They spun and spun. In the turns, Saskia saw Kamo as he struggled to follow her through a thickening of the audience near the orchestra. Saskia’s dance partner did not follow her glance. He only looked at Saskia and, on occasion, those around him.
‘How can I not have seen you before, in society? You are the most beautiful woman here.’
‘I’m wearing a mask.’
‘The mask hides nothing, says the proverb. But here we are.’
The man bowed. He wanted to kiss her glove, as was the custom, but Saskia did not offer it. So his smile was crooked as he reversed into the slow storm of dancers. Saskia nodded to him, then moved on. She was at the far wall of the Great Ballroom. Through the open door, she could see seven rooms of the enfilade. But she did not step through.
She approached a short, nervous-looking man who had been observing her. His pocket watch, which dangled carelessly outside its pocket, had the greenish glow of radium. She confiscated his wine glass.
‘You’re not old enough to drink this,’ she said.
Pavel Eduardovitch Nakhimov smiled beneath his Nosey Parker mask and bowed. In the mirror behind him, Saskia saw Kamo shouldering a path through the crowd. She thought of threatening him with the grenade, but knew the bluff would not work.
‘I’m seventeen today.’
‘Many happy returns,’ she said sourly. She drank the wine.
She passed the glass to a footman, who appeared and disappeared for the purpose. ‘We have about fifteen seconds before my friend reaches us. When he does, he will probably try to kill you. Happy?’
‘Of course,’ Pasha replied. His words were slow. ‘It’s my birthday and you’re here.’
‘How did you know?’
‘When we parted, I made sure to touch the band and listen for the countdown. Zero is tonight, at midnight. My father told me of your interest in the Amber Room.’
‘And the pocket watch?’
‘You can see it, can’t you? Like you saw me in the dark?’
‘Pavel Eduardovitch, you would be conspicuous enough without it. Gump teaches us that clever is as clever does.’
Saskia looked into the mirror. Kamo’s journey across the dance floor was drawing consternation, particularly from the gentlemen. ‘Pasha, I have been beaten only once at chess, because I cheat. At any given moment in the game, I calculate many possible board states, starting with the most probable. The man who beat me employed an irrational, unpredictable move.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You, my dear boy, are the unpredictable move. You have complicated my evening beyond my powers to predict its next iteration.’ She touched his cheek. ‘You cannot have me. You may not even have your life.’
Pasha straightened his back. ‘I will protect you.’
‘It’s too late. Pavel Eduardovitch, my name is Saskia Maria Brandt. Say it, please, so that I know you heard it.’
‘Saskia Maria Brandt.’
Kamo pushed between them. His right hand was still on his heart and his eyes were narrow with pain. But he showed them his left hand, which held a palm pistol. Its barrel protruded between his second and third fingers. He pointed it at Pasha.
Quietly, he said to Saskia, ‘Give me the apple.’
‘Take it yourself.’
‘No. Place it within my jacket. Inside, right pocket. Don’t try anything.’
Pasha shook his head. She moved until she was shoulder-to-shoulder with Kamo, their backs to the crowd, and placed the grenade inside his jacket.
Kamo said, ‘Do you recognise me, boy?’
‘You’re the man with the spoilt eye. But I would smell you anyway. If you hurt Saskia, I’ll kill you.’
Kamo laughed. ‘Not everything is as easy as jumping from a window.’
‘Then perhaps I’ll throw you through one.’
‘A poor response. Look at this, Little Hero.’
Kamo put his gun to Saskia’s ribs. With his free arm, he pulled her close. Saskia felt the muscles in her abdomen quiver. It was not beyond Kamo to shoot. The report would be no louder than glass breaking on the carpet. Gutshot with a small-calibre bullet, Saskia would be more amenable.
‘As long as you both cooperate,’ said Kamo, ‘you will come to no harm. Let us proceed directly.’
The three of them moved through the open doorway into a silvered dining room hung with streamers. Guests either stood or were seated at one of the three tables. Every few steps, Pasha looked back at them. In his eyes, Saskia saw Pasha’s wonder that she did not despatch Kamo with a high kick, knocking the sense from his head just she had knocked the cigarette from the his own mouth on the second day of their acquaintance. Indeed, she had been capable moments ago. She thought once more of the long kiss behind the photographer’s arch. She remembered the desperate suction and his failing, darkening blood. The magnesium flash. Now, with Pasha here, and the eyes of the crowd, she had lost it. Beneath the curve of Kamo’s collar were pipes bearing blood and air. She could throttle them using the wires along her forearm, which would mean death by an Allegory of the Future.
And yet, when she had opened her blood-filled eyes on the trees above Turtle Lake, and seen Kamo, her rescuer, confronting the Cossacks of the Kuban Host, she had known that some part of him was worth rescue. They had looked at each other over the bodies of the Cossacks. He had said, ‘I am at your service.’
‘No,’ she had replied. ‘I am at yours.’
They passed through the landing of the main staircase, another dining room, a room decorated with panels of crimson under glass, a portrait gallery, and arrived at the Amber Room. It had three floor-to-ceiling windows with gilt mirrors between them to double the light. Every other surface, excepting the floor and the painted ceiling, was a monument to amber. The centre of the room was occupied by a model of the Berlin monument to Frederick the Great, while its perimeter was filled with white chairs and furniture. Standing around the room—paying particular attention to the model in the centre and the showcases of amber collectibles near the windows—Saskia counted five men and three women. Her eyes stopped, however, on her own reflection, which was reflected in the tall mirror to the right of the far door.
‘Well?’ said Kamo.
She ignored him. Her reflection was impossible. Instead of the Allegory of Night, she saw a woman wearing a sennit hat, a white blouse with puffed shoulders, and green-smoked eyeglasses. Though the virtual distance was considerable, she was certain that the face—and its expression of surprise—was her own. Before she could approach the apparition, Kamo pushed her deeper into the room.
‘Look here,’ he said, gesturing to a clock in the corner. It was a bronze clock with porcelain flowers and leaves. ‘It is two minutes shy of midnight. Now, where is the money?’
Pasha said, ‘I’ve been here before.’
‘I’ve little doubt of it,’ Kamo replied. ‘Hold your tongue. Now, Lynx, where is it?’ He looked at the model of Frederick, whose base, which equalled the height of a man, was the best candidate for the hiding place of the stolen roubles.
Saskia had waited long months to enter this room. She felt a mixture of peace, resignation and stage fright. The threat of Kamo’s gun was a note in the margin of her mind. It did not concern her directly. She found herself more interested in the blank, slackened expression on Pasha’s face. The boy had demonstrated a special connection with the band on her arm. Now, it appeared, he had made a similar connection with this room.
‘Pasha,’ she said, ‘did your illness come to you shortly after your first visit to this room?’
‘Yes,’ said Pasha. For a moment, his eyes were clear. He stared at her. ‘I had my first seizure a month after my tenth birthday. My father had taken me here as a birthday present.’