Zoya (20 page)

She had found it at a bookseller's on the Quai d'Or-say, at an ugly little stand, but it was in French, and she thought he might like it. But not nearly as much as she liked the perfume.

Her grandmother quietly slipped away with her gifts, and softly closed her bedroom door, silently wishing him success, and praying that Zoya would be wise and accept him.

“You must have spent every penny you had” she chided him as she prodded the fire with a long metal poker and Sava wagged her tail as she watched her. ‘That was foolish, but kind, Antoine. Thank you so much. I will use the perfume for special occasions.” She had already decided to wear it two weeks later on Russian Christmas. She didn't want to waste it before that.

He sat down in the chair across from hers and took a breath, trying to muster up his courage. He was thirteen years older than she, but he had never been so frightened in his life. Even Verdun had been less terrifying than facing Zoya.

“I wanted to talk to you about a special occasion, Zoya. Now that you mention it.” He could feel his palms grow damp as she watched him strangely.

“What does that mean?”

“It means …” He could feel his heart pound. “It means … I love you.” She could hardly hear the words, but she stared at him in amazement.

“You
what?
”

“I love you. I've loved you since the day I arrived here. Somehow, I thought that you suspected.”

“Why would I ever suspect that?” She looked both startled and angry. He had spoiled everything. How could they be friends now if he was going to be so stupid. “You don't even know me!”

“We've lived together for two months. That's long enough. It wouldn't even have to be any different than this. We could stay here, except that you would sleep in my room.”

“How lovely.” She stood up and paced the room. “A mere change of rooms, and we go on just as we are. How can you even
suggest
it? We're all starving,
none of us has a sou, and you want to get married. Why?
Why?
I don't love you, I don't even know you, nor you me. … Antoine, we are strangers!”

“We're not strangers, we're friends. And some of the best marriages start that way.”

“I don't believe that. I want to be in love with the man I marry, madly, passionately, totally. I want it to be wonderful and romantic.”

He looked so sad as she shouted at him, but she was shouting more at the fates that had put them there, than at the man who had bought her her favorite perfume.

“Your grandmother thinks we could be very happy.” But it was the worst thing he could have said, as she strode around the room again in barely controllable fury.

“Marry my grandmother then! I don't want to get married! Not now! Everything around us is sick and cold and dying. Everyone is starving and poor and miserable. What a way to start a life!”

“What you're really saying is that you don't love me.” He sat down quietly, willing to accept even that. And suddenly his own quiet actions subdued her. She sat down facing him and took his hands in her own warm ones.

“No, I don't. But I like you. I thought you were my friend. I really never thought there was anything else behind it. Not seriously anyway. You never said …” Her eyes filled with tears.

“I was afraid to. Will you think about it, Zoya?”

But she shook her head sadly. “Antoine, I couldn't do it. It wouldn't be fair to either of us. We both deserve more than this.” She glanced around them, and then back into his eyes. “And if we loved each
other, even this wouldn't matter. But it does. I just don't love you.”

“You could try.” He looked so young, despite his injuries and his losses.

“No, I couldn't. I'm so sorry …” She left the room then, and quietly closed the door to her own room, leaving the perfume and the scarf and gloves on the table. He looked around him then, and turned off the lights and went back to his bedroom. Perhaps she would change her mind. Perhaps her grandmother could convince her. She had thought it such a sensible plan. But he knew it was born not of love, but desperation.

“Zoya?” Her grandmother was watching her from their bed, as she undressed, facing the garden. Evgenia couldn't see her face, but she suspected instinctively that she was crying. And as Zoya turned around in her nightgown, her green eyes were blazing. “Why did you do it, Grandmama? Why did you encourage him to do that? It was cruel to both of us.” She thought of the pain in Antoine's eyes and she felt terrible. But not terrible enough to marry him out of pity. She had to think of herself too. And she knew she didn't love him.

“It's not cruel. It's sensible. You must marry someone, and he'll take care of you. He's a teacher, he's respectable, and he loves you.”

“I don't love him.”

“You're a child. You don't know what you want.” She suspected also that Zoya was still dreaming of Clayton, a man more than twice her age, from whom she hadn't heard since November.

“I want to love the man I marry, Grandmama. Is that so much to ask?” Tears rolled down her cheeks,
as she sank into the room's only chair and clutched Sava.

“Normally, no, it's not. But in these circumstances, it
is.
You have to be sensible. I'm old, I'm sick. What are you going to do when I die? Stay here alone and go on dancing? You'll become old and hard and bitter. Stop this nonsense now. Accept him, and make yourself learn to love him.”

“Grandmama! How can you say that!”

“Because I've lived a long time. Long enough to know when to fight and when to give in, and when to make compromises with my heart. Don't you think I would like to see you married to a handsome prince, back in St. Petersburg, in a house like Fontanka? But there are no princes anymore, they're all driving taxis. Fontanka is gone, Russia is gone. This is all there is, Zoya, perhaps forever. You must make adjustments. I won't leave you alone. I want to know you'll be well cared for.”

“Don't you care that I don't love him?”

Evgenia shook her head sadly. “It doesn't matter, Zoya. Not now. Marry him. I don't think you'll regret it.” But he's ugly, she wanted to scream … he's crippled and lame … but in her heart of hearts, she knew that none of those things would matter to her if she loved him. Life with Antoine would always be sad, it would always be less than she had wanted. And the thought of having children with him made her want to cry even harder. She didn't want his babies, didn't want him. She just couldn't.

“I can't.” She felt as though she were choking.

“You can. And you must. For me, Zoya … do it for me, before I die. Let me know that you are safe with a man who will protect you.”

“Protect me from what? From starvation? We're all starving here together. He can't change any of that. And I don't care. I would rather starve here alone than be married to a man I don't love.”

“Don't make up your mind, little one. Think about it. Give it a little time. Please … for me …” Her eyes begged and Zoya's streamed with tears as though her heart were broken. But the next morning, there were no tears. She spoke with Antoine first thing the next morning.

“I want you to know, without any doubt in your mind, that I won't marry you, Antoine. I want to forget this ever happened.”

“I can't do that. I can't live here with you like this, knowing how badly I want you.”

“You did before.” She was suddenly terrified they'd lose their boarder.

“That was different. You didn't know then, now you do.”

“I'll pretend you never said it.” She looked frightened and childlike again, and he smiled sadly at her.

“That doesn't work. Are you sure, Zoya? Can't you think about it for a while?”

“No. And I don't want to give you false hopes. I can't marry you. I won't. Ever.”

“Is there someone else?” He knew she had an American friend, but he had never thought it was serious between them.

“No, not like that. There is only a dream. But if I give up my dreams now, I'll have nothing. They're all I have left.”

“Perhaps things will be better after the war. Perhaps we could even get our own apartment.” His
dreams were so small, and hers were still so much larger, as she shook her head, and this time he believed her.

“Antoine, I can't. You must believe me.”

“Then I'll have to move out.”

“Don't … please … I swear I'll stay out of your way. Grandmama will be heartbroken if you go-”

“And you, Zoya?” She stood watching him in silence. “Will you miss me?”

“I thought you were my friend, Antoine,” she said sadly.

“I am. I will always be. But I cannot stay here.” He had some pride left, but as he packed his things that afternoon, Zoya panicked. She begged him to stay, promising him almost anything but marriage. Without his contribution to the rent, and the food, they'd be even more desperate. “I can't help that” was his only answer. Evgenia even talked to him, assuring him that she would talk some sense into Zoya, but he knew better. He had seen Zoya's eyes and heard her words. And she was right. She couldn't marry a man she didn't love. She wasn't that kind of woman. “It's better that I go. I will look for another room tomorrow.”

“She's a foolish girl.” And Evgenia told her as much again that night. She was wasting her only chance at marriage.

“I don't care if I never get married,” Zoya answered with fresh tears. And in the morning when she got up, Antoine had left her a letter and taken his things and gone. There were three crisp bilk on the table and the letter wished her a happy life, and
anchoring it down was the bottle of perfume he had given her for Christmas.

Evgenia sobbed when she saw it, and Zoya quietly put the three crisp bills in her pocket.

CHAPTER
20

The next two weeks were bleak in the apartment near the Palais Royal. The ballet was closed for three weeks, and despite their putting out the word through Vladimir, no new boarder appeared. Filled with grief over what Zoya had done, Evgenia seemed to have aged almost overnight, and although her cough was better, she seemed to be failing. She reproached Zoya almost daily about Antoine, and their financial situation became so desperate that shortly after the New Year, Evgenia struggled down the stairs and had Vladimir drive her to the jeweler in the rue Cambon.

It was hardly worth the trip, but she felt she had no choice. She carefully unwrapped the package she had brought and revealed Konstantin's gold cigarette case, and three of Nicolai's silver souvenir boxes. They were covered with enamel replicas of his military insignia, engraved with amusing slogans and his friends’ names, one of them bore a tiny frog, and another a string of white enamel elephants. They represented all the things he held dear or that meant
something to him, and had each been gifts from friends. She had promised herself and Zoya long before that she would never sell them.

The jeweler recognized them instantly as pieces by Fabergo, but he had already seen more than a dozen more like them.

“I can't offer you very much,” he apologized, and the sum he wrote down brought tears to her eyes, but they had to eat. And she had so hoped they could keep them. “I'm sorry, madame.” She inclined her head in silent dignity, bereft of words, and accepted the small sum he offered. It would keep them for less than a week, if they didn't buy anything too extravagant.

Prince Vladimir noticed that the old woman looked pale when she emerged, but as always, he asked no vulgar questions. He simply drove her home, after stopping to buy a loaf of bread and a very thin chicken. Zoya was waiting for them when they returned, looking subdued, but extremely pretty.

“Where were you?” she asked as she settled her grandmother into a chair, and Vladimir went downstairs to bring up some more firewood.

“Vladimir took me out for a drive.” But Zoya suspected more than that.

“Is that all?”

She started to say yes but tears filled her eyes, and she began to cry, feeling tired and old, and as though life had finally betrayed her. She couldn't even allow herself to die. She still had Zoya to think of.

“Grandmama, what have you done?” Zoya was suddenly frightened, but the old woman blew her nose on the lace handkerchief she still carried.

“Nothing, my darling. Vladimir had very kindly
offered to drive us to St. Alexander Nevsky tonight.” It was Christmas Eve for them, and Zoya knew every Russian in Paris would be there, but she wasn't sure it was wise for her grandmother to go to church for the midnight mass. Perhaps they were better off at home. She wasn't in the mood for it anyway, but her grandmother looked stern as she straightened her back, and smiled at Vladimir as he returned with the firewood.

“Are you sure you feel up to it, Grandmama?”

“Of course.” And what did it matter now? “I have never missed midnight mass on Christmas in my life.” But they both knew it would be a hard year for them. With so many lost, the service could only remind them of the previous year, when they had celebrated Christmas with their loved ones all around them. And Zoya had been thinking all day of Mashka and the others, spending Christmas in Tobolsk.

“I'll be back at eleven o'clock,” Vladimir promised as he left. Zoya was planning to wear her best dress, and her grandmother had washed and ironed her only decent lace collar to wear on the black dress Zoya had bought her.

It was a lonely Christmas Eve in the quiet apartment, with Antoine's empty room staring at them like a reproach, Evgenia had offered it to Zoya a few days before, but she found that she couldn't bring herself to move in. After Feodor, and Antoine, she didn't want the room, and preferred to continue sleeping with her grandmother until they found a new boarder.

She cooked the chicken for her that night, roasting it carefully in their tiny oven. It was a luxury not to make soup of it, but it was the only gift they shared,
and both of them concentrated desperately on trying not to remember years past in their days of grandeur. They had always stayed at home on Christmas Eve, then gone to church with the family at midnight, and then to Tsarskoe Selo the next day to celebrate there with Nicholas and the others. Now instead, they commented on the chicken, talked about the war, mentioned Vladimir, anything to avoid their own thoughts. When Zoya heard a soft knock on the door, she rose to see who it was, brushing away Sava, who was hoping for some of their chicken.