everything would come crashing to the floor.
The Tsarina lay on an overstuffed daybed, her legs covered by a blanket, wearing the gray and white uniform of a nurse of the Russian Red Cross. Ever since casualties had first started pouring back from the front in the late summer of 1914, the Great Hall of the Catherine Palace had been turned into a hospital ward and the Tsarina and her daughters had taken on the role of nurses to the wounded.
Soldiers who had grown up in thatch-roofed, dirt-floored Izba huts now woke each day in a room with golden pillars, walked across a polished marble floor, and rested in linen-sheeted beds. In spite of the level of comfort, the soldiers Pekkala had seen there did not look comfortable at all. Most would have preferred the more familiar surroundings of an army hospital instead of being showcased like the glass circus animals, as the Tsarina’s contribution to the war.
There were times when, in spite of her hostility towards him, Pekkala felt sorry for the Tsarina, particularly since war had broken out. No matter how hard she worked, her German background had made it almost impossible to make any gesture of loyalty to Russia without the gesture backfiring upon her. In trying to ease the suffering of others, she had succeeded only in prolonging it for herself.
But Pekkala had come to realize that this might not have been entirely by accident. The Tsarina was drawn towards suffering. An odd nervous energy surrounded her whenever the topic turned to misfortune. Attending to the wounded had given new purpose to her life.
Now, with Pekkala standing before her, the Tsarina gestured towards a fragile-looking wicker chair. “Sit,” she told Pekkala.
Hesitantly, Pekkala settled onto the chair, afraid that its legs would collapse under his weight.
“Pekkala,” said the Tsarina, “I believe we have gotten off to a bad start, you and I, but it is simply a matter of trust. I would like to trust you, Pekkala.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
“With that in mind,” she said, her clasped hands pressing into her lap as if she had a cramp in her stomach, “I would like for us to work together on a matter of great importance. I require you to conduct an investigation.”
“Of course,” answered Pekkala. “What do you need me to investigate?”
She paused for a moment. “The Tsar.”
Pekkala breathed in sharply. “I beg your pardon, Majesty?” The wicker seat creaked beneath him.
“I need you,” she continued, “to look into whether my husband is keeping a mistress.”
“A mistress,” repeated Pekkala.
“Yes.” She watched him closely, her lips tight in an awkward smile. “You know what that is, don’t you?”
“I do know, Majesty.” He also knew that the Tsar did, in fact, have a mistress. Or, at least, there was a woman who had been his mistress. Her name was Mathilde Kschessinska and she was the lead dancer of the Imperial Russian Ballet. The Tsar had known her for years, since before his marriage to the Tsarina, and had even bought her a mansion in Petrograd. Officially, he had broken off ties with her. Unofficially, Pekkala knew, the Tsar kept in contact with this woman. Although the full extent of their relationship was unknown to him, he knew for certain that the Tsar continued to visit her, even using a secret door located at the back of the Petrograd mansion so that he could enter undetected.
Pekkala had always assumed that the Tsarina knew everything about this other woman. The reason for this was that he did not believe the Tsar to be capable of keeping any secret from his wife. He lacked the necessary guile, and the Tsarina was far too suspicious to allow an affair to continue undetected.
“I regret,” said Pekkala, rising to his feet, “that I cannot investigate the Tsar.”
The Tsarina appeared to have been waiting for this moment. “You can investigate the Tsar,” she told him, as her eyes lit up. “The Tsar himself gave you the right to investigate anyone you choose. That is by Imperial Decree. And what is more, I have the right to order this investigation.”
“I understand, Majesty, that technically I am permitted—”
“Not permitted, Pekkala. Obliged.”
“I understand—” he continued.
She cut him off again. “Then it is settled.”
“Majesty,” pleaded Pekkala, “what you ask, I must not do.”
“Then you refuse?” she asked.
Pekkala felt a trap closing around him. To refuse an order from the Tsarina would amount to treason, the penalty for which was death. The Tsar was at army headquarters in Mogilev, halfway across the country. If the Tsarina wished it, Pekkala could be executed before the Tsar even found out what was wrong.
“You refuse?” she asked again.
“No, Majesty.” The words fell like stones from his mouth.
“Good. I am glad we are finally able to see”—the Tsarina held out her hand towards the door —“eye to emerald eye.”
THE KNOCKING CAME AGAIN, BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING UNUSUAL about it. The knuckles were striking far too low against the door.
At first Pekkala could make no sense of it, but then he smiled. He stepped over to the door and opened it just as the child on the other side was about to knock again. “Good evening, Talia.”
“Good evening, Comrade Pekkala.”
Before Pekkala stood a girl about seven years old, with plump cheeks and a dimple in her chin, wearing a khaki shirt and dress and the red scarf of a Young Pioneer around her neck. In a fashion popular among girls in the Communist Youth Movement, her short hair had been cut in a straight line across her forehead. Smiling, she gave him the Pioneer salute: the knife edge of her outstretched hand held at an angle in front of her face, as if to fend off an attack.
Conscious of how much he towered over the girl, Pekkala got down on one knee so they were looking each other in the face. “And what has brought you here this evening?”
“Babayaga says you are lonely.”
“And how does she know that?”
The child shrugged. “She just does.”
Pekkala glanced back at his dinner—the lumps of bread and the bowl of watery cheese. He sighed. “Well, Talia, it just so happens that I could use a little company right now.”
Talia stepped back into the hall and held out her hand for him to take. “Come along, then,” she said.
“One moment,” Pekkala said. He pulled on his coat which, although it had been cleaned, still looked the worse for wear after his journey across the proving ground.
Joining the girl out in the corridor, Pekkala caught the smell of evening meals—the fug of boiled potatoes, fried sausages, and cabbage.
They held hands as they walked down the pale green hallway with its ratty carpet to the apartment where Talia lived with her grandmother.
Until six months ago, Talia had lived with her parents in a large apartment in what had once been called the Sparrow Hills district of the city but had since been renamed Lenin Hills.
Then, one night, NKVD men arrived at their door, searched the house and arrested her parents. Until the time of their arrest, both had been model Communists, but now they were classed as Type 58. This fell under the general heading of “Threat to National Security” and earned them each a sentence of fifteen years at the Solovetsky Labor Camp.
The only reason Talia and her grandmother even knew this much was because Pekkala, having been their neighbor for several years, agreed to make inquiries on their behalf. As for the precise nature of the parents’ crime, even the NKVD records office could not tell him. Stalin had confided in Pekkala that even if only two percent of the arrests turned out to be warranted, he would still say it had been worth arresting all the others. So many people
