The Diamond Chariot

The third syllable, in which Rybnikov gets into a jam

In recent months Vasilii Alexandrovich Rybnikov (now Sten) had lived a feverish, nervous life, dealing with hundreds of different matters every day and getting no more than two hours’ sleep a night (which, however, was quite enough for him – he always woke as fresh as a daisy). But the telegram of congratulations he had received the morning after the crash at the Tezoimenitsky Bridge had relieved the former staff captain of routine work, allowing him to concentrate completely on his two main missions or, as he thought of them, ‘projects’.

The brand-new Reuters correspondent did everything that needed to be done at the preliminary stage in the first two days.

In preparation for the main ‘project’ (this involved the onward delivery of a large consignment of certain goods), it was sufficient to send the consignee with the frivolous name of Thrush a letter by the municipal post, telling him to expect delivery in one or two weeks, everything else as formerly agreed.

The second ‘project’, which was of secondary importance, but even so very significant indeed, also required very little fuss or bother. In addition to the aforementioned telegrams to Samara and Krasnoyarsk, Vasilii Alexandrovich ordered from a glass-blowing workshop two slim spirals to match a drawing that he supplied, whispering confidentially to the receiving clerk that they were parts of an alcohol purification device for home use.

By inertia or as a pendant, so to speak, to his hectic life in Peter, Rybnikov spent another day or two running round the military institutions of Moscow, where a correspondent’s calling card ensured him access to all sorts of well-informed individuals – everyone knows how we love the foreign press. The self-styled reporter discovered a great deal of curious and even semi-confidential information, which, when properly assembled and analysed, became completely confidential. After that, however, Rybnikov thought better of it and put an end to all his interviewing. In comparison with the projects that he had been charged to carry out, this was petty business, and there was no point in taking any risks for it.

With an effort of will, Vasilii Alexandrovich suppressed the itch for action that had been developed by long habit and forced himself to spend more time at home. Patience and the need to remain in a state of quiescence are a severe trial for a man who is not used to sitting still for a single minute, but even here Rybnikov proved up to the challenge.

He transformed himself in an instant from an energetic, active individual into a sybarite who sat in his armchair at the window for hours at a stretch and strolled around his apartment in a dressing gown. The new rhythm of his life coincided perfectly with the regimen of the carefree inhabitants of ‘Saint-Saëns’, who woke up at about midday and strolled round the house in curlers and carpet slippers until seven in the evening.

Vasilii Alexandrovich established a wonderful relationship with the girls in no time at all. On the first day the young ladies were still uncertain of the new boarder, and so they made eyes at him, but very soon the rumour spread that he was Beatrice’s sweetheart, and the tentative romantic approaches ceased immediately. On the second day ‘Vasenka’ had already become a general favourite. He treated the girls to sweets and listened to their tittle-tattle with interest and, in addition to that, he tinkled on the piano, crooning sentimental romances in a pleasant, slightly mawkish tenor.

Rybnikov really was interested in spending time with the girls at the boarding house. He had discovered that their tittle-tattle, if correctly directed, could be every bit as useful as dashing from one fake interview to another. Countess Bovada’s boarding house was a substantial establishment, men of position visited it. Sometimes they discussed work matters with each other in the salon and later on, in a separate room, when they were in a tender and affectionate mood, they might let slip something absolutely intriguing. They must have assumed that the empty-headed young ladies would not understand anything anyway. And indeed, the girls were certainly no match for Sophia Kovalevskaya when it came to intellect, but they had retentive memories and they were terribly fond of gossiping.

And so, tea parties at the piano not only helped Vasilii Alexandrovich to kill the time, they also provided a mass of useful information.

Unfortunately, during the initial period of the staff captain’s voluntary life as a hermit, the young ladies’ imagination was totally engrossed by the sensation that had set the entire old capital buzzing. The police had finally caught the famous gang of ‘daredevils’. Everyone in Moscow was writing and talking more about this than about Tsushima. They knew that a special squad of the very finest sleuths had been sent from St Petersburg to capture the audacious bandits – and Muscovites found that flattering.

A redheaded Manon Lescaut who went by the nickname of ‘Wafer’ was known to have been frequented by one of the ‘daredevils’, a handsome Pole and genuine fancy morsel, so now Wafer was wearing black and acting mysteriously. The other girls envied her.

During these days Vasilii Alexandrovich several times caught himself thinking about his companion in the compartment in the train – possibly because Lidina was the total opposite of the sentimental but coarse-spirited inhabitants of the ‘Saint-Saëns’. Rybnikov recalled Glyceria as she made a dash for the emergency brake handle, or with her pale face and bitten lip, binding up a torn artery in a wounded man’s leg with a scrap of her dress.

Surprised at himself, the hermit drove these pictures away; they had nothing to do with his life and his present interests.

For his constitutional he went for a walk along the boulevards, as far as the Cathedral of the Saviour and back again. Vasilii Alexandrovich did not know Moscow very well, and therefore he was terribly surprised when he looked at a sign with the name of a street that led up and away at an angle from the Orthodox cathedral.

The street was called ‘Ostozhenka’.

‘The Bomze building on Ostozhenka Street,’ Vasilii Alexandrovich heard a soft voice say, clipping its consonants in the Petersburg style as clearly as if she were there.

He strolled for a while along the street with its asphalt roadway and lines of beautiful buildings, but soon came to his senses and turned back.

Nonetheless, after that time he got into the habit of making a loop to take in Ostozhenka Street when he reached the end of his horseshoe route on the boulevards. Rybnikov also walked past the Bomze apartment building – a smart four-storey structure. Vasilii Alexandrovich’s indolence had put him in a strange mood, and as he glanced at the narrow Viennese windows, he even allowed himself to daydream a little about what could never possibly happen in a million years.

And then his dreams caught him out.

On the fifth day of his walks, as the false reporter, tapping his cane, was walking down along Ostozhenka Street to Lesnoi Passage, someone called him from a carriage.

‘Vasilii Alexandrovich! Is that you?’

The resounding voice sounded happy.

Rybnikov froze on the spot, mentally cursing his own thoughtlessness. He turned round slowly, putting on a surprised expression.

‘Where did you get to?’ Lidina chirped excitedly. ‘Shame on you, you promised! Why are you in civilian clothes? An excellent jacket, you look much better in it than in that terrible uniform! What about the drawings?’

She asked the last question in a whisper, after she had already jumped down on to the pavement.

Vasilii Alexandrovich warily shook the slim hand in the silk glove. He was nonplussed, which only happened to him very rarely – you might even say that it never happened at all

‘A bad business,’ he mumbled eventually. ‘I am obliged to lie low. That’s why I’m in civvies. And that’s why I didn’t come, too … You know, it’s best to keep well away from me just now.’ To make this more convincing, Rybnikov glanced round over his shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘You go on your way, and I’ll walk on. We shouldn’t attract attention.’

Glyceria Romanovna’s face looked frightened, but she didn’t move from the spot.

She glanced round too, and then spoke right into his ear.

‘A court martial, right? What is it – hard labour? Or … or worse?’

‘Worse,’ he said, moving away slightly. ‘There’s nothing to be done. It’s my own fault. I’m to blame for everything. Really, Glyceria Romanovna, my dear lady, I’ll be going.’

‘Not for anything in the world! How can I abandon you in misfortune? You probably need money, don’t you? I have some. Accommodation? I’ll think of something. Good Lord, what terrible bad luck!’ Tears glinted in the lady’s eyes.

‘No, thank you. I’m living with … with my aunt, my late mother’s sister. I don’t want for anything. See what a dandy I am … really, people are looking at us.’

Lidina took hold of his elbow. ‘You’re right. Get into the carriage, we’ll put the top up.’

And she didn’t wait for him to answer, she put him in – he already knew he could never match the stubbornness of this woman. Remarkably enough, although Vasilii Alexandrovich’s iron will did not exactly weaken at that moment, it was, so to speak, distracted, and his foot stepped up on to the running board of its own accord.

They took a drive round Moscow, talking about all sorts of things. The raised hood of the carriage lent even the most innocent subject an intimacy that Rybnikov found alarming. He decided several times to get out at the next corner, but somehow he didn’t get around to it. Lidina was concerned about one thing above all – how to help this poor fugitive who had the merciless sword of martial law dangling over his head.

When Vasilii Alexandrovich finally took his leave, he had to promise that he would come to Prechistensky Boulevard the next day. Lidina would be riding in her carriage, catch sight of him as though by chance, call him and he would get in again. Nothing suspicious, a perfectly normal street scene.

As he gave his promise, Rybnikov was certain that he would not keep it, but the next day the will of this man of iron was affected once again by the inexplicable phenomenon already mentioned above. At precisely five o’clock the correspondent’s feet brought him to the appointed place and the ride was repeated.

The same thing happened the next day, and the day after that.

There was not even a hint of flirting in their relationship – Rybnikov kept a very strict watch on that. No hints, glances or – God forbid! – sighs. For the most part their conversations were serious, and the tone was not at all the one in which men usually talk to beautiful ladies.

‘I like being with you,’ Lidina confessed one day. ‘You’re not like all the others. You don’t show off, you don’t pay compliments. I can tell that for you I’m not a creature of the female sex, but a person, an individual. I never thought that I could be friends with a man and it could be so enjoyable!’

Something must have changed in the expression on his face, because Glyceria Romanovna blushed and exclaimed guiltily:

‘Ah, what an egotist I am! I’m only thinking about myself! But you’re on the edge of a precipice!’

‘Yes, I am on the edge of a precipice …’ Vasilii Alexandrovich murmured desolately, and the way he said it was so convincing that tears sprang to Lidina’s eyes.

Glyceria Romanovna thought about poor Vasya (that was what she always called him to herself) all the time now – before their meetings and afterwards too. How could she help him? How could she save him? He was disoriented, defenceless, not suited to military service. How stupid to put an officer’s uniform on someone like that! It was enough just to remember what he looked like in that get-up! The war would end soon, and no one would ever remember about those papers, but a good man’s life would be ruined for ever.

Every time she appeared at their meeting elated, with a new plan to save him. She suggested hiring a skilled draughtsman who would make another drawing exactly the same. She thought of appealing for help to a high-ranking general of gendarmes, a good friend of hers, who wouldn’t dare refuse.

Every time, however, Rybnikov turned the conversation on to abstract subjects. He was reluctant and niggardly in speaking about himself. Lidina wanted very much to know where and how he had spent his childhood, but all that Vasilii Alexandrovich told her was that as a little boy he loved to catch dragonflies and let them go later from the top of a high cliff, to watch them darting about in zigzags above the void. He also loved imitating the voices of the birds – and he actually mimicked a cuckoo, a magpie and a blue tit so well that Glyceria Romanovna clapped her hands in delight.

On the fifth day of their drives Rybnikov returned to his apartment in a particularly thoughtful mood. First, because there were fewer than twenty-four hours remaining until both ‘projects’ moved into a crucial stage. And secondly, because he knew he had seen Lidina for the last time that day.

Glyceria Romanovna had been especially endearing today. She had come up with two plans to save Rybnikov: one we have already mentioned, about the general of gendarmes, and a second, which she particularly liked, to arrange for him to escape abroad. She described the advantages of this idea enthusiastically, coming back to it again and again, although he said straight away that it wouldn’t work – they would arrest him at the border post.

The fugitive staff captain strode along the boulevard with his jaw thrust out determinedly, so deep in thought that he didn’t glance at his mirror-bright watch at all.

Once he had reached the boarding house, though, and was inside his separate apartment, his habitual caution prompted him to peep out from behind the curtains.

He gritted his teeth: standing at the opposite pavement was a horse cab with its hood up, despite the bright weather. The driver was staring hard at the windows of the ‘Saint-Saëns’; the passenger could not be seen.

Scraps of thoughts started flitting rapidly through Rybnikov’s head.

How?

Why?

Countess Bovada?

Impossible.

But no one else knows.

The old contacts had been broken off, new ones had not yet been struck up.

There could only be one explanation: that damned Reuters Agency. One of the generals he had interviewed had decided to correct something or add something, phoned the Reuters Moscow office and discovered there was no Sten assigned there. He had taken fright, informed the Okhrana … But even if that was it – how had they found him?

And here again there was only one probable answer: by chance.

Some particularly lucky agent had recognised him in the street from a verbal description (ah, he should at least have changed his wardrobe!), and now was trailing him.

But if it was a chance occurrence, things could be set right, Vasilii told himself, and immediately felt calmer.

He estimated the distance to the carriage: sixteen – no, seventeen – steps.

His thoughts grew even shorter, even more rapid.

Start with the passenger, he’s a professional … A heart attack … I live here, help me carry him in, old mate … Beatrice would be annoyed. Never mind, she was in this up to her neck. What about the cab? In the evening, that could be done in the evening.

He finished thinking it all out on the move. He walked unhurriedly out on to the steps, yawned and stretched. His hand casually flourished a long cigarette holder – empty, with no papirosa in it. Rybnikov also extracted a small, flat pillbox from his pocket and took out of it something that he put in his mouth.

As he walked past the cabby, he noticed the man squinting sideways at him.

Vasilii Alexandrovich paid no attention to the driver. He gripped the cigarette holder in his teeth, quickly jerked back the flap of the cab – and froze.

Lidina was sitting in the carriage.

Suddenly deathly pale, Rybnikov jerked the cigarette holder out of his mouth, coughed and spat into his handkerchief.

Not looking even slightly embarrassed, she said with a cunning smile:

‘So this is where you live, Mr Conspirator! Your auntie has a lovely house.’

‘You followed me?’ said Vasilii Alexandrovich, forcing out the words with a struggle, thinking: One more second, a split second, and …

‘Cunning, isn’t it?’ Glyceria Romanovna laughed. ‘I switched cabs, ordered the driver to drive at walking pace, at a distance. I said you were my husband and I suspected you of being unfaithful.’

‘But … what for?’

She turned serious.

‘You gave me such a look when I said “until tomorrow” … I suddenly felt that you wouldn’t come tomorrow. And you wouldn’t come again at all. And I don’t even know where to look for you … I can see that our meetings are a burden on your conscience. You think you’re putting me in danger. Do you know what I’ve thought of?’ Lidina exclaimed brightly. ‘Introduce me to your aunt. She’s your relative, I’m your friend. You have no idea of the power of two women who join forces!’

‘No!’ said Rybnikov, staggering back. ‘Absolutely not!’

‘Then I shall go in myself,’ Lidina declared, and her face took on the same expression it had worn in the corridor of the train.

‘All right, if you want to so badly … But I have to warn my aunt. She has a bad heart, and she’s not very fond of surprises in general,’ said Vasilii Alexandrovich, spouting nonsense in his panic. ‘My aunt runs a boarding house for girls from noble families. It has certain rules. Let’s do it tomorrow … Yes, yes, tomorrow. In the early eve—’

‘Ten minutes,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll wait ten minutes, then I’ll go in myself.’

And she emphatically raised the small diamond watch hanging round her neck.

Countess Bovada was an exceptionally resourceful individual, Rybnikov already knew that. She understood his meaning from a mere hint, didn’t waste a single second on questions and went into action immediately.

Probably no other woman would have been capable of transforming a bordello into a boarding house for daughters of the nobility in ten minutes.

After exactly ten minutes (Rybnikov was watching from behind the curtains) Glyceria Romanovna paid her cabby and got out of the carriage with a determined air.

The door was opened for her by the respectable-looking porter, who bowed and led her along the corridor towards the sound of a pianoforte.

Lidina was pleasantly surprised by the rich decor of the boarding house. She thought it rather strange that there were nails protruding from the walls in places – as if pictures had been hanging there, but they had been taken down. They must have been taken away to be dusted, she thought absentmindedly, feeling rather flustered before her important conversation.

In the cosy salon two pretty girls in grammar school uniform were playing the ‘Dog’s Waltz’ for four hands.

They got up, performed a clumsy curtsy and chorused: ‘Bonjour, madame.’

Glyceria Romanovna smiled affectionately at their embarrassment. She had once been a shy young thing just like them, she had grown up in the artificial world of the Smolny Institute: childish young dreams, reading Flaubert in secret, virginal confessions in the quiet of the dormitory …

Vasya was standing there, by the piano – with a bashful look on his plain but sweet face.

‘My auntie’s waiting for you. I’ll show you the way,’ he muttered, letting Lidina go on ahead.

Fira Ryabchik (specialisation ‘grammar school girl’) held Rybnikov back for a moment by the hem of his jacket.

‘Vas, is that your ever-loving? An interesting little lady. Don’t get in a funk. It’ll go all right. We’ve locked the others in their rooms.’

Thank God that she and Lionelka didn’t have any make-up on yet because it was still daytime.

And there was Beatrice, already floating out of the doors to meet them like the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna.

‘Countess Bovada,’ she said, introducing herself with a polite smile. ‘Vasya has told me so much about you!’

‘Countess?’ Lidina gasped.

‘Yes, my late husband was a Spanish grandee,’ Beatrice explained modestly. ‘Please do come into the study.’

Before she followed her hostess, Glyceria Romanovna whispered:

‘So you have Spanish grandees among your kin? Anyone else would certainly have boasted about that. You are definitely unusual.’

In the study things were easier. The countess maintained a confident bearing and held the initiative firmly in her own grip.

She warmly approved of the idea of an escape abroad. She said she would obtain documents for her nephew, entirely reliable ones. Then the two ladies’ conversation took a geographical turn as they considered where to evacuate their adored ‘Vasya’. In the process it emerged that the Spanish grandee’s widow had travelled almost all over the world. She spoke with special affection of Port Said and San Francisco.

Rybnikov took no part in the conversation, merely cracked his knuckles nervously.

Never mind, he thought to himself. It’s the twenty-fifth tomorrow, and after that it won’t matter.