It was obvious Dmitri was planning on going somewhere. With his leg injured, it wasn’t likely he’d just decided to take a stroll in the cold and the dark.
“I was just about to…” Dmitri paused and then said, “Yes, I would like to go, but I don’t have an invitation.”
“The Tamms won’t mind. Half the people at the party won’t have an invitation either,” Miles said.
“If you are sure.” Dmitri looked at me.
I had to try something to get him not to go. “It’s not going to be much of a party. Just ordinary people gathered together in a small apartment.”
“What are you saying, Lottie? They are terrific people!” Hap exclaimed. “You have to come with us. We were going to walk”—his gaze turned to Dmitri’s cane—“but since we’ve run into Lottie, she’ll have money to hire droshkies.”
It appeared Dmitri was coming to the party. I prayed it would be the one night that no one but us showed up.
Chapter Seven
I TOOK SOME money out of my bag and handed it to Hap. “Go down to the end of the block and hire some sleighs to come pick us up. See if you can find one big enough for all of us.” There was no sense in making Dmitri walk even that far, since the izvoschiks would be eager for a fare.
When two small droshkies pulled up in front of the house, Hap leaped into the front one. “I couldn’t find a bigger one. Come on, Miles. Lottie can ride with Dmitri Antonovich.”
Each droshky for hire had room for two passengers, but it was always a tight fit. I got in first and then Dmitri struggled in, apologizing for bumping me with his cane. Our izvoschik urged his horse forward as if we needed to catch up with Miles and Hap’s sleigh, which was already halfway down the block. Both Dmitri and I were nearly thrown out.
When we got our balance back, Dmitri put his arm around me. It was considered polite in Petrograd for a man to make sure a woman passenger didn’t fall out of the poorly designed sleighs, no matter how slightly acquainted they were. I pretended I didn’t even notice. You weren’t supposed to react. Usually I didn’t notice, but I was intensely aware of Dmitri next to me. I held myself very still, remembering other rides where I’d wanted Pavel’s arm around me. I pushed that thought away as quickly as it had come. It wasn’t as if Pavel and I had even had time to become that close, just a few dances and walks before he’d gone to the front. I needed to stop dwelling on those memories.
The two drivers kept shouting for people and automobiles to get out of the way, as drivers always did, though it was late enough that there were not many people on the streets. The shouting kept me from feeling like I had to make conversation with Dmitri. I wished I could ask him where he’d been planning to go. If we hadn’t run into him, we’d probably never have known he’d left the house. There was no reason he’d have had to tell anyone. Even when tutors lived in, it wasn’t as if they had to account for every moment of the day. It was the perfect setup for Dmitri to go out at night and report our doings to someone. I spent the rest of the ride scheming ways to find out more. I wasn’t going to rest easy until I knew more about him.
The Tamms and their extended family had an apartment in the building next door to the theater. We got out of the droshkies and heard shouts from inside the theater. The performance should have ended some time before.
“Sounds like something is wrong,” Miles said. He pulled open the door.
“I smell smoke,” Hap said as he dashed inside.
Miles tried to follow but I grabbed his arm. “Don’t go any farther,” I ordered him. “You don’t want to breathe in smoke.” He didn’t listen, pulling away from me. I hurried after him into the tiny lobby and then into the theater itself, leaving Dmitri to follow us.
Smoke billowed from something on one corner of the stage. Two stagehands tossed buckets of water on the source of the flames. I couldn’t tell what it was.
Kalev Tamm stood next to them, trying to wave some of the smoke away. “That should do it. No major damage.” He sounded calm, but then, he always did—a good trait for a theater manager, according to my mother.
One of the actors began to shout at another stagehand, who cowered in front of him. “My cape could have caught on fire!” the actor thundered. “How was I to know you’d spilled the lightning powder before I threw down my cigarette?”
“I’m sorry,” the boy said, wringing his cap between his hands.
“It’s all right,” Kalev said. “You can get back to cleaning up. These things happen.” The stagehand ran offstage like he wanted to be gone as quickly as possible. Kalev’s calming voice didn’t have as much of an effect on the actor. The man stomped away
“Kalev, what happened?” I called out.
“Lottie! I thought I’d see you at the party, not here.”
“We heard shouting and smelled smoke,” Hap said.
“The stagehand spilled some of the powder for the new lightning machine. He didn’t know it was so flammable. One tiny burning ash and poof!” Kalev threw his hands up. “Unfortunately, he spilled it right by the broom, and the broom caught fire rather fast.”
“Lightning machine?” Hap said as he went up onstage. I could imagine the gleam in his eyes. He loved all the special-effects machines in the theater. He would quit his studies in an instant to be a stagehand if Papa would allow it, which of course he never would.
Dmitri followed him onstage, though it took him some effort to get up there. I made the introductions.
“Any friend of the Masons is welcome here!” Kalev said to him. His eyes flicked between me and Dmitri. I realized I’d forgotten to add that Dmitri was a tutor. I could tell that Kalev was wondering if Dmitri was someone important to me. He’d known about Pavel, and I was sure he’d heard from Celeste how I’d cried when I learned of Pavel’s death.
Before I could explain about Dmitri, Hap took over the conversation. “Now that you’ve said hello, where is the lightning machine?” he asked.
“It’s over here, but it’s not working right.” Kalev gestured to a tall metal box, open on one side, that had some screen contraption inside it with a spirit lamp at the base. He began explaining in great detail how it was supposed to work. Kalev loved special-effects machines as much as Hap.
I was surprised when Dmitri spoke up. “The spirit lamp is probably too far away from the screen. The powder needs more heat to ignite. It can be fixed if you raise the lamp up on some bricks or something. Or possibly the box is too deep and is muffling the effect. There are several things you can try.”
“You sound like you know what you are talking about,” Kalev said. I could hear the surprise in his voice. I knew he didn’t think much of the elite regiments, because he’d said their whole purpose before the war had been to parade around during ceremonies in fancy uniforms.
“I planned to study engineering and architecture before the war,” Dmitri said. “I don’t know that much, but I’ve always liked this sort of problem. It keeps me thinking, so when I go back to school I won’t be stale.”
I didn’t understand. Dmitri would never be able to study those subjects as long as he was in the Horse Guard, even once the war ended. Men didn’t just quit. It was a lifetime job. He had to know that. As I was trying to work out why he’d said that, I caught myself. It wasn’t my problem what he did with his life. As Miles too often reminded me, I should stick to my own problems instead of trying to take charge of other people’s.