Zoya (19 page)

“I know a doctor on the rue Godot-de-Mauroy, if you want his name. He's cheap.” He did abortions for the prostitutes, but he was better than most in that milieu. Antoine had gone to him for his leg several times, and had found him skilled and sympathetic. It pained him terribly now in the bitter cold and damp of winter. Zoya had noticed that his limp seemed to be getting worse, but he looked happier than he had when he'd first come to live with them. It seemed to
do him good to have decent people to come home to, and her grandmother to worry about. It never occurred to her that his feelings for her kept him alive, and that at night he lay in bed and dreamed of her in the next room, sleeping huddled with Evgenia.

“How was school today?” she asked as she waited for the pot to boil. Her
eyes
were kinder now when she looked at him. He even dared to tease her now once in a while, and the exchanges vaguely reminded her of her brother. He was not a handsome man, but he was bright, and well read, and he had a good sense of humor. It helped during the air raids and the cold nights. It was what got them by in place of food and warmth and life's little pleasures.

“It was all right. I'm looking forward to the holidays, though. It will give me a chance to catch up on my reading. Do you want to go to the theater sometime? I know someone who might let us in at the Opéra Comique, if you want to try it.” The mention of it reminded her of Clayton and the gentler days of summer. She hadn't heard from him in a while, and assumed he was busy with General Pershing, who was designing the entire French campaign, and Zoya knew it was very secret. God only knew when she would see him again, if ever. But she was used to that now. She had seen the last of so many people she had once loved. It was difficult to imagine loving anyone without losing them. She forced her mind away from Clayton and back to Antoine and his offer to go to the theater.

“I'd love to go to a museum sometime.” He was actually good company, and very cultured, though not in the polished sense of her lost Russian friends.
But in a quiet way all his own, which was equally pleasant.

“As soon as school is out, we'll go. How's the stew?” he inquired, and she laughed.

“As rotten as ever.”

“I wish we could get some decent spices.”

“I wish we could get some real vegetables and fruit. If I see another old carrot, I think I may scream. When I think of the food we used to eat in St. Petersburg, I could cry. I never even thought of it then. You know, I even had a dream about food last night.”

He had dreamed of his wife the night before, but he didn't tell her that, he only nodded and helped her to set the table.

“How's your leg, by the way?” She knew he didn't like to talk about it, but more than once she had wrapped a hot water bottle for him and he'd taken it to bed and said it had helped him.

“The cold doesn't help much. Just be glad you're young. Your grandmother and I aren't as lucky.” He smiled at her and watched her ladle out the thin stew into three chipped ugly bowls. It would have made her cry if she had let herself think of the beautiful china they'd dined on every night at the Fontanka Palace. There was so much they had taken for granted that they would never see again. It was horrifying to think of it now, as Antoine went to knock on her bedroom door to bring Evgenia to dinner. But he looked worried when he returned alone and eyed Zoya over the small kitchen table. “She says she's not hungry. Do you think I should get the doctor for her tonight?” Zoya hesitated for a long moment, weighing the decision. A night call to the house would be even more expensive than a visit to his office.

“Let's see how she is after dinner. She may just be tired. I'll bring her some tea in a little while. Is she in bed?”

He shook his head with a look of concern. “She's dozing in the chair, with her knitting.” She had been working on the same tiny square of wool for months, promising that one day it would become a sweater for Zoya.

The two of them sat down to dinner then, and by silent agreement did not touch the third bowl, no matter how hungry they were. There was still a chance that Evgenia might decide she wanted her dinner.

“How was rehearsal?” He was always interested in what she did, and although he wasn't handsome, there was a boyish look about his eyes. He had thinning blond hair, which he parted carefully in the middle, and nice hands, which she had noticed long since. They no longer shook, and though he was constantly in pain from his leg, he no longer seemed as nervous.

“It was all right. I wish the Ballet Russe would come back. I miss dancing with them. These people don't know what they're doing.” But at least it was money for food. A job was too precious to lose in the winter of 1917 in Paris.

“I ran into some people in a caffe today who were talking about the coup d'otat in Russia last month. It was an endless discussion about Trotsky and Lenin and the Bolsheviks with two pacifists who got so mad, they threatened to punch the other two.” He grinned impishly. “It was pacifism at its best. I actually enjoyed the discussion.” There was a great deal of hostile feeling against the Bolsheviks at the time,
and Antoine shared the pacifist view like so many others.

“I wonder what effect that will have on the Romanovs,” Zoya voiced quietly. “I haven't had a letter from Siberia in a long time.” It worried her, but perhaps Dr. Botkin hadn't been able to get her letters to Mashka. One had to consider that, and be patient in waiting for an answer. Everything seemed to require patience these days. Everyone was waiting for better times. She only hoped that they all lived to see them. There was even talk of the possibility of Paris being attacked, which seemed hard to believe with English and American troops swarming all over France. But after what she'd seen in Russia only nine months before, she knew that anything was possible.

She stood up then, and took the remaining bowl of stew to her grandmother's room, but she came back with it a few minutes later, and spoke softly to Antoine in the kitchen. “She's asleep. Maybe we should just let her sleep. I put a blanket over her to keep her warm.” It was one of the blankets Clayton had given them the previous summer. “Don't forget to give me that doctor's name tomorrow before you go to school.”

He nodded and then looked at her questioningly. “Do you want me to go with you?” But she only shook her head, she still had a strong streak of independence. She hadn't come this far, almost on her own, in order to depend on anyone now, even someone as unassuming as their boarder.

She finished the dishes and sat down in the living room, as close to the fire as she could, and warmed her hands as he quietly watched her. The fire shot gold lights into her hair, and her green eyes seemed
to dance. And unable to resist the lure of her, he found himself standing nearby, partially to keep warm, and partially just to be near her.

“You've got such pretty hair….” He said it without thinking, and then blushed as she looked up at him in surprise.

“So do you” she teased, thinking of the insulting exchanges with Nicolai they had so loved. “I'm sorry … I didn't mean to be rude … I was thinking of my brother.” She stared into the fire pensively, as Antoine watched her.

“What was he like?” His voice was gentle, and he thought his heart would break in half, he was so hungry to reach out and touch her.

“He was wonderful … thoughtful and funny and daring and brave, and very, very handsome. He had dark hair like my father, and green eyes.” And then suddenly she laughed, remembering. “He had a great fondness for dancers.” Most of the imperial family had and Nicholas among them. “But he'd be so angry at me now.” She looked up at Antoine with a sad smile. “He'd be furious at my dancing now …” Her thoughts drifted off again as Antoine watched her.

“I'm sure he'd understand. We all have to do what we must to survive. There aren't many choices. You must have been very close.”

“We were.” And then, out of nowhere, “My mother went mad when they killed him.” Her eyes filled with tears as she thought of him bleeding to death in the front hall, and her grandmother tying her petticoats over his wounds to no avail to try and save him. It was almost more than she could bear thinking about it, as Sava came quietly to her chair
and licked her hand, and forced her mind back to the present.

They sat quietly for a long time. He had pulled up the room's only other chair, and they sat by the fire, lost in their own thoughts, until Antoine dared to be a little braver. “What do you want to do with your life? Have you ever thought about it?”

She looked surprised at the question. “Dance, I suppose.”

“And after that?” He was curious about her, and it was a rare opportunity to find her alone without Evgenia.

“I used to want to marry and have children.”

“And now? Don't you think about that anymore?”

“Not very often. Most dancers never get married. They dance until they drop, or teach, whichever comes first.” Most of the great dancers she knew had never married, and she wasn't sure she cared. There was no one she knew that she could imagine marrying. Clayton was only a friend, Prince Markovsky was too old, and the men in her troupe were beyond hope, and she certainly couldn't imagine herself married to Antoine. And there was no one else. Besides, she had to take care of Evgenia.

“You'd make a wonderful wife.” He said it so seriously that she laughed.

“My brother would have said you were crazy. I'm a terrible cook, I hate to sew. I can't do watercolors or knit. I'm not sure I can run a house, not that that matters now …” She smiled at the thought as he watched her.

“There's more to marriage than cooking and sewing.”

“Well, I certainly don't know if I'm good at
that!
”
She blushed and laughed and he blushed too. He was easily shocked and she had shocked him.

“Zoya!”

“Sorry.” But she looked more amused than contrite as she stroked little Sava. Even Sava had grown thin from the meager remains from their table.

“Perhaps one day someone will make you want to give up dancing.” He had misunderstood, it wasn't that her passion for the ballet was so great. It was only that she had no choice. She had to work to support herself and Evgenia, and it was all she knew how to do. At least it was something.

“I'd better get Grandmama into bed, or her knees will be killing her tomorrow.” She stood up and stretched and Sava followed her into the bedroom. Evgenia had already woken up and was changing into her nightgown. “Do you want your stew, Grand-mama?” It was still waiting for her in the kitchen, but she shook her head with a tired smile.

“No, darling. I'm too tired to eat. Why don't you save it for tomorrow?” With all of Paris starving, it would have been a crime to waste it. “What have you been doing in the other room?”

“Talking to Antoine.”

“He's a good man.” She said it looking pointedly at Zoya, who seemed not to notice.

“He gave me the name of a doctor on the rue Godot-de-Mauroy. I want to take you there tomorrow before rehearsal.”

“I don't need a doctor.” She was braiding her hair and a moment later she climbed painfully into bed. The room was cold, and the pain in her knees was brutal.

“I don't like the sound of your cough.”

“At my age, even having a cough is a blessing. At least I'm still alive.”

“Don't talk like that.” She had only been saying things like that since Feodor died. His death had depressed her deeply, that and the fact that she knew they were almost at the end of their money.

Zoya put her own nightgown on, and turned o£F the light, and she held her grandmother close to keep her warm as they huddled through the December night together.

CHAPTER
19

The doctor Zoya took her grandmother to said that it was only a cough and not tuberculosis. It was worth paying the price for the good news, but Zoya had had to give him almost the last of their money. Even his small fee was too much for their empty pockets. But she said nothing to Evgenia as Prince Markovsky drove them back to their apartment. He cast several meaningful glances at Zoya, which she ignored, and she left him chatting with her grandmother at the apartment when she went to rehearsal. And when she came back that night, she thought her grandmother looked a little better. The doctor had given her some cough medicine, and it seemed to be helping.

Antoine was already in the kitchen, cooking dinner. He had brought home a chicken that night, which was a rare treat. It meant they would not only have dinner out of it, but soup for the next day. And as she set the table for the three of them, she found herself wondering if Mashka now had the same considerations. Perhaps a chicken looked luxurious to
her now too. If they had been together they could have laughed about it. But now there was no one to laugh with.

“Hello, Antoine.” She smiled at him and thanked him for the name of the doctor.

“You shouldn't have wasted the money,” Evgenia reproached from a chair near the fire. Vladimir had brought them firewood. It was suddenly a day of unexpected riches.

“Grandmama, don't be foolish.”

The three of them enjoyed the chicken, which he served swimming in its own broth, and afterward Zoya sipped tea with them by the fire. And when her grandmother went to bed, Antoine stayed to talk to her again. They seemed to be doing a lot of that, but at least he was someone to talk to. He was talking about his Christmases as a child, and his eyes shone as they talked. He loved being near her.

“Our Christmas is later than yours. It's on January sixth.”

“The Feast of Kings.”

“There are beautiful processions all over Russia. Or there were. I suppose we'll be going to the Russian church here.” In a way, she was looking forward to it, and in another way she knew it would be depressing. All those lost souls, standing together in the candlelight, remembering a lost world. She wasn't sure she could bear it, but she knew that her grandmother would insist that they go. There would certainly be no gifts this year. There wasn't a spare penny with which to buy them.

But when Christmas actually came, Antoine surprised her. He had bought her a warm scarf and a pair of warm gloves, and a tiny, tiny bottle of the
perfume she had casually mentioned to him once. It was the perfume that touched her heart and brought tears to her eyes. It was “Lilas,” which Mashka had so loved and had given her months before. She took the top off the flacon, and the sweet smell brought back the touch and feel and smell of all that she loved, and her beloved Mashka. There were tears rolling slowly down her cheeks as she looked at him, and without thinking, with childlike grace, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. It was a sisterly kiss, but his whole body trembled to feel her near him. And Evgenia looked on with tears in her own eyes. He was not what she would have wished for Zoya once upon a time, but he was a decent, hardworking man, and she knew he would take good care of Zoya. He had spoken to her only the day before, and she had given him her blessing. She was feeling weaker day by day, and she was terrified that if she died there would be no one to take care of Zoya. She had to marry him now, for her grandmother's peace of mind. But Zoya had no idea what they had planned, as she thanked him warmly for the perfume. He had given her grandmother an embroidered shawl and a book of Russian poems. And Zoya was embarrassed that all they had bought him was a clean notebook and a book about Russia.