A Prince Without a Kingdom (6 page)

“He lives there.”

Vango drew closer.

“Two months ago,” Zefiro went on, “I was confident that it was a done deed. I arrived up there, convinced I’d thought of everything. Voloy Viktor was in his suite on the top floor, but then something happened.”

“What?”

“I saw someone. . . .”

Vango was waiting.

“I saw someone, and after that I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.”

“Who was it?”

“You don’t know him. The elevator stopped a floor too soon, on the eighty-fourth floor. The door opened. I was armed to the teeth. A man was standing there, waiting. When I saw him, I realized I wouldn’t get Viktor that day.”

“Tell me his name.”

Zefiro wavered.

“He works with Superintendent Boulard, in Paris. . . . His name is Augustin Avignon. I realized that he too was going to visit Voloy Viktor, or that he’d just come from visiting him.”

Vango recognized the name. Ethel had mentioned Avignon.

Zefiro gathered his thoughts for a few minutes before continuing.

“The elevator door closed between us. Avignon stayed there, petrified, on the landing. He recognized me; I’m sure of that. I blocked the elevator twenty centimeters before reaching Viktor’s floor. He was holding a meeting in the reception room opposite the elevator door. I could hear his voice. But the door never opened. I went back down the eighty-five floors and tidied up my heavy artillery. A kid on the street was acting as my lookout. He hung around in the days that followed. According to him, Voloy Viktor’s protection was increased tenfold the next day.”

“So . . .”

“Avignon must have spoken to Viktor. He’s on their side. The right hand of Superintendent Boulard is a traitor. I’d had a premonition of this for some time.”

“Does Boulard know?”

“Boulard? I couldn’t set off back to Paris. I wrote to him, explaining everything. I can only hope that my message reached him.”

Zefiro was watching the illuminated building. The curtain of rain could be seen in the floodlights.

“If I’d run the risk of dying that evening, Avignon would have carried on causing destruction. Now I know how Viktor managed to escape from us so many times. Avignon was never far away.”

“Did you try anything else?”

“No. Three days later, Voloy Viktor left New York. I’ve been waiting for him to return, until this morning.”

The rain was falling more heavily now.

“I had another plan to catch Viktor. And it might have worked. But it would have been dreadfully expensive. . . .”

Zefiro started laughing. The gulls were back, flying close to the scaffolding.

“I’ve always believed I needed very little to live on, Vango, but this time I’ve got nothing left at all. I couldn’t even go back home if I wanted to.”

The monk took a copper coin out of his pocket, big as a shirt button, and put it on the back of his hand.

“I haven’t got enough to feed the birds.”

He tossed the coin high in front of him. The seagulls swooped down and disappeared into the night with it.

“Come over to the fire, Padre.”

Zefiro turned around sharply, as if waking up. On seeing the void below him, he started. Slowly, he crouched down on the beam and made his way back toward Vango.

“Voloy Viktor. In the end, he’s all I can think about,” said Zefiro. “What will become of me when my enemy is no longer here?”

He glanced down at the street, three hundred meters below them.

“What about you, Vango?”

The young man took the older man by the hand and helped him reach the floor again. Zefiro sighed as he looked at Vango.

“Our anger is propping us both up. What are we going to do afterward?”

Vango didn’t know what to say. It was a fair point: how would life look afterward?

They drew close to the fire. Gigantic iron letters were waiting to be fixed onto the facade. Vango made his bed under the arch of the letter
A
. Zefiro lay down under two upside down
L
s that formed a roof over him.

One day, these letters would spell out a name above the city. Every tower in Manhattan was a monument to the glory of a different man. Some years earlier, an ordinary mechanic from Kansas, by the name of Walter Chrysler, had built a tower that was nearly three hundred meters tall, in order to remind the world that he had reached the pinnacle of success in less than twenty years. A forest of stone and brick was rising up in New York, born out of such legends.

A light wind blew through the wooden scaffolding. Zefiro had been asleep for some time. The embers were reflected in his steel shelter. The fire in the brazier had almost gone out. Night masked the padre’s face.

On hands and knees, someone crept up on the monk. But before the person could lunge forward, something sharp slid across his throat.

“Don’t move,” hissed Zefiro, opening his eyes. Sitting up, he saw that his assailant was none other than Vango.

The padre was still holding the piece of sharpened zinc against his friend’s neck.

“Don’t creep up on me like that in the dark. What do you want?”

“Your plan for Viktor, is it really going to cost all that much?”

“Yes, little one, so go back to sleep.”

“How much?”

“Leave me in peace.”

Vango unclenched one fist.

“Would this be enough?”

In the flat of his hand lay four rubies, as big as chickpeas.

At the same time, across the Atlantic, Everland, Scotland

Day was breaking. There was a spotless golden doe with bewitching eyes in the kitchen. She was lapping milk from a large salad bowl, the white droplets clinging to her eyelashes. She didn’t notice the castle staff coming and going as the morning spectacle was played out.

Andrei was watching her enviously as he sat on a chair in the corner of the kitchen. Mary had made him take off his shoes before quarantining him among the copper pots and pans. He had gone away for six months only to appear again, without warning, at dawn. He knew he wouldn’t receive a warm welcome.

“I want to work again. I want to speak with Master Paul.”

But Ethel’s brother hadn’t been at home for several weeks.

So Mary the housekeeper had made Andrei sit down before giving him a good scolding and taking his jacket from him to wash it.

“I’m going to clean this right away,” she had insisted, “because you certainly won’t be staying. I’ll see later on whether anyone is prepared to talk to you. But even if they are, Andrew, I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes.”

Lily the doe had come to drink close by, and Mary had asked Andrei to keep an eye on her.

“She mustn’t go upstairs. They get up to such nonsense in this house. At Christmas, there was a horse tied to the piano on the second floor.”

Andrei didn’t take his eyes off Lily. He wasn’t simply envious of the milk she sent splashing with each lick of her tongue. He envied her freedom, a good simple life, innocence, and the kindness that surrounded her.

Andrei, on the other hand, could sense the jaws of a trap about to slam shut on him. He was thinking of his family in Moscow, who would pay with their lives for what he was doing: his little brother, his sister, his mother, and Ivan Ivanovitch, his father, who had so badly wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a mechanic. And he was thinking of the terrible Vlad the Vulture, and how his eyes were like two blades pressing into the back of his neck. Andrei was there to find Vango and hand him over to Vlad.

Mary had disappeared into the depths of the castle. Andrei watched Lily knock over the bowl with her muzzle and finish lapping up the milk from the flagstones. She politely wiped herself clean using her hoof in place of a linen napkin, then raised her head and made for the kitchen door.

“Lily!”

Andrei wasn’t sure if he was allowed to get up.

“Lily, come here!”

Apparently, the deer didn’t understand his Russian accent. She disappeared behind the door.

Andrei ran after her. Together, they crossed two small sitting rooms and a study lined with books. The cool May air wafted in through the open windows. There were triangles of sunlight on the bare wooden floors. The carpets had been draped over the windowsills. Every morning, Everland Castle yawned and stretched from head to toe.

Little Lily was capering around in this kingdom. She was sliding over the oak thresholds, polished to within an inch of their lives. Andrei had fallen behind while putting his shoes back on. He was walking on tiptoes now and calling out to her in hushed tones, constantly turning around for fear of being caught by Mary.

His first assignment on his return to Everland was to guard this deer. And he would do whatever it took.

Andrei slowed down when he saw Lily stop near a pedestal table with a small box on it.

“There you are!” he said. “Come here!”

She looked at him with all the freedom and innocence he had been admiring a few minutes earlier.

“Come here, Lily, Lilishka.”

Three meters away from her, he found himself smiling stupidly and holding out his hand. But Lily raised the lid of the box with a nudge of her head and delicately removed three cigars, which she began to chew. Andrei bit his lip. The lid slid shut. Clearly, Lily had her habits. A bowl of milk and three Havana cigars for breakfast. The good life.

Suddenly, she sped off again and came out into the hall.

By the time Andrei arrived, he could see in a flash that the morning constitutional wasn’t over yet. The doe was standing in front of the flight of stairs leading up to the second floor. It was a grand staircase with a thick carpet cascading down it in an irresistible red. With the final cigar poking out from her mouth, Lily gave Andrei a satisfied look before starting to climb the stairs. She seemed to be on familiar terrain, reaching the landing in just a few bounds.

Andrei hesitated before following suit. Wouldn’t he be better off going back into the kitchen to find Mary, asking for her help and sobbing into her skirts? Lily must have sensed this sudden indecision, and put an end to such ideas by grazing on the golden tassels hanging off the curtains, causing Andrei to gasp in horror. He went after her again.

Lily had ventured onto the main landing. She slowed down a little in front of each window, to bask in the warmth of the sun. Her golden fur rippled on her flanks. She raised her head and half-closed her eyes. She looked cozy enough to go to sleep then and there. But each time, a mysterious call made her set off again. At the end of the landing, after sniffing the air one last time, she pushed open a door and disappeared.

Andrei remained behind the half-open door. He knew that this escapade was madness. But in the worst moments of folly, there always comes a point where turning back is more risky than carrying on.

So Andrei carried on.

He pushed open the door without even thinking, and went one step too far.

The scene that met his eyes in the large bedroom could have been depicted in a classical painting. The deer was curled up on the carpet, in a circle of sunlight, at the foot of a blue-silk window seat. And on that window seat were two young people, a girl and a boy, their shoulders touching, staring at the animal whose sudden appearance must have taken them by surprise.

But Andrei startled them. The boy pulled hastily away from the young woman, gathered up the papers that were lying all around them, and stood back. He was blushing terribly. The girl stared calmly at the newcomer in icy disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” muttered Andrei. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

His lips kept on moving, as if repeating the same words until they were worn out.

Ethel didn’t even get up. She was wearing suspenders that were slightly undone over a white shirt teamed with an old pair of tweed trousers, and she was barefoot. There was a blue silk band around her wrist.

Andrei looked at the boy, who seemed to be trying to hide the papers he had just picked up. He was the son of Peter, one of the gardeners at Everland. Nicholas was slightly younger than Andrei, and a lot younger than Ethel, who was nearly twenty.

But what astonished Andrei even more than this scene was what was going on inside him. Behind the fear, Andrei could feel a sort of anger, an all-consuming, invisible anger, something he hadn’t experienced for a long time. For once, he wasn’t just trembling because he was afraid; he was trembling with thirst and hunger and rage. He was jealous. And, in a split second, Ethel became more mysterious than ever, and beautiful enough to die for.

He was frozen to the spot.

Ethel seemed disinclined to turn on the charm for him. She looked weary. Her eyes didn’t focus but slid across him, as if Andrei didn’t really exist.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for the deer,” he ventured in his hesitant English.

He pointed to Lily.

“I’m disturbing you,” he added.

“Why do you say that?”

“I thought you . . .”

“What makes you think you’re disturbing anyone?”

He gestured toward the window seat, and then at Nicholas.

When his eyes met those of the gardener’s son, he felt the urge to fight. Andrei had never enjoyed fighting. On his tenth birthday, to encourage him to give up his violin, his parents had sent him to learn the Russian martial art of sambo in a Moscow gym. But he had spent ten months on the bench, listening to the words of Master Ochtchepkov.