Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Your epoch is not for trying.

It's for living and for dying.

There is no blander pose

Than to bargain and protest,

As if times could these for those

Be exchanged upon request."

Like any transgression, it creeps in slow, seeping through in small things he can plausibly deny having any control over. If Rhoden were a man of faith, he’d have an endless list of misdeeds to confess, to kiss the dimming gold of the altar in the local church for.

Months pass; his situation worsens, especially after his analysis of the gravesite in Parlevo. And still he doesn’t do what he knows is right.

Alexander Steinberg is a bright kid. A lot of genuine enthusiasm for the discipline. The amount of time he spends in empty lecture halls after hours, even as the silent darkness outside begins to whisper with snow, speaks to an unhappy home life. So, too, does the hunger in the way he smiles at praise.

Rhoden has seen many like him and helped as many as he could. It’s a fine line to walk – the knife sharp edge between professional duty and attachment. He declined invitations, no matter how much his protégés tempted him with promises of qurabiya with jam and Indian tea. Avoided responding to birthday cards written awkwardly in watery ink. Dodged attempted embraces.

But Steinberg will wilt without a truly sympathetic ear, Rhoden tells himself. What harm can there be in sharing the occasional conversation with him? In distracting him from his misery with a joke or two? In playing a game of shatranj?

Steinberg turns out to be an unexpectedly good player. He has little knowledge of theory, and Rhoden has to gently convince him not to use the Damiano defence, but that’s fixable – with sufficient practice, of course.

The amber shadows from the tea glass dance across the board, set in motion by the bobbing of the lamp above their heads. Rhoden wraps his fingers around the light wooden cross on the firz figurine and makes to move it forward.

“I must thank you, Dr Rhoden,” Steinberg says, voice thick with feeling. “For everything you’ve done for me. You’ve been kinder than I deserve.”

A kind of heavy sickness settles in just below Rhoden’s diaphragm, shifting and making itself comfortable like an animal preparing to rest.

“You have nothing to thank me for,” he mutters with numb lips.

***

He begins avoiding Steinberg afterwards – at first on instinct; but soon it becomes an eminently practicable precautionary measure. The Parlevo excavation group starts to come apart. Dr Nella Vinogradova, the chief site archaeologist, is suddenly demoted and, as rumours have it, sent to some third-rate university in Kurzeme. A few others don't turn up for their lectures.

The university administration shows no surprise at these uncharacteristic absences; neither does Rhoden feel any. A kind of thick bureaucratic thundercloud is gathering above his own head, pregnant with lightning. It is a matter of urgency that he wrap up any remaining projects at the university – and prepare.

He is considerably more taken aback at the fact that it is at this time that Dr Leon Rubinstein chooses to invite him over for tea.

"I have apricot water," Rubinstein is saying, rummaging through his ancient walnut cupboard, "and this."

"This" is a kosushka of some dubious sugary liquor in a red glass bottle, which Rubinstein waves about with an expression of glee. The light of the overhead lamp filters through the glass and dapples the room with comically macabre garnet blotches.

"From the colonies," Rubinstein says triumphantly. Rhoden huffs in amusement around the stem of his cherry pipe.

"Don't call them that, Leon," he says. "What if someone's listening?"

"Well, if someone is, they can't make our situation much worse, can they now?"

"Touché," Rhoden murmurs, glancing disinterestedly at the steaming buttery potatoes Rubinstein boiled for dinner. "Apricot water will do for me."

"Ah, ever the teetotaller." Rubinstein splashes some foamy orange liquid into a faceted glass. "I'll have some of this colonial beverage, however."

Rhoden gives him a look of mild reproach. But Rubinstein's playful mood is suddenly gone as quickly as it started.

"I wanted to speak to you about something, Arno," he says, as he sits down at the table and frowns at his glass. "You know that kid you used to be chummy with? You've done well to stop speaking to him."

"Hmph," says Rhoden, and slowly lets out a puff of smoke.

"And he's a Jew, isn't he?"

"Ashkenazi."

"Please, Arno," Rubinstein says without much heat. "They wouldn't know the difference between Jewish ethnicities if it bit them in the ass. Point is, the kid's Jewish. He's got enough on his plate without being a known associate of yours."

"Yes," Rhoden says, quietly. "Don't worry, Leon. I'll take care of it. Steinberg will be safe."

"He better be," Rubinstein hums. "You of all people should know what it's like to have that kind of thing in your passport, Dr Arno Rhoden. Did your mom hate you or what?"

Rhoden gives an eloquent shrug. "I think she just thought it was important. To preserve our culture, you know."

"She should've thought more about how to preserve your ass instead," Rubinstein grumbles, downing a shot of his liqueur. Rhoden laughs, but there's an undertone of sadness to that.

Steinberg will be safe, he tells himself, but he doesn't know how much he believes it.

***

As he walks home through the snowy emptiness of the city, the sugary taste of apricot still in his mouth, Rhoden tries to think only of practical matters. A letter of termination from the university should arrive any day now. The doyen will have to put his signature on that, but how long could that realistically take? They’ll expedite the matter for the Parlevo group, no doubt. And so forth.

But the universe seems intent on thwarting him at every turn, because at the bend of the road, bathed in pale lamplight, there’s a lanky figure in a long overcoat. It stands facing his windows, motionless, as if hesitating.

Secret service? So soon?

Perhaps not. Rhoden hasn’t met a lot of them, but he doubts standing in the middle of a well-lit thoroughfare is the current tactic du jour. And then, too, there’s something familiar about the figure’s overly self-conscious posture.

He walks forward quickly, the snow crunching under his old army boots, and stands a few steps away. Waits for the kid to turn.

When Steinberg looks back, his expression is that of determination. The red curls tapering into a questionable sideburn highlight the hard set of his jaw. But he’s gritting his teeth too hard. He’s afraid.

Rhoden motions wordlessly towards the worn stone steps leading to the front door, even as he finds that his own feelings are much less clear to him than Steinberg’s. Is he impressed? Annoyed?.. Perhaps both. And something else, too, a long-forgotten emotion that crawls like a vine around his throat.

Steinberg follows him through the door and up two flights of stairs. The house used to be something else, before – something posher and less suited to serve as accommodation for impoverished lecturers – but the only reminders of those times are the needlessly high ceilings and the alabaster flowers on the balustrade.

“Dr Rhoden, I’ve come to-” Steinberg begins, his voice strained. But Rhoden rather unceremoniously covers his mouth with one hand and drags him into the flat with the other. He responds to Steinberg’s look of stupefied astonishment with the universal gesture of pointing his index finger at the ceiling. This place is bugged to all hell, he mouths for emphasis. Then he stabs the same finger at Steinberg’s chest – another gesture that needs no translation. Why are you here?

Touched. That’s the emotion he couldn’t name; he feels touched. The kid’s got no self-preservation instinct, of course, but for some reason he’s risking his future to come here – of all places. To Rhoden’s doorstep.

The meaning of the firmness with which Steinberg clasps the long freckled fingers of his left hand with his right one is somewhat less unambiguous, but the general gist of it is all too clear. I want to help you. I offer my – support? Friendship?

No, Rhoden gestures. His gloved hand cuts through the air between them, the corners of his thin lively mouth downturned. No.

Steinberg points at the door and makes an equally sharp gesture. I’m not leaving.

Entering into a conspiracy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Rhoden thinks. Western films portrayed this rather differently. For one, there’s the question of style. The bronze-buttoned black overcoat Steinberg is wearing could pass for the outfit of a gentleman spy if it weren’t so obviously an oversized hand-me-down. Rhoden’s own snow-soaked cape is, much like his wages, just short of a public outrage.

And who’s ever heard of being strong-armed into disclosing state secrets by someone who’s barely of age?

No matter. A couple of days, no more, and Rhoden will leave the city. Then the kid can act a hero all he wants – safely away from him and his dangerous patronage.

Rhoden gives him a long look, then shrugs a little. Mimics bringing a cup up to his mouth. Tea?

Steinberg holds up two fingers, and Rhoden smiles a little despite himself. Of course the kid has a sweet tooth.

The smile Steinberg offers him in response is so full of feeling that Rhoden has to look away. What has he to offer in exchange for such warmth, such sincerity?

No matter, he repeats stubbornly to himself, and wanders off in search of the sugar bowl.

The old red copper kettle seems to take extra long to boil. While Steinberg's standing in the middle of the living room and trying, with fluctuating success, to dry his rich curls with his own scarf, Rhoden unlocks and sets up a small travel pathephone. On its side are scarlet letters reading, "The 60th Anniversary of the Glorious Revolution".

Dry shellac whispers against the turntable, and the first chords of Sibelius' En Saga crackle out of the soundbox. It's a good piece, Rhoden thinks. A little quiet at first, but it'll really pick up in another five minutes or so. Then they can speak.

The gentle breath-like rhythm of the music erupts into a violin cascade as Rhoden sets a small armudu glass of aromatic black tea in front of Steinberg and carefully drops two cubes of sugar in. He sits down with his own glass and makes a gesture at the tea package: it’s a characteristic papery yellow, with a bright blue image of an elephant in the middle. The corners of Steinberg’s mouth quirk up approvingly. The “elephant tea” is a rare high-quality commodity prized for not tasting like cow shit, a flavour regrettably typical of local state-manufactured teas.

Rhoden sighs. Steinberg’s enjoyment of his tea is of little consolation to him under present circumstances.

“You may stay,” he tells the kid. “I will not have you out there in the cold. But we will not talk about what I’ve done.”

Steinberg dips his head in acknowledgement. He accepts this condition a little too easily; and there’s a kind of hardness in his grey-green eyes, like a layer of ice under a water current. But Rhoden sets his doubts aside.

There are many reasons he shrinks from telling Steinberg to leave. The fact that he knows exactly what the kid would be going home to is just one of them.

“I’d be happy to talk bones instead,” Steinberg says. He’s drinking his tea with somewhat excessive enthusiasm and it doesn’t take long for him to burn his lips. His thin face folds into a comical grimace.

“I suppose there are some things I could show you,” Rhoden concedes mildly, nudging a pitcher of cold water in his direction. “If you’d be so kind as to stop macerating your own skull for a moment.”

Steinberg huffs with laughter at that quip; he sets his glass down and begins to rummage through the pockets of his tweed jacket in search of his moleskin. When Rhoden returns to the kitchen after disappearing into his office for five minutes, Steinberg’s sitting there with a pencil between his teeth, his tea finished, today’s date scribbled carefully into the upper corner of an open page.

The kid’s such a picture of studious eagerness that Rhoden’s struck with an incongruous desire to give him a pat on the head.

“Here,” he murmurs, throwing Steinberg a pair of off-colour surgical gloves. Technically they are meant to be disposable, but in practice even the actual medical personnel autoclaves theirs. They keep skin fat off dry remains, if nothing else.

Rhoden sits down next to the kid, an unlit pipe in the corner of his mouth. He’s not about to smoke in Steinberg’s presence – gods know the city puts enough grime into his students’ lungs as it is – but the feeling of the bit between his teeth is of some comfort.

He opens his right palm. In it, fitting neatly into the central depression, is a human clavicle.

“An archaeological specimen,” Rhoden comments. “A couple hundred years old, maybe, from a cholera burial ground in the vicinity of the Irtysh river in Sawirk.”

Steinberg looks a question at him, his ginger brows drawing together.

“Yeah, I nicked it from the university,” Rhoden admits easily. “They wouldn’t know what to do with it even if it had full documentation and five generations of recorded relatives. See, there’s something special about this one.”

His gloved thumb slides gently along the subclavian groove, down to the proximal end. There, the outer eggshell-like layer of the bone has been eroded, revealing the fragile spongy matter underneath. Azure and scarlet ripples run across this wound in the bone in response to Rhoden’s touch. The insides of the clavicle sing with colour under his fingers, as if trying and failing to form an image.

“I’ve heard of this,” Steinberg whispers, awe-struck.

“I think most of us have.” Rhoden hands him the clavicle and chews a little on his pipe. “Normally, only around a fifth of the population can perceive it with a naked eye. More in the osteological circles, since we’re naturally driven to the phenomenon. I theorise that the trait is heritable, much like the appearance of our ears or the colour of our hair…

“But this bone is unusual. The strength of its content is such that anyone can see it and study its behaviour.”

The tip of Steinberg’s pencil is still against the paper. He’s clearly uncertain what to write, and whether to write at all.

“You belong to that one-fifth, don't you?” he asks quietly.

Instead of answering, Rhoden peels the glove off his left hand. It’s as though he’s peeling off his own skin; beneath the glove is a skeletal metallic structure, reminiscent of the real skeleton of the hand, held together with copper wires.

He’s never made a secret of the fact that he has a prosthesis, although normally he keeps it covered. Steinberg’s never seen it up close, however, and there’s an expression of fascination on his face that makes Rhoden feel a touch of warm amusement.

“First time I realised I could see it,” he says slowly, “was when I lost my hand.”

Steinberg turns his attention back to the clavicle he’s holding; runs his fingers over its landmarks, whisper-gentle. Then he looks again at Rhoden’s prosthetic hand. Its dull metal, iridescent with oil at the joints, reflects the light of the streetlamp outside.

“I was about your age. Bit of an industrial accident. I was doing some farm work and a horse got spooked by some nonsense, as they do. Then it kicked its hind leg and the edge of its shoe took my wrist clean off.

“My best friend at the time, Erika Lill, tied off the stump. Did an expert job of it, really, even though the poor girl was absolutely terrified.” Rhoden huffs a little at the memory; then sets about putting his glove back on. “There was blood everywhere, including on the horse. The horse was freaking out, I was freaking out, Erika was white as a sheet and I was afraid she’d pass out. It was a veritable three-ring circus.

“Anyway, she was about to go fetch the village doctor, and we decided to retrieve the severed hand in case he could reattach it. That’s when I saw it. It was the strangest feeling… It was a part of me and yet not. And there, on the bone section, was a film of colour. Like a miniature painting or a… or a photographic slide.”

The look in Rhoden’s eyes has grown distant. As the final notes of En Saga ring out and subside into the soft hiss of the rotating record, he sits silently for a few moments before shaking off his reverie and standing up. He walks over to the pathephone and carefully flips the shellac disc.

“Did you tell her what you saw?” Steinberg asks quietly, once the triumphant sound of the Karelia Suite fills the kitchen. Rhoden turns to look at him.

“Erika? No. I meant to, I think, but never got around to it. A year later we were caught in the occupation of Narov. There was an epidemic of typhoid fever, and at twenty-one she burned out like a candle.”

The expression of regret – of sincere compassion – on Steinberg’s face is unexpected, and he doesn’t immediately register it. It hits him, altogether too late, that the kid didn’t find his misadventure as amusing as he intended.

Rhoden’s inured to the thought of loss – the loss of limbs, friends, and university tenures. But Steinberg is- He feels-

Gods, the kid’s sorry for him.

Well.

“Do you want something to eat?” Rhoden opens the cupboard and takes a critical look inside. “I have – hmm.”

He’s been planning to disappear for a while now, and the contents of the cupboard are a dismal picture.

“Smoked sprats. I have smoked sprats and some rye bread.”

“I wouldn’t want to take advantage of your hospitality, doctor,” Steinberg murmurs. “That is – I should probably go. I’ve wasted enough of your time.”

Rhoden waves this off, his metal hand clanking as if for emphasis. He can’t bring himself to say, I don’t want to send you home on the last night I’m still around to help, so he settles for shoving a tin of sprats into Steinberg’s hands.

“There’s tooth powder in the bathroom,” he says, as he cuts a few slices off a dark brown bread loaf. The bread is sharply aromatic and roughly the consistency of a brick. “I’ll set up a folding cot. It’s late and the bridges will be drawn soon; sending you home would be a waste of time.”

He spends a few moments contemplating the bread slices and the tin Steinberg’s holding; then reaches into the cupboard again and slides a lemon across the table. In Steinberg’s eyes, lemony sprat sandwiches are clearly the height of grande cuisine, although Rhoden suspects they’re not the main reason for the kid’s jubilant look.

“Thank you,” Steinberg says, and clears his throat. “Thank you.”

Later that night, Steinberg sits on the folding cot, a plaid blanket tucked around his long legs, and watches Rhoden stoke a small cast iron stove – a burzhuika. Every now and then Rhoden takes a sheet of paper out of the heap of folders in his lap and examines it critically. Most of them don’t pass his assessment and are fed to the fire. A few he tucks into the inner pocket of his jacket.

Rhoden says nothing; Steinberg doesn’t ask.

“You must have your theories about them,” Steinberg says, after a while. “The images within bones.”

“Perhaps I do,” Rhoden says gruffly. “But you should be sleeping.”

The yellow light of the fire illuminates his sharp-lined face. His tired expression gives his words a tinge of hypocrisy.

“So should you, doctor,” Steinberg says, without missing a beat. Rhoden’s never known him not to voice a thought he considered pertinent; sometimes that quality of Steinberg’s is wonderful and sometimes it is intolerable.

Rhoden sighs.

“I think they’re memories.” He pauses a little to give the burning papers in the stove a half-hearted stir. “I think they’re the heart of who we are. Sometimes it’s what we love the most; sometimes it’s things we wish to forget, or even things we’ve forgotten. The mind can be free of a memory, but it will always live in the bones.”

Some hours ago Rhoden exhausted his collection of Sibelius and was forced to resort to Cesar Cui. Whoever is listening in, he thinks, must think he has a grim sense of humour; A Feast in Time of Plague isn’t the accompaniment many would choose.

He briefly looks over the remaining folders and tosses them all into the hungry mouth of the stove. The kid’s right. It won’t do to deprive himself of rest.

“But let’s return for a moment to practical matters.” Rhoden puts down the fire iron and wipes his soot-stained palm against his trousers. “Have some food in the morning if you leave before I wake, will you? I seem to recall you have lectures tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Steinberg replies after a pause. There’s something strange in his voice, as if he were thinking of something else entirely. Then he says, “You’re leaving the city.”

It’s not a question; it’s pointless to deny what is obvious to them both. Rhoden nods.

“Ikh vel aykh zen in besere tsaytn.” Steinberg laughs a little, but there’s a sad quirk to his mouth when Rhoden turns to look at him. “I will see you in better times, Dr Rhoden.”

There’s a lengthy pause as Rhoden tries to come up with words he won’t choke on.

“I hope you will,” he finally says, in low tones.

If he’s right, he thinks, this moment will stay with him somewhere in his marrow. He can almost feel its colours drip through his veins and down his nerves, crystallising into something hidden yet inescapable.

He leaves Steinberg to his sleep and goes to smoke on the balcony; his fingers tremble as he stuffs his pipe with tobacco, and to stop this tremor, he submerges them into the layer of snow that’s accumulated on the railing.

That use of Yiddish was a gesture of trust. The extent to which he suddenly feels this trust is heart-shattering. How did he allow himself to become so involved?

Damn kid and his damn earnestness.

Rubinstein warned him against this precise eventuality. Rhoden contemplates that for a moment and then curses Rubinstein out, too, just for good measure.

“That’s right, Arno; blame Rubinstein,” he mutters to himself in abject irritation. “That smug ass – how dare he give you good advice.”

After a fruitless attempt or two at thinking about something else, he goes back inside and sits next to Steinberg’s cot for a little while. The kid’s out like a light, one arm dangling off the edge. It occurs to Rhoden that there’s a distinct risk of muscle cramps in the morning, so he gently takes Steinberg by the fingers and returns the stray appendage back onto the blanket.

***

Next morning Rhoden wakes up with a jolt, his mouth drier than sandpaper. He’s dreamed of some foolishness; mostly data analysis, he recalls vaguely. Crunching numbers for some paper or other and having an inexplicably hard time coming up with an appropriate visual representation for the results. He remembers colourful inks running on grey graph paper, taking on a life of their own and folding into bizarre angular shapes, winged and spiny and constantly shifting.

Steinberg’s gone, leaving behind a neatly folded stack of bedsheets and a freshly scrubbed tea glass. The glass is upside-down on the kitchen table, and underneath it is a note. My dear Dr Rhoden, it begins, and goes on for two more pages even despite Steinberg’s industriously miniature handwriting. Rhoden huffs faintly and slips the note up his sleeve. He’ll read it later. It wouldn’t do to get all soft before he has even left.

Shaving with one hand is a tricky affair, but Rhoden got used to it after a year or two. At one point he even toyed with the idea of adding a folding shaving brush to his prosthesis, Swiss penknife-style.

He meticulously scrapes the stubble off his jaw and gives his own reflection a critical look. He’s gone almost grey – salt and yet more salt at this point rather than salt and pepper – but he’s never particularly cared about his own appearance beyond making sure it was clean and orderly. The only issue he has with his looks is how incurably intelligentsia they are. Somehow, even though he was born after the Revolution into a family with no Slavic ancestry to speak of, his face positively radiates yats, yers, and general love for the Tzar.

Thank gods he’s not shortsighted. If he had to wear glasses, or – gods forbid – a pince-nez, he’d probably have to get a permanent job as a model for the caricaturist of the local satirical publication.

He wraps himself in a coat and wanders into the freezing hallway, to the row of blue and silver mailboxes. A fresh manila envelope sticks out of his, emblazoned with an image of two hands, one dissecting the other. The motto below reads Desperatio est inimicus scientiae. For an establishment educating the next generation of the best and brightest, his employers were never particularly good at not making themselves sound vaguely threatening.

The envelope rips under his fingers with a tasty crackle. It’s a letter of termination, of course, and Rhoden doesn’t bother reading past the first line. Perhaps he’ll nail it to his front door before leaving. That should take care of anyone wishing to inquire after him, at any rate.

Any one word of the note Steinberg’s written for him is of greater interest to Rhoden than anything those bureaucratic woodlice could’ve come up with to justify his dismissal.

It is when he’s already packed his old brown suitcase and taken the first steps towards the stairs that the phone rings.

“Dr Rhoden.” It’s a young woman’s voice. Familiar. “I’m-”

“Don’t,” he interrupts hastily. “Don’t say it over the phone. I know who you are.”

Lilya Siliņš, one of his best students. A shy girl. He can’t think of what would cause her to call him; she’s anxious about talking to her teachers as it is.

“It’s Alexander Steinberg,” she says. “There was a class meeting dedicated to the expulsion of the Parlevo group, doctor. The doyen was there, and the faculty’s ideologist. Steinberg spoke up for you.”

“Where’s he now?”

“I don’t know,” Lilya whispers. “He’s walked out. They didn’t stop him, although that snake of an ideologist is probably on the phone to his handlers even now.”

“Thank you, lapushka,” Rhoden murmurs after a pause, even as he starts rummaging through the pockets of his coat in search of his notebook. He had Steinberg’s address somewhere. “You’ve been very brave. I’m grateful.

“Now go and be safe. Forget this number, do you hear me? You’ve never called here.”

“Yes, doctor.” He hears Lilya breathe on the other end of the line. “Farewell. We will miss you.”

His fingers are clammy and there’s an anxious, prickling sensation at the back of his neck as if someone’s standing right behind him. So little time. Damn kid.

The 6th Line of Zhadimirovsky Island, number 1, letter B. Just over a mile downstream and on the other side of the river. He’ll take the floating tram.

Soft pearly snowdrifts lie on the pavement closer to the houses on both sides of the street. In the middle, the snow has been turned into brown icy filth under thousands of boots and galoshes. The river hasn’t yet frozen over, however, and its waters run blacker than Rhoden’s mood.

Columns of white sunlight blink in and out of view as the tram bobs in the waves: up and down, flash after blinding flash.

He curses helplessly to himself.

***

Steinberg’s not even trying to be inconspicuous. Rhoden could spot his narrow back and his shock of ginger hair from a mile away. When he catches up with the kid, there’s little surprise in the look he gets; Steinberg’s expected this, expected him to show up.

They exchange arguments, rapid like sword blows.

“Steinberg,” Rhoden says, through gritted teeth. “Do you want to end up in a psychiatric ward?”

“I did the only right thing,” Steinberg responds unflinchingly.

They’re walking side by side down the 6th Line. Rhoden raises his good hand and closes his fingers around empty air, as if extinguishing a flame.

“You’ve squandered your future for nothing,” he snarls. Rage is like a lump of ice in the space between his lungs, and he has to take a fortifying breath to keep it under control. “You’re a foolish child, and you have no idea what you’ve done.”

“I know exactly what I’ve done,” Steinberg parries. “If I’m old enough to be drafted, then I’m old enough to know what I believe.”

Something twists in Rhoden’s chest, dark and painful.

“You shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t be old enough to be used as cannon fodder, or to make this decision. It’s unjust.”

Steinberg halts, turning and looking directly at him. He looks pale and sombre, but decidedly not intimidated by Rhoden’s outburst.

“Unjust?” he asks. “Unjust? But what about what’s been done to you?”

He gestures at Rhoden’s suitcase.

“Your own institution treats you like a leper. After Parlevo, half of your colleagues seem to have forgotten your name. You’re forced to flee the city you called home. Is that just?”

Rhoden starts to say something, but Steinberg interrupts him.

“How old are you?” He gestures impatiently. “Forty, forty-five? Hardly the age of a man with no future to speak of. But you wrote the Parlevo analysis, and you knew exactly what it would do to your career and livelihood. Tell me, doctor, what is the right age for a man to be viewed as expendable?”

What Rhoden really wants to say is, but your future is worth more than mine. The Parlevo group did what they had to to ensure their students would one day live in a better world. He wants to say, I am expendable.

He’s not so lacking in self-awareness as to voice these thoughts to Steinberg, however. The kid looks like he’d strangle him for that.

Anger seeps out of him slowly, the ice of it thawing into something more like sadness.

“There’s more to this than your sympathy for me, isn’t there?” He squints at the cold winter sun, takes Steinberg by the elbow, and gently steers him forward. They resume walking.

Steinberg inclines his head a little.

“I wanted to tell you when I visited, but you forbade me.” The wind ruffles his hair, and he raises the collar of his coat against its chill. “I grew up in Pleskov. There used to be a shtetl nearby, but after the Revolution its inhabitants scattered. Part of my family ended up in a small town some fifty miles away.”

“Parlevo,” Rhoden says, quietly.

“Yes.” Steinberg hunches his shoulders. “One of the few places that made me happy as a child. Full of groves and parks I could use to hide, and kind people who didn’t mind feeding me very much or even letting me stay the night. The local library had a lovely collection...”

“Still did last time I was there,” Rhoden remarks. They are nearing the end of the street now, and the sharp smell of seawater washes over them, carried by the wind from the Gulf of Kronstadt. “A remarkable abundance of Wodehouse.”

“I know!” Steinberg’s face brightens a little. “I read the entire series. It acquainted me with the concept of Worcestershire sauce.”

Rhoden huffs a little despite himself, then sighs. Steinberg makes to turn towards the austere-looking red brick block of flats on their left, but Rhoden’s grip on his elbow tightens sharply.

“You once told me you have a sister,” Rhoden murmurs.

Steinberg looks away. Unhappiness permeates his features, as if from a sudden ache.

“Esther.”

“How will she fare without you?”

There’s no answer; Steinberg’s silent, refusing to meet Rhoden’s gaze. Rhoden pats him awkwardly on the forearm and leans down a little to bring his face level with Steinberg’s.

“What have you done, kid?” he asks, but softly, with no heat behind the words. His grey eyes search Steinberg’s face for a few moments with an uncommon intensity; then he withdraws, as if having come to a decision.

“Very well,” he says. “I will do my best for you and for her. But you cannot go home now. Come with me.”

They catch an old rattling tram to the Kronstadt train station. It’s packed full this time of the day and festooned with people hanging on the outside like cherries on a branch, balanced precariously on the footboard. Someone’s arguing with the conductor over their ticket; someone else is cursing out a drunk sleeping on one of the back seats. It’s a perfect pandemonium.

Their shoulders pressed together, they contemplate the wintry streets flying past the open window of the tram.

“How much do you know about the Parlevo report?” Rhoden asks, his voice almost inaudible over the surrounding racket.

“I have never read it personally.” He feels Steinberg shrug a little. “We knew copies were being circulated among staff, but I think they deliberately didn’t distribute any to us to protect us from being caught and charged with possession of samizdat.

“I know the group found and excavated a gravesite they weren’t meant to. Beyond that it’s all rumours.”

“That’s the gist of it.” Rhoden’s expression is thoughtful. His fingers are drumming softly against the glass. For a while, they’re both silent.

“I suppose I should tell you in more detail. At least then you’ll know what you were standing up for.”

“For academic integrity,” Steinberg shoots back. “For a community that deserves better. For a man I respect.”

The kid has a talent for saying things that feel like a blow to the chest. Rhoden blinks, fixing his eyes on the mulberry-coloured granite landscape outside.

“Yes.” He clears his throat. “Well. It was supposed to be a historical graveyard. Second century before the Revolution.

“And it was. But there was more to it than that. There was a cut through the historical strata. From a construction project, perhaps – that was what we thought. We took the upper layers off and, to our surprise, discovered three more sets of remains.”

Rhoden’s mouth twists grimly.

“The bone still retained its organic content. They weren’t archaeological remains, Steinberg.”

The tram comes to a shuddering stop. The Kronstadt station towers over them, its graceful marble columns gleaming white like sea salt.

Rhoden looks around carefully; then proceeds inside. Their steps echo in the walls of the station, bouncing off the stone decorations and bronze statues. A seller of pies hawks his wares next to a large statue of a hound, its metal teeth bared menacingly, and the smell of fried dough mixes with the acrid train smoke.

Steinberg’s about to ask something, but Rhoden cuts him off.

“Bluecoats,” he whispers urgently, and gestures at a couple of military officers conversing with each other in the corner of the main vestibule. Their uniforms are an unmistakable sky blue – the colour of tragedies and dirty secrets.

They pass by the officers in silence.

“These fucking boots,” one of them says, distantly. “They feel like they’re made of fossilised turds.

“I have calluses in places I didn’t know existed, Levchik.”

Steinberg makes a desperately suffocated noise, something between a huff and the sound a small animal makes while choking to death. Rhoden elbows him in the ribs, although there’s a tickle of nervous amusement somewhere in the back of his own throat.

The encounter is unnerving enough that he chooses to board the first eastbound train rather than wait for the westbound express.

“We’ll put a dozen miles between us and the Kronstadt station, disembark in Tihvera, and wait for the express there,” he explains for Steinberg’s benefit. Steinberg doesn’t question it. For all that he’s gone against Rhoden’s wishes, against everything Rhoden has done to keep him safe, the kid seems to have remarkable faith in his judgement.

I wish I had half of your confidence in myself, Rhoden thinks.

The electric intercity train looks like a great fat caterpillar. Painted a peeling military green, it wobbles slowly down the Eastern line, carrying them past snow-coated fields and the occasional cluster of wooden houses.

In Spirovo, a woman merchant boards the train with a large silver cool box of ice cream. Amused by this spirit of winter and intrigued by her evident ability to turn a profit even in this weather, Rhoden buys one for himself and one for Steinberg.

Steinberg, of course, blushes red to the roots of his hair. It seems he finds the very concept of money intolerably embarrassing, let alone anything involving someone paying for him.

“It’s only forty-eight kopeks,” Rhoden shrugs. “And in any case, Steinberg, we’re fugitives from justice together. Does that not merit a measure of familiarity?”

That makes him laugh, and for a moment Rhoden is pleased with himself.

“Where will we go?” Steinberg asks.

Rhoden takes a bite of the ice cream and closes his eyes a little.

“Reval.”

“But surely it’s a closed city,” Steinberg counters, in low tones.

The corners of Rhoden’s mouth quirk up. “Not if you enter it illegally.”

They spend a few minutes in contemplative silence, until finally the train clatters to a stop at the Tihvera station. It’s windy outside, and the birches near the westbound platform rustle with dry catkins.

“Kid,” Rhoden calls quietly, as they stand side by side at the platform edge. “Steinberg.”

He can feel rather than see Steinberg’s questioning gaze.

“Forget what I said. What you did was admirable. And immensely stupid. But I should have never let myself be angry with you.”

Steinberg waves this off.

“I deserved it, doctor.” And he touches the back of Rhoden’s prosthetic hand, just a little, in a gesture of reassurance. People usually avoid doing that; if they have to shake Rhoden’s hand, it’s the good one they take. This touch feels like an awkward sort of kindness.

***

After they settle in in the compartment of the westbound express, he extracts a stack of papers from the inner pocket of his coat and hands it to Steinberg.

“Read it,” he says. “This is my skeletal analysis and Dr Vinogradova’s interpretation of the findings. It’s missing the introduction as well as a few other contributions, but you’ll get the gist.”

He stuffs his suitcase under the seat and goes into the vestibule to smoke. The window is open, and Rhoden leans against the wall next to it; the icy wind brings colour into his cheeks as he closes his eyes. The smoke from his pipe is carried away instantly, mixing with the wind and the snow outside.

One good thing about having a prosthetic is that it can never get cold. It feels things, but not like his other hand. It’s a deeper and slower kind of sensation – like a river current approaching a whirlpool. Rhoden rests his metal fingers against the window frame and watches snowflakes cling to them, unmelting.

He’s so lost in his own thoughts that it takes him a few moments to notice that Steinberg has joined him in the vestibule.

“It’s way too cold here for you to be standing around in this shirt,” Rhoden says. “You’ll get ill.”

“My father spent the last few years drinking away all our firewood money,” Steinberg objects matter-of-factly. “I’m immune to the cold.”

“That is not how-”

Steinberg isn’t listening. He thrusts the papers at Rhoden, trailing one of his long bony fingers over the pale typewritten letters.

“I wanted to talk about this,” he says. “About the theory that the remains are those of the Artzishevsky family.”

“Steinberg, it’s not my hypothesis,” Rhoden replies, a little taken aback by that fervour. “I’m an osteologist, not a specialist in regional studies. Dr Vinogradova is the one who proposed it to the rest of the group.”

“But you don’t disagree.”

“I’m not qualified to disagree,” Rhoden begins stubbornly, but relents at the wordless sound of frustration Steinberg makes.

“It would make sense if they were,” he continues, his tone milder. “An older man and two girls. And why else would the projectile exit wounds be at the upper lumbar levels?”

“Perhaps they were soldiers, shot in battle.”

“All three? And buried in an unmarked grave? No.” Rhoden knocks the ash out of his pipe and shakes his head. “Someone deliberately lined them up and shot them in the stomach. And if they are the Artzishevskys, then it was an act of political revenge against the Parlevan Counter-Revolutionary movement.”

Rhoden gives Steinberg a sceptical look. Despite his insistence to the contrary, he’s shivering like someone who’s rather obviously cold.

“Let’s have a glass of tea, shall we,” Rhoden says, putting a hand on Steinberg’s shoulder.

***

He remembers looking at the daguerreotypes of the Artzishevsky family for the first time. Captain Pavel Artzishevsky, a broad-shouldered unsmiling man with a beard, stood between his two daughters – Lilia and Maria. Lilia had an upturned freckled nose and a combative gleam to her eye. Maria was looking distractedly away from the camera, as if having spotted someone in the distance. Behind them, in the meadow, tall grasses bent under an uneasy wind. The Artzishevskys didn’t know it then, but the icy storm of the Revolution was already coming for them.

Because they were young, their remains gave him a fairly accurate age range. Seventeen to twenty-five based on the proximal clavicular epiphysis, he remembers writing. And they did look around eighteen in the picture.

Close enough to Steinberg’s age.

This thought accosts him with a sudden fierceness. He did pity the Artzishevskys for who they were: decent people, caught in the merciless mill of a political coup that would grind all it could into flour to make bread for its troops.

But he’s never before had a personal point of reference for what they represented. For what Pavel Artzishevsky must’ve felt upon realising his daughters would share his fate.

Steinberg’s asleep next to him, slumped awkwardly in his seat. The glass on the table is half full of cold tea and clinks a little against the bronze glass-holder in time with the rocking of the train.

Rhoden puts his arm around Steinberg’s shoulders and gently draws him closer, so that Steinberg’s head rests against the lapel of his coat rather than against the cold metal of the window frame.

The kid needs proper rest before they get off in Külmoja, the last stop before the Reval inspection checkpoint. Or at least that’s what he tells himself.

That and- well. He finds the sensation of Steinberg’s even breathing intensely comforting, especially after their earlier discussion of the injuries sustained by Lilia and Maria Artzishevsky.

If he closes his eyes, he can still see Maria’s shattered lumbar vertebrae.

“Alexander,” he calls quietly. He doesn’t actually expect Steinberg to awake – not at this unfamiliar form of address. But the kid sighs in his sleep, stirs, puts out a hand, and gets a hold of a fistful of Rhoden’s coat.

Rhoden tightens his grip on Steinberg’s thin frame. They hold onto each other like this as the express flies through the darkness and across the obliterated border of the country where Rhoden was born.

***

It’s very early morning by the time they arrive in Külmoja and get off the train. The Külmoja harbour is surrounded by a tiny urban-type settlement teetering on the edge of the Yoldia Sea coast. The train station is a small wooden platform with nothing but a peeling sign painted white and blue, and at this time of the day it’s silent and empty, covered in freshly fallen snow.

There’s a peculiar sense of timelessness about it, and of total solitude.

“The checkpoint is about five miles eastwards,” Rhoden says, gesturing in the direction of the road on their left. “But we won’t go there. Instead, we will take the hunting path through the forest and eventually pass through the Reval city cemetery.”

Steinberg’s hair is a dishevelled mess of curls, and he blinks at the world around him with the slight bewilderment of someone not fully awake.

“This is a very beautiful place,” he murmurs. Rhoden feels a strange surge of pride at that, almost as if Steinberg paid him a personal compliment. In a way, that’s what it is; these tiny villages and harbours, this sea salt-infused snow, the ships resting their metal bellies in the frozen waters are all a part of him.

They begin to walk away from the platform and down the narrow path leading through a pine grove.

“Yesterday,” Steinberg says, over the crunch, crunch of snow under their feet, “you called me by my first name, doctor.”

Rhoden takes this with some resignation. Steinberg hearing and remembering exactly what he said is perfectly in line with how comically poorly he’s been doing at not getting close to the kid as of recent.

Rubinstein will have a field day with this whole mess, he thinks, cringing.

“I did,” he admits.

“I’m honoured,” Steinberg says, of all things. “We’re – we are friends, yes?”

There are so many reasons he should say no. If anything happens to him, it’s Steinberg who will suffer. If they’re ever in a situation where Steinberg is forced to denounce him, Rhoden doesn’t want him to resist. Every bit of attachment will make it so much harder, so much more complicated than it needs to be.

Already guilt gnaws at him for not doing enough to stop the kid from speaking up.

I’m not your friend, he should say. We’re allies of convenience. I’m helping you because I have to–

“Yes,” he says, quietly. “We are friends.”

They walk on in silence for a while. From the corner of his eye, Rhoden can see the way Steinberg blinks rapidly and the smile he can’t stop from spreading over his face. He looks – he looks happy.

The cause of the affection Steinberg evidently has for him eludes Rhoden, but against all reason, a selfish part of him is pleased all the same. Friends , it echoes contentedly. What’s the harm?

The hunting path is much as he remembers. It’s been years since his last visit to Reval, and yet returning here is like awaking from a vivid dream. Somewhere at the core of all things, he’s never left this place, even as it was conquered and bent to the will of the Revolution.

A shadow trails them for a little while, appearing and disappearing between the red trunks of the pines. Unblinking eyes like two beads of Yoldia amber watch them through the heavy morning haze.

There’s some tension in Steinberg’s gait and in the way he glances in the direction of the forest, not to mention that he unsubtly positions himself to Rhoden’s right, as if in preparation for a heroic tackle.

“They’re terrified of you, city boy.” Rhoden gives a short laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s been a mild winter and mice should be abundant under the snow. The only reason it’s watching us is because it’s worried we’re here to shoot its entire family.”

“An understandable concern,” Steinberg remarks, relaxing a little. “I too would be worried about that if I saw two men in black overcoats walking into my house.”

Rhoden raises an eyebrow at that, even as he smiles.

“Don’t get into the habit of making such jokes,” he says.

“Mea culpa, Dr Rhoden,” Steinberg grins at him in response. “You’re right – any of these spindle trees could be in employ of the Third Section.”

Perhaps to defuse the tension of their prior conversation, they pass time with such inconsequential banter for another couple of miles. Then for a while they walk in silence; Rhoden notices with dissatisfaction that Steinberg’s hands in sun-bleached fingerless gloves tremble with the cold.

He regrets not having two flesh-and-blood hands himself. Perhaps then he could warm Steinberg’s fingers between his own.

But no matter. They’re close enough.

“Reval city cemetery,” he announces, after some fiddling with the rusty iron wicket. “The resting place of most of my ancestors on the Estlish side.”

Steinberg looks around for a bit, standing still in the ankle-deep snow covering the overgrown path.

“Are these… oil lamps?” he asks, uncertainly.

“Ah.” Rhoden is dimly surprised he hasn’t noticed it until now. “It’s Toonelaöö. I’ve forgotten. Death’s Night.”

Little flames dance on each grave, the cold blue and translucent gold of them echoing the strip of light growing on the horizon. As Rhoden breathes in the icy resin- and oil-scented air of the place, he wonders if someone did the kind thing of lighting the lamps on the graves he hasn’t been able to tend to for the past few years.

Steinberg looks a question at him, a suddenly serious expression in his eyes. Tell me.

Rhoden hesitates for a moment, then shakes his head. Not right now. The kid’s cold enough without standing around in the snow listening to Rhoden’s personal history.

Later, perhaps.

“Let’s go,” he says, and jerks his chin in the direction of the wrought iron gate just visible on the opposite end of the cemetery grounds. “I can’t wait to roust Rubinstein from his bed at this ungodly hour and see the delight on his face, especially when he spots you.”

Reval sleeps fitfully before them, tart chimney-smoke already rising above some of the decrepit wooden houses on its outskirts. Here and there, the first workers begin to make their way towards the city’s factories.

They walk through the quiet narrow alleyways surrounded on both sides by fruit gardens and finally reach a two-storey green house on a street corner. The tin plaque on it reads ul. Raduzhnaya, 5. This foreign name on the factory-fresh metal covering up the original Estlish plaque is like a face scratched out of a photograph.

He doesn’t want to ring the bell. Am I afraid of what Rubinstein will say to me? he wonders as he rings it anyway, pressing one metal finger against the button with forceful deliberation.

But no, it’s not that.

“Arno, my friend!” Rubinstein cries, when he finally emerges from the depths of the house. His beard is dishevelled and his eyes puffy with sleep, but he smiles broadly at Rhoden. “We were expecting you. Yulia and I arrived yesterday, and– what the fuck.”

He’s caught sight of Steinberg standing a few steps behind Rhoden on the garden path, and the smile melts off his face quicker than butter off a hot pan.

“Leman hashem, Arno,” he says, his voice suddenly high-pitched. “This is the polar opposite of what I asked you to do.”

Rhoden’s throat works once.

“This wasn’t my choice,” he says at last, dryly. “Steinberg stood up and said a whole speech in our defence in front of the doyen, the ideologist, and half the damn faculty. I’m only picking up the pieces.”

“And you didn’t enable him at all, did you?” There’s a dangerous spark in Rubinstein’s yellowish eyes. “There was nothing that prompted it? No dangerous late-night conversation you’ve allowed because you enjoy his admiration for you, because you can’t help but encourage his meshuggeneh ideas?”

Rhoden jerks his head at this as if slapped.

“That’s not why–” He begins hoarsely.

“Dr Rubinstein,” Steinberg interrupts, in warning tones. “I thank you for your concern, but I believe I can answer for myself.”

“And I believe you’ve done quite enough of that already, boy,” barks Rubinstein. Barefoot and swathed in a grey quilted dressing-gown, he cuts a somewhat comical figure even in his fury, especially since the top of his head barely reaches Steinberg’s nose.

For a moment he looks daggers at them both; then, slowly, anger seeps out of his features, his bushy eyebrows drawing together in an expression of shame.

“I apologise,” he says quietly. “I’ve forgotten myself. It’s merely that I felt- but never mind that now. Come on in.”

“I understand,” Rhoden murmurs. “No harm done, Leon.”

He can still feel the pallor on his cheeks like a cold physical thing, and his body is suddenly aching for a smoke. All in all, this could’ve gone worse; but Rubinstein is disturbingly good at going for the jugular, and his accusations are not so quick to retreat from Rhoden’s mind.

Guilty, guilty, something in him whispers feverishly. Live with what you’ve done now.

But worse than that internal voice is the open, affectionate concern with which Steinberg looks at him, as if he’s done nothing wrong at all.

Rubinstein’s house smells like mothballs, pancakes, and wool. There are more rugs on the walls than in the whole weavers’ city of Buxoro. The garish knitted slippers Rubinstein throws at him are silk-soft, which comes in handy: from how quiet the place is, Rhoden assumes Yulia and Iakov are still asleep; and the wooden floors creak dreadfully.

“Help yourself to the stuff in the kitchen,” Rubinstein mutters, before trudging back upstairs to get his beauty sleep.

Rhoden does. He can’t open any windows – Rubinstein has clearly just fired up the stove, and firewood is costly – so smoking is out of the question. Instead, he makes himself tea in a faceted glass with a chipped rim, as bitter and sweet as he can stand, and that’s almost as good.

He makes regular tea for Steinberg, because giving his protégé a chifir habit would just be the cherry on top of the shit cake.

Steinberg watches him silently for a while.

“What was that about?” he asks at last, careful to keep his voice low to avoid waking the Rubinsteins.

“Rubinstein and I have had a few conversations on the subject,” Rhoden says, staring at his tea. “He disapproves of my friendship with you on account of your fifth paragraph.”

“He should mind his own business,” Steinberg snaps, and bites his lower lip. His pale hand lined with sinews clenches into a fist on top of the blue oilcloth patterned with forget-me-nots.

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” Rhoden frowns. “Leon is a good man. He feels responsible for you because he knows what it’s like to be in your shoes.

“And he’s right,” he adds, quieter.

Steinberg stares at him for a few moments, blinking in astonishment.

“How can you think that?” He rakes his fingers through his curls. “I wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for you.”

“Oh nonsense,” Rhoden winces, and downs a mouthful of tea as if it’s a shot of liquor. “They wouldn’t have killed you. And I’m to blame for putting you in that situation to begin with.”

There’s a bit of a pause.

“I don’t think you quite grasp my meaning, doctor,” Steinberg says with a touch of rueful amusement.

“You don’t mean to say–” Rhoden begins, stricken.

With a wry smile, Steinberg mimics tightening something around his neck.

“It got so,” he says, “I started thinking, surely they cannot squander all their money if they only have one child to care for. I just wanted Esther to never be cold again.

“And then, like a miracle, you came along – lang leben zolt ir. And you made me believe that perhaps it was worth it to live.”

Rhoden chokes on his tea.

“Did you not read my note?” Steinberg asks, a little reproachfully.

“I… didn’t have the time,” Rhoden murmurs. I was afraid I’d have a breakdown over what you had to say doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

They simultaneously get up from the table. Rhoden isn’t actually sure what it is he got up for, but Steinberg evidently has enough clarity of purpose for both of them: he wraps his arms around Rhoden and presses his face into Rhoden’s cable-knitted brown waistcoat.

“I’m indebted to you for life,” he murmurs into Rhoden’s shoulder.

You’re not indebted to me, Rhoden wants to say. I won’t hear any debts spoken of again. Or even, what nonsense.

“So for a very long time, then,” he gets out instead, and cringes silently at his own ineptitude. Great job, Arno. Trust you to always say the right thing.

It makes Steinberg laugh, though, in that funny way of his that sounds like he’s got a bad case of hiccups.

“That’s the plan,” he snorts, and tightens the embrace so that his palms rest on Rhoden’s ribs.

Rhoden lets his composure crack, just a little. No harm in it: Steinberg can’t see his face. Then he brings his prosthetic to rest on Steinberg’s left shoulder-blade and raises his good hand to wipe at his own eyes.

He feels – happy is perhaps not the right word. There’s still the slow-churning dark tangle of anxiety underneath his sternum, like a mass of seaweeds swayed by the tide – anxiety over the kid’s future; over the well-being of Esther Steinberg; over what he and Rubinstein will have to do to in the wake of the Parlevo report.

But standing there, in the suffused ivory light of the Reval sun rising in the fog above the city, eases something inside him. A knot is undone. Steinberg is alive and well, and evidently finds Rhoden’s friendship agreeable. The warmth of his body is slowly but surely seeping into the metal of Rhoden’s hand as the warmth of daylight washes over the houses of Reval.

Rhoden is conscious of having done something good. It’s an odd awareness, but sweet and easy to get lost in. Flattering.

Maybe things aren’t so bad after all.

They separate, although Rhoden’s hands linger on Steinberg’s shoulders. Rhoden is sure Steinberg sees that his eyes are wet, but he has the kindness not to mention it.

“I suppose I should show you Rubinstein’s pride and joy,” Rhoden huffs. “His skeletal collection.”

Steinberg lets out a mock groan.

“Not the skeletal collection,” he says. “I’ve heard enough about it. Dr Rubinstein is obsessed with comparative anatomy. Why should I remember what the quadrate bone articulates with? I’m a student of humans, not of crocodiles.”

Despite this protest, Steinberg follows him as Rhoden walks into Rubinstein’s living room and opens the glass doors of an old walnut cupboard. Its shelves are heaped with bone of all shades, from earth-stained dark brown to sun-bleached alabaster.

They soon fall into the familiar teacher-student back-and-forth. The cadence of the conversation soothes Rhoden, allowing his emotions to calm – as he’d hoped it would.

In fact, Rubinstein’s collection consists mostly of mammalian and bird remains. Crocodiles are represented by a single skull, sawed in half to better show the dental profile.

Steinberg probes one sharp fang with his finger. Rhoden can see something stir in the diploë of the brainbox, lazy and deliberate like the beast itself. It shines through the outer layer of the skull in bulrush greens and dark clay yellows, and he squints with curiosity at the slow play of colours.

Steinberg looks at him a little suspiciously.

“You see it in animal bone, too?” he asks.

“Mm-hmm.” Rhoden picks the left half of the skull up with his gloved hand, carefully freeing the bone from the metal wires that hold it. “Why not? They have memories, fears, and attachments just like we do. Though perhaps not the same kind.”

“And what attachments did this reptile have?” Steinberg queries with some scepticism.

“I wouldn’t know,” Rhoden shrugs, though his mouth twitches in amusement. His fingers slide along the margin of the upper jaw, following the current of energy visible only to him. “Some researchers have been able to obtain interpretable images by preparing histological slides of the bone.”

“Preparing them how?” Steinberg asks quickly. “Did they use sanded-down bone sections or slices of decalcified bone?”

There’s a spark in Rhoden’s eye as he flashes Steinberg an approving smile. Were it that all of his students could be this interested in their discipline even after getting expelled and exiled all the way into the Yoldia region.

Not that his heart could stand much more of that. He thinks briefly of Lilya Siliņš, but quickly clamps down on that train of thought. She’s all right, he tells himself. She’s all right, and that’s all there’s to it.

“The last study I read used decalcification,” he tells Steinberg, carefully putting the crocodile skull down. “They soaked some cow femora in EDTA, I think, though don’t quote me on that.

“The big problem with this kind of research is that the authorities have historically tended to disapprove of it. Orthodox claptrap, mostly. The Church thinks that this –” he lightly taps an articulated cat spine with his finger for emphasis, “–is proof of the existence of the soul, and that destroying human remains to study it is sacrilege.”

“And you?” Steinberg asks, his eyes bright with fascination. Rhoden raises an eyebrow.

“What about me? I don’t believe in souls, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He gives it some thought. A sheep skull sitting on the shelf at his eye-level seems to be looking at him with its black funnel-like socket, as if awaiting his judgement with interest.

“I do agree such studies can be reductive,” he says, finally, and flexes his prosthetic a little. It feels like it’s connected to him and yet not; there’s something about it that’s almost like a will not his own. “There’s more to a person than a series of impressions. And memories are too easily misinterpreted, Steinberg.”

***

It takes the Rubinsteins a couple of hours to finally awake and come downstairs. By that time Rhoden’s given Steinberg a full guided tour of Rubinstein’s many and varied skeletal specimens; he’s in the middle of quizzing his protégé on the evolution of teeth when Yulia Rubinstein steps into the room and calls his name.

“Yulia Safatovna,” he says, bowing his head a little.

“Stop bowing like some kind of tzarist,” she says, and kisses him on both cheeks. She’s much as he remembers: tiny, with an inflorescence of wrinkles at the corner of each wood-brown eye and two greying plaits the colour of blued steel. Her kisses smell like washing powder and heavy cream.

She gives Steinberg a hug for good measure and turns to glare at her husband.

“And don’t listen to any of the rubbish Leon has been telling you, either,” she says pointedly. “We’re always happy to see you.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t happy to see him,” Rubinstein grumbles, running a hand over his beard. Yulia rolls her eyes.

“Do you want some of yesterday’s buckwheat?” she asks. “And I’ll heat up a pan of rhubarb kompot to go with it.”

Soon enough they’re joined by Iakov – a gangly sullen teenager with a heap of black curls – and breakfast commences. The buckwheat is richly aromatic and flavoured with dill and pork cracklings. It goes well with the mild tangy texture of the kompot.

Steinberg wolfs his portion down as fast as politeness will allow; watching him, Rhoden feels a stab of protectiveness. I will make damn sure the kid never goes hungry again, he thinks, somewhat unexpectedly for himself. It’s not a commitment he’s ever consciously formulated. Yet it feels natural now, a logical extension of his role in Steinberg’s life. I’m here to help him, he thinks, a statement of purpose that chimes within him in a single pitch-perfect note.

There’s still tension between him and Rubinstein, awkward and heavy like an unwieldy table decoration. To defuse it, Rubinstein launches into some story of how Iakov learned of the superstition concerning five-petalled lilac flowers as a child and got dreadfully sick from eating too many of them. Steinberg pipes up to say that the same thing happened to his little sister; the atmosphere in the room eases a little.

Finally, Rubinstein gestures at the large lacquered “Red Dawn” piano in the corner.

“Perhaps you will play for us, Arno?”

“Aren’t you tired of my repertoire yet?” Rhoden asks, a little reluctantly. The truth is, he’s missed playing, but this particular audience makes him a trifle self-conscious.

“Please, Arno Ottovich,” Yulia chirps. He cringes as if from a sudden bout of toothache.

“Yulechka,” he says, “I will do anything for you if you never call me that again.”

She laughs, and he cracks a smile in response. It’s an old game between him and the Rubinsteins, this riffing on his Estlish origins, and he’s glad of it now.

“What is it about this language and its perverted fixation on patronymics,” he grumbles in mock irritation as he gets up from the table and perches on the piano stool, “that runs counter to all grammatical reason, custom, and common sense? At this rate you may as well start calling me Andrei...”

He flexes his hands, spreads his fingers over the keys, and takes a breath. For a moment there’s nothing in the world but him and the soft play of light on the flats and sharps.

The mercurial leather of his glove squeaks a little against one key, and he winces slightly. There are disadvantages to playing with a prosthetic. Doing it with his bare hands, or even in piano gloves, would result in a sound like that of someone chopping wood or hammering on a nail. The Pots and Pans Quartet in A minor, to be played with five copper sticks.

He grins a little to himself. No matter. There are advantages, too.

The cadence of the piece – Leverkühn’s A Poison Tree – flows through him, cool and effervescent. His fingers know what to do. He’s swept up in the current of music, rising and falling in time with the pulsation of blood in his veins.

In truth, even if he wished to stop, he’s not entirely sure his left hand would obey him. His right one is driven by his skill alone; he’s the master of its joints and sinews, of the way it runs across the keyboard, leaping from the sol of the first octave to the fa of the second and back again.

The left one, cold with metal and oil, is a rather different affair. He knows these motions: he performed them, once, many years ago. It’s that memory that now courses through the rose copper of his joints, electrifying them with life.

His bones remember it all – the war, the grim soot-covered streets of Narov, the golden haze of lime trees in bloom. They remember the music.

Yulia claps her hands once Rhoden plays the final chords, and for a moment the happiness in her smile makes her look just like a schoolgirl at the Song Festival. She’d only need a wreath of poppies or daisies in her hair to fit into the summer crowds Rhoden recalls from decades ago, when Yoldia was still independent.

Rubinstein watches him with softened eyes; Rhoden still can’t quite bear to hold his gaze for more than a few moments, and so he looks away.

Iakov nods with appreciation, a catlike grin on his features. He recognizes a fellow pianist when he sees one - the “Red Dawn” is undoubtedly his. Rhoden nods back at him.

Then there’s Steinberg.

“I didn’t even know you could play,” he blurts. “Let alone –” He searches for an appropriate superlative and fails, “let alone like this.”

Rhoden would be consumed with embarrassment at their reactions if he weren’t suddenly concerned for the kid.

“Are you quite all right?” he frowns, getting up and returning to the table. “I didn’t mean to- I hope I haven’t upset you.”

Steinberg shakes his head.

“You didn’t upset me,” he says, and sniffles a little. Then he wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his plaid shirt and gives Rhoden an embarrassed lopsided smile. “Sorry. Good music does this to me sometimes.”

“Oh,” Rhoden says. He considers himself a decent pianist, but it’s been a while since anyone cried over something he played.

It makes him feel at once proud and endeared. And there’s a great deal of tenderness, too, which he’s not sure what to do with.

“Ignore me,” says Steinberg, half-sobbing, half-laughing into his kompot. Rhoden sits down next to him, reaches into the breast-pocket of his waistcoat, and produces a crisply white handkerchief. He gives Steinberg an energetic but rather awkward pat on the shoulder and slides the handkerchief over to him.

“Thanks,” Steinberg says a little nasally.

Breakfast finished, they sit there for a bit, chatting about this and that. Rubinstein, looking a good deal more benevolent than before, grunts and opens a packet of brown oat biscuits. Two things Rhoden’s never known Rubinstein to deny himself: good alcohol and frankly ridiculous amounts of sugar.

“How much have you told him about Parlevo, Arno?” Rubinstein asks through a mouthful of biscuit. Yulia frowns a little at this turn of conversation, but makes no attempt to interrupt them.

“He’s read the report,” Rhoden shrugs. Rubinstein brushes the crumbs out of his appropriately leonine beard and gives Steinberg a pensive look.

“I suppose he knows enough, then,” he murmurs, and pauses for a bit. There’s a sharp spark in his eye. “Do you have questions for us?”

“Only one question, Dr Rubinstein,” says Steinberg, tapping the darkened wood of the table with one freckled finger. Rubinstein makes a vaguely inviting gesture, and Steinberg continues, “It was a big group – at least a dozen specialists, I believe. Surely it would’ve been hard to reach a consensus on how to proceed?”

It was and it wasn’t. Rhoden remembers the actual moment de vérité being at once quite final and peculiarly underwhelming. It was the height of summer, and the camp stewed in its own sweat and orange clay dust. The outline of the remains in the triple grave in the middle of the dig had only just begun to form, the discoloured finger bones emerging from the ground like the first shoots of toothwort in spring.

The awareness that something was terribly off about their find had been hanging over the group for days. The greasy, glistening look of the new bones hinted at things no one quite wanted to voice.

That morning Yulia Rubinstein had found a bullet and held it up for all to see. It shone under the blistering sun, a miniature silvery drop of the poison that would be the end of the Parlevo group.

He remembers taking a break from the excavation shortly after that and coming across Nella Vinogradova sitting on a fallen silver-fir and taking long, leisurely swigs out of her thermal flask. Yulia had half of the camp hooked on the Tatar custom of drinking hot tea in summer, although her attempts at promoting the drinking of thick creamy kazan chai were still a work in progress.

“Mind if I sit?” he asked Nella, and she nodded at him a little. In her hand, pressed firmly between sweaty fingers, was a scrap of paper she’d evidently been using to draft something.

“I should pack up before noon,” she said, after a while. “Otherwise it’ll take me too long to walk back to Parlevo. The district militia officer will be off duty by then.”

She made no move to stand, however.

“Yulia estimated that stratum dates to the years of the Pleskov rebellion,” Rhoden remarked quietly. “They all know this is not the work of a criminal, Nellochka. And they can walk away if they wish.”

They, he said. He supposes he never contemplated walking away himself. He’s always felt a kind of protective bond with the remains he unearthed. To walk away from the Artzishevskys would’ve been a betrayal; he couldn’t leave those bones uncared for.

In the end, it was less a matter of action and more a matter of inaction. Nella never did speak with the district militia officer. And that evening they all sat by the fallen fir, exhausted and sunburnt, and drank tea together. They spoke of inconsequential things, and Yulia made him try kazan chai for the first time.

He tries to explain this to Steinberg as best he can. It’s somehow very important to him that the kid understands the exact nature of their motivations. Of his motivation.

“There was never a verbalised consensus,” he says, laughing a little. “We didn’t come together and unanimously vote to ruin our own careers. But I think there was a feeling of collective purpose.”

Steinberg gives this some thought.

“You weren’t afraid that someone would sell you out?” he asks at last, sharply.

Rhoden and Rubinstein exchange significant looks.

“Someone did sell us out, boy,” Rubinstein says. Perhaps it’s the play of light from the sun reaching its zenith in the window, but it’s hard to tell whether his expression is a smile or a scowl. “We still don’t know who.”

“I rather think he or she merely hastened the inevitable,” Rhoden counters mildly. “But it is true the authorities were informed of our activities before we started circulating the report.”

He takes his pipe out of the pocket of his trousers and begins slowly and deliberately stuffing it with tobacco from a blue-and-brown leather pouch. The red cherry wood gleams dully, polished from years of use.

Rubinstein always gets rather emotional when talking about politics, let alone politics concerning him personally. Rhoden prefers not to stoke the flames, both out of consideration for Steinberg’s presence and out of concern for Rubinstein’s own blood pressure.

When he raises his gaze, however, it’s not Rubinstein’s expression that gives him pause.

“I hope that farshtunkeneh stukach dies in agony,” Steinberg snarls, and for a moment there’s real fury in his eyes – the kind of pale fire that makes others recoil or else infects them like a disease. Rhoden’s had a glimpse of it before; first when Steinberg spoke of his family’s mistreatment of Esther, and then later, when he and Steinberg discussed Rubinstein’s outburst.

Somewhere underneath all that cheer and confidence, the kid has a serious explosive streak. No wonder, with his life.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rhoden notices Iakov stare. Yulia looks at them askance before whispering something into Iakov’s ear; they both get up and leave the room.

Is this rage at the idea of betrayal or for me personally? Rhoden wonders. And if the latter, then should I be moved or concerned?

Rubinstein, however, seems to have no such qualms.

“You have the right idea about that,” he says, grinning. “It’s what the tuches-leckers of this state deserve.”

He gets up from the table and smooths his greying hair with one hand.

“And now I shall leave you, my friends,” he announces. “I am called to a higher purpose: I need to sell some apples.”

There is a smell of apples wafting over from the corridor, now that Rhoden thinks about it – the smell that evokes memories of steaming pies and cold autumn mornings.

“Funny, that,” Rubinstein comments. “A month ago I could’ve sworn I had a doctorate in zooarchaeology. When I look at my papers now, though, they just say wipe your ass with this, Dr Apple Seller .”

“How quaint,” Rhoden murmurs. “The exact same thing happened to me.”

“And I’ve just graduated with a degree in Go Fuck Yourself,” Steinberg pipes up, clearly proud of this opportunity to swear in the presence of his teachers. Rhoden shoots him a look of mild reproach. It might even be effective if it weren’t for Rubinstein thundering in the background, “I have an assload of the cocksucking apples, Arno! An assload!”

***

The kid didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, and food and warmth are clearly having their effect on him. Once Rubinstein departs, it doesn’t take long for Steinberg to doze off on the old plush sofa in the corner of the dining room. Iakov is upstairs; and Yulia has gone to attend to some business of hers, leaving behind the smell of honeysuckle perfume and a breath of cold air. The house is lethargically quiet – a little carpeted universe of its own.

Then Rhoden fishes the meticulously folded pages of Steinberg’s letter out of his pocket and begins to read.

My dear Dr Rhoden, it reads.

I cannot adequately express the depth of the

I will always hold you in the highest regard

A year ago, on a black winter evening much like today’s evening, you first offered me to play a game of shatranj. I was a weak and inexperienced player, even if you did have the kindness to say that I had a lot of potential . For all my amateurism, I took a lot of pleasure in the game; but that was not the only nor the main reason I accepted your offer. The truth is, I would’ve happily agreed to juggle live electric eels if it meant I didn’t need to go home just yet.

I was desperate and, to put it in thematically relevant terms, ready to employ Luzhin’s defence against the whole of the world. Only a few days ago I had made a noose out of my father’s old tie and considered if it’d hold me. I had concluded it would not.

For all the sugar you’d been putting in my tea – don’t think I did not notice – I was still more bone than flesh; but even so that ancient strip of once-fashionable satin would’ve snapped.

It was as a consequence of this fortunate fact that I lived to accept your offer of a game.

In five moves you had me beaten. I could see clearly that you would take my firz and lock my shah into a stalemate. I saw you see this, too. You traced the moves with your eyes as you thought – I did not know what you thought then. Now, I believe I can guess.

You took your alfil piece and moved it in an entirely different direction, Dr Rhoden.

It’s laughable to remember now, but I was insulted. I believed you meant to let me win out of pity, perhaps, or condescension. What can I say? I’m not always particularly bright.

Yet an hour later I lost again, and this time you did not spare me. Didn’t even let me have the dignity of a surrender. Your firz stood victorious on the near-empty board and you waited for me to tip my shah over in recognition of your victory before offering me another glass of tea.

Your intention was never to lose to me, but to keep me playing for longer. I knew it then.

I came home late that day, and decided that I would live.

It is my hope that I can repay you even for a fraction of what you’ve done for me. But if I cannot, I wish you to know, at least, that I cannot begin to express the extent of the gratitude I feel towards you.

I’m sorry.

Your friend always,

Yours very sincerely,

Alexander Steinberg.

Rhoden carefully folds the letter back up. The little square of cheap grainy paper fits neatly into his breast pocket, between two layers of fine wool. He’ll need to store it somewhere safer, later. Reval, being a coastal city, has unpredictable weather; it won’t do for the letter to get wet if Rhoden finds himself caught in the rain.

He goes through to the kitchen, stepping softly so as not to wake Steinberg up. Closes the door behind him. It’s really just a wooden frame with a panel of tinted glass in it, throwing raspberry-red and golden-yellow reflections on the floor, but it does muffle the sound a bit. The kid’s a good sleeper. He won’t hear.

Maybe it wasn’t all for nothing, he thinks, and carefully puts one hand over his mouth. It feels as if the nerves and veins around his solar plexus are unspooling from their intricate arrangements, creating a void just behind his breastbone. A queer sensation. It hasn’t happened to him in a long time.

Maybe it wasn’t all for nothing. Living through the Narov occupation, Erika’s death, the annexation of Yoldia – maybe something good did come out of it.

He lets himself cry it out for a few minutes. It makes his throat ache something fierce, his breath coming in ineffectual irregular gasps. The leather of his glove tastes salty.

There, he thinks to himself afterwards. That’s done now. That’s enough. The burning of grief and love in him hasn’t gone, but it’s duller, more distant for the moment. And there are other things to attend to – things that won’t wait for him to indulge in his emotions.

For one, there’s the matter of Esther Steinberg. He knows just whom to contact. Probably better to do it from a street phone; a walk through the city should do wonders to clear his head, too.

Rhoden gets up, washes his face at the kitchen sink, and pokes his head into the living room. Satisfied to see Steinberg still sound asleep, he exits the house and walks through the Rubinsteins’ apple garden into the street.

Covered in snow, Reval sparkles under the sun like a sea pearl. The Gothic towers and steep red roofs of the Old City throw a shadow over the industrial districts, just as centuries ago they overshadowed the surrounding villages. The streets smell of woodsmoke and winter; and a faint scent of yeast wafts over from the river, on whose shores stands the local brewery.

Reval’s street phones remain from the time before the occupation. They largely match Rhoden’s memories from two decades ago, except for the crudely painted red eagles on the glass doors of the booths. Whoever was hired to do the job clearly had little artistic talent and a very questionable understanding of avian anatomy.

He drops two coins into the slot and waits through a good half a minute of beeping and crackling. Intercity connection around here is nothing to write home about. Or phone home about, rather.

“Poltanov speaking. Who is it?”

The three-pack-a-day voice is all too familiar. He’d not mistake this metallic, mean note in it for anything.

“Arno Rhoden,” he says, steeling himself.

“Ah,” Poltanov says, meaningfully, and pauses for added effect. “Haven’t heard from you in a long time, doctor.”

“Not much to talk about,” Rhoden lies. “Listen, Poltanov, I’ve a favour to ask of you. There’s this kid--”

“We’ve been through this, Rhoden. My responsibility is for all the children of Kronstadt. If something crops up, we’ll deal with it as per procedure.”

“I’m not asking you for all the children of Kronstadt,” Rhoden says irritably. “Just the one. Esther Steinberg, 6th Line of Zhadimirovsky Island.”

“Well, I don’t have to see her fifth paragraph to know what it says,” Poltanov laughs. Rhoden briefly imagines violently strangling him until his watery eyes pop out of his sockets and his face turns a satisfying shade of spinach red.

“You owe me,” he says with some difficulty.

“So I do,” Poltanov agrees. “Don’t worry, Rhoden. I’ll keep an eye on your Esther. Whatever else you think I may be, I’m not one to break my promises.”

Relief washes over Rhoden as he steps out of the phone booth. He exhales the persistent smell of plastic and dirty copper and inhales the cold winter air. This wasn’t a favour he enjoyed calling in, but for the Steinberg kids he’d brave worse than Poltanov.

Alexander and Esther, he says to himself experimentally. He knows little about Esther, but he finds that he’s fond of her already – because Steinberg is. He wonders if she’d like Iakov’s old childhood toys, and whether she’d enjoy Estlish food.

The call is a weight off his heart. He wanders a little through the city afterwards, walking closer to the centre. Stands in front of a shop window backlit with brilliant light and full of tiny frilly cakes, each topped with a generous scoop of whipped cream and candied rhubarb. The city is mysteriously experiencing a shortage of fish – Reval’s main export – but candied rhubarb is evidently in abundance. Rhoden will never understand the bizarre pattern of deficits the Venlish economy brings with it.

By the time he’s gone through the city market and circled back to the Rubinsteins’ house, the sun has already gone past its zenith. Rhoden walks over to the porch, leans against the old wooden wall, and takes his pipe out of his pocket. It’s been at least twenty-four hours since he last smoked, and the blasted business with Rubinstein certainly hasn’t made it easy on him.

Steinberg emerges from the front door just as if he’s been waiting for Rhoden’s return.

“Don’t stand in the smoke,” Rhoden says automatically. “It’s bad for your lungs.”

“It’s great for yours, I take it,” Steinberg says, and doesn’t leave.

Seeing the kid brings back the memory of the letter, and Rhoden gets all verklempt again. Having feelings, he finds, is a very inconvenient affair.

“I, ah, contacted someone,” he murmurs. “For Esther.”

Steinberg looks at him sharply, happiness wrestling with anxiety in his expression. His mouth twists into a worried half-smile.

“Who?” he asks.

“His name is Andrei Poltanov,” Rhoden says. “He’s the current komissar of the Kronstadt Children’s Welfare and Education Committee.

“A long time ago, I rendered him a service by working as an expert witness for the defence during an inquiry into some unsavoury incidents in his organisation. For that, he owes me a favour.”

“That must’ve cost him,” Steinberg remarks, “if you were willing to take a break from lecturing.”

Rhoden’s face distorts as if he’s swallowed an entire lemon whole. “There weren’t any costs,” he says, inhaling a great lungful of sweetish tobacco-flavoured air. “I did it pro bono.”

A surprised wrinkle forms just above the bridge of Steinberg’s nose. “Was he innocent?”

“No,” Rhoden replies, glumly. “He was guilty as sin. If perhaps not quite of the things he was accused of.”

He stares at the branches of the apple trees, covered in a fine layer of ice like candy in glaze. Recounting this part of his life to Steinberg is surprisingly difficult. Rubinstein was right – the kid does admire him. And perhaps this admiration isn’t wholly warranted, but Rhoden is a selfish man and he’s come to value this friendship entirely too highly to jeopardise it.

“I had a student back then,” he goes on, nevertheless. “A kid in the custody of the state. Poltanov had the power to help, to get better conditions, better opportunities… In exchange, I agreed to represent him.

“Poltanov- He was-” He doesn’t rightly know how to explain it.

Fifteen years ago, when Rhoden himself was just a young adjunct with a heavy Estlish accent, Andrei Poltanov left the university with a freshly-minted degree in medicine. Rhoden remembers his round face with crabapple-red cheeks and large blue eyes; the embarrassed smile Poltanov constantly greeted others with, as though he were a child afraid to admit to eating more than his fair share of butter.

With this same smile he accepted dirty ten-rouble banknotes from worried husbands, and hemfuls of fresh eggs from the old women coming from the little villages around Kronstadt, and bottles of golden cognac from those in the surgical wards.

Perhaps this petty corruption was the beginning of Poltanov’s downfall; perhaps it was merely an unrelated circumstance. After all, what young doctor can hope to survive on the Venlish state wages?

“By the time Poltanov was in a position of real power, all these eggs and cognac had added up to something monstrous,” Rhoden says. “Or maybe that was the reason he ended up in a position of power to begin with. Either way, the impoverished idealist I knew was gone and replaced with a greedy bureaucrat. And if I wanted his help, I had to pay.”

Steinberg’s expression is odd. There’s no judgement in it, but not a great deal of understanding, either. His eyes glisten feverishly; in truth, he barely seems to have taken anything in beyond the fact that Esther will be cared after.

No wonder. The kid’s gone through way too much in the past week.

“The KCWE will make sure Esther’s clothed and fed, and that they have enough firewood,” Rhoden tells him, and sighs. “Might get the district ideologist on your father’s case, too, to try to dissuade him from drinking. Not that I expect this will do much. But it should tide her over until we come up with a more permanent solution.”

“Thank you,” Steinberg blurts, seizing the sleeve of Rhoden’s coat. A sense of desperate relief is written across his face, the intensity of it sharpening his already angular features.

Rhoden smiles at him as reassuringly. There’s a steady warmth around his heart, a little shielded flame burning bright in the confines of muscle and connective tissue. He imagines it being electric blue, something to do with the cardiac conduction system, perhaps.

A part of him, though, wonders also if he deserves Steinberg’s gratitude for this, and if Steinberg wouldn’t take a rather different view of his relationship with Poltanov if Esther weren’t his main and pressing concern.

There’s something dirty in the way they’re all entangled in this system – he, Poltanov, even Rubinstein. It’s a web, a game of tug, a shatranj match played against one’s own left hand. A favour for a favour; a lie for a lie. The machine chugs on, powered by the unwashable filth of it all as surely as by fire and oil.

But it is Esther’s life that’s at stake, and Steinberg doesn’t seem to care about anything else, and Rhoden’s dug through enough dirt and rot over the years that it seems hypocritical to care about another stain, either on his clothes or on his conscience.

He pats Steinberg’s upper arm and half-closes his eyes for a moment, mulling something over.

“Come with me,” he says finally. “I’ll show you Reval. You could do with a walk.”

Steinberg obediently retrieves his coat and they make their way down the street, into a winding close that spirals towards the sea coast. The cobblestones under their feet crackle with ice, and a couple of terns drifting in the wind above their heads let out sharp clipped calls.

“I know this little café around the corner,” Rhoden remarks. “Wonder if it’s still there. We could have a cup of tea or three and then head towards the sea.”

“I will pay,” Steinberg declares, and Rhoden has to stifle a laugh to not appear unkind.

“I appreciate the intention, my friend,” he says, “but I’m sure Rubinstein and I will manage for a time. Save that money for yourself.”

“I will pay,” Steinberg reiterates, proud as anything. Rhoden raises a hand in amused acquiescence. Perhaps he can sneak a rouble or two into the kid’s pocket later and pretend it was there all along, thinks he.

They exit the close and turn into a little alley wedged between two tall stone walls. It’s warmer here and less windy, and the air smells like wet stucco.

The café is still there. It seems to have changed owners, received a new coat of paint, and acquired a new name (A Moment of Spring – rather unnecessarily pretentious, thinks Rhoden). But the lacquered wooden tables, gleaming yellow under the overhead lamp, are familiar: Rhoden himself left many a tea ring on them when he came here to study for his licentia doctorandi.

Changing everything in a place except the furniture seems like an apt metaphor for something – Rhoden isn’t entirely sure what.

He shakes the snow off his coat and walks in.

“Good evening,” the cashier says in accented Venlish. She’s a woman in her fifties, her hair dyed red with henna and her eyelids coated in metallic pink eyeshadow.

“Evening,” Rhoden says in Estlish, and smiles – half at her, half at Steinberg, encouraging him to repeat.

Steinberg nods. “Evening,” he says, a little awkwardly. The word comes out sharp, sounding more Cimbric than Ugric. Rhoden’s delighted at it beyond all measure, all the same, and the look on his face when he turns to look at the cashier is that of a professor whose favourite student just finished transcribing a particularly challenging mediaeval manuscript.

She smiles back at them, her laugh lines deepening.

“Not something I hear from the Venlish very often,” she says. “His first time in Yoldia?”

Rhoden nods. “We’ve only arrived yesterday. I’ve been… away.”

The word is small and underwhelming. It doesn’t come close to describing the evacuation from Narov and the two decades he spent in Kronstadt. But then again, what could?

“Then he needs to try our rhubarb and rum rolls first.”

“I do think that’ll be a better introduction to local cuisine than bread soup,” Rhoden concedes.

Bread soup isn’t bad, not really. He knows from experience, however, that the sight of glistening dark brown goo tends to scare and perplex those not from the region. Last time he tried to feed some to Rubinstein, he never managed to convince the man it wasn’t a particularly bizarre hangover cure.

They sit down at one of the tables and sip St John’s wort tea from tall narrow glasses. Rhoden can feel his face and his right hand grow warmer.

“I shouldn’t do that too much,” he muses. “Speak Estlish to others, that is. It attracts attention. Still, you’ve done well, kid – we’ll teach you the language yet.”

“I think you should do it all the time,” Steinberg says combatively, and stabs his roll with a dainty silver-plated spoon. “I want to learn. The local authorities can shove it.”

If only it were that simple. But in his heart of hearts, Rhoden is viscerally pleased. This is not how he would’ve chosen to come back; and Steinberg deserved better than having to flee. Yet there’s something amazing in being here now, and in being able to show all this to the kid.

He shouldn’t think of leaving Kronstadt as a good thing, but a part of him can’t help itself. Perhaps there’s truth to the way Steinberg sees the world: as a tangle of blinding light and forbidding darkness. Perhaps leaving was a step into the light.

They finish their tea in contented silence, Rhoden keeping his prosthetic carefully away from the glass. Because the metal is highly conductive, it tends to overheat; and besides, he prefers not to risk it around boiling liquids.

Steinberg’s nose and the tips of his ears have grown endearingly red. Rhoden wonders if it’s the warmth of the café or if Steinberg’s roll had more rum in it than he’d expected.

He stands up. “I’ll show you the beach nearby,” he tells the kid. “And then we’ll head back. Yulia will be concerned if we’re gone too long.”

An odd sense of déjà vu comes over him as they walk out into the streets of Reval together. Almost as if Steinberg was once a presence in his life before – although that is, of course, impossible. The kid was born after the occupation of Narov.

The false memories flit past him like landscapes outside a train window. A different reality.

The truth – the truth Rhoden avoided acknowledging to himself even after they left Kronstadt – is that he needs Steinberg, and perhaps as much as Steinberg needs him. That helping Steinberg is vitally important to him, and not merely insofar as it is vitally important to help anyone who’s hurting and vulnerable.

The truth is that there was more than one reason he hadn’t stalemated Steinberg’s shah on that bitter evening before last New Year’s Eve.

But that is of no matter. The kid has enough burdens of his own to last him a lifetime.

Rhoden raises the collar of his coat. “You know,” he says, “this beach was the beginning of my infatuation with osteology. I was just a child then. The crab catchers would leave their traps on the quay, and I’d go through them every day in search of fish skulls. Codfish remains especially were my heart’s desire.

“With their crests and multicomponent jaws, they looked like the bones of tiny dragons. There’s nothing like a codfish skull to make one believe in evolution.”

Steinberg makes an appreciative sound, his eyes sparkling with a strange mixture of admiration and ill concealed amusement. Rhoden doesn’t mind. One has to see to believe, and he thinks he might find a skull or two in the frosted tangle of wires that even now rests on the edge of the quay just above the swaying tide.

The ice hasn’t taken the sea here – a warm current touches Yoldia at the shores of Reval, softening the city’s climate and creating comfortable habitats for bug-eyed blue Cimbric lobsters and miniature electric eels.

Rhoden takes off his gloves: first the one from the good hand and then the one concealing the prosthetic. A gentle wind touches his hands and whistles slightly in the spaces between the metal wires of his artificial ligaments.

He steps onto the rock formation next to the quay, the stones slippery with seaweeds, and walks forward, the skirt of his long coat flapping in the wind. Carefully crosses the gap between the rocks and the concrete, and lowers himself onto the surface of the quay next to the crab cages.

The Yoldia sea moves quietly below, gunmetal and turquoise, a presence that feels at once mindless and strangely all-seeing.

His left hand is perfect for this. It moves the wires aside easily; the coarse slurry of ice and sand doesn’t hurt it, and the chilly wind doesn’t numb its joints.

There it is: a translucent crest of grey and yellow bone sticking out of the ice crystals. Rhoden carefully clamps it between his metal fingers and manoeuvres the whole thing out of the cage. It’s a perfectly preserved skull, save for a few clumps of salt growing on the mandible. The first ten or so vertebrae are also intact, although they’re starting to come apart and their connection to the skull is flimsy at best.

“Your fine motor control is pretty impressive,” Steinberg remarks, jerking his chin at Rhoden’s prosthetic.

Rhoden flashes him a grin and shrugs a little. “Yes and no. It’s connected directly to the bones of the forearm, and as such runs solely on the memories my ulna and radius retain of the original hand and its movements.

“It can perform any task with a reasonable degree of accuracy, as long as it’s a task I knew how to perform twenty-three years ago.”

Steinberg gives this a little thought and then nods. “You asked Rubinstein if he was tired of your repertoire,” he says.

“I didn’t know that many pieces well when I was twenty,” Rhoden responds, curling his lip.

He puts the codfish skull down on the concrete surface of the quay. Owing to the need to orientate themselves underwater, many marine species have colour vision, and codfish are no exception. Under the lace thin outer layer, the skull is an iridescent cyan.

Something crunches under the metal of his thumb as he shifts his weight. It’s not the fish bones – he’s been careful not to put undue pressure on those. It’s something larger but similarly textured, dry and smooth. Rhoden thinks he sees a few vibrant specks of colour in the sand, and he feels a sudden jolt of alarm.

But it’s too late. Something is already dragging him under, clawing him out of his body, reshaping his mind like a piece of clay.

He’s plunged into a depthless midnight blue. His lungs are full of water; his vision swims. Salt eats at his mouth and his eyes. It’s cold, so cold he can barely move, and he can feel the blood from his limbs surge towards his heart in a desperate attempt to keep him conscious.

Doctor, someone says urgently. Rhoden. Are you well? Talk to me.

Someone’s hands on his shoulders. The splashing of water against the concrete. Rhoden, please. The tone of these last words is visceral, distorted with fear. A brokh!

It isn’t right that he should be afraid. Rhoden is hazy on exactly who this is, but he doesn’t need to remember the name to feel a surge of warmth and protectiveness at the sound of this voice.

With a gasp he emerges from the suffocating depths, leaving behind the icy memories of the sea. He’s still sitting on the edge of the quay; Steinberg – it was Steinberg calling his name – stands in front of him, ankle deep in the tide, his bony face so pale even his freckles have gone an unhealthy shade of grey.

“Is your chest hurting?” he demands, squeezing Rhoden’s shoulders. “Raise your hands above your head.”

Rhoden huffs with relieved laughter. “I’m not having a stroke,” he reassures, slumping forward a little. Steinberg catches him in a half-embrace, clearly concerned that he’ll fall. “Or a heart attack.”

How very like Steinberg it is to try to render him first aid even at his own expense. The kid’s probably putting himself in more danger than Rhoden ever was by standing in the winter sea.

“Alexander,” Rhoden says, carefully getting off the quay and wading towards the shore. He’s still weak, his breathing shallow and his movements unsure. “I promise I’m not dying. Now get the hell out of there and let’s get you home.”

He puts one arm over Steinberg’s shoulders, half to ensure he doesn’t actually slip and fall into the sea and half in a gesture of affection. The kid’s shivering, of course, but not too badly. They’ll live.

***

“I was gone for a day,” Rubinstein thunders, gesturing accusingly at Rhoden. “For a day, Arno! And off you went, davka to have a seizure and throw yourself into the sea!”

“I did not throw–” Rhoden begins, pacifically.

Rubinstein waves this off in disgust. “Oh, zey shtil!”

Lying on the sofa under a fluffy red blanket of rough wool Yulia threw over him, Rhoden perceives himself to be at a tactical disadvantage. Annoyingly, the sofa can’t accommodate his full height and his long legs dangle off the edge, which doesn’t exactly make him feel more dignified.

Steinberg, who has also been wrapped in a blanket and forced to put his feet into a basin full of hot water and mustard powder (a traditional remedy, Yulia said – traditional of what, Rhoden isn’t sure), grins at him from behind Rubinstein’s back. He’s still a little off colour and keeps watching Rhoden anxiously, as if expecting him to keel over at any moment; but his sense of humour, at least, seems to have made a fine recovery.

“You’re right,” Rhoden shrugs, and Rubinstein falls silent, disarmed. “It is my fault. My doc did hint that something like this might happen. My only excuse is that it’s been decades and I have grown complacent.”

He opens his good hand. In the centre of it, cold white against the pink of his skin and the purple of his veins, lies a shattered vertebra.

Yulia, who’s sitting on the arm of the sofa next to his head, eyes the vertebra with curiosity. So, surprisingly, does Iakov. Rhoden hasn’t seen much of him as of recent; Rubinstein did mention his son wasn’t the social sort. But he sits there now, watching Rhoden with Yulia’s light brown eyes, his face contorted in an embarrassed smile.

Rhoden appreciates that: he remembers being a socially awkward youth longing to study anatomy and play his piano instead of having to interact with adults.

He gives Iakov a conspiratorial wink.

“This is a cervical vertebra of a young seal,” he says, turning the bone over in his fingers. He runs his thumb over the corpus vertebrae, and his eyes glaze over with recollection. “My hand was created to be receptive to osteological signals, but the people who made it were unsure if it would know dead from alive or human from non-human.”

“And you’ve never experienced this before?” Yulia asks.

“Sticking my bare fingers directly into cancellous bone never was my first impulse as an osteologist, Yulechka.”

“How did you acquire this prosthetic?” Steinberg asks with a frown. “This doesn’t seem like standard medical technology.”

Ever since they crossed the Reval city boundary and walked through the graveyard, Rhoden has been meaning to talk about that. He has. But he remembers Steinberg’s letter and that memory seals his lips better than any vow of secrecy.

“I fled Narov with a group of other refugees before the Scarlet Skein troops took the city,” he blurts, somewhat to his own bafflement. Rubinstein raises one bushy eyebrow, and Rhoden avoids looking at him. “My parents, Otto and Õnne Rhoden, died when I was a child. After Erika’s death I didn’t have anyone left in Yoldia, and nothing held me there.

“In Kronstadt, I met a medical doctor who was doing a study on new prosthetic technologies. Nowadays they try to work with the nervous system more, I believe, but back then osteological prosthetics were the height of innovation.

“I signed on. Out of curiosity.”

He feels very tired, suddenly, and like he could fall asleep then and there. Noticing this exhaustion, Yulia ushers Iakov out of the room; she gives Steinberg a few moments to put some socks on and leads him away, as well, despite his protests. Silence settles around Rhoden as the sound of their footsteps disappears upstairs.

“So,” Rubinstein says after a while. “Your parents died when you were a child, eh? Interesting backstory. What are you, little Lord fucking Fauntleroy?”

Rhoden groans and rests the back of his hand against his forehead. “Leave it be, Leon. I couldn’t do it.”

“And whyever not?” Rubinstein asks mildly, walking over to the wall cupboard and taking out a bottle of “Three Sevens” port.

“Don’t you understand?” Rhoden’s mouth twists into a grimace. “I’m the only thing standing between him and the state, between him and his family, between his sister and the nearest Kronstadt orphanage. I’m here to protect him. He can’t be burdened with my pains and fears. It would be selfish to tell him any more.”

That’s half the truth. But his friend won’t scrutinise it too closely; not now.

And, indeed, Rubinstein gives him a long look, the exasperation in his expression giving way to a kind of pained fondness.

“My poor friend,” he sighs, pouring some port into a glass. “You wouldn’t know how to be properly selfish if selfishness came with a step by step instruction manual.

“Come now. We’ll have a drink, and you’ll sleep. As they say, at night comes counsel to the wise.”

“But Leon–”

“I’ll mix you up something non-alcoholic. I’ve known you twenty years, Arno – you don’t have to remind me that you’re a dreadful stick in the mud.”