Chapter 12
It took a few minutes for the fire wagon, drawn by four stout, small horses with shaggy fetlocks, to arrive at the tavern. The long yellow tongues of flame wagged from every window and licked the blistering walls. The paint burned and peeled, and the stone underneath charred. I bit my lips, seized by the ancestral memory of Moscow burning at the time of Napoleon — even though I did not experience it myself, I heard stories from my aunt and my mother often enough to be able to taste ash and crumbling brick every time Napoleon was mentioned. Now I tasted it regardless.
I waited with everyone else, my teeth chattering, as the firemen unrolled the hose and brought out a pump. The water in the wagon’s barrel was frozen, and one of the firemen had to crack the ice with the blunt end of an axe.
They pumped a thin, uncertain stream that occasionally rose as high as the second story windows but quickly abated, and then reared up again. The flames guttered and went out when the water hit them, then quickly grew to their former size. It was becoming obvious the fire and water could chase each other like this forever, neither gaining an upper hand, as the tavern gradually charred and grew disfiguring tumors of ice. The water froze the moment it touched any portion of wall not in flames. As I watched the icy gray lumps grow, I realized how cold it was — how cold I felt. My twisted ankle, so swollen by then it filled my boot as tightly as rising dough fills a too-small bowl, was thankfully numb; so was the rest of me. At least, this is the only explanation I could find for the sense of curious calm that enveloped me. I thought of Jack, who was not among the throng outside; surely, he wouldn’t be trapped inside and burned to death — he would be strong enough to break the door if it was locked from the outside, he could jump from any window and do so without hurting himself… he must have gone to the train, I said to myself. I should hurry there too.
There was no chance of finding a carriage near the sluggish inferno, so I hobbled away, my injured foot numb enough to put a modicum of weight on it. I wondered as I hobbled who had started the fire. I assumed, it was the English, but it seemed possible that Nightingale would not be above having the Nikolashki or some other unsavory branch of secret police doing as she bid.
It occurred to me I had seen neither foreigners nor plain clothed policemen at the tavern — the arsonists either escaped before I got there, or found their way out the back of the building. Would they chase me? I could not run, and felt too tired and distraught to hide. It wasn’t quite despair that hung over me like a thick veil; it was the sense of resignation. If I were captured I would probably feel only relief. I stumbled along, smelling the pungent scent of smoke permanently trapped in my clothes and hair, hoping for either a carriage or a policeman to come along and take me somewhere I could sit down and finally stop running.
I had not thought about the university in days, and now I yearned to be there. It was becoming increasingly plain I might never make it back at all let alone in time for the third quarter. If I survived this adventure and returned home, I only hoped the rector would be merciful and allow me to resume my studies next year. Otherwise, I would be expelled, tossed out. If that were to happen, death by the hand of Dame Nightingale would be certainly preferable.
I managed to hail a carriage; a sullen freedman and his large, bay horse studied me with suspicion and a remarkably similar shine of dark, bulging eyes, but agreed to take me to the station. My breath clouded the air inside, as the driver sang to himself and clapped his mittened hands. His horse, evidently encouraged by this, snuffled and neighed.
The train was still there. I found the compartment empty of Jack but also empty of policemen or spies or any other foes; only the two Chinese gentlemen, Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi nodded and smiled at me. I settled in my seat and immediately pressed my forehead to the frozen window, to thaw out a clear patch large enough to observe the goings-on on the platform.
I worried about Jack, although I could not imagine him dead — such a little fire, such an obvious and feeble arson were designed not to kill but to scare him, to drive him away — I imagined him running, leaping tall buildings, leading the pursuit away from me… something he would do. Sweet old Jack.
Every passing second resonated in my mind like a heavy stroke of Grandfather’s clock that used to decorate my father’s study when I was an infant — I still remembered the heavy, weighty sound. I felt the ghostly clock hand move, slow and inexplicable, its blade shredding my heart with worry, each little step another opportunity lost.
I attempted to distract myself by checking on my ankle, but the boot would not come off because of the swelling, and I gave up soon enough.
I wished I hadn’t insisted on taking my own room — I would have known where Jack was, if he was still alive, and whether I should stay in Yekaterinburg and wait for him or continue on my way. The remorse tore at me, and yet there was no fixing it. It was the same truth I had realized only gradually after my papa had passed away, so long ago: the truth that some things could not be fixed no matter how much you turned them in your head and wished they would be otherwise. The realization often descended early in the morning, in that fuzzy domain between sleep and wakefulness, where — despite what your dreams still whispered in your head — those who were dead would remain dead. Grief was always freshest in the mornings, but I now allowed the memory of it to distract me from my current misery.
“Where is your friend?” Kuan Yu asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. In my distress, I could not even start making up a plausible lie, and so instead I told them we had been separated while in town, and now I couldn’t decide whether to continue or not.
“Of course not,” Liu Zhi said. “You don’t leave a friend behind — there will be another train tomorrow.”
“But we are in a hurry,” I said. “Besides, I worry those people you helped us push off the train will come back.”
“All the more reason to not abandon your friend,” Kuan Yu said, the confusion written on his honest, broad face that reminded me of Anastasia at that moment. “What sort of a soldier are you?”
“Not a very good one,” I said, simultaneously afraid and giddy with the thought that between them Liu Zhi and Kuan Yu were generating enough guilt to chase me off the train, and wondered how far would my shame push me. The role of embarrassment in human history was vastly underestimated. As I picked up my satchel and hobbled on my distended ankle toward the doors of the carriage, it occurred to me that many instances of heroism, acknowledged in books and history records and Jack’s beloved penny dreadfuls, were likely to have been inspired purely by embarrassment, by fear of looking foolish or cowardly in front of total strangers. So I smiled and waved at Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi. “It was nice meeting you. Have a safe and pleasant journey.”
They waved back and whispered to each other fiercely, their words obscured by their language as well as hissing of the steam — the train was getting ready to leave, and its breath, a cloud of milk in the clear water of the winter air, curdled and billowed all around me as soon as I stepped onto the platform. I thought I heard voices calling after me, but I was too fatigued and frightened and hurt to turn back and ask what they wanted.