“I’m so sorry. Such uncertainty must be tormenting.” Her hand settled over her camera. Anchoring her, even though there was nothing she could do with it to make this better for him. “Are you the elder or the younger?”
“Elder.” Now he looked her way, a knowing in his eyes. “Like you, yes?”
She glanced over her shoulder again. But where his brother was missing and perhaps injured, her sister was happy, laughing, and so very present. “I would do anything to protect her. Even though she seldom needs it.”
“Evgeni is arguably the one of us better able to survive an attack. He is a soldier like our father, even before the war. Very strong. Capable. Charming. He will make a way.”
Lily heard the words he didn’t say. He must.
He reached for her elbow then, tugged her a step to the left. Which she found utterly confusing until she became aware of quick steps coming from a path that joined theirs. A dog came bounding along, his leash trailing behind him, followed by a child panting just as hard as the canine. They would have bowled Lily over had Zivon not pulled her out of the way.
Clearly, he’d been paying more attention to their surroundings than she had.
She smiled her thanks. And then returned her mind to the conversation. “Evgeni.” She echoed the name softly, its syllables feeling strange on her tongue. As would Zivon, she knew, if she ever said it aloud. She’d try it later just to see. When she was alone, in her darkroom, film and plates and negatives before her. “I will pray for him. And for you.”
He swallowed hard. “Thank you. He would say he does not need prayers, but he needs them all the more for thinking so.”
“Mama always said something similar about her father. ‘The more you tell me not to pray, the more I know you need me to.’”
He didn’t quite smile in reply. But he looked as though he could at any moment. “You have a lovely family. It is good to see.”
She certainly couldn’t argue with that. She couldn’t quite imagine a world where her sister wasn’t on the other side of her bedroom wall, tapping out secret messages to her; where her mother wasn’t teaching her how to bring beauty to life with pen and paint and pictures; where her father wasn’t prepared to move heaven and earth to see them happy and well.
Maybe that, too, was why she’d never been interested in a courtship with any of the young men Daddy brought home. None of them had ever made her think they were worth the change from what she knew and loved. “Family is the most important thing,” she said quietly.
“It is.” Something moved over his face, so fleeting she barely caught it. Something a bit sad, a bit angry, a bit resigned. “My people—at least the ones in control now—are trying to make us forget this. There are groups of women saying it is time to liberate them from the confines of family and children. They wish to make child-rearing a matter for the state instead of the family. To abolish marriage. To outlaw elements of faith. They say these are archaic.”
They paused to wait for a rattletrap motorcar to clatter by, which gave her time enough to find the words for the reaction that had gripped her stomach. “Isn’t that a bit like saying we don’t need stone anymore, now that we have concrete and steel, and so let’s dig out the bedrock? New structures are all well and good, but we must take care not to destroy our very foundations.”
“Exactly so.” For the first time, a bit of fervor entered his voice. “This is what I have tried to say to my people. That yes, it is important women have chance to chase dreams. It is important peasants in villages do not starve. But care must be taken not to throw out good with bad.” He paused, sucked in a breath. “Apologies. I have forgotten my articles in my excitement.”
She chuckled. “I knew perfectly well what you meant. And I do agree.”
The glance he sent her said he appreciated that. But then it sobered. “My reward for such talk in Moscow, and for the work I did for my country during the war, was to be hunted. Flee or die—these were the options the Bolsheviks left me.”
He said Bolsheviks like it was a curse word. She wanted to reach over, to touch his arm, but she didn’t know if he’d appreciate such a gesture. So she settled for a small smile. “I’m glad you chose the option you did, Mr. Marin.”
He faced forward again. Seeing, she suspected, something far beyond the row of houses so familiar to her. “Many will think I chose the coward’s way. That I have abandoned my post, my country. That I have defected.”
“And being killed for your beliefs would have been better?” She shook her head and then lifted a hand to smooth back a strand of hair the wind tossed into her eyes. “I can’t think so. Denying who you are for the sake of safety would have been cowardly. And dying for it would have been a bigger abandonment, don’t you think? Now you live to fight another day. To pray for those you’ve left behind. For Russia. To do what you can for them from here.”
They drifted to a halt a few feet from her front steps, and he gave her the most interesting smile. Small, still tinged with sorrow, but somehow all the deeper and more meaningful for it. A man’s smile had never made her pulse increase before, but her heart took a strange little tumble now.
He bowed a bit at the waist, somehow making it look elegant and formal despite being dressed in athletic wear. “Thank you, Miss Blackwell, for seeing that perspective. And thank you, also, for the pleasure of walking you home.”
She suddenly wished she was in a pretty dress, her hair done up properly. Such a bow deserved something more appealing as its recipient. But she had only her uniform, and tendrils pulling free of her chignon, and a camera in her pocket weighing heavily, begging for a chance to capture him just so.
What an intriguing mass of contradictions he was. The still and the active. The formal and the informal. The studied and the earnest.
Her fingers slid into her pocket and extracted the camera as a grin stole over her lips. “May I?”
He blinked, first at her face and then at her camera. “I . . . why?”
“Because I like to keep a visual record of my days. And I don’t want to forget this conversation.”
She saw the softening in his eyes and responded to it before he nodded. Already had the camera up, open, and was adjusting the focus. Perhaps it was the quickness of her actions that made him laugh. She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t let it slip by her. She managed to get the pin pushed while light still danced in his eyes and the smile had full possession of his lips.
Ivy and Clarke soon caught up with them, and the men said their farewells amid promises to see them tomorrow.
“See there? Aren’t you glad I insisted?” Ivy chuckled as they made their way inside.
Lily granted her a grin. But then, rather than trail her sister up the stairs to their rooms, she aimed for the small chamber—once a room for a live-in maid—that Mama had let her turn into her darkroom.
Once inside, she pulled out a box of photographs she kept for repurposing—many of which she had taken, others donated by Admiral Hall—and sorted through them until she found the one she was looking for, with Moscow’s magnificent onion-domed horizon. Smiling, she reached for her camera and the film inside it.
She couldn’t give Zivon Marin his home back or find his brother for him. But she could give him a souvenir, anyway. A matryoshka doll. Not a memory itself, but something to open them up.
As she worked, she prayed. That the memories would be good ones. That he would find a way to hold tight to that which he couldn’t afford to lose of his past and easily relinquish that which would catch him in a snare.
And that somehow, somewhere, he’d find his brother.
7
EASTER SUNDAY, 31 MARCH 1918
Outside, the voices of a million raindrops sang upon cobbles and pavement and brick. Zivon had the window cracked open enough to hear them, to let the symphony of splashes and patters serenade him. Once upon a time, such music would have soothed.
He wasn’t sure soothing was even possible these days.
O
n the table before him, he’d spread a newspaper that contained a thorough article about the Paris church shelling on Friday. Ninety-one dead. Sixty-eight injured. Was Evgeni one of those? If he had even survived the train derailment, could he have been in the neighborhood? Zivon didn’t know, but that urgency that hovered always at the cloudy edges of his memory felt suspiciously like guilt when he considered the possibility. If Evgeni had been there, it was because of him. Because he had chosen that neighborhood as their rendezvous. Why hadn’t he simply chosen something like the Eiffel Tower?
He pinched the bridge of his nose where his eyeglasses rested, then repositioned them with a sigh and sent his gaze to the other paper on his table. A sheet with his own handwriting upon it—his best recollection of what that telegram about the Prussian had said. But even as he reviewed the words, trying to remember if each phrase was right, he knew it didn’t matter.
Hall wouldn’t be able to do anything with this. Zivon certainly wouldn’t have put any stock in a page created solely from the memory of a man he wasn’t even certain he could trust. Only a fool would take this as anything but a rumor.
His new superior was no fool.
But logic aside, the telegram was real. Or the original had been. It was the last thing he’d decrypted before they got word that Lenin and his troops were coming and they’d better clear everything out of their offices that gave away what they were doing.
Was that the only reason he thought it so important?
No. No, he’d known the moment he decrypted it, before he knew it would be his last, that this was vital. That the war could hinge on what happened with the common German soldiers.
How, though, to make Hall take note? To make him believe without seeing it himself? Or, better still, intercepting it himself?
Zivon let the thought settle. That could be the answer, couldn’t it? If Room 40 intercepted a message, decrypted it . . . that would be half the battle, anyway. Hall would at least believe the message itself. Then Zivon would only have to convince him of how the Allies ought to react to it.
He lifted his pen, thoughts swirling like a barynya. Round and round, faster and faster. He could almost hear the music that accompanied the dance. Only, instead of notes plucked from a string, they were words. Possibilities. Plans. Patterns.
He scribbled down a few options. He could try to re-create the message itself and send it. . . . But no, how would he send it as if it were from the Germans? That would be difficult. He could take a different tack, though. He could present the same basic information but from a different perspective.
His gaze drifted to the newspaper article. A French perspective, perhaps. As if from a French officer who had heard the rumors of mutiny among the Germans and feared his own troops might soon do the same. That if one group or another caught wind of such unrest among their counterparts on the other side, everyone would simply lay down their weapons and refuse to fight.
Yes, that could work. He scratched out his first lines of notes and jotted those down instead, in French. If only he’d thought of this sooner, while still in France. He could have encrypted it and sent it himself.
Now it was a bit trickier. It had to originate in France—the codebreakers would know if it didn’t. But perhaps those embassy connections could be convinced to help. He could send it first to Maklakov from the embassy here, in a code that he knew for a fact Room 40 hadn’t cracked yet. And request that he then send it back in a code they could break.
It may take some effort to convince Nabokov to trust him to that degree, especially as Ivan Filiminov. But it was his best option, unless he could somehow get his hands on their wireless himself.
The alarm clock he’d set on the table trilled. Zivon reached to turn it off, sighing at the half-finished state of his work. He would finish the encryption tomorrow. Heaven knew he’d have plenty of time between when the nightmares woke him and it was time to report to the OB. Perhaps he’d have time enough to visit the embassy again.
He stood and shuffled his papers back together. The newspaper could stay out, but the others would go under the floorboard with the fake passports. After that was secured, he had just enough time to tidy up before Clarke was due.
His new friend knocked exactly when he’d said he would. Zivon opened the door with a smile. “Hello. Come in. I need only one moment more.”
Clarke stepped inside with a grin that turned into lifted brows. “I say, old boy. Rather stark place you’ve got here, isn’t it?”
Zivon hurried to the window and jammed it closed. “The admiral let it for me, with what furnishings you see. I have not yet had the opportunity to make it my own.”
With a chuckle, Clarke leaned against the wall. “To be honest, my place isn’t much better. Just more cluttered with what my mother would deem rubbish if she saw it.”
After locking the window, Zivon grabbed his hat and shrugged into his jacket, then met Clarke with a smile. “Ready.”
“Excellent.”
They said nothing more until they were on the street, walking to the tube station. But given the smile that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the corners of Clarke’s lips, Zivon could guess about what his friend was thinking. Or rather, about whom. “You and the younger Miss Blackwell seemed to enjoy your walk yesterday.”
Clarke shot him a look not dissimilar from the one Evgeni had sent him twelve years ago, when Zivon had teased him about having a crush on Tatiana from across the street. “I might say the same about you and the elder Miss Blackwell. Or at least . . .” The smile flipped into a frown. “I didn’t force you to give attention to her against your will, did I? I didn’t mean to monopolize Miss Ivy’s attention. Not that Miss Blackwell isn’t a lovely young lady too, of course, but if I’ve—”
Zivon’s laugh cut him off. “You worry needlessly, my friend.”
Relief as obvious as the rain clouds washed over Clarke’s face. “Oh good. That’s neat and tidy, then, isn’t it? If you prefer her and I her sister?”
From Clarke’s point of view, it certainly would be. If he intended to court Miss Ivy, then no doubt it would be most convenient if Zivon were simultaneously occupying the attentions of her sister. But Zivon knew well his hesitation showed in his every movement, not to mention on his face.
Clarke sighed. “I thought you liked her.”
“I do. Very much. It is not that at all.” He focused his gaze on the sidewalk ahead, trying to rid his mind of her shining hair, that sunshine-and-clouds knowledge in her eyes. The utter sincerity in her voice as she promised to pray for Evgeni.
How to explain to this new friend all the reasons that now was not a good time to seek an involvement with a young woman? A young English woman?
For a long moment, the only sounds were those of the city. Then Zivon sighed. “I would not have any idea how to go about such a thing.”
“Oh, come now.” Chuckling, Clarke gave his shoulder a little shove. “It can’t be that different here than it was in Russia, can it? You like a girl, you spend time with her, maybe write her a note now and then or bring her a small gift. Before the war, I’d have said chocolates, but these days . . .”
Zivon slid his hand into his pocket, where his watch ticked steadily on. Time, ever moving. Ever escaping him. Running out. “You make it sound simple.”
“It is simple. At least in theory, as long as the girl likes you too and her parents approve. Surely you had a sweetheart at some point in Russia.”
Shooting his friend a quick glance, Zivon shrugged. “That was different.”
“Aha!” Laughing as if he’d just won a victory, Clarke leapt a step ahead and then half turned to face him, pointing his finger. “I knew it. Why else would you hesitate? You’ve still got a girl in Russia. What’s her name? Is she pretty? I bet you’re saving up to send for her.”
Zivon’s fingers tightened around the watch, until he could feel not only the ticks but also the continual movement of the gears. “No, Alyona is not waiting for me.” He shoul
d say why—and would have, had it not been a day to focus on joy instead of sorrow. But that could wait for another day, another conversation. “And it was quite different with her. We had known each other forever.” Since she was born, anyway, and he was seven. His thoughts hiccupped a bit. Lily Blackwell was the same age Alyona had been. He hadn’t paused to realize it before.
“Ah. That does rather eliminate the necessity for the getting-to-know-you stage. What happened? Opposite sides of the Revolution?”
“Her family had no reason to take sides. They simply kept their heads down, as I imagine they will continue to do.” He was the one who’d had a target on his back. Because of his job, because of the favor of the czar . . . and because he’d foolishly tried to speak reason to people who had no desire to hear it. Who’d claimed he was the unreasonable one.
Maybe they were right. Maybe it had been madness to think he could prevail against such a maelstrom.
Clarke seemed to accept his evasion of an answer. “I suppose sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Sorry, old boy. But then, that leaves you free to pursue a lady here, doesn’t it?”
“Someday.” He gave the watch a final squeeze and then let it go, slipped his hand out of his pocket. Someday, when he was certain the Bolsheviks had given up on tracking him down. Someday, when he didn’t fear being the cause of anyone else’s death. Someday, when he’d done all he could to restore order in Russia and had resigned himself to some sort of quiet life here in London.
Someday, when he had something other than uncertainty and secrecy to offer a woman.
“No time like the present, I say. We never know how much time we have left. We oughtn’t to waste it.” For the first time in their short acquaintance, Clarke’s tone was devoid of optimism. Now he was the one looking straight ahead, the one whose fingers curled into his palm.
Zivon nodded. “You have lost friends in the war.”
“There were five of us in school. Inseparable. Besides me, only one is left. And he’s still on the front lines.” Clarke’s jaw ticked, then eased. “Pneumonia was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. Everyone on the ground prays for trench fever—one of the only ways to get safely back to England for a while.”
A Portrait of Loyalty (The Codebreakers Book #3) Page 8
