The Secret Language of Stones Read online

  Vanya began to read. “ ‘At the first session of the Central Executive Committee’ . . .” His voice cracked. He fished in his jacket for a handkerchief, wiped at his eyes, tried to read again, and then gave up. He handed the newspaper to Grigori, Monsieur Orloff’s eldest son from a previous marriage. After three years of fighting, an injury had ended Grigori’s career as a soldier and he’d moved back home, taking an apartment on the other side of the complex and opening an antiques shop next door to La Fantaisie Russe.

  “ ‘At the first session of the Central Executive Committee elected by the fifth Congress of the Councils, a message was made public. Received by direct wire from the Ural Regional Council, it concerned the shooting of the ex-tsar, Nicholas Romanov’ . . .” Grigori’s husky voice did not break, but he did hesitate.

  “Go on,” Monsieur Orloff ordered.

  Making an effort to control his emotions, Grigori continued. The story detailed how Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Red Urals, had been seriously threatened by the approach of Czechoslovak bands and a counterrevolutionary conspiracy was found. When its objective—to wrest the ex-tsar from the hands of the council’s ­authority—was discovered, the president of the Ural Regional Council decided to shoot the former tsar. The assassination had been carried out on July 16.

  “ ‘The wife and the son of Nicholas Romanov have been sent to a place of security.’ ” Grigori’s voice came to a halt. I saw the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheek. He took a breath and then continued.

  “ ‘The Central Executive Committee has now at its disposal extremely important documents concerning the affairs of Nicholas Romanov—his diaries, which he kept almost up to his last days; the diaries of his wife and his children; and his correspondence, among which are the letters of Rasputin to the Romanov family. These materials will be examined and published in the near future.’ ”

  Monsieur Orloff took the newspaper from his son and looked down at it as if searching for other words. Then he put his head in his hands. The sound of his anguished sobs broke our silence. Anna went to her husband’s side. Vanya began to pace.

  Grigori walked to the window and stared out into the black night.

  I watched him, thinking I should go to him but not quite sure I knew how to ease his suffering or that my ministrations were wanted. We had a complicated relationship.

  We’d only met a little over six months before, in January, when he had been sent home from the front after shrapnel had shattered his left leg, leaving him severely lame. He’d gone to war a strong, able-bodied man and come back a cripple. He didn’t understand that despite his injury he was handsome. Especially when his thick brown hair fell over his broad forehead. When his smile, when I could get him to smile, dimpled his cheeks. When his sleepy eyes, the uncommon color of brown diamonds, sparkled as he forgot about the war and talked to me about his passions.

  Like his father and his half brother Timur, Grigori had a keen appreciation for beautiful things. It was what I enjoyed about him the most. On a walk, he was quick to point out a fine architectural detail or a particularly beautiful shade of blue in the sky. In a gallery of mediocre paintings, he could always spot the one hidden masterpiece, and in the workshop he always gravitated to the finest stones among those I was considering.

  And yet he was full of bitterness about his handicap. He was angry he wasn’t at the front with the rest of his company; jealous that Leo, his younger brother, remained, proving himself a hero. Grigori could also be irascible and prone to long fits of depression. Never having met him before the war, I couldn’t know how drastically the war had changed him. But occasionally, I heard Anna or Monsieur remark on a cynicism creeping into his conversation that hadn’t been there before he’d gone away, and a new darkness that had seemed to alter his soul.

  To some, that would make him unlikable, but his moodiness and tendency to isolate himself endeared him to me almost as much as his exquisite taste. His faults and the secrets beyond his shine made him unique and roused my sympathies, just as my secrets and scars roused his. Knowing that sometimes, even after a wound heals, it can still cause pain, Grigori was surprisingly sensitive about how my relationship with Timur continued to haunt and trouble me, and it strengthened the bond between us.

  Sometimes I believed we might have a future. Other times I sensed we were like inmates who turned to each other in desperation rather than desire.

  Watching him at the window, his shoulders rounded, his head down, my pity got the better of me and I went to him.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I took one of his hands.

  His long fingers intertwined with mine.

  “It’s very difficult to believe our tsar is truly dead,” Grigori said without turning to me, but his fingers gripped mine with a force that surprised me. He was usually more gentle.

  Behind us, I heard Monsieur Orloff’s voice, weaker than its usual growl. “We need to call a meeting. We do not have the luxury of mourning.” His tone strengthened, his resolve already overtaking his pain. “Our goal has not changed. We still must restore Russia to its rightful rulers, even if that means its next generation of rulers. We need to do this so we can return to our homeland. This news of the tsar’s death only makes our imperative that much more urgent.”

  Pushing himself up from his chair, Monsieur went to the telephone, which held a place of honor on a small table at the end of the couch. He didn’t sit but remained standing, almost at attention, as he picked up the receiver and waited for the operator.

  Because of his fear of Bolshevik spies, organizing a meeting had become a clandestine operation. Monsieur’s former countrymen were now as much the enemy as the Germans.

  Suddenly, static split the silence and then we all heard the operator’s voice booming out of the earpiece. Monsieur gave her the exchange for Tatania Tichtelew. I knew her as a woman in her seventies who frequently came to the shop in the late afternoon to gossip with Anna over a cup of tea from the silver samovar. They both drank it the way so many Russians do, in a glass cup with a cube of sugar between their teeth. Often, Tatania would order a new string of pearls. I never counted, but in the time I’d been working for Monsieur Orloff, I must have strung at least thirty strands for her, in subtly diverse colors, from dark green-black to pure star-shine white.

  “Madame, forgive me for calling you at this hour,” Monsieur Orloff spoke loudly into the telephone. “But I know you are anxious to get your pearls and the stringer has finished.”

  The cryptic message sent and received, we sat down at the table, beautifully set with a cream tablecloth, sparkling crystal, and fine china. The heavy and ornate silverware, decorated like the plates with the tsar’s imperial insignia, took on a greater poignancy.

  Our conversation continued to revolve around the tragedy, and no one had much of an appetite, even for the cook’s tempting food. Only the wine was consumed with any relish.

  “This is the kind of night when I could drown in a bottle, but will stop at two glasses,” Vanya said when Monsieur Orloff attempted to refill his wine goblet for a third time. “We have work to do and plans to make.”

  After the plates were cleared, Monsieur Orloff and Vanya went to the library to prepare for the meeting. Anna went to the kitchen to speak to the cook.

  “Can I see you to your rooms?” Grigori asked. “I’d appreciate some brandy if you don’t mind. This has been a trying night.”

  I’d come to Paris expecting to live at my great-grandmother’s fine mansion on rue des Saints-Pères. But with the city under siege and without the light from street lamps, the half-hour walk was far too dangerous for me to undertake alone at night. And so, Monday through Saturday, I lived beneath Monsieur’s shop. The Orloffs had created a warren of rooms in their large basement, including a stock room, with enough tools and workbenches to serve as a second workshop, as well as three bedrooms. Two of them were often used by new émigrés during th
eir first few nights in Paris. The third room, actually a suite with a bedchamber and sitting room, belonged to me. The walls had been covered in pale aquamarine blue with dark sapphire trim and matching upholstery. This tiny enclave was my sanctuary in a way my room at my great-grandmother’s house wasn’t. Her mansion offered no solitude. Open to soldiers on leave from the war who craved excitement, titillation, and escape, her salons and “fantasy bedrooms,” as she called them, had never been busier. In the old days, only rich men had been able to afford the many pleasures found in them. But now, this was Grand-mère’s gift to the soldiers fighting. Whatever the desire, there was a room to match. One recalled the mirrored palace of Marie Antoinette; another resembled a monk’s chamber with a narrow bed, straw rug, and religious frescoes on the wall. There was an Egyptian room, as well as a Chinese pagoda and a Persian garden room with fanciful walls painted with trees and flowering bushes against a midnight blue sky complete with stars, a perfect crescent moon, and the onion-shaped minarets of Persepolis in the distance.

  When I visited, I made a habit of hiding from the forced gaiety as soldiers overindulged in food, wine, and sex in order to forget. My great-grandmother provided a great service, but for me, being at Maison de la Lune, as her house is called, was like attending theater and suffering through a desperate, debauched, and sometimes depressing play.

  As Grigori and I descended the staircase leading to my room, both of us were all too aware of the uneven cadence of his steps as he struggled with his damaged leg. I hated the sound for his sake.

  At my door, I invited him in, as was our ritual. Whenever he dined with Anna and Monsieur, or whenever he surfaced from his melancholy and asked me to the theater or dinner, an art show or opera, at the end of the evening I would always invite him in and he would always accept my invitation.

  He made himself comfortable on the couch while I poured us both brandies and sat down next to him. Usually we talked for a while, but that night he seemed unable to wait and reached out—­almost as if it was causing him pain—and pulled me to him.

  His hands and his lips were, as usual, insistent, hungry. As if he were capable of devouring me. He slid his hand up my skirt. The feel of his fingers on my stocking leg sent shivers farther up. He moved from calf to knee to thigh. I heard my breath catch. Grigori’s lips moved against mine, and I returned his kiss. His hand moved farther, finding my cleft, tickling me, making me buck. He unbuttoned my blouse, exposing my skin to the cool air. The oblivion his passion promised excited me. I thrust my breasts up toward him, and he pulled down my brassiere to kiss my nipples, holding first one then the other between his teeth. I ran my fingers through his soft hair. He moaned, and I felt him, hard against my thigh, ready for more, ready for me.

  But we didn’t reach a pleasured place because that night, as Grigori always did, he suddenly stopped, turned from me, and stood, leaving me on the couch, gasping and waiting, ready.

  I felt sympathy, despite my frustration. As long as he eschewed that ultimate intimacy, as long as he continued to be ashamed to be with a woman because of his mangled body, we would never move past the awkward stage of undressing. But I didn’t know what to do or what to say. I wasn’t an experienced enough lover to know how to coax a man into relaxing. I’d lost my virginity to Timur, but we’d only been together a few times. I remained naïve in bed. One of my great-grandmother’s courtesans would have been of more use to him.

  I longed for the connection women whispered about, the desire to be one with your lover, the willingness to give up your body, especially in a time of war, when romance had been swept away and replaced with fear, when most eligible men my age were off fighting. But my shyness and his embarrassment kept us apart.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He spun around, his brown-diamond eyes flashing. “For what? I stopped because I cannot take advantage of you. Not in my father’s house, not under his roof. And not when I have a meeting to attend.” He pulled out an elaborate ruby-studded gold pocket watch. “And not when my meeting starts in fifteen minutes.”

  Grigori left my suite abruptly to collect his father and Vanya for the meeting. For a few moments, I contemplated getting into bed with a book. Far too restless, I straightened out my clothes and returned to the shop.

  Chapter 4

  I sat at my workbench, prepared my tools, and listened to Monsieur, his son, and his friend Vanya descend the steps leading deep beneath the store’s basement.

  Under the marvelous Palais courtyard and fountains and gardens lay a mysterious world where no light penetrated and the only sounds were made by rats, falling rocks, or men stealing through secret spaces.

  At least that was all most people heard. Other sounds, terrible sounds, haunted me.

  All of Paris sits atop limestone and gypsum mines, known as the carrières, some of which date back as far as the thirteenth century, when the stones that built the city were first excavated. No longer worked, the mines run for miles, a long network of empty tunnels and caves. Some were appropriated for the metro, others as havens for criminal, religious, and occult groups. During the war, the underground had turned into a secret highway for spies as they maneuvered around the city undetected.

  Soldiers policed the caves, trying to protect us from enemies who might attack us from underneath, but the labyrinth was too complex for them to safeguard all of it at any one time.

  Ironically, while spies hid in some caverns, Parisians used others as shelters during bombings. There were several beneath the Palais. The small one we used could hold approximately twenty people comfortably. Monsieur Orloff also held his Two-Headed Eagles meetings there.

  Close by the shelter, through a door and down an incline, was another cavern that Monsieur had transformed into a vault for his materials and assets. Access to both was gained through the store. Continuing on past the shelter and the vault, one came to a locked door. Through it, a series of secret tunnels eventually led to the other side of the river.

  There are no signs, no landmarks aboveground, to advertise the entrances to Paris’s subterranean world. I’d heard stories of people who wandered for days, never finding a way out, who were buried alive in an avalanche, or who died taking a wrong turn and falling down a shaft.

  It’s easy to get lost. Once, after an air raid, I decided to explore, thinking maybe I could discover the source of my unease about going underground. I unlocked the door and ventured into the mine.

  Missing a turn, I spent over an hour trying to retrace my steps, my panic building. Suddenly I heard a loud and terrible noise. I took another step and looked into a cavern converted to a tomb. The deafening sound seemed like a nightmare come to life. The catacombs were clearly the source of my torture.

  Starting in 1777, in reaction to health problems caused by overcrowding in aboveground cemeteries, the city started to exhume bodies and rebury the dead in some of the empty caves. Over six million were buried in the ossuaries, and I’d stumbled upon one of the chambers.

  Standing on the threshold, I stared at the skeletal remains, bones arranged in a macabre design, the source of the thunderous noise, the cacophony of terror and tears. Here resided the last thoughts of so many who had died in pain. Their suffering trapped in their bones.

  Similarly to how I was able to hear the dying thoughts of the soldiers via the crystals in the talismans, I heard these poor souls’ final moments through the stone-studded earth. En masse, magnified, the storm of cries, curses, and calls terrified me.

  And yet, when the sirens rang out or Monsieur sent me down to the vault, my only choice was to steel myself and endure. The same way I endured the voices of the individual soldiers whose loved ones came to me, like my most recent visitor, Madame Alouette.

  I placed the box holding the envelope with her son’s lock of hair on my worktable, but I didn’t open it. Not yet. First I needed to prepare the object that would hopefully allow me to help her find pe
ace.

  Sorting through two dozen chunks of rock crystal, I chose an egg-shaped orb about the size of my thumb. Once a month I brought the lapidary a dozen or so crystals, which he cut into eighths, like segments of an orange, and then polished. I did all the engraving myself. And although the work was painstaking, it absorbed me. While I sat at my table, all thoughts disappeared. I connected with my tools, and they became extensions of my hands.

  Sometimes, while scratching out the words and numbers and runes, I would crack a crystal, but the night of the tsar’s news, the operation went smoothly.

  On one segment, I carved Jean Luc’s name and the numbers of his birth date: 18/8/1890. And the date of the battle in which he died: 8/7/1918.

  Knowing his birthstone was a peridot, I looked through the assortment of stones I kept for the talismans. None of these were of the best quality. Because of what I do to them, occlusions don’t matter. I found a lovely rounded light lime-colored stone with a crack running through it, which made it ideal for my purposes.

  Hawaiians believed peridots were the tears of the goddess Pele, quite apropos for a mourning jewel. Placing the stone in a metal bowl, I pounded it with a small iron hammer, shattering it into fragments and then into powder.

  Next, I chased a chasm in the crystal, like a small stream, and filled it with the glittering green residue.

  Placing that section aside, I picked up another slice of the crystal and began to carve the Egyptian hieroglyphs for immortality, youth, and victory.

  I’d worked for two hours and was tired. Beneath my feet, Monsieur Orloff, Grigori, and Vanya were still meeting with their fellow Russians, trying to absorb and make sense of the fact that their beloved Nicholas had been shot dead. Did they find solace knowing he’d died honorably for his country? Did women like Madame Alouette find any solace knowing their sons had died for theirs?