“Yes.” Nikolai thought of the illegal passports he’d come across in Lev’s cowboy boot. “Have you been traveling a lot lately?”
“To Milan a couple of times. And Paris.” A single sardonic scoff. “They’ve had me calling on perfume makers, taking orders for ambergris.” Lev kept his eyes closed while he spoke.
Nikolai took stock of his friend’s face. The ridge of his brows exaggerated by scar tissue, the left cheekbone asymmetrical from having been fractured, the broken and re-broken nose. Nikolai’s memory superimposed the unmarred face that had been Lev’s as a boy, before all the injuries from hockey sticks and pucks and punches. Nikolai also noticed the way Lev’s face was pulling at itself, the mouth and eyes and forehead not in accord about what they should feel. It was the sort of thing that only a person who cared would see. Nikolai had noticed it before, but it was even more pronounced to him now. What he felt came out. “You shouldn’t take such chances,” he said.
No comment from Lev. He stood, unbuttoned his shirt halfway, and then impatiently yanked the tails out of his trousers. Pulled his shirt over his head and off, then sat and resumed his sunning, eyes shut. Lev was ignoring the remark he’d just made, Nikolai thought. But after a moment Lev told him: “You think I didn’t see that stukach on the Astoria steps? I spotted that scum before you did.”
“That’s what I mean. You saw him for what he was but you still flashed all that hard currency.”
“What I really wanted to do was shove a bunch of dollars down his throat.”
The flaunting of the red Mercedes down Nevsky Prospekt, the deliberate indiscretion with the stukach, the rather careless hiding of the passports—Lev seemed to be asking for the worst kind of trouble. Black-market profiteering with hard currency, any kind of foreign money, was spekulyatsiya, a crime considered as serious as murder in the Soviet Union, punishable by a life sentence in a labor camp or by death. Judges didn’t fool around with it, just dropped the hammer hard. Lev surely knew that. What could be done to help his friend give up this self-destructive course?
Lev opened one eye to see Nikolai’s concern. “Don’t worry,” he said, lightly brushing it off. “Any worry will just be a waste of time. I know what I’m doing.” He smoothed his light-brown hair with both hands, harshly cupping his scalp from forehead to nape. He raised his legs, extended them straight out stiffly, and flexed his feet. Nikolai heard the soft snap of Lev’s ankle joint. Even that brought Vivian to center stage in his mind. Almost every night she lovingly removed the unrealized tension from his hands by yanking his fingers one at a time, making the hingings of them snap like that.
Lev had two quick drinks, tossed them into himself as though they were needed. Then he said quietly: “A new spaceman came around last month.”
“Oh?” “Spaceman” was their term for the government flunky who made rounds checking that the legal maximum of 12.1 square meters of living space per person was not being exceeded.
“He wanted to measure and go through his routine, but I’d just gotten in from a trip and was tired so I gave him a plastic shopping bag from Printemps, some stationery from the Hotel Plaza Athenée, and a promise that next time he came I’d have a good, solid Italian toilet seat for him. He insisted that I watch while he changed the number of occupants on his form from two to twelve by putting a one before the two that was already there. For good measure, pardon the pun, I gave him fifty rubles on his way out.”
“You spoiled him.”
“I suppose, but I wanted him out. I’ll say this for him—he didn’t bow and scrape.”
“Not even a thank-you?”
“He recited a justification.”
“Which one?”
Lev imitated with a monotone in a lower register: “We pretend to work, the government pretends to pay us.”
They laughed. It seemed to Nikolai that their laughter met midair, combined, and, together, was brighter.
The sun dropped itself behind the trees and the air was at once colder. Bearable but no longer comfortable.
Kecia scurried up the steps to the porch, her skin beaded wet and goose-bumped. She grabbed up the bottle of eau-de-vie for three large consecutive swallows. Nikolai watched them go like lumps down her throat and thought it was an advertisement for Finnish women when she didn’t wince afterward.
They went inside and had an early dinner at a rectangular wooden table that ran along the wall beneath a window. They shared a bench with nude Kecia in the middle dispensing equal attention left and right. It was a long indulgent meal made up of the delicacies Lev had obtained na levo, on the side, as they say, from the kitchen help of the Astoria. There were crab claws and the little meat dumplings called pelmeni stuffed with the best lean meat and various types of the most desirable mushrooms prepared in different wonderful ways and a fresh-baked loaf of borodinskii, the dark sweet bread crusted with caraway seeds that Nikolai’s taste buds now told him how much they’d been yearning for. They finished with sticky-flaky slabs of baklava and glasses of tea and off-color jokes that Kecia laughed at only because she believed they must be funny.
It was a spring day, one of the longer days when time was not as much in the sky as in the body. Lev and Kecia got up from the table and headed up to their bedroom. Partway up the stairs they turned to Nikolai, and he understood they were wordlessly inviting him to join them. He declined by remaining as he was and smiling softly, and they continued on up.
Moments later Nikolai heard one of Lev’s shoes hit the floor above, then the other. He heard the bed. He heard the silence that would be kissings and touchings. A spill of giggle from Kecia curtained his visualizing. He reminded himself that he’d be in London tomorrow and thought how good it was that by choice he was now alone.
He went to the spare room off the kitchen where infrequently used tools were kept. He found a stone-cutting chisel and a small steel-headed mallet. He checked a flashlight. It was weak but, he decided, working well enough. He put all three items into a net string bag and went out the back way and across the clearing to a grassy bank that had a summer cellar built into it. The rusted hinges of the cellar’s door resisted and gritted stridently. Two creatures ran across Nikolai’s feet. His first thought was that they were rats, but he saw they were chipmunks. He clicked on the flashlight, ducked down, and went in to spiderwebs and the jumps of frightened crickets. The cellar was about ten feet deep by six wide. The board shelves all around had become as gray and dry as its walls. On one shelf were several forsaken corked bottles of dandelion wine and on another some jars of apricots his mother had put up that probably by now contained enough botulin to kill everyone in the world. He cleared away the jars on two of the shelves in the rear. Using the mallet, he banged the shelves free. He stood them aside and stepped out of the cellar to let the dust settle. He couldn’t wait long enough, went back in.
He knew the exact spot on the rear wall, realized now as he kneeled and looked at it how firmly he’d held it in mind all this while. Twenty-five years ago this coming August he and Grandfather Maksim had been together there in the summer cellar, the idealistic, czarist-hearted old man only a year before his death, the boy Nikolai a year before adolescence. The two had knelt as if in prayer next to one another on this bare, dry-parched ground and created their secret.
“I am here, Maksim Maksimevich,” Nikolai said aloud, because it seemed to him there was a question in the air of this enclosed space that deserved an answer. But he did not believe he needed to say more than that. The rest, why he was there, was known, he felt, had been witnessed all along and was approved of. He placed the sharp edge of the chisel on the seam of cement grouting that outlined the flat face of a certain rock in the wall. He struck the chisel with the mallet and the aged cement gave way easily. Within five minutes most of the grout was cut away. He used the chisel to pry at the rock, and it came out enough for him to get a grip. He worked the rock back and forth and at the same time applied pull and, as though knowing it eventually must, the rock surrendered su
ddenly and tumbled to the ground. Nikolai directed the flashlight into the small cavern that was now exposed.
There they were.
He reached in and got them one by one and placed them in the string net bag, counted them as he took them out. That there were seventeen was another thing that had been etched in his memory. When he had all seventeen in the bag he shone the flashlight in through the hole just to double-check. The light hit upon something else, the only thing that remained. He reached in and brought it out. A photograph, professionally taken. A photograph of a lovely woman, but not just a lovely woman—one who looked straight at whoever might look at her, ambiguously offering and challenging. Who was she? Nikolai had never seen this photograph before, and it didn’t seem to him that Grandfather Maksim had withheld much from him. Grandfather Maksim must have put it in the wall along with the other things when he wasn’t looking. Why? Was it another secret? Or had Grandfather Maksim foreseen this day and its circumstances and wanted to make known his opinion of the matter? Nikolai was convinced that was it when he turned the photograph over and saw handwritten with care and a special flourish on the back of it the date and name:
1912, Alma Pihl.
CHAPTER
13
AN ATTENTIVELY POSTURED KITTEN.
From paws to ears two inches tall.
It was carved of gray chalcedony with glistening green eyes that were cabochon demantoids.
“Precious!” Vivian exclaimed, holding it at eye level on the flat of her palm and examining it all around. “Perfectly precious, isn’t it, Archie?”
“I’d say,” Archer concurred with momentary enthusiasm, although seated where he was across the room he was too far away to judge the tiny figure.
Nikolai had assumed Archer would be around sooner or later, but not right off. While impatiently aiming himself all the way from Leningrad to Vivian he’d imagined these moments would be special and theirs alone, the sharing of a happy salvation followed by an intense celebration. However, when he arrived at Vivian’s apartment the first touch he got was Archer’s welcoming handshake, and then he had to settle for a proper kiss from Vivian rather than an appropriate one. He couldn’t blame Vivian. He hadn’t specified privacy. Nor could he blame Archer, really. How was Archer to know he wouldn’t just be crowding, but crushing? Besides, Nikolai felt, Archer was genuinely amiable, glad to have him back, had missed him, said so, and punctuated his words with a couple of brisk pats on the shoulder. That was mainly why Nikolai hadn’t taken Vivian aside and told her to get rid of Archer on any pretext. It would be offensively obvious, Nikolai thought. Worse, it might hurt. An alternative for Nikolai was to put off until later the surprise he’d brought, but it was impossible for him to be that composed about them. His satchel practically opened itself. The gray chalcedony kitten practically sprang out to Vivian’s hand. What a pleasure it was to watch her unwrap it, to see her wonder turn to fascination, then to aesthetic respect.
She carefully placed the kitten on the long linen-runnered table that backed up the sofa, positioned it so it was in good light beneath the lamp. Its eyes gleamed mischievously. She hesitated, glanced from Nikolai to the satchel and back. It pleased Nikolai that she wasn’t being presumptuous about it, was excited but not grabby. He gestured that she should help herself. She reached into the bag without looking, let her fingers feel and choose. What she brought out this time was considerably larger, wrapped as the kitten had been: wound like a mummy with strips of cotton cloth (an old sheet Grandfather Maksim and Nikolai had torn) and beneath those protectively cushioned with newspaper.
An oblong maple box, about seven inches by four inches. Vivian undid its hinged catch, opened its lid, and there, nestled in creamy velour and an exact indentation of its shape, was a bouquet of cornflowers and buttercups in a clear vase.
The lining of the lid was imprinted K ΦAБEPЖE, K. Fabergé, and centered above that was the double-headed Russian eagle, the imperial emblem. With extreme care Vivian lifted the bouquet from its place. The vase and water part of it was carved of a single piece of clear rock crystal in such a way that the vase appeared to be two-thirds full. The stems of the flowers were set down in the “water,” touching bottom as they would had they been real. The blossoms were flawlessly enameled and had pistils of diamonds.
Vivian knew she was holding something rare and valuable. Her eyes savored it but her hands seemed relieved to be responsible for it no longer when she returned it to its box and placed the open box on the table alongside the chalcedony kitten.
“My Gawd!” Vivian gasped, reaching again into the satchel. “Nickie, love, how many such things have you brought?”
Nikolai shrugged, acted blasé. It was going well, he thought, and, as it turned out, it was good that Archer was on hand. The spontaneous impact might be more effective. He’d kept an eye on Archer for a reaction, but, so far, nothing. That didn’t mean Archer wasn’t worked up inside. Archer would probably keep on sitting there with a crossed knee pretending to be unmoved, but Vivian’s delight was obvious, impossible to ignore.
One after another Vivian removed and unwrapped the contents of the satchel. She lined them up categorically on the table.
Three carved stone animals, counting the kitten. Three vases of flowers. Three carved stone figures, each about five inches tall: a soldier of the Imperial Escort, a dancing Muzhik, a traditional English John Bull. Two bonbonnières enameled sky blue over a sunburst-patterned guilloché ground, chased with gold and bordered with diamonds. A tiny desk clock of translucent strawberry red. A pair of miniature frames, enameled pale pink, studded with rubies.
Vivian knelt upon the sofa, her front to the back of it, her elbows on its crest. Her eyes scanned the seventeen objects. Impressed and perplexed, she asked: “Where in ever did you get them?”
“From an old friend,” Nikolai told her.
“He had them stashed away?”
“For years.” Which was, of course, true. The various workmasters at Fabergé, in the spirit of professional camaraderie and pride, often presented one another with pieces of their work. These had been given to Grandfather Maksim by Hollming and Aarne and Nevalainen and Armfeldt and by his mentor, Wigstrom. In 1917, after the Revolution and the formation of the Committee of the Employees of the Company of Karl Fabergé, or, to put it more accurately, when Fabergé quality came to an end, Grandfather Maksim had left the firm with these objects in his possession. He thought of them as valuable to his heart. The Bolshevik government would have considered them merely valuable, just so much gold or silver that could be melted down. Thus, Grandfather Maksim had to keep his owning of them a secret. Somehow, throughout all the years and changes, he’d managed always to have a good enough hiding place for them. Nikolai didn’t know whether or not even Irina knew they existed. He believed she probably did, but he never mentioned it to her in case she didn’t. Looking back upon it, Nikolai thought there was something wryly amusing in the possibility that both he and his mother had been conspirators without ever knowing it. As for his father, Nikolai had always felt that withholding this information from his father was the same as keeping it from that abstract menace called “the authorities.”
Vivian spun around, animated with her surmise. “You smuggled them out!” she whispered as though there were risk of being overheard. “How about that, Archie? Nickie smuggled them out.”
Nikolai had never heard the word “smuggled” said so sibilantly and with such drama.
“Clever fellow,” Archer said.
“Damn right!” Vivian seconded possessively.
Nikolai soaked it up without showing it. Vivian was right, though, about the smuggling. The Soviet government now considered Fabergé items to be works of art and wanted them in its museums, or at least on the mantels and desks of its most privileged officials. To be caught taking anything Fabergé out of the country was a serious offense, a form of profiteering, spekulyatsiya, the very thing Nikolai had warned Lev about. So going out through customs at Pulkovo
Airport in Leningrad had been more than an incidental squeeze for Nikolai. Before getting in line he’d gone into the men’s restroom, appraised his image in the mirror, and decided nothing about him looked suspicious. Fortified with that assurance, he attempted to neutralize his mental state, to trick himself into believing that the satchelful of contraband, which really was a swift trial and the rest of his life at hard labor, wasn’t on the end of his arm and that the trip ahead was just routine. Waiting on line he’d slouched, yawned a couple of times, blinked sleepily. When it came his turn the customs official just matched his face flesh with the photograph face in his permanent passport, smacked a page with his red stamp, and motioned him on. Concern for naught, Nikolai thought; his casual manner had worked. He would never know that his satchel would have been looked into had the usual second customs official not been summoned to take an emergency phone call from his wife of a week, who needed to tell him how much she was waiting.
“Your old friend …” Vivian said.
“What about him?”
“I take it he wants you to sell these Fabergé things for him.”
“No,” Nikolai told her. “He doesn’t need money.”
“What then?”
“He gave them to me.”
“Outright just gave them to you?”
“Yes.”
“Incredible.Don’t you find that incredible, Archie?”
“Phenomenally generous,” Archer replied.
Vivian studied Nikolai. He felt transparent. She seemed to be reaching a whole string of conclusions. “Are you being truthful?” she asked.
“Entirely.” Nikolai immediately regretted his choice of word. Only a fine line separated honesty and omission. He just didn’t want to go into the details of Grandfather Maksim and expose all those feelings, at least not now. They would give the situation a different emotional color, be obstacles for Vivian.
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