City of Silence (City of Mystery) (32 page)

“Why
should it take time?” Gregor asked.  “Her father can sign anything he wishes
into law with the stroke of a pen.” 

Their
plan was to demand the right for the serfs to form collectives on the farms
where they worked, collectives which would allow them to bargain for a greater
percentage of the profits.  The idea had occurred to Gregor during his brief
and unsatisfactory attempt to organize the rural workers.  Filip considered this
a rather ridiculous goal, largely because there was absolutely no evidence
suggesting that the serfs wished to form collectives.  In fact, Filip, who unlike
the others had spent a good deal of time in the countryside, strongly suspected
that if you walked out into a muddy field and asked the nearest farmer if he
wished to form a collective allowing him to negotiate with his land owner over
profit distribution percentages on future harvests, the man would simply stare
at you.  He would be more likely to tell you he wanted a woolen scarf or a
bottle of vodka or a new rope for his wagon.  But when Filip had suggested to
the Volya in their last meeting that they should use the kidnapping to force
the tsar to distribute free grain from the country’s vast storehouses, this idea
had been met with derision.  Gregor had said that their aim should be a lasting
change in the law, not a one-time gift, and the others had nodded, with Vlad
going so far as to give Filip a look of open contempt.

“It
takes but a stroke of the pen to sign a law,” Filip conceded.  “But to create a
force of officers spread out across the rural district ensuring this law is
actually carried out will take far more time.  Especially in light of the fact
that the farmers have not requested these collectives and may have to be
educated as to their long-term advantages. “

“You’re
saying we must keep the little duchess the whole time?” Gregor said with
audible distress.  “Administration is a tedious process.”

“I’m
saying that you are acting under the illusion that we must hold her for only a
few hours, while her frantic family scrambles to meet our demands.  But we are
not requesting a simple ransom.  If you are seeking true reform, including a
system to assure that it continues, this could take weeks or even months.  The
child must live somewhere.  Perhaps Vlad can take her home with him.  Turn her
into yet another little sister.”

Vlad
scowled, just as Filip knew he would.  “She will eat potatoes, half rotted
potatoes, so that she knows how her people struggle.”

“And
this what your mother served at the dinner table last night?  Half rotted
potatoes?”

Vlad’s
scowl deepened.  “What my family ate for dinner last night is not the point.”

“Is
it not, comrade?”

“Well
we certainly can’t hold her for weeks,” Gregor said, wearily wiping his brow
for the day was warm and he had long ago lost track of how many times the
serving girl had refilled his glass.  “Perhaps Filip is right that we are
better off demanding merely the law and a payment of money.  That way, we have
means to fund the collectives ourselves, rather than depending upon the government.”

“That
does seem more prudent,” Filip said.  “A law and a great wad of money.   Things
the tsar can produce in an instant.  With any luck Xenia will be home by the
break of dawn and the Volya will have funding for a year’s worth of good
works.”

“Do
you know her?” Vlad abruptly asked.

“Of
course.  I guard the entire family.”

“You
have sympathy for her.  Perhaps that influences your recommendations.”

Filip
shrugged.  “I have no particular sympathy for this girl.  No more than I have
for any of them.”

“What
is she like?”

“Actually,
comrade, her character reminds me of your own.”

Vlad
bristled.  “I find it hard to believe that the daughter of the tsar bears any semblance
to a son of the revolution,” Vlad said.

“She
has the impatience of youth,” Filip continued, as if Vlad not spoken.  “And a
certain air of entitlement that most people find –“

“All
right, all right, this is getting us nowhere,” Gregor said quickly, sitting up
in his chair, for Filip had pushed too far and Vlad could be impulsive when
angered.  “We shall take the girl to the warehouse as planned, with the
understanding she cannot remain there long.  And we ask for…how much money?  It
must be enough to fund our work with the collectives, just as Filip said, but
no one must ever know the ransom was paid to the Volya.  So what is the right
amount?  Perhaps twenty thousand rubles?”

“Thirty
thousand,” Vlad countered.

“But
is that too much?”

Vlad
shook his head.  “We must be bold.  He will surely pay it.  She is his
daughter, after all.”

“You
are right.  Thirty thousand.”  Gregor looked across the table at Filip.  “And why
do you chuckle?  What do you find so funny?”

“Make
it a hundred,” Filip said. “Thirty thousand rubles is less than the tsarina
spends on a gown.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The Winter Palace –
The Chapel of the Mournful

5:05 PM

“Please
don’t tremble,” Nicky said.  “Everyone is so preoccupied with the ball that
they won’t even notice we are missing.”

She
was indeed trembling, so violently that her small pearl earbobs bounced against
her cheeks.  She had run through the rain from the palace to the chapel, which,
just as he described, stood free and separate from the Winter Palace and was surrounded
by a graveyard.  Nicky had been waiting for her there, his thin frame pressed
inside the enclave and he held out his hands as she approached, pulling her
under the protection of the arch.

“Come
in,” he said, refusing to release her and thus reduced to awkwardly pushing
against the door with his shoulder.  “It’s the last place they’ll look.”

She
entered the chapel, then, after a quick look around to make sure neither of them
had been followed, he went in behind her.  The room was terribly dark, but from
what she could see, the wooden floor and plain glass windows reminded Alix of
the humble country churches of Germany.  She turned to him in wonder. 

“It’s
beautiful,” she whispered. 

“Shall
we light a candle?”

She
nodded and tiptoed to the altar where a box of the thin white tapers lay.  When
she had safely reached the table he closed the door, and they were engulfed in
gloom.

“Here’s
one for my mother,” she said, striking a match and bringing it to the ragged
strip of cotton at the top, then pushing the candle into the pile of sand. 
“And I must add one for my sister and my brother.”

Nicky
moved beside her.  She has had much loss for one so young, he thought.  His
parents and his siblings were all alive, a condition which suddenly struck him
as blessed and rare.

“For
my grandfather,” he said solemnly, picking up a candle of his own. “I pray I
will be even half the tsar he was.”

“Light
it from the one for my mother,” she said. “For hers is the soul I most want to
emulate.”

He
dipped his own candle to the tremulous light of hers.  “Then they shall be our
personal saints,” he said.  “I feel their blessing pouring down on us already.  Do
you?”

But
before she could answer, they heard the sound of footsteps approaching, feet running
across the cobblestone courtyard leading up to the chapel door.  Nicky grabbed
Alix’s hand and pulled her into the priest’s alcove behind the altar.  It was
dusty and full of cobwebs, with a window smudged by so many months of neglect
that it no longer functioned as a window, letting in little light and allowing
only a partial view of the yard.  The dimensions of their hiding place were so
small that they were pressed together and she looked at him with wide,
questioning eyes.

The
door swung open, bringing with it a gust of damp heavy air, which extinguished
the candles, leaving Alix and Nicky saintless and Konstantin and Tatiana
laughing and dripping on the threshold of the chapel.

“I
told you,” he said. “No one ever comes here.”

“It’s
dark,” she said.  “There must be some sort of illumination?”

Konstantin
dropped the sack he carried and then wedged the wrapped package holding the
painting into the doorway, propping it open to give them a bit of light.  “I
don’t think so,” he said. “It looks too old and rarely used.”

“They
call this the Chapel of the Mournful,” Tatiana said.  “How did you hear of it?
It’s where those who have lost something stop to pray.”

“Where
do those who have found something pray?” he whispered, sliding his hands around
her waist.  He was happy, shaking the raindrops from his hair like a dog.   He
has the ticket in one pocket, she thought.  And the letters of introduction
from the duchess in the other.  He shall catch transport from the servant’s
dock into town, and then the train, and then, on the morrow, he shall walk the
streets of France.  

“I
want to light a candle,” she said abruptly, pulling from his embrace and walking
toward the altar. “Shall you?”

“No,
for I can think of nothing to mourn,” he said, squinting up through the murky
light at a portrait of an especially regretful looking prophet, who had pressed
his long thin fingertips together and rolled his flat dark eyes toward the
heavens.

From
behind the panel Nicky and Alix relaxed a little.  Neither of them knew who was
in the chapel, but it was clear enough that these people had not come searching
for them but rather seeking some sanctuary of their own.  Alix pushed back her
scarf and in the shadows Nicky saw, twinkling below the lace, the diamond
flower pinned to her dress.  Despite all of her protests, she was wearing this
gift. He reached out, touched it with a fingertip and she smiled.

“Why
are you so solemn?” Konstantin asked.

“Shh,”
said Tatiana. “I am trying to pray.”

“The
angels above you are broken.”

“So
they are,” she said, looking up at the chipped plaster faces.  “Now be silent,
or lightning shall strike you for being such an infidel.”

Tatiana
closed her eyes, exhaled, and tried to concentrate.  She asked for forgiveness
first, as she always did, and then for clarity.  Don’t let me forget this day,
she prayed.  Push it into my memory.  Everything here.  His face, his smile,
the dust, the raindrops on his jacket, the ashes from the candles.

His
hands were back, around her again.  More demanding this time, pulling her from
the altar with more determination.

“Come,”
he said.  “There will be time to pray when I am gone.”

She
let him steer her away from the altar and lead her across the wooden floor. 
Good, she thought.  Let him take me.  Let me go.  He is so innocent and so hopeful,
and may I remember that as well.  Tatiana found herself suddenly weak with
emotion, uncertain if she could exist another minute without blurting out the
dark truth.  That this was the last time he would touch her, the last time she
would hear his voice.  That she was not coming to Paris and he must enter his
new world alone.

The
chapel only had two doors and he led her toward the back one, tucked into an
even dimmer and dustier corner, far away from the angels and the candles.  Away
from the altar which concealed the hidden forms of Alix and Nicky.  Nicky had
now removed the brooch from Alix’s dress and was using the point of the largest
diamond to etch their initials into the window.  He was sawing the letter A
into the glass with a concentrated fervor and she was thinking that if they
married, she would wish for them to marry here - in this chapel, which was so
simple, so sincere and so sweet.  But of course that would never be allowed. 
When the tsesarevich of Russia married, it would be in the grandest church in
the land, with a procession of thousands.  His tsarina would be draped in
ermine, not a veil of cobwebs.

The
door creaked as Konstantin closed it behind them and Tatiana found herself in
the base of the bell tower, looking up a steep flight of stairs.  The wooden
steps were rotted and bowed and she wondered what brave soul had last ventured
to climb them.  At the top of the tower a rusty bell was tilted at such a sharp
angle that she could not see its tongue.  A rope, rough and frayed, extended
down the staircase, so long that the end lay coiled at her feet.  The light at
the top of the tower promised a view of the river, a vision fit for a saint who
might pause, mid-assumption, to consider the pretty, inconsequential world
below.  

Why
had they come to this tower?  Did he intend for them to climb it?

But
no.  No. Of course not.  She knew from his first touch that he had brought her
here for some other purpose.  Something wilder and darker and more desperate
and Tatiana was tired of fighting her fate.  Tired of beating back grief.  She
sank down to the rough steps and lifted her skirt.  He pulled the layers of
garments which lay beneath in one direction and then the next until her naked
hips and thighs slid into that gentle trough that exists in all steps, that
indentation that has been worn by centuries of patiently climbing feet.  It was
as if the spot was designed for just this purpose.    

“Are
they gone?”  Alix whispered.

“I
don’t know,” said Nicky. 

“Should
we leave?”

“Not
yet.”  The A was finished and he had begun the second line of the N. 

“Yes,
finish the initials,” Alix said, sinking back against the wall. “For this way you
will always remember me, no matter what happens.”

“Don’t
say that,” Nicky said, his own voice rising above a whisper, causing her to
press her palm against his lips and shake her head in warning.  Whoever had
been there might come back again   “You will return soon to St. Petersburg,” he
whispered, when she pulled her hand away. “And next time we meet we shall be married. 
Promise me.”

There
was nothing to say to this, nothing at all.  She pointed toward the half-finished
initial.  “Hurry,” she said.  “We don’t have much time.”

“Hurry,”
Tatiana was saying.  “We don’t have much time.”

Konstantin
knew this too, even better than her.  Her undressing had been somewhat
ceremonial but his own clothes had been dropped or lifted or yanked aside so
fast as to defy understanding.   He put his knees on the bottom step and leaned
into her, pushing her back into the splintered corner of a higher step, causing
her to cry out.  A sound he either misinterpreted or translated into some
higher tongue because he did not stop kissing or pushing against her.  Tatiana
collapsed into the staircase, throwing back her head, looking up the dark shaft
of the tower to the lightness at the top.  

“Hurry,”
she whispered.

He
thrust into her.  One move, direct and – despite everything – rather surprising.  
Her back arched and then slammed once again into the step.  I shall have bruises,
she thought vaguely.   Scrapes.  How shall I explain them and is this how the
angels in the chapels got broken?  He lifted her hips up and began to move in a
steadier rhythm and when their eyes met, they both laughed with sheer hysteria,
the laughter that comes when relief and grief and desire all meet, the sound
the body makes when the mind can no longer find the words.  The inevitability
of finding each other, the inevitability of losing each other, and Tatiana blew
him a kiss through the dusty air and then dropped her head back again.  I don’t
care, she thought, how many times my head is pounded against these steps.  I
don’t care if I am knocked insensate and left to die in the foot of this tower.
 They can bury me outside with the others.  The nameless and the mournful.  I
will lie with them forever.

He
pulled out of her and she looked up, startled.  Had the door opened, had they
been caught?   But he was only moving lower as he did sometimes in his Asian
way and the sight of his head nuzzling its way down her legs burned into her
mind so clearly that she knew the memory would never fade.  It seemed as if someone
high above them was crying and then Tatiana, her gaze moving upward, saw that
it had begun to storm. The sky at the top of the tower has grown grayer and wilder. 
The wind wafted a diffusion of raindrops down onto them.  Onto her upturned face,
onto the back of Konstantin’s head.  

“Hear
the thunder,” Nicky whispered, pulling Alix’s hand to his chest.

Alix
nodded, her eyes bright.  “Granny says that when it thunders, it means God is
angry.” 

Tatiana
knew that it was here.  That it would lift her, possibly not gently, and carry
her away.  She dropped one hand to his head, braced her feet, and cried out.  Her
other hand struggled to grip the wall because the intensity was frightening, so
beyond anything she had ever experienced that for a fraction of a moment she
wondered if she might actually be dying.   She was certainly falling from a
greater height than ever before, and just then her hand found the rope and tightened
around it and the world became filled with sound.   A single clang that
reverberated through the tower, through the chapel and into the graveyard.  
Every hair on her arms has risen, every bone beneath her skin shuddered.   Even
the roots of her teeth seemed to move a little and she has been left flushed,
pure, and covered with rain.

When
she opened her eyes, Konstantin was staring down at her.

“Shit,”
he said.  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“Run,”
Nicky shouted, but Alix had already sprinted past him, had already fled from behind
the priest’s alcove and was across the wooden floor, knocking the wrapped
package which had been bracing the door open and sending it skidding out into
the rain-soaked courtyard.  Nicky had no choice but to chase her.  The storm
was great now, howling around them and there would be no acceptable explanation
for where they had been, why they would have ventured from the palace in such
weather, how they might have gotten so mussed and so wet.  He caught up with
her just beyond the gate to the graveyard and grabbed her hand.  He still held
the brooch.  The great diamond bounced between them, caught in the hollow of
their clasped hands, cutting first into her palm and then into his.