The Tsar had alternately ridiculed and admired the simplicity of Pekkala’s existence and had made a virtual hobby of trying to tempt Pekkala with ornate and expensive gifts as a way of luring him into the fascination held by so many for the lifestyle of the Romanovs.
The Tsar had always failed in this endeavour. In failing, however, he had come to realise that Pekkala was one of the only people on this earth whom he could really trust since those who were beguiled by wealth and exclusivity could never be counted upon when the time came to choose between what was right and what nourished the beast of their obsession.
‘Where did the Amber Room come from?’ asked Pekkala.
‘It was commissioned by King Frederick of Prussia, back in 1701. The work was completed by artisans trained in the art of carving ivory, since there had never been a project like this one undertaken before using amber. Unfortunately, the king’s son, Wilhelm, did not share his father’s tastes and gave the room away to Tsar Peter I as a gift. According to legend, it was in exchange for a bodyguard of Russian giants. Not only did Peter have no particular fascination for amber, he had no idea how to assemble the room and quickly gave up trying. As a result, it wasn’t until half a century later that the panels were installed in the Catherine Palace on the orders of Catherine the Great. It was her son, Peter the Great, who became obsessed with the room and its contents. In 1715, he toured the Baltic coast disguised as a regular army officer, buying up amber wherever he could find it. He later incorporated pieces from his own amber collection into the panels, including one containing the perfectly preserved body of a large moth‚ I suspect the same kind depicted in the painting.’
‘How did it end up embedded in the amber?’
‘In prehistoric times, the moth became trapped in the sap oozing out of a tree. The more it struggled, the more enveloped it became, until it was literally embalmed in sap. Over thousands of years, the sap was fossilised into amber, and the insect was preserved inside. Many such things have been discovered in pieces of amber — stones, pine needles, even fish scales.’
‘Where did this piece of amber come from?’
‘According to legend,’ replied Semykin, ‘it had been sold to a Viking by an American Indian on the island of Newfoundland some seven hundred years before. The piece had found its way back to Norway and, in the year 1700, was sold to a merchant in Konigsberg by a Norwegian sailor who needed the money to repair his ship, which had been damaged in a storm. And Konigsberg is where Peter the Great tracked it down. He paid his weight in gold for that one fragment and had it installed in one of the panels, high up near the ceiling. You can’t actually see the insect unless you get up on a ladder. Peter the Great considered it too precious to be viewed by those who did not value it as he did. Even among those who spent their whole lives working at the palace, most people didn’t know the insect was there.’
‘His weight in gold?’ gasped Pekkala.
‘He would have paid ten times his weight‚’ explained Semykin. ‘That is the nature of the collector. He must possess what he covets, no matter what the cost. It is one of the great failures of our species. Like war. Like the cooking in this prison.’
‘How large a piece of amber was it?’ Pekkala imagined a vast yellow slab, the size of a motor car.
Semykin held up his mangled hand, as if to show the insect embedded in his flesh. ‘No larger than this.’ Until now, he had been smiling, amused at Pekkala’s amazement. But suddenly his face grew serious.
‘How is Engel involved in this?’ asked Semykin.
‘Apparently, the painting was on its way to him when the plane that was carrying it ran out of fuel over our lines. You were there at the Catherine Palace, weren’t you,’ asked Pekkala, ‘when the curators were packing up the art work?’
‘Yes. As I told you before, I helped to prioritise which works of art should be removed first, in case we didn’t have time to transport them all to safety.’
‘Then you know they had to leave the amber behind.’
Semykin nodded grimly. ‘We were sworn to secrecy‚ but I guess none of that matters now. The panels were too fragile. We tried moving one of them, but the amber started coming loose from the panel. It was clattering down around us like hail. Sealing it beneath the wallpaper became our only option. That, and broadcasting on the radio that it had all been moved to safety.’
‘So whoever sent this painting to Engel was trying to let him know the amber’s real location.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Semykin. ‘Only someone very familiar with the history of the Amber Room would know the significance of that moth. And believe me, Engel would know. But this doesn’t change the fact that the panels still can’t be moved without destroying them and even if Engel would love nothing more than to get his hands upon the amber, he can’t just walk in under the noses of the German army and pilfer it like a boy robbing candy from a shop. He is a provincial museum director‚ not Herman Goring. Engel simply doesn’t have the credentials to pull off that kind of stunt.’
‘We believe he may have joined the military.’
‘What? No, you must be mistaken, Pekkala. Engel is not young and he is certainly no soldier! The day may come when the Fascists are desperate enough to enlist men of that age into their army, but as far as I know, it hasn’t happened yet.’
‘We have reason to believe he has joined the SS,’ said Pekkala, ‘although we can’t understand why he might have done so. Comrade Stalin is convinced that the man to whom the painting should have been delivered is not the same Gustav Engel at all, but a completely different man who just happens to have the same last name.’
A shadow seemed to pass behind Semykin’s eyes. ‘The SS, you say?’
‘What is it, Semykin? What’s troubling you?’
‘It may be nothing.’
‘Well, whatever it is, tell me now, before it’s too late.’
‘Long before the war,’ began Semykin, ‘Hitler spoke of his dream to build an art museum in the city of Linz. It was to be the largest of its kind in Europe, perhaps in the whole world. When I first heard about the project, which the Germans called Sonderauftrag Linz, I was glad. Many collections would be changing hands and there would be a need for authenticators like me. But then I heard a rumour that the Nazis had begun sending people all across Europe, posing as art students, but who were, in fact, members of a secret organisation whose mission was to catalogue the names and locations of artworks in every country which the Germans planned to occupy. Then I realised that, if that rumour was true, the Nazis would not be buying art. They would be stealing it. The task of this secret organisation would be to follow behind the German Army, seizing entire collections from private homes, galleries and. .’
‘. . and palaces. This organisation. Do you know what it was called?’
‘It is known by the initials ERR, which stands for the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. But its existence was only a rumour, and there were so many rumours going around, nobody knew what to believe. The whole thing seemed too diabolical to be real, but if you are telling me that Gustav Engel is working for the SS, I think it must be true. That new museum in Linz will soon require a curator. What better credential than delivering the Amber Room to Adolph Hitler could a man like Gustav Engel ever need?’
‘You are forgetting that we intercepted the painting before he could see it for himself. There is still a chance that he will be fooled by the wallpaper and the radio announcement.’
‘If there is anyone on earth who can see through that charade, it’s Gustav Engel. He covets that amber, just as Peter the Great did before him, for the simple reason that amber exists in defiance of time, holding its beauty even as its owners crumble into dust. Each piece is unique and perpetual, qualities all men long to possess. That’s why a Tsar will pay his weight in gold for a slab no larger than my hand. And that’s why a man like Gustav Engel will not stop searching for that amber, until he has bound his name forever to the greatest treasure in the world.’