Go over the Anchikov bridge and turn left. Mine is four down. Through the heavy iron door, past the cabin where the porter is sleeping — a quick look in my mail-box where, to my surprise, there’s a letter from my dear, ailing sister — across the weedy courtyard and up three flights of stairs. If Rudi’s at home the TV is turned up loud. Rudi can’t abide silence. Tonight it’s all quiet. We had the little disagreement about our leaving date yesterday evening, so he’s decided to concentrate on business for a little, I suppose. That’s fine. I cook the fish that I bought for our dinner, and leave him half in the pot in case he comes home later. He’s never away for more than one or two nights. Not usually.
The White Nights are here. Bluish midnight dims to indigo at about two. The sun will rise again a little later without pomp. I stay in my living room and think about the past and about Switzerland. This is where my admiral and I made love. Under this very window. He used to tell me stories of the ocean, Sakhalin, the White Sea, submarines under the ice. We watched the stars come out. I pile the washing-up in the sink and light a mosquito coil. I put the Cuban cigars in Rudi’s coat pocket so he’ll find them and think about me. I can hear jazz playing somewhere. There was a time when I would have gone and found it and danced and been admired, desired. Men’s faces shone. They vied for the next dance.
I light another cigarette, and pour myself a brandy. Just a small one, and not the best bottle. Rudi needs that for when his business partners come over for meetings. I set fire to my sister’s letter, unopened, and lay it in the ashtray. That’ll teach her. Sipping my brandy I watch the front of flame turn the bitch’s words into a ribbon of smoke. Rise, spiral, and disappear, up, and up, and up.
The jazz has stopped. Rudi still isn’t home. Little Nemya, fed and happy, comes and curls up on my lap, falling asleep as I tell her my troubles.
Jerome is making tea. His movements are clockwork, like a butler’s. Rudi is late again. Rudi is usually late by three quarters of an hour. It’s a beautiful summer’s day around lunchtime, and the streets and parks of Vasilevsky Island are shimmering in the heat as though underwater.
‘What gives the tea that smell?’
Jerome thinks for a moment. ‘I don’t know the Russian for it. In English it’s called “bergamot”. It’s the rind of a species of citrus.’
I just say, ‘I see. Nice teacup.’
Jerome hands me a cup, on a saucer, and sits down. His Russian is fluent, but I never know what to say to him. ‘This bone china is a last surviving luxury,’ he says, ‘real Wedgwood. It should be worth a lot, but since your civilisation fell into its own basement bin I probably couldn’t even get a tin of tuna for it. Don’t drop it.’
‘I’ve never broken a beautiful thing in my life,’ I tell him.
‘I’m sure that might be true. Anyway,’ Jerome stands up again, ‘since our nouveau riche Robert de Niro has better things to do, allow me to give you a private view of my handiwork.’ He goes into the next room, his studio, and I hear things being shunted across the floorboards. A camphor tree swims in the sun in the little park next to St Andrew’s Cathedral. Over the Leytenanta Bridge on Angliyaskaya Embankment a new Holiday Inn is being constructed. Today is Heroes’ Day, so nobody is on the scaffolding. I hear a sportscar being revved to a roar and a sudden screech of brakes.
‘Ah,’ Jerome calls through. ‘Sounds like Rudi.’
Jerome’s apartment is sparse, in a not unpleasant part of the city. Not as well situated as mine, of course. On stuffy days when the wind is from the north you can smell the chemical factory, but other than that it’s not so bad. It’s bigger than my apartment, if you include his studio — though he never lets anyone into his studio. The living room is dominated by the largest drinks cabinet I’ve ever heard of. It dominates the room like a cathedral altar in a country chapel. Apparently it was a present from Leonid Brezhnev. Jerome keeps the place tidier than a woman would. But Jerome has never had a woman here, or anywhere else, I imagine. I wonder if all English men are so orderly, or whether it’s only English queers. Jerome was a spy in the Cold War. He used to lecture in art history at Cambridge University. Moscow hasn’t paid his war pension for six or seven years now, and he’s wanted for treason in Britain, so he’s scuppered. He always talks about selling his memoirs, but ex-spies trying to flog their stories are two-a-rouble these days. His only marketable talent is his ability to paint copies of masterpieces. That’s why he’s a member of our circle. I notice a shiny, maroon flying jacket that could not possibly belong to tall spindly Jerome. I need a cigarette, so I light one. There’s nothing to use as an ashtray so I have to use the saucer. From a nearby room I can hear a piano.
Jerome returns, unveiling the picture, tutting at my cigarette.
Eve and the Serpent, not by Lemuel Delacroix, but by Jerome... I don’t know his family name. Smith or Churchill, probably. I’ve never much liked Jerome, but I have to admire his craftsmanship. ‘I can’t see how anyone could tell them apart. Even the way the gilt on the frame is worn away on the bottom.’
‘I can’t quite get the cracks in the glaze right, not quite. And there are secrets in the blue pigment that got lost in the nineteenth century, and not even Gregorski’s money can procure them. No, it’s not perfect. But it will do. Nobody is going to be looking for a difference until it’s too late.’
‘You’ve spent twice as long on this one, compared to the last.’
‘Well, my dear, that’s Russian Constructivism for you! Kandinsky’s an absolute cinch, from a copyist’s point of view. Just measure the proportions of the stripes, get the tone right, slap on the paint and bingo! No, Delacroix deserves more than that... you could call it a labour of love, this one. I would have liked a fortnight more, just to tamper, but Gregorski’s chomping at the bit for another sting this month. I could die to get my hands on the original, though, even if it’s only to look after it overnight. Moreover, the Delacroix is worth enough to let me raise the Titanic and buy up Bermuda.’
‘A quarter of Bermuda,’ I reminded him. ‘Split four ways.’
‘Did you know that Delacroix was a friend of Nicholas I? He was employed by the Tsar several summers running to help decorate the Cathedral of Our Saviour. A Westerner in service to the Russian state. Maybe that helps to explains the empathy I feel with the man.’ When Jerome rattles on like this I feel I’m no longer in the room with him.
A coded knock at the door. I wait for the sequence to finish, rolling my eyeballs at this pantomime. The code is correct, but Jerome waves me through into the kitchen anyway, his finger on his lips. I suppose old habits die hard. ‘Open up!’ says Rudi, just like he always does. ‘It’s draughty out here.’ Jerome relaxes. The word ‘draughty’ indicates that Rudi is alone and hasn’t got a gun pointed in the small of his back. ‘Cold’ means ‘get away’. Exactly how you would get out of a sixth-floor apartment with one entrance and no fire-escape is another matter. But boys will be boys.
‘Babe,’ Rudi greets me, breezing in and handing Jerome a pizza he picked up from one of his restaurants. His new suede jacket is the colour of blackcurrant juice. He likes to call me ‘babe’, even though he is younger than me by eight or nine years. He’s smiling. A good sign. He takes off his wraparound sunglasses, and whoops at the picture. ‘Jerome, even better than your normal high standard!’