by Sam Eastland
‘And did they do what they were told?’
‘Of course! It was their duty to obey.’
Stefanov pressed his hands together, feeling the burn in his palms from holding the wheelbarrow handles. ‘I would like to march some men into the sea. They must have looked silly, standing out there in the waves.’
The father leaned across and cuffed him on the back of his head. ‘There is nothing to be proud of in ridiculing men who have sworn to give up their lives in order to protect you!’
Stefanov’s father always seemed to be losing his temper, and the young Stefanov never knew when the moment would come. He lived in constant fear of crossing the invisible limits of his father’s patience. ‘But the Tsarevich is only a boy,’ he remarked hesitantly.
‘That is like saying that the Tsar is only a man!’ barked the father.
Their conversation was interrupted by a quiet rustle on the gravel path which ran beside the hedge.
The father’s head snapped up. ‘It’s him,’ he whispered.
Stefanov’s heart slammed into his chest. ‘Who?’ he whispered back.
Rising from his barrel seat, his father peered through the hedge.
‘Who is it?’ Stefanov asked again, still afraid to raise his voice above a whisper.
The father beckoned to him, teeth bared with urgency.
It was hard for Stefanov to see anything through the screen of holly leaves, whose needly points jabbed at his forehead as he attempted to follow his father’s gaze.
A dark shape moved past on the other side of the hedge.
Stefanov held his breath. An inexplicable sensation of dread washed through his mind.
When the strange figure had gone, the father turned to his son. ‘That was him,’ he whispered. ‘That was the Emerald Eye.’
Stefanov had heard of Inspector Pekkala. Everyone on the estate knew of his existence, although few had ever seen him in the flesh. Many times, in the company of his father, he had walked past the little cottage where the Emerald Eye was said to live. Both had searched for any sign of the famous investigator, but no one ever seemed to come or go from that lonely little building. There were rumours among his friends at school that the Emerald Eye did not really exist, but was, in fact, just a figment of the Tsar’s imagination. Lately, Stefanov had begun to wonder if those rumours might be true.
Overcome with curiosity, Stefanov stepped over to the gate which separated the compost yard from the path which lay beyond it. With his feet on the lowest rung of the gate, he leaned out beyond the hedge, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Inspector.
What he saw was a tall figure in a dark coat, gloved hands clasped behind his back. The man walked with an unusually straight back and each of his steps seemed deliberate, like that of someone who was counting out his paces.
A moment later, Stefanov’s father appeared beside him. ‘See the way he moves? Like a phantom. He’s not even human, you know.’
‘Then what is he?’ demanded Stefanov.
‘A demon or an angel. Who can say except the Tsar who summoned him?’
Even at that age, Stefanov knew that he and his father did not live in the same world. They might breathe the same air, and clean the same dirt off their shoes at the end of every day, but for Stefanov’s father, nothing was as it appeared. Each gust of wind, or rumble of thunder in the distance, or the body of a dead bird lying on the path, to be removed before the Tsar or any of his family could glimpse its crumpled form, represented a sign of what was to come. The Tsarskoye Selo estate, whose earth and stones and trees the man had tended for so long that he knew the grounds better than their owners ever could have done, was only a shadow to Stefanov’s father. Only the portents it contained were real, and deciphering them was his father’s only defence against the terrible randomness of life and death which he witnessed in the world around him.
The young Stefanov had already learned to see with different eyes. For him, sometimes thunder was just thunder, the wind only the wind, and the body of a bird no more than the trophy of a cat.
‘Summoned him from where?’ demanded Stefanov, in a tone that almost taunted the old man, knowing full well that such a challenge might cause his father’s patience to snap yet again, and that he would then be hauled from the fence and dragged behind the compost heap for punishment. But Stefanov was past caring about the half-hearted drubbings his father administered, slapping the young boy as if trying to beat the dust out of a carpet.
‘I’ll tell you where he came from.’ The father raised his hand‚ jabbing a dirt-rimmed fingernail towards the Catherine Palace. ‘From there. From that room!’
Stefanov gazed in bewilderment at the hundreds of windows, each one of which blankly returned his stare, hiding the dozens of rooms which lay behind them.
Sensing his son’s confusion, the father continued. ‘The room whose walls are made of fire.’
Stefanov had never heard of such a room, nor did he believe that one existed. It belonged, he felt sure, in that world of half-realities with which his father made sense of the universe. His father had never set foot inside the Catherine or Alexander Palaces. For a groundskeeper, their polished marble floors lay beyond the dimensions of his work. The closest he, or Stefanov, had ever come was the back door of the Alexander Palace kitchen, where he collected the midday meal to which he was entitled.
Suddenly Pekkala stopped in his tracks. The only movement was a wisp of dust, which swirled around his polished boots.
‘He’s turning around!’ hissed the father. ‘He’s coming back!’
Stefanov and his father scuttled back behind the hedge and waited. Stefanov placed his hand over his chest, as if to muffle the sound of his heart.
The dark figure passed by, half hidden by the bushes, but only an arm’s length away.
At that instant, Stefanov heard a voice which seemed to come from inside his own head.
‘Good day,’ said Inspector Pekkala.
And then he was gone.
At his first glance of Pekkala, Stefanov had wondered if, perhaps, there was nothing so magical about the great inspector as an extraordinary man doing his best to lead an ordinary life, out for a stroll at the end of a hard day’s work. But now that Pekkala had spoken, Stefanov wasn’t so sure. There was something about the Emerald Eye which did not seem fastened to the world of flesh and bone.
As the memory evaporated from his mind, Stefanov found himself once again in the filthy cocoon of his foxhole. Realising that the toy soldier was still in his hand, Stefanov stood the tiny warrior upright in the dirt, then settled back, arms folded across his chest, and studied the figure, as if, at any moment, he might march away to battles of his own.
The door to Pekkala’s office burst open
The door to Pekkala’s office burst open.
Pekkala was stooped over his desk studying a sketch he had made of the red moth painting before Kirov had taken it away to have the canvas X-rayed‚ along with the icon‚ which he planned to return to the museum. At first, Pekkala thought the major had returned, hopefully with news not only of the painting’s significance but also, perhaps, on the whereabouts of Polina Churikova. But his eyes narrowed with hostility when he saw who’d just stormed in.
It was a tall man with a black moustache and a pale, sweating forehead, who was dressed in the uniform of a high-ranking government official.
‘Bakhturin,’ muttered Pekkala.
‘People’s Commissar of the State Railways Bakhturin!’ He shook his fist at Pekkala. ‘Put some respect into your voice!’
‘I am not required to respect you,’ replied Pekkala, ‘and even if I was, I doubt you would find me convincing. Have you come about my visit to Semykin?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes, and to ask what you thought you were doing, speaking with a man whose sentence requires him to be kept in solitary confinement for the duration of his time in Lubyanka. That means no visitors. Not even you, Inspector!’
‘I was sorry to hear that the Wyspia
nski painting turned out to be a fake.’
‘Not a fake!’ snapped Bakhturin. ‘It was done in the style of Wyspianski, that is all.’
‘And was Wyspianski’s signature also done in the style of Wyspianski?’ asked Pekkala.
Bakhturin made a faint choking sound. ‘I spent a great deal of time and energy bringing that painting back from Poland and I brought it to Semykin because I’d heard he was the most reputable art dealer in Moscow. Is that so hard for you to understand?’
‘No,’ replied Pekkala, ‘but why is it so difficult for you to comprehend, Comrade Bakhturin, that the reason Semykin has such a good reputation is because he does not engage in the sale of paintings which are not authentic?’
Bakhturin began to pace back and forth, like a cat locked in a cage. ‘He could have kept his mouth shut. Instead of that, he practically announced in public that I was trying to cheat Minister Osipov.’
‘You mean you weren’t?’
‘I’m the one who was cheated! I didn’t know the painting wasn’t right.’
‘And when Semykin explained that to you . . .’
‘By then it was too late! I had already borrowed money to pay for a dacha north of the city. I had to forfeit the contract. I lost a great deal of money thanks to that pompous art dealer.’
‘So you put him in prison.’
‘I could have done worse!’ bellowed Bakhturin. Then he paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, a sinister calm had entered his voice. ‘I did not come here to explain myself to you, Pekkala, only to advise you to keep your distance from Semykin. Remember what you saw in that prison cell today.’
Pekkala would never forget. More than the blood-dappled walls, or the ragged stumps of Semykin’s fingertips, or the choking sensation of confinement in that cell, it had been the look in Semykin’s eyes which bore witness to the full measure of Bakhturin’s cruelty. But Bakhturin had been wrong when he’d said that he could have done worse. For a man like Semykin, accustomed to spending his days surrounded by art, five years staring at the blank walls of a prison cell was worse than the deaths which Bakhturin’s other victims had suffered.
On his way out of the office, Bakhturin turned and aimed a finger at Pekkala. ‘You know what it means to be shut away in Lubyanka and you know it can happen to anyone. Anyone at all, Inspector.’
Pekkala managed to contain his irritation until Bakhturin had descended to the bottom of the stairs, before muttering a seemingly endless string of Finnish obscenities.
It was after dark
It was after dark when Kirov returned to the office.
By then, Pekkala had been staring at the drawing for so long that when he closed his eyes, the outline of the moth’s wings remained imprinted on his sight as if he had been staring at the sun. Blearily, he focused on the major. ‘Any luck?’
Kirov removed his gun belt and hung it on the coat hook by the door. ‘NVKD believes that the painting may have been delivered to the German Embassy in Stockholm in a diplomatic pouch originating from the Swedish consulate in Turkey. Given its size the painting could easily have been smuggled through our borders. Agents of ours at the German Embassy in Stockholm report that something roughly the size of the painting arrived by diplomatic pouch about a week before the plane went down over our lines, although they were not able to view the contents and did not realise at the time that it was of any significance, since diplomatic pouches arrive there every day from all over the world.’
‘But what about the painting itself?’ asked Pekkala. ‘Have you determined whether anything was concealed inside the frame?’
‘I had the painting X-rayed at the Moscow Central Hospital, but there was nothing in the frame except the wood used to construct it. Then I brought it over to the School of Agriculture and exposed the canvas to the ultraviolet lights they use on some of their tropical plants.’
‘Nothing there either?’
Kirov shook his head. ‘It’s just a painting, Inspector, and if Comrade Stalin himself called right now and asked me what I thought, I’d tell him we were wasting our time.’
Pekkala took the sketch he had made and held it up to the light. For a moment, in the glow of the bulb through the paper, it looked as if the moth had come to life. ‘One thing I’ve learned about Stalin,’ he said, ‘is that his instincts are usually right, even if he doesn’t know why. Our job is to give him the answer, which, in this case,’ he crumpled up the sheet and threw it into the corner of the room, ‘may turn out to be impossible.’
‘Especially without the help of Polina Churikova.’
‘You couldn’t find her?’
‘NKVD are searching now,’ Kirov replied. ‘If anyone can locate her . . .’
At that moment, the phone rang. The loud clattering of the bell startled both men.
Kirov picked up the receiver. ‘Yes, this is Major Kirov. You have?’ There was a long pause as he listened to the voice at the other end. ‘Where? When? I see. Never mind, then.’ He replaced the receiver in its cradle.
‘More bad news?’
‘I’m afraid so, Inspector. One hour ago, Lieutenant Polina Churikova boarded a train at the Ostankinsky District railyard, bound for the front, along with the rest of her signals battalion. We’ll never catch up with her now.’
‘You say she has boarded the train?’
‘That’s what they just told me, yes.’
‘But did they tell you that the train has actually departed?’
‘Well, no, but . . .’
‘It takes them forever to load those transports,’ interrupted Pekkala. ‘Call the Ostankinsky station. Tell them who we’re looking for and order them to hold the train until we have arrived.’
For a moment, Kirov remained frozen, as if still searching for the words to reason with Pekkala.
‘Now!’ shouted Pekkala. ‘And as soon as you’ve done that, get down to the car as quickly as you can!’
The sound of Pekkala’s voice jolted Kirov into action. He snatched up the phone and dialled for the operator.
Pekkala, meanwhile, grabbed the keys for the Emka and tramped down the stairs. Before he disappeared into the street, one final command echoed up the battered staircase. ‘And bring that blasted painting with you!’
The Emka skidded
The Emka skidded into the Ostankinsky railyard just as the last carriage of the troop transport clattered away into the dark.
‘Damn!’ Kirov mashed his fist on the steering wheel.
‘Did you call them?’ asked Pekkala.
‘Of course I did, Inspector. I spoke to the stationmaster. He asked who I was looking for and I told him. Then I asked him to delay the departure of the train.’
‘And what did he reply?’
‘That he’d do the best he could.’
Both men fell silent as they watched the red light of the caboose growing smaller and smaller until finally it vanished in the black.
Kirov cut the engine.
Then they both climbed out and looked around the deserted platform, on which the only trace of the hundreds of soldiers who had crowded on to the wagons just a few minutes before were a few cigarette butts, smouldering on the concrete. The light of an oil lamp flickered in the station house – a long, squat building fashioned out of heavy logs and roofed with tar-paper shingles.
‘Maybe we can find out where the train’s next stop is going to be,’ Pekkala wondered aloud. ‘Perhaps we can get there before it arrives.’
‘The movement of military trains is classified,’ Kirov reminded him, ‘even for NKVD. By the time we’ve pulled enough strings to find out, the train will be at the front. We might as well face the fact, Inspector. We’ve lost her. But perhaps we can still get by without her help.’
Wind rustled through the pine trees on the far side of the tracks.
At that moment, the door to the station house burst open and a soldier strode out on to the muddy railyard. Bundled in a greatcoat against the chill of the night, the figure advanced upon t
he two men.
Only when the soldier had come to a stop in front of them did Pekkala notice it was a woman. She was tall, with long hair which stuck out from under her brimless pilotka cap, but more than this Pekkala could not tell, as her face remained cloaked in the shadows.
‘The stationmaster ordered me off the train,’ she growled, ‘and told me to wait here for someone named Kirov.’
‘That would be me,’ admitted the Major.
‘Well, there had better be a good reason for this!’ She pointed down the tracks. ‘My whole battalion’s just departed for the front. I have a job to do. I am needed where they’re going. And I didn’t even have time to get my rucksack off the train!’
‘You are needed here as well,’ Kirov informed her, ‘by the Bureau of Special Operations.’
‘Special Operations! You men are NKVD?’ The indignation vanished from her voice.
‘I am‚’ said Major Kirov.
‘What do you want with me?’ she asked‚ suddenly sounding afraid.
It was Pekkala who explained. ‘We have come into possession of a painting, which we believe might be significant. Valery Semykin advised us to ask your opinion about it.’
‘Valery Semykin is in prison.’
‘That is where we found him,’ confirmed Pekkala, ‘and he sends you his regards.’
‘Well, if Valery couldn’t tell you whether it’s important, believe me, nobody can.’
‘The importance might not lie in its artistic value,’ Pekkala told her. ‘That’s why he said you might help us.’
‘Now you are speaking in riddles.’
‘It is a riddle we are asking you to solve.’
‘We have the painting here.’ Kirov lifted the briefcase. ‘If you could just take a look at it and tell us what you think.’
‘I might as well.’ She nodded at the empty tracks. ‘It looks as if I’m not going anywhere for a while.’
They walked to the station house and stepped inside, stamping the mud from their boots on a rough hemp mat spread out on the floor of the little room which served as a conduit between the interior of the station house and the outside air. Both ends of this narrow passageway were blocked off by a door. During the winter, patrons would make sure that one of the doors was kept closed while the other was open, in order to keep out the cold. Now, since it was summer, the windows had been opened and the inner door was propped wide by an old army boot. Even with the added ventilation, the air was still thick and stale and smelled bitterly of Russian army tobacco.
