Hot Siberian (39 page)

“But you're big to admit it.”

She laughed heartily. “My woes seem to be giving way,” she said. She sprang up, went past Nikolai and on into the bedroom.

Nikolai decided he shouldn't follow her. He heard the bedcovers being turned down, pillows being piled in place, a drawer being slid open, things in the drawer being pushed aside to make room for her bedside clock, the drawer being closed. He heard her enter the bathroom. There was the squeak of the handle for the hot as she turned it, water hitting the bowl of the sink, the soap dish being slightly disturbed, a soundless interval while she dried. Nikolai imagined her seeing herself happier in the mirror. He would, he vowed, always be generous with whatever made her happy. She was humming a part of Borodin's Nocturne for String Orchestra from Quartet No. 2 when the telephone rang. She answered it in the bedroom. As sharp as Nikolai's hearing was, he couldn't make out what she was saying. A couple of trills of laughter pierced out. Nikolai told himself he shouldn't be possessive of her laughter.

She returned. “That was Archer. I told him you were back. He was happy to hear it.”

“My pal Archer.”

She didn't resume her place on the sofa. Rather, she half leaned, half sat on the arm of it with the forward edge of the arm supporting her just below her buttocks. Her weight was on one foot. Her other foot was crossed over, its instep gracefully elongated. She seemed unaware that her pelvis was so pronounced. “You
are
back, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“I mean for good back.”

“Or whatever.”

“I haven't turned you into a cynic, have I? I hope not. One of the numerous qualities I love about you is your brooding optimism.”

“Has Archer been around much?”

“He calls often to check on my emotional barometer. Archer's been sweet, really. Just now he wanted to know if my mood was up to playing poker at his club. He offered to stake me. When I told him you were here he knew it was out of the question.”

“Why not enjoy yourself?”

“I fully intend to.”

She went to him, parted his legs with her knees so she could stand closer. With both hands, as though his head were a crucible, she tilted his face up. The kiss was long. It made her lower abdomen feel as if it weighed a ton and took away her legs and her breath. To regain a rhythm to her breathing she finally removed her tongue and lips, straightened up. His arms were around her hips and buttocks, holding, his palms curved to match her sides. His cheek and ear were pressed against her middle, and she wondered if he could hear the arousal in her. While they remained like that, confirming reunion, she gazed around the room and admitted the difference his presence had brought to her place. There was renewed value in everything, not only the Lavery landscape above the mantel, but, as well, the mundane, such as the brass umbrella rack in the corner on the landing. There was even beauty in the spent potted primrose on the stand by the window, which last week in full flower, all blue and pink, hadn't been able to reach her appreciation. “I love you so, Nickie,” she said to the top of his head, and she was pleased that he allowed her words independence, that he didn't automatically match them aloud. She thought with her want that she would like it if he carried her in, as he'd done the very first time they'd loved. As though he heard her mind, he stood and took her up. Her willingness made her seem weightless. She lost both her pumps on the way.

Their loving was greedy and generous and lasting, and afterward they both fell into a deep, good sleep. They were awakened by what sounded like a sack of potatoes being flung against the bedroom door. It took them a moment to realize it was Ninja. Neglected, yellow-eyed Ninja. They heard him get a good running start and again throw himself at the door panel.

“A cat only its mother could love,” Nikolai remarked. He'd never been able to make Ninja purr.

Vivian got up and went out. Ninja went belly-up at the sight of her. She gave him a half-dozen scratchy strokes and fed him a whole eight-ounce can of mackerel. “Are you hungry?” she shouted from the kitchen to Nikolai. His reply sounded as much like yes as it did no, so she made up a tray of things and brought it in.

“What's the time?” Nikolai asked.

“I ignored the kitchen clock, but I did notice it was dark out. Do you think it's the same night or the next?” She placed the tray on the floor by the bed and climbed back in under the sheet. “I was having the most extraordinary dream,” she said.

“Was I in it?”

“Off and on. But mainly it starred Millie Millie.”

“Extraordinary, huh?”

“Very.”

“Who knows—perhaps you'd enjoy such a sortie in Sussex.”

“How can you assume I haven't already?”

“Have you?”

“Are you curious or threatened?”

“Both.”

“I've had opportunities,” she said playfully.

“And?”

“Not in this life, darling, nor the next, unless for some lesson we both choose to come back as women.”

“Do you honestly believe that you and I are bound forever?”

“So I'm told.”

“By your angels, I suppose.”

“Aren't you convinced?”

“They don't talk to me.”

“You don't listen.”

“How many times do you think we've lived before?”

“Plenty.”

“We just keep coming back?”

“Until we get it right, no mistakes.”

“Then what?”

“Then we go on to some higher plane of existence.”

“Together?”

“Possibly not.”

“This may be the time we get it right,” Nikolai said thoughtfully. “It feels right.”

“Doesn't it, though.”

“I'm for making a mistake.”

“You!” she chided. She placed her hand on his chest, as close as she could get to his heart. She discerned his heartbeat and thought it a strong, contented thump. “I bought two handsome teak benches for the terrace down in Devon,” she said.

“Used or new?”

“New. But I couldn't settle on exactly where they should go. I must have moved them around for an hour. As you know, normally I'm not so indecisive.”

“Did you spend much time down there?”

“Only a day and a night. The house and everything seemed to miss you as much as I. I did manage to plant a flat of violas, and I got as far as dressed for fishing but didn't go. Sat out on the back steps with my waders on like a catatonic. Did you get like that at the dacha?”

An affirmative grunt from Nikolai.

“On the drive back from Devon I had the urge to go to Paris and look up my father.”

“Could you locate him?”

“It would take some doing. Anyway, by the time I got home the urge had left me. At least it was no longer on the surface. Must have been just another acute attack. I've had them off and on since I was in my teens.”

Nikolai wondered why her French father didn't look her up. He couldn't imagine anyone not wanting to know her.

“We're going to have four children,” she predicted. “Three girls and a boy. We'll give them romantic Russian names like Tatiana and Lilya. Naturally the boy will be Nikolai. Nikolai Nikolaievich. Won't that please you?”

“Why not three boys and a girl?”

“Are you going to insist on three boys?”

“Perhaps.”

“It won't do you any good. I've already put in for three girls.”

“You submitted an application, I suppose.”

“In a way. They're already waiting to be born.”

“What if
I
put in a request?”

“Mothers get preference.”

“That's unfair.”

“Did it ever occur to you that mothering has always been, while fatherhood has only been recently realized?”

“According to whom?”

“Common sense and anthropology. Just a few thousand years ago, no one knew how women became pregnant. Fucking wasn't connected with having babies. Fucking was just fun, something that felt good. Giving birth was mystical, and, I should mention, not so much fun.”

“How long are those teak benches?”

“Six feet.”

“What color are the violas you planted?”

“Mixed.”

“I like best the mauve ones.”

“You would.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I recall your remarking at various times that you think mauve is funereal.”

“Well, it is.”

“I've always thought as much.”

“So what you're implying is that my tastes lean to the morose.”

“Lor, how you Russian blokes carry on.” She rolled onto her side and threw a claiming leg over him. Her crotch pressed his hip. The small of her back was easily within his reach. His hand appreciated there for a while, then went to her buttocks. After several serious squeezes she murmured to the neck skin below his ear: “Carry on.”

They didn't venture out of the apartment for two and a half days, and then when they did go out it was at three o'clock Tuesday morning. Nearly everyone else was asleep, which made London more agreeable. Arms around they strolled in step to Hyde Park Corner and along Piccadilly on the Green Park side. At St. James's they gave up Piccadilly for Jermyn Street, where, while looking shop windows, Vivian said that if she had her way all of Nikolai's shirts would be made to perfect measure for him by Hildetch & Key with his initials engraved on pearl buttons. Nikolai said that he would like to be able to buy Vivian a solid gold comb, not an excuse for a comb but a long, usable, hefty one. Vivian enjoyed that idea, imagined herself sitting somewhere in soft sunlight languorously running gold teeth through her hair.

That afternoon Archer phoned wanting to know if he could pop by. He hadn't called since Nikolai's return, and his timing seemed a bit too right. Nikolai suspected Archer had his chauffeur or someone on lookout. How else could he know almost to the hour when it would be less intrusive for him to call? Vivian gave Archer more credit. She believed that he had become spiritually attuned to them.

“Does that mean Archer feels what and when we feel?” Nikolai asked.

“To a degree, darling, to a degree.”

Archer arrived empty-handed and cheerful. He welcomed back Nikolai with a shake so vigorous it was as if he hoped Nikolai would tear off his arm. Vivian saw through Archer's elation. She noticed that he kept lacing and unlacing his fingers, a phrase of his body language she interpreted as distress.

“Have you been to the theater alone?” she asked, knowing how much that usually depressed him.

“Not in weeks. Why do you ask?”

“Something's bothering you.”

“You're mistaken. Anyway, it's nothing, nothing at all. I'm splendid, really.”

“Archer …” she pressured.

“Except for my Caravaggio.”

“Stolen?”

“No such luck. I was informed yesterday that my Caravaggio is
not
a Caravaggio. In fact it was painted no earlier than 1900. For the past ten years I've been hoodwinked by it. How detestable!”

“Poor Arch,” Vivian commiserated.

“From what I understand it happens all the time,” Nikolai put in. “Even the museums get fooled.”

“Hell yes, Arch.”

“It's said that Manet painted five hundred canvases, of which three thousand have been sold.”

“I know, I know all that,” Archer muttered.

“Must have set you back a pretty penny. Surely you have some recourse. What about the person who sold it to you?”

“A dealer in Rome. He's dead.”

“Serves him right.” Vivian scowled.

“The financial loss was substantial, but that doesn't matter, and, of course, being duped is uncomfortable for anyone,” Archer told them. “What disturbs me most is how close I came to being thought a fraud. Supposing I'd suddenly passed on and had bequeathed that Caravaggio to someone dear—you, Viv, for example—and then it was found to be a fake? Whatever would you and everyone think of me?” Archer shook his head sharply as though dispelling evil. “What a near miss!”

Nikolai felt like giving Archer a hug.

Vivian suggested dinner at Turner's.

On Wednesday Vivian again changed the bed linens and placed a large order with Partridge's.

On Thursday they took things to read and a hamper of things to munch on and went to the grass of Regent's Park. Vivian was, as usual, into several books at the same time, reading snatches of each. Such as one titled
Craneosacral Balancing
, which, she explained to Nikolai, had to do with relieving stress caused by the blocking of the fluid that bathes the central nervous system. Her current reading also included
The Colour of Rain
, Emma Tenant's
roman à clef
about the decadence of the Chelsea crowd during the 1960s, and a biography of Hilda Doolittle, or H.D., as she was called, who Vivian said was possibly the most fascinating woman of this century. Look who's calling the kettle shiny, Nikolai thought. His reading that day was the latest issue of the
Economist
. He caught up with the interminable world affairs and finances, and scanned the classified section in the back, grimly noticing that the highest annual salary offered was twenty-two thousand pounds.

On Friday afternoon when they were about to leave for the weekend in Devon, an air express van pulled into the close and made a delivery to Vivian. A heavy-duty cardboard container that measured about four and a half feet deep by two feet square. Every surface of it was plastered with red, unmissable
THIS END UP
and
FRAGILE
stickers.

“Whatever can it be?” Vivian said as she examined the shipping label and verified that it did indeed indicate her name and address. “The Zuzana Bohemian Glass Works,” she read. “Prague?”

“Something I had sent,” Nikolai told her.

“When were you in Prague?”