When they reached the wire fence, Kaare found a spot where the barbed wire on the top was broken and helped Tatjana and Holger over. A moment later, when he too was on the other side of the rusty wire fence, they started down a dirt road towards the city lights. None of them spoke, and Kaare jogged at the front to maintain the pace. After running for a while, Holger stopped, gasping for air as he attempted to bring his breathing under control in the darkness. Even Kaare was panting quietly. Weeks of captivity had eroded his physique. Tatjana was utterly exhausted and had quietly sat down in the middle of the dirt road. The adrenaline had suppressed the constant calls to the brain’s control centre from the heart and lungs. Desperate cries for a break. Kaare only allowed them a short rest before getting them back on their feet and motioning for them to continue along the road and towards freedom. He knew from the numerous exercises in escape and evasion he’d undertaken that putting as much distance as possible between oneself and the pursuers was vital. Holger and Tatjana started to fall back, but Kaare did not pay attention. Like an animal in the forest, instincts had taken over. After another half hour, Tatjana and Holger slowed their breathless sprint to a determined march.
Suddenly, they spotted a pair of faint headlights against the 387distant glimmer of St Petersburg. Kaare immediately ordered them to take cover in the roadside ditch while he assessed the situation. As the car approached, he could see it was a decrepit Lada, carefully lurching its way along the road. When it was almost abreast with them, Kaare leapt from the ditch and stood in the middle of the road. The Lada stopped immediately, and in an instant, Holger had wrenched open the driver’s side door. The face of the old man behind the wheel was painted in fear as he put up his arms to shield himself. Kaare did not take any chances and pointed his sub-machine gun into the driver’s face and gestured for him to get out. In the moon’s cold light, it was clear that the man was terrified beyond coherence, pleading for his life and to keep his car.
‘He says that it’s the only remotely valuable thing he owns,’ Tatjana translated with a glance at Kaare.
‘Tell him to look for the car by the Winter Palace tomorrow. We have to get out of here now,’ Holger interjected firmly.
Tatjana quickly spoke to the man and jumped into the battered Lada with Holger and Kaare. The old man sent a devastated look at the back of them as they drove towards St Petersburg at high speed.
Although Holger knew they were not safe yet, the escape had kicked endorphin production into overdrive. He leaned back into the seat and let the pleasure wash through his body as the body’s morphine reached even the tiniest of capillaries. The delicate light of dawn broke on the horizon and uncovered St Petersburg’s skyline, which had been shrouded in the dark cloth of the night. Despite its economic bloom, the city has kept many of its historical features, Holger thought and felt elated as they neared the city that, from its earliest days, had been a natural centre of commerce. 388Its position in the delta of the Neva River had therefore evolved into a nexus point of economic growth and power. Holger enjoyed the palaces and churches as they drove closer to the city centre. The buildings form a beautiful, traditional backdrop to the city, and the old Grostinyj Dvor and Passazj warehouses on either side of the main street Nevskij Prospekt still retain the feel of its Tsarist past. Only the goods in the shops are Western standards. Holger’s thoughts were abruptly ended by Tatjana:
‘During the Tsar era, the Maria Theatre was the leading cultural institution. The Bolsheviks re-named it the Kirov Theatre after Sergej Mironovitj Kirov. He was a party leader in Leningrad who was killed by a sniper in the early 1930s. But today it’s once again named the Maria Theatre,’ Tatjana said enthusiastically as if she’d read his mind.
The irony was not wasted on Holger. St Petersburg was where the Tsar lived in the lavish Winter Palace. And subsequently where the Bolsheviks dethroned him and founded the Soviet Union. To demonstrate the revolution’s subversive core, the city’s name was changed to Petrograd and later to Leningrad. The city had not had its original name reinstated until the beginning of the 1990s. The Winter Palace was similarly a symbol of the overthrown social order and was turned into a cultural house and offices for the people. The Bleeding Saviour and the city’s other beautiful churches had been turned into warehouses to underline the fact that the people did not need religion; they had Bolshevism.
St Petersburg was once again the centre of gravity for subversive forces, this time in the shape of Mother Russia. What is it that makes it such a magnet for violence and power? The city offered everything that could be expected from an international metropolis. Five-star 389hotels that matched every imaginable Western standard. Although, the more predominant middle-class hotels offered a standard that was quite ‘alternative’ to Western standards. There were also nightclubs, where the nouveau riche, stationed foreign officials, the mafia and tourists mixed in chaotic indifference. It would be easy to forget that you were not in a Western metropolis were it not for the fact that almost every woman in the clubs was for sale, a fact the male attendees were constantly made aware of in a direct and decidedly un-Western manner. It was a rule of thumb that the more expensive the cover charge, the safer the venue – as the local mafia controlled the more upmarket nightclubs.
‘Yes, St Petersburg can cater to every possible desire,’ Holger said quietly, remembering his visits to Dominicos and Hollywood Nights.
Kaare slowed the car as they passed over the Neva River near the Winter Palace and pulled into the cobblestone square. Tatjana directed him around the Citadel and onto Pirogovskaya Embankment, where he stopped in front of the Hotel St Petersburg. He didn’t kill the engine but asked her to go inside and book rooms for the three of them. She emerged a few minutes later:
‘They only have two left: a double and a single. Do you boys want to share a bed?’ she said, a half-concealed smile on her lips.
‘Why don’t the two of you play the married couple, and I’ll take the double,’ Kaare laughed.
It had been a while since he had laughed about anything, and the waves of laughter rocketing through him felt good.
‘I’ll dump the car by the Winter Palace. That way, we’ll keep your promise to the old man. It also makes it harder for anyone to find us tonight. See you in a bit,’ he continued smilingly.