Heart of Iron

Chapter 5

The rest of the exam week was uneventful. All the girls, undoubtedly spurred by the same sense of necessity as myself, passed. I did better than I expected but not as well as Eugenia would’ve liked — human biology was the only class in which I rated “excellent”; most of the rest were “good,” with “satisfactory” in philosophy. Jack Bartram teased me about it, but gently.

I decided not to go home for the break. It was only a week long, and my fervor to see my aunt and mother had abated due to a part of me — a brand new part that had not existed until recently — that felt the time would be best spent getting to know Jack Bartram and figuring out exactly what his position was, as well as why the British crown was interested in Chinese students in St. Petersburg. Luckily, Jack, deprived of our daily walks from the university to the dormitory, showed keen interest in standing outside my domicile in plain view from my windows. On the first day of break, I slept late, greatly aided by an interminable drizzle. When I eventually looked out the window, I saw all of Vasilyevsky Island was weeping — the buildings and the trees dripped water the same ashen color as the sky. There was a man standing outside, and even though his collar was raised, I recognized Jack Bartram by his gaunt physique and soft-brimmed hat. He huddled under his black umbrella and smoked a long thin cigar, thick clouds of smoke drifting and twining with the fog.

“Your suitor’s here, miss,” Anastasia informed me helpfully as she peered over my shoulder.

“He’s not my suitor,” I said. “At least I don’t think he is… ”

“He sure ain’t here to enjoy the weather,” Anastasia pointed out. “Maybe you should invite him in then — he seems to get wetter and sadder by the minute.”

Natalia Sergeevna was in a kind mood that morning, and allowed a visitor, so Anastasia ran outside to extend the invitation while I put the kettle on. When Anastasia returned, she was disappointingly alone.

“He’s too shy,” she explained. “He just asked me to give you this.”

I unfolded the piece of paper Anastasia handed me. It was an invitation to a concert of chamber music to be held in a club called Northern Star. I could not help but think of the Crane Club, and miss Chiang Tse acutely. Chamber music seemed a pleasant enough way to spend the evening, but no one could argue that at the same time it was quite unadventurous and dull.

I sighed and rolled my eyes at Anastasia. “Prepare an evening dress,” I said. “I’m going out tomorrow night.”

The Northern Star Club was surreptitiously tucked away among the tenement buildings not too far from Moyka and the Yusupovs’ palace — that reminded me painfully of my first season. It was hard to believe it had been less than a year since my debut. I certainly felt more adult and more sympathetic to my aunt after just a couple of months on my own. I could now understand the deep irritation those who ran this city caused her.

Jack had collected me by the dormitories — he still refused to come inside, and waited stubbornly by the main entrance as I made sure that my dress had not developed any rips or stains while I was not watching. Jack had the good sense to hire a coach, and as soon as my crinoline and I settled inside the carriage, I began asking him questions. And I had quite a few of them.

“Why did that gendarme listen to you?” I asked, not bothering to waste time on how-do-you-dos and other polite nonsense.

“He told you,” Jack said. “I have diplomatic papers.”

“Even though you claim to be a student.”

“I claim to be both.” He smiled. “Is that not allowed?”

“And since when do the English have jurisdiction over the police, which are, if I recall correctly, a part of Russian Internal Affairs?”

Jack swallowed and looked out of the carriage window, no doubt longing to be outside or at the very least away from me — even though just an hour before he wanted nothing better but my company. “Collaboration in the cases of Chinese espionage,” he finally said. “You understand.”

I shook my head vehemently enough to displace my bonnet. “I most certainly do not. If you indeed think they are spies, why did you let them go?”

“But you… ”

“It was not about me,” I interrupted, with Eugenia’s stern tone cutting into my voice. “You did not know who I was… ” A sudden thought struck me and I peered into his face, undeterred by darkness and flopping brim of his hat. “Or did you?”

“I did,” he said. “But that is not why I was there.”

“You were there to help with the arrests?”

He shook his head. “My… my own business, I swear to you. And I just happened by and could not bear to see your distress.”

He seemed sincerely anguished, and I decided to scale back my interrogation. There’s only so far you can push a horse before it collapses, Eugenia used to say. I suspected the maxim applied to bipeds as well as the equine species. We traveled the rest of the way in silence, me smiling as beatifically as I could manage, and Jack hiding under his hat, his nervous fingers worrying an unlit cigar.

The club could rival any of the imperial palaces in the number of chandeliers, candelabras, and score of other contrivances blazing light. It seemed that the Northern Star had one mission — to banish every scrap of darkness and shadow — and it succeeded admirably. Even Jack’s long, narrow countenance, usually hidden by his hat, was cast in stark relief. I could admire the austere hollow of his cheek, like that of an ancient saint. I thought my mother would approve as we entered the club, arm in arm.

In the main hall, as large as any ballroom I had ever seen and probably quite capable of serving as one, the light was dazzling. Men and women spoke and mingled in the excessive illumination, some sitting at the small round tables, others in armchairs and on sofas positioned invitingly in the alcoves of the ornately decorated walls. Soft music was playing, and I had to squint to discern four musicians and their instruments on a small stage at the far end of the hall. Two violins, a cello, and a flute complained about something beautiful and sad, and the music served as a fine counterpoint to the low hum of human voices, tinkling of Champagne glasses, and occasional burst of soft laughter.

“How do you like it?” Jack whispered.

“It’s very bright,” I said.

He took my words as a cue, and led me toward one of the niches in the wall, to an unoccupied table framed by two chairs. I sat down and waited for my eyes to adjust to the somewhat lessened light. A waiter stopped by our table to deposit a bottle of Champagne in a silver ice bucket, a pair of flutes, and a plate of hors d’œuvre, which I found quite welcome. I had forgotten to eat dinner.

Jack leaned back in his chair and drank. His gray eyes searched the crowd and seemed troubled, and I hoped my questioning had not upset him. It is with a small amount of shame that I confess my concern was not indicative of the goodness of my heart but rather worry that if I upset him, he would be less forthcoming with answers.

He nodded at a few men who walked past our table and they nodded back, but showed no inclination to stop and chat. I thought it rather strange that people did not seem to speak to anyone but their immediate companions, and precious little mingling was occurring.

“How peculiar,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve yet seen people change tables or move to talk to someone else.”

“It is by design,” Jack said. “People come here to enjoy a social setting where one is not compelled to interact with one’s fellow men. I find it refreshing.”

I shook my head and laughed. “If one wants to be quiet, then why leave one’s house?”

“As you can see, most come here with their friends. It’s a good way to be alone in a crowd.”

I wanted to say that being alone in a crowd seemed to miss the point of both crowds and solitude, but bit my words back. After all, how would I make Jack like me enough to tell me his secrets if I argued with his every word? I was certain my mother would be proud of my feminine deductive abilities if she only knew.

My self-congratulations were cut short due to the sudden cessation of music which distracted me. I watched as several men wheeled around a piano, and moved it to occupy the stage the four musicians had just left. The mahogany piano gleamed, and its white keys were so bright in the blinding light they seemed to fuse together into a single strip of pearly radiance. They seemed pure light, with an occasional dark gap of the black keys. The smell of burning wax added an almost religious atmosphere to the proceedings.

The men also brought around a chair in which the pianist was already sitting — I thought that it was someone crushed with age or disease, and assumed the upcoming performance would likely be more about honoring the unfortunate than actual entertainment. Imagine my surprise when the figure in the chair raised its stick arms and rained its fingers onto the keyboard in an avalanche of sound, cascades of loud clear notes filled with both passion and precision.

“Bravura” was the only way to describe the performance. All conversation and laughter ceased, and even the waiters dawdled with their trays, reluctant to move for anything as mundane as delivery of drink and food. Even I was enraptured.

My own relationship with music had always been uneven and fraught with doomed romance, much like any good novel. Despite a string of teachers and a variety of instruments from clavichords to flutes, I showed no proclivity toward musical performance whatsoever. My fingers got entangled in themselves and my breath came out ragged and wrong. I could not hit a proper note if my life depended on it. All this was, of course, a cause of bitter disappointment to my mother, who herself was quite an accomplished, albeit infrequent, piano player, and who remembered too acutely it was her skill at the piano that had initially enchanted my father. It took both Eugenia and Miss Chartwell reminding her rather cynically that what I lacked in musical education I more than made up in titles and impending wealth to console my dear mother.

Despite all that, I quite enjoyed music as a listener, and I could not have been happier sipping my Champagne and discreetly tapping my foot under the cover of my bell skirt in tempo with the music.

Jack smiled at me. “You seem to enjoy the music.”

I nodded. “I do.”

He looked sly, almost impish. “Notice anything unusual about the player?”

“Not as such,” I replied. “Unless you consider being carried around in a chair unusual.”

“That’s because he does not have legs.” Jack seemed to enjoy his grisly words.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“And no head,” he added, laughing openly. “Look.”

The music stopped and while the applause still hung in the air, the stagehands approached the pianist’s chair and swung it around. There was laughter from those in the know and a drawn-out “ooooh” from the rest of the audience. The pianist was nothing but a stout metal can, the size and shape of a small water barrel, with two long jointed metal arms attached to it. Each arm ended with a set of ten unnaturally long and flexible fingers.

“That’s cheating,” I said.

Jack laughed. “Still quite a marvel of ingenuity, isn’t it?” he said. “It is quite impressive how much mechanical and engineering talent is gathered in this city and what things they can achieve.”

I inclined my head, agreeing. He was right. There was a sense of vibrancy and invention, of novelty: the submarines that popped up in the middle of Neva had been growing larger and sleeker lately; newspapers reported on new railways and the creeping expansion of St. Petersburg’s many newly constructed factories. There were rumors of increasingly successful airship flights. Maybe it was enough, I thought, enough to make up for the plain-clothed policemen and silent disappearances.

Jack looked at the crowd, as if searching for someone. I drank my Champagne and waited politely, half listening to the human musicians who resumed playing on the stage. A tall, regal woman caught my eye as she walked past our alcove, her hand resting in that of a slender man who seemed to be her senior by a few years.

The woman turned to regard Jack with a long and apparently disapproving look. “Mr. Bartram,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Jack stood and introduced me to the woman, a Dame Florence Nightingale. Her taciturn companion was Mr. Sidney Herbert — an Englishman, but he quickly informed me his mother was Russian, from the Vorontsov family. He even greeted me in Russian, and I responded in kind, noticing he was only slightly rustier with the language than I was after months spent in St. Petersburg.

While Mr. Herbert and I exchanged pleasantries, Jack and Dame Nightingale entered a fierce whispered argument. She leaned over the table, hovering above his chair like some sort of vengeful angel dressed in a gray two-piece silk dress.

I would’ve eavesdropped, but Mr. Herbert distracted me quite effectively, occupying my attention by asking me about the subtler points of declension of female nouns ending in “ch” and “sh,” and I got so flustered as to completely forget I was supposed to be listening for Jack’s secrets.

My linguistic embarrassment was thankfully cut short when Dame Nightingale pointed her very straight nose at me and smiled, her dark eyes boring into me as if I were some curious thing she happened to come across during a nature excursion — she looked like one of those overly healthy individuals who called their walks “constitutionals” and had an extreme interest in the out-of-doors, vegetarianism, and other ways of artificially extending one’s life, not really caring whether it was God’s intent or not.

“Hello,” I said, trying to keep the hostility I felt out of my voice. “Are you in St. Petersburg for the upcoming season?”

She laughed and shook her head slightly, offering no further response. Instead, she launched an offensive of her own. “Mr. Bartram tells me you are one of those curiosities, a woman they are attempting to educate.”

“Quite successfully,” I said.

She waved her hand, dismissing my words as if they were mere child’s babblings. “Of course. I myself once had interest an in medicine — nursing, to be honest. Thankfully, I had parents who cared about my wellbeing and friends who dissuaded me from such foolishness. It is not a woman’s place.”

“Your queen would beg to differ, I am sure,” I said.

Dame Nightingale snorted rather loudly. “What nonsense. Her Majesty is most concerned with the recent trend of women abandoning home and hearth, as well as their duty to their fathers and husbands. I’m sure she would not at all approve of your little… excursion into the male realm.”

I glared. “Surely a woman who is capably ruling two countries… ”

“… is especially sensitive to the demands a male sphere of activity puts on the female constitution.” Dame Nightingale smiled unpleasantly. “Besides, Her Majesty has a husband. And you…?”

“I do not,” I said, feeling as if it was Aunt Genia’s will that animated my lips. “And I would prefer to not have one. If I were audacious enough to dare compared myself to an English monarch, Queen Elizabeth would be my example.”

“A spinster.”

“No man’s chattel.”

Dame Nightingale grew bored with me, and turned to eye Jack. “Is that what you like then?” she inquired. “A complete lack of femininity?”

“I’ve never felt particularly attached to abstract attributes,” Jack said earnestly, and I managed not to laugh. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait for the season to start so Eugenia would be here and could meet Jack. I thought the two of them would enjoy one another’s company.

“I see,” Dame Nightingale said icily, and again leaned over the table, planting both hands firmly next to our nearly empty hors d’œuvre plate, in a pose that struck me as almost comically at odds with her expressed views about propriety and femininity. I had to stifle another giggle as Mr. Herbert kissed my hand and murmured he was charmed, truly, and was looking forward to meeting my aunt in December, for he had heard so much of her keen political mind. I responded in kind, assuring him she would most certainly be delighted to speak to one who served another great empire, all the while straining to hear Dame Nightingale’s whisper. I was especially curious because, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jack draw away from her, his back against the wall. I only caught the end of her words, but that was enough to seal my dislike of her forever.

“Just remember, Mr. Bartram,” she hissed, “who your true friends are and where your loyalties lie, and any trouble could be avoided.”

I felt sick to my stomach when Jack whispered back, “Yes, madam. I always remember.”

The next day, the sky drizzled and grayed. The river, visible now through the bare branches, black — as if drawn by the same hand that had executed the Crane Club’s ink paintings — against the pale enamel of the weeping sky. I idled in bed until Anastasia exiled me from my bedroom because she needed to sweep, and cleaning waited for no one.

As much as I enjoyed the music the night before, the events had left an unpleasant deposit deep in my soul, like the dregs that settle in a glass of seemingly acceptable wine, spoiling forever one’s appetite for it. Dame Nightingale was surely the cause of the dirty murkiness that clouded my spirit that morning.

I peered out the window, and was somewhat consoled to see the rising cigar smoke and the wide-brimmed hat, the black umbrella and a black glove holding it aloft, a wide cloak flapping in the wind like wings. At least, Jack did not hate me; I found the thought comforting.

He looked up just then, and, well aware it was too late to conceal I wasn’t looking, I smiled and waved. He waved back, turned, and walked away abruptly. I wasn’t sure then whether to feel pleased or insulted. I settled on calling Anastasia and asking for tea and breakfast — thick slices of bread, loaves so rich and golden, their crust as fragile as March ice on the river, butter, slabs of cheese.

I drank my tea, sweet and strong and hot, and read the newspaper as a diversion — it had been weeks since I read anything other than a textbook, and soon enough the next quarter would start, plunging me into more human anatomy and Newtonian fancies. But by God, I was going to read the newspaper that Sunday.

I skipped over the news from abroad, unwilling to relive yesterday’s irritation with the English, and let my eyes travel over the black newsprint describing the construction of Trans-Siberian railroad. The article was accompanied by several daguerreotypes of smiling freedmen standing next to gigantic piles of dirt, with horses and mules dragging rails in the background.

It was only when I got to the last page that my tranquility was subsumed by indignation and anger: in a single paragraph, the newspaper reported a breakin and subsequent fire at the Crane Club. No one was hurt, however the cases containing all the engineering marvels of which Chiang Tse was so touchingly proud had disappeared. It was especially puzzling since the cases were heavy and made of glass and metal. Additionally, they had been bolted to the floor and the article mentioned that when the police examined the burned out ruins, they came to the conclusion the bolts had been ripped out, damaging the floor previous to the fire. There were no suspects, and no one — neither the newspaper nor the police — seemed especially concerned with this convergence of vandalism, arson, and theft.

My first thought was to blame the Nikolashki — only they could’ve seized whatever property they desired without attracting attention, without the newspapers even knowing what was taken, and without having to engineer a fire. Since there were no suspects mentioned, they were not trying to frame anyone either. I decided the crime was genuine — that is, no official governmental bodies were involved.

Of course, my mind could not help but worry at Jack’s sudden appearance on the night that I first met him — he was there, by the club, soon after sunset. That was nothing, I told myself — plenty of people happened to visit the club, and plenty of others had made appearances in places that later became scenes of crimes — why, it was practically impossible to avoid.

I folded the newspaper, finished my bread and butter with grim determination, and decided to go for a walk along the embankment, to clear my head.

Thankfully, the rain had lifted, and the pale sun lit the sky, coloring it pearl gray at first and then pale blue. The tree branches, still studded with water droplets, shone in the sunlight, and as I left the dormitories, I thought of the winter, of how soon enough it would change everything — it would enclose the tree branches with a carapace of ice, as glorious as it was alien and terrifying; I imagined snow crunching underfoot, its virgin expanse quickly tracked and split with many footpaths, like veins on pale skin. I thought of all the birds — yellow, red-breasted — flocking from woods to the cities, to be cooed at and to feed shyly on breadcrumbs and grains of rye thrown to them. I walked alone, tracing the outline of Vasilyevsky Island with my slow footsteps, and thinking about school and Jack.

I tried not to think of my friends, especially of Chiang Tse — I tried not to guess if he had ever encountered snow, or if he would delight in learning to skate on the frozen surface of ponds and lakes. It felt so terribly unfair, that he, perhaps one of the gentlest people I knew, was chased away and denied the opportunity to enjoy the winter in St. Petersburg — not its shallow season and vapid self-aggrandizement, but its true and natural beauty offset by a frame of snow and ice into which it would be placed like a gray precious stone.

I realized then how much I missed Chiang Tse and his friends, how this final violation of their beloved club was a blow struck to a heart already wounded. How I missed them then, and how guilty I felt about the Manchu Wong Jun, locked up in a jail somewhere, not knowing that there were people who still cared about him. I couldn’t imagine whether it would be a comfort if he knew or not.

On Monday, my tormented unease was assuaged by Olga’s return — she did not say it outright, but I suspected her family preferred her here, safely away, where she was fed and looked after and taken care of. I greeted her with open arms, and felt only a small pang of guilt at the selfishness of my joy.

As soon as she had settled — which did not take at all long, seeing how she was gone only a couple of days — I told her about the Northern Star and Crane Club. She seemed, however, less interested in mechanical piano players and robberies than she was in Jack. She made me repeat everything Jack had said to me, and what I said back, and describe the way he was looking at me.

“Clear enough,” she said after our third cup of tea, and sat back in her chair. Anastasia took the gesture as a permission to retire, and was gone in the direction of Natalia Sergeevna’s apartment before I had a chance to dissuade her.

“What’s clear?” I asked, looking after Anastasia longingly. I was hoping for more bread and butter, since worry usually had an effect on my appetite — somehow, the state of the world seemed more tolerable to me when there was fresh and crusty bread and the sensation of butter melting on my tongue.

“He loves you,” Olga explained, exasperated with my stupidity. “How can you not see it?”

I shrugged. “It’s not that I don’t — he clearly wants to spend time with me. It’s just that I am not sure why.”

“It is obvious,” Olga said and poured herself another cup of tea. There was so much steam in my little living room that the windows had completely fogged over. “Men want to spend time with the girls they like. And he is clearly an important man — I hear that Mr. Herbert is a brilliant politician, and knowing him is quite an honor for anyone. So that Mr. Bartram of yours is obviously a great catch — and he is certainly interested in you. The only question is, are you interested? Do you think you love him?”

“I cannot say that the question had occurred to me,” I mumbled, and bit into a lump of sugar like a peasant, chasing it with a sip of very strong tea. “How do you know if you love someone? How do you even know what love is — I mean, if you never felt it, how do you know what it’s supposed to feel like, and if you’re feeling it right, and if what you’re feeling even has a name?”

Olga stared at me in dismay. “You speak such nonsense, Sasha. What is it with you?”

I only shrugged. I never knew what it was with me, how things that apparently looked like simple questions and basic emotions to others grew enormously complicated for me — I felt as if I was tripping over my own feet, trying to disentangle meanings of words such as “love” and “interest” and “like” and “friendship.” They seemed simple on the surface, but the moment I attempted to use these words as measuring sticks against which to hold my emotions, they wriggled and slipped away, leaving only confusion and frustration behind.

Olga attempted to help — at least I think that is what she meant when she said, “All right then. Think about how you feel when you see him. If he were standing outside of this window right now — what would you feel?”

I smudged the condensation on the windowpane, clearing a sickle-shaped sliver of clear glass. There was fog outside, its tendrils rising from the ground and curling into the mist that already concealed everything from view, except the gas streetlamps and their reflections in the Neva. There were lights on the opposite bank but only vague and blurred, distorted by the fog like ghost lanterns. Jack was not there but I could picture him clearly as I said, “I would be glad, I suppose. A little embarrassed that he’s out there for all to see, so obvious. Maybe a bit angry because he is so conspicuous, as if trying to make me feel guilty for not returning his affection quickly enough. I would be curious too, and impatient to ask him about his friends, his work, what they want with the Chinese — or with the Russians, for that matter.”

Olga heaved a sigh and shook her head. “You are making it so very complicated, Sasha, and it doesn’t need to be. Life is really very simple.”

I nodded as if I agreed to avoid further argument, but my mind raced. It was nowhere as simple as Olga claimed. To her, life was people falling in love and marrying. But I did not understand love, as I did not understand its connection to marriage. Eugenia’s words from my childhood, forgotten until now — until I actually needed them — floated to the surface. “Marrying is not difficult,” she said. “Who isn’t smart enough to make babies? Only this is the thing, Sasha — love is nothing, it is empty. If you must marry, don’t marry someone you love — you’re too much of a fool for that; we all are. Instead marry a man who is kind to you and who would be your friend ten, twenty years later. Love passes by all too quickly, and if you must be stuck with someone, at least make sure you can stand him.”

“I don’t love anyone,” I told Olga. “I am much too preoccupied with other things. If I drop out of the university to get married, my aunt would never forgive me.” Olga moved to say something, but I held up my hand. “I mean it. I’ll be dead before I let anything interfere with my schooling — even if that something is the most wonderful man in the world.”

Olga took a long sip of her piping hot tea. “You’ll change your mind,” she said. “You just wait.”

I did not argue, but thought bitterly to myself that everyone seemed to think they knew more about me than I did, from Dame Nightingale to my best friend. Oh, how I hoped they were wrong.