Shadow Pass

thing. He had simply followed regulations, and if he had continued to follow them, he would now be back at the office, writing up charges against Pekkala of professional misconduct.

The more Pekkala thought about this, the louder he heard Kropotkin’s words from the last time they’d met— that the day would come when he would have to choose between what his job required him to do and what his conscience would allow.

Perhaps the time has come at last to disappear, he told himself, and suddenly it no longer seemed impossible.

He remembered the morning he had stood with the Tsar on the terrace of the Catherine Palace, watching Ilya lead her students on a walk to the Chinese Theater just across the park. “If you let her get away,” the Tsar said, “you’ll never forgive yourself. And neither will I, by the way.”

The Tsar had been telling the truth. Pekkala had not forgiven himself. We did not separate by choice, he thought. We were driven apart by circumstances which neither of us caused or wanted. Even if she is with someone else now, even if she has a child, what order of the universe demands that I be satisfied with living out my days as a ghost in her heart?

With his office building only two blocks away, Pekkala turned the corner and headed for the Cafe Tilsit. He didn’t know if he would find Kropotkin there, but when he came within sight of the place, he saw Kropotkin standing on the sidewalk next to the triangular, double-sided board on which Bruno, the owner, wrote the day’s menu. Kropotkin was smoking a cigarette. A short-brimmed cap obscured his face, but Pekkala recognized him by the way he stood—the legs slightly spread and firmly planted on the ground, one hand tucked behind the back. There was no mistaking the stance of a policeman, whether he had left the ranks or not.

Kropotkin noticed him and smiled. “I wondered if I’d see you again,” he said, and flicked the cigarette into the street.

In the cafe, the two men found a place away from the crowded benches, sitting at a small table tucked beneath the staircase to the second floor. Here they knew no one would overhear them.

Bruno had made borscht. He ladled the soup like torrents of blood into the wooden bowls in which all meals were served.

“I have thought a lot about our last conversation,” said Pekkala, as he spooned up the ruby-colored soup.

“I hope you have forgiven me for speaking as bluntly as I did,” replied Kropotkin. “It is in my nature, and I cannot help it.”

“There is nothing to forgive. You mentioned the possibility of disappearing.”

“Yes. And I realize I was wrong to have suggested it.”

His words struck Pekkala as if they had been shards of glass. It was the last thing he had expected Kropotkin to say.

“This is not a time for running,” continued Kropotkin. “What good can we do if we simply allow ourselves to fade away?”

Pekkala gave no answer. His head was spinning.

Kropotkin ate as he spoke, slurping his soup off the spoon. “The truth is, Pekkala, I had hoped we might find a way to work together, as we did back in Ekaterinburg.”

It took Pekkala a moment to understand that Kropotkin was asking for a job. All that talk about disappearing had been nothing more than words. Pekkala did not blame Kropotkin. Instead, he blamed himself for believing it. At the time Kropotkin may have meant what he was saying. He might even have gone through with it, but that was then, and now he believed something else. The long days of driving back and forth across this country have caught up with him, decided Pekkala. He is looking back on his days in the police and wishing things could be the way they used to be. But the world he is remembering has gone for good. It may never have existed in the first place. Besides, Pekkala told himself, the reason Kropotkin was dismissed from the force would prevent him from ever being reinstated, no matter how many strings I tried to pull. “I can’t,” said Pekkala. “I’m sorry. It is not possible.”

When Kropotkin heard this, the light went out of his eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He glanced around the room. “I’ll be back in a minute, Pekkala. I am due to pick up some cargo on the other side of town and I need to find out if it is ready for loading onto my truck.”

“Of course,” Pekkala assured him. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

While he waited for Kropotkin to return, Pekkala felt as if he were waking from a dream. Suddenly he felt ashamed, deeply ashamed, that he had even considered abandoning his post and leaving Kirov to face the consequences. He thought about Ilya, and as her face shimmered into focus in his mind, he experienced a strange hallucination.

He was standing on the platform of the Imperial Station at Tsarskoye Selo. Ilya was with him. Winter sunlight on the plastered brickwork glowed like the flesh of apricots. It was her birthday. They were heading into Petrograd for dinner. He turned to speak to her and, suddenly, she disappeared.

Next, Pekkala found himself at an iron gate, an ornate bronze wreath bolted to the railings, just outside the Alexander Palace. It was a place he knew well. He often met Ilya here, after she had finished her classes. Then they would walk out across the grounds together. The following year, the Tsarina and her daughters would stand at this gate and plead with the palace guards to remain loyal as soldiers of the Revolutionary Guard advanced upon Tsarskoye Selo. But that was still to come. Now Pekkala saw Ilya walking towards him, still carrying her textbooks, feet crunching on the pale carpet of gravel. Pekkala reached out to open the gate and this time it was he who disappeared.

Now he stood at the dockside in Petrograd, watching the Tsar’s yacht, the Standart, pulling up to the quay. Sailors threw their mooring lines, the ropes weighted at the ends with huge monkey-fist knots. Dozens of signal flags hung from the halyard lines, so gaudy that together they looked like the laundry of court jesters hung out to dry. Again Ilya was with him, a breeze stirring her white summer dress about her knees. He wore his usual heavy black coat on the excuse that he’d heard some rumor of a cold front approaching. The truth was, he wore the coat because, even in this weather, he did not feel comfortable in anything else. They had been invited on board for dinner, the first time the Romanovs had asked them as a couple. Ilya was very happy. Pekkala felt uneasy. He did not care for dinner parties, especially in the confines of a boat, even if it was the Royal Yacht. She knew what he was thinking. He felt her arm across the back of his waist.

“I don’t want to leave,” he told her, but even as he said the words, his eyes opened and he found himself back in the cafe.

AT FIRST, PEKKALA DID NOT UNDERSTAND.

It was as if his memories of Ilya had all been thrown into the air like confetti and were flickering down around him. So often he had returned to these images, retreating from the world around him, their vividness erasing all the years between that world and this. But now time began to accelerate. All he could do was watch things going by, too fast to comprehend, until at last the strands of memory in which he had cocooned himself began to snap. Finally, when the last strand had broken free, he realized that there could be no going back.

Kropotkin returned. “My cargo is ready,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t stay any longer.”

“I’ll walk you out,” replied Pekkala, rising, his back stooped against the staircase which loomed over their heads.

Outside the cafe, the two men shook hands.

The lunchtime crowd was leaving the cafe. People stood on the sidewalk, buttoning up their coats or lighting cigarettes to keep them company on the walk back to their jobs.

“Good-bye, old friend,” said Kropotkin.

Bruno, the owner, came out with a wet rag and a stub of chalk. “Out of soup!” he announced to them as he passed. He crouched down in front of the menu board and began to erase the word BORSCHT.

As he let go of Kropotkin’s hand, Pekkala thought about the people who had drifted through his life. Their faces shuffling past behind his eyes. Now, to that long line, as if fixing a photo into an album, he added Kropotkin.