Hot Siberian (20 page)

There had been no garish sign. No need for one. The place was what it was, and those who should know it knew. Affixed to the wall immediately outside the entrance on the far left was a discreet brass plaque. Engraved upon it in Cyrillic was the name K. Fabergé, and above, also engraved, was the imperial double-headed eagle, the great warrant mark of the royal family. Two attendants served at the entrance. Their manners were as impeccable as their white jackets and gloves. They were swift to assist, to hold a bridle, assure the step down from carriage to curb for, in this instance, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and her granddaughter, Grand Duchess Olga. The mother of the Czar accompanying the daughter of the Czar. Their well-being watched over by two formidable cossack escorts. The Empress, a woman proud of the kindness with which her years had treated her, is dressed in a most recent pale green linen ensemble by Worth. The seventeen-year-old Grand Duchess wears all white, as she is required to do throughout each summer. A modest ankle-length dress of layered lawn, as simple as possible. Her white straw hat has its wide brim pinned up in front, and it is decorated there by a pale pink silk rose. The cossacks wait within hearing range as their two royal responsibilities enter the realm of Fabergé. The Dowager Empress is the epitome of confidence, amiably
haute,
as though bettering the air she moves through. After all, she was for many years the very Empress of wherever her steps fell. For the young Grand Duchess this visit to Fabergé is
an occasion, an adventure. Although it is her first time here, she feels that she knows it well from all she has heard said about it. Only rarely is she allowed outside the confines of the Winter Palace, and, of course, never alone
.

The room they enter is large, about fifty feet long and half that wide. The high ceiling is painted the softest possible blue, the walls are beige, and the angle where the walls and ceiling meet is tempered all around by a rather frivolous repetitive floral border done in pastel orange and pink and gilt. The floor is a dark hardwood laid so precisely in a herringbone pattern that hardly a crack is discernible between the boards. It is so waxed and buffed that it veritably reflects
.

“Bonjour, messieurs,”
the Dowager Empress greets everyone in the room at once, letting it be known that this time she prefers all conversation to be in French. The sales staff in chorus return her greeting. Out from behind the showcase at the far end of the room comes Karl Fabergé himself. He has just the week before turned seventy-six, but he is still quick and bright. He is bald from forehead to nape. His full beard is white, as is the hair that flows back from his temples. He hurries forward but he is not obsequious
.

The Dowager Empress expresses her fondness by addressing him with his patronym, Carl Gustanovich. They have known and liked each other for many years. Fabergé is also acquainted with the Grand Duchess Olga from her having happened to be present numerous times when he personally brought items to the Winter Palace for her father's, the Czar's, choice or approval
.

And how is the Czar?

It seems he has a cold, only a slight cold, caught no doubt from overheating himself during one of his strenuous hikes
.

The Czarina?

Very much concerned as usual about Czarevich Alexis but otherwise well. She has sent her regards and her appreciation for that year's Imperial Easter Egg. She is intending to write a personal note
.

Will the family be staying in Tsarkoye Selo for the summer?

Anywhere else has not been mentioned, the Dowager Empress says, so she assumes they will. She herself will spend July and perhaps even August at Pavlosk, which she has always enjoyed more. Besides, her privacy is still important to her
.

There is a little more of such obligatory conversation. It is brought to a close by a deep inhalation not quite a sigh, by the Dowager Empress. Fabergé does not ask if there is something special he might show them for he believes that might sound a bit pushy. He simply gestures to his right, then to his left, and questions with his eyes, in this most discreet manner asking what of his merchandise they would prefer to view, jewelry or articles of fantasy?

The Dowager Empress decides and steps to the showcase on her left. She hangs her parasol by its mother-of-pearl crook on the gleaming brass rail that is fixed to the upper front of the glass-topped case. Grand Duchess Olga does the same with her less elaborate parasol. Now their hands are free to indicate whatever of these lovely objects catches their eyes. Grand Duchess Olga is granted her grandmother's permission to remove her white gloves so that she might better know the shape and texture of those things which strike her fancy. The first she asks to see is a
bonbonnière,
a sweetmeat box, circular, less than two inches in diameter. It is gold enameled with a guilloché surface, translucent pale blue and white with diamonds around the edge of its lid and a sapphire at its thumbpiece. She has come to choose a name-day present for her younger sister the Grand Duchess Marie, who is thirteen. However, she fears this tiny box may be too expensive. For three months she has been saving her seventeen-ruble-a-month allowance, which is determined at the rate of one ruble for each of her years. She tucks an errant wisp of her blond hair back in under the band of her straw. Her blue-gray eyes are livelier than usual as they scan the selection of beautiful objects in the case. Numerous guilloché enameled clocks, frames, bell pushers, perpetual calendars, all sorts of things from precious hatpins to jeweled
tcharki,
vodka cups. The moment that Fabergé senses even her slightest special interest in an item he quickly brings it out. Not in eagerness to make the sale, rather to share the appreciation, for there is nothing offered here that is not finely, tastefully made and that he is not proud of. Grand Duchess Olga examines a gold case meant to contain ball programs, and she is especially fascinated by an elaborate fan. The fan is about twenty inches long, its handle a combination of etched rock crystal and pale yellow and white guilloché enamel over gold finished off with rose diamonds and pearls. Three silk tassels dangle from the handle, and the fan part is a voluptuous gathering of white ostrich feathers. She slowly wafts the air with the fan, does quick fluttering movements with it. Its ostrich feathers respond with quivering. They bend and flow. She is amused, and so is her grandmother, who nods and forecasts that soon, darling Olga will be of an age to forsake the plain and enjoy the grand
.

The Dowager Empress is not along merely as chaperon. Even when she was Empress she always enjoyed a visit to Fabergé. She examines several objects, including a miniature frame of green and rose gold done in a moiré pattern of white enamel. It might do, she says, for a snapshot she has of the Czarevich taken aboard the imperial yacht, the
Standart,
last fall. Yes, she believes the frame is exactly the correct size. She asks who it is by and is told workmaster Maksim Bemechev
.

“
Lovely” is the word that conveys to Fabergé that it has been chosen. He places it aside
.

Finally, there is the gift which was their purpose for coming. What shall it be for Bow Wow?
—
as Grand Duchess Olga calls her sister. Maria loves tiny lemon drops, places them one at a time to melt beneath her tongue. All right then, Grand Duchess Olga settles on the yellow
bonbonnière
that she first looked at. No matter that it means having to sacrifice several future monthly allowances
.

Meanwhile, in other areas of that building at 24 Bolshaya Movskaya Street, more new Fabergé things are being thought up and made to come true. On the second floor, seventy-five craftsmen are busy at their work benches, and on the third floor, a hundred more. The high benches they sit at are oddly shaped, constructed with individual recesses which permit each worker's arms to rest on the bench surface without his having to hunch. Steady hands are necessary to do such fine work, steady hands, concentration, and constant pride. There is minimal talk. The goldsmiths are heating and shaping the precious metal, chasing it with various intricate motifs. One slip of a chisel will ruin a piece they have been working on for days, and they know there is no way to get by with even a slight mistake. Every bit of their work will be closely inspected. They hold the piece they are working on up level with their eyes. For the time being, the piece is all there is, each detail a challenge, an opportunity to excel. Without breaking concentration they feel into the slinglike pouches that are nailed to the edge of the bench to find the particular tool they need. Many of these goldsmiths are less than twenty years old, outstanding apprentices. This same scrupulous attitude prevails with the setters, the finishers, the assemblers, from the most experienced professional to the youngster who for the past year has been an
artelchik,
a general cleaner, and this is his very first day in his own assigned seat at a bench
.

On the fourth floor next to the design studio are the private cubicles of the workmasters. The largest cubicle is that of senior workmaster Henrik Immanuel Wigstrom, and adjacent to it are the cubicles of workmasters August Hollming and Karl Armfeldt. To be in the proximity of such respected men is an honor for Maksim Bemechev, and he is quite satisfied with the smaller cubicle that is his. Maksim at age thirty-one is the youngest workmaster now affiliated with Fabergé. He began as an apprentice in 1897 and in 1904 was promoted to a full-fledged artisan, and now it is 1912 and he has been a workmaster for little over a year. He has Wigstrom to thank for the recognition of his talents, his ability to learn excellence. Wigstrom always believed in him, encouraged him, took time to personally instruct him. Naturally being the protégé of the famous Wigstrom instantly helped his reputation, so now his own name, his own workmaster's
mark, MB, appears on pieces and is rapidly becoming desirable
.

At this moment Maksim is concerned with a group of twenty presentation boxes that he has been in charge of making for the Czar. They are each different except for the way they bear the Czar's monogram or portrait in miniature. Some are a combination of various-colored golds, others combine guilloché enamel and gold. They all appear splendid. However, as Maksim inspects them one at a time he places four apart from the others. Those four are not perfect. The hinges of one, for example, do not articulate with absolute ease. The diamond-set border of another is ever so slightly out of line. Unnoticeable perhaps by just anyone, but nevertheless to Maksim's eyes out of line. These boxes are intended to be added to the stock of Fabergé items that is kept on hand in a special room at the Winter Palace. Czar Nicholas II draws from them whenever he must demonstrate his largess to a visiting dignitary or someone who has done some service deserving of a special expression of gratitude. No other jeweler, not Cartier nor Boucheron nor anyone, is shown such confidence, and the arrangement is an important source of automatic profit to Fabergé. Tomorrow, Maksim will personally take the boxes to the palace and the imperial chamberlain will add them to the account. By means of a silver push bell Maxim summons one of the clerks to have the sixteen approved boxes packed and ready for transport
.

That done, Maksim must go down to the ground floor to the kiln where the enamel work is fired. He will check on the progress of some knitting needles that he is making for Consuela, Duchess of Marlborough. No ordinary knitting needles these, with their ten-inch-long shafts of shaved ebony and their caps an intricate arrangement of gold, white enamel, and rubies. To the stairway down, Maksim detours so his way takes him through the design studio. He intends only to have Alma in his sight for a passing moment. However, when he sees her and when she looks up and they are eyes to eyes, he is compelled to pause at her drawing table. She is twenty-four, the daughter of the late workmaster, Knut Pihl.In Maksim's estimation Alma Terisia Pihl possesses all
the attributes of a Finnish beauty. Large blue candid eyes, a sensuous full-lipped mouth, and a complexion so exquisitely pale that it seems to have never been punished a single moment by the sun. And that is not all. Alma has proved herself a talented designer. At the moment her project is the most important one in the shop: the Imperial Winter Egg for 1913. Several ideas she has sketched for it are scattered about her table
.

Maksim is not merely attracted to her, he is aflame with her
.

Headlights.

On high beam.

A black Chaika sedan approached slowly, running close to the curb so that the two men in it could get a good look at whoever it was standing in a doorway of Bolshaya Movskaya Street at this hour. Even had Nikolai not noticed the radio antenna in the center of the Chaika's roof he would have known the men were police. It occurred to him that he had no identification on him. How stupid of him to come out without at least his internal passport. How Western of him, he also thought. It was another example of the foreigner he had become. The Chaika went by and then speeded up. Nikolai knew it would circle back and stop. The policemen would ask who he was and where he lived, and when he told them they would want to see his internal passport with the
propiska
, the official stamp, that allowed him to live here in Leningrad. It would end up all right but be a hassle. Nikolai hurried down the street, took the long way around the back of Saint Isaac's Cathedral, and returned to the apartment.

It was past three o'clock.

He was reluctant to try phoning Vivian again, because if she wasn't there he'd feel worse. He lay on the bed in the dark and fought his anger and futility with imaginary visits to what he thought would be pleasant places. Such as alone in the noon sun perched on a rock on the coast of Maine with the brightness making him keep his eyes closed. He drifted off.

CHAPTER