by Kelly Oliver
“Lolita, moya lyubov,” she said, kissing the top of her head. “I’ve waited your entire life to meet you, milaya. Now I am whole. My heart is finally home.”
Dmitry had been right. It was love at first sight. His mother knelt down and returned her namesake’s long embrace. The two Lolitas on their knees holding each other for dear life. He hated to interrupt.
“The packages,” he said when he couldn’t wait any longer. “Is that the surprise? Did you find them?” Dmitry dashed over to the boxes and unwrapped the cardboard. He couldn’t stand it and tore at the box. After ripping and clawing, the paintings appeared, two cylinders coiled neatly inside bubble wrap. Carefully, he opened the plastic and unrolled the paintings one by one, letting the Goncharova curl up again while he gazed at the Kandinsky.
“How did you find them?” he asked, caressing the edge of the familiar painting. Then he lost himself in the Kandinsky, his old friend. His mother came to his side, reached down, and unrolled her favorite Natalia Goncharova.
“How beautiful!”
Dmitry insisted that she take it home with her, but she refused. He couldn’t bear to tell her that he would have to sell one of them, but it was the only way he and Sabina could afford to buy a new house.
Lolita and her grandmother were inseparable until her return to Moscow two days later. They cooked their favorite foods, drank vodka together, went shopping for summer clothes in the department stores downtown, and made plans for Lolita’s to visit her grandmother at the Count’s estate in Caën.
When Vanya drove them to the airport, the two Lolita’s sat side by side in the backseat, holding hands and chatting. In the departure lounge, his mother handed his daughter a petite vintage overnight case, red alligator with gold locks. A leather patch under the handle had been embossed with the initials L.Y.
“This is for you, my dear,” she said to Lolita. “Wait until I’ve gone to open it. Wait until I’m back in Moscow.” They held each other in a tight embrace.
“Dimka, my son,” his mother said, her eyes welling with tears, “please come and visit us. Konstantin, your father, is eager to see you again. You could bring your family.” He kissed her cheek. He couldn’t imagine calling the Count “father,” but he had always cherished the memory of them fly fishing together again on the banks of the river.
“Take care of our darling girl,” his mother said to him. “And take care of my Natalia, too.”
Dmitry winced and stared at his shoes. He’d already arranged to meet Nicholas Schilling about the paintings. If he sold the Goncharova, he’d be betraying his mother, but he didn’t have a choice. Kandinsky’s Fragment was a piece of his soul, his best friend, and he’d relied on that painting to get him through many a dark night. He could never sell it, no matter what the price.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Dmitry felt like he was back at the Moscow Institute of Art, but he was in the rich art collector’s fancy penthouse apartment, about to betray his mother. Surrounded by Russian paintings, he longed to take brush to canvas to cover his sins with thick oil paint.
Perhaps now he could paint something other than Kandinsky’s Fragment Number 2. He knew Kandinsky by heart: every trickle of red, slash of black ink, and hemorrhage of gold. Each dissonant note in its allegro, the harmony in its adagio, and its deep blue intermezzo, formed a symphony he had memorized in his body. He couldn’t say if Fragment 2 symbolized the Deluge, the Last Judgment, or the Resurrection. But it had become his religion, offering both redemption and pain, themes he’d studied in some of the very works on Schilling’s walls when he was a young man at the Institute of Art.
Schilling led him out of the foyer and into a sitting room with a wall of glass facing downtown. When the art collector offered him a seat on a white leather couch, Dmitry shook his head and continued to gaze around the room.
The contrast between the shiny metropolis hollow and meaningless below and the thick abstractions throbbing with life inside startled him. He stared at the paintings, hanging in neat rows on the other three expansive walls of the room, in what must have been the art collector’s Chagall gallery, containing some works Dmitry had never seen before. His gaze flew from wall to wall, so much to take in.
When Schilling went to the kitchen to ask his maid to bring them wine, Dmitry moved closer to examine a curious horned figure ascending, mouth open, to grasp stone tablets from hands emerging out of the clouds, all against a bright yellow background. This must be the famous sketch of Moses receiving the tablets. He’d read about it in school. Rarely on display, only a few people had ever seen it. He resented Schilling for keeping it to himself, but then he though of his own beloved Kandinsky.
Startled, Dmitry reeled back from the painting when Miss Jessica emerged from another room wearing an oversized men’s bathrobe, pale as chalk with dark circles under her swollen eyes. Cohabiting with the devil, at least she’d be warm.
“It’s good to see you up and about Miss Jessica,” Dmitry said. She looked awful, poor girl. “I heard that you helped the police catch the professor’s killer.”
“Unbelievable, isn’t it?” she said, curling up on the white leather sofa in the middle of the room. “Alexander Le Blanc poisoned him with GHB and used Dostoevsky to rationalize it. Raskolnikov’s theory of extraordinary men from Crime and Punishment as an excuse to kill. Mix that with an unhealthy dose of misinterpreted Nietzsche, and you’ve got a lethal cocktail of wacked out homicidal existentialism. ” She shook her head. “Absurd.”
“He was emulating a character from nineteenth-century Russian literature?” Dmitry asked. “He should have read Tolstoy,” he said under his breath. “Instead of wallowing in the turmoil and angst of his own soul, he could have worried about practical matters like national party politics or the effects of digital technology on farming.”
“Or, maybe he would have just thrown himself in front of a train like Anna Karenina.” Jessica smiled and tucked the edges of the robe under her legs, wrapping herself in a cocoon of white terry cloth. Nick came back into the sitting room with his black clad maid in tow, sat down next to Jessica, and put his arm around her.
“How did you figure out Alexander was the killer?” Dmitry asked.
“I thought Alexander was harassing me because he wanted his paper back. And I thought Kurt was trying to…” she said, blushing. “It was almost a deadly misunderstanding.”
“Deadly is right,” Schilling said. He gestured for Dmitry to take a glass of sparkling wine. “He did want his paper back once he realized it was a confession and it wasn’t in Wolf Schmutzig’s office.”
Dmitry sipped the bubbly wine wishing he had something stronger, a nice shot of frozen Russo-Baltique.
“I’m such an idiot,” Miss Jessica said, sipping from a champagne flute.
“You’re anything but an idiot, Dolce,” Schilling said. “Alexander’s the idiot.”
“When I read his final paper, I put two and two together. His paper was basically a confession to this perverse murder. Once he found out I was the one grading his paper, he tried to poison me.”
Dmitry sighed and stared into his lap. “I should have stopped him. I knew he was dealing drugs for Bratva. And I saw him in the professor’s office weekly.”
“But there’s more to the mystery. Tell Dmitry what Jack and Amber found in the email and in the office, Dolce,” Nick said, taking Miss Jessica’s hand and kissing it.
“Amber hacked the professor’s email and found a scanned manuscript he’d sent a couple weeks ago to Fingal O’Flannery. Turns out to be the very book Fingal is now publishing as his own, conveniently after Wolf’s death. So the night of the poker game, Jack went back into the professor’s office and found the same book manuscript tucked into a manila envelope addressed to Oxford University Press.” Miss Jessica’s face was bright red and her eyes were glistening like she might cry.
“But who really wrote that manuscript?” Schilling asked, nudging her with his elbow and then kissing her forehead. Dmitry blinked and squirmed
in his chair.
“I guess I did. Turns out, it was my thesis,” Jessica said, blushing. “That’s why Schmutzig wanted me to drop out of graduate school. He stole my research and was planning to send it off to Oxford as his own. But after he died, Fingal took it and sent it out as his. I still can’t wrap my mind around this level of sabotage and intellectual theft. It really wrecks my faith in philosophers and crusty old men.”
Dmitry didn’t know what to say. It made sense to steal money or paintings. But, a philosophy thesis, what worth could it possibly have?
“How did you know Alexander was dealing drugs on campus?” Jessica asked. “Was it mostly date rape drugs?”
Dmitry winced, wondering how many girls had been attacked because he had said nothing. “For a smart boy,” he said, “Alex was very stupid.”
“Those frat boys taking selfies while raping unconscious girls are about to learn their idea of entertainment is a felony crime.” Schilling said, stroking Jessica’s hair.
“They’re dickheads,” said Miss Jessica, moving away from Schilling’s caress. “I think sororities should hand out female condoms lined with razors.” She stood up and starting pacing back and forth in front of the couch. “Vagina Dentata, that would fix the creeps.”
Nicholas Schilling’s maid served them coffee in silence. No one responded to Miss Jessica’s gruesome solution. Vaginas with teeth, maybe American girls were even scarier than Bratva. Miss Jessica added extra cream and sugar to her coffee, and smiled as she picked up the cinnamon shaker from the tray.
Schilling finally broke the silence. “On to happier subjects. My mother will be thrilled with the Goncharova. I’m sending it to her for her birthday next week. I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Durchenko.” Schilling got up and went to a writing desk, sat down, and made out a check. When Dmitry saw the amount, his breath caught. It was enough to buy a whole city block, downtown. He detested having to sell his mother’s favorite painting, but he and Sabina needed to buy a new house. They couldn’t stay in the Residence Inn forever.
As he walked out of the building, Dmitry knew he might as well have just sold one of his own children, but there was no turning back. Schilling offered to have his driver give him a ride, but he decided to take the elevated train to the hotel. He needed time to think, time to mourn. When he got off the train, instead of returning to the Residence Inn, he walked to the lake. The temperature was perfect, neither hot nor cold, warm nor cool. A day when air and skin became one. The lake was a sheet of steel, steady dull silver. He hoped its steady sheen would calm his nerves, as he thought about how much his life had changed in just two weeks.
Chapter Fifty
JEssica was pouring bright orange cheese powder into a dented pot, compliments of the Residence Inn. When she added boiling water the florescent dust turned into a sticky wad, so she pounded it with a wooden spoon, then added the macaroni. Holding up a spoon dripping cheesy goo, she pointed it at her friend and laughed. “Hey, hand me the Stoli. How about making this mac-ala-vodka?” She’d already had a couple of frozen vodka shots for an appetizer.
Lolita passed the bottle, then used a paper towel to remove beef piroshky from the microwave. As she tossed them on the tiny table, she announced, “Dinner is served.”
Curled up on the couch with Bunin, Sabina looked up and smiled when her daughter presented a doughy piroshky accompanied by a daub of mac-and-cheese, along with a vodka shot. “Bon appetit,” she said setting the plate on the coffee table. Bunin slid off the sofa, nose touching the hot plate, and then glanced back at Sabina with questioning eyes.
Tail wagging, Bunin snatched the meat filled bun off the plate, then ran to the door to meet Dmitry. Shoulders slumped, Dmitry entered the hotel room, a black cloud ruining an otherwise sunny day.
“Did you hear about Gathering Apples?” Jessica asked, trying to cheer him up. “Nick was examining the painting and he noticed another painting bleeding through. He thinks it must be Goncharova’s study for her Self-portrait with Tiger Lilies.”
“What?” he asked, freezing in the entryway, neck twitching, as if a cold breeze had grazed his neck with a ghostly caress.
“Did you say Tiger Lilies?” Dmitry asked, wild-eyed.
“Lots of times artists paint over other canvases and eventually the original image shows through,” Jessica said, wondering what was wrong.
“Yes, I know. It’s called pentimento,” Dmitry said, running his hand through his thick hair. “I have to get that painting back.”
“But Nick’s sending it to his mother for her birthday.”
“We have to stop him,” he said, heading back out the door. “I can’t lose her again. Call Schilling and tell him I’ll trade for the Kandinsky.”
“What?” Lolita asked. “Are you crazy? The Kandinsky is worth at least ten times as much as the Goncharova.”
“The Tiger Lily,” he said, “My mother’s favorite flower bleeding through her favorite painting. It’s a sign. I have to get it back. Call Schilling now!”
Jessica called Nick, but his driver had already left to take the painting to Federal Express.
“Stop him!” Dmitry yelled.
“Calm down, Dad. You stay here. Have some tea or something.” Lolita said, then turned to Jessica and tossed her a helmet. “We’ll get it back. Which FedEx? Come on.”
“Downtown, in the John Hancock Center on Michigan Avenue,” Jessica answered.
As usual, her speed demon friend swerved in and out of traffic on her murderbike. “Hold on,” she yelled as she accelerated around a corner. She must be going over eighty miles an hour. Jessica closed her eyes, clamped her legs down hard on the bike, latched her hands around Lolita’s waist, and inhaled the thrill. The tail of Lolita’s long hair was blowing into her face from under her helmet, so Jessica pinched her eyes shut even tighter and pressed her lips together.
When Lolita skidded into the Federal Express parking lot and sprinted into the store, Jessica jogged after her. Her friend asked for a manager and explained the situation, but the package had already been posted, and the manager refused to do anything until he had personal authorization from Mr. Schilling in the flesh.
Jessica called Nick and then went outside to wait for him. Pacing back and forth in the parking lot, she took in the brilliant skyline and choppy lake the in the background. Every time she came downtown, she was awed by the skyscrapers with their sheets of glass reflecting fat puffy cotton clouds in an otherwise robin’s egg blue sky. She noticed an ominous thunderhead on the horizon and wished Nick would hurry up.
Fifteen minutes later, he arrived in his limo, all business as he took Jessica’s hand on the way past, then strode inside the Federal Express office. Lolita had been sitting on her Harley smoking a cigarette; she hopped off, ran ahead, and held the door open for them.
When the manager explained the truck was already loaded and it was too late to retrieve the package, Nick glared at him and got out his wallet, then started placing hundred dollar bills on the counter, one at a time. He paused, looking the manager straight in the eyes between each bill. With every bill the manager’s face brightened. Nick stopped at eight hundred, waited a few seconds, and then reached out to take the money back. Before he could, the manager snatched up the money, and dashed into the back of the store.
Several minutes later, he returned with the package. Puffing out his chest, he refused to turn the package over to one of the girls and instead placed it directly into Nick’s waiting hands.
“We need to get this back to my dad,” Lolita said. “He’s probably blown a gasket by now. I’ll call him. You take Jessica and the paintings back to the hotel and I’ll meet you there.”
“If he’s willing to sell the Kandinsky instead, I’m ready to make a deal.” Nick said, grinning as he led Jessica to the limo.
“We’ll see about that,” Lolita called after him as she hopped on her bike.
When they got to the Inn, Dmitry was waiting at the door. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants
, then seized the package out of Nick’s hands and placed it on the table. Sitting in the kitchenette, he used his carbide tipped scraper to pry open the crate. Carefully unrolling the painting, then flattening its edges with his fingertips, he sat motionless, starting at Goncharova’s Gathering Apples.
Jessica looked over his shoulder at the vase full of Tiger Lilies bleeding through the peasant women picking apples.
“Mr. Durchenko,” Nick said, taking a seat at the table. “I’ve heard you’ve had second thoughts and would rather sell the Kandinsky.”
“My redemption, my pain,” Dmitry mumbled.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said. “What was that? Which painting are you selling?
“Neither.” Dmitry stood up, took his wallet from his back pocket, removed Nick’s check, ripped it into tiny pieces, and threw them into the air. Jessica stepped out of the way just in time to avoid getting run over by Bunin as he charged, biting at the falling confetti.
“Maybe it is time to stop running,” Dmitry said rubbing his hands together. “No offense to your macaroni, girls,” he said, smiling, “but who wants to go to Pavlov’s Banquet for dinner?”
◆◆◆
Much later that night, back in her attic hovel, Jessica James was packing for her trip home the next morning, back to her melancholy mother and depressive Alpine Vista trailer park. She chewed her fingernail as she stared at the photograph of Michael, the last memento of her first ever lover.
She rummaged around in her pile of clothes, found his dirty blue cardigan, stomped on it, then stuffed it in the overflowing trash can. She skipped back to the desk, picked up the photo and stared at it again, remembering the early days of sparks flying and insatiable desire. She removed the photo from its frame, slipping it out from under the glass, then tore it into tiny pieces and scooped them into a neat pile on top of the desk. She struck a match and set the mound on fire, then watched as her “first” went up in smoke.