The Romanov Stone

by Robert C. Yeager

  With Grand Duchess Olga’s help, Anya and Irina escaped to America. In New York, Anya rented an apartment and returned to the world of dance, using different stage names. She choreographed obscure musicals and taught ballet to rich daughters on Manhattan’s upper east side. Irina became her star pupil, but never pursued a public career out of fear they’d be discovered. When Kate was born, Irina transferred her own ambitions in ballet to her new daughter. Meanwhile, until Irina married Henri Gavrill, they moved like gypsies.

  This too Kate learned from Irina’s recording: Her mother and Anya were secretly active in the Romanov restoration movement—they felt they owed it to all who had died, especially Nicholas and his children.

  But what had they owed her? For all of Anya’s and Irina’s devotion to Russian tradition and culture, for all their concern about the Romanov legacy, their own flesh and blood hadn’t merited a ruble’s worth of honesty about her history. Kate felt a sudden surge of anger—and the need to see Irina’s exact words. She reached in her briefcase to retrieve the transcript she’d made of the tape. Once again, she reread the last four paragraphs:

  Whether we were right or wrong, the reason Anya and I kept the truth from you was out of fear for your safety. I know that you and I have had a difficult time in recent years, but you must listen to what I say now. If you do as I have asked, powerful forces will conspire against you, and your life may be at risk. There are those who will want your money, those who will want the power of your name, and those who will want both. They will stop at nothing to prevent you from gaining your birthright. Remember, they killed your grandparents, and—if you are reading this—may have killed me.

  Go to my safe deposit box at Chase Manhattan on Fifth Avenue. You will find correspondence documenting my own search for the alexandrite, and the phone number and address of Mr. Peter Cushing, an attorney in New York whose firm has been very helpful. He’s drawn up a charter for the charity we wish to form, if we are able to reclaim the tsar’s great gift. Mr. Cushing suggested we name it the Nicholas Romanov Foundation for Peace through Music and Dance. Nicholas strongly believed in the power of art, and especially the ballet, as an antidote to strife and violence.

  Someone else may help you, but proceed with caution. He is the grandson of Rasputin—Alexandra’s ‘special friend.’ Anya said Nicholas never trusted Grigori, but this man—his name is Imre Novyck—may be useful. He is some kind of official at Lefortovo Prison in Moscow.

  Despite what came between us when you were in college, Katya, I have never stopped loving you or believing in you. Fate has given you a chance to redeem yourself. I know that you will make the most of it, and again fill me with pride.

  Reading her mother’s words, Kate’s eyes filmed with tears. A chance to redeem yourself? Where? How? Would she have to go to Russia? She pursed her lips, sighed and silently shook her head. Could she ever forgive herself for being so foolish? The typed lines resurrected memories that still seemed painful and fresh. They began in Dr. Borshel’s office.

  * * *

  “Closing your eyes isn’t the issue, Kate,” he’d begun. He shuffled a thick file of papers and spoke softly, with a slight European accent. “In fact, if anything, it’s possibly a good sign.”

  Kate leaned closer to the physician’s desk, holding tightly to Jack Nars’ hand. For months she and Jack had been trying to get to the bottom of her spotting problems. She’d begun to suspect something might be wrong in her psychological makeup, some weak spot or rift in her will to win. But it sounded like Dr. Borshel was about to deliver good news.

  “Tell me, when you are diving, when you are actually in the dive itself and before your eyes close, do things around you seem to slow down?”

  Kate nodded, tightening her grip on Nars’ fingers. It had been that way since she first began diving. She’d grown to see the phenomenon as another aspect of the sport’s ability to transport her to a different world.

  “Then I wouldn’t be overly concerned.” Dr. Borshel offered a professional smile. “This is something I often see in top athletes, whether their sport is football or fencing or diving. In what I call the athletic moment—the heighth of competition—you enter a self-induced trance, creating a protective shell within your consciousness. Your mind re-orders time. It shifts everything around and you go into slow motion in a way that lets you focus on one thing: performing at your absolute peak.”

  “But that’s just the point,” Kate interjected. “I’m not performing at my peak.”

  Her head spun. Just when she’d glimpsed an approaching breakthrough, she was slipping back where she started.

  Dr. Borshel leaned back in his chair. “These tests,” he said, tapping the thick folder on his desk, “paint a picture of an athlete with superb physical gifts, and more than enough mental acuity to know exactly how to use them.” He heaved his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug, and ruffled the papers by their edges. “Whatever is stopping you from achieving your goals, Kate Gavrill, can’t be found in this data.”

  Two weeks and six hours of additional tests later, however, Dr. Borshel had a different opinion. “The finding of self-hypnosis still stands,” he said, “and it’s still a big positive when it comes to your ultimate success. But there is a problem. Perhaps I missed it because I’m used to seeing it in male athletes.”

  He paused, and looked into her eyes. Kate glanced at Jack and slipped her arm through his.

  “Kate, it may sound as if I’m describing a disease du jour, but it’s now quite clear to me that you’re suffering from a form of Attention Deficit Disorder, basically the co-existence of attentional problems and hyperactivity. You’ve probably had this since you were a small child, and in almost all areas of your life you’ve developed coping mechanisms—except this one, the act of diving, especially complex dives when you go beyond two rotations.”

  Dr. Borshel paused, and drummed his fingers on the thick stack of test results on his desk. “I’m going to prescribe what’s called a cognitive awareness medication to help.”

  “Oh no, now just a minute—” Kate started to protest.

  The physician looked at her sternly. “Kate, I’m prescribing this to help you habituate behaviors, specifically focusing behaviors. This medicine is for training purposes only. Hopefully, the effect will persist when you compete. You will, of course, need to cease its use well before any actual athletic events. But I’ll leave the timing of that up to you and coach Nars.”

  “He’s turning me into a pill-head,” Kate protested when she and Jack were driving back to New Jersey.

  “It’s just like Adderall, for Christ’s sake,” Jack said when she protested. “It’s the same stuff half the kids in school use to pass exams. Pilots in combat use it. Cops use it. Hell, I’ve even used it. You’ve got to give it a try. This could unlock a whole new level of performance for you.”

  Kate stared silently out her passenger’s window. He was right. She’d been preparing for this phase of her career since she first went off a 3-meter board in high school. She glanced down at the white bottle of medication in her hand. She didn’t feel good about it, but she’d go along, at least for now.

  * * *

  The dirty red brick buildings—blackened by years of auto exhaust and coal dust—told her they were nearing Philly. Long before the mess she got in with Jack, Irina and Anya had tried to argue her out of becoming an athlete. She had always thought it was because they still wanted her to give ballet another try. Now she suspected there had been another reason. For years the two women had succeeded in isolating Kate. How they must have worried when she showed promise—and even garnered local publicity—as a diver. After Anya died, Irina was left alone with their terrible secret. Ever since that long ago night in Paris, her mother had lived in a world inhabited by frightening strangers, each one a potential assassin. Kate’s humiliation drew little public attention, even in local papers, but it could only have heig
htened the fearfulness of Irina’s existence.

  Kate’s mother must have dreaded the day of truth telling, yet known that day would come. In a way, because it erected a wall of near-silence between them, what happened to Kate in college had allowed Irina to delay that reckoning for years, until she faced her own demise. She’d bequeathed her daughter an unknown history, an unfound fortune and an unmet challenge—one that could demand Kate risk her life in a country she scarcely knew.

  The bus braked sharply. Under her tan linen slacks, Kate’s hips tensed against the cushion. Stretching forward, she grabbed her briefcase just before it slid to the floor.

  Chapter 9

  Fifth Avenue, late afternoon. Even in suffocation, Manhattan’s sidewalks hummed with human energy. The press of people generated more heat and, as she briskly trekked the dozen blocks to Tiffany & Co., Kate grew damp under her long-sleeved Oxford cloth shirt.

  Her first stop had been Chase Manhattan Bank on Fifth Avenue. She opened Irina’s safe deposit box and found a sheaf of papers, including one that described the alexandrite in detail, and a small gold frog, which she remembered from childhood. Kate slipped the contents into her briefcase, returned the box to its place in the vault, and walked back into the stifling air.

  Tiffany’s polished steel doors and rows of gleaming display cases seemed cool by comparison. She paused at a display of rings, struck by the myriad colors of diamonds and sapphires. When she asked to see an alexandrite, Kate was directed upstairs.

  “Genuine examples are unusual, as I’m sure you know,” said the clerk, an intimidating, overly handsome man with heavily-oiled, swept-back hair and glossy fingernails. “This isn’t the largest stone we have, but it is representative.”

  The alexandrite was small, and surrounded by still smaller diamonds in a plain gold setting. Under the store’s high ceiling lights, the gem gleamed a greenish-blue. When the clerk placed it under a display lamp, however, the same stone transformed itself, turning a dazzling, pigeon-blood red.

  It’s just a gimmick, Kate thought at first. The clerk moved the ring out of the light again, then back in. By the time he’d made a third pass under the lamp, she felt herself being drawn in. The alternating colors seemed to possess their own temperature and rhythm and even, in a way, separate moods. The price tag certainly wasn’t a gimmick: $68,000, for a small ring. She thought of the description of the Romanov alexandrite she’d just read after opening Irina’s deposit box. What would such an infinitely larger stone be worth today?

  “Actually, I came about this,” said Kate. “I’d like to get an idea of its value and have it repaired. It seems to need a new clasp.”

  She opened her briefcase and removed the frog brooch.

  The clerk sighed, rolled his eyes and, after ushering her into a private consultation room, vanished.

  While she waited, Kate looked closely at the brooch. She’d recognized the thumb-sized bauble at once. Anya had dangled the frog before her eyes when, as a little girl, she couldn’t get to sleep. Her great-grandmother always expressed surprise at how quickly the amphibian’s gleaming ruby eyes lulled Kate to slumber. “Come, look,” she’d call to Irina, “Katya has already closed her eyes.” Now, the creature stared up from Kate’s hand, as if daring her to solve a puzzle whose secret it alone might know.

  “It’s an exquisite piece,” Tiffany’s estate jewelry manager said after quickly studying the frog under a loupe. “Very old and very rare. Genuine Faberge, I’m quite sure. But you really should show this to a specialist. I’d recommend The Vintage Russian, a few blocks north of here across from the Plaza. They’ve traded in the Russian aristocracy’s jewels and personal artifacts since the 1920s.”

  Before leaving Tiffany’s, Kate stepped into the women’s room. She simply must do something about this heat. Besides, with her smallish figure, and under the heavy, loose-fitting shirt, who could tell the difference? Ducking into a stall, she took off her bra, and stowed the lacy white underwear in her briefcase. Slipping back into the blouse, she crossed the room to a washbasin. She wet a towel and sponged her arms, chest and neck. She re-buttoned the garment and departed.

  “Lovely,” said the The Vintage Russian Shop’s manager. The woman slowly turned the small but dazzling gold-and-green-crusted frog between her fingers. “These are called Uraltic emeralds, after their brilliance and the area where they are found. In truth, of course, they’re simply chrysoberyls, in this case very rare garnets.”

  The woman smiled as if Kate understood every reference, but the world she described might as well be in Katmandu. Cabochons and chrysoberyls, garnets and Uraltic emeralds, rubies, diamonds, and alexandrites—they smeared together like some sparkling lava, impenetrable in their collective mystery. How could she hope to make her way in a field whose basic elements she could barely spell, much less understand?

  “It’s a valuable piece and really should be appraised,” the woman continued, oblivious to Kate’s confusion. “I’d strongly advise that you keep it in a secure place, a safe deposit box.” She leaned forward, and lowered her voice. “And do be careful carrying it in your briefcase.” She slid a card over the counter-top. “Mr. Blake is just a few blocks from here. You might be surprised how much this is worth. I’m sure he can repair the clasp as well.”

  Kate nodded, picked up the card, and strode back into the throngs of mid-afternoon Fifth Avenue shoppers.

  Chapter 10

  “I don’t see many demantoid garnets, Miss Gavrill, and especially such fine ones. Thanks for bringing this in.”

  And thanks, thought Kate, for expanding my glossary for gemology dummies.

  Simon Blake took the damaged pendant. “I should have the appraisal for you by tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “I’ll have an assistant fix the clasp. It appears as if at some point it was converted to a necklace. Is that how you’ll be wearing it?”

  Kate nodded. She studied his features. Blake’s thin, prominent nose arched just below its bridge. His brown eyes were framed by deep furrows between their brows and lines that streaked across his cheeks like creases in a canyon wall. Pewter frosted his brown hair. His clothes were rumpled in a comfortable way, and so was he: the open-neck sweater he wore had a small hole at the right elbow, and he needed a shave. He looked weary. She put him a year or so north of forty, but he could have been older.

  Blake rose from his antique maple desk and crossed the room. He stood an inch or two past six feet and moved with a lean grace. A few minutes with a razor and a few hours of sleep, Kate mused, just might turn this geeky gem guy into a cool and dreamy prince. Whoa, she heard an inner alarm bell and stopped herself. Careful Kate doesn’t go there.

  Blake was ushering Kate out of his eighth floor office when she impulsively turned and asked, “By the way, Mr. Blake, have you ever heard of a Romanov Alexandrite?” Later, she grilled herself: Had she really believed he would know of the stone, or was she simply trying to flirt?

  He scratched his forehead. “Not that I recall. Tell me more.”

  Without revealing her relationship to the gem, Kate briefly summarized the description she’d found in the safe deposit box.

  Training his eyes on the street below, Blake stared past her through a large iron-paned window across the hall. Skepticism edged his words.

  “More than 1,200 carats? I find that hard to believe, Miss Gavrill. The world’s largest cut diamond—the Cullinan, part of England’s crown jewels—weighs just over 530 carats. It’s more than a full inch square and half an inch deep. You’re talking about a gem twice that size, and alexandrites typically run smaller than diamonds. I can’t believe I wouldn’t know of it.”

  Kate searched his eyes. “Mr. Blake,” she blurted, “I’d never even seen a real alexandrite until two hours ago. I don’t know anything about precious stones. And I don’t know where to go to find out. I need help. The Russian shop recommended you, but I need to know I can trust you.” The l
ast thing Kate wanted was to put her faith in a man she’d just met. But she really had no choice. She had to find someone who could guide her through the unknown world of precious gems.

  He arched an eyebrow. Belatedly, Kate realized she’d insulted him.

  “Miss Gavrille,” Blake replied slowly, “trust is really the only asset someone in my business has. It’s the reason, for example, that I never purchase or deal in stones I evaluate. Selling gems would inevitably compromise my impartiality. And impartiality is why my clients are willing to pay dearly for my time.”

  He leaned against his office door, shoved both hands deep in his pockets, and gazed down at her. To Kate, Simon Blake suddenly seemed simultaneously pompous and remote.

  “As far as the alexandrite is concerned,” he continued, offering little to change her impression, “don’t feel embarrassed. Most people have never seen a real one. It’s many times rarer than a diamond or emerald, for example.

  “The alexandrite,” he went on, “is the only precious gem that changes color—from green in normal light to red under illumination. Some believe the stone possesses metaphysical properties that can help balance one’s emotional state. The Russians who first discovered it were convinced the stone could cure swollen lymph nodes and intensify”—his mouth curved in what Kate took as a slight smirk—“feelings of sensuality.”

  Self-importance seemed to drip from his words. Nonetheless, Kate chose to ignore his tone. “I’ll pay you, of course,” she said matter-of-factly, suppressing a practical urge to ask about his fee. She plunged her hand into her briefcase. “Let me show you this document.”

  She withdrew the paper in a single motion. To Kate’s horror, besides pulling out the sheet of paper, she’d also launched a miniature parachute, which now floated ominously above Blake’s head.

  In an instant, her airborne bra settled principally in the geographic region above Blake’s prominent nose. The twin white cones rose from his forehead like misplaced cartoon ears. Half-an-inch from his upper lip, the strap dangled tantalizingly. Above his single visible eye, Blake’s brow again arched, this time quizzically.