by Kate Quinn
“Princess Ruth,” Tony exclaimed as he saw the small nose press against the violin’s glass case. “Are you to favor us with a recital?”
Ruth was usually shy with strange men, but Tony upon meeting her had gone down on one knee and intoned that it was well known that Princess Ruth of Bostonia spake not to her knights errant until they had earned her favor with supreme deeds of gallantry, and that he would fain ride to the ends of the earth to win her regard—whereupon Ruth had come out of her hair with a cautious smile. She let him kiss her hand now, then poised an imaginary violin and began to play. Jordan wondered where she had ever seen a violin played; she certainly had the stance right.
Her mother, Jordan answered her own question. Her real mother. Ruth must have seen her mother play—they’d never know how or where, young as Ruth had been. She’d seemed to forget about it for years, but here it was coming up again, making her gaze at the child-size violin as if mesmerized. Was Ruth remembering it now because the only man she’d ever known as a father was suddenly gone, the way her musical, mysterious mother had disappeared?
Jordan’s gaze fell back to her dad’s eyes in the picture. He was solid, Anneliese had said of him last night, over her cocoa. Nothing could follow me out of a dream with him there. Maybe that was why Ruth had bad dreams. The solid, four-square father who had anchored her world for the past few years was now gone.
“You’re in a daze this afternoon, Miss McBride.” Tony’s gaze had turned serious. Jordan braced herself for the usual solicitous Are you all right? that she heard from neighbors and acquaintances and friends every day since her father died, and she mustered the usual bright I’m just fine!
“Would you like me to go away?” Tony asked instead. “I have a handkerchief or a listening ear if you want, but I can also leave you alone for some peace, quiet, and a good cry, in whatever order you need them. Alone being the important part.”
Jordan couldn’t help but laugh, startled. “I have . . . wanted that quite a lot, the last few weeks.” That was why she kept drifting down into the darkroom. People didn’t usually follow her down there.
“Right, then.” Tony straightened. “Shall I bugger off?”
“‘Bugger off’? Did you suddenly turn English?”
“I spent too many years working with a Limey.” A quirk of a smile. “Here’s an idea—why don’t you bugger off, Miss McBride? Take Princess Ruth home early, have some time to yourself.”
Jordan opened her mouth to refuse, but the bell jingled and Garrett’s voice sounded. “Jor, there you are.” He dropped his arm around her shoulders, giving a searching look as if to make sure she hadn’t been crying. “Are you—”
“I’m just fine.”
“I’m trying to persuade Miss McBride here to go home early,” Tony broke in. “Maybe you’ll have better luck, Mr.—”
“Byrne. Garrett Byrne.” Offering a hand. “You’re the new clerk?”
“Guilty. Tony Rodomovsky. You’re the fiancé?”
“Guilty.”
An exchange of handshakes. Jordan wondered if there were two young men anywhere on earth who could shake hands without the size-up that went with it: who had the stronger grip, who was taller. Garrett stretched to his full six two; Tony slouched against the counter looking amused.
“I can’t go home early, Garrett,” Jordan broke in before they could start on the next part of the ritual, which was to figure out who had been in the war and who hadn’t. “Anna is seeing the lawyer, and I’ll have to stay until closing.”
“I can close up for you,” Tony said unhelpfully.
“See?” Garrett reached down, tousled Ruth’s hair. She ignored him, still playing her imaginary violin. “We could go to the movies, take Ruth. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.” I have, Jordan thought. I have.
“Mr. Kolb’s already gone,” Tony said. “There won’t be much to do here.”
Jordan hesitated. Her father wouldn’t have left any new clerk alone in the shop until they had a good month under their belt and he was absolutely certain he hadn’t hired a thief. But Tony had worked a flawless three weeks, and Anneliese had given her seal of approval. “You know how to close up,” she told Tony, handing over the keys. “Come on, Ruthie. Want to go to the movies?”
Ruth’s imaginary bow stopped midarc. She had been mesmerized by Cinderella early that year; she’d driven Anneliese mad begging for pet mice. “Cinderella?”
“Get your glass slippers, princess.” Tony put her imaginary violin into a case with great care. “You just leave that with me, I’ll keep it safe for your violin lessons . . .”
Garrett was holding the door, smiling, but Jordan paused, struck by a sudden idea.
“Don’t forget this, Miss McBride.” Tony held out the print of Jordan’s father that she’d left on the counter, trimmed and ready for framing. He lingered a minute, looking at it. “Your father?”
“Yes.” Jordan felt a lump in her throat. She could mention him with ease a hundred times, and on the hundred and first for no reason at all her throat would close up. She wished she understood it. Maybe it would hurt less. Probably not.
“It’s a good picture.” Tony passed it over. “You should keep it here.”
“Why?”
“This was his shop.” Nodding at the photograph. “In that, he looks like the quintessential antiques dealer at work.”
“That’s what he was,” Jordan said, and click, there was another idea. Slowly, she smiled.
“Jor?” Garrett sounded puzzled.
“Miss McBride?” Tony cocked his head. “I like making a girl smile, but normally I’ve got some idea why.”
If they hadn’t had a counter between them, Jordan would have hugged him. She beamed instead, yanking her black straw hat off the stand and clapping it down over her hair. “Tony,” she said, forgetting the Mr. Rodomovsky, “thank you. Twice!”
“ANNA, I’VE JUST HAD the best idea—” Jordan stopped, coming out onto the tiny balcony where her stepmother stood looking out at the street. “I didn’t know you smoked.”
“I used to like a cigarette before dinner.” Anneliese took a drag, tilting her face up to the long summer twilight. She still wore the black suit she’d donned to visit the lawyer, but her pumps sat on the deck beside her handbag. “You know how your father felt about women who smoked, so I stopped. Would you like one?”
“Sure.”
Anneliese took out a silver case and lit a fresh cigarette from her own. “Where is Ruth?”
“Playing with Taro upstairs. Garrett just dropped us off—he came to take us to the movies, but nothing was playing.” Jordan inhaled smoke, coming to lean on the balcony railing. “I had an idea today, something Tony said. Let’s get Ruth violin lessons.”
For a moment Anneliese looked almost shocked. “Why?”
“She can’t look at a violin without being mesmerized. It would make her so happy.”
“A child who shrieks and lashes out doesn’t need more indulging, she needs discipline. We’ve been too lax with Ruth.”
“She’s not spoiled,” Jordan protested. “She’s sad and angry, and she misses Dad. Why not try something different, something to remind her she can be happy?”
“Not the violin, though.” Anneliese took another drag. “Whatever those memories of her mother are, they aren’t pleasant. I don’t want her even more stirred up. Better if she forgets about violins altogether.”
“If she doesn’t like it, we’d stop the lessons. But—”
“No, Jordan. I don’t want her remembering more.” Anneliese smiled, as if to apologize for her refusal. “Besides, it’s a rather Jewish thing, isn’t it, being obsessed with music? One of their nicer qualities, of course, they make fine musicians. But we don’t want Ruth tarred with that brush. With a name like Ruth Weber she was undoubtedly Jewish. Thank goodness at least she doesn’t have the looks.”
“Anna, really!” Jordan exclaimed. “Every other little girl in Boston has pian
o lessons, music is hardly a Jewish thing. And even if it was—”
“Everyone sympathized with the Jews after the war, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to live next door to them. I don’t want that for Ruth.” Anneliese moved on, clearly done with the subject. “There’s something else I should tell you, Jordan. You know I saw the lawyer today about your father’s will. All in order—the shop to me for my lifetime or until I remarry, then to you and Ruth jointly.”
“Yes.” Her father’s voice: I wanted to make it into something special for you. A real future . . . “What did you want to tell me?”
“That you don’t have to want it.”
Jordan looked up, startled. “What?”
“Fathers want to build something they can leave to their children. Sometimes they don’t stop and think if what they’ve built is anything their children want to be saddled with.” Anneliese’s blue eyes were steady, sympathetic. “You’ve been such a dutiful daughter, working at that shop—but I know you never wanted it. You should have gone to college instead. I advocated for that, but your father didn’t favor the idea, as you know. It wasn’t right to contradict my husband, so I let the matter drop. But I thought he was wrong. I still do.”
“He wasn’t wrong,” Jordan said, defensive. “I didn’t need college. I had a future already, I had Garrett, I had . . .”
Anneliese waited for her to name everything else she already had. When Jordan trailed off, she went on. “I’ll keep up the shop as your father would have wanted, don’t fear. An income for me, an inheritance someday for you and Ruth.” Lighting another cigarette. “But that doesn’t mean it should burden you now, Jordan. You don’t want to be stuck behind a counter selling apostle spoons to old ladies—I know you don’t. What would you rather do?”
“I’m marrying Garrett in the spring.” It came out of Jordan automatically.
Anneliese smiled. Jordan felt herself blushing.
“What about college?” Anneliese went on, gently ignoring both marriage and Garrett. “You could try for Radcliffe or Boston University, but I think a young woman benefits from leaving her hometown. You could go all the way to California, if it took your fantasy. A new school, a new state.”
College. Jordan thought how much she’d wanted that at seventeen. “I don’t . . . think I want that anymore,” she said slowly. “I’m twenty-two. Starting next to all those eighteen-year-old girls, half of whom are just there to get engaged . . .”
Anneliese didn’t look surprised. “You could go to New York, then. Get a job you enjoy, not a job you think you should enjoy.”
Jordan felt her hands clench around the balcony rail. Was this conversation happening? Was it really happening?
“Don’t think I’m trying to drive you away.” Anneliese smiled. “This is your home. But you don’t have to be tied here because of the shop and your father’s wishes. I want you to be happy. Would it make you happy to go abroad? Find work as a photographer?”
“I don’t know if I’m good enough for that,” Jordan heard herself say.
“You won’t know unless you try.” Anneliese rested a black-sleeved arm next to the ashtray. “Take that camera of yours and find things to snap in Europe. It’s another way to learn besides university courses.”
“I can’t leave.” Jordan said it reflexively.
“Leave what? The shop?” Anneliese waved a hand. “You don’t really want it to begin with, and it will run just fine without you. Leave Garrett? If he loves you, he’ll wait. Leave Ruth? If you get married in the spring, she’ll have to adjust to your being gone, anyway.”
“But I’d still be in Boston, able to see her. Not a state away.” Or an ocean away. “Ruth’s already lost too many people.”
“Ruth will adjust. Children do. She’s your sister, not your daughter—you don’t have to build your life around her.” Pause. “And you don’t have to feel disloyal for wanting something different than your father wanted for you.”
I do, Jordan wanted to say. I changed everything I wanted because of what he said. But her imagination was already running far, far ahead of her. She thought of slinging the Leica over her shoulder and grabbing a bus for New York; walking into the big offices of LIFE and applying for a job as errand girl, darkroom assistant, anything at all to get her foot in those doors. She thought of trekking through Spain to see where Robert Capa had snapped his famous Falling Soldier. She thought of the project that had leaped into her mind just that afternoon after Tony’s casual comment seeing the print of her father, the second idea for which she’d thanked him—the project drumming away inside her head in its urgency to be started. Taking the time to do it, not just tell herself she didn’t have time because doing a big ambitious photo-essay was silly when the camera was just a hobby.
To never think the words just a hobby again.
“What I’m saying is that I can help you.” Anneliese’s voice went on warmly. “This is your inheritance, Jordan; you’re entitled to it. Do you want to travel? I can give you an allowance. Do you want to take an apartment in New York, work as a photographer? I can help with expenses until you start earning a proper wage. It’s not an offer I’d make to any twenty-two-year-old girl, but you’re of age, and you have a good head on your shoulders. Leave the shop to me, leave Ruth to me, leave Boston to me—it’s too small for you.” Her stepmother faced her, smiling. “What do you want?”
Jordan opened her mouth to answer and instead burst into tears. She heard Anneliese stub out her cigarette and then move closer, slim arms folding around Jordan. She cried into that small shoulder as the sky darkened from twilight to night, a half-moon beginning to rise, and there was one final stab of resentment. That Anneliese, whom she had met at seventeen, knew her so well, and not her father who had known her her whole life.
What do you want?
For the first time in a long while, Jordan thought, I want the world.
Chapter 32
Ian
June 1950
Boston
How did it go with Kolb?” Tony’s voice crackled through the pay phone.
“Nothing,” Ian said flatly, watching the rising half-moon. In the time he and Nina had been inside Kolb’s apartment, late afternoon had become full dark. “You finally met the McBride widow; anything of note?” They hadn’t technically ruled out that the shop owners might be involved with Kolb’s activities.
“Pleasant woman, blue eyes, dark hair, classic Boston clip on her R’s. No scar on the neck—hey, no harm checking. She was in and out with a few questions; no attempt to talk to the employees or customers. I’ll keep an eye, see if Kolb makes any effort to speak with her or give her anything, but she seems to be hands-off with the shop, and my first guess is that she wouldn’t know if he’s got a racket going.”
“He does,” Ian said shortly. “We just can’t prove it yet.”
He hung up, returning to the diner on the corner where Nina already sat with a Coca-Cola, keeping watch through the window. Not much of a diner, empty except for an ancient waitress whose cigarette ash nearly fell into Ian’s five-cent coffee. But the corner table by the window had an unobtrusive view of Kolb’s building, and that same building didn’t have a rear entrance besides an illegally defunct fire escape. Ian didn’t see the aging forger swinging down from a fire escape by his hands, so the diner was where they settled to keep watch.
“You should go home,” Ian told Nina. There was a part of him that was sorry—very sorry—that he hadn’t beaten Kolb into a mass of blood and bone splinters: he wanted to sit here and drink bad coffee until that part was thoroughly strangled. “You did well tonight,” he added. He’d worried her flair for chaos would spill into the work, but she’d cleaved to the plan, watched for cues, been useful.
“Spasibo.” Nina began taking out hairpins, shaking her hair out of its grim knot. “What if Kolb runs?”
“I’ll follow, see who he meets. Watch him until he leads us to something or someone new.”
Nina picked up the menu
. “If he doesn’t?”
“In cases past, we’d make the decision at some point to move on.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Not here.”
“No.” There was an ocean in the way, not to mention an obsession. Ian took a sip of coffee, grimacing. “There are probably going to be a lot of hours spent in this booth.”
“They have hamburgers. Is something, at least.” Nina flagged the waitress. Ian knew she found hamburgers a miracle of American life far more compelling than freedom of speech. “Kolb runs, he maybe gets away for good,” Nina said when the waitress plodded out of earshot. “New city, new name. He’s a forger, maybe he make himself new papers.”
Ian nodded, remembering various failed tail operations of the past. It wasn’t easy for a tiny team to mount a comprehensive watch.
“Is only three of us,” Nina said, reading his mind. “We can’t sit on him every breath.”
“We can try. I’ll take him from dawn until he arrives at work.” Ian hadn’t been sleeping much anyway; he might as well come here at four in the morning and sit watching a door. “Tony will watch him at work. And you—”
“I take nights.”
“Agreed, Night Witch.” Ian felt the anger draining out of him, being replaced by shame. You lost your temper. You threw a witness up against a wall and choked him. He’d never done that before, no matter how much he was tempted.
Bloody hell, it had felt good.
Ian looked at his wife. “I believe I owe you an apology.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“I threw you out of my office in Vienna because you said you’d take violence over legality. Yet I’m the one who just threw a man up against a wall simply because he made me angry. There’s an analogy about pots and kettles that isn’t making me particularly happy at the moment.”
“Kettles? Kolb didn’t have kettles.”
“Never mind.”
