The Other Story (36 page)

Nicolas walks carefully on his bandaged feet to his room. It is perfectly tidy. His clothes have been unpacked. His toiletries arranged in the bathroom. The Hamilton Khaki watch is on the bedside table. White roses and a bowl of fresh grapes sit near the sofa. It is as if nothing had happened. But when he glances through the window, he sees the bloodcurdling mass of the ship. Crowds of people are still taking photographs. Policemen firmly order them away. He watches. The telephone rings. It’s reception. He has messages. Several people have tried to reach him: Emma Duhamel, Malvina Voss, Alice Dor. He should call them. They are all anxious, because his mobile is not taking messages and they have seen the alarming images on the television. Instead of making phone calls, he takes his notebook and his father’s Montblanc pen. The first and only word he writes in it is the name Natacha.

Nicolas goes back down to the terrace, the Moleskine in his pocket. He finds he cannot turn away from the
Sagamor.
He is drawn to it, chillingly. The sight of it wounds his eyes, but he must look at it again and again.

A tap on his shoulder. It is Lily, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Her face, devoid of makeup, is surprisingly pretty.

“There you are! Mr. Hero!” She hugs him, pressing her bony body to his. “I was so worried about you! I thought you were stuck on the boat! Did you save that last person?”

“No,” he chokes.

Lily’s hands fly to her mouth. “Why?”

His chest feels tight.

“She wouldn’t come.”

The unbearable vision of Natacha waiting for her death down in the rising water makes him shudder from head to toe.

“Shit, that’s so sad,” mutters Lily. She wraps her arms around him again. “I should have stayed with you. We could have pulled her out, the two of us.”

He manages to say, “She was Russian. Her name was Natacha. She just wouldn’t be saved.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re crying,” murmurs Lily. “Are you all right?”

The sadness is spurting from a closed and forgotten place, from an emotion he fought so hard to protect himself from. Over Lily’s head, Nicolas looks out to the wreck. Natacha.
Наташа
. Her weary face turned up to his in the greenish light, the dignified beauty of it, the bravery of her last smile. What was Natacha’s story? Was this her first time in Italy? Who was she with? Surely she hadn’t been on this cruise alone. Why had they left her behind? Had she decided to let the water circle around her and pull her in because she was too tired to move? Or was there something else? A deeper, darker reason? Some other secret explanation that gave her no more incentive to live? Some final understanding that numbed her, forcing her to stay there, trapped, as death slowly inched its wet way up her old body? Natacha’s final choice triggered questions deep within him, those very questions he had not wanted to look at for so long, and that Margaux Dansor had faced for him through her own destiny, not his.

“You’re going to write about all this, aren’t you?” Lily murmurs.

“Yes,” he replies. “I am.”

“What are you going to start with?”

He holds Lily tightly. Her embrace is a comforting, friendly one.

“Before I begin, the first thing I need to do is call Alice to tell her she has a book on the way. To tell her she has not lost me, that I’m still her author and that Dagmar Hunoldt talked mumbo jumbo about astrology and Epicure.”

“Dagmar, you mean
the
Dagmar Hunoldt?” whispers Lily.

“I’m not even sure it was her. It doesn’t matter.”

Lily takes a step back and stares up at him. Again, he is touched by her natural beauty, the simple lines of her face.

“You’ve changed, Mr. Hero.”

“You’ve changed, too. That stoned girl at the bar is miles away.”

She hugs him again.

“What about your ex-girlfriend? The one you wouldn’t talk about? Is she still in the picture?”

“No,” Nicolas says unhesitatingly, watching small dinghies circle the wreck and divers shouting to one another in Italian. “She doesn’t know it yet, but she will soon.”

He does not mention the unborn baby. He knows his mind is made up. There will be no wedding. No future with Malvina, even if there is a child. The strength of that inner conviction sweeps through him with an unexpected force. He does not bring up Delphine, although he also knows he will want to talk to her as soon as he returns to Paris, and that he will do everything in his power to see her.

“Are you going to put me in your book?” Lily pleads. “You promised!”

“How could I not?”

“Will it take place at the Gallo Nero? What will it be called? Will we all be in it? Will it begin with the ship sinking, or end with it?”

“I can’t tell you that. I haven’t even started.”

“But surely you already know! Surely you can tell me about the beginning!”

He smiles at her enthusiasm. She is like a child, heady with anticipation. He already knows his journey into writing this book will be far less simple than she imagines, far more foreboding, far darker than she can ever fathom.

Nicolas is aware he will need to venture back into that black well of suffering, into Natacha’s secret pain, into his own failure in trying to save her. He will have to open the door to the silent torment he was faced with when confronted with Alexeï’s death, with his father’s death, with the dreadful finality of their watery graves, with the many unanswered questions. Saint Petersburg awaits. Back to the Koltchine family. Back to Pisareva Street, to the Fontanka, to Volkovo, with Lisaveta Sapounova by his side.

But now Natacha’s story weaves its powerful strand into his personal tapestry, adding other colors, other textures. Now Nicolas can see the book clearly, as clearly as he saw the lit-up runway for
The Envelope.
The story is sketched out in front of him, like the long, dangling rope ladder leading to the
Sagamor
’s upper deck, like the distress rockets blooming white into the dark sky. To write the novel, Nicolas knows, he will have to dip his father’s Montblanc pen into Russian ink.

Acknowledgments

In alphabetical order:

Elisabeth Barillé, my “Russian sister,” for being my Saint Petersburg eyes before I got there.

Elena Boudnikova, for her help.

“Momo” Cohen-Solal, for the cigar details.

Abha Dawesar, for her feedback.

Julia Delbourg, for the khâgne information.

Dagmar Hunold, for kindly lending me her name (without the
t
).

Ksenia, my Russian teacher, for her patience.

Laure du Pavillon and Catherine Rousseau-Rambaud, my faithful first readers.

Last but not least:

My Russian family, Natalya, Anka, Volodia, and their children, for their welcome and for taking us on Tatoulya and Natacha’s trail in Saint Petersburg.

The SMP team in N.Y.C.

And thank you above all:

My children, Louis and Charlotte, for their unfailing support.

My husband, Nicolas, who gave me the key to Manderley.

Also by Tatiana de Rosnay

The House I Loved

A Secret Kept

Sarah’s Key

About the Author

TATIANA DE ROSNAY is the author of ten novels, including the
New York Times
bestselling novels
Sarah’s Key
and
A Secret Kept. Sarah’s Key
is an international sensation with over five million copies sold in thirty-eight countries worldwide, and has now been made into a major motion picture. Together with Dan Brown and Steig Larsson, Tatiana was named one of the top three fiction writers in Europe in 2010. She lives with her husband and two children in Paris, where she is at work on her next book. Visit her online at
www.tatianaderosnay.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE OTHER STORY.
Copyright © 2013 by Éditions Héloise d’Ormesson, Paris. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Cover design by Michael Storrings

Cover photograph by Susan Fox/Trevillion Images

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Rosnay, Tatiana de, 1961–

   The other story / Tatiana de Rosnay.—First U.S. Edition.

            p. cm.

   ISBN 978-1-250-04513-3 (hardcover)

   ISBN 978-1-4668-4353-0 (e-book)

  1.  Authorship—Fiction.   2.  Family secrets—Fiction.   I.  Title.

   PR9105.9.R66O88 2014

   823'.914—dc23

2013046591

e-ISBN 9781466843530

First published in France under the title
À L’encre russe
by Éditions Héloise d’Ormesson in 2013

First Edition: April 2014