The temperatures were harsh this year, harsher than usual in St. Petersburg. The Moika Canal had frozen over and the Neva River disappeared in a deathly pall that swallowed the city. It was a winter of bitter strikes in the factories and of shortages in the food shops. Unrest slid and slithered through the streets, workers gathered on corners and smoked their cheap makhorka cigarettes with resentful fury. Jens heeled his horse into a canter and swung away from the wide boulevards, leaving behind the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt with its sables and its silks.
The streets grew narrower, the houses meaner till dirt and despair hung in the damp air. A pack of three feral dogs snapped at the horse and received the tip of Hero’s metal shoe in exchange. Jens gazed along the street at the pinched faces and the blackened buildings. The cold was so intense it had cracked windows.
This was why he was here. Places like this. Streets that stank. No water to wash. Just wells that turned sour and backed up in the rain, and pumps that iced over. This was why he was here in Petersburg.
IT WAS FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING WHEN VALENTINA tapped the door with her fingertips.
“Vkhodite, come in, my dear.” The voice was soft and welcoming.
She turned the handle and entered Nurse Sonya’s private quarters, where shadows had settled on the carpet like tired dogs in the dim light.
“Dobroye utro, good morning,” Valentina said in greeting.
The nurse was in her fifties, seated in a rocking chair and tapping the floor with her foot in a steady rhythm to keep it in motion. Her large form was engulfed in a battered old housecoat and a Bible lay open on her lap, her finger trailing over each line she read.
“How is she tonight?” Valentina asked at once.
“She’s sleeping.”
Sleeping? Or just pretending? Valentina knew that Nurse Sonya was not good at knowing the difference. Katya had endured three operations in the last six months to try to repair her shattered spine, and since the last one her mobility had definitely improved, but still she was unable to walk. Not that she ever complained. No, Katya wouldn’t. But purple hollows gathered under her eyes and a sallow bruised look to her face betrayed when the pain was bad.
“What have you given her?” Valentina asked quietly.
“A little laudanum, the usual dosage.”
“I thought you were cutting back on it.”
“I tried, malishka, little one. But she needs it.”
Valentina made no comment. What do I know about laudanum? Just what I see in Katya’s eyes.
The nurse stilled the rocking chair and studied Valentina’s face with a look of gentle concern. “Guilt is a terrible thing, my dear.” She shook her head, and her hand trailed across the wafer-thin page open on her lap. “God forgives us.”
Valentina walked over to the window, pulled the heavy curtain to one side, and stared out into the night. Lights flickered as sleighs and carriages with bright torches continued to charge through the city that prided itself on its reputation for never sleeping, on its reputation for wild living and even wilder dying. St. Petersburg was a city of extremes. All or nothing. No one in St. Petersburg seemed to have any time for anything but their next drink, their next dissolute party, their next insane throw of the dice. She stared out at it all and craved something more for her life.
“No,” she murmured to the nurse, “it’s not God’s forgiveness I want.”
IT WAS STILL DARK. THE KIND OF DARKNESS THAT IS THICK and heavy, the kind that clogs the mind. The first muted sounds of the house coming to life drifted upstairs as servants laid fires and polished floors. Valentina was perched cross-legged on the end of Katya’s bed, a towel spread out over her lap.
“I hear Papa has bought a new car while I was at school,” Valentina said.
“Yes. It’s a Turicum. From Switzerland.”
“Isn’t that fearfully expensive?”
“I expect so. But Tsar Nicholas has just bought himself a new Delaunay-Belleville. You know what it’s like at court; they’ve made a big fuss of it and all rush to copy him.”
“Who is driving it?”
“Papa has hired a chauffeur. His name is Viktor Arkin.”
“What’s he like?”
“Very smart in his uniform. Rather quiet but I suppose good looking in a serious sort of way.”
“You always did like a man in uniform.”
Katya laughed delightedly, and Valentina felt pleased. Some days it took more than that to make her sister smile. But she noticed that Katya’s eyes were blurry this morning, as though the fog had slunk up the Neva River and slid into her head overnight. One of her feet was propped on the towel and Valentina’s hands were massaging its delicate skin, manipulating the joints, bringing a semblance of life into the paralyzed limb. A fine sheen of lavender oil eased the repetitive movement and scented the air, disguising the odor of a sickroom.
Katya snuggled into her pillows, her hair a haze of pale gold around her head. “Tell me again about the tsar.” She watched Valentina’s busy hands. “What was he like?”
“I’ve told you already. He was handsome and charming and complimented me on my playing.”
Katya narrowed her blue eyes, as if she were peering at something very small. “Don’t think I can’t see through your lies, Valentina. What happened yesterday? Why didn’t you like His Imperial Majesty?”
“Of course I liked him. Everyone likes the tsar.”
“I shall call for Nurse Sonya to throw you out of here if you don’t…”
Valentina laughed and paused in working oil into the pale toe-nails. Her sister’s foot lay on her palm as dead as a doll’s. “All right, all right, I admit it. You know me too well. You’re correct, Katya, I didn’t like Tsar Nicholas yesterday. But only because he strutted into the room as if he owned the whole world, not just the Romanovs’ half of it. Gaudy as a peacock. A small man in big shoes.”
Katya suddenly banged her hand on her forehead with mock annoyance. “Of course, I remember now. He told you he wanted you to play the piano for his wife and children when he heard you play before at the school two years ago. Didn’t he?”
“Yes. And I was stupid enough to believe him then. I practiced and practiced and practiced, waiting for the summons. But it never came.” She moved Katya’s foot down onto the sheet. “I have far more sense this time.” She smiled at her young sister. “You can’t trust a tsar. Lies come too easily to his royal tongue.”
Katya’s eyes opened wide. “Was he there again?”
“Who?”
“I remember that you told me there was a man with Tsar Nicholas when you played for him before.”
“No, I said no such thing.”
“Yes, you did.”
Valentina picked up the other foot, placing it on the towel. She dipped her fingers in the warm oil and started to massage the dry skin on the heel. “What on earth are you talking about?” She kept her eyes on Katya’s toes as she gently eased them apart, one by one.
“There was a man. With the tsar two years ago when he visited your school,” Katya insisted. “I remember, you said he was…”
“Don’t be silly.”
“You told me he looked like a Viking warrior.”
“That’s absurd.”
“With fiery hair and green eyes.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“No, you told me. He stood by the door, and you said…”
Valentina laughed and tweaked a toe. “I said a lot of silly things when I was fifteen.”
But Katya’s gaze was fixed on her sister. “You told me you had fallen in love with him.”
Valentina’s fingers pummeled the scrap of flesh behind the ankle bone. “If I said such a thing, it was just schoolgirl nonsense. I didn’t even speak to him. I scarcely recall now what he looked like.” But the blood had risen to her cheeks.