The Romanov Conspiracy (45 page)

63

MOSCOW

The overnight train from St. Petersburg clattered into the station just after ten that morning with a belch of steam and a squeal of brakes.

Andrev stepped down from the train and scanned the crowded Moscow station. Imperial gilded eagles still adorned the vaulted walls, some with scarlet banners hanging high above them. The platforms were crowded with unhappy-looking, shabbily dressed peasants with bundles of their belongings.

He saw no sign of any Cheka security or checkpoints. He pulled his cap down over his eyes and hefted his bag on his shoulder. “So far, so good.”

He clutched Lydia’s arm and guided her out the station entrance doors and across the busy street, crowded with horse carriages and motorized taxis, to a grim-looking beer hall where they found a window table. The place was packed with railway workers and passengers and a handful of off-duty soldiers.

The only menu offering was a watery stew made of horse meat and cabbage with cuts of black bread, which Andrev ordered for them both, along with a beer for himself and tea for Lydia.

When the surly waiter finally returned with their food and drinks, Andrev sipped his beer and saw that Lydia looked distracted. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s a miracle we’ve made it this far without being stopped or having our papers checked.”

“The crash won’t go unnoticed. If the mechanic survived he’s probably talked by now. That means they may be searching for us. At least he didn’t know our plans, but the crash of a big aircraft like the Muromets is bound to arouse suspicion. How’s your arm?”

“Bearable.” Lydia touched her bandaged left forearm, where a six-inch strip of her flesh had been scorched by metal debris from the aircraft blaze. Otherwise she was unhurt. In St. Petersburg, Andrev cleaned and dressed the burn with some alcohol, iodine salts, and cotton gauze they bought at a pharmacy, but the pain was still a dull throb. She felt exhausted.

They’d slept fitfully in the previous thirty-six hours, almost half of it spent on the crowded overnight train from St. Petersburg—even the few stinking toilets were occupied by passengers who had to be begged to vacate them when the lavatory was required. All during the night Lydia feared the train would be halted by the Cheka and searched.

The beer hall food tasted terrible—Lydia couldn’t even bring herself to eat the horse meat—and she pushed away her plate. She looked at the scene beyond the window. It was absurd. In the clutches of a brutal civil war, Moscow seemed so normal: the trams were running, cinemas were open, and on a nearby lamppost the Bolshoi Theater advertised an evening performance.

But the closer you looked you noticed the bullet-ridden buildings and the grim faces of passersby—everyone on the streets and in the beer hall seemed on edge, under duress. What few stores that were open had long lines, and most of the people were poorly dressed women with babies in their arms, others with children holding on to their skirts.

Andrev left his meal unfinished and stood. “There’s a street full of lodging houses not far from here. We’ll try to find a room and figure out our next step.”

The sign in the window of the Odessa Boardinghouse said “Comfortable, well-appointed rooms and running water” but in truth it was a shabby affair, badly in need of a paint job and the ceilings yellow from cigarette smoke.

The elderly owner who greeted them was a bony woman with warts on her cheeks, and she smelled of vodka. She led them up stone steps along a grimy passageway into a filthy bedroom with two rickety chairs and a greasy cupboard. The unwashed window offered a distant,
murky view of the gilded domes of St. Basil’s and the Kremlin’s red walls. “It’s one ruble a night, clean sheets extra. Payment in advance.”

Lydia recoiled. The bedstead had no blankets, the floorboards were bare, and peeling paper hung in damp strips from the walls. She saw a parade of insects on the floor below the grimy window. “Thank you. We’ll take the sheets.”

“The shared bathroom’s down the hall. There’s a curfew at ten, mind you, on Bolshevik orders. And the electricity goes off pretty frequently, so be prepared with a candle.”

The woman showed them a ruin of a bathroom, then fetched a set of sheets before Andrev paid her and she left. He said to Lydia, “Not exactly home, but beggars can’t be choosers. Here, let me take a look at your arm.”

She sat on the bed and he removed the dressing and took the iodine, alcohol, and gauze from his bag and went to work. “You’ve really been through the wars, haven’t you? Shot at and now this. No way for a young woman to live.”

“Can I tell you a secret? When I volunteered for the republican movement, I was put to work as a courier, along with a handful of female volunteers. We used to smuggle ammunition and messages past British lines. I was never more terrified and death seemed a constant companion. But do you know the strangest thing? I never felt so alive. I loved every minute of it. I lived more in a day than I did in my entire life. Existence became real, and perilous and exciting. I couldn’t get enough.”

“Like a drug?”

“Yes. Sometimes when I was in danger, when I seemed to be staring death right in the face, I’d get the oddest feeling. It’s as if I wanted to reach out and take his hand. Does that sound strange?”

Andrev shook his head and finished tying her dressing. “I remember my father telling me something he once read, that those who truly live are always on the edge of danger.”

“Were you close to him?”

“More than that. He was called up in the first three months of the war because of a shortage of medical doctors at the front, even though
he was far past conscription age. He was badly gassed and invalided home a month later. Nina and I were with him when he died.”

She looked into his face, her emerald eyes dark, intense. “Tell me about you and your father.”

The question caught Andrev by surprise. “I was six when my mother died. An influenza outbreak plagued St. Petersburg. Her death devastated my father. He adored her, you see. We both did. What made it so poignant was that he was a doctor. His business was saving lives, but he couldn’t save my mother.”

“That must have been dreadful for him.”

“For a long time after her death I used to hear him crying in his room at night. He was desolate, inconsolable. Soon after he packed me off to relatives in Moscow for a time. I didn’t realize it but he was only trying to protect me, didn’t want me to see him so grief-stricken.”

Andrev looked straight at her. “I can still remember him waving good-bye from the station platform, and the sound of the train whistle the night I left for my relatives’. It always haunts me, that sound, it seemed to echo how lonely we both felt. But that’s life, isn’t it? It’s like a broken jigsaw puzzle. Somehow there’s always a piece missing.”

“And afterward? He didn’t remarry?”

“He should have. He was the kind of man who needed a woman’s love in his life. But instead he threw himself into his work. Sometimes he drank too much to forget his pain.”

Andrev stood as if to shake off the memory and reached across for his jacket. “We need to figure out how to reach Ekaterinburg without attracting too much attention.”

“How do we do that?”

He offered a smile. “I think it’s time I introduced you to an old friend of mine.”

64

The run-down street near the Trans-Siberian Railway station was home to some of Moscow’s busiest pawnbrokers.

The universal sign of three golden balls that hung outside the storefront had seen better days, the gilt paintwork flaking, the windows protected by rusting metal bars, but the sign behind the front door said Open for Business.

Andrev pushed in the door, Lydia behind him, and a bell tinkled overhead. They entered a cramped store, racks of garments hanging on poles suspended from the ceiling—everything from velvet ball gowns to working clothes.

Glass display cases contained an array of personal belongings: eyeglasses and watches, jewelry and rings, even a wooden leg.

Seated behind a counter protected by a metal trellis was a man with wire-rimmed glasses. Two of the fingertips on one hand were missing, and the frostbitten stumps were blackened flesh. He wore a dark, shabby suit flecked with cigarette ash, and he was engrossed in examining a ring with a jeweler’s eyepiece.

Andrev said, “How much for the typewriter in the front window?”

The man didn’t look up. “Fifty rubles and not one less. We don’t sell garbage here, you know. It’s an American Remington, the best.”

Andrev smiled. “You drive a hard bargain, Corporal Tarku.”

The man’s head came up and his jeweler’s loupe fell from his fingers, his mouth open in shock. “Well, I’ll be … ! Captain Andrev. What are you doing here?”

Andrev slipped shut the steel bolt that locked the front door and flipped over the Closed sign. “I need your help. Can we have a quiet word?”

Tarku came round from behind the counter and shook Andrev’s hand vigorously. “I never thought I’d see you again, Captain. You came at the right time. I’m usually working in the back, out of sight, but my boss is gone on business.”

Andrev gestured to Lydia. “A lady friend of mine, names are unimportant.”

“Of course, whatever you say.” Tarku inclined his head. “Enchanted, madame.” He slapped Andrev’s back. “This calls for a celebration. I’ve got a bottle of Ukrainian vodka that’ll make your nose bleed. Have a drink? You will. You must.”

A train whistled as it pulled out from the railway yard across the street, while Tarku rummaged for a vodka bottle in a desk drawer and wiped three small shot glasses with a handkerchief before he filled them to the brim. He handed out the glasses and raised his own. “A toast. May that power-hungry swine Lenin roast in hell. He promised bread and peace, and all we got was famine and civil war.”

Andrev knocked back his vodka in one gulp, slapped down the glass, and looked around the cluttered store. “How is life treating you these days?”

“A lot better than we endured together, Captain. And it’s safer here in a big city than in Kiev, easier to hide. I keep my head low.”

“Busy?”

“As a one-handed jockey with an itch. Everyone needs cash for something or other these days.” Tarku refilled his own glass. “What happened after we parted? Did you see your family?”