by L J K Cross
It wasn’t the first time Amanda had been shocked at how quickly his rage had roared up. She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Wasn’t he describing himself? Wasn’t he one of them? How could he be so hypocritical or was he, as Amanda suspected, reflecting their own loathsome traits back upon them and reveling as they blindly denounced their painstakingly preserved reflections. With equal fickleness his temper instantly became more temperate.
“Anyway they are probably just peeved at having their thunder stolen. Everyone is looking at you rather than at them.” The passion that burned in his eyes was now matched by the flush in his cheeks as he pulled her in even closer.
“Did I tell you how exquisite you look in that dress?” he whispered, the end of the sentence suppressed by a sensuously firm, full kiss on the lips. Amanda felt an overwhelming rush of emotions, of every emotion possible except one – love.
It was with relief when the foyer lights intervened and began to flicker. Without prompting, Koroviev was once again by her side, guiding, ushering her to her seat. Alexander had already turned his mercurial attentions elsewhere and was embroiled in an animated discussion with a nearby group of finely attired gentlemen. He seemed not to notice that the opera was about to begin nor that Amanda had gone in without him.
Already the evening was proving to be a strange and unpredictable affair. Amanda had sensed it the moment they had drawn up to the theatre but still couldn’t work out what exactly was unsettling her. She had become adept at adapting and even pandering to Alexander’s ever changing personality. She assumed that such an insanely rich eccentric as he was used to having his every whim not just catered for but anticipated. But as Koroviev held back the heavy velvet curtain and gestured for her to enter the reserved box, Amanda found herself wondering why it was that he was accompanying her? Why he was constantly by her side? Surely as Alexander’s right hand man it was his job to remain with Alexander and guard him? Surely someone as rich and prominent as Alexander was the one who needed protecting from potential threats. Koroviev was evidently uneasy and on edge. He seemed to be constantly glancing over her shoulder and then quickly glancing back at Alexander to check that everything was in order. Amanda turned round and followed his stare but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She entered the darkly lit box, took her seat and waited. She was waiting for the opera to start, waiting for Alexander to hopefully join her and waiting to find out what unusual twist this bizarre evening would take next.
Steve managed to dart behind a thick stone pillar just as Koroviev switched his attention from Amanda to somewhere over in Steve’s direction. Steve pressed himself up flat against the pillar, not daring to move an inch. He tried to ignore the group on the other side who were staring at him suspiciously. He cursed them under his breath, sure that they would alert Koroviev to his hiding place. He couldn’t blame them though. They were probably staring at his ridiculously obvious disguise – the dark wig and the glasses and the moustache. They had been Bob’s idea. Who else? Steve was cursing himself now for ever having listened to him but Bob had convinced him saying that the disguise made him look less conspicuous, that it made him less recognizable and that it even made him look quite Russian! Thinking about it though what the hell did Bob know about Russia. There were just two things as far as Steve could tell – they made bloody good vodka and Bob liked to drink lots of it. Bob’s fondness seemed to stem from that night he had met two Russian women in a bar in London and somehow managed to convince them to come back to his hotel room. There had been a lot of vodka drunk that night. No wonder Bob liked the stuff so much.
As Steve remained concealed behind the pillar all he could think about was Alexander and Amanda together. He couldn’t get their image out of his mind. The way he had slid his arm round her and pulled her endearingly towards him. The way she had smiled so engagingly at him and laughed at his witticisms. The private looks they had shared, mindless that anyone else was around. He tried to shake the thoughts from his mind. He prayed that he was just imaging it. He hoped beyond hope that he was not too late and that Amanda was not lost to him forever. He certainly hadn’t come this far to give her up without a fight.
CHAPTER 22
Amanda didn’t have long to wait for the opera to begin. She sat plunged in complete darkness for a few seconds, with just Koroviev’s constant, overbearing breathing to keep her company, before the first haunting notes of music winged their way towards her. Enveloped by the darkness and the music, Amanda felt briefly protected, safe from the strange evening that was unraveling around her.
The theatre curtain, slowly and mechanically, began to draw back. Amanda inched further forward to the edge of her seat, spellbound by the enchanting surroundings. A solitary spotlight shone down on the stage. Amanda jumped back in her seat and clamped her hand across her mouth to stop herself from screaming, horrified at the vision before her. For a few heart-stopping moments she saw her nightmare, her recurring, unremitting nightmare, played out on the stage for all to see, for all to ridicule. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the marble statue even though any second now she knew it would start to morph and hurl abuse. Amanda froze in fear at the shock of being confronted by her nightmare brought to life and so publicly.
It took her some time before she realized that her fears were unfounded. The scene on stage had morphed but it was no longer her nightmare that was staring her in the face. Amanda breathed a sigh of relief and tried to focus on the idyllic scene unfolding before her; the statue was absorbed into a St Petersburg park filled with people relaxing and enjoying a beautiful summers day, accompanied by the music of one of the world’s greatest composers.
A phantasmagorical wonder of sight and sound prevailed. Amanda was too enraptured by the Mariinsky’s magic to notice Alexander sidle into the seat next to her at some point during the first act. By the time the principal character, Gherman, was singing his love aria, Amanda gave no more thought to her initial shock. As each intoxicatingly rich baritone note reached out to pull her in she became more and more immersed in this story of obsession and the lengths one goes to pursue it. Buoyed by the fervent stirrings of the orchestra Amanda was moved by the power of his passion and empathized with the infatuation of his obsession of love and to discover the “Queen of Spades” secret, the secret that would ensure he won. Time seemed temporarily suspended. In the flicker of a stage light, Gherman had sought out his love, Liza, and declared the depth of his feelings for her and the curtain was being brought down on the end of Act One.
The house lights went back up and Amanda screwed up her eyes as if offended at having to face reality again. Amanda turned to Alexander hoping to relive the highlights of the first act but found that the group in the neighboring box had annoyingly already diverted him away. Amanda couldn’t help but think that for someone so dismissive of other humans, Alexander had such an alluring charm that drew people to him. She stood up to leave and saw a figure, in the dark recesses of the box, move: her shadow, Koroviev. As usual, wherever she went, he went with her. Amanda didn’t acknowledge him but looked round for the nearest ladies toilets. Hopefully he wouldn’t follow her in there and she would at last have some time alone, free from her ever watchful big brother.
Steve hadn’t taken his eyes from the heavy curtain that concealed her theatre box since Amanda had disappeared behind it. The moment she reappeared every sinew in his body stiffened, only to tense even tighter when Koroviev reemerged just several paces behind her, hot on her tail. From his concealed vantage point Steve watched her sashay across the landing, leaving a domino effect of heads turning in her wake. Steve’s heart quickened with disbelieving excitement as he saw her enter the ladies toilets. Could this be his one chance to get her alone? Not if Koroviev had his way. He positioned his hulking mass on guard outside the door, his head perpetually turning, scanning, surveying, seeming to sense, sniff out Steve’s presence like the bloodhound he was. There was no chance of getting past this Cerberus unnoticed. Steve knew that if h
e was to get to Amanda he was going to have to play this brute at his own devious game.
Steve didn’t even bother to wait around for Amanda to reemerge. He had to stay ahead of the game. He needed to find a spot inside the theatre, somewhere that would give him time to think and plan his next move, somewhere that would afford him a view of Amanda if only to make sure that he didn’t have his bluff called, forcing him to show his hand and play his queen too early. Steve didn’t know how but Koroviev seemed to sense him. He observed Amanda coming back into the box, her whole demeanour seeming slightly diminished, subdued, against the imposing presence of Koroviev that loomed over her. Steve saw Koroviev lean down to whisper in Alexander’s ear. He then saw Alexander stiffen and sit bolt upright, his head slowly scanning the auditorium before stopping in Steve’s vicinity, glowering.
“Shit,” mumbled Steve, instinctively slumping down in his seat, “he knows I am here.”
By the time Steve looked up at their box again, Alexander had moved his seat closer to Amanda allowing him to drape his arm over the back of her chair, and in a display that Steve knew was intended solely for him, he saw Alexander tenderly stroke Amanda’s cheek, tucking an errant strand of hair playfully behind her ear.
“Bastard,” spat Steve, ignoring the disapproving looks he was getting from those sat near him.
Steve had been so preoccupied with the performance going on in the box that he hadn’t noticed that the performance had started again on the stage. The scenery had changed and was now set for a masked ball. Steve mused at the irony that this audience of pompous idiots was sat watching a masked ball play out on stage when it was their own lives that was the real masked ball. Behind their affected airs and their feigned, forced politeness they were just as deviant and devious and degraded as everyone else and probably more so, though you wouldn’t think it as they sat starchily in their seats, effusively nodding in approval and clapping at all the required moments. Fiction was never as strange as real life thought Steve, and he should know. Steve hoped real life was more interesting than this crap – fat blokes prancing around the stage, making a right song and dance about a bloody note. In real life, or at least where Steve came from anyway, he wouldn’t last five minutes before someone filled him in and told him to man up.
Steve kept constantly glancing at his watch, wondering when this torture would end. All this foreign wailing was beginning to give him a headache. He hadn’t the remotest clue what was happening on stage. All he had managed to attain was that the main character was getting a little bit too excited about a note given to him by the woman he loved asking him to meet her later. He looked at those sat near him – a sea of delightedly mesmerized faces. Steve just didn’t get the appeal and to top it all, the ending was plainly obvious even though he didn’t understand a word of what they were saying. It was obvious his love was blinded by his obsession to find out the secret of the “Queen of Spades.” It was obvious that such a blinding obsession would have grave consequences. Steve really couldn’t take much more of this. He looked up again at the box to make sure Amanda was still there. She was and obviously as enraptured as everyone else. There was though at least one other person in the auditorium, apart from Steve, who was paying hardly attention to the theatricals on stage. A glaring pair of eyes that blazed from within a towering shadow of darkness, that seemed to be trained directly on Steve.
Steve had to think and quick. How was he going to get anywhere near Amanda with that fiend hovering over her constantly? Wracking his brain he tried to drown out the caterwauling on stage. As his thoughts became more and more ludicrous and unfeasible, Steve found that he was staring absentmindedly at the note being flourished around in the air.
“A note,” he nearly cried out, managing to stop himself just in time. He could have kicked himself. It was so simple and it had been staring him in the face all the time. Steve heard movement around him and thought that the other audience members had finally had enough of his fidgeting and blatant disinterest but the smattering of applause told him that the second act had finished. It was time for Steve to make his move.
They took such a long time to make their way up to the bar area on the top floor of the Mariinsky that Steve started to worry that they wouldn’t show, preferring to stay in their box for the interval. By the time they arrived the bar area was packed but still their arrival caused a stir. Alexander walked proudly through the crowd with his arm wrapped tightly around Amanda’s waist, a little too tightly for Steve’s liking. Koroviev walked in front forcing a path through the elegant mob as they made their way to a cordoned off section of the bar.
Without warning, the opportunity that Steve had been waiting, praying for, presented itself as if the heavens had convened for once in his favour. Steve was shuffling through the crowd towards them, the paper in his hand getting damper by the second, when he saw Koroviev’s attention diverted by two similarly attired, brutish looking lieutenants of Alexander’s personal army. In that moment a flash of silver skimmed before Steve’s eyes as he almost collided with the tray of a waiter cutting across his path. Steve grabbed him by the arm, probably a little too roughly but he had no time to be worrying about people’s feelings.
“Do you speak English?” he demanded almost daring the waiter to say no.
“A little,” stuttered the waiter nervously.
“Give this,” ordered Steve, placing the note and a fifty-dollar bill on the waiter’s tray, “to that woman over there.”
He pointed in Amanda’s direction.
“You see? Blonde hair…” but the waiter cut straight to the chase.
“Big muscles,” he remarked as he puffed out his chest and attempted a most muscular.
“Yes. Big muscles,” smiled Steve. Well at least he knew that the note wouldn’t be delivered to the wrong person. The waiter immediately set off on his mission. Steve followed closely not totally trusting the note in the hands of anyone but himself. The waiter was swallowed up by the thirsty crowd milling around the bar. All Steve could do was cling to the silver tray bobbing buoyantly above their heads.
The waiter was allowed into the cordoned off area with no questions asked. Steve didn’t want to push his luck too far and stopped about several people short of Amanda’s group on the other side of the velvet rope. Steve was stood close, closer than ever before, to Koroviev who, having concluded his business, was now turning back to the group. He saw Koroviev stop the waiter, pushing his big bear paw of a hand into the waiter’s chest, barring his way but it was Steve who felt as if he had been thumped in the chest by a big grizzly. He was hit by the most horrifying realization. It hit him as hard as that Rolls Royce Ghost had hit him. In that instant he knew he was staring at the same ugly scarred face that had left him trapped in the wreckage on that desolated country road. Steve now saw the same threatening look that he had seen through the bars of his jail cell in Las Vegas, the same dark brooding shadow that had stood menacingly over his hospital bed. Steve was hit by the spine chilling realization that whenever he tried to reach Amanda, Koroviev was always there to stop him. Would he ever be able to evade him?
As images of Koroviev in his various guises flashed before his eyes, Steve stood stock still unable to tear his eyes from that face that haunted him and yet was totally blind to Koroviev’s slight of hand, totally oblivious to his switch of the notes. The scene before him played out in slow motion in his head. He saw Amanda take a note from the waiter’s tray. He saw her look up questioningly and then place it discreetly in her handbag. He saw Koroviev, who by now was standing next to Amanda, also look up and look directly at Steve. He held Steve’s stare for what felt like an eternity, an eternity of hellish suffering and cruelty. That hideously familiar smile split across his face, stabbing straight into Steve’s heart, jabbing him back to the danger of the situation he was in.
Steve panicked and pushed his way back through the crowd. He had to get away from that monstrosity if only not to jeopardise Amanda’s chances of escaping. Thank God she had
got the note. Steve just prayed that Koroviev hadn’t seen the note and didn’t know its contents. He prayed beyond all hope that Amanda would meet him at the rendezvous point and they both would be able to escape the clutches of this devil and his fiendish servant once and for all.
The opera had been touching, the singers putting their heart and soul into their performances. Amanda had been looking forward to see how the story concluded, to seeing the singers’ final flourish but the note had ruined all that. Upon reading the note, Amanda’s strange evening suddenly became a whole lot more unpredictable and unsettling. She had read the note, written in Russian and then translated into English: “Rukopisi ne goryat – Manuscripts don’t burn.” As she read the note Amanda felt like someone had infiltrated her mind and was stealing her thoughts. For the second time that evening her dreams had pervaded her wakened consciousness, blurring the line between her nightmares and reality. Amanda no longer found the darkness of the theatre reassuring but claustrophobic and disturbing. She wasn’t even reassured to have found out the meaning of the Russian phrase, poured like poison into her ear during her slumbers. The more she understood, the more confused she became. Who had sent the note? What did the note mean? Why did that phrase plague her dreams and most disturbingly how could the sender possibly know the contents of her dreams?
Throughout the final act these questions weighed heavily on Amanda’s mind and wouldn’t budge. The more she mulled them over, the more anxious she became, the further she felt from any answers. Amanda felt like the answer should be obvious, like it was staring her in the face, taunting her but evading her at the same time. As the curtain came down and the singers took their applause, Amanda was no closer to elucidation and had missed most of the ending of the opera. She had seen Gherman receive the note sent to him from Liza asking him to meet her at midnight by the riverbank. Amanda had bit her lip and fought back the tears at Liza’s poignant suicide. As Liza’s life ebbed away in the frozen waters of the canal, Amanda felt the anguish of her unrequited love. When Gherman also committed suicide after losing his card game, Amanda swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the bitter taste left in her mouth by such a demoralizing, yet somehow fitting, ending. Amanda should have seen it coming especially on such a disconcerting night as tonight. She just hoped that such a tragic ending wouldn’t prove to be an ill omen. That this strangest and most perturbing of nights wouldn’t take a similar deadly twist.
