The White Russian

51

T he clerk had gone home, and Ruzsky persuaded Pavel that he must do likewise.

He sat in the basement, alone in his task. The work was laborious, but it was how he most liked it.

He flicked through the files covering the period from 1905 to 1908, but with the exception of the era of quasi-revolution in the first of those years, there was little serious crime reported from the Crimean peninsula and its immediate surroundings.

There were assassinations in other parts of the country, but not in Yalta, Sevastopol, or Odessa.

Pavel had checked through the records for the latter half of 1908 and the two following years, which left Ruzsky with nowhere to go but backward.

He began on the files for 1904.

He reached July before he found what he was looking for. His eyes had begun to droop, but the sight of the name on the telegraph snapped him awake.

Governor Bulyatin murdered. Bomb thrown in carriage. Wife and son also fatalities. Two daughters unharmed. Further information soonest. Yalta.

Ruzsky stared at the telegraph, then began to turn the pages. A period of intense traffic had followed, culminating in the identification of a suspect.

Suspect in Bulyatin case identified as Michael Borodin. Await further information.

But if the office in Yalta had uncovered further information, none came. The Bulyatin case was referred to with diminishing vigor for the remainder of the year, the suspect Borodin not at all.

Ruzsky took the original telegraph from the file, folded it up, and slipped it into his pocket.

The wind had strengthened again, and it had begun to snow heavily, drifts gathering against the houses and around the bases of the gas lamps. The streets were deserted.

Ruzsky crossed the canal and turned off Sadovaya Ulitsa. The light was on in her window and there was no sign of a cab or sled outside. A dark shape emerged from the shadows, hurrying toward him, a woman-old or young he could not tell-cloaked in the robes of mourning, her face covered in a veil.

Outside Maria’s building, Ruzsky looked up through the swirling snow. He saw her at her window, silhouetted against the light.

He pushed the door open and climbed the stairs.

At the top, he leaned back against the wall. He thought of the document he had in his pocket, and the reason for her exile. Did she think of the white house she had told him of in Yalta, with its high ceilings, airy rooms, and views of the bay, as she stared out of the window at a dark Petersburg night?

He imagined a young girl leaning out of the window to listen to her mother sing on a warm summer’s evening, her sister beside her.

Ruzsky knocked. He heard footsteps and then nothing.

He thought of her beyond the door, in the darkness.

A minute passed, perhaps more. A key was turned and the door slowly opened. She wore a long red dress, a black velvet bow in her hair. She was painfully beautiful; her lips were slightly parted and her eyes shone with a potent blend of love, loneliness, and loss.

She had been waiting for him. She had known he would be searching for her.

She took him into her arms and he breathed in the scent of her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sandro, I’m so sorry.”

Ruzsky closed his eyes, transported for a moment to the place he most wished to be.

“I wanted to come to you,” she whispered.

Maria let him go, but only so that she could look into his eyes, her long fingers resting coolly upon his jaw. Her expression was intense; she wanted to offer reassurance and support in the dark hours she knew all too well. “I met your father once,” she said, “before you came back, after a performance. Despite everything, he was charming and kind. He reminded me of you.” She came closer, her face almost touching his. “I’m sorry, Sandro, if I’d known… I would have told you. You understand that, don’t you?” The look in her eyes was that of a little girl desperate to be believed.

“He was as good as murdered.”

Maria did not answer. Ruzsky slid down the wall, and she slid with him.

“Your group was gathered here by Vasilyev,” Ruzsky said. “For a robbery. He plans to steal some of the Tsar’s gold. Vasilyev duped my father.”

Maria looked down at her hands.

In the riot of emotions that crossed her face, Ruzsky found the final pieces of his jigsaw. “It’s going to be moved,” he said suddenly. “Vasilyev would have needed someone to sign the papers, so he must have convinced my father and Shulgin that the gold needed to be moved out of the city to Tsarskoe Selo.”

Ruzsky took hold of Maria’s chin and forced her to meet his eye. “Talk to me,” he said. “Please.”

But Maria looked down, her long, dark hair shadowing her tortured face.

Ruzsky reached into his pocket, took out the piece of paper, and handed it to her.

He watched her expression as she read it.

“Have you come to arrest me?”

“I’ve come because I fear I’m going lose you.”

Maria leaned back against the wall with an almost inaudible sigh. She raised her knees and placed her head against them. The desire to reach out and touch her was almost more than he could resist.

“Less than a second,” she said, “to destroy so much. How can it be possible?”

Maria lifted her head and tipped it back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.

Ruzsky waited.

“Sometimes, even now,” she said, “when I am asleep, I can see the clear sky and the sea. I can hear the sound of the cicadas and feel the sun on my face. I was smiling. I was my father’s assistant’s favorite, and he was making me laugh. Father and mother, my sister and brother, were all in the carriage in front of us. I could hear Papa’s laughter. He had a big, loud, booming laugh.”

Maria put her hands against her cheeks. Ruzsky could not tell if she was crying.

There was a long silence.

“We had been to Livadia. It was the summer, and they had had a function in the gardens for local officials and their families. My sister and brother and I had hidden beneath the tables and gorged ourselves on cake. We had played with the older girls, the Tsar’s daughters, and everything was just perfect. All the adults drank champagne and talked in small groups.

“On the way home, Father laughed and Mother started to sing and he joined in. I think they were drunk.”

She smiled, her face the image of her sister’s.

“We were rounding the corner. It was very hot. I could see my mother’s parasol. Kitty was looking around and waving at me and so was Peter, my brother.

“A man stepped out. He wore a black suit and a fedora-a dark shadow on a bright day. I saw the bomb leave his hand and then there was complete silence. I knew something terrible was about to happen. We had heard of assassinations, of course, but never here, never in Yalta.

“The taste of my father’s flesh and the sight of it on the front of my white dress; the smell; these things have stayed with me every moment of my life.

“Nobody screamed. It was still such a perfect day. Our driver stopped and his assistant, Kemtsov, stood up. He had blood on his face, too, and pieces of flesh clung to his dark suit and hat. I saw the shock on his face. He climbed down from the carriage. He walked slowly and I think he called out. But there was no answer.

“The man in the fedora was no longer there. The cicadas screeched. The sun shone. It seemed to take an age for Kemtsov to reach my parents’ carriage.

“I did not want to call to him.

“I stood up and squinted at the sun. I stepped down onto the dusty road and stumbled; I could not feel my legs. When my balance returned, I walked slowly to where Kemtsov stood.”

Maria’s face was as still as a statue.

“Kitty was alive. My father’s great body had shielded her. She didn’t have a scratch on her, but I knew from the expression on her face that we had lost her. She held my brother’s hand. She, too, had been dressed in white.

“There was a tiny breeze. I remember a strand of hair blowing across her face.

“Kemtsov fainted, but we did not help him. I held Kitty’s hand and we stared into each other’s eyes. It was as if the world around us had ceased to exist.” Maria tipped her head to one side. “And it was strange, because, then, I could not hear anything.”

Maria stared at the wall. Her face was wet with tears. Ruzsky enfolded her in his arms.

She gripped him tightly.

“It’s all right,” he whispered.

Her fingers dug deep into his back. “No,” she whispered. “It’s not all right. It will never be all right.”

Ruzsky held her until the convulsions ceased and her breathing slowed. He released her and she tried to compose herself, wiping the tears from her cheeks and removing the hair from her eyes.

“Michael Borodin. Michael Borodin. Such an ordinary name,” she said, as if in a trance. “I was at the piano when my uncle first mentioned his name. It was in the big hall of his house. The window was open and the evening was cool. The police have no doubts, he said, but the man has fled. They would put out an All Russias bulletin, but I knew even then that it would be up to me to find him.”

They were silent. Ruzsky could hear her breathing.

“And you did?”

“It has not been easy.”

“You infiltrated the group.”

Maria did not answer.

“You infiltrated the group alone, or at Vasilyev’s urging?”

“Alone.”

“You have never been his agent?”

“The suggestion is obscene.”

“But you did not kill them.” It was a statement, shielding a question. He hoped merely that she would confirm it.

She slowly shook her head. “For many years, I had lived for their deaths,” she said wearily. “But no, I could not kill them…”

“Does Dmitri know about this?”

“No!” She shook her head. “He knows nothing.”

Ruzsky looked out at the glow of the gas lamps in the street. He thought of Ella’s pretty face on the ice, then of the knife in Olga’s eye, then of Maria risking her life to push him away from the Cossack’s thundering hooves. And he knew that whatever she had done, his love for her was as fundamental and unyielding as his love for his son. He was bound to her.

“What shall we do?” he asked.

Maria stared at the floor. His heart ached for her.

“If I have found out the truth, then so will they. And when they do, they will kill you.”

“Yes.”

“Borodin still lives. Why have you not already-”

“We have tried, but he is unpredictable and suspicious. There was a meeting last night, and he was supposed to arrive with Olga, but he never came.”

“But you are certain he will be at the Kresty Crossing?”

Ruzsky saw the flicker of recognition in her eyes.

“I will help you,” he said.

“No.”

“I will do anything you ask of me.”

“You are your father’s son. You are the chief investigator, and you believe in the old certainties, the old Russia. You could never be an accomplice to murder.”

Ruzsky felt a knot in his stomach. He was desperate to deflect her. “They must suspect you.”

“How could they? I was no more than a girl at the time of my parents’ death. Soon after, I fled the unhappiness of my uncle’s house and took another name. For all that anyone knows the young Maria Bulyatina might as well have been blown apart in that carriage.”

“Borodin will kill you. He must suspect-”

“But he does not. You have seen how he is with me.”

“And you will risk everything for this final act of revenge?”

“What is it that I risk, Sandro? What is it that I have?”

He smarted at her rebuke. “I would do-”

“It is too, too late. It was too late a long time ago.”

“So you came to Petrovo to say goodbye?”

Maria did not answer.

“If I had not been married. If I had not turned away…”

“It was already too late for me, even then.”

Ruzsky pulled her gently toward him until her head rested upon his shoulder, her legs entwined with his. He lifted her face and held it as the tears rolled down her cheeks. “What can I do?” he asked.

Maria did not answer. He cradled her head upon his shoulder and rocked her as she cried. “It will be all right,” he whispered, but he knew that she did not believe him, and he wasn’t sure he believed himself.

He was tortured by the image of Borodin covered in the young man’s blood on that night at the factory, and of Maria bending before him to clean it from his clothes.

Could she really defeat this man?

“This will consume you,” he whispered.

“Sandro… This is my fate. It has chosen me, but it is also the one I have chosen.”

“This man has dragged you into his world. He will extinguish all the light your family once created. Is this what your father would have wished for you?”

“Do not speak of my father.”

“To abandon your sister…”

“Do not speak of them, Sandro.”

“Don’t leave Kitty to her fate.”

“Sandro, I beg you.”

“No, Maria. I beg you.” But he knew he had lost her. Maria’s sacrifice was not wild and hasty, but gentle and considered. This was her fate. The passion they had shared at Petrovo was fueled by the urgency of the condemned. “Please,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

“You must let it run its course.”

“I cannot.”

“Nothing can change this, Sandro…”

She reached for him, her legs wrapped around his waist, her cheeks pressed to his. They touched each other with urgent desperation. Ruzsky kissed her cheeks and forehead and nose and eyes.

“Sandro,” she whispered. “My Sandro. I’m so sorry.”

Ruzsky crushed her to him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I would do anything for you, anything except this.”

Later, they stood and stared at each other in the darkness of the hallway.

Ruzsky knew he must leave, but could not. “I will try to stop you,” he said.

“Then we may both pay a terrible price.”

“For my father’s sake, for the sake of all that he stood for, I cannot allow their plans to continue uninterrupted.”

Ruzsky could not take his eyes off her. He was hardly able to breathe.

“Goodbye, Sandro.”

Ruzsky walked out into the stairwell.

He faced her. He could not bring himself to say goodbye.

Slowly, and without taking her eyes from his, Maria Bulyatina shut the door.