The only light in the room came from the ceiling directly above the chair, where a naked bulb hung in a metal cage.

A man sat in the chair, chained by each wrist to the forward legs. He was a tall man, and the way he had been chained caused him to stoop over in a manner which reminded Pekkala of a sprinter crouched before the beginning of a race.

Dirty, graying hair stuck out on the sides of his head, leaving a wide sweep of baldness in between. His ears were large, as was his soft, round chin, speckled with a two days’ growth of beard. The man’s eyes, set into a shallow brow, were as smoky blue as those of a newborn baby.

Katamidze wore the same beige cotton pajamas which Pekkala had worn at the outset of his journey to the Gulag. He recalled the humiliating thinness of the cloth, the way it stuck to the backs of his legs when he sweated, and the perverse absence of a drawstring, so that a prisoner had to hold up his pants all the time.

“Katamidze,” said the attendant, “I have someone to see you.”

“This isn’t my usual cell,” replied the man.

“Now then, Katamidze,” crooned the attendant. “Do you see the man I’ve brought to meet you?”

“I see him.” His gaze fixed on Pekkala. “So you are the Emerald Eye?”

“Yes,” said Pekkala.

“Prove it,” said Katamidze.

Pekkala turned up his lapel. In the glare of the metal-caged bulb, the emerald flashed.

“They told me you were dead.”

“A slight exaggeration,” replied Pekkala.

“I said I’d only speak to you.” Katamidze looked at the attendant. “In private.”

“Very well,” said Pekkala.

“I am not authorized to leave you alone with the patient,” the attendant protested.

“I won’t talk to anyone but the inspector,” said Katamidze. After he had finished speaking, his mouth continued to move, but without making any sound.

Pekkala watched the words which formed upon the prisoner’s lips and realized that Katamidze was repeating the last few words of every sentence, like an echo of himself inside his head. He also noticed that the right ankle and left wrist of the prisoner were badly swollen where he had been chained to the wall of his cell.

“It’s against regulations,” the attendant persisted.

“Go,” replied Pekkala.

The attendant looked as if he were about to spit on the floor. “Fine, but this man is classified as dangerous. Stay away from him. I won’t be held responsible for what he’ll do to you if you come too close.”

When the two men were finally alone, Pekkala sat down on the floor with his back to the wall. He did not want Katamidze to feel as if he were being interrogated.

“What season is it now?” asked Katamidze.

“Nearly autumn. The leaves are beginning to turn.”

A smile flickered across Katamidze’s face. “I remember the smell of the leaves on the ground after the first frost. You know, I had begun to believe them when they told me you were dead.”

“I was, in a manner of speaking.”

“Then you should thank me, Inspector Pekkala, for bringing you back from the world of the dead! And now you have something to live for.”

“Yes,” said Pekkala, “I do.”

Ilya and Pekkala stood on the crowded railway platform of the Nikolaevsky station in Petrograd.

It was the last week of February 1917.

Entire army regiments-the Volhynin, the Semyonovsky, the Preobrazhensky-had mutinied. Many of the officers had already been shot. The clattering of machine-gun fire sounded from the Likjeiny Prospekt. Along with the army, striking factory workers and sailors from the fortress island of Kronstadt began systematically looting the shops. They stormed the offices of the Petrograd Police and destroyed the Register of Criminals.

The Tsar had finally been persuaded to send in a troop of Cossacks to battle the Revolutionaries, but the decision came too late. Seeing that the Revolution was gaining momentum, the Cossacks themselves had rebelled against the government.

This was the point at which Pekkala knew he had to get Ilya out of the country, at least until things quieted down.

Now the train was ready to depart, heading east towards Warsaw. From there it would travel to Berlin and on to Paris, which was Ilya’s final destination.

“Here,” said Pekkala, and reached inside his shirt. He pulled a leather cord from around his neck. Looped into the cord was a gold signet ring. “Look after this for me.”

“But that was going to be your wedding ring.”

“It will be,” he replied, “and when I see you again, I’ll put on that ring and never take it off again.”

The crowd ebbed and flowed, as if a wind was blowing them like grain stalks in a field.

Many of those fleeing had come with huge steamer trunks, sets of matching luggage, even birds in cages. Hauling this baggage were exhausted porters in their pillbox hats and dark blue uniforms with a single red stripe, like a trickle of blood, down the sides of their trousers. There were too many people. Nobody could move without shoving. One by one, passengers abandoned their baggage and pressed forward to the train, tickets raised above their heads. Their shouts rose above the panting roar of the steam train as it prepared to move out. High above, beneath the glass-paned roof, condensation beaded on the dirty glass. It fell back as black rain upon the passengers.

A conductor leaned out of a doorway, whistle clenched between his teeth. He blew three shrill blasts.

“That’s a two-minute warning,” said Pekkala. “The train won’t wait. You have to go, Ilya.”

The crowd began to panic.

“I could wait for the next train,” she pleaded. In her hands, she clutched a single bag made out of brightly patterned carpet material, containing some books, a few photographs, and a change of clothes.

“There might not be a next train. Please. You must leave now.”

“But how will you find me?”

He smiled faintly, reaching up and running his fingers through her hair. “Don’t worry,” he said. “That’s what I’m good at.”

“How will I know where you are?”

“Wherever the Tsar is, that’s where I’ll be too.”

“I should stay with you.”

“No. Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous now. When things settle down, I will come for you, and I will bring you back.”

“But what if they don’t settle down?”

“Then I will leave this place. I will find you. Stay in Paris if you can, but wherever you are, I will find you. Then we will start a new life. One way or the other, I promise we will be together soon.”

The roar of those who could not get aboard had risen to a constant shriek.

A pile of luggage stacked too high suddenly lurched and fell. Fur-coated passengers went sprawling. The crowd closed up around them.

“Now!” said Pekkala. “Before it’s too late.”

“All right,” Ilya said at last. “Don’t let anything happen to you.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he told her. “Just get aboard the train.”

She moved away into the sea of people.

Pekkala remained where he was. He watched her head above the others. When she was almost at the carriage, she turned and waved to him.

He waved back. And then he lost sight of her, as a tide of people poured past him, pursuing the rumor that another train had pulled in at the Finland station on the other side of the river.

Before he knew it, he had been swept out into the street.

Pekkala ran around the side of the station, and from a street just off the Nevski Prospekt, he watched the train pulling out. The windows were open. Passengers leaned out, waving to those they had left behind on the platform. The carriages rattled past. Then suddenly the tracks were empty and there was only the rhythmic clatter of the wheels, fading away into the distance.

It was the last train out.

The next day, the Reds set fire to the station.