The Magic Circle (57 page)

“The time?” said Nero. “You mean morning, afternoon, or midnight? Or the time of year—spring or fall?”

“No, nothing like that,” Agrippina said. “Lucius said it was a Persian or Egyptian concept.” She stroked his arm and added with a smile, “I mean, the idea that it must be done while the aeon is changing—at the cusp between one celestial age and another.”

“But then,” said Nero, gazing out on the raging fires that were now devouring his eternal city, “that would mean these objects must be collected together right now!”

THE LOST DOMAIN

Such moments, such particular glimpses down long vistas of the unattainable … phrases like the
domaine perdu
and the
pays sans nom
[describe] far more than a certain kind of archetypal landscape or emotional perspective on it
.…
We first grasp the black paradox at the heart of the human condition [when we realize] that the satisfaction of the desire is also the death of the desire
.

—John Fowles, afterword to
Le Grand Meaulnes, by Alain-Fournier

Only after Wolfgang and I had completed the two-hour drive to the airport at the far side of Vienna, got through parking, check-in, and customs, and boarded our plane for the flight to Leningrad did I have a real chance to try to organize all my mental notes on what I actually knew so far about Pandora’s mystery.

I felt like a player in a millennial scavenger hunt, chasing scattered clues across continents and through aeons. But what had begun as a dizzying pile of unrelated facts was now a clearer path that connected geographical spots on the map with animal totems, animals with constellations in the night sky, constellations with gods, and the names for these providing the key. So as I looked out my plane window at Leningrad, that watery city of inland canals just beneath our wings, it seemed appropriate that this land into which we were descending had as its own symbol, mascot, and animal totem the Russian Bear.

For the first time I realized in just how many cities I’d sojourned without seeing them as the residents did—or even as tourists might. Because of Jersey’s and Laf’s status as world-class performers, even inside Russia at the height of the now waning Cold War, their lives on the road had remained an endless procession of chauffeured limousines and champagne.

My father, too, on the rare occasions I’d joined him abroad, preferred to cloister himself within the walled fortresses of hotels for a privacy only money could buy—just like that week in San Francisco. So although I’d experienced the glittering facades woven by the history and mystery and magic of many spots on the planet, I’d missed most of the dirt and drudgery and inconvenience—a portrait very likely far more real.

Tonight, as Wolfgang and I stood on the granite steps outside the Leningrad airport along with a steaming mass of a hundred or more shadowy Eastern-bloc types, waiting in the dark drizzle to be cleared, one by one, through the
single
glass-walled immigration station open within the airport, I began to see for the first time a wholly different picture.

This was the USSR depicted in State Department statistics books like those Wolfgang had loaned me—a land with a population thirty percent larger than that of the U.S., inhabiting more than double the land mass, yet living on only a quarter of our per capita annual income, producing only a third of our per capita gross national product, and experiencing a significantly higher birth rate and lower life expectancy.

And Leningrad, the sparkling city of Catherine the Great and Peter the First which had shimmered upon the waters like a northern Venice, now seemed to be sinking back into the pestilent marshland from which it had once been reclaimed. As with most Russian cities, the occupants of Leningrad spent their time queuing up and waiting, in what appeared to Western eyes an inexplicably contagious mass atrophy.

It had been nearly seventy-five years since the Russian Revolution. I wondered how long a people so weary of their own existence could endure the stranglehold of beliefs and methods of enforcement they didn’t agree with. Maybe our invitation and presence here today would provide part of the answer to that question.

Wolfgang and I were collected at the airport by an officious-looking uniformed young woman from Intourist—a group rumored to be the hospitality branch of the KGB—and taken to our hotel. En route, Wolfgang cryptically intimated that the Soviet government wouldn’t approve of unmarried male and female colleagues practicing on their premises what he and I had practiced, and nearly perfected, in his castle all last night. I got the message, but not the whole picture—until I got a load of the place.

The barrackslike “hotel” that our hosts, the Soviet nuke establishment, had graciously arranged for the duration of our stay had all the charm of your average U.S. federal penitentiary. There were many floors that all looked identical, long halls paved in grey linoleum illuminated by fluorescent lights that, to judge by the humming and flicker level, hadn’t had their tubes replaced since they’d been installed.

After quickly arranging tomorrow’s schedule, Wolfgang and I were parted and I was led to my own wing by a hefty female storm trooper I imagined was named Svetlana. Arriving at my
boudoir du soir
, she assured me in broken English that she would remain posted downstairs for the night, then showed me three times how to lock myself in, and waited outside my door until she heard me do so.

It was only then I suddenly realized I was starving, having eaten nothing since the croissants and chocolate that morning. I rummaged through my bag until I found some trail mix and a bottle of water, wolfed down enough to silence my ravenous stomach, undressed in those damp, unheated, unappealing quarters, unpacked a few items, and turned in for the night.

There was a soft tap at the door. I glanced at my travel clock on the bureau of the cold, sparsely furnished room. I hadn’t reset it yet from Vienna time, so ten-thirty meant it was after midnight in Leningrad. Wolfgang had made it quite clear that tiptoeing about with the intention of hanky-panky was strictly off limits according to Soviet etiquette. So at this time of night, who on earth could it possibly be?

I sashed up my robe over my pajamas and went to unlock the door. “Svetlana” was standing outside, looking oddly shy and awkward compared with her former boot-camp persona. Her eyes flicked sideways and she shot me a purse-lipped look, which I supposed was the Soviet idea of a smile.

“
Pliss,
” she said in a low voice, almost confidential. “Pliss—somevon vish spick viss you.” She was gesturing sideways with her hand, as if actually expecting me to step out the door, leave my uncomfortable but relatively secure icebox of a room, and follow her in the dead of night to some unspecified rendezvous.

“
What
someone?” I pulled my robe more tightly up to my chin as I stepped back a pace, my hand still firmly on the door handle.

“
Some
von,” she insisted in a whisper, glancing around nervously. “Hiss wery
oor
gent, he must be spicking viss you now—at vonse. Pliss to come viss me—he iss down the sterrs—”

“I’m not going downstairs, or anywhere else, unless you tell me who wants to speak with me,” I assured her, shaking my head firmly for emphasis. “Does Professor Hauser know about this?”

“No! Must not to know
nossing
!” she said—in a tone that could only be interpreted, in any tongue, as real fear. What in God’s name was going on?

Now Svetlana was digging in her pocket, and she pulled out a card on heavy paper, waving it under my nose for just a moment before quickly tucking it away again. I’d barely had time to read the two words printed on it: Volga Dragonoff.

Good lord! Volga—my uncle Laf’s valet! Could something have happened to Laf in the few days since I’d seen them at Sun Valley? But what else could Volga be doing here, hunting me down at midnight in the north of Russia? How did he get so cozy with Ms. Keys-to-the-Kingdom that she’d toss her rule book out just for him?

To make matters worse, my sturdy Soviet bodyguard was acting more than suspicious. Her anxious eyes darting everywhere, she made the pliss-to-follow gesture to me again, making me pretty damned nervous myself. But deciding I’d better learn exactly what was going on, I grabbed my fur-lined boots from beside the door, shoved them on my feet, yanked my heavy coat over my bathrobe, stepped out into the hall, and let Svetlana “officially” lock the door behind me. I could see my breath in the dim fluorescent light as I followed her along the corridor; I pulled on my gloves as we went down the two flights of stairs.

Volga was waiting there in the lobby, bundled in a dark, heavy coat. As I went to greet him, and looked at his craggy, sober face that never smiled, I realized that in the twenty-odd years I’d known this valet, factotum, and inseparable companion of my uncle, we’d probably spoken fewer than two dozen words to each other—which made this unexpected late-night tryst even more bizarre.

Volga bowed to me, glanced once at his watch, and spoke a few words in Russian to my escort. She crossed the lobby, unlocked a door, flicked on one dim bank of lights, and left us alone. Volga held the door for me to enter first, and we went inside. It proved to be a vast dining hall filled with long tables already set up for tomorrow’s breakfast. Volga pulled out a chair for me, then sat himself, took a flask from his pocket, and handed it to me.

“Drink this. It is slivovitz mixed with hot water; it will keep you warm while we speak.”

“Why are you here in the middle of the night, Volga?” I said, accepting the proffered flask, if only to warm my hands. “Nothing’s happened to Uncle Laf?”

“When we did not hear from you yesterday, nor did you arrive last night at the maestro’s home in Vienna as expected, he became alarmed,” Volga said. “Today we thought to contact your colleague in Idaho, Mr. Olivier Maxfield, at your office. But due to the time difference—eight hours—it was too late when we learned that you had already left Vienna for Leningrad.”

“So where’s Uncle Laf?” I asked, butterflies still hovering in my stomach. I unscrewed the flask and had a swig of the hot liquor; it did seem to warm me a bit.

“The maestro wished to come himself to explain the urgency of the situation,” Volga assured me, “but his Soviet visa was not refreshed. I am Transylvanian, though; the Rumanian government has a ‘friendship pact’ with the Soviet Union making it possible to come here at brief notice. I arrived on the last airplane from Vienna, but the entry procedure causes further delay. I apologize—but the maestro insisted that I see you at once, tonight. He sends this note to confirm what I say.”

Volga handed me an envelope. As I slipped out the note to unfold it, I asked, “How on earth did you get that lady storm trooper to let me out of my cage for a rendezvous with you at this time of night?”

“It was fear,” Volga said cryptically. “I know these people; I understand their ways very well.”

I made no comment as I read Laf’s note:

Dearest Gavroche
,

Your failure to arrive here suggests to me that you have ignored my advice and last night perhaps done something foolish. Nevertheless, I send you my love
.

Please listen with great attention to everything Volga has to tell you, for it is quite important. I should have shared it all with you before departing Sun Valley, but not in front of the person you arrived with
—
and then suddenly you had to leave
.

Your colleague Mr. Olivier Maxfield tells me that he also would like to reach you. He asks that I tell you he needs to speak with you privately on another subject, and soon
.

Your uncle Lafcadio

“Did Olivier mention what he wanted to talk to me about?” I asked Volga, hoping this didn’t mean something was wrong with Jason, my cat.

“It was concerned with business, I believe,” he said, adding, “I have little time and much to say. And I should dislike for you to become ill by staying up so late in the cold, therefore I must proceed. But because Russian walls like these around us often have ears, I ask that you not ask questions until I have finished—and even then, please take caution about what you say.”

I agreed with a nod, helped myself to another swig of the warm libation he’d brought, and bundled my coat up tighter around me so Volga could begin what I thought might well prove the longest speech in his reclusive life.

“First,” he said, “you should know that it was not the maestro Lafcadio who was my original patron: it was your grandmother, the
daeva
. She found me when she was already a well-known singer and I was a young boy orphaned by the First World War, working for pennies on the streets of Paris.”

“You mean Pandora took you in as a child?” I said, surprised. Along with Laf and Zoe, that seemed an excessive burden for a young woman who, if Dacian was accurate about her age, by the end of the war couldn’t herself have been much more than twenty. “And how did she get to Paris? I thought she lived in Vienna.”

“To understand the nature of our relations, I must tell you something about myself and my people,” Volga said almost apologetically. “It is part of the story.”

It suddenly occurred to me that the stony Volga Dragonoff might actually know more—or at least be willing to divulge more of what he knew—than the other players in my extremely reticent and suspicious family. Being alone with him like this, after midnight in a freezing, deserted barracks of a dining hall, might in fact prove to be my best shot at peeking under that lid.

“You’ve come all this way at great inconvenience, Volga. Of course I’d like to hear whatever you’re willing to share with me,” I assured him with great sincerity, pulling off one glove and blowing on my fingers to warm them.

“Although I was born in Transylvania, it was my mother’s people, not my father’s, who originated there,” Volga said. “My father was from a triangular region running from Mount Ararat, near the Turkey-Iran border, to the Georgian Caucasus and Armenia. In this small wedge of land there had flourished what was already a century ago a dying breed of men, of which my father was one: the
ashokhi
, bards or poets who were trained to hold in their memory the entire history and genealogy of our people, dating back to Gilgamesh of Sumeria.