The Amber Rooms

Chapter Twenty

As a woman who had overheard a thousand conversations about St Petersburg throughout the Russias, she knew that no commentator passed through St Petersburg without remarking, with the pomp of private insight, that the city was an attempt to impersonate the face—and, by association, the bone structure—of its European cousins: the polyglot, intellectual Vienna; the lynchpin Berlin; Peter’s favourite, Amsterdam; and Paris, which could never be bettered for taste. Last of all, Saskia thought, there is Venice, as she passed her invitation to a footman who was dressed in white, clownish pyjamas, a stove-pipe hat, and black mask. Her invitation read, Carnevale Veneziano a San Pietroburgo, 1908. Tonight the cliché would be celebrated.

‘Goda del nostro carnevale, signora,’ said the footman, opening an arm towards the façade of the Great Summer Palace of the Tsars. It was lit with theatrical lime-jets and oil fires and the last of the spring sunshine. Its northern square, through which Saskia had galloped not four days before, throbbed with activity.

Saskia took a breath to correct his Italian, but held it. Instead, she looked upon the crowd and let Kamo take her arm and move her into its swirl. Most guests were costumed in the Venetian style. Others were dressed as courtiers from the reign of Catherine the Great. One short man was dressed as a Roman centurion, though his cloak was golden. Another as a pirate. There was a highwayman. And the clowns. Clown after clown.

‘We will go immediately to the Amber Room,’ said Kamo, pulling her.

‘We will not.’ She scanned the crowd. ‘Midnight is our time, not before.’

‘Is it clockwork? Do we meet someone there, is that it?’

Kamo’s face was obscured by his mask: a skull missing its jaw. She could, however, see him biting the inside of his cheek.

‘You could say that,’ she replied. ‘We will wait until dinner is called, eat, and recover the money. Smile.’

Kamo squeezed her arm. ‘How will we move it? Money is heavy, worse than books.’

‘It has been arranged. Relax. Enjoy yourself.’

‘What is my role in this, Lynx?’ he asked.

Saskia turned to him. His tone was so soft, the question placed so wearily, that she wondered whether he had guessed her true plan.

‘You are the finest infiltrator in St Petersburg,’ she said. ‘How else would we have made it to this ball?’

‘I wonder,’ he said. ‘Perhaps my presence is a bulwark against further interference as you proceed to betray the Party.’

Saskia looked at him.

‘You overestimate my cunning.’

‘I remember a comment the Pockmarked One made after I told him the story of our first meeting on Turtle Lake. “Perhaps,” he said, “she is a witch who seeks the wisdom of the dead.” He found that funny.’

To this, Saskia did not reply.

Polished, black masks complemented the bone white. The latter were commonly gilded, their beauty spots gold in the touches of sunlight. The black masks were seldom without precious stones. Below those masks that covered only half the face, lips were licked. Many half-masks sported probosces that recalled that perfect English expression—Nosey Parker. The full masks were still as skulls and their fixed smiles defiant: lips red and full. The men liked to wear these masks with a headband below their three-pointed Venetian hats. The women tended to carry them on stalks. Their skirts were shorter than usual and their necklines lower. Many wore long, thin gloves with a hook at the elbow in which to hang the hem of the skirt, and they expanded as they spun.

All about fluttered the whispers of fans, laughter, and conversation. Only the palace servants, who wore no masks, were silent as they carried trays and lit cigarettes and delivered small notes, precise as jewels in clockwork. The occasional flutter of a juggled torch led to an appreciative gasp. Young ladies giggled. It was no difficult task to locate the courtesans. They were slower and employed the conspicuous posture of the huntress, not the prey.

The evening already smelled of sweat, perfume, cooking meat, and fireworks. The air itself might have been a cocktail mixed to the perfection of collective anticipation: that this night to come, this Petersburg cliché turned authentic, would be somehow unforgettable and unique. This evening might represent the apogee of the season. The Tsar, sadly, was not present. But in his absence there was release. These aristocrats were set for an occasion during which their good names, hidden by a temporary Venetian pall, could not be impaired by mistakes romantic or otherwise. It limited the damage to a level below that of disaster. There might be mishaps and distant shakes of the head. That was the attraction of the masked ball.

Saskia had a sense of smell beyond that of her fellow guests. She knew that the women were wet and the men hard. She put a finger to her nose and frowned.

She turned to Kamo.

‘Get me a drink,’ she said.

Saskia stood there, incognito, in a dress of blackcurrant velvet and furlined pelisse and a half-mask that fringed her eyes in gold. Her hat was a sloping disc. Her shoulders carried silver epaulettes and threaded telephone cords that trailed down her arms to her wrists, which disappeared inside her hand warmer. Her choker was black and at its centre was a lobe of amber. She could feel it when she swallowed. The pitch of the merriment was reaching a height, as though the connections between the revellers—their hands, their lips—were tightening to the perfection of gut on a stringed instrument.

‘Here,’ said Kamo, putting a glass of white wine in her hand. ‘To courage.’

‘To courage.’

As she lifted the glass to her lips, Kamo stopped her. He linked his arm in hers. Eye to eye, they drank. It was the Bruderschaft, the rite of brotherhood that had become popular among the Outfit since the introduction of its German-born member, Saskia, who never liked the gesture and considered it a poor Caucasian joke at her expense.

They emptied the glasses.

‘Brotherhood,’ said Kamo. In his mask, his eyes were as unreadable as the marbles of a doll. ‘Does the word offend you, sister?’

‘Your manner offends me. As for sexist language, we all pick our battles.’

A blazing arch of fireworks left the roof of the Summer Palace. Saskia had never seen fireworks in twilight. The magnesium light took away colour for an instant. She turned to Kamo, who seemed puzzled by the sudden light.

‘The first house has been called to dinner,’ Saskia told him, walking backwards and away. ‘We should eat something.’ In Phrygian, a dialect that the Armenian speaker Kamo would understand, but which would be difficult for eavesdroppers, she added, ‘You’ll need your strength for the money. Think of it.’

Kamo stared at her. The lower half of his face provided no clue to his mood. ‘I am,’ he said in Russian, and that was an end to their conversation. The spaces within the crowd had compressed as the guests moved towards the many formal doors that permitted entrance to the Summer Palace. A dozen conversations repeated the same thought: that the evening proper was about to begin. That is, it was set to transform once more. Then the talk stopped. Saskia was pushed left and right. The crowd compressed still further until Saskia and Kamo drifted apart at the foot of the Summer Palace. The bass register of an orchestra groaned from its doors. Flames burned with a honeyed intensity from the tall windows. Above, the Tsar’s flag moved in a weak wind.

At once, they were inside the palace, as if on a tide into a sea cave. The main stairwell rose the full height and depth of the palace. Two flights led to a central landing. From this, four more flights sprouted to the first floor. The risers were marble and the banisters finessed with vases.

Behind the sound of a polonaise, played by musicians on the landing, she could hear the beating of the candles in the chandeliers. There was a principle, this evening, of natural light. Conversation recovered. Saskia stretched out for Kamo until his fingers—unmistakably the fingers of Simon Ter-Petrossian—locked with hers. The sounds reflected and thundered in her diaphragm. Even the giggles seemed basso. Kamo moved to her shoulder. He might see this as a battle, she thought, and their entry a charge. They exchanged inscrutable looks.

They passed the chamber orchestra. Each musician was dressed in evening wear, and lacked a mask. Not one musician returned the stares of the guests. The air was perfumed. The porphyry pillars sparkled wetly. Beyond them, at the top of the stairs, an emerald flash captured her attention. The intensity of its light was such that she tripped on the next riser. She allowed Kamo to steer her upwards. The emerald light was gone; but Saskia thought about Pavel Eduardovitch and his successful entry to the Lyceum as they passed through a room with mirrored walls, walked around the edge of the Great Hall and entered an anteroom whose fireplaces were covered with green glass. Apropos this light, she thought, Colourless green ideas sleep furiously, but could not source the phrase, despite its familiarity. Saskia tried to think of this as her farewell party. It was difficult. A persistent worry ebbed at her. She glanced at a passing clock. It was nearly nine.

Here, in the witching light, they approached an oval dining table. Saskia allowed Kamo to seat her in a velour chair. His mouth did not betray his frustration. Her place was laid with many sets of silver cutlery. The crystal glasses were frosted with the Imperial arms. Silver ice buckets held wines of all shades and sugared fruits were arranged in tiers. A pole rose from the centre of the table and upon it was a Venetian mask, trailing red ribbons from its eyes. It reminded Saskia of the bloody tears she had cried in a border town the previous autumn. Kamo took the seat on her right.

‘You and your partner make thirteen,’ said the woman on her left. She was dressed as an angel. Her wire wings were draped with goose feathers. Her carmined lips suggested an older woman of fifty or so. Playfully, she said, ‘The first to stand will be unlucky for a year. What have you come as, young woman?’

‘She is the Allegory of the Future,’ said Kamo, ‘where superstition will have no role.’ His tone suggested he wanted to end the conversation there, but Saskia did not intend to remain silent throughout the meal. No doubt Kamo feared that she would reveal herself. It was, however, more likely that the guests would find their silence conspicuous.

‘Do you see the wires on my arms?’ asked Saskia. Her Russian had never been more perfect, and she was aware of the beauty in her voice. Several of the nearby conversations ceased as guests turned towards her. ‘They carry electricity.’

The woman smiled as she poured. ‘I’m from heaven,’ she replied. ‘Tell me about your place and I’ll tell you about mine.’

‘In the future,’ said Saskia, speaking to the covered faces, ‘we have buildings so tall they reach the clouds. The sun shines on their spires and there is plenty to eat and drink for all the people.’

A servant’s arm entered her view and put a champagne flute next to her plate. Saskia was distracted by the thought that the narrow glass and the champagne, with its delightful tint, had come together in this moment with the elegance that only existed with transience. The two would separate soon and never meet again. On the surface of the glass, she saw the greenish reflection of the fires, and the curled fists of Kamo.

‘At least,’ she continued, ‘there is plenty for those who live in the tall buildings. Others live underground.’

‘My dear,’ said Kamo, in the belittling tone of a husband, ‘you will overplay your part.’

‘I want to hear about them,’ said the Angel, and several of the other guests motioned for Saskia to continue.

‘Their faces are dark and hidden,’ Saskia said. She had turned to Kamo. ‘They walk treadmills and operate huge dynamos. Every movement of each body is captured, transformed, and used for the betterment of their superiors in the sky, where the sun shines.’

‘Darling, you are drunk,’ said Kamo. He addressed the table: ‘She is drunk.’

‘Nonsense,’ replied a man in a black hat. ‘She is lucid and entertaining. Tell me, madam, how might one travel from St Petersburg to Moscow in your future?’

‘In ships that sail through the air.’

‘Winged ships?’ asked Angel.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Flapping wings, then,’ said the man in the black hat. ‘Like birds!’ He followed this with a bellowing laugh that drew glances from the tables around them. Kamo added his own, quieter laugh, and put his hand on Saskia’s thigh.

‘Fixed wings,’ she said, addressing the man but looking at Kamo. ‘Unless one wishes to travel by balloon, for which no wings are required. These air ships dock on the spires of the skyscrapers.’

‘Of course,’ Angel said. ‘Heavier-than-air machines.’

‘We dance,’ said Saskia, smiling. ‘We dance to music produced by machines.’

‘Automata?’ asked the man in the black hat.

‘And the automata are so indistinguishable from flesh-and-blood humans that men lust after them.’

‘What powers these automata?’

Saskia laughed. ‘They are electric, of course.’

‘Electric!’

As table laughed with her, the moment—all of them, with the exception of Kamo, laughing at the idea of electric automata—was clear to her with such brightness, such sharp meaning, that she lost the desire to talk any longer. She put a napkin to her mouth and coughed. The sound covered the fibrillation of her breath. The mask, likewise, hid her tears.

At sixteen minutes to midnight, Saskia and Kamo were waiting in the chamber between the dining room and great hall. An ivy arch had been installed near the tiled stove. Beneath it, a wooden bridge, painted silver, was intended to recall the grace of Venice. The entire scene had been created by a photographic company to produce souvenirs of the event. The camera and its tripod were, however, unattended, and there were no more than a dozen people in the room at a given moment. Saskia and Kamo moved behind the ivy arch, which partially concealed them.

‘That was stupid,’ said Kamo. He put his lips against her neck. Her skin shuddered as though his tongue was a settling mosquito. ‘There will be no further delay. We have fifteen minutes.’

‘Sixteen. By that time, most people will be outside to watch the midnight fireworks.’

‘How will we escape?’

‘Through the private apartment of the Empress Maria Fyodorovna. There is an iron staircase that will take us to the park at the rear of the palace.’

‘I don’t like waiting,’ he said. She could smell the acid on his breath. It made her think of the green flames. Kamo opened his doublet. Inside, an apple grenade hung from his belt.

She curtseyed a little, as though his lips had weakened her.

‘Where did you get that?’

Kamo drew his lips back. It was the smile that had always been prelude to murder. ‘Are you frightened for your delightful dinner companions, Lynx?’

‘They are people,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t abdicate your responsibility to forces behind your control. Don’t see them as already dead.’

As she kissed his ear, she noticed that Kamo had his weight on his right leg. The bomb, fist-sized, looked heavy. Saskia had clocked Kamo’s reaction to a visual stimulus at 280 milliseconds. Unusually fast. Given the amount of wine he had drunk, his weight, and his age, she estimated his blood alcohol to be one tenth of a percent. Its relaxing effect would improve his simple reaction time but impair his judgement.

She withdrew her hand from the warmer. She made a fist to help flex her biceps.

‘He gave it to me.’

Saskia tried to swallow, but could not. She felt the room darken.

‘Are you saying that he is here?’

‘You’re scared.’

She was. Saskia struck Kamo’s heart with a sharp, penetrating blow that almost tore her biceps. He coughed and fell against the wall. His mask remained jolly but his mouth was downturned. She looked hard at his throat, slowed her vision, and saw the subtle, blooming redness of his pulse. It was weak and irregular. His mouth opened, gulping silently. His lips became cyanotic as his heart misfired. The strike had been placed well.

Saskia looked around the ivy arch. Nobody had noticed her attack. She reached inside his doublet and removed the apple grenade. There was no obvious method of disposal. She could not think of a place—laundry chute, punch bowl, stove—where any noble or servant would be safe.

She put it into the fabric bag at the base of her back and buttoned it with an expert pinch of her fingers.

The eyes behind Kamo’s mask were bloody. Saskia put her lips upon his in a passionate, open kiss; turned his head away from the hall; reached up and pinched his nostrils closed. He had barely the strength to lift his arms. Saskia could hold her breath for six minutes. Kamo would not manage thirty seconds. She stared into his huge, blurred eye, and saw the wadded skin of his cheek shake. She could bring him the gift he had given so many others.

The room flashed white.

Saskia withdrew her mouth. A gossamer of spit strung between their mouths for a moment, then was gone. A couple, their arms linked, were standing beneath the arch and looking at Kamo, who had leaned backwards, as though he were trying to brace the wall. The bluish cast to his lips was purpling, returning to red.

Saskia stepped from behind the arch and apologised to the couple. The gentleman asked her, curtly, if she was a feature of the background. Saskia smiled. She slipped from the room with a last nod to the photographer, who was still holding his L-shaped flash-lamp aloft. She walked with studied confidence. In all the mirrors, all the polished surfaces, and the half-bright crowds in the windows, she looked for the man towards whom the compass of Kamo’s mind pointed, like a false north: the poet Soselo.