“There’s a direct train from Paris to Bordeaux,” Charlotte replied. “And then I only need to travel east. They can’t guard the entire perimeter.”
“They don’t need to. They’ve established checkpoints all along the rail lines.”
“How do you know that?”
He lowered his gaze again. Charlotte thought it best to leave the topic alone. For now. “What if we had a car?” she asked.
“The Germans took all the cars. You’ll be lucky to find an old horse and buggy.”
His voice remained steady, but Charlotte saw uncertainty in his eyes. Luc could be talked into helping her. She only needed to grant him the illusion he’d arrived at this conclusion himself.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “All the cars are gone. But then I thought they’d taken all the tobacco and coffee and eggs as well. Or are you raising chickens? And now you seem to know where the German checkpoints are located as well.”
Luc didn’t reply, but his lower lip twitched. Charlotte almost smiled. Laurent had the same tic when he was about to give in.
“Without the right connections,” she said carefully, “how could I possibly find a car on my own, or gasoline for that matter?”
“You couldn’t,” Luc said.
He never failed to point out what she couldn’t do. Charlotte bit her lip to keep from fighting back. “Perhaps you know someone. Perhaps the person that provides you with cigarettes and eggs, someone in the Maquis, the Resistance.”
His lip quivered. “The less you know about that, the better.”
“But you could help us leave?”
“Charlotte, be realistic.” He switched tactics, just as she’d done with him. Now Luc used his cajoling, seductive tone. “If the Germans are looking for you, you can’t go. Stay here with me.”
How could she make Luc understand? She needed to get home. She needed her mother to hug her and tell her she would be all right. She saw Laurent peep out from over his book, worry clouding his gaze. She gave him a subtle wink. It’s just a game, she wanted to tell him. Something for adults. Nothing to make you worry.
“A soldier came to my flat,” she told Luc, with as much firmness as she could muster and not scare Laurent. “He knew my name. He knew all about me. Why?”
Luc’s face paled. Without thinking, Charlotte set the mug of coffee down on the table and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. Luc’s skin felt firm and enticing. Despite everything, a familiar longing gripped her.
He gave a wan smile. “Do I have a temperature?”
She knew that smile too well. It acted as a talisman, robbing her of reason. Charlotte stumbled over her words. “Something came over you. You looked sick.”
Luc’s smile crumbled. “You told me once that your parents emigrated to Sainte-Foy-la-Grande from Denmark. Do you know why?”
“My father wanted to grow Muscadelle grapes,” she said.
“You were adopted. What do you know about your biological parents?”
Charlotte turned her feet out, toes to opposite heels, in fifth position. She could handle anything as long as she maintained fifth position. “Nothing.”
“The Germans just completed a census of Jews in the occupied zone,” Luc said. “Is it possible your biological family was Jewish?”
She felt the cool metal hanging around her throat. Charlotte held the chain out so Luc could see the cross on her necklace. Three bars sliced through the cross, the third bar angled down. Her mother had given it to her before she moved to Paris. Since she and Luc separated, she had worn it every day. It made her feel less lonely. “What about this?”
“I’ve never seen one like that before.” Luc regarded the crucifix with mild interest. “Is your family religious?”
Charlotte hesitated. “No.”
“Why did your mother give it to you then?”
She realized she couldn’t answer. Not that Luc bothered to wait for an answer anyway. “If they have something they call proof you’re Jewish, no German officer will care about what’s around your neck. They might think it’s a ruse or just not care. You know what the Nazis are. You should consider the possibility.”
Charlotte’s chest constricted. Shortly after the Germans seized control of the city, she’d taken Laurent out for a new pair of shoes. While they walked the Champs-Elysees, three adolescent boys in black boots and black berets began to smash the window of a jewelry shop. Charlotte knew the shop well. Luc had purchased her wedding ring there. She’d sold the ring back to the store after they separated, to help pay the first months of rent on her new flat. Charlotte remembered the man who owned the shop had spoken so softly she had to incline her head forward to hear him.
When she saw the looting, she expected to hear German. But the boys smashing the shop windows shouted to one another in perfect French. Charlotte remembered how young they looked, no more than children really. And yet their faces were so cruel. She’d tried to cover Laurent’s eyes, but he kept pushing her hand away. The employees ran out to the street, pleading for help. A pair of soldiers were posted on the corner. The soldiers only laughed. The collaborators dragged the owners out to the street, their wrists roped together, a graying middle-aged couple.
The next day the shop was boarded. She knew the Jewish owners had been sent east. East to nowhere. That’s what people said.
Charlotte wanted to find a dark room, where no one could see in or out, and sit, undisturbed, rock her body back and forth, and think. Surely her parents wouldn’t have kept something so important from her, especially not when the occupation put both her and Laurent in danger.
“The Spanish border isn’t far from your parents’ house.” Luc jolted her back to the present. “Some Catalans are sympathetic to the Maquis. I think they will help us.”
“Now you think we should leave the country? Before you didn’t think we should even leave the city.”
“If you’re determined to leave, you must do it the right way.”
“You’re convinced I can’t do it right.”
Luc glanced behind him at Laurent, still on the armchair, still ostensibly examining the brightly colored birds in the book. Every few seconds he looked up at them, brows furled.
“I want what’s best for Laurent.” Luc made an effort to brighten his voice. “I know a courier who might lend us his car.”
“I knew it!” Charlotte said. And then she realized he’d said “us.” She didn’t like the implication. “You needn’t come.”
“He’ll only lend us the car if I give him something in return. I’ll offer to make a drop for him in Vichy territory. Then we can cross over to Spain.”
Charlotte felt exhausted. She glanced at Laurent, snuggled like a kitten in Luc’s quilt, and wanted to join him. An idea flickered in her mind. “You can come on one condition. My friend Matilda Kshesinskaya. I need to make sure she’s all right.”
Luc frowned and stared out the window. She couldn’t read him, but she had never been good at that.
“Fine,” he said at last. “Just get Laurent out of the country.”
Charlotte began to pace the living room. Resting her hand lightly on the worn fabric of the sofa, she slid her feet into fifth position, and extended her leg in a series of battement tendus.
“Well?” Luc asked.
Charlotte drew in a deep breath, feeling the fullness of the air in her chest. “I guess it’s time we learn Spanish.”
Seven
NEW YORK CITY
PRESENT DAY
Veronica lengthened her stride to keep pace with Michael as they pushed their way through the lunchtime bustle on Fifth Avenue. Strangers brushed her coat with their elbows and car horns blared. She’d never been to New York City before, yet it seemed familiar, gritty and polished at once, like an enormous soundstage. It was a place she could call home. A little swagger made its way into her steps.
“I guess that’s part of growing up in California,” she was telling Michael. “At least in the Central Valley, you
grow accustomed to cars. You don’t think about the confinement and the isolation. You don’t realize what you’re missing. All the energy.”
“You don’t find this claustrophobic?” Michael said.
“It’s exhilarating.”
When Michael stopped at a crosswalk, Veronica gulped in the chilly air, catching her breath. The light turned. She stepped off the curb. Michael grabbed her elbow. She almost lost her balance, but he held on tight. He pulled her back just in time. An angry cabdriver honked as he screeched past. Hot, putrid exhaust blew in her face.
“Watch it.” Michael’s cheeks had paled. “Don’t get too exhilarated. I know everyone jaywalks, but remember, pedestrians don’t have the right of way here.”
Veronica’s life didn’t exactly flash before her eyes, but she had a quick vision of her death. Her body cold on the street. Strangers kicking her purse aside.
“I get that now.” The backs of her calves throbbed. She’d worn a pair of black boots with heels because she wanted to look like a cosmopolitan Carrie Bradshaw type, not some yokel from Bakersfield. She kept walking, slower this time and swagger somewhat mitigated.
Michael stopped at a gray building with four Corinthian columns and two giant American flags waving in the wind. The place looked more like a bank than a museum.
“This is what I ‘had’ to see?” Veronica commented.
“I know it doesn’t look like much from the outside, but there’s a gallery on the ground floor. Malcolm Forbes was a major league monarchist. He owned the largest collection of Fabergé eggs outside the Kremlin, along with some other Romanov relics.” Michael pivoted, frowning. “I don’t understand. My grandmother took me here all the time when I was little. They kept Nicholas and Alexandra outside.”
“Stuffed?”
“Good one. No. Life-size pictures. Let’s take a look.”
“Fine with me.” Veronica shivered. Now that they’d stopped moving, the cold air had started to seep through her thin coat.
She wanted to linger in the foyer, underneath the rumbling heating vent. But Michael wandered into the narrow, mazelike interior and she followed. They passed toy boats, old violins, framed presidential letters. Still, she didn’t see Fabergé eggs.
They reached the last room, filled with toy soldiers assembled to re-create famous battles. Despite the militaristic overtones, Veronica found the dioramas pleasing, like history books come to life. She bent to examine a miniature Alexander the Great charging Hannibal’s elephants.
“What happened?” Michael made another circle. The top of his head brushed precariously close to the low ceiling. He looked like Gulliver surrounded by Lilliputians. “Forbes owned at least five Fabergé eggs, Alexandra’s coronation crown…”
Veronica’s lip twitched. Nicholas II’s father had died suddenly and the ceremony had been a tense affair. She imagined Nicholas’s sweaty palms and trembling fingers as he placed the jeweled diadem on his wife’s head. Suddenly, Veronica had to see that crown. “Why don’t you go up front and ask? I’ll wait in here.”
Michael swung his hands behind his back. Even in jeans and a black overcoat he looked dashing. Still, he was acting strange, even for him.
“Come with me,” he said.
“Why?”
He shook his head and looked at the floor.
“This side of you concerns me,” she said. “I’m an adult. I can manage.”
Michael backed away reluctantly, hands in the air, palms forward. “Just don’t talk to strangers.”
“I learned that in kindergarten, but thanks.” Veronica moved away from Hannibal and Alexander the Great to a display of jousting knights.
“I’ll only be a few minutes,” Michael said.
“Great. Go.”
Veronica bent down to gaze at the little cheering spectators in Tudor-era costumes. One of the tiny brunettes looked like Anne Boleyn. She wondered who arranged these exhibits. Now that was a cushy gig. Come up with a new formation every month or so. No pressure to publish. No tenure committee ready to send you packing.
As she peered through the glass, she caught the milky reflection of a man on the other side of the room. He must have slipped in while she was examining Anne Boleyn. Only he wasn’t walking from exhibit to exhibit. He just stood there staring at her.
She tried to concentrate on the jousting match, but couldn’t focus anymore. She’d probably attracted a garden-variety weirdo. It’s not like it would be the first time that happened. But she couldn’t let him stare at her.
Veronica spun around. The man stood with his back turned to the Battle of Little Bighorn. Sioux and Cheyenne warriors in feathered headdresses circled U.S. soldiers in blue uniforms. He had been watching her all right. He didn’t even care that she’d caught him. He was nearly as tall as Michael, but with lean and wiry musculature and reddish brown hair that gave him an air of sleek cunning, like a Machiavellian fox. On his left cheek he bore a deep purplish, acorn-shaped scar.
“Can I help you?” She folded her arms across her chest.
The man had a trench coat slung over one arm. He held it out to her. “You will take this?”
She sucked in a deep breath. The man had a thick Russian accent, the kind that smashed vowels to dust. “What are you talking about?”
“Is it you work here? You will take coat then.”
“I don’t work here.”
Now he folded his arms across his chest, mirroring her stance. Mocking it as well, she felt sure of that. “Why say ‘can I help you’?”
“You were staring at me.”
He gave a big shrug. “I think perhaps I know you. Now I think no.”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“Such a shame then, no? But you are here with friend?” His mouth curled when he spoke. Amazing how Russians could laugh in your face without laughing at all. “More than friend, I think.”
“They sold the Fabergé eggs, along with everything else. A Ukrainian oil oligarch bought them all!” Michael strode back into the gallery. “That’s what I get for not keeping up with The New York Times.” When he saw the man, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“And here he is coming,” the Russian man commented. “The Cossack in all his glory on the search for Romanov relics.”
Michael threw the Russian a look that would have made Ivan the Terrible quake in his ermine-lined boots. The Russian ignored him, still directing his comments to Veronica. “Maybe I am disappointed like you. They no longer carry the holy artifacts of the blessed family. Not that I am so surprised. It is not in American nature to appreciate history. So sad for historian, no?”
An alarm rose steadily in pitch in Veronica’s head. This man knew she was a historian. He used archaic language, the “blessed family” and so forth. Veronica stepped forward, close enough to catch a whiff of the Russian’s astringent cologne. Michael tried to clasp her wrist, but she waved him back.
“Are you Alexei Romanov?” she asked.
“The tsarevich? You think I am one of these that say bullets bounce off royalty by magic? One of these desperate for attention, claiming I am someone I am not?” The Russian looked straight at Michael when he said that, waved his hand three times in a circular motion, and bent into a mockery of a bow.
Veronica’s heart hammered in her chest. Michael stepped between Veronica and the Russian. “What do you want?”
“I want nothing. And if I did, that would be between myself and the lady, I think. Move away please.” The Russian made a dismissive gesture, like he wanted to pass and was accustomed to those around him responding immediately to his requests.
Michael’s fists clenched. Veronica squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. Let’s go.”
“Try to follow us and I’ll call the cops,” Michael said.
“Why would I follow? Why would I care where you go? Perhaps you are following me.”
Veronica tugged on Michael’s hand, her stomach churning. She didn’t want this man provoking Michael. “Seriously.
”
Michael backed out of the room, holding her hand, and then turned abruptly to lead her to the exit and through the narrow maze of a hall. Veronica trailed, pulse pounding in her ears. She remembered Orpheus, from another story in the book of mythology Abuela had bought her long ago. Orpheus was allowed to bring his wife back from Hades, but the gods warned that if she looked behind her, she’d have to return for good. Veronica held Michael’s hand tight. She wanted to look back, but didn’t dare.
Once they were outside of the gallery and back on the street, the icy wind kicked up. Michael walked in front of her at an even quicker pace. “What did that guy say to you? What did he want?”
“Nothing. He was staring at me. It began to get on my nerves.” She hesitated to catch her breath as they walked. His legs were so much longer than hers. “When I confronted him he said he thought he knew me. Do you think he’s connected to the Romanov Guardsmen? Of course I’m sure this city is full of random perverts.”
“With Russian accents?” Michael squinted thoughtfully. “Okay, probably. But in the Forbes Gallery on a Wednesday afternoon? Making sarcastic comments about heirs to the throne? Bowing to me? I don’t think so.”
They passed a gothic church tower and a low iron gate embellished with metal crosses. Michael opened the gate, pulling her behind him, and ducked under the awning in front of the sanctuary. “I want to make sure he’s not following us.”
Veronica stood on her tiptoes to peer over Michael’s shoulder. She bit her lower lip, which had started to crack from the cold.
Then she recognized the spark of red in the Russian’s hair, a stark contrast to the gray sky. She almost let out a cry. Michael shook his head and she kept quiet, just watching. The Russian threw his trench coat over his shoulder, daring the East Coast cold to touch his hearty bones. Then he crossed Fifth Avenue against the traffic, artfully dodging several taxis and even a city bus. Veronica almost let out another little cry, but he made it safely across the street and headed in the opposite direction, toward the Midtown skyscrapers.
The Secret Daughter of the Tsar Page 11