by Sam Eastland
Finally, the young Stefanov arrived beneath the large double windows of the Amber Room, the bases of which stood about twice the height of a man above the level of the ground. Sweat pasted his shirt to his back. His head was reeling in the still, close heat of that July afternoon. He set up the ladder, careful to position it in such a way that he would, if he looked up from his cutting, be able to see directly into the room.
Slowly, Stefanov climbed the ladder and began his work, blinking sweat from his eyes as he snipped away at those individual branches of the hedge which had dared to grow beyond the level of the rest. The noise of the shears filled his brain, its sound like a clashing of daggers. At first he did not dare look up, petrified that someone might be watching.
Finally, Stefanov judged that the moment was right. At this point, he still had his back to the window. Glancing from beneath the brim of his cap, he scanned the grounds, in case anyone else might be watching. He had been planning this moment for so long that his mind had begun to play tricks on him. The act of simply peering into the room had, in Stefanov’s mind, taken on the magnitude of a great crime, the punishment for which lay beyond his comprehension.
The grounds were empty. Anyone with any sense was sleeping in the shade. Heat haze weaved and shimmered off the crushed stone of the riding path, as if ghostly horses were galloping by.
He began to turn, his movements practised and precise. The great glass panes slid into view. At first all he could see was his own reflection: a damp, dishevelled figure, unrecognisable even to himself. Slowly, however, like someone staring at the ripples on a pond, his eyes began to make out the interior of the room. He saw a desk, a chair, and a table on which he could make out the figures of a chess set. The walls looked dirty and mottled, as if they were covered with a layer of soot. He bared his teeth in concentration, leaning towards the glass until his breath condensed upon its surface. Now he began to see the colours. The walls took on a deep brownish-orange tint, and he could not escape from the notion that they were, in fact, on fire, and that his father had been right all along. Now the colour changed, both lightening and deepening at the same time. The whole room appeared to be losing its shape, expanding into that strange and parallel dimension, of which his father had always been aware. The amber seemed to shudder, as if the light of the sun which streamed into the room had brought the ancient sap to life.
In that moment, Stefanov finally grasped why the delicate amber was so valuable, and it did not surprise him that the Romanovs had learned to covet the substance whose origins were still a mystery to him. In fact, it seemed the perfect treasure for the Tsar and his family. Everything about the Romanovs had always seemed to Stefanov to exist in a separate dimension, whose glittering fragility could not endure the crude and rough-hewn world in which he lived.
Suddenly, a figure materialised inside the room. It advanced upon him, drifting across the floor, seemingly enveloped in white smoke. Another angel, his heat-dimmed mind announced, seeking vengeance for my crimes.
His legs began to shake. His left knee buckled. He did not fall exactly. It was more like a slow, clumsy, painfully controlled descent, bumping down the rungs on elbows, knees and chin until he came to rest upon the ground. High above him, the handles of the shears poked like the ears of a wooden rabbit from the top of the hedge.
There was a rattling noise and the double windows swung open. He saw two arms, swathed in the thin fabric of a white summer dress, and then a face. He gasped. It was the Princess Olga. Or was she a Grand Duchess? Suddenly, he could not remember. All of the Tsar’s daughters looked somewhat similar to him. They usually wore the same clothes and had more or less the same hairstyles. There was little to tell them apart, as far as Stefanov was concerned, but Olga’s face had always seemed to him the most distinctive. Her almond-shaped eyes and the steadiness of her gaze would have made her appearance too severe if it weren’t for the fullness of her lips. He had fallen in and out of love with her several times already.
She stared down at him, her expression a mixture of amusement and concern. ‘Are you hurt?’ she asked.
Stefanov knew that the correct response when in the presence of a Romanov was to take off his cap and hold it in his hand and to look at the ground before answering any question. But his cap had fallen off and it seemed foolish to be staring at the earth when he was already lying upon it. So he stared at Olga, eyes wide in awe and fear. ‘I’m not hurt,’ he finally managed to say.
‘What is your name?’ asked the Princess.
‘Stefanov. I am the son of the head gardener, Agripin Dobrushinovich Stefanov.’
‘Well, Stefanov, son of the head gardener, you should be more careful in future.’ She smiled at him, then closed the windows and from somewhere in the room came the sound of men and women laughing.
Too ashamed to feel his pain, Stefanov retrieved the shears, found his cap and, with sweat stinging in his eyes, carried the ladder back to the work shed, where the implements for gardening were stored.
Along the way, Stefanov pondered the repercussions he felt sure would follow soon. No doubt, he thought, the Princess would not hesitate to tell the story of him lying there in the dirt, and fumbling with his words as he identified himself. The Tsar himself would hear of it. Or worse. The Tsarina. Perhaps they already knew. Maybe it was their laughter he had heard after Olga closed the window. But now what? Would they punish him? Would they punish his father? And what would the punishment be? Would the Emerald Eye be summoned?
For days, Stefanov lived in terror of the moment when Pekkala himself would come knocking on the door to his family’s cottage.
But it never happened. Gradually Stefanov transformed from being certain of disaster to being only reasonably sure and from there he went to suspecting and finally, at the end of this strange journey, he arrived at a state of relieved confusion where he had been, more or less, ever since.
He would see the Princess Olga only once again, on a bitterly cold night in March of 1917.
Petrograd had fallen to the revolutionaries. Rumours reached Tsarskoye Selo that an 8‚000-strong mob of soldiers, deserters from the army, was heading towards the estate with the intention of destroying the palaces and murdering anyone inside them.
With the Tsar still en route by train from the military headquarters at Mogilev, the Tsarina Alexandra summoned all troops still loyal to the Romanovs, including the Garde Equipage, the military escort of the royal yacht, to take up defensive positions around the Alexander Palace, which was the residence of the Tsar and his family when they were staying at Tsarskoye Selo. In all, these soldiers numbered some 1,500 men, including Stefanov’s father, who had brought along his son to offer their assistance.
Confronted with the old gardener and his son, who was too awestruck by the ranks of uniforms and bayonet-fixed rifles even to speak, the soldiers turned them away. Hearing this, Stefanov’s father threw himself at the mercy of the troops, pointing out to them that he had nowhere else to go and stood little chance of survival if thousands of armed hooligans came swarming across the estate.
After a brief consultation among the officers, Stefanov and his son were allowed to remain, provided they kept out of the way.
All day, with fingers on the triggers of their guns, the loyal soldiers waited for the revolutionaries to arrive. But the mob never materialised and, by that evening, the nerves of the men were frayed almost to breaking point.
Throughout that night, the soldiers kept their watch.
Although several of the Tsar’s daughters had come down with measles, the Tsarina emerged several times from the Palace, drifting through the courtyard in her black fur cloak and pleading with the soldiers to remain vigilant. No fires were lit, in order to deny the enemy the advantage of illumination.
It was on one of these visits that the Tsarina, accompanied by her daughter Olga, chanced upon Stefanov and his father, who were sitting on the steps with only a piece of cardboard to insulate them from the stone. They were, by then, so f
rozen, that it was only with difficulty that the old man and his son were able to get to their feet.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Olga, having recognised the gardener’s son. In spite of the cold, her face was glistening with sweat brought on by sickness.
‘Who is this?’ demanded the Tsarina‚ before either of them could reply. Her face, framed by the fur of her hooded cloak, looked pale and haggard.
It was Olga who answered for them. ‘It’s the gardener, Agripin, and his boy.’ In spite of her illness, Olga smiled at Stefanov.
‘And what are you doing here?’ the Tsarina asked. Her voice sounded harsh and impatient.
‘Majesty,’ explained Agripin, ‘we came to help.’
The Tsarina’s tone changed suddenly. ‘But the soldiers are here. Your duties do not lie with them. There is nothing you can do.’
Agripin drew himself up to his full height, which was not considerable. ‘There would be if I had a gun,’ he said.
Overhearing this comment, some of the soldiers began to laugh.
‘Perhaps you would do better with a shovel,’ said one.
‘Or a rake!’ added another.
Seeing his father mocked by the soldiers, the young Stefanov felt ashamed. Helplessly, he looked down at his feet.
Agripin glared at the soldiers. Then he faced the Tsarina again. ‘Majesty,’ he said solemnly, ‘I would rather help you now than spend the rest of my life knowing that I could have and didn’t.’
For a moment, the Tsarina said nothing. Then she turned to the soldiers. ‘Get this man a rifle,’ she commanded.
Two weeks later, on the orders of the Tsar himself, Stefanov and his father loaded their belongings on to a cart and left the grounds of the estate‚ bound for the home of a relative. But they did not stay long. In the years that followed, Agripin and his son made their way from town to town, working in fields, repairing walls, doing any job that would guarantee a meal and a roof over their heads. Fearing reprisals from the revolutionary committees that maintained a choke-hold on every village in Russia, Agripin never mentioned his years of service to the Tsar and, likewise, his son remained silent.
Now, deep within the deserted hallways of the Catherine Palace, Ragozin shoved Stefanov out of the way, opened the door, and the three men piled into the room.
Ragozin turned on his torch. The weak light played across a high ceiling and smooth, bare walls which were the same pale blue green as a duck’s egg.
‘But this is the Amber Room!’ gasped Stefanov.
‘You must have it wrong,’ whispered Barkat. His footsteps echoed in the empty space
‘This is the Amber Room‚’ insisted Stefanov. ‘I’m sure of it.’
‘Maybe it was‚’ quipped Ragozin. ‘But it isn’t any more.’
Then, from the main entrance, they heard a voice call out, ‘Who’s there?’
‘That’s Commissar Sirko!’ Barkat hissed. ‘If he catches us in here . . .’
The three men panicked. They ran to the window, opened it and jumped down into the garden. It was a hefty drop, but their falls were broken by the same ornamental hedge which Stefanov had trimmed that summer day, already lifetimes ago.
‘Is anyone there?’ Sirko called out.
Stefanov, Ragozin and Barkat sprinted across the Alexander Park, their long shadows, lapis blue in moonlight, pursuing them across the grounds. By the time they reached their gun emplacement, all three were out of breath. Looking back, they saw the blade of a torch splashing across the empty walls of the Portrait Hall, as Commissar Sirko continued his hunt for intruders.
Their moment of relief was cut short by a grinding, squeaking, metallic sound, like that of a huge machine whose moving parts required oil, which reached them on the night breeze from somewhere to the west.
‘Tanks,’ said Barkat.
‘Can you tell if it’s ours or theirs?’ asked Stefanov.
It was Ragozin who replied. ‘Whoever they belong to, they’re headed straight towards us.’
While Pekkala reported
While Pekkala made his report about the map to Stalin, Kirov and Churikova waited in the outer office.
‘You should have told me we were coming here!’ she whispered urgently to Kirov.
‘Would it have made any difference if I had?’
‘Perhaps she would have told you no,’ remarked Poskrebychev‚ ‘as perhaps she already has.’ He had not only been eavesdropping on their conversation but had also been listening to them in the next room via the intercom that connected the inner and outer offices.
Kirov shot him a hostile glance. ‘You are an irritating little man, Poskrebychev.’
‘And you are not the first to tell me so.’
Behind the closed doors, Stalin sat in his red leather chair, a cigarette wedged between his fingers. Several piles of paperwork had been swept aside to make room for the canvas, which Stalin examined carefully as Pekkala, standing on the other side of the desk, explained where the maps lay buried in the picture. ‘Remarkable,’ muttered Stalin. Not taking his eyes from the picture, he fitted the cigarette between his lips. The tip glowed red, crackling faintly and Stalin drew the smoke into his lungs. ‘Devious. Diabolical!’
‘It may be all those things,’ Pekkala told him, ‘but it is also useless now, as Lieutenant Churikova will explain to you.’ Pekkala gestured towards the door. ‘If you will permit me to bring her in.’
‘Before you bring in this expert, tell me what you think. Have we deciphered the full meaning of the map or haven’t we?’
‘Not all of my questions have been answered,’ admitted Pekkala, ‘such as who made it and who was its intended recipient‚ but I do think the map no longer serves the purpose for which it was intended. As you will recall from the broadcast on State Radio, the amber itself has been moved to a safe location in the Ural mountains, along with all the other treasures in the palace . . .’
‘Ah.’ Stalin leaned back in his chair, stroking his moustache with tobacco-yellowed fingertips. ‘Then we may have a problem, after all.’
‘What kind of problem, Comrade Stalin?’
‘The removal of those treasures was not carried out as efficiently as the news broadcast implied.’
‘You mean they didn’t move the art works?’
‘Oh, they moved some of them.’ Stalin brushed his hand casually through the air, ‘but there were too many objects and too little time. The curators ran out of packing materials. In the end, they resorted to using the Tsar’s collection of luggage, which was itself extremely valuable, for transporting things out of Pushkin. Huge statues had to be protected. They couldn’t be moved, so engineers blasted craters in the palace ground and buried them. It was a monumental task, but, in the end, dozens of paintings, priceless vases and entire rooms of furniture were left behind.’
‘But what about the Amber Room, Comrade Stalin? Surely that would have been a top priority.’
‘Indeed it was. The panels were to have been included in the first transport and, if everything had gone according to plan, they would, by now, be safe from the clutches of the Fascists. But when the curators attempted to remove the panels from the walls, they turned out to be too fragile. The curators quickly realised that the amber would never have survived the journey to Siberia.’
‘So what did they do instead?’ asked Pekkala.
‘The curators decided that their only option was to leave the panels where they were, but to conceal them beneath layers of muslin cloth, which were then papered over in order to give the impression that the space had been transformed into an ordinary room.’
Pekkala tried to imagine the amber muffled behind wallpaper, but in his mind its honeyed light kept burning through, as if the whole palace was blazing.
‘Afterwards,’ continued Stalin, ‘I approved an announcement on our national radio that the amber had been transported far from the palace. We knew that the Germans would be listening to the broadcast, and gambled that they might believe what they were hea
ring, especially when all they found was ordinary paper on the walls. Adding to the illusion, I also declared the Amber Room to be an irreplaceable State treasure, banking on the fact that the Germans would never believe I would do such a thing unless I knew the amber was safely out of their reach. If the gamble paid off, and the Amber Room was not discovered, then it would, in fact, be safer in its original location than if we were to try to move it the entire length of Russia.’
‘So whoever made that painting,’ said Pekkala, ‘must have known that the radio reports were false. They were trying to warn the Germans that the amber was still at the Palace. It’s fortunate that we intercepted the map before it could be delivered.’
Viciously, Stalin stubbed out his cigarette in the already overflowing ashtray on his desk. ‘But it still means we have traitors among us!’
Their conversation was interrupted by loud voices coming from the outer office. A moment later, the door burst open and Churikova stepped into the room.
Close behind her was Poskrebychev. ‘Comrade Stalin, I apologise! I tried to stop her!’
Stalin fixed his eyes on the woman. ‘You must be the expert‚’ he said.
‘Comrade Stalin,’ Pekkala announced, ‘this is Lieutenant Churikova of the Army’s Cryptographic Section. She has assisted us in this investigation.’
‘Ostubafengel,’ Churikova blurted out. ‘I’ve just figured out what it means!’
Stalin glanced towards Pekkala. ‘What is she talking about?’
‘The word on the back of the canvas. Ostubafengel.’
Frowning, Stalin picked up the painting, flipped it over and squinted at the letters. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘It represents a name,’ explained Churikova. ‘The person to whom it was supposed to be delivered is called Engel.’
