Part 23 (1/2)

From Lapland comes a front of thunder, and when I look to where the night melts into the storm, I see a lick of lightning, and I wonder where my little Nemya could have got to.

I stood in a well of moonlight. The stairs wound up to my apartment. Way, way past midnight. Not dark, not light, bats flickered here and there, specks in a sky of old film. The courtyard was silted up with menace. As usual, the lift wasn't working, though it gave me a h.e.l.l of an electric shock when I tried to pull the door open. I didn't know you got electric shocks at night. For the fiftieth time since Rudi had driven off with the Delacroix in the back of his cleaning van, I told myself everything was fine. My new life was about to begin. For the fiftieth time I felt there was something wrong. Something had been wrong all week. What is who trying to tell me? I lit another cigarette. n.o.body was stirring. See? There was nothing wrong, and to prove it I didn't hurry up to my apartment, but stayed for a moment to smoke a last cigarette.

The switch between the fake and the real Delacroix had gone like clockwork. Almost.

I'd met Rudi and three rent-a-granny cleaners at the goods entrance at exactly 8 in the evening. Gutbucket Petrovich, still in that ghastly uniform she wears, and two of her cronies were there to supervise them. I was the fourth Hermitage employee. When I arrived they all stopped talking. So utterly obvious. While I was allotting corridors and handing floor-plans to the women, I thought Gutbucket Petrovich was about to break her vow of silence and say something, but she bit her tongue at the last moment. Wise. The Head of Security was playing cards in the lodge with his bat-faced brother-in-law. He nodded briefly at Rudi, and waved us through. Rudi and his cleaners wheeled their c.u.mbersome floor-polis.h.i.+ng contraptions in different directions, one guard per cleaner. I went with Rudi.

We didn't say a word. Rudi and I make a great team. When he's happy, he'll say that to me, like the time I attended his birthday party at the Petersburg Hilton Banquet Halls. When n.o.body was looking, he c.h.i.n.ked our champagne gla.s.ses and whispered, 'Babe, you and I make a great team.'

When we exchanged a picture in the winter, we had to work in the weak electric lights of the Winter Palace. In the bright summer twilight we could leave the lights off. I stood guard in the corridor outside the Delacroix gallery, while Rudi unlocked and clicked open the compartment specially built into the base of the machine. He slid Jerome's forgery out, and leaned it against a half-moon table, inset with lotus flowers and orchids of jade and amber.

There was no noise but the drone of the other machines in the distance.

Rudi reached up and unhooked the real Delacroix, and slid it into the compartment, locking it shut again. I thought about Eve and the serpent, making their getaway together.

I heard stout footsteps marching this way.

'Rudi!'

The serpent's poison sacs back-flooded, and venom dribbled up.

Rudi stiffened and stared at me.

I felt locked in and left behind.

I'd been mistaken. A hammering in a false wall. No, nothing.

And the echo of that drone.

Rudi unfroze, frowning at me. Then he hung Jerome's fake in the empty s.p.a.ce.

I believe I would have sold my soul for a cigarette.

Rudi then started waxing the seventeenth-century portrait corridors, pus.h.i.+ng the noisy handlebarred contraption up and down the long pa.s.sages, up as far as the cubist pictures of cut-up instruments. The gardener in our Swiss gardens will mow my lawns in the same way. I watched Rudi, outwardly as bored as a gallery attendant. I wanted to help him, but it would have looked suspicious. Inwardly I was aching for the hours to topple, quickly, so we could leave this ghastly palace and the treasure would be truly ours. I yielded to temptation and imagined promenading through Zurich's plushest department stores, a train of attendants wrapping the objects I indicate in polka-dotted wrapping paper and gold ribbon. Then I imagined being nibbled and ravished by Rudi in the truffle department.

At midnight Rudi's new Italian chronometer beeped and he switched off the waxing machine. We returned to the goods entrance. On the way down Rudi smiled at me. 'Soon, babe, very soon,' and he smiled the smile our son will smile. I bit my lip and imagined the clothes I would dress him in. 'You can bang me up later,' I whispered. In his lodge, the Head of Security was asleep, his legs splayed and his snores acquatic. Two of Rudi's cleaners were there, complaining about their bones, complaining about the weather, complaining about the waxing machines. I pray that Rudi will put me to sleep before I get to that point. We watched the Head of Security for a minute or so, until Gutbucket Petrovich came with her cleaner. Gutbucket Petrovich poked him awake.

He blinked and hauled himself to his feet. 'What?'

'We're all done here, officer,' said Rudi.

'Then go home, then.'

'And what about conducting the body searches?' prodded Gutbucket Petrovich. ”Regulation 15d: All ancillary staff, including including gallery attendants, must undergo compulsory body searches upon leaving the-”' gallery attendants, must undergo compulsory body searches upon leaving the-”'

The Head of Security squelched out his nose into a tissue, which he lobbed at the wastepaper basket. He missed. 'Don't quote the regulations at me. I know what's in the regulations. I wrote the b.l.o.o.d.y regulations.'

'I refuse to have his hands anywhere near me,' said the oldest cleaner, rearing up. 'And if you say he can,' she warned Rudi, 'I'll take what you owe me and resign.'

Granny Cleaner Number Two advanced in solidarity. 'Same here. I refuse to be treated like a tart in a police cell.'

'It's the regulations,' snarled Gutbucket Petrovich, 'you have no choice.'

Jesus, it's not like anyone's asking you to sleep with the k.n.o.bbly troll.

Rudi turned on the charm, the rogue. 'Ladies, ladies, ladies. The solution is obvious. The Head of Security here can body-search me, while one of his female members of staff perhaps this-' Rudi gestured at Gutbucket 'zealous member... can body-search you. you. Then we can all go home to an honest night's sleep at the end of an honest day's labour. And Rudi always pays what he owes. Are we agreed?' Then we can all go home to an honest night's sleep at the end of an honest day's labour. And Rudi always pays what he owes. Are we agreed?'

After the body searches we loaded two of the waxing machines into the back of the van. The three cleaners and two of the guards had gone home. Rudi was in the Head of Security's office getting his billet signed and countersigned in triplicate in green biro. Gutbucket Petrovich lingered like a bad smell, hatching some new scheme. The last signature was scrawled off, and Rudi folded up the papers.

'How do we know,' said Gutbucket Petrovich to the Head of Security, 'that he hasn't hidden a painting in one of the waxing machines?'

Christ above. A poison thorn slid in, bent, and snapped.

But Rudi just sighed, and addressed the Head of Security. 'Who is this woman? Your new boss?'

'I'm a government employee,' snarled Gutbucket Petrovich, 'paid to protect our cultural heritage from thieves!'

'Fine,' said Rudi, still not looking at her. 'First, search the galleries. Second, locate the missing pictures that my internationally notorious gallery thieves, cunningly disguised as groaning grannies, have spirited away from under the very noses of your own own guards while they blinked. Third, dismantle each of my machines, screw by screw, onto sheets of newspaper by moonlight. Then put them back together. Perfectly, mind you, or I'll sue big time. Great idea. You are lucky to have such a fastidious public servant ruling your roost. I'll be adding overtime to my invoice. Under the terms of the contract I have with Head Curator Rogorshev, I clocked off at 12 sharp. You'll forgive me if I sit down, help myself to your newspaper and phone my wife to tell her that I won't be home for another eight hours?' guards while they blinked. Third, dismantle each of my machines, screw by screw, onto sheets of newspaper by moonlight. Then put them back together. Perfectly, mind you, or I'll sue big time. Great idea. You are lucky to have such a fastidious public servant ruling your roost. I'll be adding overtime to my invoice. Under the terms of the contract I have with Head Curator Rogorshev, I clocked off at 12 sharp. You'll forgive me if I sit down, help myself to your newspaper and phone my wife to tell her that I won't be home for another eight hours?'

Rudi sat down, and unfolded the newspaper.

My heart beat at least twenty times in the few seconds that followed.

'That won't be necessary,' said the Head of Security, staring daggers at Gutbucket Petrovich. 'The Head of Security makes these kinds of decisions. Not a gallery attendant supervisor.'

Rudi stood up. 'Very glad to hear it.' He barged past Gutbucket Petrovich, who was left to stew in her own juices the only juices that she'd ever know in her lifetime. Through the door of the porter's lodge I could see Rudi trundling the third waxing machine into the back of his van, still in the loading bay. I noticed he'd left his papers on the desk, so that I could pick them up, and follow him. We're a team of professionals. Sure enough, he was waiting for me in the back of the van.

'Babe,' he muttered, 'I'm going to go to Jerome's first, to drop off the painting. I'll be back later. There's one or two of Gregorski's people I need to see first.'

'Suhbataar?'

'Never mind who. I'll see you soon.'

'I love you.' What else could I have said?

The backs of his fingers brushed my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He jumped down to get the last waxing machine. The one with the Delacroix hidden in its undercarriage, still in the loading bay. So close now, so close.

'Well, you must be very pleased with yourself, Latunsky.' Gutbucket Petrovich's head and shoulders appeared in the loading door of the van.

Why choose now to stop ignoring me? 'Why! It can talk, after all.'

She rolled up a strip of chewing gum, put it in, and bit down hard. She folded her arms. 'Do you really think a n.o.body like you is going to get away with this?'