by Sam Eastland
This time, Kirov did not reply.
‘I didn’t think so,’ said Serge. ‘It’s me or nothing, and I don’t think you have the kind of luck to make that shot. You would need luck like mine‚ and you don’t have that kind of luck.’
‘You’re right,’ said Kirov. ‘I don’t have luck like yours.’
‘I knew you would come to your senses.’ Serge took one step towards the door, still holding the girl in front of him.
As Serge’s right leg moved forward, Kirov lowered the Tokarev and shot him through the knee cap. Serge cried out, releasing his grip upon the girl. He tumbled to the floor, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Before Serge had even hit the ground, Kirov sent another bullet through the bridge of his nose, killing him instantly.
The sound of the shots was deafening in the confined space of the room.
Bakhturin lay on his back, one leg twisted under him. Smoke slithered from his wounds, rising to the ceiling where they mushroomed out across the stuccoed paint.
The girl hadn’t moved.
For a moment, she and Kirov just stared at each other.
Then, with trembling fingers, she began to fasten the buttons on her blood-spattered night dress.
Under the jaundiced eye
Under the jaundiced eye of a harvest moon, Pekkala, Stefanov and Churikova made their way through fields of uncut wheat and orchards where the fruit lay rotting on the ground.
Stefanov took the lead, retracing his route as well as he could remember. One path, in particular, which was nothing more than a cart track running between the fields, he remembered as having been empty when he walked it. He kept them on this trail, which proved to be just as deserted now as it had been before.
Although they heard the rumble of vehicles in the distance, they encountered neither trucks nor soldiers. The fighting had moved like a tornado across the countryside, leaving some places in ruins and the rest of the landscape untouched.
In the middle of the night‚ they arrived at the burnt remains of a house. Smoke slithered through the maze of fallen beams and clumps of charred thatch wheezed and crackled. Behind the house, they found the bodies of an old man and an old woman, hanging from the branches of a tree, their feet almost touching the ground.
Churikova reached out and set her hand against the dead man’s chest, as if to feel the beating of his heart. When she drew her hand away, the corpse rocked gently on the hemp rope noose, like a pendulum spent of its energy.
From a scabbard tucked into his boot, Stefanov pulled a knife and slashed through the ropes with one cut. The bodies fell heavily, one on top of the other, broken necks lolling grotesquely.
Pekkala and the others returned to the road and kept on marching. Not a word had passed between them since they came upon the house.
At dawn, they reached the point where their trail intersected with the main road leading into Tsarskoye Selo. Here, they discovered why the enemy had left them in peace during the night. An old wooden bridge, no more than ten paces long, had been built above a stream that crossed the trail. A German Army truck had tried to cross it, but the supports had collapsed under the weight, sending the truck crashing into the ditch and barring the way for other vehicles.
‘Raise your hands,’ Pekkala told Churikova. ‘You need to start looking like a prisoner. From now on, you must walk in front. Keep your hands above your head and your eyes on the ground. Don’t make eye contact with anyone. Don’t speak, no matter what they say to you.’
Without a word, Churikova raised her arms, pale fingers uncurling, and clutched her hands together at the back of her neck.
They crossed by wading through the shallow stream, whose muddy banks glowed with yellow dandelions, purple vetch and black-eyed Susans. As they set out towards Tsarskoye Selo, they soon found themselves among convoys of trucks, armoured cars, motorcycles, which filled the air with diesel fumes and dust. The occasional group of soldiers passed them, travelling on foot, but always in the opposite direction. There were also a number of captured Red Army gun carriages, all of them weighed down with troops and equipment, pulled along by stocky little Russian Kabardin horses.
Pekkala felt a knot in his throat as he watched the carriages go by, knowing that those Kabardins would go on until they collapsed and died in their traces. From the way the drivers whipped the backs of the horses, this seemed to be exactly their intention.
Pekkala lost count of the number of trucks driving past them. Several cigarette butts were flicked in their direction from soldiers in the backs of these vehicles, but most seemed aimed at Pekkala and Stefanov, in their military police uniforms, rather than at their prisoner. Once the trucks had passed, Stefanov snatched up the cigarettes and puffed greedily at the last shreds of tobacco they contained.
A convoy of Mark IV Panzer tanks rolled by, shaking the ground as it passed and filling the air with the monstrous clattering of tracks. At the head of the column rode a small staff car of the type known as a Kübelwagen.
With a squeal of brakes, it pulled to the side of the road.
Pekkala and the others came to an abrupt halt.
Meanwhile, the tanks continued to roll past, spewing black clouds of diesel fumes from their vertical exhaust pipes.
Very slowly, Stefanov adjusted his grip on the sub-machine gun strap, ready to swing it off his shoulder if needed.
A man in the wide-lapelled black tunic of a panzer officer leaned out of the Kübelwagen. Silver braid glinted above the pink piping on his shoulder boards. He shouted something at Pekkala, who was walking at the front of the line, but his voice was drowned out by the thunder of the tanks’ engines.
The officer tried again, smiling and gesturing at Churikova.
Pekkala pointed at the half-moon-shaped military police gorget which hung around his neck, then pointed back at Churikova.
The officer spoke again, struggling to make himself heard.
Pekkala shrugged and shook his head.
At last, the officer gave up, flipping the air with his hand in a gesture of frustration. A moment later, the Kübelwagen was gone. It raced along beside the tanks, bumper swishing through the tall grass at the side of the road, until it reached the head of the line, then swerved in front of the first Panzer to resume its place in the lead.
After that, while their small procession continued to draw a few stares, nobody stopped to question them. As Pekkala stared at this seemingly endless procession of men and machines, he was struck by an overwhelming sense of momentum. He had the impression that nothing could stop it, not even the architects of this war, who had set everything in motion.
By the time they reached the Orlov gates at the entrance to Tsarskoye Selo, the three of them were so coated with faded yellow dust that they looked as if they had been rolled in turmeric.
The gates themselves had been torn off their hinges and cast aside, as if by an angry giant. Beside the bullet-spattered stonework, into which the gates had once been anchored, lay a heap of empty brass cartridges where a machine gun had run through a box of ammunition. The brass cartridges were spattered with congealed arterial blood, still bright as carnival paint, and nearby lay the grey cotton wrappers of Russian army bandages.
Entering the grounds of the estate, they walked along the deserted Rampovaya Road. Sidestepping blast craters from the fighting, they came across the shattered body of a Russian soldier, dead for several days, lying face down in the undergrowth, his bloated hands white-gloved with maggots.
They had now been marching for more than ten hours and stopped to rest near the old concert hall. A shell burst had split one of its four columns in half, like a tree struck by lightning, and chunks of white marble lay strewn across the ground.
Through the sweat in Stefanov’s eyes, memories shimmered like mirages. He saw himself one late spring afternoon, the air heavy with the smell of lilac and honeysuckle, heading home from school along the path which ran beside this concert hall. From somewhere behind its candle-lit windows came th
e sound of children’s voices as they practised for the concert given each year to the Tsar and his family when they arrived in June to take up residence in the summer palace. And there he was again, in summer now, trudging along beneath the turquoise banners of the evening sky and returning to his father’s workshop with the ladder he had used to catch his first and only glimpse inside the Amber Room.
Even though Stefanov knew these memories belonged to him, so much had happened since then that they seemed to have come from someone else’s life, a hundred or a thousand years before.
Although Pekkala, too, had often passed this way, he was in too much pain to lose himself in memories. His heels had been rubbed raw in the ill-fitting boots. He was afraid to take them off, in case the damage was even worse than it felt, and he might be unable to get his boots back on.
Noticing the pain, which had creased itself into the Inspector’s face, Stefanov produced a lump of soap from his pocket. He had spotted it in the kitchen of the farmhouse where they changed their clothes and immediately pocketed it. Before the war, he had not been a thief. But now he pilfered everything he could lay his hands on, whether it was a piece of electrical wiring which had been used to bind a cracked gravestone in the cemetery at Chertova, or the stub of a pencil he found on the floor of the truck which brought them to the front, or a lump of soap from that farmhouse. He had become like a magpie, hoarding any unattended scrap, convinced that it might come in handy somewhere down the road. And usually he was right.
‘Rub this on your feet,’ said Stefanov, as he handed the lump of soap to Pekkala. ‘It will help.’
Pekkala tugged off the knee-length boots. His grey wool socks were stained with blood. Wincing‚ he peeled them off. As Pekkala rubbed the soap into the wounds, he squinted through a screen of trees towards the Catherine Palace greenhouse, which had been known as the Orangerie, due to the fact that the Tsar had once grown tangerines beneath its glass-paned roof. Although the greenhouse had been completely destroyed, peach-coloured roses, purple and pink lupins, fire-orange birds of paradise continued to grow among the wreckage.
To his right, across the manicured garden, stood the palace itself. Familiar as Pekkala was with the building, the sight of it still took his breath away. As long as a city block, at first glance its blue and white façade seemed to be made up almost entirely of windows, some twice as tall as a man, opening on to balconies fenced in by ornate black railings. Much of the glass was broken now. Shards, like giant shark fins, lined the empty frames.
To Pekkala, it no longer looked like the residence of the Tsar. Instead, the building resembled a fortress after a long and bloody siege, its front lawn now a parking lot for armoured cars, Kübelwagens, Panzers and muddy, dented Opel Blitz trucks.
Churikova sat against the splintered column, blue eyes glowing in her wind-burned face. ‘Do you really intend to destroy the Amber Room?’ she asked Pekkala.
Pekkala had been staring at the ground, but now he raised his head and looked at Churikova. ‘I hope it will not come to that.’
‘But what if it does?’ she persisted. ‘I overheard that officer explaining how to use the detonators. I understand enough about explosives to know that you have enough in that canister to obliterate the room and half of the palace as well.’
‘With luck—’ he began.
Churikova cut him off. ‘I am not talking about luck. I am talking about what you will do if the Germans attempt to relocate the amber back into their own country? Will you go through with it? Will you carry out your orders?’
Pekkala looked towards the Catherine Palace, where German officers in finely tailored uniforms stood on the balconies, some with the red lapels of generals, looking out over the grounds. ‘We will know that soon enough,’ he said. And then he explained to them the plan which had been brewing in his head ever since they set out from the Russian lines. ‘We must set a trap for Engel, but first we have to wait for him to arrive. That might be in hours or it might be in days. There’s no way of knowing‚ so we’ll take it in shifts to keep the palace under observation. The first thing he’ll come looking for when he arrives at the estate is the Amber Room. That is where we’ll intercept the professor. The difficulty will be in isolating Engel from those around him, so we can make the arrest and bring him back with us. For that, I’ll need both of you to help me.’
‘What do you want us to do?’ demanded Churikova.
‘You and I will enter the Palace and either contact Engel directly or else send word to him that a Russian deserter has provided us with information about art works hidden on the grounds of the estate. That, and the fact that Engel will almost certainly remember meeting you here before the war, should be enough to lure him out of the palace.’
‘What should I do, Inspector?’ Stefanov asked.
‘Do you know the old Pensioners’ Stable, at the north-east corner of the estate?’
‘Of course.’
‘Beside it, just off the path, is a small cottage.’
‘I know it well,’ said Stefanov. ‘That is where you used to live.’
Pekkala nodded. ‘That is where Churikova will tell him the art works have been stored. Wait for us there.’
‘What if there’s already someone in the cottage?’
‘Tell them to get out or‚ if you don’t know the words‚ just jerk your thumb at the door. They won’t stop to question a military policeman.’
Pekkala had opened his mouth, ready to ask if they had any questions, when suddenly Churikova sat forward, as if the ground had moved beneath her feet.
‘There he is,’ she whispered.
Kirov stood at attention
Kirov stood at attention, his eyes fixed on the wall.
Stalin sat in his red leather chair. On the desk in front of him lay a stack of police photographs which had been taken at the brothel after the shooting. One was of Serge Bakhturin’s corpse, lying beside the unmade bed. The man’s face, crumpled by the bullet which had killed him, resembled an old mask made of papier mâché. Another picture showed Bakhturin’s leg, pale and welded to the floor with blood, the limb cut nearly in half by the bullet that had shattered his knee.
There were shots of the room, in which shadows seemed to hover about the camera lens as if the air was filled with ghosts. One photo showed the view from the window, looking out across a crooked sea of rooftops. There was even a picture of the girl, still in her blood-spattered night dress. She stared directly into the camera, hypnotised by the cyclops eye of the lens.
Stalin set aside all the pictures except the ones of Bakhturin’s body. These he studied closely, with a look of intense concentration on his face. Finally, Stalin sat back in his chair and pushed the photograph away, turning his gaze at last to Major Kirov. ‘This is the first time you have killed a man, isn’t it?’
Kirov did not reply, but remained at attention, staring at the wall behind Stalin’s desk.
‘I know what must be going on inside your head, but you must let your conscience rest. This man,’ Stalin jabbed the photograph of Serge Bakhturin’s face, as if to stir his finger in the wound, ‘was a traitor! He admitted it to you. It is over. It is done. Go home. Get drunk if you need to. Get some sleep.’
‘Yes, Comrade Stalin. Has there been any word from Pekkala?’
‘Army Intelligence reported that he and Lieutenant Churikova crossed the lines last night, accompanied by a soldier who is acting as their guide. They’re on their own now, Kirov. There is nothing for us to do now except trust in the magic of that Finnish sorcerer you call a friend.’
‘Engel!’
‘Engel!’ Churikova pointed at a man who had just emerged from the north entrance of the palace and was now heading down the steps towards the gardens.
‘Are you sure?’ Pekkala demanded. ‘You must be absolutely certain.’
‘Yes.’ There was no hesitation in her voice.
Pekkala snatched up his rifle and turned to Stefanov. ‘If we’re not at the cottage by dark, your order
s are to return to the Russian lines and to send word to Comrade Stalin that the mission has been a failure.’
Stefanov nodded in reply. Then, without a word, he vanished among the trees, heading for the Pensioners’ Stable.
As Pekkala and Churikova made their way towards the Catherine Palace, the lieutenant out in front with her arms above her head as if Pekkala were escorting a prisoner, they passed between the tall, leafy hedges of the Gribok Kurtina. Beyond the Gribok, they crossed over the Chinese Bridge, its iron railings wrenched into beckoning fingers where bullets had cut through the metal.
A cool autumn breeze blew in off the still, green water of the Great Pond, smelling of weeds and decay.
On the other side of the bridge, wounded German soldiers lay in the shade of a giant oak tree. A few were talking or writing letters. Others lay wax-faced and staring at the sky. Many of the stretchers were covered with grey army blankets, showing the outlines of men who had died before the doctors could get to them. Nearby stood a large white tent with a red cross painted on the canvas. Every few minutes, medical assistants in blood-spattered white aprons appeared from the tent, picked up a stretcher and carried a soldier inside. A noise of sawing filtered through the canvas walls.
Arriving at the steps of the palace, they trod over a stream of blood, which had trickled down the main staircase, staining the grey stone as if it were the shadow of a lightning bolt. Soldiers clattered past him, heel irons sparking on the stone. Pekkala heard them speaking Finnish and remembered what Leontev had said about the presence of foreign volunteers among the German troops.
On the balcony, beside the main entrance, sat a squad of SS infantry, still in their palm-leaf-patterned camouflage smocks and black leather combat harnesses. Mauser rifles leaned against the walls beside them and their helmets lay upturned on the ground.
These soldiers all wore the same long stare of total exhaustion and, at first, they barely seemed to notice the military policeman or his prisoner. It was only when they realised that Pekkala’s prisoner was a woman that a few smiles creased their gunsmoke-blackened faces.
