The Amber Rooms

Chapter Thirteen

The next morning, a maid knocked at the door and entered with brass cans of hot and cold water. Sleepily, Saskia introduced herself, but the maid said little and left. Saskia slid from her bed and performed several sets of push-ups, squats and sit-ups. Then she put her forehead against her shins and slowed her breathing. She wondered if she could avoid taking Pasha to the Summer Palace that morning. She was not safe in St Petersburg and she did not trust the judgement of the Count. However, if the Count’s connections were using him, they would not wish to harm his son.

Saskia stood tall and closed her eyes. The traffic noise was loud. She considered the Monty Hall Problem of counter-intuitive probability, both as a method of emptying her mind and as a mathematics lesson for Pasha should the need arise.

When the maid returned with tea, pancakes, sour cream, hot kasha porridge and the Gazette, Saskia was fully dressed. Her right hand gripped her left wrist within the warmer. She waited for the maid to leave. Then she discarded the warmer to sip the tea. It was black and excellent.

In the Gazette, she could find no mention of Kamo being discovered on the train. Her eyes lingered on the date. The day to come, the 17th May, 1908, might be her last in this time. What would it be like to skip those coming decades? She already knew: physically, it would be as mundane as passing from one room into another. Tomorrow might see her reconnected. The future was home, and that was enough, but Saskia planned to rescue her friend David Proctor from whatever had befallen him. The plan was impossible without paradox, maybe, but she would try.

She looked at herself in the mirror and adjusted her frilly cuffs and collar. The impression of the outfit was appropriate to her role as tutor: a sensible, dark affair with an embroidered blouse. The Countess had provided a choice of three hats, each belonging to a previous tutor. They had been adjusted to accommodate Saskia’s head. She was glad that the fashion for wide, tall hats was fading. She was quite tall enough. She opted for a narrow, flat hat with two trailing ribbons.

Saskia smiled at the woman in the mirror; not her.

The circle is closing.

Saskia and Pasha walked alone towards Tsar’s Village Station. It was mid-morning and some of the urgency had left the streets. The day was light but chill. Pasha, who had wanted to take a coach, was sullen.

‘What happened to your previous tutor?’ asked Saskia, watching a horse bus. ‘Did she resign on account of your extended silences?’

The boy said nothing.

‘Come,’ said Saskia. ‘If you talk to me, I’ll buy you a lollipop.’

‘I’m not a child.’

‘Clearly. A child would lack the energy to keep up such a miserable façade. Your adult qualities are almost fully developed, I’m sorry to say.’

Pasha frowned over her words. ‘“Miserable”?’

‘Убогий.’

‘I’m not miserable. I’m tired.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve been walking less than ten minutes.’

‘Why are you so fit? Did you used to be an athlete?’

‘Did you use to be.’

‘Use to be.’

‘But, Pavel Eduardovitch, how rude of you to use the past habitual, and with a stative verb, for shame. I’m still an athlete. Present continuous.’

‘Prove it. Run and find us a taxi.’ Pasha took a cigarette from his waistcoat and gave her a sardonic smile. ‘Imperative.’

As he placed the cigarette in his mouth and patted himself for a matchbook, he noticed that Saskia was no longer beside him. He looked back. She had stopped under the awning of a jeweller’s shop. She was not, however, looking at the window. She was looking at him. He sighed and walked back to her.

‘I’m sorry, Ms Tucholsky. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

Without taking her eyes from his, Saskia drew her leg to the level of his face and swatted the cigarette from his mouth with the tip of her boot. She held her leg at this startling angle for a moment longer. Then she dropped it and, once more, she was just another window shopping lady. Her umbrella had never left the crook of her elbow. She adjusted her hat.

‘Imperative is mood,’ she said, ‘not tense. Now pick up your feet or we’ll miss the train.’

Pasha’s mouth still pouted around the missing cigarette. ‘What?’

‘The train.’

‘No, not the train. How did you do that?’

‘Yes, the train. Pasha?’

‘What?’

‘The word you’re looking for is “pardon”. Look, you dropped your cigarette. Pick it up and place it in a bin, please.’

By the time Pasha had found the cigarette and given it to a drunkard, Saskia had vanished. He looked up and down the street until her voice called from far away. She was riding the rear of a trolleycar. Pasha rushed into the traffic. He swerved around a coach and horses and intercepted the trolleycar on the corner, as it slowed. Saskia helped him onto the deck.

‘Well done,’ she said. ‘Athletic, even.’

‘I can’t breathe.’

‘Lean forward, if you must. Let your lungs inflate.’

Pasha’s bloated face stared up at her. ‘I think I deserve that lollipop now.’

On the train to the Tsar’s Village, once a grand Swedish estate, Saskia and Pasha ate blini sandwiches and a cold meat salad. They occupied a small but comfortable private booth. It seemed that Pasha had been told by his father to demonstrate his knowledge of local history, so Saskia had listened to a collection of facts and anecdotes about the Village.

‘Will the Tsar be at home?’ Saskia asked.

‘The Imperial family are resident in the Alexander Palace only over winter. Today, they are in Peterhof. My father has been making arrangements for their cruise on the royal yacht, Standart. If the family keep to their routine, they will visit Poland over the summer. Then they’ll return to their estate in the Crimea, and finally back to the Alexander Palace.’

‘Is the Tsar a good man?’

Pasha looked at her as though the question was unanswerable. It was, Saskia reflected, possibly treasonous. ‘Ms Tucholsky, he is the Tsar.’

‘I suppose his life must be a little dull.’

‘He is a private man. He wishes to keep a distinction between his public and private lives. Fatherhood is important to him.’

‘As Freud tells us, fatherhood can be a cryptic condition.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Cryptic; скрытый. Mysterious. Don’t you find your own father mysterious?’

Pasha took a bite of his sandwich and shrugged. ‘My father doesn’t speak to me about his business. But he’s brave. He fought in the Russo-Turkish War. When Kars fell, he was entrusted with bearing the news of victory to His Majesty, Alexander II. The Emperor made him an Aide-de-Camp. My father has been attached to the Imperial household ever since. One day, he might be Grand Marshall of the Court. Think of it!’

Grand Marshall, thought Saskia, of the Court of Nicholas the Last.

‘I will. Meanwhile, tell me about the Tsar’s children.’

‘I seldom see them. The Tsarina prefers to keep them away.’ He waved his hand seriously. ‘They are, so to speak, cryptic.’

Saskia smiled inwardly. ‘Sensible,’ she said.

At the Tsar’s Village, they alighted as rain began to fall. Pasha took Saskia’s umbrella and held it above her while they walked to the taxi rank. The face of the foremost driver was no more than a nose between hat and collar. He nodded at Pasha, who opened the carriage door, kicked down the steps, and waited for Saskia to ascend. He followed her inside. They sat opposite one another in the luxuriant gloom. Rain crackled against the roof. The carriage started off with a jolt. They rode in silence. Half way to the Summer Palace, Saskia felt Pasha’s ankle resting against hers. She moved her leg.

The cab stopped on Dvortzovaya Street. Outside, Saskia could see the gate to the palace square.

‘Do you agree,’ asked Pasha, ‘that it should be acknowledged as a wonder of the world?’

Saskia gave him a wry look.

‘Your question has an overworked quality, Pavel Eduardovitch. Much like the palace.’