Twelve (18 page)

It was beneath him to dismiss me, but he said nothing more, and so I scurried off in the direction that Foma had gone. The trail was, however, now cold. Foma had been scarcely half a minute ahead of me, but already he would have had a choice of ten or more roads to take. I didn't give up – I'd always play a ten to one shot – but on this occasion it proved to be that he had taken one of the other nine.

I headed back to my stable in Zamoskvorechye and went to sleep.

The following day, I returned to the school. By that time, I looked pretty rough. I hadn't actually been sleeping out of doors, as had some of the people of Moscow, but I was still dirty and dishevelled and smelled of the streets. This struck me as a good pretext for starting a conversation with the two guards who now stood outside the schoolhouse.

'Excuse me, sirs,' I said to them in Russian, 'would you have any food?' They looked at me blankly. 'Some bread, perhaps?' Still they didn't understand. I switched to French. '
Du pain? Du
pain?
' I pleaded, as if it was the only phrase I knew in French, and trying to speak it with a Russian accent. There were real tears in my eyes and one of the guards went inside, returning moments later with a dirty crust. 'Thank you, sir,' I continued, in French, presuming that most Muscovites would know at least that much.

I crouched down on the pavement with my back to the wall and gnawed hungrily at the stale bread. They showed little inclination to move me on. A third soldier joined the two guards.

'Any news of Albert?' the first guard asked him.

'Still nothing,' he replied.

'I'm certain he came back with us last night,' said the second.

'Oh, he did. His bed was slept in – and bloodstained – but there's no sign of him. Even if he'd been murdered, there'd be a body.'

I immediately recalled to mind the scene days ago near Goryachkino, when the Oprichniki had been so fastidious in removing the bodies of all those soldiers that they had slaughtered outside the farmhouse.

'One of the patrols last night came across a Russian sleeping rough – or pretending to – just over there.' The first guard nodded towards the doorway where I had been found the previous night. 'Maybe he was a look-out.'

'Maybe,' mused the newcomer, then, to give vent to his frustration, he mounted a hefty kick to my leg as he snarled at me, '
Bistro! Bistro!
' The accent was almost impenetrable, but it was the only word of Russian that most of the invaders had bothered to learn: 'Quickly! Quickly!' It was used in any circumstances; whether, as now, to send me hurrying on my way, or to clear the path in front of them, or – with, as time went by, greater and greater urgency – to procure themselves a meal. In this case, it was my opportunity to escape. I gladly complied.

I spent the day much as I had the previous one, wandering the streets, picking up scraps of information from both the French occupiers and from those remaining Russians whom they repressed. I avoided Kitay Gorod, which was now almost completely ablaze, though there were few places that I could venture in the city where I would not see flames nearby, or come across the devastation left behind where fire had already exhausted itself. Before the occupation, the main enclave for French émigrés had been in the area round Kutznetsky Bridge, spanning the river Neglinnaya; now diverted from its natural course into a part-covered canal, before acting as a moat beside the western wall of the Kremlin and finally flowing into the Moskva. Though the inferno reached the very borders of this area, it went no further.

Some of the French I spoke to believed that it was the will of God that 'their' part of the city had been saved. The will of Bonaparte also made a contribution; he had ordered that a picket of men should stand around Kutznetsky Bridge, ensuring that if ever the flames did encroach, they would be beaten back.

The fires and stories of how the fires had begun and discussions of when they would end were the main subjects on everyone's lips. Hidden amongst them were tales of other mysterious deaths and disappearances that could not be put down to the conflagration. These, I had little doubt and took some pleasure in knowing, were the work of my friends the Oprichniki. Other news was more political. Bonaparte had abandoned the Kremlin, for fear that the fire would reach it, moving to the Petrovsky Palace on the outskirts of the city. Furthermore, the French were beginning to discuss what Bonaparte's next step would be. The previous day there had been an air of if not euphoria, at least proud achievement in their conquest of a foreign city, but now they were wondering what they were actually going to do with it. Few relished the prospect of marching on to Petersburg, but there would be no safety or comfort in remaining in Moscow over the winter. There was still a general expectation that Tsar Aleksandr would soon give up his pride and begin to negotiate some sort of peace, but that would still leave the Grande Armée isolated and far from home.

That evening, being a Wednesday, we were due to meet on the Stone Bridge, west of the Kremlin. I didn't attend, but watched from well away to the west, on the south bank of the river. My plan was to follow one of the Oprichniki again. If I spoke with Vadim and Dmitry, it might slow me down. I couldn't even be sure that Dmitry wouldn't try to stop me. The moon was high and three-quarters full when I arrived, somewhat earlier than scheduled. Before long I saw a figure walk to the middle of the bridge and gaze down into the river below. It was Dmitry. He was soon joined by Vadim. They spoke for a moment and then walked together to the south side of the bridge. Some five minutes later they returned. Clearly, they didn't want to be seen lingering in one place for too long and were patrolling the bridge so as to encounter any Oprichniki that chose to show up.

I felt an enormous urge to go over there and speak to them. It had been five days since I had exchanged a word with either of them, and in that time I had not had a single, honest, straightforward conversation with anyone. My brief exchange with Foma and Ioann the previous night counted for nothing. I realized that I felt almost homesick, not for a place – I felt Moscow to be my home now far more than Petersburg – but for people; for my friends. Five minutes of conversation with either of them would give me the same relief as plunging into a cool river in sweltering weather. Just as I have in the past been gripped by the eccentric inclination on a hot day in a public place to rip off my clothes and bathe before all in some cooling pond, I felt now the desire to indulge myself in the comforting conversation of my friends. On those occasions, as now, I resisted the temptation. I had a greater task than the alleviation of my own discomforts.

I watched Dmitry and Vadim pacing back and forth with a certain unwholesome pleasure – like the true, unknown father of a child might watch that child as it played with its mother's husband, or as a spurned lover might watch his beloved through her open window – pretending I was there, imagining the conversation as if I were taking part, but unable to step out of the shadows and join in. It was only now, when its relief was so tantalizingly close, that I comprehended the depth of my loneliness. Although I had been pleased to see Foma and Ioann the night before, I had soon become reacquainted with their absolute lack of character. They were not merely sullen; they were simply nothing – soulless portraits of men from a distant land whom I felt I had never met in person.

Vadim and Dmitry were passing across the bridge for the fourth time when they encountered two more figures coming from the opposite direction. One was Varfolomei; the other I could not make out. It was not Iuda, who was easy to recognize by his height alone, if not by his hair and his posture. The two Oprichniki spoke a little with Vadim and Dmitry, but for no longer than five minutes, then my friends departed, both heading north. The Oprichniki waited a short while to be sure that they had gone, and then set off themselves. Varfolomei headed north whilst the other, once he had stepped off the southern end of the bridge, turned right and proceeded along the embankment where I was hiding.

As he passed, I saw that it was Matfei. I pressed back into the bushes and he walked past, unaware of, or at least unresponsive to, my presence. I followed him, much as I had done Foma the previous night. It looked to me as though he was keen to get back to the north side of the river, but he was still unfamiliar with the geography of the city. The river curved south and we had to cover nearly two versts before we came to the Crimean Bridge and were able to get back across. Almost immediately, Matfei spotted a French patrol which, like Foma, he followed from a safe distance. We continued for about half an hour, but Matfei made no attempt at any attack on the patrol. For all I could tell, this was still early in their watch, and they might not return to barracks for several hours.

Eventually, Matfei must have come to this conclusion as well, for he was distracted by the sound of a pleasant French baritone emanating from one of the grander houses that we passed. There was a light at the window, but I could not see who was inside. Matfei crept up and peered closely through the glass. Suddenly, he started. Once again, as I had been with Foma, I was reminded of a cat, tensing as it catches sight of its prey. Either the door was unlocked, or he had some way of opening it, for he was soon inside the house, leaving me to watch and wait in the shadows outside. And to listen.

The Frenchman's pleasant voice continued to serenade the night. On our arrival, he had been singing an aria that I recognized to be from Beethoven's
Fidelio
. At Austerlitz, tunes from this then-new opera had been on the lips of French and Austrian soldiers alike, and on those of some of the more cosmopolitan Russians. Now the unseen singer had switched to that old favourite (in certain quarters) 'La Marseillaise'. I smiled to myself; I could well imagine Vadim incensed by the singing of that song in a house in Moscow, though I think it would have been bluster. In his heart, I'm not sure Vadim loved his country any more than I did, or than Dmitry or . . . Well, no more than Dmitry or I anyway, but Vadim did like to make his patriotism clear for everyone else to see. He loved the emblems of Russia and hated the emblems of the invader. How I would have loved to have him beside me then, huffing and puffing at the outrage of hearing the air of Moscow polluted by such a tune. In truth, Bonaparte himself would have been little happier. He found 'La Marseillaise' a little too redolent of revolution for his new imperial dynasty, but it remained popular amongst the men.

For my part, I loved the tune. I lay my head against the wall behind me and enjoyed the rendition. The Frenchman inside the house sang in a fruity tone and had just got to the bit about the bellowing soldiers coming to cut the throats of his sons and his consorts when he too was cut short. The song ended in a curt, startled yelp, with which I was becoming all too familiar. I continued the song under my breath, choking back a tear whose cause I could not quite determine:

'Aux armes citoyens.
Formez vos bataillons.
Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons.'

It was inexplicable to be so overcome with emotion at a foreign anthem – far from the finest music, or verse, ever written – but for the man inside the house, whose death at Matfei's hand I had just listened to, it had meant everything. I had witnessed many deaths over the past decade, and if he had been stood on the battlefield, supporting to the last a tricolour, then his death would have been . . . respectable – both to me and, I believe, to him. But ever since we had begun to work with the Oprichniki, there had not been one single honourable death amongst the whole lot of them. Maks' death, the deaths of the uncounted French, even the deaths of the Oprichniki – Simon, Iakov Alfeyinich and Faddei – betrayed by Maks to the French; none of these fitted into the mould of the regular deaths of war. Perhaps in years to come, such ways of dying would become commonplace and acceptable, as the Frenchman – Louis, I think it was – had suggested back at that encampment we had infiltrated, but just then I yearned to witness a straightforward death by cannonball or sword. When I had chosen my path, away from the regular army, I had thought espionage was about information; about discovering what lay in the enemy's mind. I soon learned that it was simply about terminating those minds – about finding new and more unusual ways to carry death to our foes.

The door of the house opened and Matfei emerged once again. Glancing from side to side, he headed back up the street the way we had come. A coldness gripped me as, for the first time, I noticed something tangibly vile in one of the Oprichniki. Up until then, their methods and their manner were distasteful – distasteful to me and hence the problem was as much mine as theirs; no more than a clash of cultures. But what I now saw took a step beyond distaste, into abhorrence. I noticed – and at that distance I could hardly see, yet I was nonetheless certain – that he had blood on his lips.

Still, there might be nothing untoward in that. The Frenchman might have put up a fight before his death, laying a punch on Matfei's face, and so the blood might simply be Matfei's own. After a few steps, the Oprichnik stopped and raised his hand to his mouth, wiping the stain away. He looked at his fingers, considering the blood that he found there. I couldn't help but remember the blood on my own fingers, as those fingers were one after the other removed from my hand. Perhaps Matfei had not realized that he had been injured, and now, on seeing his own blood as confirmation of the wound, he would merely wipe his fingers clean on his coat. He did not. He raised his fingers back to his mouth and licked them delectably until the blood was gone. Then he set off once again on his way. Memories of long-forgotten stories forced their way into my mind, but I repressed them. I continued my pursuit.

As we travelled back north-eastwards, Matfei's stride was now less surreptitious – more the step of a contented gentleman returning to his home after an evening's revelry. Indeed, the directness of his motion suggested that he was no longer meandering through the city in search of targets, but was heading for some specific objective, which could only be his lodgings.