Zoya (44 page)

“What'll we tell her?”

“The good news,” he smiled gently at his wife, “that we're having a baby.”

“I think she'll be very upset.” But that proved to be the understatement of the century. Neither of them was prepared for the hurricane that hit Park Avenue when Zoya told her about the baby.

“You're
what?
That's the
most
disgusting thing I've
ever
heard! What am I going to tell my friends for God's sake? They'll laugh me right out of school, and it'll be
all yourfaultl”
She raged as Zoya looked on unhappily.

“Darling, it doesn't change how much I love you. Don't you know that?” she said helplessly.

“I don't care! And I don't want to live here with you, if you have a baby!” She had slammed her door and disappeared later that afternoon, after school. It had taken two full days to discover that she was staying
with a friend. Zoya and Simon had called the police by then, and she met them in the friend's living room with a look of defiance that met their grief-stricken faces. Zoya asked her quietly to come home with them, and she refused and suddenly, for the first time, Simon was overcome with absolute fury.

“Get your things,
right now
Do you understand?” He grabbed her arm and shook her hard as she stared at him, he had never done anything like it before, and she had thought him possessed of unlimited patience. But even Simon had his limits. “Now go get your hat and coat and whatever else you brought here, you're coming home with us whether you like it or not, and if you don't behave yourself, Sasha, I'm going to have you locked in a convent.” And for a moment she believed him. But he didn't want his wife having a miscarriage, thanks to her spoiled brat of a daughter. Sasha came back into the room a moment later, with her things, looking somewhat subdued, and somewhat frightened of Simon. Zoya apologized profusely to the mother of Sasha's friend and they took her downstairs and drove her home, where Simon read her the riot act the moment they set foot in the apartment. “If you ever, ever dare, to give your mother any trouble again, Sasha Andrews, I'm going to beat you within an inch of your life, do you understand?” He roared, but Zoya smiled within herself. She knew he would never have laid a hand on the child, or anyone, but he was so angry his face was pale. And suddenly, she began worrying that he might have a heart attack like Clayton.

“Go to your room, Sasha,” she said coldly, and the girl silently obeyed, for once amazed at their reactions,
as Nicholas quietly walked in and looked at them.

“You should have done that a long time ago. I think that's what she needs. A good, swift kick in the behind.” And then he laughed mischievously, as Simon relaxed again, “I'd be happy to deliver it for you, anytime you like.” And then he turned to his mother with the smile that so often reminded her of her own brother's. “I just want you to know that I think it's wonderful, about the baby.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she went to him and put an arm around her tall, handsome son, looking up at him sheepishly.

“You're not going to be too embarrassed that your old mother is having a baby?”

“If I had an old mother, maybe I might be.” He smiled at her and a moment later his eyes met Simon's, and he saw the man's love for him there. He went to him and hugged him too.

“Congratulations, Dad,” Nicholas said quietly, embracing him as tears leapt unrestrained to Simon's
eyes.
It was the first time the boy had called him that. A new life had begun, for all of them, not just for Simon and Zoya.

CHAPTER
43

In April of 1939, the World's Fair opened at Flushing Meadows, and Zoya was anxious to go, but Simon didn't think she should. It was terribly crowded, and she was four months pregnant. She was still working full-time at the store, though she was being a little more careful than before. And Simon took the children to the World's Fair instead, and they were both thrilled when they saw it. Even Sasha behaved, as she had much of the time since Simon's now famous explosion. But she was difficult with Zoya as often as she could get away with it, which was still far too often.

In June, the first transatlantic passenger flights were begun by Pan Am, and Nicholas was dying to go to Europe on the
Dixie Clipper
, but Simon wouldn't let him. He thought it was too dangerous, and more important than that, he was even more worried than before by what was going on in Europe. He and Zoya had gone over on the
Normandie
again in the spring, to buy for the store and fabric for his line of coats. But he had felt the tension everywhere, and he was far more aware of anti-Semitism than he had been before
when he was there. He felt certain now that there was going to be a war, and he offered Nicholas a graduation trip to California instead, which delighted Nicholas. He flew to San Francisco and back, in love with everything he'd seen there, and amused by the size of his mother when he returned. In August, she finally stopped going to the store, and called them every half hour instead. She didn't know what to do with herself when she wasn't working. Simon brought her candies and books and the magazines she liked best, but all she could think of by the end of August was the nursery she'd made of the guest room next to the library, and he found her there every day folding tiny baby things. It was a side of her he had never seen before. She even reorganized his closets and changed the furniture around in their bedroom.

“Take it easy, Zoya,” he teased, “I'm afraid to come home at night. I might sit down in a chair that isn't there anymore.”

She blushed, aware of it herself. “I don't know what's happening to me. I seem to have this constant need to get the house in order.” She had redone Sasha's room too, she was away at a camp for young ladies in the Adirondacks, and it was a relief to Simon not to have to worry about her just then. And things seemed to be going well there, she had only escaped the counselors once, to go dancing with her friends in the nearby village. They had found her at the head of a conga line and summarily took her back with them, but at least they hadn't threatened to send her home. Simon wanted Zoya to be able to relax before she gave birth to their baby.

At the end of August, Germany and Russia stunned the world by signing a mutual nonaggression pact,
but Zoya seemed uninterested in world news. She was too busy calling the store and changing the apartment around, and on the first of September, Simon came home and offered to take her to the movies. Sasha was due back the next night, and Nicholas was leaving the following week for Princeton, but he was out with some friends, showing off the car Simon had just given him to take to college. It was a brand-new Ford coupe, hot off the assembly line in Detroit, with every possible extra feature they had to offer.

“You're much too generous with him,” Zoya had smiled, grateful as always for everything he did for them. He had stopped by the store that night and gave her all the news, as he noticed that she looked even more uncomfortable than she had that morning.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“I'm fine.” But she said she was too tired to go to the movies. They went to bed at ten o'clock that night, and an hour later, he felt her stir, and then he heard a soft moan, and he turned on the light. She was lying beside him, her eyes closed, holding her belly.

“Zoya?” He didn't know what to do, as he leapt out of bed, rushing around the room, looking for his clothes, and unable to remember where he'd left them. “Don't move. I'll call the doctor.” He couldn't even remember where the telephone was as she laughed at him from the bed.

“I think it's just indigestion.” But the indigestion got a lot worse in the next two hours, and at three o'clock in the morning, he called the doorman for a taxi. He helped Zoya put on her clothes, and helped
her into the cab, waiting for them downstairs. She could hardly talk by then and she was having trouble walking, as terror enveloped him. He didn't even care about the baby suddenly, he just wanted her to be all right. He felt frantic as they wheeled her away at the hospital, and he paced the halls as the sun came up. He jumped a foot when an hour later, a nurse touched his shoulder.

“Is she all right?”

“Yes” the nurse smiled, “you have a beautiful little boy, Mr. Hirsch.” He stared at her, and then began to cry, as she walked quietly away. And half an hour later, they let him see Zoya. She was dozing peacefully, with the baby in her arms, as he tiptoed into the room, and stopped in wonder as he saw his son for the first time. He had a shock of black hair like his own, and his tiny hand was curled around his mother's lingers.

“Zoya?” he whispered in the large sunny room at Doctors Hospital. “He's so beautiful,” he whispered, as Zoya opened her eyes and smiled at him. It had been a difficult birth, the baby was big, but even then, right afterward, she knew it was worth it.

“He looks like you,” she said, her voice still hoarse from the anesthetic.

“Poor kid.” His eyes filled with tears again, and he bent to kiss her, he had never been happier in his life, and Zoya looked so happy and proud as she gently smoothed a hand over the silky black hair. “What'll we call him?”

“What about Matthew?” she whispered as Simon looked at his son.

“Matthew Hirsch.”

“Matthew Simon Hirsch,” she said, and then drifted off to sleep again, with her son in her arms, and her husband looking on, the tears of joy falling into her mane of red hair, as he kissed her.

CHAPTER
44

Matthew Simon Hirsch was still in the hospital and he was one day old on the day that war was declared in Europe. Britain and France had declared war on Germany, when their ally Poland was invaded by Germany. Simon came into Zoya's room with grim eyes and announced the news, but a moment later he had almost forgotten as he held Matthew, and watched the baby give a lusty cry for his mother.

When Zoya came home to the apartment on Park Avenue, Sasha was there to greet her. Even she couldn't resist the beautiful baby boy who looked so exactly like Simon.

“He has Mama's nose,” she announced with amused delight, fascinated that everything was so perfect and
so
small as she held him for the first time. At fourteen, she was too young to visit at the hospital, but Nicholas had met his brother before leaving for Princeton. “And he has my ears!” Sasha giggled, “but the rest is Simon.”

On September 27, after being brutally attacked, Warsaw surrendered, with enormous loss of life. Simon
was heartbroken by the news, and he and Zoya talked long into the night, as she remembered the revolution. It was terrible, and Simon mourned the Jews being massacred all over Germany and Eastern Europe. He was doing everything he could for those who could get out. He had established a relief fund, and was trying to get papers for relatives he had never heard of. People in Europe would use phone books to call people in New York with similar names, and beg them for assistance, which he never refused. But those he could help were a precious few. The rest were being led to their death, locked up in detention camps, or slaughtered on the streets of Warsaw.

When Matthew was three months old, Zoya went back to work, on the day that Russia invaded Finland. Simon followed the news from Europe avidly, particularly Edward R. Murrow's broadcasts from London.

It was December first by then, and Zoya was excited to find Countess Zoya swarming. And they all went to see
The Wizard of
when Sasha got out of school. Nicholas was home from Princeton and loving it, although he talked a great deal about the war with Simon, while he was home on vacation.

He liked it even more the second year, and before going back to Princeton again he went back to California for summer vacation. Zoya hadn't been able to go to Europe this year, with the war on, they had to use designers from the States. She was particularly fond of Norman Norell and Tony Traina. It was September 1941 and Simon was certain the country would go to war, but Roosevelt was still insisting they wouldn't. And the war certainly hadn't hurt the store, it was the best year Zoya had had. Four years after she had opened her doors, she was using all five
floors of the building Simon had wisely bought. He had bought four more textile mills in the South, and his own business was doing extremely well. She had a whole department of his coats and she always teased him and called him her favorite supplier.

Little Matthew was two years old by then, and the apple of everyone's eye, even Sasha's. She was a blossoming sixteen, and by everyone's standards, a raving beauty. She was tall and thin as Zoya's mother had been, but instead of Natalya's regal bearing, there was a sensual quality that drew men like bees to honey. Zoya was just grateful that she was still in school, and hadn't done anything outrageous in almost a year. As a reward, Simon had promised to take them all skiing in Sun Valley that winter, and Nicholas was anxious to join them.

They were sitting in the library discussing their plans on December 7, when Simon turned the radio on. He liked to listen to the news when he was at home, and he had Matthew on his knee as his face froze. He pushed him into Sasha's arms, and ran into the next room to find Zoya. His face was white as he found her in their bedroom.

“The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii!”

“Oh my God …” He pulled her into the other room with him to listen to the news, as the announcer explained in staccato tones what had happened. They all stood rooted to where they stood, as Matthew tugged at Zoya's skirt and tried to get her attention, but she only picked him up and held him close. All she could think of was that Nicholas was twenty years old. She didn't want him to die as her brother had with the Preobrajensky. “Simon …
what will happen now?” But she instinctively knew as they listened. Simon's predictions had finally come true. They were going to war. President Roosevelt announced it, with a voice filled with deep regret, but not as great as Zoya's. Simon enlisted in the army the following morning. He was forty-five years old, and Zoya begged him not to go, but he looked at her sadly when he came home.