The Eleventh Year (17 page)

T
here was
the parade of never-changing British officers, drinking to offset their boredom at not being more involved in the actual conflicts of submarine warfare. Instead they were stationed in a colony that simply supervised the procurement of raw materials for the mother nation. They passed through the club where Elena worked with the regular monotony of toy soldiers. And then one night she saw a young lieutenant whom she'd never seen alone, but whom she'd noticed before. He intrigued her, and tonight he was unaccompanied by the older officers who usually surrounded him. She'd seen him make them laugh, had noticed the melancholy expression on his face even while his superiors chuckled at his easy wit. And, of course, she'd wondered. He didn't seem to belong in the British navy. He had the good looks of a Spaniard or a Florentine, and she'd told herself wryly that Machiavelli, a man she'd always admired and whose works she had memorized as a young girl, must have looked like him. So she approached him, snapping her fingers for champagne, and sat down before he had the chance to refuse her company.

“I didn't think you'd mind,” she stated, smiling, as he raised his eyebrows with amusement. “It's my job, in any case. The champagne must flow or I shall be fired.”

“There isn't a remote chance of that,” the man replied, laughing. “You're the most intelligent woman in this place. Who are you, truly?”

“Who they say I am. Princess Elena Sergeievna Egorova.” He wasn't Russian: He couldn't be dangerous. No one from here could ever report back—especially now that the court had dispersed.

He allowed the waiter to pour champagne into two fluted glasses, then tipped him a carelessly large sum of money, a gesture that intrigued her. He remarked: “A princess from St. Petersburg—Leningrad, our former ally. A fairytale princess or a real one? These days Russian princesses float in like tinsel queens, and it's hard to tell which ones are the real ones.”

She bristled inwardly but displayed nothing but a sudden hardness in the eyes. “Does it matter, then? I'm a real one. My family dates back to the days of the first tsar, Ivan of Kiev. But no Englishman cares about Russian history, so I could be inventing all of this, couldn't I?”

He inclined his head, raised his glass. “Indeed. But somehow I believe you. You're not here by choice. A displaced soul, as I am, thrown onto a hostile and distant shore. Why? The revolution?”

She answered what she always did. “Yes. My parents were murdered in their palace. I was sufficiently lucky to escape with my life, but without the funds to get me very far. And in a world at war, I may as well be here as anywhere else. At least Singapore is civilized.”

“Too much so. It's a mini-London without the excitement of Soho. And there are no interesting women—except you, of course. I'm Ashley Taylor, by the way.”

“Our names are the few possessions that will never leave us, no matter what occurs to strip us of everything else.” She smiled: “Tell me about yourself. What have
you
left behind, Lieutenant Taylor?”

“I was a naughty boy” he replied. “I'm afraid my youth was clouded under a shadow of scandal. I must redeem myself before I return home. A typical soldier's tale, don't you think, Princess?”

“But scandals are the spice of life, Lieutenant. At least they were in Russia. No good count or prince ever survived without his share of naughtiness. They were all bad boys. It was part of the tradition.”

“Russians are known for their outrageous behavior. Britons are known for their reserve. I wish I'd been born in your country, my dear.”

“No, you don't,” she retorted bitterly. “You'd be dead on the battlefront, or penniless and in exile. Today's Russia isn't my Russia any longer. It's Lenin's Soviet Republic.”

“You're right. I'm sorry. I was a thoughtless boor. Forgive me. Let me take you out dancing after the club closes, to make my stupidity up to you. You are so beautiful, and we are both alone. Boredom becomes you as little as it becomes me.”

She smiled. “Thank you—for seeing the truth about us both and for recognizing your own weaknesses. Englishmen usually are insensitive to all but the honor of winning at golf!”

Then they were laughing, draining their glasses, and through the golden bubbles she saw his eyes fastened to hers, searching for something. She liked him better than any man she'd met since Petersburg.

After the club had closed, in the early hours, they went to a French bar that stayed open later and ordered in rapid succession two bottles of Mumm's Cordon Rouge. He told her little about himself, she even less about her own past. But in the gay atmosphere of couples swinging to the tango, he saw the hunger in her eyes and stroked her cheek. “My country has turned to dull porridge,” he remarked softly. “The landscape is Gainsborough instead of Cézanne, under King George and Queen Mary. I wonder if there is any going back for me? There isn't any for you, because the great nation where Bakst and Benois and Diaghilev conceived the ballet revolution has now been broken by a real revolution of politicians. Where is your horizon, Elena?”

She shrugged. “Paris. But those are dreams, and I've long since realized that my dreams don't ever come true.”

“Why so harsh on yourself?”

“Because I'm a realist. What have I to offer? Physical assets. Others possess great talents, on which to build. But the days of the
Belle Otéro,
of Liane de Pougy, of the courtesans of the
Belle Epoque
are over, Ashley. Today there's a war. Women work. I was reared to marry a grand-duke and gently push him into world politics. Had I perhaps been reared to be a politician in my own right, I might have received more thorough training to make a career for
myself.
This isn't the case.”

“There are very few great talents in this world. Some of us must learn to barter our values for opportunity. You've done that. How you spend your nights would make your mother faint. But it keeps the bills from piling up. No one who has an easy time of it can understand that for some who don't, the choices are not so clear-cut.”

“You are speaking of yourself now. What, exactly, do you mean?”

“There were things I did that others termed dishonest. To me, they were performed to earn a better dowry for my sister and to allow myself a life that, frankly, had it been less luxurious, would have been a death-in-life. I
needed
the good life. I went about obtaining it as expediently as I could. I never murdered anybody, and I didn't cheat those poorer than myself. Beyond that, I thought, to each his own. All's right in love, war, and the earth's good things. If a jury can forgive a man for killing a faithless woman, why can't they just as easily forgive the sensualist who wanted to live the existence of a gentleman, tasting good foods and being served in style?”

“But what, precisely, did this sensualist do that was so unforgiveable?”

He saw the dark eyes turn brilliant with curiosity and an odd sort of empathy. Slowly he nodded. “Yes. You'd understand. If I can accept that you are still the same Princess Egorova who existed before she sold herself for a more comfortable bed, why shouldn't you understand what I've done? I had a gallery in London. In order to make a go of it, in order to rise more quickly at a very bad time for British art collectors, I sold some fake masterpieces. A friend and I devised a formula whereby he painted a landscape or portrait exactly in the genre of one of the great dead artists, and I sold it as a recent ‘discovery' of some hitherto unmentioned work found by chance at some remote estate auction. No one really suffered from this scheme, Elena. Richer collectors thought they were in possession of something so new and brilliant—an original painting never possessed by anyone of note until themselves—that they willingly paid me huge sums of money for it. But Tommy
was
an artist. He may not have been Van Gogh or Turner. But what he did, he did supremely well. He never copied any existing masterpiece. Perhaps we deserved to be paid so highly. We were doing something truly original!” She was smiling. “Undoubtedly you were. A clever idea. I can appreciate a good confidence man. I admire your strategy.”

“There were some who didn't. I might have been thrown in prison, if we hadn't been in the midst of a war. And there was a girl—a nice girl—”

“Someone you loved who was too honest to accept this?”

“I never said I loved her. Love is a big word.” They laughed again, and she could feel the sadness rising to the surface of the bubbles of champagne. She blew gently into her
coupe,
chasing them, making them pop. For the first time in her life she wanted a man to take her home with him—wanted to spend the night in his arms. She stood up, a little dizzy from the drinking, and he followed suit and offered her his hand. There was comfort in that hand, so beautiful and delicate, the hand of a Renaissance artist. Perhaps Leonardo had been a scoundrel and a cheat but lucky enough not to have been found out….

That night she discovered what it meant to be with a man, how it felt to rouse and be aroused in mutual pleasure. In the early hours of the dawn she fell asleep before him, against his chest. When she awakened, the day was bright outside, and she blinked in bewilderment. He was gone. The luxury hotel room where he had taken her was only that: a luxurious hotel bedroom, with a vase filled with red roses on the nightstand. His uniform was gone, his cufflinks, even the odor of his body. She shook herself to full consciousness, got up. And then she saw it propped against the chest of drawers: the most exquisite enamel medallion by the Florentine sculptor Luca della Robbia.

She went to it, took it in her hands, brought it to the window. In relief three children stood out, singing. The enamel-work was chipped in tiny places, because della Robbia had lived and sculpted in the fifteenth century. She ran her fingers over the faces, marveling.

There was a note on the dresser. “Dear
Principessa”
Ashley Taylor had written. “Take this in remembrance of our night together, as a token of my infinite admiration and hopes for your future. There is an old woman in the British district called Lady Blyford. She lives alone and receives almost no visitors. Her only love is art—in particular, art of the Florentine Renaissance.” He had signed it: “Your partner at heart, A.T.”

Hopes for her future.…Lady Blyford. Elena could feel herself flush with excitement, so great that it was difficult to dress with concentration. A della Robbia! Or a Tommy? She wondered how much to ask for it. How much did a passage to France cost? And she'd need to live once she arrived, and, of course, to live here until it was safe to travel to a country now in the midst of war. And Ashley? Would she see him again, or had this just been a one-night adventure?

She went downstairs, hugging the medallion, and was astonished to see a group of hotel employees in excited conversation around the front desk. She hesitated, approached them cautiously. A chambermaid turned to her, her face alight with joy. “There is an armistice!” she said shyly.

“You mean…the war is really
over?”

“Yes! The officers are going home! Some of the ships left this morning! We're several days behind.…The armistice was signed the eleventh, and this is the fourteenth!”

Stunned, electrified, Elena walked out into the sunshine. She wanted to speak to someone, a person who would know. At the club people were bound to know. She wended her way there, her heart beating rapidly.

At the club the manager hugged her, tears in his eyes. Yes, it was true. The great world war had ended. She asked, carefully, about the two regular customers who had come before with Ashley. “Their ship left this morning.”

So he too had gone, only hours after leaving her bedside. She wondered what he would do once he returned to England. But that was his business—his problem. Hers was to go at once to Lady Blyford with the medallion. There was no God to watch over humans, but sometimes a twist of fate occurred to change the affairs of men. Ashley Taylor, she thought fervently, I shall never forget you. You have marked my life as no other man. You I shall remember with gratitude, and with fondness, and with “infinite admiration,” as you wrote in your note. For it took a scoundrel to detect another of his own kind.

A couple of excited French businessmen were running past her, waving their hats in the air.
“Vive la France, messieurs!”
she called after them. And then, to herself:
“Vive la liberté!”