Winter Palace

by T. Davis Bunn

  She walked over to the gift-laden table, extracted a long slender package, and returned. “He asked that I give you this on the big day when we’re alone. I suppose this is as alone as we’re going to be. It’s a poem. He wrote it himself and did his own calligraphy. You’ll be happy to know his poetry doesn’t sound like the way Charles talks.”

  Jeffrey unwrapped the box, pulled out the frame, and read:

  Tonight I Hear

  Tonight I hear the angels sing

  With ears that never heard this earth,

  A gift of grace long undeserved

  From One who longs to grant me wings.

  Oh Lord, how long must I remain

  Bound to earth and earthly bonds?

  Can my home your home become,

  Your love my love, my life your aims?

  I seek, I seek, and cannot find

  A gift which is forever mine,

  And in my frantic fury fail

  To hear His voice so softly say,

  Be still.

  Be still.

  Be still,

  And know that all is here, and thine.

  Salvation, grace, and guiding light

  I know are mine, yet yearn for heights

  Which He himself has called me to,

  Far beyond this clinging clime.

  Yet perfection shall be never mine;

  Only His, and mine when I can die

  To Him, and let Him live through me,

  And know that here indeed are wings

  That soar.

  That soar.

  That soar,

  Beyond earth’s stormy shore,

  to Him.

  Jeffrey looked back to his mother and managed to say, “Tell Charles I’m proud of him.”

  “Jeffrey?” Katya came over, rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  His mother stood, shared smiles with Katya. “If I had ever tried to dream up an image of the perfect daughter-in-law, it would not have held a candle to you, my dear.”

  They exchanged hugs from the heart. His mother turned her attention back to Jeffrey and said, “May the Lord bless you and your wife and your lives together, with love and His presence most of all.”

  Then Katya took her place before Jeffrey, and looked up at her new husband with eyes that flooded his heart with their radiance. She whispered for his ears alone, “It is time, my darling.”

  Chapter 12

  Monte Carlo crowned a rocky promontory that descended in steep stages from the Maritime Alps to the Mediterranean Sea. The road running along the coast, the one that linked the tiny principality with such other Riviera resorts as Cannes and Antibes and Cap Ferrat, was called the Corniche. It was bounded on the Mediterranean side by a hand-wrought stone balustrade that gave way first to rocky beaches, then to a sea whose aching blue was matched only by the cloudless sky.

  At the heart of Monte Carlo rested its famous port, the waters dotted with the ivory-colored yachts of the international jet set. The surrounding houses crowded tightly against one another, grudgingly permitting only the smallest of spaces for tiny, cobblestone streets. The architecture spanned the years from La Belle Époque to ultramodern. Yet somehow it all fit, if perhaps only because of the sun and the sea and the romantic eyes with which Jeffrey and Katya blessed all they saw.

  Just off the port rose the gracious and stately Casino. Even surrounded as it was by such chrome and glass apparitions as the Loew’s hotel, the Casino remained a regal crown harking back to Monte Carlo’s glory days. Facing it across the stately Place du Casino was the wedding-cake structure of the Hotel de Paris, the most prestigious hotel in the kingdom.

  The exterior was all honey-colored stone and liveried footmen and wide, red-carpeted stairs and grand towers. The interior was all gilt and marble and Persian carpets and crystal chandeliers. The suite Alexander had arranged for them had a view up over the rooftops to the port and the sea beyond.

  It was a magical time, a sharing of happiness that knew no earthly bounds. Nights were too precious to allow for a willing descent into slumber. Exhaustion would creep upon them while one spoke and the other tried to listen, and suddenly it would be dawn. And they would still be together, opening their eyes to another day of shared joy.

  They spoke of the serious, the future, the infinite. They dwelled long and joyfully upon the meaningless, the unimportant, and gave it eternal significance with their love.

  “I know it’s a little late to be worrying about such things,” he said the fourth morning, the day of their visit to Prince Markov. “But I’ve got to ask. Can you cook?”

  As was their newfound custom, they took breakfast in their room. They found it all too new, this beginning of their days together, to share it with others. Within minutes of their call, room-service waiters in starched white uniforms rolled in a linen-clad table bearing flaky croissants, fresh fruit, silver pots containing thick black morning coffee and frothy hot milk, and always a rose in a vase. Katya kept the flowers in a water glass on her bedside table.

  Katya nodded emphatically. “I make the best gooshy-gasha on earth.”

  He made a face. “Sounds divine.”

  “It takes lots of practice. I started when I was, oh, I think maybe two and a half or three years old.”

  He marveled at the graceful slant to her almond-shaped eyes. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”

  She nodded happily. “You take a shiny new kitchen bake-pan and carry it out to the backyard. Then you mix in different things from the garden.”

  “For taste,” he said.

  She shook her head, making the dark strands shiver. “For color. Green grass, brown dirt, some water to hold it together, and as many different petals as you could find. Petals are a key ingredient of gooshy-gasha. We had a dozen fruit trees in our backyard. I remember going from tree to tree, picking handfuls of petals off the ground. I called them springtime snow, I can still remember that. It was different from wintertime snow because you could hold it in your hand and it wouldn’t melt.”

  “When you talk like that your face gets like a little girl’s,” Jeffrey mused, and felt his heart twist at the thought of a child with her face. Their child.

  But she was still caught in the fun of remembering and sharing. “Gooshy-gasha. I haven’t thought about that in years. When it was thick enough you could turn the pan upside down and make what I called a babeczka; that means a little cake.”

  “A garden variety cupcake.”

  “A baby fruit cake,” she corrected him, “with grass and petals instead of fruit and nuts. It was mostly brown, with little bits of green and pink sticking out. I’d serve it to my dolls and our pet bunnies and maybe the neighbor’s dog, if I could get him to sit still long enough to put a bib on him. He was such a messy eater.” She gazed with eyes so happy they rested on him with a joyous pain. “You’re much neater than he was.”

  “Thanks ever so much.” He swung around the table so that he could nestle into her lap, said, “Teach me some Polish.”

  “Oh no, not now.” She almost sang the words. “Nobody can learn it just like this. Not even you. It’s the most difficult language in all Europe.”

  He made mock-serious eyes. “More difficult than English?”

  She smiled. “Until you learn. It sounds a lot like Russian to the ear, though the Polish alphabet is not Cyrillic. It is a Slavic language, and all Slavic tongues have similarities, just like all Latin languages.”

  He traced the line of her chin with one finger, wondered at the pleasure such a simple, intimate gesture could bring. “Teach me something, Katya. Just a couple of words.”

  “Let’s see. O Rany Boskie means the wounds of Christ, a favorite remark of complaining grandmothers.” Happiness lent a childlike chanting tone to her voice. “Sto lat means a hundred years, and is used as a toast and a birthday greeting. Na zdrowie is a drinking salute and means to your health. Trzymaj się literally means hold on to yourself, but is used to mean hang in there. It’s said bet
ween friends upon departure or hanging up the phone. Słucham means I’m listening and is said when you pick up the phone.”

  “You have beautiful ears,” he whispered, reaching up to kiss the nearest one.

  She pushed him away with the backhanded gesture of an impatient four-year-old. “Shush, this is serious. Now the word for hello is, repeat after me, Cześcz.”

  “Only if you wait until I need to sneeze,” he said, twirling a wayward strand.

  “Okay, then Pa-pa. Try that. It means goodbye, but you only say it to a close friend.”

  “That’s one thing I never want to say to you,” he told her solemnly. “Not ever.”

  She looked down at him with merry eyes. “Całuję rączki. That’s thank you in the most formal, flirtatious sense, and really means, I kiss your hand.”

  He ran his fingers around her neck to mold with the feather-soft hairs on her nape. “How do you say I love you?”

  Her eyes shone with a violet-gray light that filled his heart to bursting. She both whispered and sang the words, “Ja cię kocham.”

  * * *

  Late that afternoon they took a taxi along the winding Corniche to Alexander’s former residence, now owned by Prince Vladimir Markov. Villa Caravelle rose from a steep hillside overlooking the azure waters of the Mediterranean. The walls surrounding the circular drive were of small, round pebbles, overlaid with great blooming pom-poms of wisteria. The air was heavily scented by flowers, especially jasmine. Everything was perfectly manicured—miniature citrus trees, bursts of bougainvillea, magnolia in full bloom. The air was absolutely still.

  Jeffrey rang the bell, caught sight of Katya’s expression, asked, “Do you mind having to do this business on our honeymoon?”

  “A little,” she admitted.

  “Sorry we didn’t go to Scotland after all?”

  “Of course not.” She smiled up at him. “Let’s just get this real-life stuff over with as quickly as possible and return to fairyland, okay?”

  The door was answered by a severe-looking woman in a navy blue dress. “Monsieur et Madame Sinclair? Entrez-vous, s’il vous plait.”

  They stepped into a high-ceilinged marble foyer. When the door closed behind them, their eyes took a moment to adjust to the darker confines. In the distance a voice said, “Mr. Sinclair, madame, please come in.”

  Electronically controlled shutters lifted from great arched windows. Light splashed into the salon with the brilliance of theater spotlights. Jeffrey was suddenly very glad that Alexander was not there to see what had happened to his former home.

  The great room reminded him of a museum between major exhibitions. Antiques and works of art cluttered every imaginable space. Nothing matched. Tapestries from the late Middle Ages crowded up next to Impressionist paintings, which were illuminated by gilded art-deco lamps held by giant nymphs. Persian carpets overlapped one another, with the excess rolled up along the walls. There were three chaises longues from three different centuries, one green silk, one brocade, one red velour. A mahogany china cupboard stuffed to overflowing with heavy silver and gold-plate stood alongside a delicate satinwood secretary, and that next to a sixteenth-century corner cupboard which in turn was partially hidden behind a solid ebony desk.

  Prince Markov walked toward Jeffrey with an outstretched hand. “You are no doubt wondering why a man who appears to have everything would be interested in another worldly possession.”

  That being far kinder than what he was truly thinking, Jeffrey replied with a simple, “Yes.”

  “Alexander Kantor has spoken so highly of you,” Katya fielded for him.

  Markov kissed her hand. “Madame Sinclair, enchanté.” A slight blush touched Katya’s cheeks, betraying her reaction to both her new name and to his old-world attention.

  “Please be so kind as to follow me.” Prince Vladimir Markov had the sleek look of a high-level corporate chairman. He was balding, even-featured, manicured from head to toe, and frigidly aloof. The results of too many overly rich meals were hidden by a chin kept aloft and by suits carefully tailored to hide a growing bulge. His lips held to a polite smile that meant absolutely nothing. Intelligent eyes viewed the world as a hawk might view its prey.

  Katya stopped before the wall beside his desk and said, “Look at these wonderful pictures.” They were enlarged sepia-colored prints of stern-looking men with square-cut beards and unsmiling women in bustles and trains.

  Markov gave a tolerant smile. “Ah, well, they’re actually what you might call family photographs.”

  “And is this your father?” she asked, pointing to one of the figures, which bore a marked resemblance.

  “Yes, my father as a young man. He was quite a remarkable gentleman. He loved to hunt. He loved art. And he absolutely loved the classics. He understood the world through mythology. He was in his twenties when he left Russia, never to return.”

  “He left because of the October Revolution?”

  “The Revolution, yes,” Markov mused, his eyes on the picture. “The Bolsheviks and their Revolution changed everything.”

  “And who is this man here beside him?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Ah, yes. That face may indeed look a little familiar. It is Czar Nicholas the Second. My father and he were distant cousins and quite close friends in their younger days.”

  “A prince of the royal family of Russia,” Katya murmured.

  Markov smiled dryly. “There were any number of princes and dukes in those days.”

  “It must have been very difficult for your family to lose all that during the Revolution,” Jeffrey offered.

  “At least my father was spared his life,” Markov evaded. “He was passing the summer here on the Riviera, as many Russians did at the time. He stayed a few weeks longer than most, and that sealed his fate. Word came from his own father not to travel back, that the situation was becoming too dangerous. Shortly thereafter, the czar and his family were taken prisoner. The Bolsheviks had overthrown the government. Nothing more was heard from my father’s father or, for that matter, from anyone else in my family.”

  He motioned them forward. “Shall we sit out on the terrace? Please watch your step here; these carpets were meant for my family’s larger estate. As you can see, I have little space here for my remaining possessions.”

  He led them out through great double glass doors onto a flagstone terrace. Below, the property plunged steeply toward the sparkling Mediterranean. Jeffrey stepped to the edge and took several deep breaths, feeling as if he had been searching for air back in that cluttered room.

  “Perhaps Mr. Kantor told you I sold my somewhat larger estate,” Markov said, holding Katya’s chair and waving Jeffrey to the seat opposite. “The palace was rather old, and required renovations that were outrageously expensive. Quite beyond the reach of an exiled prince, I assure you. What you saw inside, and of course what is contained in the other rooms, is all that I have left now of my family’s glorious past.”

  “Certainly some of your items are quite valuable,” Jeffrey ventured, wondering where the conversation was leading.

  “It is not a question of price,” Markov replied. “I suppose it is a matter of sentimental attachment. There are stories, some shreds of family history associated with each of these things.

  “But that is all in the past,” he continued, slapping his hand down on the tabletop. “And what matters about the past is the use to which it is put in the future. Which brings me to my reason for asking you here. Circumstances in Russia have changed beyond any of our imaginings. And now the time has come to act.”

  Markov’s every action seemed to have the slightly forced quality of something carefully thought out, impeccably stage-managed down to the last detail. Jeffrey wondered whether this demeanor masked a hidden agenda, or was simply a product of an aristocratic upbringing. He had not met enough princes to know how they behaved under normal circumstances.

  “What can we do for you?” he asked.

  “I wish you to assist me in re
claiming what is rightfully mine,” Markov replied. “The time has come for our Saint Petersburg estate, which the Communists confiscated, to return to its rightful owners.”

  “That is the acquisition you want us to manage?” Jeffrey asked. “You want us to go into Saint Petersburg and reclaim your family’s estate?”

  “That is correct. I wish for you to go and evaluate the circumstances, carefully examine and appraise the value of the estate, together with whatever may have remained of the original fittings, then report back to me.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, why don’t you go yourself?”

  Markov shook his head emphatically. “Things in Russia are not as simple as they seem. Every local government is desperate for funds. As soon as they hear that a Markov is involved, someone who wants the property for reasons beyond a commercial interest, the price would immediately skyrocket. Not to mention that there is still great animosity toward the old monarchy. I would venture that the Saint Petersburg government would not be pleased with the sudden reappearance of a long-lost prince of the royal family.”

  “You need a buffer,” Katya offered.

  “One of the utmost confidentiality,” he confirmed. “To make the transaction a success, I must remain utterly unseen.”

  “We have experience in antiques and works of art,” Jeffrey pointed out. “But none at all in international real estate.”

  “Who has experience in lost Russian palaces? What I need more than anything is someone I can trust.” Markov was emphatic. “Your Mr. Kantor proved a most worthy business associate in the past. Since then I have made quite thorough checks into his background and his transactions. He is a man of impeccable standing. His knowledge of Eastern Europe is extensive. And he has recommended you most highly. In my humble opinion, I feel I could not ask for a more worthy representative.”

  There wasn’t anything humble within five miles of this guy, Jeffrey thought, and asked, “So whom do I say I am representing?”