by Ted Bell
“I am listening.”
“I cannot go with you. I cannot ever leave here, leave this place. This is my home, Alex, my sanctuary. I am safe here. So is Alexei. Did you know there is a price on both our heads? The Tsarists in the politburo want Alexei and me dead. For betraying my father. Only Kuragin stands in their way. But he’s made sure that one can hurt us here. No one.”
“What are you saying? I don’t even—we love each other. We have a child to protect. We have—”
“We have nothing, Alex. Nothing.”
“Nothing? We have each other. We have Alexei! And that is nothing? God in heaven, Anastasia, what can you be thinking?”
Anastasia pulled away from him, stood up, and looked down at him, tears coursing down both cheeks, her lower lip trembling, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Alex, it’s Nikolai. General Kuragin saved me from a firing squad. He saved your son, Alexei, from infanticide. They were going to bash his head against the wall as soon as he was born. The grandson of a tsar, even a dead one, will be a political threat inside the Kremlin for decades to come. Think about it. The bastard son of the Englishman who assassinated their great and noble Tsar? They hate him!”
“Yes. I see what you are saying. But, surely—”
“Nikolai Kuragin is our only hope! He is our savior! He is Alexei’s and my only real chance of survival, Alex. You must believe me, because it is true.”
“I can protect you. I can protect you both. It’s what I do, you know.”
“You want me to believe that we will be safer anywhere on earth than we are here in this fortress? Do you not understand that? They want me dead. They want our child dead and out of their way. It is the Russian way. Centuries of Russian politics repeated.”
Hawke looked away for a moment, his mind reeling. For how long had he wandered in his wilderness of grief? Insupportable grief, yes, and loss. Years. And now Asia was here before him, alive, and he felt as if he were fighting for her love! Fighting for his own son! No, more, he was fighting for his life, the one that had been ripped from him on that island in Sweden.
“My resources are easily the equal of Kuragin’s. Vastly superior.”
“He will never allow it.”
“He will never allow it? Stand between me and my family’s rightful happiness? No one can do that, believe me. Surely the general will understand us, Anastasia,” Hawke said, softening his tone, trying to keep the creeping desperation from his voice. He was shaken. He was beginning to doubt himself. And doubt was something completely alien to his being, his core. He took a moment to compose himself before speaking.
Hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him, gazing directly into her lovely eyes.
“Anastasia, listen to me. Kuragin knows we love each other. Surely he can comprehend that it’s natural that we want to be together. Raise our child in some seminormal environment instead of some bloody barbed-wire prison. Listen, I’ll return to the palace and find Kuragin right now. He and I will straighten all this out, as gentlemen. I’m sure he will see reason. Why would he not? Why on earth would he keep the three of us apart, keep us from the happiness we truly deserve and—”
“Alex, please sit back down. There is something more I must tell you. Please sit. Now, before you say another word.”
“I can hear quite well standing up, thank you.”
She took a deep breath and let the dreaded sentence spill out all at once:
“Nikolai and I are married.”
“Married, you say? Don’t talk nonsense. He’s old enough to be your grandfather. It’s beneath you.”
“Listen, please. I believed utterly and completely that you were dead, Alex. I saw you from my bedroom window, facedown in the snow. I watched you bleeding to death before my own eyes. I wanted to die myself. Then, in prison, Alexei was born. I knew I had to survive in order to protect him. The grandson of the dead Tsar was suddenly a threat to many inside and outside the Kremlin who—”
“But how could you—”
“There was a trial. I was convicted of treason and accessory to murder. A date was set for my execution. The night before I was to go before a firing squad, General Kuragin visited me in my cell. He had a signed pardon from the prime minister, from Putin himself. In the end, so Nikolai said, Putin could not let the son of the man who’d restored him to power be murdered by the Tsarists. Putin did it for you, Alex. He and Kuragin are the only reason we are both alive.”
“So you fell in love? You married him?”
“Oh, Alex, it wasn’t about love. Nothing like that. It was mere gratitude. That, and the security he offered us here. He’s an old man. He has been very lonely for most of his life. In his way, I think he does love me, Alex. And I’ve grown fond of him. Listen. I truly believed I had lost the only man I loved or ever would love. You. Late one night, when he’d had a bit too much wine and vodka, Nikolai got down on his knees and begged me to make his last few years happy ones. He was crying. In that moment, considering all he’d done, I felt I had no choice but to say yes. And, until I saw your face a few hours ago, I had no cause to regret it.”
“And if I got down on my knees and begged? If I ripped open my chest and showed you my beating heart?”
“Alex, my God. Please don’t do this.”
“Don’t do this? Don’t do this?”
“I mean—”
“Don’t worry, Anastasia. I won’t beg you. My knees don’t work that way.”
He looked away from her, staring at the distant horizon, peering in vain through the black curtain that had descended between them. A flash of memory from his childhood: he’d been given a puppy for his sixth birthday and called it Scoundrel. His mother had found him hugging the dog tightly to his chest, smothering it with kisses. “Don’t love it so well, Alex, or it may be taken from you,” she said.
A man must never place himself in a position to lose.
He should seek only that which he cannot lose.
“Oh, Alex, my poor darling, I—I feel like my heart’s going to cave in. I don’t know what to say.” She reached up to take his hand, but it was like clasping a glove from which the hand has been withdrawn.
“It’s because there is nothing more to say. I should never have come here. I’d almost come to grips with losing you, and now I shall have to start all over again. Although now”—he looked away briefly—“now I seem to have lost my son as well.”
“Oh, my poor, poor darling. It is devastating to see you in so much pain. If only there were something I could say or do—but there isn’t, is there?”
“I am glad you are alive. At least I have that knowledge to carry with me. And I am happy that I got to see my son, if only for a few brief moments. Knowing he, too, is alive, safe, happy, and with his mother . . . I can take all that with me, Anastasia, carry that in my heart at least. I don’t blame you for what happened. You did what you had to do to survive. Anyone would.”
“Dear Alex.”
“I should like to leave this place, Anastasia. Now. Is that possible?”
“No, Alex. Please. Stay just a little while. If only for his sake . . .”
“You have no idea what you’re asking of me. None.”
“But tomorrow is his birthday. We have planned a little party. He thinks you will be there and—”
“No! Please stop this!”
“All right. As you wish. There is a train tomorrow. The Red Arrow.”
“I shall be on it.”
She looked away.
“But you cannot—”
“Please. It is done.”
“If you insist, I will make the arrangements. It’s a lovely train, an express. I’ll take you to the station. In the troika. I remember how you loved the troika.”
Anastasia looked up at Hawke, awaiting his reply. He was looking directly at her, but every trace of animati
on had flown from his face. His fierce blue eyes were cold as stone. He was still as still.
“I will retire to my room until it is time to leave tomorrow morning. Will you please apologize for me? Tell your—husband—that I’m not feeling well? And that I deeply appreciate all that he’s done for you and Alexei?”
“Of course. He will understand.”
She put her hand on his forearm.
He regarded her in silence for what seemed a very long time, and then he turned his back and walked away from her, his head held high, his hands clasped behind his back, his hidden heart shattered.
Six
Early the next morning, Hawke emerged from General Kuragin’s private study into one of the palace’s great sunlit hallways. He’d been unable to find sleep all night, but he put a brave front on it. After a brief conversation about the possibility of an extremely private meeting with Prime Minister Putin at some point in the future, he got to his feet to bid Kuragin farewell, allowing himself to be embraced by the much older man.
His parting words to the general had been, “Thank you, thank you for saving them both, Nikolai, from the bottom of my heart. I know that I owe you their lives, and I will never forget it.”
He turned to go.
“One more moment, Alex, please,” Kuragin said, moving toward the fireplace. “I have something for you. It’s been in this house for over three hundred years. I want you to have it.”
Kuragin then retrieved a long, slender red leather case that rested upon the mantel beneath the massive portrait of Russia’s greatest hero, Peter the Great, in the midst of battle. He placed the object on his desk and unfastened the two latches. “I think you should open the case,” he said, smiling, and stepped back. “It belongs to you now.”
Hawke stepped forward and opened it.
Inside, embedded in an aged swathe of dark blue velvet, was a magnificent sword. It was sheathed inside a red leather scabbard decorated with brilliant gold fittings including the Russian double-headed eagle emblem. He withdrew the gleaming blade, admiring the helmeted steppe warrior at the hilt and the engraved ivory handgrip. It felt good in his hand. It must have been a good companion in battle.
“I don’t know what to say, General, it’s a bit overwhelming. I really don’t think I can accept such a grand gift.”
“Yes, yes, yes. Take it, my boy. Your heroic actions against that madman Korsakov may well have saved our entire nation from entering a new reign of Tsarist terror. I spoke to the prime minister by telephone in Moscow this morning. He agrees this small gift is the least we can do.”
“Can you tell me a bit of its history?”
“Well, it was one of Peter the Great’s favorite battle swords in the Great Northern War. The last time he carried it was at the decisive Battle of Poltava in 1709. Peter won a victory over those damn Swedes and sent them hurrying out of Russia, never to return. It was the beginning of our taking our place as the leading nation of northern Europe.”
“I am deeply honored, General. I will treasure this always.” He replaced it carefully inside the red-velvet-lined case and closed the lid.
Kuragin put an avuncular arm around his shoulders and steered him toward the door.
“You are always welcome in this house, Alex. As long as I’m alive at any rate. But I do want you to be careful inside Russia. Mind yourself every moment. There are many assassins carrying your picture next to their hearts. And despite our vast intelligence and military resources, the prime minister and I cannot be everywhere at once.”
“I will keep my eyes open. I always do. But thank you for the warning.”
The brilliant gold-and-blue troika was waiting at the foot of the broad marble steps. Three magnificent white stallions stood in their traces, stamping their hooves and spouting great jets of breath from their black nostrils. It was the most beautiful sleigh Hawke had ever seen, a gift to Anastasia’s forebears from Peter the Great. He’d ridden in it before, when Anastasia had brought him to Jasna Polana for the very first time.
Hawke had not spoken to Anastasia since leaving her alone at the skating pond the prior morning. He found her already in the sleigh, speaking quietly to the nurse who was holding little Alexei in her arms. The child, like his mother, was swaddled in white fur and looked like a rather large bunny sneaking peeks at his father over his nurse’s shoulder. Hawke walked around the rear of the troika, leaned down, and peered unblinking into his son’s face until the boy broke into a wide smile, a torrent of tiny bubbles erupting from his cupid’s bow of a mouth.
He recognizes me, Hawke thought, his emotions churning.
“G’morning, Alexei,” Hawke said, leaning in to kiss his chubby cheek and inhale the indescribable warm, precious baby scent. The love he felt literally almost killed him where he stood. But he looked over at Anastasia and did his best to smile.
“Good morning,” he said, almost pulling off a convincing smile.
“It’s a beautiful day.”
“Yes.”
She smiled bravely and said, “I thought we’d bring Alexei with us to the station. He adores riding in sleighs.”
“The love of speed,” Hawke said, tossing his leather bag behind the curved leather bench seat and climbing up and inside. “Takes after his father. May I hold him during the trip?”
Anastasia whispered to the nurse and she took the child around to Hawke’s side of the troika. Hawke held out his arms to receive his son, his heart beating with gratitude that at least he’d have a few precious hours to spend with him. The nurse spread the fur throw of white sable over Alex and the baby and wished them all a safe journey.
“There’s a word the cowboys in America say,” Hawke whispered to his son. “You’ll learn what it means some day. Giddyup!”
Anastasia flicked the reins and gave a shout to her three white chargers. The horses were arranged like a fan with one in the lead. Anastasia needed no whip to launch them into a breakneck speed down the lane toward the stand of birch trees and the great forests beyond; she spoke to them continuously, urging them on with either cheery encouragement or harsh invective.
“You still have the same horses,” Hawke said, looking over at her lovely profile. “The noble white steeds.”
“Yes. How kind of you to notice. Do you remember their names?”
“I do. Storm, Lightning, and Smoke.”
“My three gallant heroes.”
“How lucky you are with heroes, Anastasia.”
They were silent then. Hawke squeezed his sleeping son to his breast and held him tightly for the duration of the journey. The golden sleigh flew through the snowy hills and valleys like the wind. He put his head back and looked up through the trees at the blue sky, the crystalline air, the cottony white clouds drifting high above. He lulled himself into a kind of peace of mind, using these last few hours with his son and the woman he still loved to create a far, far different reality than the bleakness he was facing.
Hawke stood and studied the filigreed black hands of the tall station platform clock as they moved relentlessly toward twelve noon. In the distance, he could hear the approach of the onrushing train. Minutes later, he watched the sleek red-and-silver locomotive, a half mile away, come barreling down the steeply sloped incline, bulldozing a great white avalanche of snow before it.
Anastasia, rocking Alexei in her arms, had been standing at Hawke’s side on the platform for an eternity. He had heard her weeping silently as the hands on the clock above her head continued their steady progress. Yet Hawke felt paralyzed, physically unable to speak or even make a move to comfort her; a hollow man, his unspoken words as dry and meaningless as wind in dry grass.
An eternity later, he heard her say quietly, “This has been the saddest day of my life.”
To which he solemnly replied, “Just this one?”
At this, Anastasia stood frozen in place, a character finding herse
lf in the final act of a tragic drama, unable to remember her lines or move about the stage, hitting her marks while delivering coherent dialogue.
At last, as the long slash of the Red Arrow thundered into the tiny station, its noisy rumble shattering the unbearable impasse of their sadness, it was then that his arm found its way around Anastasia’s shoulders, gently pulling her toward him, his eyes offering hers what little comfort he had left in him to give.
“Well,” Hawke said, “time to go.”
He bent down to pick up his portmanteau and the red leather case. As he did he saw two men at the far end of the streamlined train step forward to board. They were dark men, dressed in dark suits, dark coats, dark hats. The doors hissed open and he watched them climb aboard, each carrying a thin dark case. Not large enough for clothing, he thought. Odd.
“Time to go,” he said again, realizing how flat and trite his words were but unable to even begin to say what was in his heart.
“Oh, Alex,” Anastasia said, turning her face up to him, the tears glistening on her rosy cheeks. “Won’t you at least kiss us each good-bye?”
“Of course I will,” Hawke said.
He put his hand on her shoulder and bent to put his lips to hers, ever so briefly, before turning to kiss his son, staring at him, his creamy pink cheeks, fresh from some past spring, and his enormous blue eyes, the very image of a beautiful child. He pressed his lips to Alexei’s warm cheek, prolonging the kiss as long as he could, imprinting it upon his memory.
“Must you go?” she said, a gleaming tear making its way down her cheek.
“Yes. There’s nothing left of us,” Hawke said, a profound sadness in his voice despite his attempt to be strong. Her reply was barely above a whisper.
“All that’s left to us is love.”
Hawke pulled away, unable to bear what he saw in her eyes. He kissed his son on the forehead.
“Good-bye, Alexei. Good-bye, Anastasia. Keep safe, will you both? Stay well, Alexei. Grow up into a big strong boy so you can take care of your mother. Will you, son? Promise your father that, all right?”