by Gordon Ryan
“You’ll have to show me. Is it big enough that I can ride, too?”
“Oh, yes. It has ten, no, eleven cars. But you might have to ride on top, that’s what Papa does. He says he doesn’t fit inside, but maybe you’re not as tall as he is.”
Peter crossed the lawn from the same direction that Nick had run. Such a handsome man, and totally unselfconscious about it, too. He was lazy about haircuts and shaving and you’d never catch him preening or taking note of his looks in any way. Of course, he was self-possessed in other ways.
“He talking about that train again?” Peter asked. “That’s all we did yesterday, ride it around and around. The track is maybe fifteen hundred meters and runs through the woods and meadows on the north side.”
“Sounds perfect for a boy.” Tess wanted to hold Nick, but he was already running off to look at something on the riverbank.
Nick squatted by the riverbank. “Want me to catch you a frog, Tess? There are green frogs, and snakes.”
“Sure, catch me one, if you can, but I don’t have anywhere to keep it.”
“Just put it in your pocket.”
Peter said, “He keeps putting frogs in the orangerie fountain, but the housekeeper throws them outside just as fast. I told him no water snakes or we’ll soon enough be short staffed.” His eyes focused and he looked her in the eyes. “Are you in, Tess?”
“I don’t know, I just don’t. What were you and Lars talking about back there?” She looked away, back to Nick. “Lars is usually so cautious, wants to understand every angle before he jumps in.”
“I’ve unleashed his inner Viking.”
“Is that what this is about, Peter? Bored, rich guys, playing Dark Ages?”
“You stand in a place like this, you think it will last forever,” Peter said. “This chateau, the rich people who own it. They’ll always be around.”
“What is that, a non-sequitor?”
Peter looked across the river and the distant look returned. “Americans are the worst. Four hundred years of nearly unbroken progress. The last war in your country was a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“It’s not just us, the whole world is on a good run,” Tess said. “Few hiccups, but it’s been sixty years since the last big war. No famines at the moment, no plagues. I like our odds.”
“You’re kidding yourself if you think modern civilization is a steady state system. We’re on a good run now, but what happens when some terrorist gets a nuke? Or when global warming spawns a major hurricane that knocks out, say, Manhattan? A nasty case of avian flu that kills tens of millions of people.”
“None of that will end the world. Might set us back a few years.”
“You know my biggest fear. It’s the thing that made me rich.”
“You mean oil,” Tess said.
“These high prices might be the first hint of something big to come. I’m not sure, but I know that even my friends in the industry are scared. They’re shoveling up money as fast as they can, mind you, so a little scarcity makes them happy. But not the kind of permanent, declining oil production that we’re facing.”
“So the price of oil goes up,” Tess said, “and people take the bus or the train. The price goes back down. Econ 101. Even I know that much.”
“That’s what happens when the price of chewing gum goes up, Tess. The entire global system is built around oil. Transportation. Plastics. Even agriculture is impossible without tractors and fossil fuel fertilizers. Those aren’t clothes you’re wearing. That’s half a liter of petrol.”
“It’s not like there aren’t substitutes,” Tess said. “What about coal and natural gas? The trains in France are run on electricity from nuclear power plants. It’s not all oil.”
“That’s like saying the human body is only seventy percent water, so what’s the harm if you lose a liter or two?” He shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s all just speculation, could be we’ll make a transition without problems. I do know there are a lot of people rubbing their hands together, delighted at the prospect of the collapse of human civilization.”
“So you think we’re doomed? Do you think we deserve it?”
“Of course not.” He looked back at her and the distant look faded. “The Twentieth Century was good for my family. In 1900, my great-grandfather was a goat-herder in Normandy. My Mom’s grandfather owned one donkey and an olive press in some dusty corner of Algeria. My parents went to college. My dad made a chunk of change in the Middle East exploring for oil. Me? In 2000, I earned my first billion. Seemed like a lot of money at the time.” He gave her a half-smile. “Twenty-first century is off to a fine start. It’s a good time to be rich.”
“Well, then, why are you so pessimistic?”
“My family also narrowly escaped Algeria. An entire French veneer peeled away in a few years. Hundreds of thousands of French who’d only known North Africa, forced to flee. And what happened afterward? A million Algerians killed? Things look wonderful until they turn to shit.”
This was not so different from the ziggurat in Kentucky. Peter wasn’t satisfied with the toys and goodies that kept most rich people occupied. Mentally, he was on the fringe and had the money to pursue his manias. Tess didn’t want to touch it.
“What about Lars and Dmitri?” she asked.
“What about them?”
“Are they going to your castle to fight in your war?”
“Only if you do,” Peter said. “They’ll be useful, but I need your knowledge of medieval warfare. I want you to lead my army.”
“Me, lead? What about Niels Grunberg? Why don’t you call him instead?”
“He’s already onboard. Niels is leading the other army.”
This surprised her. And challenged. The German architect had written two books of his own and was a Hollywood favorite when they needed an expert to stage medieval battles. She imagined herself directing an army against Grunberg.
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you? When does your little war begin?”
“Monday.”
Tess drew in her breath. “What? That’s three days from now. Here, in France?”
“I’ll answer that question when I know you’re in.”
“But Monday? Well, how long are you thinking?”
“A few weeks, maybe a month or longer. You’ll be incommunicado, so call your sister and your parents. Columbia University. Friends, your agent. Anyone else who will freak out if you aren’t in contact.”
She thought about what Dmitri had said. He claimed some additional knowledge that would help her decide. “I want to tell you no,” she said. “You’ve handed over the stuff from the Baghdad Museum, and that was a decent thing to do. But it feels like a bribe.”
“It is a bribe. Or rather, a gift.”
“I didn’t want gifts, Peter. And I didn’t need a penthouse or a French chateau. Or the private jet across the Atlantic. You know what I wanted, and you weren’t willing to give it to me.”
After moving into the penthouse on the Upper East Side, Tess had arranged her teaching schedule around Nick. She’d never before noticed the playgrounds tucked into every corner of Manhattan, but these became their backyard. As Nick got older, sometimes the three of them spent an entire Sunday visiting museums: The Guggenheim, the Met, the Museum of Natural History.
Once, when crossing Central Park last spring, Nick dragged her toward a man dressed as a court jester, juggling balls and telling jokes. A few dozen passersby encircled the man. As the two of them pushed their way into the small crowd, she saw two women in colorful Renaissance dresses, with exposed cleavage. A man, armored, dueled with wooden swords with some guy in a business suit. The suit swung wildly. The armored man calmly let him wear himself out and then pressed a swift and relentless attack. Within seconds, the guy in the suit held up his hands in defeat. A bit of applause from the crowd. The juggler started up again.
The Renaissance women handed out cards. It was a demonstration and recruitment for the local chapter of the Society for C
reative Anachronism. Tess had never given them much thought, but was surprised by the quality of their costumes, together with the skill of the man with the sword.
“Anyone else care to give it a try?” he asked. He held out the sword in turns to a couple of men, who smiled, shook their heads, and took a step back.
“She can!” Nick said, pointing to Tess. “She knows how to fight with swords.”
“Nick,” she said. She shook her head as the guy looked toward her with a raised eyebrow. “No, really.”
“How about I fight on my knees?” he said. “You can step back at any time and I won’t be able to chase you. See?” He got to his knees and gave a clanking waddle as his chain mail dragged.
She took the sword. “Alright, then.”
He chuckled. “Appeal to their egos,” he said to the crowd. “Gets ‘em every time.”
“And you might want to get up. Unless you want to get thrashed by a little girl.”
He laughed good-naturedly, but nodded and got to his feet. “Fair enough.”
Tess gave him a poke to warn him to raise his guard, then began a tentative attack. The sword was longer than she was used to, but that was only a challenge. He lifted his sword to parry and she knocked it to the side and gave him a little rap on the shoulder.
The man stepped back, looked, startled and Tess heard a collective intake of breath from the crowd as fifty people suddenly realized they had a real show on their hands.
“That kenpo?” he asked. He went on the counterattack. She parried his blows and ducked away. Not bad at all. She might have been in trouble if not for all that extra armor slowing him down.
“A little kenpo. A little fencing. Oh, and I teach a clinic in broadsword techniques every summer.”
“You might have warned me.” He redoubled his attack.
“I thought I’d appeal to your ego, instead. Gets ‘em every time.”
The crowd grew as they circled each other. Tess’s opponent was so into the fight now that he seemed to have forgotten that she was not wearing armor. If she caught a blow, she’d go down. One of his female friends gave him a warning of same.
“No,” Tess said. “Don’t pull back.”
But by now she’d stopped fooling around. She ducked a wild swing, then delivered a blow across his ribs. He recovered, but only in time to be forced off the sidewalk and backed against a tree. She rapped him on the knee, then caught him alongside the head. She pulled back so as not to hurt him.
“Yield!” he cried. He set down his sword and pulled off his helmet. Applause from the crowd.
The man was gasping and sweating like a boxer who has gone the rounds. He looked at Nick with a grin. “Your mom is a hell of a sword fighter.”
Nick beamed. “She’s like a real knight.” He cupped his hand and spoke to Tess in a stage whisper. “He said hell. That’s a swear!”
This brought more laughter from the crowd, but Tess barely noticed. All she thought about was that word: Mom. And Nick hadn’t corrected the man.
At the chateau, Tess watched Nick crouch by the riverbank, looking for frogs, and felt a fresh swell of emotion. He wasn’t hers by birth, but he loved her and she loved him, and she’d given him up too easily.
She looked back at Peter and made a sudden decision. “Monday?”
“Not much time. I know. But I’ll tell you what I told Lars. This is real, Tess. When will you ever get this chance again?”
His eyes glinted. It may be a mania, but she didn’t think it was a whim. He’d set big things in motion and no-doubt pulled dozens of people into his orbit with the gravity of his passion, his connections, and his wealth.
“Fine. I’ll talk to Lars and Dmitri first, since my decision affects them. But that’s all I can promise.”
“Tess!” Nick cried. The boy ran toward them, clutching something squirmy. He had mud on his elbows and knees and a big grin on his face. “Look what I caught!”
She held out her hands to accept the big, squirming something, without knowing what it was. The perfect metaphor, she thought.
Chapter Thirteen:
Alexander Borisenko was a rich wastrel until he met Yekatarina. Ruthless in business, but into casual pleasure with his money. Sometime in his mid-twenties he’d tired of screwing brainless models or shooting big animals for sport and turned to more wicked fantasies.
People would do anything for money, Alexander learned. You just had to learn their price. Approach a guy in the airport. “I’ll give you a hundred euro to drop your pants and shake your dick in that old woman’s face. No? How about a thousand? Ten thousand?”
Ten thousand usually did it, he found. Ten thousand would make someone jab a finger into an unsuspecting stranger’s eyeball. Ten thousand would make an old woman on the metro give a blow job to the college-aged kid sitting next to her and make the kid close his eyes and take it.
Borisenko met Yekatarina in a nightclub in Minsk. First glance, he thought she was exceptionally plain. She sat in the corner with some friends, an untouched drink in front of her, just observing the other people in the club.
Borisenko sat in a nearby booth. He nudged his best friend and cousin, Anton Kirkov. Two blonde, jiggly girls danced a few meters from Anton, trying to get his attention. The two men always attracted that class of women, and for some reason they assumed that Kirkov was the rich one. But they weren’t so sure that they didn’t laugh and toss coquettish looks in Borisenko’s direction when he looked over.
He ignored them and leaned over to be heard over the music. “Check out the ugly one, Antosha. What do you say twenty thousand roubles if she dances the next song topless? Think she’ll go for it?”
Anton looked away from the girls. “That’s Yekatarina Luzhkova. You might need more than twenty thousand.”
Borisenko stared. “You mean Vladimir Luzhkov’s daughter?”
“Exactly.”
Luzhkov sat somewhere above Borisenko on the list of Muscovite billionaires. He worked oil deals with Iranian and Kazakh officials, filling niches that Americans and Brits filled elsewhere in the Middle East. His daughter, it was rumored, had once been the mistress of a high-ranking Saudi prince. Looking at her chubby face, he could hardly believe it.
“I’ve got to check this out,” he told Anton. “She’s got a hell of a reputation, you know.”
“You mean the prince?”
“Yeah, look at her. Prince has money, can get whatever woman, or women he wants. What did he do, close his eyes and think about Maria Sharapova?”
“Be careful, you ass. This is not like those girls at the park.”
Borisenko snorted. “I’m not an idiot. Not like I’m going to offer her money to piss herself. Her dad would serve my nuts as caviar.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about, Sasha.”
Borisenko looked at him. His friend’s instincts were rarely wrong and that took the edge off his irritation. “What’s that supposed to mean, Antosha?”
But maybe Anton misread his question for real anger, because he just shrugged and looked back at the jiggly girls. One of them caught the attention and ran her tongue over her upper lip. If her tube top fell any lower, she’d pop a nipple. Probably high-priced hookers. Borisenko left his friend at the booth and approached the Yekatarina alone.
The jiggly girls had nothing on Yekatarina Luzhkova when it came to setting a trap for men. She was stronger than him. She could overpower him mentally and didn’t need his money, his attention, or his approval. And so he had to have her. He didn’t let her go without getting her phone number and called her even before he got out of the limo in front of his flat. He was dumbfounded when she returned his interest.
Two weeks later he bought her a ring with a cluster of diamonds that looked like they’d been pried from the crown of Catherine the Great. She’d laughed and turned it in for something modest. A month later, they were married.
To his credit, Anton never spoke a word against the marriage. Good for him. And wise. The friendship ran
deep, but not that deep.
Yekatarina introduced him to people, including Peter Gagné, her ex-boyfriend. Slowly, he turned from the destructive, nihilistic impulses that had taken hold since he earned his money.
Borisenko was on the plane, soaking in the hot tub after waking from a foul dream, his mood darker than the blackness of night over the middle of the Atlantic ocean, when she came to him. Yekatarina dimmed the lights, drew the curtain against the curious glances of the staff, then set lit candles around the edge of the hot tub. The light reflected off the crossed samurai swords—an illicit gift from a business friend in Kyoto—mounted on a wall that divided the spa room from the lounge.
Yekatarina slipped out of her nightgown and got into the hot tub, naked. The candlelight flickered as the plane hit turbulence.
“Sasha, Sasha,” she said. She ran still-cool fingers across his forehead. They came away glistening with sweat. “What’s wrong?”
“I had a dream. Stupid, disgusting thing, I’d paid all these women—grandmothers, mothers with babies, teenage girls, everything—never mind, it was disgusting.”
“Just a stupid dream, don’t worry about it.”
“But in the dream, I was getting off on it. And all the money that I was giving them was covered in shit and I made them—” Again, he stopped. Just telling her about it made him feel disgusting. “Why, what does it mean?”
“I still think it was just a dream” she said, “But maybe you’re feeling guilty about the stuff you used to do, that’s all. You don’t do that sort of thing anymore.”
“Don’t I?” he asked. “I’m not paying people to do disgusting things, but this whole thing with Peter’s castle, and his collection of artifacts, isn’t that what it’s about? We’ve got so much money, we can do whatever the hell we want, we can create our own reality. How is that any different?”
“For one thing,” she said, “you’re not using your money to humiliate people. You’re trying to save the world.”
“How can you be sure? What’s more likely, that we’re saving the world, or that we’re just the latest flavor of rich, worthless parasites?” Borisenko reached for his vodka tonic. What he needed was water. Or coffee. “There’s something else bothering me.” He hesitated. “Someone is watching me, maybe trying to attack me.”