Eye of the Red Tsar

38

LATER THAT DAY, PEKKALA WAS ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES, SCRAPING the ashes from the fireplace. He had opened the curtains. Beams of sunlight fell in crooked pillars across the scuffed wood floor.

When he paused to wipe sweat from his face, he saw Mayakovsky emerge from his house.

Mayakovsky picked up a cardboard box lying on the doorstep. He opened it, smiled, and glanced towards the Ipatiev house. Then, carrying the box, he walked across the street. This time, he did not go around to the back of the house but came straight to the front door. The sharp, dry clacks of the brass horseshoe knocker echoed through the house.

Before Pekkala could get to his feet, Kirov came out of the kitchen and opened the door.

“ Kirov!” said Mayakovsky. “My good friend, Kirov!”

“Well, hello, Mayakovsky.”

“I knew there was something special between us.”

“I’m glad you think so,” replied Kirov.

Pekkala rested on his knees, his hands mottled gray with ash, enjoying Kirov ’s attempts to be polite.

“We understand each other,” Mayakovsky continued, “and I won’t forget it. Thank you!”

“You’re very welcome, Mayakovsky. I’m glad we’re getting on so well.”

The door closed. Kirov stood in the doorway to the front room, arms folded, a bemused look on his face. “There goes another one who’s lost his mind. Just like everyone else in this town.”

“He was thanking you for the present you left on his doorstep.”

“I didn’t give him anything,” Kirov said.

“You didn’t?” Pekkala looked out through the windows. “But I thought you said you were going to give him a present. To throw him off balance.”

“I was, but I never got around to it.”

Halfway across the road, the box still in his hands, Mayakovsky paused and turned.

His eyes locked with Pekkala’s.

A burn of adrenaline seared across Pekkala’s stomach. “Oh, Christ,” he whispered.

The smile faltered on Mayakovsky’s face. Then he disappeared. Where he had stood, for a fraction of a second, was a pink cloud of mist. The windows rippled like water. Then a wall of fire blew into the house. The shock wave picked up Pekkala and threw him to the opposite side of the room. He hit the wall. His eyes filled with dust. Metallic-reeking smoke poured into his lungs. He could not breathe. He felt sharp pain in his chest. All around him, fragments of glass were bouncing off the walls, skimming across the floor, flickering like diamonds in the air.

The next thing Pekkala knew, Kirov was dragging him out of the room. The front door had been blown open. Out in the street the cobblestones were scattered with debris. Whole tree branches lay in the road, the leaves curled into burned black fists.

When they reached the kitchen, Anton was there.

The two men lifted Pekkala up onto the table.

Pekkala tried to sit up, but Anton held him down.

A wet cloth smeared across his face.

Anton was saying something, but he couldn’t hear a thing.

Then Kropotkin was there, his mop of blond hair sticking out from under a police cap.

Finally, like a radio whose volume was slowly being turned up, Pekkala’s hearing began to return. He pushed aside the wet cloth, now soaked in blood, heaved himself off the table, and staggered down the hallway towards the road. His face itched. He scratched at his cheeks; his fingers came away with tiny pieces of glass embedded in them.

“You have to lie down,” Kirov insisted, following him.

Pekkala ignored him. He reached the street and stopped.

Where Mayakovsky had been standing, there was only a black circle on the stones. Above, in the shattered branches of the trees, hung shreds of the old man’s clothing.

Kirov seized him by the arm. “We should go inside.” His voice was gentle and persistent.

Pekkala stared at the scorched leaves, at the broken glass and shattered masonry. His toe nudged against something. He looked down and saw what looked like the broken handle of a white pottery jug. He picked it up. The surface was hard and slippery. A moment went by before he realized that it was a piece of Mayakovsky’s jaw.

“Let’s go,” Kirov said.

Pekkala looked at Kirov as if he could not recall who he was. Then he let himself be led back inside the house.

Kirov spent the next half hour picking shards of glass from Pekkala’s face with a needle-nose pliers. They glittered in their tiny nests of blood.

Kropotkin stood in the corner of the room, glancing nervously in Pekkala’s direction. “Is he well enough to talk yet?” the police chief asked.

“I can talk,” Pekkala replied.

“Good,” Kropotkin said. “Listen to me. I have offered you a police guard until we can get this cleared up, but this Cheka man”-he pointed at Anton-“says it’s not necessary.”

“We don’t know who planted that bomb,” said Anton.

“Well, it wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” Kropotkin’s face grew red.

“I told them we should never have come back,” said Anton.

“He’s right.” Kirov ’s voice cut in. “We won’t need a guard.”

“And why not?” demanded Kropotkin.

“Because we are leaving first thing in the morning. We’ll head to Moscow and make our report. Then, if they’ll let us, we’ll return, this time with a company of soldiers.”

“That will take too long.” Pekkala stood up. “We haven’t found what we are looking for.”

Kirov rested his hands on Pekkala’s shoulders. “No. What we were looking for found us instead. You warned us this might happen, and it did.”

“We weren’t prepared enough,” said Pekkala. “We’ll take more precautions next time.” He walked to the front room. Sunlight glimmered off pieces of broken glass, making the floor look as if it was scattered with patches of fire. The neat pile of ashes he had been collecting had blown across the floor like the shadow of a tornado. The wallpaper was ripped as if by the claws of a giant cat. He walked over to something embedded in the wall. As he wrenched it from the plaster, he realized it was the bowl of Kirov ’s pipe. The force of the blast had driven it like a nail into the wall.

Pekkala turned to find Anton standing in the doorway.

“Please,” his brother pleaded. “We have to leave.”

“I can’t,” replied Pekkala. “It’s too late now.”