, my own room, with no financial worries and a full stomach. True, this was a strange house and my employers were unusual, eccentric people, but I felt secure here. I had seen Paris in all its beauty and, most recently, at its most violent and disturbed. I had been one step away from sleeping rough, perhaps even a stay in jail for vagrancy and passport offences and now…

  I started to drift away, never imagining for one moment that my feeling of safety was entirely misplaced.

  There was a movement. It was pitch black in the room and yet something had awakened me…a slight click, the sudden draught as the door opened? Yet it was locked.

  I lay perfectly still, listening. The silence was absolute. And yet I knew something was there, standing in the darkness at the end of the bed.

  It was obvious that there was no time to fumble for matches and light the candle that was placed somewhere on my bedside table. But I wanted to jump up, confront it and take the initiative, so to speak.

  Yet I did nothing. Fear pinned me to the spot and, before I could attempt to overcome it, I saw a shadow rise over the bed. When I say ‘saw’, I mean only that the darkness there became darker still, in the vague outline of a figure.

  My shout was just a groan that died in my throat as fear paralysed me; my heart was beating furiously and I struggled to breathe.

  Then ‘it’ was upon me. It leapt at me from the foot of the bed. As in a nightmare, I fought to move leaden limbs and to articulate some sort of cry for help.

  The seconds passed so slowly and still the thing was upon me, my arms pinned under the bedclothes by its weight. Suddenly my voice came back and I let out a bellow that ended in a piercing yell. At the same time, I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my upper arm as I freed it from the sheets.

  We fought, I to escape and the thing to hold on to me. Somewhere in the depths of my subconscious I felt I knew my attacker, but this recognition was not communicated to my mind.

  Voices sounded outside my room. The door burst open to reveal the light of an oil lamp and then the room seemed full of people. I recognised Anya and Serge and there was also a dapper, suited man who I had not seen before.

  As the lamplight swept the bed, I saw with total amazement that my spectral assailant was…my pupil, Natalya!

  Dressed in a shapeless nightshirt and deathly pale, she stared up at us, wild-eyed and crouching defensively. Without a word, Serge and the smaller man stepped forward and, with infinite gentleness, lifted the poor girl off my crumpled bed and carried her from the room. As they slowed to negotiate the door, Natalya looked back reproachfully at me and I saw her staring eyes were full of tears.

  Suddenly all was quiet; everyone had gone except for Anya. It was only then that I realised that I had been stabbed. An empty syringe lay on the bed, its needle snapped off short. The other half was in my arm and just beginning to make itself known.

  Anya tutted softly when she saw it and told me to sit down and find something to cover myself with while she went to Dr Voikin’s surgery for some tweezers. Moments later, she returned and gently eased the long needle from deep in my upper arm. It hurt like hell but I tried not to show it. I did jump though when she dabbed it with iodine.

  ‘Remember that Natalie is not well, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘She has occasional fits – symptomatic of her illness – but she isn’t normally violent. I can only apologise on her behalf. It must have been very frightening for you. It will not happen again. Here…’ She held out her hand with two small white tablets. ‘Take these. Dr Voikin prescribed them to help you sleep. We’ll discuss all this in the morning. All will be explained. Goodnight, Nico. Be sure to take them.’

  She leaned forward and gently kissed me on the forehead.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jasmin de Corse, Tatianouchka

  Dr Voikin’s tablets rendered me virtually comatose, and so it was quite late when I went down to the kitchen for breakfast.

  Amélie sent me down to the library, where Anya was already at the table waiting for me.

  ‘How’s your arm, Nicholas? Did you sleep well in the end?’

  She didn’t wait for a reply but waved me to sit down opposite. Over coffee, she told me that Natalie had been sedated by Dr Voikin but not before he had discovered the motive for her attack on me.

  Apparently, Natalya greatly valued what she referred to as our ‘friendship’ and so had been shocked to see Anya leaving my room, kissing me, while I stood semi-naked at the door
. She had drawn all sorts of wrong conclusions from this and, coming as it did at the same time as one of her moments of malaise, had armed herself with a syringe from Dr Voikin’s surgery and decided to avenge what she considered a betrayal on my part.

  Anya assured me that it would not happen again and that it would not, in the long term, affect our pupil/master relationship, as it was most unlikely that Natalya, once recovered, would remember anything about it.

  Today was Sunday, so I would have the day to myself.

  Breakfast didn’t appeal to me very much that morning and, as the spring sunshine was enticing me outside, I persuaded Agnès to make me a pot of coffee and went out to the small table under the lime trees bounded by the kitchen walls. This was a particularly bright suntrap, and I sat facing the brick garden path, listening to the hum of activity in the kitchen. The events of the previous night had shaken me up more than I cared to admit. I needed to calm down.

  From my seat, I could look up at the windows of the rear of the House. Counting them along to the far corner of the third floor, I came to the ones where Natalie had told me the Grand Duchess had her suite. All the curtains were drawn but, as I squinted against the sunlight, I fancied that I saw a slight movement there, as if someone had been peeping at me and, caught out, quickly withdrawn.

  The somewhat ungainly approach of Agnès, bearing a large coffee pot, distracted my attention, and, when I looked up at the windows again, all was still.

  Agnès smiled shyly as she put down the coffee pot. Of all the ‘staff’, she seemed the most difficult to reach – mainly due to her lack of French, but also a natural reticence verging on secretiveness. Although young, she was also the least attractive of the women of the House, being big-boned and hard-featured, with frizzy blonde hair and a heavy red face that made her look as though she had been sitting too close to the fire. She was well-meaning, though, and seemed anxious to please.

  Three cups of very bitter black coffee were enough, and I began to consider what I would do with my day. For the first time, I missed my old life in Paris – the sheer size of the place, the vibrant hum of life, the elegance. But to enjoy any of that you needed money, and I soon concluded that I was better off here at the House, at least for a while.