Lost Roses

by Martha Hall Kelly

  “I don’t need a remedy.”

  He looked at me, set down his funnel, and looked closer. “Sofya Stepanov?”

  How long had it been since I’d smiled? “Yes.” I almost reached out for Mr. Zaitz’s hand but held back. Who knew what terrible germs I carried?

  “Yeda!” he called toward the back room.

  Mrs. Zaitz stepped from the back room, pushing a linen curtain aside. She carried a tray, which held two glasses of tea and a plate of biscuits.

  “I’m here. I’m here. What is it for goodness’ sake, you’d think the world is ending.”

  A trim woman with a mass of dark hair elaborately pinned up, Mrs. Zaitz was not blessed with tall stature, but what she lacked in height she made up for with her kind way and strong opinions. She set her tray on the counter.

  Mr. Zaitz held out both arms as if presenting the tsarina. “Look who’s here.”

  “Sofya Stepanov?” Mrs. Zaitz hurried around the counter to me. “What brings you here? What perfect timing you have. The water’s hot. I have some good biscuits.”

  How I wanted that hot tea and English biscuits. I marveled at how, with some people, time apart never matters.

  “I can’t stay long. On my way to Paris.”

  “You’re taking the long way?” Mr. Zaitz asked. “Traveling by yourself?”

  “I hope to find Afon. He may be close by here. With the White Army.”

  The two exchanged a glance.

  I took a biscuit from the tray, tasted one, and drank a sip of warm tea. I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth and reached for another.

  Mrs. Zaitz brushed something off my jacket shoulder. “You must be tired, dear. Stay with us tonight.”

  Mr. Zaitz tossed a newspaper onto the counter. “This is an important town to the Reds now that this is happening.” The newspaper headline read: FRENCH OCCUPY ODESSA. “The Allies are coming to help us.”

  Suddenly everything lightened. At last, outside help to beat the Bolsheviks.

  “Stay with us for a while,” Mr. Zaitz said. “You’re not safe traveling alone.”

  I laughed to myself. If only they knew.

  “We never thanked you properly back when you lived here. For Afon keeping watch here two nights during the troubles. No sleep.”

  “That’s what you do for friends,” I said. “But there are a few things I need. Three really. The first is matches. I’m almost out.”

  Mr. Zaitz reached under the counter and then slapped a carton of matches onto the counter. “Done.”

  I pulled the serpent bracelet from my rucksack and removed the cotton wool. “Can you post this for me? To my friend Eliza Ferriday in the U.S.?”

  Mr. Zaitz took the bracelet. “We can try. Haven’t lost a package yet, though that may change soon.”

  “To America?” Mrs. Zaitz asked. She took the bracelet from her husband and held it in her palm. “I have the perfect box for it.”

  “And the third thing. Do you have any vinegar? Molasses, too, and a bowl to mix them in?”

  Mrs. Zaitz nodded. “Of course.” She stepped into the back room with a worried look back at me.

  I hurried to the desk and wrote a quick message on a sheet of paper, the penmanship like chicken scratch, my hand not yet thawed from the ride. How I’d missed ink and pen.

  I handed the note to Mr. Zaitz. “I’m afraid I have no money to pay you.”

  Mrs. Zaitz emerged from the back room with molasses and cider bottles and a china bowl. “What are you doing with this?”

  I pulled my rose plant from beneath my shirt and sat it on the counter.

  “What in the world?” Mr. Zaitz said.

  I splashed vinegar into the bowl, dripped in some molasses, removed the burlap from the root ball and soaked it in the mixture. I stroked one leaf. “Can you believe it has two buds?”

  “Must be a special plant,” Mrs. Zaitz said. “Some people trying to survive might put all their effort into finding food.”

  “It came all the way from America.” I tied the burlap back onto the root ball and tucked the rose back inside my shirt. Surely, they thought me a confirmed lunatic.

  Mr. Zaitz slid a pair of sheep’s wool mittens along the counter. “We only have men’s, but they’re guaranteed warm.”

  Tears in my eyes, I slipped them on my hands and looked down at the coffee brown suede with a blurry gaze. Such kind people. The perfect gift.

  Mrs. Zaitz leaned in. “I must insist you rest here for a while, Sofya. Take a nice bath.”

  I smiled. “I would like to look nice for Afon when I see him.”

  Mrs. Zaitz took my hand. “I’m sorry to be the one, but I need to tell you something, Sofya.”

  “Mrs. Zaitz, just say it.”

  “You don’t know how it hurts me to tell you this, Sofya, but we heard something about Afon—”

  “Just tell me.”

  “He came by here—”

  I pressed one hand to my chest. “Afon, here?” I laughed. “Why did you not say so?”

  “He didn’t stay long.”

  “He was on his way back to find you,” Mr. Zaitz said. “Heard there was trouble at the estate.” He hung his head, unable to continue.

  “What did he say?” I asked. “Who was he with?”

  “He was alone,” Mrs. Zaitz said. “Said he’d left his fellow officers at the bridge. They were headed up to Malinov.”

  So Afon had known of our situation after all. “But why did he not come?”

  Mrs. Zaitz placed one hand on my sleeve. “They say the Reds got them.”

  I stepped back from her. “They?”

  “Mrs. Osinov’s friend—”

  I turned away. “Mrs. Osinov’s friend? How can you believe hearsay?”

  Mrs. Zaitz rubbed one hand down my back. “I’m sorry, Sofya.”

  I shook my head. “No. Afon would never let that happen.”

  I hurried toward the door. Could it be true? Afon dead? It was too horrible to consider. But whether he was alive or dead, Afon was not in Malinov and I knew I must leave for Paris immediately to find Max.

  “I have to leave,” I said. “Thank you both.”

  “Send us a letter when you get there,” Mrs. Zaitz said.

  I stepped up onto the seat of the laundry cart. Was it possible Afon really had been ambushed by Reds? One thing was certain: He’d been on his way to help us. If only he’d arrived in time. If he’d indeed been captured, perhaps the Reds kept him prisoner still? Thoughts of Afon made me dizzy and I forced myself to think instead of Max’s sweet face.

  I took my gun and map from my pocket, set them next to me on the wooden bench, pulled my dog fur coat tight around my chest and urged Jarushka on without a look back.

  Off, the two of us, to Paris to find my son.

  CHAPTER

  37

  Varinka

  1918

  It took us a year and a half to get to Paris. With the constant changes of plans from Taras’s bosses in Petrograd, Mamka and I felt lucky to get there at all. When we arrived on that freezing December day, we brought our bags to 24 Rue de Serene, a tall building on a backstreet across from a café. Taras kept us on a short leash and watched our every move, but had approved a brief trip to the Lanvin shop at 22 Rue du Faubourg, the richest part of town. I took some money from Taras’s boot, his bank of sorts, just enough to buy a hat. I had no idea how he earned his money. He was so secretive about it, it had to be bad.

  I held Max’s hand. What a good-looking young man he’d become, at four and one half years old, so handsome in the little woolen suit Mamka had made for him.

  I wore the countess’s sable coat, a bit too large for me in the shoulders, and ran one hand down the sleeve. The countess. How many times had she stood here at Lanvin? Perhaps it was better she was released from h
er suffering, but how terrible it had been to see the family die such painful deaths. Mamka said Vladi would burn in eternal fire for that.

  I turned my attention to the front of the corner shop, Jeanne Lanvin spelled out in fat, gold letters above the facade. I barely felt the cold as I peeked into the white-curtained windows.

  “I’m buying a hat,” I said.

  “It will cost more than our izba,” she said. “Not that it’s ours anymore.”

  Though Mamka’s health had improved after almost two years of good food and the pink was back in her cheeks, she was still so thin and stuck to her plain ways and wardrobe.

  Mamka, Max, and I stepped into the blond-paneled showroom, the famous wooden spiral staircase curling up at one side. We passed an army of mannequins draped in fine dresses, one more exquisite than the next. It was just as it looked in Mamka’s dressmaking magazines.

  Two women stepped to greet us, the older one tall and white-haired, dressed in a suit the color of fresh cream, with matching kid boots, the second a mousy girl in a gray silk dress, the sash glittering with embroidered beads.

  “May I assist you?” the tall one asked. “I am Madame Devereux.” Her gaze drifted to the burn on my cheek.

  I felt my cheeks warm, brushed my hair down across my face, and stepped to the mannequin, which stood clothed in a pale green, silk dress with a tight, cropped velvet jacket, the white-quilted lapels embroidered with Madame Lanvin’s signature floral beads and tiny mirrors. “Yes, I’d like to see a hat. Something in this color.”

  “Madame Lanvin makes her hats to order,” Madame Devereux said. “For her best customers.”

  I swallowed hard. “A dress, then. Something in this fabric.” I felt the silk, like a cold river through my fingers.

  Madame Devereux pulled the fabric from my hand and smoothed it down the front of the mannequin. “Perhaps come back another time.” She turned and walked toward the stairs.

  Mamka stepped after the woman. “May I see Madame Lanvin, please?”

  She turned and looked Mamka over. “What about?”

  Mamka pulled a belt from her bag. “I do needlework.”

  The two women came closer and inspected the belt. It was one of Mamka’s finest gold workpieces, with a magnificent beaded squirrel, his fur most lifelike, wild roses and vines curled between leaves and pinecones.

  The mousy one took the belt from Mamka and ran a finger down the back of the squirrel. “C’est merveilleux. Perhaps I can show Madame Lanvin.”

  Mamka stepped to the mannequin outfitted in the green dress, flipped up the jacket hem, examined the buttonholes, and then shook her head. “Machine done.”

  Madame Devereux hurried to the mannequin. “No one hand-sews buttonholes anymore.”

  Mamka pulled back the satin lining. “Seams are skimpy, too.”

  My cheeks burned. How could she be so critical?

  The mousy one could not take her eyes from the belt in her hands. “Are you available on Wednesdays?”

  I stepped forward. “No, she takes care of my son—”

  “Yes,” Mamka said. “Any weekday, but I charge extra on Saturdays.”

  The girl smiled. “Come back tomorrow and we’ll see. We do most sewing on premises but you may be allowed to take work home.”

  Mamka nodded at the woman and we stepped out onto the street.

  “Did you see the hat with fur fringe around the brim?” she asked. “Skunk trim? Heavenly Father. We did it better in the forest.”

  “You want to sew for them? Why didn’t you tell me? You are already half blind—”

  “Would you stop, Varinka? We both know my eyesight is fine. Did you see their buttons? Not even reinforced. They need me. And I bet I can make five hundred francs a month.”

  “You will leave me every day?”

  “This makes me happy and money buys freedom, Varinka. What we need more than anything.”

  “I need help with Max.”

  “So that’s it. I’m your nanny? Suddenly you don’t want to take care of the child you insisted on keeping?”

  “I met a boy. In Petrograd. He said he would try and find me here.”

  “If you want to go out on dates, find Max’s mother and give him back.”

  “How can you say that? You know how much I love him.”

  “Give him up, Varinka.”

  I picked Max up, barely able to carry him, his legs dangling long, and buried my face in his hair, breathing in the scent of little boy.

  “I’m so sleepy,” he said as he wrapped his arms around my neck and laid his head on my shoulder.

  I ran my hand down his back. “You just rest, my love.”

  Give him up? That I could never do.

  * * *

  —

  MAMKA AND I WALKED back to our new home. It was a three-story building, the front covered in wide windows, which let in the light but gave no privacy. I asked Taras for money for curtains but he refused, saying he needed to save funds for other things. Like prostitutes and drink? We’d only been there one night when he’d come home smelling of opium and toilet water. At least the townhouse had a second entrance, through the back garden, so we could come and go undetected.

  We were almost home, Max holding Mamka’s hand, when I spied him, walking toward us.

  Radimir.

  A nice little shiver ran through me. He looked good, his long hair loose and blowing back as he walked, carefree, looking in shopwindows as he went. Had he filled out a bit since I last saw him or was it just the heavier coat? Suddenly I was afraid to talk with him.

  I walked by without even a glance at him.

  Radimir stopped on the sidewalk as we passed. “Varinka? Is that you?”

  I turned. “Oh, Radimir, hello. I didn’t see you.”

  He stepped closer and smiled at me, blowing hot breath on his gloved hands. How good to see him, his cheeks flushed red from the cold. He was so different from Taras. Slender and kind.

  “This is my mamka.”

  He made a little bow in Mamka’s direction. “Pleased to meet you, my name is Radimir Solomakhin. I know your daughter a little.”

  Mamka nodded. “Zina Kozlov Pushkinsky.”

  “We were just about home,” I said.

  Radimir patted Max’s back. “And who is this little man?”

  I stopped short. “We’re watching him while his mother works. On our way home now for his nap.”

  “May I accompany you?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Mamka said.

  Radimir sent me a cautious look. “All right. I am off then. To Gare de Lyon. The restaurant there, right in the station.”

  I smiled at him. “Good to see you again.”

  “And you as well,” he said. “Just off to wait at the bakery here at the corner for a bit before I’m off to the restaurant. Probably be there until one o’clock.”

  How obvious he was, but it made me smile. It was good to be wanted.

  Mamka and I parted ways with Radimir and soon stepped in through the front door of our townhouse.

  I held my hands out for the manservant to remove my gloves. How odd it was to have someone else dress and undress me, but Taras insisted on it. “Radimir is very nice, Mamka. No need to be rude to him.”

  “You may be sophisticated all of a sudden, Inka, but you have no business with him.”

  “Because he’s Jewish?”

  “You’d have a hard life together. People—”

  “Who cares what people think? The world is changing.”

  “You have a child to focus on. A child you just had to lie about.”

  I felt my cheeks flush at that. “I’ll take Max to the school and enroll him.”

  “Now that’s a good mother.”

  Would she say that if she knew where I would go on
the way back?

  * * *

  —

  TARAS DID NOT WANT to come to L’Ecole Cygne Royal, the best elementary school in our arrondissement, but the school required two parents at the interview. At least it was not far from our new home.

  I bundled Max up and we hurried there, fighting the wind. I had made Taras slick his hair back and wear his best shoes. I would have to get rid of Taras quickly thereafter to meet Radimir by one o’clock.

  We stopped outside the prim stone building, the black-fenced side yard full of toddlers and teachers calling out to each other in French. Max knew a little French, but spoke mostly Russian. I checked my bag for the extra photos we’d had taken for our passports. Everything was lining up.

  Of course the school would want him, the sweetest child alive.

  I took Max by the hand and entered the school vestibule, our footsteps echoing on the tile, Taras close behind. What a fine place this was. We approached a woman sitting behind a desk. She wore her hair close-cropped.

  “Do you speak Russian?” I asked.

  “A little,” she said. “I teach languages.”

  “I, we, would like to enroll my son in school,” I said.

  She eyed my sable coat. “Fill out a form. The school year started in September. Next enrollment for the petite section will be summer session.”

  I pulled a form from the pile on the desk and began filling in the spaces.

  “There is already a long waiting list.” She looked the three of us up and down.

  “My son is very smart and knows some French.”

  Her gaze flicked to my ringless finger.

  “I’m teaching him to read.” Why could I not stop talking?

  “My hands are tied,” she said.

  “I would like to speak to the headmistress,” I said.

  “You are speaking to her. Madame Fournier.”

  “We came from Petrograd,” I said. “He needs friends his own age.”

  “I’m afraid we cannot help you.” Madame Fournier stood and walked back down the hall.

  Taras stepped after her. “I don’t suppose it will help your school if word gets out the headmistress has, well, had a little accident on the way to class one day.”