Alyosha stood on the pavement watching the taxi as it drove off, Stanislav silhouetted in the back window, his shoulders wide and square as a table. He crossed the road, re-living the conversation in his head. Doubts flowered and withered in turn. Had he just made the biggest mistake of his life? If he had, there was no one to blame but himself. Yet, having made the decision, he felt strangely liberated. Whatever the consequence, he was happy that, just for once, he had executed his free will.

  His body swelled with pride. He could sing. He could dance. He could jump for joy.

  He could also starve to death.

  45.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Zepherine.

  ‘Business,’ he answered, smoothing down his hair.

  ‘When can I expect you back?’

  He leaned towards her and kissed her. ‘Shouldn’t be too late.’

  ‘Yes, but when?’

  ‘When I come back.’

  That night, Artyom had arranged to meet with Meme Corse. After the French Banking Commission turned down his application to expand his Intra-Banque Beirut to Marseille and Paris, Artyom felt he had no choice but to ask the Corsican for help. Since his election as Deputy, Artyom had already met him twice, but this time, they were going to talk terms.

  The meeting went much as Artyom expected. Meme told him he’d be more than happy to ask questions on the floor of the French Senate – at a price. Then it was a matter of haggling over the amount of shares he’d be willing to transfer to the Corsican brothers – the more he gave, the more power they would wield on the board of his bank. That was the most difficult negotiation.

  Meme Corse was as good as his word, and did his best for him in the Chamber of Deputies, and behind closed doors in various committees. But it was not enough, and the decision stood. Artyom was still in the same predicament, unable to float his bank on the Stock Exchange. That’s when he started to realise that political power was a relative thing. Even the ostensible power wielded by the Chamber of Deputies of the French Empire, or the power of two gangsters from Marseille. True power ruled quietly somewhere else, as always.

  Artyom was still a cuckoo in the French nest. That was the problem. Along with every other Russian exile, he still lived the déclassé life of the émigré. He was no fool; he knew full well what the French truly thought of people like him. Men who have lost everything are always held in suspicion by those who have never lost so much as a thimble. In their hearts, the French thought that the exiles were in some way responsible for their own fate.

  Artyom remembered exactly where he’d been when he learnt about the fall of Pyotr Wrangel’s Army in the Crimea in 1920: at the zinc bar of the Médova on Rue de l’Echelle. He’d spent the rest of the night drowning his sorrows, until he was filthy drunk. At some point, somebody had asked him, ‘If your country’s so precious to you, why didn’t you lot fight a bit harder to save it?’

  It’s the truth that kills you.

  ‘Easy enough to sit here feeling terrible, why didn’t you go back and do your part?’

  He hadn’t been able to answer that at the time, and he had never quite shaken off a vague sense of guilt. He had betrayed his country in her hour of need, and his own family, too. He hadn’t even managed to persuade his parents to leave Petrograd. The effort to save Russia had broken his brother-in-law, there could be no doubt of that. The constant anguish Fyodor Mikhailovich felt for his mother country had been responsible for sending him to an early grave.

  And then there was Jeanette. Poor Jeanette, he should have done more for her, too.

  Why did all these regrets meld with each other? His parents, Russia, Jeanette…

  Zepherine hadn’t come to the funeral, though he’d wanted her to. Perhaps it had been asking too much to expect her to stand at the graveside. But he found her attitude towards Dimtry unforgiveable. She had put up every obstacle and objection possible to having him come live with them.

  ‘Why can’t he live with his grandmother? She’s still alive.’

  In the end she had – reluctantly – given in, but they still had awful fights over poor Dimtry because of the way she treated him. Jealous of any attention his father gave him, she was cold to the boy at best, and often unkind. Dimtry was frightened of her. He wet the bed nearly every night, which had the maid complaining about the extra work. Artyom begged Zepherine to be kinder towards his boy.

  ‘Remember, he’s still mourning his mother.’

  Jeannette’s mother had told him that it was Dimtry who had found his mother’s hanging body.

  ‘You’d be wetting the bed every night, too.’

  46.

  The train wended its way slowly through the Berlin suburbs, passing by gardens and allotments divided into long strips. Some early-risers were already busy tending their plots.

  As usual, Alyosha hadn’t eaten breakfast, but he didn’t mind, because he was expecting a feast to be waiting for him at the end of the journey. Ever since Vlasich Pesotski had persuaded him to join a Nazi militia, these Sundays were the highlight of his week. He was half dozing, but it was impossible to fall properly asleep, as Vlasich, sitting next to him, kept breaking into raucous song. It was far too early in the day for the rest of them to want a sing-song, but his friend was a bundle of youthful energy, overflowing with enthusiasm and joy, and when he wasn’t singing, he was talking nineteen to the dozen. Alyosha rested his temple against the window, and kept his eyes firmly shut, pretending to sleep through Vlasich’s chatter.

  The motor lorries were waiting for the Berlin train by the wooden gates of the country station, to take them the rest of the way. The men were glad to put the city behind them and enjoy the fresh air, especially on such a mild autumnal morning. Now, the singing was enthusiastic, everybody joining in with gusto as they turned off the road and drove through open iron gates up a long drive flanked by sycamore trees. At the wide cobbled courtyard, in front of the stables at the back of the great house, they all got out of the vehicles.

  They rushed to the tables to fill their bellies, joining the twenty or so other groups who had already arrived. The estate servants waited on them, refilling the platters and glasses as soon as they emptied. Berlin boys were hungry boys, and it took some determined eating and several glasses of buttermilk before Alyosha began to feel full. With food in his stomach, he felt like a giant, ready for anything.

  Drills and marches took up the morning, their hobnailed boots ringing against the cobbles of the courtyard. Officers of the Reichswehr whistled and barked at them to keep order. In the afternoon, they attacked the walls of an old ruin which belonged to the estate, an ancient ossuary from the twelfth century which had been allowed to go to rack and ruin. Real bullets were fired, their flash of heat close enough to make the earth leap before their eyes. Two of the boys were injured: one in his knee and the other in his shoulder, but nobody took it badly, and there was a doctor on hand to tend to their wounds. A scar was a badge of honour and a mark of courage.

  As the evening sun sat low among the branches of the trees and the ravens cawed, the hundreds of men stood to attention in their formations, chests out, eyes forward, the Nazis in their brown shirts and the Russian auxiliaries in white shirts and black trousers.

  Under the eaves on the wide stone balcony, Rittmeister Gunther von Kunz, in his hacking jacket and shiny black boots, his fist on the hilt of his sword, stood like a statue, where his ancestors had stood before him – those men who had served under the family coat of arms in the battles of the past: Tannenberg, Metz and Mollwitz. Rittmeister von Kunz was proud of his lineage, and loyal to the traditions of the Teutonic Knights of Marienburg, who had protected Europe’s borders from the rapacious Slavs, the barbarian hordes from the bowels of Asia.

  Night nudged the day away, and the soldiers returned to the long tables to feast once more, the eating and drinking interrupted by many toasts to the future of the new Germany, which was about to be reborn, pure and strong, out of the rotting flesh of the old Weimar.

  ‘To the New Germany!’

  ‘The New Germany!’

  She would be a country to rekindle hope in every Russian. A country where the will would triumph. A country which would deliver the coup de grace to the thieves who had stolen dear Russia from those who loved her. Month by month, the great hour of revenge on the Jew-Communists was approaching. It was only a matter of time before the day would dawn, and the golden trumpets would call the Christian armies of Europe to save their heritage.

  The drinking went from bad to worse. They lit an enormous bonfire, the sparks snapping and flying up into the sky. Near the thick, impenetrable blackness of the forest, they lit a circle of smaller fires, and many of the young men stripped naked. The first drunkard ran headlong through the circle of flames. Then, one by one, dozens followed suit. Alyosha stood with one heel resting on the side of the horses’ water trough, watching the bodies flying through the circles of fire. Many of them were staggering about in their drunkenness, enjoying their pain, even though their flesh singed and sizzled. Alyosha lifted his face to the gentle breeze which rustled the leaves of the old beech tree by the stable block. He fell into a reverie, and was overcome by a profound loneliness. In the pinpricks of the sparks and the yellow flames, he saw familiar faces, faces he had half forgotten, and faces he had never met in his life. He saw a procession of places, strangely familiar, though he couldn’t recognise them. He felt as though he was attracting the ruins of old, old memories to him, and that half his life had been mapped out before his birth. His misfortunes didn’t stem from the circumstances of living and being, or the force – or lack of force – of free will at all. His fate had been decided a long time ago in Grendel’s black night.

  47.

  A powerful spotlight was trained on the ancient stone balcony, and Alyosha looked up at Rittmeister von Kunz and General Vassily Biskupskii, standing side by side. Standing there too was the rich widow, Mathilde Scheubner-Richter, and Prince Cyril of Coburg and his wife, the Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna, who had contributed thousands to the coffers of the Freikorps and the NASAP.

  The meaty faces of men who already had blood on their hands looked up towards the light, and a forest of arms shot out in unison as the men roared:

  ‘Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Heil Hitler!’

  Then, an expectant silence fell. Rittmeister Gunther von Kunz stepped forward, to welcome and introduce their guest speaker, Alfred Rosenberg, who was to give a short address in memory of the late Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter. He, in turn, stepped to the front of the balcony, and, after greeting the men, said, ‘In my mind’s eye, I can still see him this second, see him in all his glory, marching confidently in the full military uniform of the Chevaux Leggers on that journey, that fatal journey to the Feldherrnhalle, when he walked side by side with his great hero, Herr Adolf Hitler.’ His smile disappeared. ‘Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, the first secretary of the Kampfbund in Munich in 1923, and the first, too, to fall for the cause. But for him, but for his courage and love and loyalty to his country, my elegy tonight would be for Herr Adolf Hitler. Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter was felled in his prime, on the threshold of his fortieth birthday. A man need not live a long life to live a great life.’ There was a quiver in his voice. ‘Max-Erwin, my dearest friend, accomplished so much, even though his journey was a tragically short one, and to honour his memory as one of the first martyrs in the cause of our beloved mother country, I tonight christen this regiment of brave men the Freikorp Max Erwin von Scheubner -Richter.’

  At the sign, everybody shouted in unison, ‘Freikorp Max Erwin von Scheubner -Richter!’

  ‘Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Heil Hitler!

  That’s when Alyosha noticed a face at the back, between Rittmeister von Kunz and General Biskupskii – the face of his former tutor from Petrograd, Herr Professor Karl Krieger.

  When the two came face to face, Alyosha and his former tutor gazed at each other in wonderment, neither having ever imagined they would see the other ever again, never mind under such circumstances.

  ‘Alexei Fyodorovich, Heavens above!’ They shook hands. Professor Krieger had heard about the death of his father. ‘Your dear, dear father…’ he said sadly, still holding his hand, the surprise of their meeting still fresh. He apologised for not having been able to attend the funeral, but his own brother had been gravely ill at that time, and shortly after died of septicaemia. ‘Alexei Fyodorovich of all people…’ He asked after his mother. Alyosha hesitated for a moment before saying that he hadn’t seen her for a long while. ‘And your younger brother? What is he doing with himself by now?’

  ‘He’s still at school.’

  ‘And Larissa Kozmyevna?’

  ‘Volkman, for several years now. She married a doctor from Berlin. They have two little girls, Ella and Clara.’

  Professor Krieger tutted appreciatively.

  ‘Delightful.’

  ‘Margarita lives in Berlin as well…’

  Clearly highly pleased to see his former pupil again, Professor Krieger insisted on introducing Alyosha to Rittmeister von Kunz himself, who told him that he had met his late father, Fyodor Mikhailovich Alexandrov, on more than one occasion.

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet the son of such a patriot.’

  Alyosha answered that the honour was his.

  The Rittmeister ushered Alyosha and Professor Krieger to his library, which, he told them, housed one of the best private collections in Europe. They sat under the portraits of the Rittmeister’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather.

  ‘We have a worthwhile young man here, Karl?’

  ‘My former pupil. A very brilliant boy.’ The small eyes of his former tutor twinkled at Alyosha. ‘I would expect nothing less than total commitment to the cause from someone of his background,’ he added

  Rittmeister Gunther von Kunz clicked his tongue approvingly

  ‘We can expect great things from you, young man, I’m sure.’

  ‘Yes sir, you can,’ Alyosha answered sincerely.

  48.

  The maid was serving Artyom and Dimtry at the breakfast table. Outside the large French windows, two gardeners were already at their work, filling their wooden wheelbarrows as they pruned and weeded. Since his son had come to live under his roof, Artyom had relished being given the chance to come to know him again, and he could see a lot of himself in his boy. Dimtry was very anxious to please his father, and had started to show an interest in his Kodak camera. Artyom enjoyed showing him how it worked, and Dimtry had taken a few good photographs.

  Zepherine joined them, still in her nightgown and slippers. She was rather pale and her hair was lank. The taste of coffee turned on her and, irritably, she ordered some tea. Her third pregnancy was proving no easier than the others: she was sick most mornings, and felt constantly tired. She sat listlessly picking at her toast.

  The chauffeur put his head around the door to ask if Master Dima was ready. Dimtry rose, kissed his father, and left for school, but Zepherine didn’t pay the boy the slightest bit of attention. The minute his son had left, Artyom folded his copy of Le Matin, stood up from the table and asked his wife,

  ‘How long have you been paying a detective to follow me?’

  Zepherine raised her head sharply and spat, ‘How long have you been deceiving me?’

  ‘If he couldn’t give you the answer to that, he’s not much of a detective.’

  Zepherine claimed that she knew about every detail.

  ‘Then what else is there to say?’

  ‘Are you thinking of leaving me?’ she asked, and then, her voice dropped and she asked, ‘Why do you treat me like this? I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘I was going to tell you everything before long,’ Artyom told her quietly.

  ‘You only say that because I’ve caught you. Because you can’t wriggle your way out of it!’

  Then the floodgates opened: she knew every last detail about every meeting, and had filed it all away in her head. Brasserie Métropole. Tabary on Rue Vivienne. Au Caneton near the Bourse, where Artyom had forked tasty little morsels from his plate into her mouth. The Marquery, where the detective had reported that they’d laughed and kissed openly. The Duval on the corner of Rue de Rivoli, and then a walk, hand-in-hand across the Pont-Neuf…

  ‘Do you want me to continue?’ She took his silence for a yes. ‘Terminus-Nord. I see the attraction. Just one couple among the thousands flowing through the station every day. The Hôtel de l’Europe on Rue de Constantinople, where you took me for supper on my birthday, not long after we’d met. Lavenne. A very handy place to meet, at the foot of the monument on Place de Rennes. Terminus-Lyon on the tenth of last month for four hours. Do you want to hear more? Grand Hôtel du Pavillion for two nights, when you told me you had to go to Marseille. The Du Quai Voltaire between five and seven last Thursday. The night before last, you took her to Suzy’s. What was that? Taking her to work?’

  ‘She’d never been inside a bordello before.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I shan’t repeat myself; you heard me quite well.’

  She rushed at him and slapped him, and when the first slap didn’t elicit any reaction, slapped him again, harder.

  ‘You’ve deceived me!’ she shouted. ‘I hate you!’

  Many a woman would have wept, but Zepherine wasn’t one for tears. Her way of expressing her anger was to throw things around. Before she had the chance to smash the entire breakfast service, Artyom had grabbed her.