Lom woke in the morning to find the curtain pulled back and the attic filled with brilliant early light. The sky in the window was a bright powdery eggshell blue. Maroussia was already gone.
He got up and dressed. There was broken ice in the washbowl. He splashed his face and looked out of the window. Snow mounded the rooftops of the raion and filled the silent streets. Nothing moved but wisps of smoke from chimneys. The broken moons, faint and filmy, silver-blue against blue, rested at anchor, day-visible watermarks in the liquid paper sky.
Lom went out into the corridor and tried to retrace his steps back to Elena’s kitchen but found himself in parts of the house he hadn’t seen before. A wide staircase took him down to an entrance hall: red tiles and threadbare rugs, a stand for coats and hats, umbrellas and galoshes. Fishing rods. The scent of polish and leather. Morning sun streamed in through the coloured-glass skylight over the door, kindling dust motes and splashing faint lozenges of colour across the floor. He unbolted the door and opened it onto foot-thick snow. Crisp bitter air spilled inwards, caught at his nose and throat and made his breath steam. He stepped out into crisp blue illumination. Every colour was saturated. The snow glistened, translucent, refracting tiny diamond brilliances. He stomped his way round the side of the house, looking for the entrance they’d used last night. Nothing moved in the streets. The snow muffled all sound, except for the morning bells, the calling of the rooks and the rhythmic crunch of his own feet.
He made his way round to the gate into the garden and pushed it open. As he was passing the wide low loggia, a figure stepped out to confront him.
It was a man of about sixty, leaning on a malacca cane. Wisps of uncombed grey hair, a heavily embroidered morning coat, gold-rimmed spectacles. An ugly intelligent face. He was standing on the step under the canopy. Worn, turned carpet slippers on his feet.
‘Sorry,’ said Lom. ‘I’m staying in the house. We’re with Elena Cornelius. I got myself lost. I was trying to find my way back to her apartment.’
‘Ah,’ said the man. He lit a black cigarette with a match. Wraiths of cheap rough tobacco smoke drifted in the cold air. ‘That’s it then. You are one of our guests in the attic. I fear it will have been cold for you up there among the rafters.’ He came down the step and held out his hand. ‘I am Sandu Evgenich ter-Orenbergh Shirin-Vilichov Palffy and this is my house. You are welcome. Of course.’
Lom took the offered hand.
‘Lom,’ he said. ‘Vissarion Yppolitovich Lom.’
Palffy made a slight, formal bow.
‘You were taking a walk in the snow before breakfast, perhaps?’ he said.
‘I guess,’ said Lom. ‘You don’t see snow much, where I come from. Just rain. Always rain.’
‘Where is that? Where you are from?’
‘East,’ said Lom, gesturing vaguely. ‘East. Way east. On the forest border. I doubt you’ve heard of it. A small town called Podchornok.’
‘I believe I do know Podchornok, as it happens. Some cousins of mine had an estate in that country once.’
Lom grunted.
‘Small world.’
‘Not such a coincidence,’ said the Count. ‘I had cousins in every oblast of the Dominions once, but that was a lifetime ago. A different world. The people I’m talking about were at Vyra. They had a fine house. A good lake for pike. The place is gone, now, of course, alas.’ He coughed and looked sourly at the cigarette in his hand. ‘In those days, when I was a child and went to Vyra, the Vlast was more… what? Moderate? Sensible? Willing to overlook small independences, let us say, so long as they were far from their own front door and paid their taxes and didn’t draw attention to themselves.’
‘Vyra was the Vishniks’ place,’ said Lom.
‘It was! Exactly so!’ Palffy looked at him with a new interest. ‘You knew them then?’
‘I knew Raku. We were at school.’
‘Raku?’ Count Palffy frowned. Then he remembered. ‘Of course! There was a Prince Raku. The Vishniks had a son, an only child. But that was long after my visit. We could not have met, Raku and I. So where is this Prince Raku now? What does he do with himself? Perhaps I might write to him. Families should keep up their connections, don’t you think?’
‘Raku died.’
‘No!’ said the Count. ‘He couldn’t have been more than thirty. Was he ill? What happened?’
‘The militia happened.’
‘Ah. How shit. How very shit.’ Palffy dropped his cigarette on the step and crushed it out with the brass ferrule of his cane. Not an easy trick, but he speared it first shot. ‘This is a heavy blow. But we should not be making ourselves sad on such a splendid morning, my friend. Come inside with me, Vissarion Lom, and have breakfast. The snow makes one hungry, don’t you find?’
‘Thanks,’ said Lom. ‘But I should be getting back—’
‘Some coffee then. I have good coffee. Red beans from the Cloud Forest, roasted to my personal specification by Mandelbrot’s in Klepsydra Lane. How does that sound to you?’
‘I’d appreciate that,’ said Lom. ‘But not now. Maybe later.’
‘I will hold you to that, Vissarion Yppolitovich. A bond of honour.’
Lom found Maroussia in Elena’s kitchen, sitting on a stool against the warmth of the stove. She was wearing different clothes. She must have borrowed them from Elena: a plain grey woollen dress and a thick dark cardigan that was too big for her. She had the cardigan buttoned up to the neck, her fingers peeping from the cuffs. She gave him a quick wry smile when he came in, cold and fresh from outside, brushing the snow from his trousers. When the smile faded, her face was pale and drawn, but her eyes when they met his were bright with energy and fierce determination.
Elena was clearing breakfast off the table and the girls were laying out a backgammon board. The younger one, Yeva, was staring at Lom curiously.
‘What’s wrong with your head?’ she said. ‘There’s a hole in it.’
Lom touched the wound on his forehead.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
‘What happened? Was it a bullet?’
‘No.’
‘There’s a man at Vera’s who was shot in the head by dragoons. He’s not dead, but he doesn’t talk and one of his eyes is gone. He dribbles his tea.’
‘Be quiet, Yeva,’ said Elena. ‘Leave Vissarion in peace. And you can’t start on a game now. There’s no time. You need to go to school.’
‘What? No!’ said Galina. ‘Not today. The snow. There’s snow—’
‘You’re not missing school for a bit of snow. Kolya will take you in the cart. He’ll be waiting already.’
‘But—’
‘Go. School. Now. He’ll be waiting.’
‘Nobody goes to school when there’s snow. We’ll be the only ones…’
‘You’re not missing school. That’s not what we do. That’s not who we are.’
Elena hustled the girls out of the kitchen. Lom sat at the table next to Maroussia.
‘OK?’ he said. ‘You look tired.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m ready to go. Are you?’
‘Go where?’
Elena came back into the kitchen and attacked the breakfast things in the sink.
‘Elena?’ said Maroussia.
‘Yes?’
‘I need to find out about the forest. Who is there in the raion that I can talk to about the forest?’
‘The forest?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? Why the forest?’
Maroussia brushed the question aside impatiently.
‘This is important,’ she said. ‘I want to find someone who knows about the forest and what happens there. Someone who’s actually been there.’
‘Is this anything to do with the trouble you’re in?’ said Elena. ‘No. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.’
‘Is there someone?’ said Maroussia again. ‘Anyone who might be able to tell me something? Anything?’
Elena hesitated.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think so. There was Teslom at the House on the Purfas. But he was arrested. And there’s the Count–he used to travel once. But not any more. Not for a long time. And I don’t know if he ever actually went into the forest himself.’
‘Not the Count,’ said Lom. ‘I’ve run into him already. He’s not the man, not for this.’
‘Isn’t there anyone else?’ said Maroussia.
Well,’ said Elena after a moment’s thought, ‘there is Kamilova. You could go and see her, I suppose. Eligiya Kamilova. She is a friend of mine, in a way. But… well, she’s not an easy person to talk to.’
‘Kamilova?’ said Maroussia. ‘Who is she?’
Elena shrugged, as if she wasn’t sure how to answer.
‘No one knows much about her,’ she said. ‘She comes and goes. She goes into the forest, into the wild places under the trees. She brings back specimens for the Count’s collection sometimes, but she’s not easy—’
‘I’ll go and see her,’ said Maroussia.
‘I can’t promise she’ll even talk to you.’
‘Where does she live? Is she here in the raion?’
‘Yes,’ said Elena. ‘Down by the harbour.’
‘I need to see her.’
‘Now?’ said Elena.
‘Yes. Now.’