The Amber Rooms

Chapter Twenty-One

The size of the Grand Ballroom was emphasised by gilded mirrors between its double tier of windows. Saskia judged physical spaces in terms of their capacity for exploitation: attack, distraction, concealment. As she stepped onto the parquet floor, she understood that it would take more than eight seconds to sprint its length, though on this evening it was crammed with guests. Only six of the dozen chandeliers had been burned. The great windows to the west looked across the torchlit palace square, while those to the east had a view of the gardens. It felt as airy as a quadrangle despite the thunderous scenes painted on the ceiling. Soon, midnight would pass through this room. An orchestra played a rich, soaring piece. Saskia had entered the ballroom at the finale to a quadrille. The guests froze, then bowed as the music completed. There was a sizeable audience about the periphery and their applause echoed. A man wearing a blue fountain of peacock feathers—the nominated dance master—approached the conductor and made a circular motion with his hand: keep going.

In the moment before the music returned, Saskia looked round. She saw Kamo stagger into the room. His appearance drew smiles and shakes of the head. He seemed the worse for drink. Saskia look ahead, towards the main staircase, and saw the same greenish glow that had captured her attention upon entering the Summer Palace. Then a reveller passed through her sightline and the green shine, or whatever produced it, had disappeared.

A Strauss waltz commenced. At once, there was general movement towards the dance floor, like a flower closing. Tension had been released. Saskia felt bodies carry her forward. Ladies laughed and men laughed along with them. Couples formed and spun. The whirlpool carried Saskia anticlockwise. As ever, her height made her conspicuous, and her blackcurrant pelisse billowed as she turned, tracking Kamo.

‘May I?’ asked a man.

‘With pleasure.’

She danced, but kept her left wrist held within her warmer. This seemed to please her dance partner, and the two waltzed without touching. The man kept his hands behind his back. Saskia, in deference to his politeness, made sure that their synchrony was absolute. Nearby dancers saw them and, laughing, adopted their remote style. But the dancers could not match Saskia for her ability to anticipate.

‘The piece is ending,’ she said.

‘Where may I take you?’

‘The far end of the floor, towards the staircase.’

They spun and spun. In the turns, Saskia saw Kamo as he struggled to follow her through a thickening of the audience near the orchestra. Saskia’s dance partner did not follow her glance. He only looked at Saskia and, on occasion, those around him.

‘How can I not have seen you before, in society? You are the most beautiful woman here.’

‘I’m wearing a mask.’

‘The mask hides nothing, says the proverb. But here we are.’

The man bowed. He wanted to kiss her glove, as was the custom, but Saskia did not offer it. So his smile was crooked as he reversed into the slow storm of dancers. Saskia nodded to him, then moved on. She was at the far wall of the Great Ballroom. Through the open door, she could see seven rooms of the enfilade. But she did not step through.

She approached a short, nervous-looking man who had been observing her. His pocket watch, which dangled carelessly outside its pocket, had the greenish glow of radium. She confiscated his wine glass.

‘You’re not old enough to drink this,’ she said.

Pavel Eduardovitch Nakhimov smiled beneath his Nosey Parker mask and bowed. In the mirror behind him, Saskia saw Kamo shouldering a path through the crowd. She thought of threatening him with the grenade, but knew the bluff would not work.

‘I’m seventeen today.’

‘Many happy returns,’ she said sourly. She drank the wine.

She passed the glass to a footman, who appeared and disappeared for the purpose. ‘We have about fifteen seconds before my friend reaches us. When he does, he will probably try to kill you. Happy?’

‘Of course,’ Pasha replied. His words were slow. ‘It’s my birthday and you’re here.’

‘How did you know?’

‘When we parted, I made sure to touch the band and listen for the countdown. Zero is tonight, at midnight. My father told me of your interest in the Amber Room.’

‘And the pocket watch?’

‘You can see it, can’t you? Like you saw me in the dark?’

‘Pavel Eduardovitch, you would be conspicuous enough without it. Gump teaches us that clever is as clever does.’

Saskia looked into the mirror. Kamo’s journey across the dance floor was drawing consternation, particularly from the gentlemen. ‘Pasha, I have been beaten only once at chess, because I cheat. At any given moment in the game, I calculate many possible board states, starting with the most probable. The man who beat me employed an irrational, unpredictable move.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You, my dear boy, are the unpredictable move. You have complicated my evening beyond my powers to predict its next iteration.’ She touched his cheek. ‘You cannot have me. You may not even have your life.’

Pasha straightened his back. ‘I will protect you.’

‘It’s too late. Pavel Eduardovitch, my name is Saskia Maria Brandt. Say it, please, so that I know you heard it.’

‘Saskia Maria Brandt.’

Kamo pushed between them. His right hand was still on his heart and his eyes were narrow with pain. But he showed them his left hand, which held a palm pistol. Its barrel protruded between his second and third fingers. He pointed it at Pasha.

Quietly, he said to Saskia, ‘Give me the apple.’

‘Take it yourself.’

‘No. Place it within my jacket. Inside, right pocket. Don’t try anything.’

Pasha shook his head. She moved until she was shoulder-to-shoulder with Kamo, their backs to the crowd, and placed the grenade inside his jacket.

Kamo said, ‘Do you recognise me, boy?’

‘You’re the man with the spoilt eye. But I would smell you anyway. If you hurt Saskia, I’ll kill you.’

Kamo laughed. ‘Not everything is as easy as jumping from a window.’

‘Then perhaps I’ll throw you through one.’

‘A poor response. Look at this, Little Hero.’

Kamo put his gun to Saskia’s ribs. With his free arm, he pulled her close. Saskia felt the muscles in her abdomen quiver. It was not beyond Kamo to shoot. The report would be no louder than glass breaking on the carpet. Gutshot with a small-calibre bullet, Saskia would be more amenable.

‘As long as you both cooperate,’ said Kamo, ‘you will come to no harm. Let us proceed directly.’

The three of them moved through the open doorway into a silvered dining room hung with streamers. Guests either stood or were seated at one of the three tables. Every few steps, Pasha looked back at them. In his eyes, Saskia saw Pasha’s wonder that she did not despatch Kamo with a high kick, knocking the sense from his head just she had knocked the cigarette from the his own mouth on the second day of their acquaintance. Indeed, she had been capable moments ago. She thought once more of the long kiss behind the photographer’s arch. She remembered the desperate suction and his failing, darkening blood. The magnesium flash. Now, with Pasha here, and the eyes of the crowd, she had lost it. Beneath the curve of Kamo’s collar were pipes bearing blood and air. She could throttle them using the wires along her forearm, which would mean death by an Allegory of the Future.

And yet, when she had opened her blood-filled eyes on the trees above Turtle Lake, and seen Kamo, her rescuer, confronting the Cossacks of the Kuban Host, she had known that some part of him was worth rescue. They had looked at each other over the bodies of the Cossacks. He had said, ‘I am at your service.’

‘No,’ she had replied. ‘I am at yours.’

They passed through the landing of the main staircase, another dining room, a room decorated with panels of crimson under glass, a portrait gallery, and arrived at the Amber Room. It had three floor-to-ceiling windows with gilt mirrors between them to double the light. Every other surface, excepting the floor and the painted ceiling, was a monument to amber. The centre of the room was occupied by a model of the Berlin monument to Frederick the Great, while its perimeter was filled with white chairs and furniture. Standing around the room—paying particular attention to the model in the centre and the showcases of amber collectibles near the windows—Saskia counted five men and three women. Her eyes stopped, however, on her own reflection, which was reflected in the tall mirror to the right of the far door.

‘Well?’ said Kamo.

She ignored him. Her reflection was impossible. Instead of the Allegory of Night, she saw a woman wearing a sennit hat, a white blouse with puffed shoulders, and green-smoked eyeglasses. Though the virtual distance was considerable, she was certain that the face—and its expression of surprise—was her own. Before she could approach the apparition, Kamo pushed her deeper into the room.

‘Look here,’ he said, gesturing to a clock in the corner. It was a bronze clock with porcelain flowers and leaves. ‘It is two minutes shy of midnight. Now, where is the money?’

Pasha said, ‘I’ve been here before.’

‘I’ve little doubt of it,’ Kamo replied. ‘Hold your tongue. Now, Lynx, where is it?’ He looked at the model of Frederick, whose base, which equalled the height of a man, was the best candidate for the hiding place of the stolen roubles.

Saskia had waited long months to enter this room. She felt a mixture of peace, resignation and stage fright. The threat of Kamo’s gun was a note in the margin of her mind. It did not concern her directly. She found herself more interested in the blank, slackened expression on Pasha’s face. The boy had demonstrated a special connection with the band on her arm. Now, it appeared, he had made a similar connection with this room.

‘Pasha,’ she said, ‘did your illness come to you shortly after your first visit to this room?’

‘Yes,’ said Pasha. For a moment, his eyes were clear. He stared at her. ‘I had my first seizure a month after my tenth birthday. My father had taken me here as a birthday present.’

‘Silence,’ said Kamo. He ground his teeth and put his arm across his chest. His heart had not yet recovered. ‘If you know of the mechanism that reveals the money,’ he whispered, ‘activate it. Now.’

The bronze clock chimed midnight. Saskia knew that it was running fast, and so did two of the guests. They removed their pocket watches and murmured at their dials. Saskia took this as a sign that her band was affecting the time-keeping mechanism inside the clock. She did not understand why the watches of the guests had remained unaffected, but suspected it had something to do with the difference in mass. She considered Kamo. He was tense. Any touch might release his anger. Then he would be impossible to predict.

She decided to tell Kamo that the money was in the base of the model. But as she moved to speak, Pasha interrupted her.

‘“For all ages,”’ he sang, ‘“with his heroic deeds / Stalin has glorified our own people …”’

Pasha was swaying. His eyes were closed and his recital was mechanical, as though the words had been learned by rote by a non-native speaker. His tenor was, however, true.

‘“Over the world waves the Leninist flag / It summons to the path of battle and valour.”’

Saskia saw, at the edge of her vision, a figure enter the room from the direction of the main staircase. The guests put away their pocket watches and listened. Kamo was enthralled, too. The word “Stalin” had not unsettled him to any extent that Saskia could detect. She doubted he had heard it before. His gun arm relaxed and the grimace of pain softened.

‘“Sunny expanses are open to us / The flames of victory light our country.”’

With the slow, inexorable movement of a figurine turning atop a music box, Saskia turned towards the man who had entered the room. It was the photographer. How like a funeral director he looked; all but the black veil on his top hat. He wore a morning suit and simple, black mask. His collar was winged. Only his shoes were flawed: they were dusty. As she watched his soft steps, the hairs on her arms rose. She took a long breath. There was a stiffness in his walk, and his left arm was motionless.

‘“For our happiness lives Comrade Stalin / Our wise leader and dear teacher.”’

The photographer, who had saved Kamo’s life with a flash of magnesium, but had allowed the situation to play out, approached Pasha and looked into his mouth, close enough to kiss.

‘What a wonderful lyric,’ he said. The Russian was fluent but curiously emphasised. It marked him as a native of Georgia, that land of poets and wine. ‘Sing on.’

Saskia said, ‘No.’

Pasha stopped. He remained entranced. His eyes were closed and his body swayed. The photographer turned from Pasha to Saskia. She swallowed. It was pointless denying her fear; the feeling seemed to begin at the soles of her feet and climb to her crown. That was the effect of his look.

The photographer walked to her. Behind him, the remaining guests chuckled at this unusual musical interlude and drifted from the room in the direction of the main staircase, not to miss the unparalleled fireworks display in the square.

Soso, the Georgian bandit who had not until this moment used the name Stalin, reprised a line from the song in his own, exceptional tenor. ‘“Stalin has glorified our own people.” A good name indeed.’ His gaze moved between Kamo and Saskia. He bowed, then gripped Saskia by the scruff of her neck and kissed her three times. He repeated the same gesture with Kamo but added a small touch of their foreheads, during which both closed their eyes. Kamo seemed to shrink in Soso’s presence.

‘I always preferred The Staggerer,’ said Saskia.

Soso grinned. He seldom laughed, as she recalled, and preferred to hear jokes when they came from his own mouth. Once, Soso had been addressing a secret meeting at the Avlabar People’s Theatre when Saskia, who was on lookout, ran inside with the news that the theatre had been surrounded by police. It had been too late to escape, so Soso ordered the Bolsheviks to burn their papers. When the police entered the building, Soso announced to the inspector that they were rehearsing a play and would be delighted if the policeman could help them out with the role of a swine. Delight abounded among the conspirators. The embarrassed inspector said that he knew what kind of actors they were—but was forced to let them go. Soso had made pig noises as he left. That was the night Soso married Kato. That was two years ago.

‘Lynx, mythic beast who sees through falsehood to the truth beyond,’ said Soso. He grinned again. ‘A long time since our last meeting.’

In a business-like tone, she said, ‘Look what happened in the meantime. You shaved your moustache.’

‘Do you like it?’

‘How is Kato?’

‘I once wrote a poem for you, Lynx. I compared you to the moon.’

‘Why are you here, Soso?’ she snapped. Since their first conversation, she had judged him to value assertiveness. Now, she wished to provoke him. ‘It is dangerous to spread yourself so thinly.’

He touched his chin. ‘Life was ever dangerous. Do I need to tell you why it is, at this moment, particularly dangerous for you?’

Saskia looked down the enfilade. She wondered where Draganov could be. ‘Tell me.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘you tell me.’

She knew that Soso had a talent for appearing in control when he was not. So doing, he unbalanced his opponent until the reality mimicked its appearance. The technique had worked with informers, magistrates, and girlfriends alike.

‘You are here for the money,’ Saskia said. ‘Without it, you will be expelled from the Party. You think I know where it is.’

The curve of Soso’s grin flattened by a degree. ‘But you do know where it is. Here, Saskia? In this room? Beneath this model?’

Saskia shrugged.

He turned to the panels. ‘Behind this, an allegory of touch? Shall I break it? We can dance on the pieces. What do you say, Kamo?’

‘We can dance on the pieces,’ said Kamo. He kept his eyes on Saskia. ‘We’ll have our own little quadrille.’

‘Or,’ said Soso, ‘to keep fuss to a minimum, we can take your boyfriend instead and break him, dance on his pieces.’ The grin had gone. Now, only narrow eyes regarded her through the slits of the mask. ‘Kamo?’

Saskia did not move as Kamo put an arm round Pasha and pressed the gun into his ribs. Pasha was still entranced. Tears had fallen down his cheeks, though his eyes were not swollen, and his breathing was even. Saskia glanced around. The guests were no longer near the model. They had opened the tall windows to stand on the balcony for the fireworks.

‘Be careful,’ Saskia said. ‘You are handling the key to your future.’

Kamo looked at Soso. Perhaps because their masks made their natural rapport difficult, Soso said, ‘We can kill him. If she put the money here, she can take it. She simply wishes to spare the boy. Kill him and loosen her tongue.’

‘I will tell you,’ she said, removing her hand from the warmer. Its sight drew the attention of both men. ‘Where does a lynx store its spoils?’

Both Soso and Kamo looked around the room. Saskia watched them, smiling.

‘I am becoming impatient,’ said Soso.

She lifted her hand, and when she was sure that the men were looking at it, she raised her index finger and pointed at the ceiling. Kamo said, ‘Of course,’ and both of them looked up.

Saskia slowed her vision. She willed her mind to accelerate, to appreciate the small moments between the seconds. Kamo and Pasha were closest, and to her left. Soso was at her right. She crouched and swept her heel into the back of Soso’s legs. The impact lifted him from the ground. He was still falling when she moved into Kamo, punching down on the back of his hand. The gun clattered to the floor. She stepped aside as Kamo toppled Pasha’s body into her path. With the point of her boot, she punted the gun into the adjacent corner of the room and, keeping her weight on her left leg, leaned back to snap her foot against Kamo’s head. She was able to land the blow across his ear. She had time to catch Pasha and fall with him. He was a dead weight, as though he had fainted. They spilled against the floor, Saskia grunting with pain as she took the impact on her shoulder.

She rolled Pasha aside. Kamo was already running for the far corner, where the small gun lay beneath a cabinet. Soso was sitting upright, clutching his shoulder. He had lost his top hat. Saskia slid on her knees towards him. She clung to his back like a turtle and wrapped arms and legs around him. She reached across to her left arm and tore away the threaded telephone cord that formed part of her costume. In one movement, she looped it around his neck, crossed the ends, and pulled one end with her teeth and the other with her hand.

She grinned at Kamo to show him the cord. At the same time, Soso held up a warning hand.

‘Stop!’ he gasped.

From the corner, Kamo pointed the gun at them. Saskia knew he had personal experience of the garrotte. One strong tug and there would be no saving Soso.

Saskia could say nothing. With care, Kamo placed the gun on the ground. When he made to reach into his jacket for the bomb, Saskia shook her head. The movement made Soso cough.

‘You always were impressive,’ said Kamo. He smiled, and Saskia saw that he was in that trough of post-battle excitement, the point at which he was the most human he could be. ‘I missed you.’

Soso relaxed. His head, which was already close to hers, tilted against her cheek. She could smell his aftershave and the perfumed cream in his hair. She could feel the cartilage in his ear and the coolness of its lobe. How long ago had she shaved Kamo? The hours had passed like minutes.

Saskia looked at the clock in the corner of the room. It had stopped. At that moment, Pasha sat up and said, ‘Zero, zero, zero,’ and the clocks of the Summer Place struck twelve. The fireworks split the air and a reddish glow lit the room. She felt the band on her arm grow cold, cold like the lobe of Soso’s ear.

‘Zero, zero, zero,’ continued Pasha.

The band became icy.

‘Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero.’

It felt like the band was burning through her arm. She remembered a travelling apprentice in Siberia who had once told her, ‘Hell is cold.’

‘Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero.’

She pushed away from Soso. In her pain, she saw him scuttle towards Kamo, his hand outstretched for the gun. She hooked her fingers around the band—burning them—and worked it from her arm. The band did not bounce when it fell. It struck the floor with a crack. It rolled for a moment, then collapsed into a spin.

Saskia looked up. Soso and Kamo were together. Kamo stood. Soso was crouched. His left hand gripped his left wrist to steady the gun, which was pointed at Pasha. Saskia had time to scream and reach towards Pasha. Then the shot was loose and Pasha flexed into a foetal position against the model. His cry was outraged, as though he had emerged from his trance with the impact. Saskia had no time to reach him. With a deft movement, Soso turned the gun towards her.

It was clear that there would be no more questions. Soso was limiting the damage of the evening preparatory to his escape. Perhaps he would return for the money at another date. Perhaps he would abandon it altogether.

Saskia placed her head directly in front of the gun. In one sense, she was staring at the barrel; in another, she was staring at the black eye of indifferent physical forces. Every effect must have a cause, as she knew, and as the unthinking eye of the universe could see.

Pasha whispered, ‘Zero.’

Saskia heard Soso’s index tendon contract.

As one, the doors of the Amber Room slammed shut.