• At the Kotorosi River crossing in Yaroslavl Utro Rossii, militants clash with armed immigrants ransacking districts on the east bank;
• The Kozelshchina icon is seized and destroyed by as yet unspecified people in Poltava.
Ekaterina fastened her trousers, slid on shoes, stirred and drank instant coffee. She watched as a silver ripple of condensation ran down the window. Outside, birds swooped, flocking to catch the breadcrumbs old Mrs Kozlov cast from her balcony.
Swinging on her coat, Ekaterina made to leave, eager to make their rendezvous at the Blue Bridge. The door rattled in its warped frame. Twisting the key in the latch, a double lock mechanism clicked inside. Then, the sound of her footsteps carried up through the cavernous stairwell, as her shoes tap-danced to the street.
Ten minutes later they were walking over the Sinny Most, making towards the Yusupov Palace, which sat shrouded in spectral mystery on the bank of the Moika. She was thinking that Tom looked great, his face shaved and flinty in the morning light. His body was tall and firm inside his long black coat. There was something unique about him, she thought. Something she could not resist.
They were talking about history and philosophy, arguing over the merits of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Loathing and Knut Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil.
‘It’s good we debate’, she said. ‘It is a sign of a healthy relationship.’ A white coach with Swedish registration plates sat opposite the palace on the rain raddled road.
Starry-eyed with scurrilous rumour, Ekaterina related, ‘The Yusupov’s were one of the richest families in St Petersburg. Felix, Rasputin’s killer was a well-known homosexual. It is said that he was a most beautiful man, married to the Princess Irina, the Tsar’s niece…’ She paused, pushing on the door to number 94. ‘He had been to England, educated at Oxford. There were stories that he had won the heart of a Duke’s daughter, but when he returned home there was disapproval of the match with Irina because of his predilections. Being gay was punishable by exile. Some historians even say there may have been strong love feelings between Yusupov and Rasputin.’
‘I thought Rasputin was a ladies’ man?’
A wicked smile passed over her face, reading the signs, checking the entry price. ‘He was, how you say, bi-curious too!’
They bought tickets for 300 roubles, then gathered with some Americans and Scandinavians at the foot of a marble staircase. Chandeliers swung on the roof above as they followed the guide up the red carpet, turning to look back down into the vast lobby.
Professorial in demeanour, with white hair knotted in a tight, spinster-like fist at the back of her small head, the interlocutor struck a pose of relaxed authority, coughing loudly to gain their attention.
‘300,000 people visit the palace every year.’ Her arm extended as if to embrace the entrance. ‘It is renowned for its furnishings, art, and of course the assassination of Father Gregory, more commonly known as Rasputin, confidante of the Tsarina in the last years before the Revolution.’
They were taken through drawing rooms, bedrooms, and a ballroom with shining mirrors and classical motifs. Ekaterina lingered over the pastoral scenes in the glass-plated long gallery, while Tom was captivated by the waxwork representations of the conspirators on that fateful night of December 29. He tried to picture Madeira cakes laced with potassium cyanide. The sound of ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ spinning out of the gramophone in a desperate attempt to make it sound like a party was going on in the rooms above. Meanwhile Rasputin, the Starets, was led like Isaac by his father Abraham into the basement room below, ready for slaughter.
Just before eleven, the tourists descended a flight of stairs into a private theatre. The walls were decorated in a sumptuous mixture of orange, white, and gold. On the ceiling was a gaudy fresco, and over Tom’s left shoulder a private box from where the Romanovs and Yusupovs sat in the dying days of the Empire.
Tom looked out onto a derelict garden veiled in smog, a small metal gate lying at the southern entrance. He tried to picture the scene. Rasputin staggering out of a side door, bleeding from a bullet in his chest. His executioners rushing out into the moonlight after him. Revolvers sparking in the dark before a single bullet struck him in the back. Then, the British secret serviceman stepping out of the shadows to deliver the coup de grace at point-blank range.
The guide’s words rang loudly in Tom’s mind. ‘Quoting Gregory Yemfimovich Rasputin’, she declaimed, ‘“If I am killed by common assassins… especially peasants, the Tsar and his children would have nothing to fear and would reign for hundreds of years. But if I am murdered by nobles, then none of the Tsar’s children or relations will remain alive for more than two years, they will be killed by the Russian people…”’
How prophetic, he thought. Perhaps there was more to this dark force of nature who could cure haemophiliacs and seduce society ladies. The British were right to kill him before he persuaded the Tsarina to advise her husband to withdraw the Imperial forces from the Eastern Front, freeing the Germans to sweep both the French and His Britannic Majesty’s armies into the Channel.
What these conspirators could not have known was the seventy years of Communist rule that would fill the power vacuum, after the bayonets and bullets had done their work in Ekaterinburg. Now that was ironic. In killing off a troublesome priest, they had stirred up a whirlwind that led to Stalin’s purges, mud-filled gulags, and the partition of the European continent.
Tom felt the death shroud fall over his face, smelling burning flesh and tasting the gunpowder caked at the back of his throat.
‘Are you OK?’ Ekaterina asked, bending close to his ear, arm curling affectionately around his shoulder. ‘You look troubled.’
‘I’m fine, can we get a drink somewhere?’ She took his hand and led him down the staircase, out onto the water’s edge. An amplified voice from a tour bus that was driving along the embankment chafed the stillness like an electronic cheese grater. ‘St Petersburg is called the Venice of the north. Home to…’ And there the sound trailed out, the back of the bus disappearing behind vaporous curtains of speckled grey.
They were pressed together, arms entwined. Tom let his mind drift. He was telling himself that this could be love, and scorned himself for thinking it. He could not recall being so moved by a woman. That drunken weekend in Singapore with the Aussie radical did not count. He had put that down to the humidity rather than loneliness.
Cars swirled around them as they strolled past a man selling fake Rolex watches from a blanket spread on the side of the road. A doe-eyed bitch snivelled and whelped, rolling onto her back, revealing milky tits to five mewling puppies. Ekaterina bent down to stroke them. The street-seller cornered Tom, opening his coat to reveal contraband Seiko, Hugo Boss, and Cartier.
‘Come on’, Tom said, pulling Ekaterina to her feet, ‘let’s get something to eat. The merchant swore as his dog chased them down the canal bank, barking madly at their heels.
Climbing some steps to a small café, they took seats at a table with a vase of fresh-cut daisies and asters. The waitress smiled indulgently while they studied the menu. Ekaterina ordered a coffee; Tom, a dark beer, before they both decided on ukha, traditional fish soup. He could not be sure what music was playing in the background. Folk music, maybe. He could not tell. There was something familiar about it, a sort of militaristic nostalgia. ‘Of course, Svoi, “Our People”, sung by Lyube’, he mumbled, remembering that the lacklustre middle-of-the road band was the former President’s favourite group.