The Amber Rooms

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Saskia had never believed she would leave St Petersburg in so archaic a device as a steam locomotive. She had longed for the Amber Room to be her rescue. Yet here she sat, at a private table in one of the more comfortable cars, watching the retreat of the busy platform while Pasha handled the last of their arrangements. She wore a genuine Countess Ludmilla Nakhimov dress, which was a gift made at the insistence of Pasha’s sister. The layered honey silks made a cumbersome ensemble. The hat was a particular burden. The skirt was also a trifle short. She had, however, moved with some satisfaction through the Petersburgers and tourists in the baroque foyer of the Grand, regal as a swan at dusk.

Saskia withdrew a book from her handbag and slit open its first ternion with a knife. She checked the carriage. It was furnished as three drawing rooms laid end-to-end. Paper screens separated her ‘room’ from those front and rear. She sat in a red velvet winged chair near the window. The remaining seats—two chairs and a sofa—were unoccupied. Hidden from view, she heard the polite conversation of new acquaintances behind the aft screen. There was no-one behind the fore screen. Her eyes moved down to her book—imperatives on the comportment of a lady in a series of dining scenarios ranked by number of guests—and she meditated on the ingredients of explosive charges. That might be the fastest way to destroy the money. A second part of her mind considered appropriate places along their route to Geneva for jumping from the train.

‘Ego,’ she whispered, as though noting an important directive on doily configuration, ‘I have become acquainted with Ute. She told me everything.’

Ego vibrated to say, I doubt that.

‘It’s true. I know all about the meta.’

For a moment, Ego did not move. Then he said, And yet you’re not aware that Meta never takes a determiner.

Saskia turned a page and looked at a diagram of a dinner table. Its arrows indicated the preferred distribution of conversation between guests.

‘You helped me when I needed to tell Berezovsky Ludmilla’s middle name.’

It was difficult to do nothing as you risked arrest.

‘I was doing fine,’ Saskia said, raising her voice. She settled herself and whispered, ‘Ego, I will need your help soon.’

You will receive it only in exceptionally disastrous situations.

Saskia looked out the window at a wood. ‘I enjoy our conversations.’

Really? That surprises me.

Saskia remained in the lounge carriage for another hour. Then she went to join Pasha in their private compartment. Two large windows gave the room plenty of light. There was a sofa, two chairs and a table. Pasha was reading a month-old Swiss newspaper on the sofa. He wore a charcoal suit with a bow-tie and a winged collar. His frock coat hung near the door to the washroom.

‘I’ve just thought of an English expression,’ said Pasha, standing up. His smile was undermined by his tired, vacant eyes. The absence of his moustache made him look too young for the task in hand. ‘“The die is cast.”’

‘Indeed,’ said Saskia. She was about to sit down when there was a knock at the door. She exchanged a glance with Pasha.

‘Come,’ he said.

The door opened and a steward entered. He was a young Swiss of about fifteen years. He looked at the ceiling when he introduced himself and gave them a quite unnecessary tour of the compartment. He seemed particularly proud of the electrical lights. His gloved hands flicked every switch. When he had explained the schedule of the journey to Switzerland, including stops, he left with their lunch order.

They planned to take meals in the compartment. Despite having shaved his moustache, Pasha did not want to risk identification in a chance encounter with a friend or family acquaintance, the circles of St Petersburg society being so small. The acquaintance might know about the death of his father and ask how he came to be travelling abroad when, as first son, his duty was to his household. At the least, those who knew him as an Imperial Guard would be perplexed by his civilian clothes.

‘Can we trust our new Swiss friend, Beat?’ asked Pasha.

‘I think so,’ said Saskia. She reached for one of the lilies on the table and brought it to her nose. ‘Still, it couldn’t hurt to imply that we are willing to pay him well for a certain privacy. Hints about an illicit affair should do it.’ She looked at Pasha over the flower. ‘Perhaps he should discover us in an embrace.’

‘It is a curious thing,’ he said, somewhat loudly. ‘That …’

‘What?’

‘Please excuse me.’

‘No, go on.’

‘It is a curious thing that my sister’s dress suits you so well.’

Saskia looked at the darkening forest beyond the window. ‘It’s too short,’ she said.

‘The colours are fine.’

‘That they are.’

He swallowed. ‘What do you see in the forest?’

‘Little of note. But it reminds me of a book.’

‘Which book?’

Saskia had been recalling the scene, word by perfect word, in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina where Count Vronsky’s racehorse dies beneath him. But because this did not seem appropriate, she said, ‘It is A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway. Have you heard of it?’

‘I have not.’

‘The story is set some years from now.’

‘Ah, a scientific romance, like the books of Jules Verne.’

Saskia smiled and sat down on one of the chairs before the window. Pasha returned to the sofa.

‘Scientific romance,’ she said, pondering the phrase.

One hour of silence followed.

Then Pasha said, ‘Our lunch will soon arrive.’

‘Very well.’

‘Ms Tucholsky?’

‘Yes, Pasha?’

‘Do you think that the two men who killed my father are on this train?’

‘No. Their priority was to leave the city.’

‘Do you really intend to kill these men?’

‘Yes. I mean to erase them utterly. To make up for my past wrongs, and theirs.’ She looked down at the hem of her skirt, which ebbed and receded across her shoes as the carriage rocked. ‘Does this worry you?’

A curtain of rain crossed the window. Saskia stood up in the murky compartment. Pasha turned on his reading light. Saskia’s dress, some inches too short, scintillated like fool’s gold. An Allegory of the Future indeed. She looked at Pasha. His upper lip was reddish. His eyes were unfocused, staring through the rain. If he heard stories in his head, she could not tell which.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I am a soldier.’

Pasha left the compartment.

Saskia considered searching his belongings for the diary. Instead, she turned to the window and watched the weeping diagonals of rain.

She could still see the hatted shadow of Papashvily in the window of her attic apartment. She thought once more of her flight in the taxi and her arrival at the Count’s villa, empty but for the butler, Mr Jenner. How had that moment played for Saskia Beta? Without the i-Core, she must have defeated the Georgian hitmen without recourse to the strange infection that had allowed Saskia to control the actions of the dogs. That experience still sickened her. In one moment, the dog had locked its teeth around her forearm; in the next, she was seeing herself through its eyes.