In truth, Aleksei’s attention was not much captured by the ballet itself either. In general, he preferred ballet to opera. A ballet was a symphony with performers added to keep the eyes from wandering. An opera was a play with music added to please the ear. He would always prefer the case where music was the primary concern. Moreover, he found the stamp of the dancers’ feet less of a distraction than the warbling of the singers’ voices. The only other work he had seen by Sor had been an opera: Il Telemaco nell’isola di Calipso. That had been a long time ago – before Austerlitz. He could scarcely remember it. Tonight he listened to the music, and enjoyed it – he promised himself to come again and to bring Dmitry – but his eyes rarely settled on the stage.
At first, he constantly glanced around the auditorium, anticipating the arrival of whoever had invited him. Three or four times he made eye contact with someone, half suspecting he had seen some flicker of recognition in their eyes, but it had come to nothing. His presumption was that the person, when they came, would be a stranger, but he kept an eye out for a face that he knew. He had dismissed the possibility that he might really be dealing with Maks, the memories that had returned to him in Desna finally having convinced him that his old comrade was truly dead. But one other face haunted his mind, though he felt sure that it too was the face of a dead man. Nevertheless, he prepared himself to confront once again the tall, blond figure of Iuda.
But as the ballet began and the hubbub of the audience’s conversation died down, the empty seat next to Aleksei became an ever more obvious presence. He had been invited to one particular seat, and the only empty space he could see in the whole theatre was that beside him. He felt sure it would be filled before the evening was out. If not, then perhaps there was a further missive already hidden somewhere beneath the seat, or beneath Aleksei’s own. Aleksei would search them at the end of the evening, along with seat sixteen, if the lady with the spyglass did not hang around for too long.
In the meantime, Aleksei’s attention was captured by the architecture of the theatre itself. He had seen the exterior frequently enough, and indeed had seen it growing up over the years, far grander than the original Petrovsky Theatre it had replaced, which had been reduced to ashes some two decades before. The interior, however, was utterly new to him. The stage itself was wide, high and deep. The scenery for the ballet was impressive enough, but Aleksei mistrusted all such façades, knowing they were only cardboard and paper, and could be gone by the following evening. He would rather have seen the stage empty, to see its construction instead of having it hidden.
The auditorium was another matter. Like his friend with the spyglass, but with only his own eyes to observe, Aleksei spent much of the evening craning his neck to look at the space around him. He, however, did not look at the audience, but at where they sat. Surrounding the stalls, six circles rose up, layer upon layer, like stacked horseshoes. The highest – and cheapest – was above the level of the massive chandelier which dominated the chamber, illuminated by a hundred candles. Flights of stairs, through which the audience could enter and exit, cut through the rows of seats, great cavernous tunnels that might lead one to who knew where. That this vast room existed in the centre of Moscow, surrounded and hidden by brickwork indistinguishable from that of the buildings around it, was difficult to imagine. Those stairwells were like gateways to another world – to Dante’s Hell. There there had been nine circles, not six, and they were true circles, connected through a complete 360 degrees, and yet Aleksei could easily imagine the audience in each of those balconies as pagans, lechers, gluttons, misers, sloths, heretics, sodomites and panders. He himself was at the very pit of the theatre, the lowest level of hell – that reserved for traitors. He glanced around, but saw no sign of Brutus or Cassius. Neither was his worst fear fulfilled: he did not see Christ’s betrayer – he did not see Iuda. He returned his eyes to the stage.
‘It’s been a long time, Aleksei Ivanovich.’
The voice came from his right. He knew before he had turned his head that the seat next to him was now occupied. He knew also, the realization dawning upon him even as his eyes fell upon the face beside him, both that the voice which had spoken was not Iuda’s and that in his heart he had been utterly convinced it would be.
He saw it first in profile. It was a young man, scarcely more than a boy – perhaps older than Dmitry, perhaps a little younger. He turned, and Aleksei saw something familiar in him, which he could not place. Aleksei opened his mouth to speak, but the man placed a finger to his lips to silence him. He then pointed to the stage, indicating that they should pay attention to the ballet.
Aleksei turned his head forward, but his attention was not focussed on the exertions on stage. His mind tried to grapple with the possibilities, eliminating first the impossibilities. This was not Maks. He had never thought it would be, but the messages had ostensibly come from him, so it had to be included as a possibility. Any such pretence had now been abandoned. Moreover, it was not Iuda, nor was it Zmyeevich, nor any of the other Oprichniki. And there Aleksei’s logic ran out of facts which it might process. The initial flash of recognition had now vanished, but it had been there. The few words the man had spoken implied they had met before. Perhaps they had, in some fleeting moment Aleksei had long forgotten. But in connection with Maks and Maks’ death, Aleksei could think of no one.
The end of the act came quickly – too quickly for Aleksei, still desperately trying to understand who the man beside him could be.
‘Let me introduce myself.’ The man turned to him again as the hum of conversation in the theatre grew. He offered his hand. ‘My name is Innokyentii Sergeivich; Innokyentii Sergeivich Lukin.’
The Christian name meant nothing to Aleksei, and the patronymic could easily have been a coincidence, but combined with the surname, it was shockingly familiar. Even so, as they shook hands, with Aleksei momentarily as if in a trance, Innokyentii made the connotation clear.
‘I’m Maksim Sergeivich’s brother.’
‘Maks…’ gasped Aleksei. Again his mind raced, supplied with this new information. Maks’ brother. Did that explain why Aleksei had seen something he recognized the moment he saw Innokyentii’s face? He could not see anything in it now. Had Maks even had a brother? He had sisters, Aleksei recalled, but could not remember ever hearing of a brother. This man was around Dmitry’s age – much younger than Maks. He would have been about five when Maks had died. Perhaps a half-brother? If so, the name would suggest that it was their father whom they shared, and yet Aleksei was sure that Maks’ father had died when he was very young. Of course, what did Aleksei really know of Maks? He had never met any of his family, and had only Maks’ descriptions of who they were – the descriptions of a man who had lied for as long as they had known each other about the very matter of his national allegiance. Perhaps he had been hiding his brother, protecting him from the revelation that he was also a French spy. How little did that matter today? France was a monarchy again – an ally of Russia. It made no real difference where Innokyentii’s loyalties lay. Nor Maks’.
‘I didn’t know Maks had a brother,’ said Aleksei directly. ‘You must have been very young when he died.’
‘I understand your suspicions, Aleksei. I could be anyone. Perhaps this will convince you.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded letter, handing it to Aleksei. As soon as Aleksei opened it, he recognized the handwriting – it was his own. The date at the top was 29 August 1812. It began:
My dear Yelizaveta Malinovna…
Aleksei understood immediately what the letter was, but self-indulgently read through it, down to his own signature at the bottom. It told a mother the story of the heroic death of her son on the field of battle. The detail was invented, but the sentiment was true, truer than Aleksei had first realized when he had written the letter to Maks’ mother.