The Amber Room_ The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure - Cathy Scott-Clark [25]
She flourishes pages on which are collages of black-bordered memorial cards, photographs, identity cards, all of them with RIP scrawled across. And on one page are grainy photographs of crime scenes, houses recently ripped apart by gas explosions, car crashes, a body lying under fallen beech leaves.
Are these incidents related to the search for the Amber Room, we ask?
'It is confidential material,' she snaps, putting the papers back into her handbag. 'It was posted to us from Berlin after we held an exhibition there: Mythos Bernsteinzimmer, and is not for publication.'
Director Sautov leans over his desk and whispers, I will get forty heads of state here, in May 2003.' He flexes his huge hands and we nod even though we have no idea what he is talking about. 'And I will lead them into my newly restored Amber Room. Have you seen it? It's your last chance.' He stands up to walk an idea around the humid office. 'I intend to cover up the half-built reconstruction until it is ready. Yes, cover it up in, let us say, in a couple of days' time.' Bardovskaya nods vigorously. 'And then in May 2003, on the three-hundredth anniversary of the founding of our great city, I will throw back the curtains and show the world the miracle we have re-created. Can you see it?' We are afraid we can, and it doesn't bode well for our book. 'We have a master architect who has studied the old ways, a veteran who has learned how the original chamber was pieced together. But of course you know that as you have talked to Alexander Kedrinsky already.' So they know about our meeting.
Sautov continues: 'Alexander Kedrinsky is writing a special catalogue about our tragic loss and the Great Task. How we have put the pieces back together again. And obviously you are writing just another book and it should not, cannot, compete with ours.' The Director is now standing at his desk and someone has opened the office door from the outside.
But just as we fear that Sautov has decided against helping us, the Director changes his tone. 'Fax me today with what you want and Bardovskaya will calculate what what you want is worth.'
But we still do not know what your archive possesses, we say.
Bardovskaya grins. 'Make a deal,' she squawks. 'We'll work out a contract. Everybody has to pay. Isn't that so? Only nothing comes from nothing. An old English proverb, I believe.'
The Director has his 'farewell' smile fixed in place. 'Fax me,' he says. 'A member of staff will have to be appointed to supervise your work.' And the closing door muffles these last words as all the while we have been seamlessly manoeuvred backwards into the antechamber.
A whistle-stop tour has been arranged for us of the Director's amber workshop and we are pointed at an unmarked iron door, only ten paces through the snow from his office. Inside is a furnace of activity, with fifty-two workmen, former miners, stonecutters and welders, feverishly drilling, sanding and buffing, filling the air with a sweet-tasting powder. 'Dobry.' A podgy hand wiped on an overall is proffered. Boris Igdalov, head of the amber workshop, introduces himself and from the tone of his voice it is evident that we are not the first foreigners to be handed on to him.
Wearily Igdalov begins his routine. 'Reconstructing the Amber Room is a lifetime's work.' He mops his brow with a rag. 'Almost twenty years and it's still not finished.' He guides us through the workshop. 'We boil the amber in different oils.' Pots bubble and flasks steam. 'The amber can be subtly infused with herbs, grasses and even cherry stones. But,' he says, pulling us into another room, 'all of them are trade secrets.'
The amber workshop at the Catherine Palace
He stops beside a man slotting slivers of amber into a tray, who looks up and laughs when he sees that yet more guests have been foisted on to his patient boss. I was a