The White Russian

by Tom Bradby

  As they walked down Millionnaya Street, they heard a muffled shout and turned to see a detachment of the Imperial Guard Cavalry entering the street behind them, the horses’ hooves clattering on the treacherous cobblestones, their breath hanging on the cold morning air.

  Ruzsky and Pavel waited as they passed. The men were from the elite Chevalier Guard Regiment, mounted on their distinctive chestnut mares. They were in full parade uniform, the soldiers’ white and red jackets visible beneath long blue overcoats, their swords clanking beside them, their scabbards bright. The officer wore a cape over his blue and red jacket, fastened at the throat with a gold buckle. All of the men had upon their heads the curved brass helmet of the guard, with the large imperial eagle at its peak.

  There were no shouts or barked commands; they were trying to avoid waking the aristocratic residents of one of the city’s wealthiest districts. As they reached a stretch of the street that was covered in snow, their progress was suddenly silent.

  Halfway down, Ruzsky stopped outside a house with a delicately sculpted, soft yellow facade. The shutters were closed. This had always been his family’s home in the city. He’d been born here. So had both of his brothers. Pavel stood behind him and Ruzsky found it hard to move on. In the cold dawn light, a sense of overpowering loneliness settled upon him.

  He thought of Michael in his room in the attic and wondered which of his own toys were still on the shelves above the small bed.

  Pavel waited patiently. He knew the truth-or some of it-and did not wish to intrude. “They’ll still be asleep,” he said quietly.

  Ruzsky tore himself away and forced himself to keep walking. As they emerged from the far end of the street onto the Field of Mars, past the Pavlovsky Guards barracks, he felt like a champagne cork escaping from the neck of a bottle. Just to be in the street was to feel the pressure of his own history.

  The Field of Mars was a sandy expanse designed for military training now shrouded in a thick layer of snow. The detachment of cavalry cantered around it, turning and wheeling as it exercised as a unit, still quiet but for the snorts of the horses, the clank of metal, and the occasional barked command.

  Pavel and Ruzsky walked around the square, past the giant yellow-stone palaces that faced onto it. All the windows were dark, but outside one a private sled driver stood next to his horse, banging his hands together. Just in front, beneath a gas lamp, another servant waited for a small, dirty-white Pekinese to do its business. Neither man acknowledged them as they passed.

  Walking on toward the Summer Gardens, Ruzsky felt his heart lurch as he saw a tall man striding in their direction, trailing behind a big brown hunting dog. The man’s purposeful gait and the type of hound-big dogs were unusual in Petersburg houses-made him think for a few seconds that it must be his father Nicholas. As they came closer, the realization that it wasn’t brought both relief and disappointment.

  The café was on a ground floor of a large tenement block the other side of the Moyka Canal. Pavel ate bread. Ruzsky sobered himself up fully with Turkish coffee and cigarettes. Their drinking had gone on into the early hours and the alcohol was still circulating in his bloodstream. His feet were sore and damp and he only gradually regained feeling in his toes.

  The café was run by a short, swarthy Ukrainian from the Crimea and was full even at this time in the morning, the air thick with steam, body heat, and cigarette smoke. A small group of the abjectly poor milled around outside the door, glancing in at the warmth and the food, their faces gradually obscured by the mist gathering on the thick glass windows.

  The black Romanov eagle was etched in the center of the panes either side of the door, and there was a line drawing of the royal palace at Livadia on the wall above Pavel’s head. The owner’s father had been a member of the imperial household at the Tsar’s summer home in the Crimea and the son remained fanatically loyal not only to the Tsar and his family, but to the principles of autocracy. But his food was good and, more importantly, cheap.

  Sitting here this morning, Ruzsky felt as though he had never been away. Had he been inclined by nature to self-pity, the scene would almost have been poignant, since the last time he had sat here, before his fall from grace three years ago, he had felt happier than at any point since the early days of his childhood.

  It had mostly been because of her. Instinctively, Ruzsky touched the letter in his jacket pocket. Like Michael, Maria would still be sleeping.

  “It hasn’t changed,” Pavel said, smiling, as Ruzsky looked around him.

  “Clientele still as shabby as ever.”

  “It’s no place for a prince,” Pavel went on, stretching. “Dear me, no.”

  Ruzsky smiled too. It had been a long-standing joke between them. The Ruzskys drew a continuous line of service and loyalty to Tsar and Empire stretching back more than a hundred and fifty years to the reign of Peter the Great. The eldest son always served in the Empire’s most prestigious infantry regiment, the Preobrazhensky Guards. Ruzsky’s decision to shun the Guards and, as a result of a childhood passion for Sherlock Holmes, enter the service of the St. Petersburg Police Department-as lowly an occupation for a man of high birth as it was possible to imagine-had provoked a final severance of any form of connection with his father.

  Ruzsky looked at Pavel. With his drooping mustache and lugubrious expression, he seemed to have aged dramatically these past three years.

  Ruzsky made a sudden decision and stood. “I’ll see you back in the office.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I won’t be long. Make sure Sarlov is in,” he said, referring to the medical examiner.

  In the street outside, Ruzsky walked at first, but then gathered speed, so that by the time he reached Millionnaya Ulitsa, he was running.

  His father’s home was one of the most beautiful on the street. It was four stories high, not including the attic or the basement. To the left of the steps leading up to the doorway was the yard in which all of the family’s transportation was kept. Ruzsky watched a servant oiling the runners of one of his father’s upended sleds, with its distinctive green and gold livery.

  He climbed the steps and knocked. The door was opened, but not by Ivan, the family’s old butler.

  Ruzsky stared at the young man before him. He was tall and thin, handsome but for his pimples, with wavy dark hair curling over his collar. He wore the red and gold uniform of his father’s house.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  It took Ruzsky a few moments to get over the shock of not being recognized in his own home. “Where’s Ivan?”

  “Ivan is not here. And you are?”

  “I’m the son of the house,” Ruzsky said as he walked forward into the hallway. He stopped, realized his manner had been churlish, and offered his hand. “I apologize, I’m Sandro.”

  “Master Sandro, sir, yes.” The young man’s handshake was firm. “I’m Peter. I believe your father is out.”

  “I’m here to see my son.”

  “Yes, sir. Would you like me to find the boy?”

  Ruzsky forced himself to smile. “I will be all right, thank you.”

  “Of course. New Year, New Happiness.”

  “And the same to you.”

  The young man shut the door and withdrew discreetly, down the wooden stairs toward the kitchen in the basement.

  Ruzsky stood for a moment in the semidarkness of the hallway. He realized he had been holding his breath.

  He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and slowly exhaled. Ahead of him was a fir tree, decorated for Christmas. He took a pace closer and touched one of the round pink and white gingerbreads his mother had always instructed the servants to bake. The decorations were the ones she had bought at Peto’s all those years ago: tiny sedan chairs, violins, bears, monkeys, and thin candles in tin candlesticks. Ruzsky imagined Michael helping his grandfather and the servants decorate the tree. He thought of the excitement that would have lit up his son’s face.

  He’d heard that Chr
istmas trees had been banned as too Germanic, but the rule clearly did not apply to such high servants of the Tsar.

  The hall was wide, leading onto the formal rooms to his right and left. His father’s study and the winter room were at the back, before the stairs leading down to the kitchen. The hall was dominated on one side by a giant gilt-edged mirror above an ornate chestnut dresser, and on the other by a dark tapestry hanging from a long metal pole. There was an iron coat stand in the corner. Beside it, on top of a wooden pillar, was a bust of Ruzsky’s grandfather. In the style of Roman emperors, his brother Dmitri had always said, and with similar pretensions to grandeur.

  Next to it was a portrait of their mother, with a cold smile playing at the corner of her lips. Ruzsky stared at it for a moment.

  The memory it triggered was of the scene in this hallway on the day Ruzsky had begun as a cadet at the Corps des Pages-the last time he had seen her. Standing by the door in the uniform of the school, next to his father, he had raised his hand to her to say goodbye and she had failed to lift her own in response.

  He had hesitated, waiting for something more, his face reddening as he realized that nothing would be forthcoming.

  The door to the drawing room was open and Ruzsky walked through it, conscious of the noise of his footsteps on the wooden floor. This room, too, was in semidarkness. His father forbade the servants from lighting a fire until after four in the afternoon, even in the depths of winter.

  It had been redecorated since Ruzsky’s last visit, with a rich red wallpaper that matched the Persian rugs. On the wall closest to him a curved saber hung below a painting of a mountain from the northern part of the Hindu Kush. Next to the saber was a tall wooden table upon which stood an elaborate, bejeweled box, and on the wall above that, portraits of his two brothers.

  His mother had wanted a society artist, but his father had chosen someone cheaper and less fashionable. Ruzsky could no longer even remember the man’s name, although he had forced them all to sit for long enough.

  Ruzsky pulled back the curtain, to allow in a little more natural light. The man had caught none of Dmitri’s charm, but the portrait of Ilya-Ilusha as he had been known to them all-had greater warmth, capturing perfectly his impish grin.

  Ruzsky wondered what his father had done with his own portrait. Even though it had been many years since it had hung alongside the others, its absence still caused him pain. It was as if he did not exist.

  He let the curtain fall, haunted by the resemblance between Ilya and Michael. Or was it just that his own son had almost reached the age at which Ilusha had been taken from them?

  Ruzsky turned around and walked swiftly from the room and through the hallway. He glanced out of the rear window and caught sight of his son in the garden.

  Michael was on his own. He had built a wall of snow and behind it assembled a small mound of snowballs.

  Ruzsky watched as his son came back behind the wall, picked up the first missile, and hurled it toward its target. He missed, so repeated the exercise with the second and then with all the others, ducking down between each throw, as if dodging gunfire.

  When he had finished, Michael mounted an imaginary horse and rode out beyond his rampart.

  He dismounted and began to run through the small garden, with his arms outstretched. He was a plane, or perhaps a bird. He was alone in his world.

  Michael’s isolation reminded Ruzsky of his own in the years after Ilusha’s death.

  He rested his forehead against the window and the glass slowly misted up with the warmth of his breath. How the months had dragged since he’d last set eyes upon his son.

  “Perhaps you should leave him.”

  Ruzsky spun around. His father stood quite still in the hallway, apparently unchanged by these past three years. He was an older and more distinguished version of his eldest son. He was no taller than Ruzsky and not much broader, but he carried about him the gravity of his wealth and position.

  His mustache was completely white now and drooped neatly around the edges of his mouth. His hair was longer than usual, but also a distinctive silver-white. Neatly brushed across his forehead, it was wavy and thick. If only you were as handsome as your father, Irina had once said to him with a sigh.

  Today, Russia ’s assistant minister of finance wore a morning suit, his gold pocket-watch chain looped across the front of a dark waistcoat, highly polished boots catching what little light filtered through the window.

  “I’m sorry?” Ruzsky asked. He felt his face flushing.

  “He’s your son. It’s your choice.”

  “What is?”

  “Whether to see him.”

  Ruzsky faced the window again. Michael had discarded his hat and was standing in the middle of the garden staring at the gray sky. “Why is that a choice?” he asked.

  Irina emerged from the kitchen below and hurried toward their son. She tried to shoo him back inside, but he was reluctant to come. She picked up Michael’s hat and forced it onto his head.

  Irina was not an unattractive woman. Her dark hair had been recently cut and styled to frame her narrow face. She glanced up briefly, but did not appear to see him.

  “Perhaps you should give him more time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “To settle in.”

  Ruzsky had forgotten how much authority his father carried in his voice. “To settle in where?” he asked.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean.”

  Ruzsky watched as Michael finally allowed himself to be led by his mother back into the house. He heard the door being shut below and could dimly make out the sound of their voices in the kitchen.

  “Fatherhood carries responsibilities.”

  Ruzsky turned and, as he did so, caught sight of a wooden train in the corner of the doorway to his father’s study, by the base of a large palm tree. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Sometimes you have to act in the best interests of the child, and not of your own.”

  “And what are the best interests of my child?”

  The elder Ruzsky gazed solemnly at his son. His face was deeply lined, his forehead creased by a severe frown. “If she finds you here, there will be a confrontation.”

  Ruzsky stared at the train. It was part of a set his father had commissioned for him on his seventh birthday from St. Petersburg ’s leading toymaker. Once, they had enjoyed playing with it together in the attic room at the top of the house.

  Ruzsky forced himself to meet his father’s glare. “He would be better off without me. Is that what you think?”

  There was no reply and Ruzsky felt the weight of the past upon him. He was no longer the chief investigator of the Petrograd Police Department, but a frightened eleven-year-old boy in the study at Petrovo.

  Ruzsky lowered his eyes and kept them fixed on the train as he fought to contain his emotions. He breathed in deeply. “Can a man never escape his past mistakes?” he asked.

  The elder Ruzsky did not flinch, his eyes fixed upon his son. “It is the boy’s welfare that concerns me now.”

  He turned around and walked slowly toward the study door. At its entrance, he bent down to pick up the wooden train engine and then, without a further glance, shut the door behind him, leaving Ruzsky alone in the corridor.

  The house was silent.

  Ruzsky heard a banging sound below, like a wooden bowl being hammered on a table. One of his father’s Great Danes gave a single bark and then was quiet.

  Ruzsky waited. Ever since Ilusha’s death, his life had been about that closed door. He wanted to move beyond it, but felt paralyzed once again.

  He could hear the sound of the Tompion clock on the mantelpiece in the drawing room.

  He recalled the dark winter afternoons of his childhood, marked out by the steady, rhythmic ticking of that clock. It was the sound of the inflexible regimentation of his father’s world.

  Ruzsky closed his eyes and let himself return to that day at Petrovo. He could almost feel the icy wa
ter’s embrace as his mind drifted toward a place that he knew deep in his heart would end the pain and guilt forever.

  His father had instructed him to make sure that Ilusha did not play on the ice now that spring was upon them. And even if he had not been there at the moment his little brother had made those fateful steps, even if he could have claimed that it was not his fault and that he had heard the cry and run to the lake and dived in and done his best to save him, there was no one who blamed Ruzsky more than he blamed himself.

  He should have gone with Ilusha.

  It was snowing heavily when Ruzsky emerged, but he didn’t take this or his surroundings in, until he had reached the corner of the Nevsky Prospekt. He stood on the street corner opposite the Alexander Garden, now, in winter, just dark, skeletal trees reaching for the sky, and tilted his face upward.

  He tasted the flakes as they fell.

  A detachment of soldiers in long greatcoats marched past him, then wheeled right onto the Nevsky. Ruzsky recognized them as members of the Semenovsky Regiment, though they hardly did justice to its reputation. They looked scruffy and marched without any of the precision that would have accompanied them before the war, when no regiment had moved anywhere in Petersburg unless immaculately turned out and in perfect order.

  Ruzsky thought for a moment of the painted soldiers he had kept neatly in boxes in his attic room in the house in Millionnaya Street. He wondered if they were still there, and if Michael played with them, also. The contrast with the St. Petersburg of his childhood was pervasive. It was the first day of the New Year, but he was certain there would be no reception in the great halls of the Winter Palace.

  Aside from the soldiers, the capital’s main thoroughfare was almost deserted. Two private sleds waited outside the Wolf and Beranger Café and, beyond them, a motor car was clanking noisily in his direction.

  Ruzsky pulled out his pocket watch. It was not yet ten o’clock in the morning; the city was only slowly coming to life.