Sweet Love, Survive

by Susan Johnson

  “Are you sure?” Kitty asked hesitantly, Apollo’s winning smile and apology allaying the momentary blaze of her own resentment. God help her, she loved him—savage chivalrous code, temper, and all. Nothing could change that, and now that the cold implacable fury had faded from his eyes, he resembled again the lover and friend she knew.

  “Very sure.” He stretched out an arm, touching Kitty’s shoulder, his repentant eyes saying even more than the simple words.

  Kitty moved the few steps into his embrace. Snuggling against him—or at least as close as she could, considering the baby’s predisposition to take his share of space—she queried quietly, “You do believe me, don’t you, Apollo? About the baby, I mean.” She spoke with a quiet dignity that undid him.

  He kissed her worried brow. “Of course, my own sweet kitten,” he lied smoothly, and only he knew what it cost him to so lightly agree.

  In the course of the last weeks, Iskender-Khan had been approached by some Europeans interested in drilling for oil in the vicinity of Dargo. While all of Russia was nominally under Bolshevik control, in practice, the oil companies knew if the local chieftains didn’t sanction the operation, no drilling was possible. While Kitty and Apollo seldom dined with Iskender, preferring a quiet evening to themselves, Iskender wished to discuss the subject with Apollo since two of the Rothschild representatives were coming to Dargo the following morning.

  Kitty and Apollo went for dinner, an informal affair, primarily family: a few cousins, aunts, and uncles. Since dinner Apollo had been deep in conversation with his great-grandfather. At first Kitty listened politely, Apollo, holding her lightly, one arm around her shoulder, including her in the conversation. But once the business arrangements were concluded, guerilla tactics became the topic of discussion. Kitty quietly excused herself. Apollo, at ease, talking earnestly with Iskender, hardly noticed.

  The other female guests were intent on a card game in one corner of the large drawing room, but Kitty at the moment preferred the silence of the starlit summer night to their company. While all Apollo’s relatives were pleasant, his young cousin, Tamara, had taken every opportunity to be disagreeable since her arrival. Tonight was no exception. Apollo seemed immune to Tamara’s flirtatious cajoling, but this evening at dinner her remarks had been suggestive enough for Iskender to peremptorily silence her with a curt word. Since then, Tamara had sulked in a theatrical way, and to avoid being in her vicinity Kitty chose the outdoors.

  Strolling out onto the balcony, Kitty lingered at the railing, the lukewarm summer night frosted with moonlight, all color drained to grisaille, gray on pearl on silver. The pungent perfume of climbing roses furled around her. She inhaled the sweet drifting aroma of new-mown hay, viewed with fresh wonder the tapestry of stars spilled like sequins in the limitless blue-black mountain sky.

  The loveliness was disturbed suddenly by a throaty, sullen voice at her shoulder. “You’re very clever to keep him interested so long, but he’ll never marry you.”

  Reluctant to face the petulant owner of the all too familiar voice, Kitty turned around slowly and found she was being inspected with undisguised animosity. “And that would suit your plans admirably, wouldn’t it?” Kitty said with a calmness she was far from feeling. Tamara always seemed able to invoke her most hidden insecurities. It didn’t help, either, that the young girl was darkly beautiful, her form slender as a willow branch.

  Ignoring Kitty’s question, Tamara rudely remarked, “He’s brought women up here before. Many times. You’re not the first—and you’re not the first pregnant one, either. Ask him how many brats he’s sired already. Ask him.”

  Kitty stiffened visibly at the cruel, cutting words. “I’m not interested in Apollo’s past.” The tone was supposed to be dismissive, but Kitty’s voice was strangely unsteady at the end, for in truth, thoughts of Apollo’s previous amours always struck her particularly hard. She had chided herself about those jealous suppositions many times already, in the course of the past weeks, when Apollo had been greeted by women friends. It seemed to her that far too many of his female acquaintances in the aul were unusually friendly, although Apollo had never been more than politely civil in response. Stupidly, she had never even considered children. What a fool. Here she was, pregnant with his child—and worse, married to another man. It left the future rather uncertain; and left her prey to a terrible sensitiveness.

  In the dim light, Tamara’s pouting face shone eerily, framed by the blackness of her hair. “Maybe you’re not interested in his past, but you might be interested in what Apollo does with his paramours”—Tamara sneered the word—“when he tires of them.”

  Kitty, scarlet with embarrassment, was spared the need to reply, for Apollo appeared in the entrance to the balcony. “Kitty,” he called, his rangy build outlined in the open doorway, “are you out there?”

  “Yes,” Kitty quickly replied, overjoyed at the opportunity to terminate the unnerving conversation with Tamara. Perhaps it was cowardly, but she wasn’t up to a verbal brawl with her—nor ready to cope with the painful reality of Apollo’s previous lovers.

  “You won’t last,” Tamara hissed while Apollo was still out of earshot. “Apollo likes white flesh, but he’s been raised in these mountains and he’ll never marry a Giaour. Never! I mean to have him!” Turning to leave, she tossed over her shoulder, “Ask Apollo what happened to Noenia.” Then, flouncing past Apollo’s approaching figure, she disappeared into the drawing room.

  “My Lord,” Apollo said, taking Kitty’s hands in his, “you and Tamara in a tête-à-tête. What in the world did you find to talk about?”

  “Very little,” Kitty said.

  “I should think so. Tamara’s a child and flighty as a wisp in the wind. She can’t have a serious thought in her head.”

  Far from a child, Kitty thought acerbically, but she simply said, “Oh, she has a few.”

  “Such as?” Apollo asked skeptically.

  “Nothing important,” Kitty mumbled, while in fact her mind unlocked doors of disquiet she had carefully guarded all these months.

  Rather than pursue the subject, Apollo steered Kitty toward the lighted doorway. “Come and see Karaim’s most recent acquisition. You’ll love it.” Apollo’s tone was warmly animated.

  Forcibly suspending any further thought of Tamara, Kitty responded to Apollo’s affable expression and cheerful words.

  “What will I love?” she asked, smiling.

  “Two reels of film. One French and one American.”

  Kitty squealed in delight. The cinema, as Apollo was well aware, was an obsession with her, and for that reason he had added his request to Karaim’s list on his last foray out of the village.

  “And if you’re very good,” Apollo teased, “we’ll take them home tonight to view.”

  “Tonight? Really? Doesn’t Karaim mind?”

  Apollo laughed. “He minds like hell, but I just won the throw of the dice. Tonight they’re ours.” Looking down at Kitty’s jubilant face, his grin widened. Picking her up, he twirled her around. “Do I take care of you or do I take care of you?” he asked laughingly.

  “You … take … care of me … very … well!” Kitty mirthfully exhaled, winging through the air.

  Setting Kitty down, Apollo kissed her lightly on the cheek, then, gazing with a keen-eyed look that traveled slowly from the top of her head to her toes and back again, taking in the fullness of her blossoming pregnancy, one eyebrow shot up and he said with a lazy smile, “It seems I certainly do.”

  Kitty’s lilting laugh floated through the room.

  One slim, young girl brooding in a corner viewed this playful repartee with chillingly cold eyes.

  In the course of the night, between the cinema and other pleasant activities, Tamara’s vindictive words were forgotten. But in the glaring light of day, the disturbing phrases began drifting in and out of Kitty’s thoughts. “He’ll never marry you.… I mean to have him.… Ask him what happened to Noenia.…”

  Apollo, seated on
the window seat across the bedroom, was pulling on his boots when Kitty, ensconced in the center of the bed watching him, asked, with studied casualness, “Who’s Noenia?”

  Stopping in midpull, Apollo tensed for a moment, then resumed his task. Looking up, his face a bland mask, he said, “Who?”

  “Noenia.”

  Rising, Apollo smiled at Kitty and, manlike—wanting to avoid a topic that could prove uncomfortable—replied, “Never heard the name.” Walking the two steps to the door, he paused, one hand on the latch. “Hurry and dress now. I’ll see you in the breakfast room in twenty minutes. I’m going to check on Leda.”

  Great, Kitty thought dispiritedly, watching the door close on his tall, lean form. He claims he doesn’t know her. Now whom do you believe? Some snippy little hussy like Tamara, or the man you love? She recalled Peotr and all his paramours, considered Apollo and his wartime reputation, thought of the promiscuous habits of reckless young Russian aristocrats who gambled, drank, and made love lightly, expertly, and transiently, always completely charming, completely drunk, and completely irresponsible.

  Some snippy little hussy, that’s whom she believed. Damn, damn, damn. She fell back in bed and covered her head.

  Kitty lay there thinking morosely. He says he’ll marry you, but does he mean it? It’s easy to say, particularly since you already have a husband. Does he really care, or are you simply another passing fancy? The last thing she needed was that conversation with Tamara last night. As if she weren’t already feeling insecure enough—she hadn’t been able to see her feet in three weeks.

  How the hell had Kitty heard of Noenia? Apollo was uneasily speculating as he descended the stairs three at a time. Damn gossipy women. Someone evidently had mentioned Noenia.

  When she’d disappeared Apollo had raised holy hell only because rumor had it Iskender had been to blame, and youthful independence had necessitated immediate affront. A year or two later he’d heard of Noenia again; she was living in Besh-Tau, the mistress of one of the grand dukes. He wished her well. If he had known at the time what Pushka intended, he could have saved Iskender the confrontation with Noenia’s fiery temper as well as a tidy sum of money. Apollo had enjoyed the pretty woman’s company for an unheard-of five weeks, but he’d had no more intention of marrying her than of marrying any of the other ladies he’d entertained himself with.

  Thinking about it, Apollo supposed he could have explained all that to Kitty, but it had happened so long ago … best leave it alone. Women were always quick to read romance into past amours. His had been strictly physical. Why confuse the issue?

  After breakfast they strolled to the pond in the meadow. Formerly they rode in the morning, but Apollo wouldn’t permit Kitty to ride anymore. There’d been some words over that; Kitty had felt well physically and was extremely fond of an exhilarating gallop early in the morning. Apollo had been adamant, however, quoting the local midwife verbatim and very sternly remarking, “I mean to see that you do what you’re told.”

  He was quite a bully with her health, always admonishing her with some snippet of advice from mountain lore, and later that morning while swimming lazily in the pond, Kitty reluctantly admitted to herself that she really couldn’t move very rapidly anymore. Their mock tag races under the pear trees had declined recently into a slow-moving choreography with Apollo conceding her victory very early to save her from fatigue. All in all, Kitty mused, floating in the cool spring water, this wasn’t a good time to be assailed with acid comments like Tamara’s; she was feeling unwieldy, unlovely, and about as graceful as an unpended turtle.

  After the swim, dressed again, lying in the sweet-smelling grass beneath heavily laden pear trees, the impulse to know wouldn’t desist. Despite Kitty’s very determined effort, Tamara’s disastrous words were still not dislodged from her consciousness but danced and pirouetted vexingly, faster and faster. “Won’t marry you … other children … ask about Noenia … many women … you’re no different.” Kitty counseled herself to silence, cautioning herself not to exaggerate another woman’s personal injuries to pride, reminding herself that she had learned in the demanding school of life, over the last three years, not to expect constant felicity. In addition, it hardly ever paid to be sulky and difficult. Also, deep down, she knew Apollo’s affection couldn’t be faulted.

  So she tried to be unruffled and calm about Tamara’s disclosures. And she was, for almost ten minutes more. Then abruptly her inner struggle came to an end, defeated by a temperament too long trained to independence. “Tell me about Noenia,” she blurted out. “I know you had her up here. I know she exists and you spent time with her.” A rising querulousness was startlingly evident by the final word.

  There was a racking silence. Apollo looked up slowly from the book he was reading. “Who told you about her?” he quietly asked.

  “So you do remember her,” Kitty said, a little too sharply, her worst fears rapidly coming to fruition. “And your children. You never told me. How many do you have besides the one growing in me?” Her voice had risen more than she wished. Taking a breath to calm her racing heart, she said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to know.”

  Apollo hadn’t moved. With a quiet intake of breath he replied, “Not many.”

  The evasive retort ignited Kitty’s warming temper. “Not many! God above, how insouciant the male animal can be! What the hell is not many?” Every slight to womankind, every difference between the sexes, trembled in the vibrating timbre of her voice.

  “It means two.”

  “And are they here underfoot? Do you see them? Visit their mothers? Am I cramping your style? Why didn’t you tell me?” She finished in a wail.

  “It didn’t seem very pertinent.”

  “But of course. Children never seem pertinent to libertine men!”

  Apollo’s voice was still gently calm. His eyes reflected a quiet sadness, rather than anger. “The reason it didn’t seem pertinent,” he explained patiently, “is that my children are in Europe being raised by their mother and her current husband. The lady, you see, when she discovered she was pregnant, wasn’t interested in marrying a seventeen-year-old boy. At the time I found it rather heartless. But she was adamant—and her husband, when he returned from Egypt, apparently was amenable. I’ve only seen the twins four times since they were born.”

  Immediately Kitty was contrite. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  “I am too,” was Apollo’s murmured reply.

  Kitty was momentarily nonplussed by the flash of melancholy in his pale eyes, but once begun she wanted all her questions answered. She realized Tamara’s words had upset her more than she’d known. “You did know Noenia,” she softly accused. “Why didn’t you say so this morning?” And she wondered how many other lies and evasions she had been subjected to.

  “I thought it unimportant. Now who told you?” Apollo insisted softly, setting his book aside. He didn’t like to have Kitty upset, particularly over something as senseless as this.

  Kitty marveled at the quiet arrogance. Didn’t seem important to whom, for God’s sake? Here was a man used to doing exactly as he pleased; the world, at least here in the mountains, ordered to his perfection. “Why should it matter who told me?” Kitty said defiantly, struggling to a sitting position. Apollo moved quickly to help her but she brushed his hands aside and repeated, “Tell me what happened to Noenia.”

  “Tell me,” he said evenly, “who told you about her, and I will.”

  “Oh, very well,” Kitty replied coolly. “It was Tamara.”

  “The bitch,” he muttered. “I might have known.”

  “What’s the difference how I found out?” Kitty observed petulantly. “Evidently your amours are common gossip.” Her face mirrored her distaste. “And I’m just another juicy tidbit for the rumor mill.”

  “Look here, Kitty,” Apollo said somewhat ominously, leaning on his elbows and staring directly into her eyes. “Number one, my amours are not common gossip; outside of little snits like Tamara, mo
st people mind their own business. Number two, you, my sweet, have not, are not, and never will be a subject of gossip. You’re the woman I love and my future wife.”

  “Why should I believe you? After twins you never told me about, and some mystery woman you denied knowing, not to mention all the doxies you and Peotr entertained from one end of Russia to the other, I don’t know what to believe. You probably tell every woman you love her!”

  Apollo choked a little at her naiveté. “Listen, Kitty,” he said gravely, “if I didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here. It’s as simple as that.”

  She stared at him and frowned. “That’s not what Tamara says.”

  “Now, sweet,” Apollo said with mild exasperation, “if Tamara knew me as well as she professes, she’d know I’ve mastered the art of polite good-byes very well. If I don’t want a woman around, she doesn’t stay—and I’m embarrassed to admit that most of the women I’ve known have gone out with the empty brandy bottles in the morning. The few who have lasted slightly longer”—a trace of mockery sharpened the deep voice—“simply had a wider latitude of expertise. None of them, dushka, ever affected my heart … until you.”

  A small flame kindled in Kitty’s soul at the quiet words, and eyes that only moments before were acid green now shone with the sea-green buoyancy of sparkling waves. “So I outlasted the brandy bottle?”

  “Long past.” Apollo’s eyebrows went up in that quick little reflex, acknowledging the remarkable fact. Almost in a musing tone he went on, “First, you outlasted that terrible time in the forenoon when the night’s liquor has worn off, you’re too exhausted to make love anymore, and conversation is beyond your energy. And then, after that, the expected ennui never came, nor the usual tedium. Nor the boredom, at which point I usually began to wonder exactly how to word a polite good-bye.”

  “You never thought, even once, about an elegantly worded adieu for me?” Kitty was teasing a little now, feeling joyous after the last disclosure.

  “Well … the first time, I didn’t have any choice. The troop was waiting to ride off to God only knew where. And after the general, on the way to Novorossiisk, that was different. I was so damned mad—no elegant words there, just sheer fury. But never once did I really want to leave you, dushka, my soul, and that’s God’s truth. It was love even then, despite Peotr, despite the general, despite everything.” Rolling over, he pulled Kitty into his arms. “I love you. You’re my life,” he said very gently. Stroking her cheek softly, his gaze held her wide-set emerald eyes, a smile crinkled the corners of his mouth. “Satisfied?”