“Sometimes I think she's paying the price of the life I led before,” she blew her nose in Simon's handkerchief and looked up at him with unhappy eyes. Sasha was worrying Zoya terribly these days, and Simon was angry at her for it. “I was always at work when she was young, and now … it almost seems like it's too late to make it up to her.”
“You have nothing to make up to her, Zoya. She has everything she could possibly want, including a mother who adores her.” The trouble was that she was spoiled, and he didn't want to be the one to say it. Her father had indulged her as a small child, and Nicholas and Zoya had pampered her for all the years after that. Zoya had pampered Nicholas too, but he only seemed to grow kinder and more thoughtful as a result, appreciating everything Simon did for him, unlike Sasha, who only wanted more, and had tantrums almost every day. If she didn't want a new dress, it was a new pair of shoes, or a trip somewhere, or she lamented because they didn't go to St. Moritz, or didn't have a house in the country. But considering the fortune Simon had made, neither he nor Zoya had a taste for excessive luxuries. She had had all that before, and what she shared with Simon now was more important.
Zoya's concerns about Sasha almost spoiled their Christmas holidays, and after Russian Christmas, she actually looked ill. She was pale and she was working too hard at the store, almost as though she could drown her sorrows there. And to cheer her up, Simon announced that he was taking her to Sun Valley, without the children, to go skiing. That infuriated Sasha even more. She wanted to go with them, and Simon told her firmly that she couldn't. She had to stay in New York and go to school, and she did everything she could to spoil their trip. She called and told them the dog was sick, and Nicholas told them the following day that it was a lie, she spilled ink on the rug in her room, and she played hooky again, the school called to say. All Zoya wanted to do was go home, and get her back in control again. But she was so worried, she was sick all the way home on the train, and when they got to New York, Simon insisted she go to the doctor.
“Don't be stupid, Simon, I'm just tired,” she snapped at him, which was unlike her.
“I don't care. You look like hell. My mother even said she was worried about you when she saw you yesterday.” Zoya laughed at that, Sofia Hirsch usually lamented about her religion, not her health. But she finally agreed to go to the doctor the following week, feeling foolish. She knew she'd only been working too hard, and she was still worried about Sasha, although the child seemed more subdued now that they were back from Sun Valley.
But Zoya was in no way prepared for what the doctor told her after he had looked her over. “You're pregnant, Mrs. Hirsch,” he smiled benignly at her from across the desk, “or should I call you Countess Zoya?”
“I'm what?” She stared at him in disbelief. She was forty years old, and the last thing she wanted was a baby, even Simon's. They had agreed two and a half years before when they were married that that was out of the question. She knew Simon regretted it, but now with the store, it would have been ridiculous anyway. It was ridiculous, she thought as she stared at the doctor in disbelief. “But I can't be!”
“Well, you are.” He asked her some more questions, and calculated that the baby was due around the first of September. “Will your husband be pleased?”
“I … he …” Zoya could hardly speak, her eyes filled with tears, and promising to return in a month, she hurried out of the office.
She sat silently at dinner that night, looking as though someone had died, and Simon glanced at her worriedly several times. But he waited until they were alone in the library to ask what the doctor had said. “Was anything wrong?” He knew he couldn't live if anything happened to her, and he could see in her eyes that she was terribly upset about something.
“Simon …” She looked up at him with anguished eyes. I'm pregnant”
He stared at her, and then suddenly he rushed toward her and took her in his arms with a shout of joy. “Oh darling … oh darling! … oh God, I love you! …” When she looked at him again, she saw that he was laughing and crying at the same time, and she didn't have the heart to tell him that all afternoon she had even thought of having an abortion. She knew they were dangerous to be sure, but she knew that several of her clients had had them and survived, and she was much too old to be having a baby. No one had a baby at forty! No one she knew anyway, no one in their right mind, tears filled her eyes again and she looked at her husband in irritation.
“How can you be so happy? I'm forty years old, I'm too old to have any more children.”
He looked worried again as she cried, “Is that what the doctor said?”
“No,” she said furiously, and blew her nose, “he said ‘Congratulations!’” Simon could only laugh at her as she paced the room frantically. “What about the store? Simon, think of it. And what about the children?”
“It will be good for them,” he sat down peacefully in a chair, looking as though he had conquered the world, “Nicholas will be in college next year, and I think he'll be pleased for us anyway. And it might do Sasha good not to be the baby anymore. In any case, she'll have to adjust to it. And the store will be fine. You can go in for a few hours every day, and you'll have a nurse afterward …” He already had it all planned as Zoya turned on him. She had worked so hard, and Sasha's moods were always so precarious, this was the one thing she didn't need in her life, a baby to upset the balance.
“A few hours? Do you think I can run that place in a few hours? Simon, you're crazy!”
“No, I'm not,” he said with a quiet smile, “I'm crazy about my wife though …” He beamed up at her, looking like a boy again. At forty-three, he was going to be a father. “I'm going to be a daddy!” He looked so pleased that it took the wind obt of her sails, as she sat down miserably on the couch and cried harder.
“Oh Simon … how could this happen?”
“Come here,” he moved closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders, “I'll explain it …”
“Simon, stop that!”
“Why? You can't get pregnant now anyway.” It amused him all the more because she was always so careful, but destiny dealt the cards differently sometimes, and he would not let her change that. She had already hinted darkly that things could be “changed,” and he knew what she meant, but there was no question of it. He was not going to let her risk her life aborting the baby he had always wanted. “Zoya … sweetheart … calm down for a minute and think it out. You can work for as long as you can. You can probably sit in your office at the store every day until the baby comes, as long as you don't run around too much. And afterward, you can go back to work, and nothing will be changed, except that we'll have a beautiful little baby of our own to love for the rest of our lives. Is that so terrible, sweetheart?” It didn't seem it when he explained it that way, and he had been so good to her children that she knew she couldn't deny him his own. She sighed and blew her nose again.
“He'll laugh at me when he grows up, he'll think I'm his grandmother instead of his mother!”
“Not if you look anything like you do now, and why should that change?” She was still beautiful, and looked almost girlish at forty. Only the fact that she had a seventeen-year-old son ever gave her age away at all, and she was so proud of him that she talked about him all the time. But otherwise, no one would have guessed her to be more than in her late twenties, or at the very most thirty. “I love you so much,” Simon reassured her again, and then Zoya's face paled as she thought of Sasha.
“What'll we tell her?”
“The good news,” he smiled gently at his wife, “that we're having a baby.”
“I think she'll be very upset.” But that proved to be the understatement of the century. Neither of them was prepared for the hurricane that hit Park Avenue when Zoya told her about the baby.
“You're what? That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard! What am I going to tell my friends for God's sake? They'll laugh me right out of school, and it'll be all yourfaultl” She raged as Zoya l
ooked on unhappily.
“Darling, it doesn't change how much I love you. Don't you know that?” she said helplessly.
“I don't care! And I don't want to live here with you, if you have a baby!” She had slammed her door and disappeared later that afternoon, after school. It had taken two full days to discover that she was staying with a friend. Zoya and Simon had called the police by then, and she met them in the friend's living room with a look of defiance that met their grief-stricken faces. Zoya asked her quietly to come home with them, and she refused and suddenly, for the first time, Simon was overcome with absolute fury.
“Get your things, right now Do you understand?” He grabbed her arm and shook her hard as she stared at him, he had never done anything like it before, and she had thought him possessed of unlimited patience. But even Simon had his limits. “Now go get your hat and coat and whatever else you brought here, you're coming home with us whether you like it or not, and if you don't behave yourself, Sasha, I'm going to have you locked in a convent.” And for a moment she believed him. But he didn't want his wife having a miscarriage, thanks to her spoiled brat of a daughter. Sasha came back into the room a moment later, with her things, looking somewhat subdued, and somewhat frightened of Simon. Zoya apologized profusely to the mother of Sasha's friend and they took her downstairs and drove her home, where Simon read her the riot act the moment they set foot in the apartment. “If you ever, ever dare, to give your mother any trouble again, Sasha Andrews, I'm going to beat you within an inch of your life, do you understand?” He roared, but Zoya smiled within herself. She knew he would never have laid a hand on the child, or anyone, but he was so angry his face was pale. And suddenly, she began worrying that he might have a heart attack like Clayton.
“Go to your room, Sasha,” she said coldly, and the girl silently obeyed, for once amazed at their reactions, as Nicholas quietly walked in and looked at them.
“You should have done that a long time ago. I think that's what she needs. A good, swift kick in the behind.” And then he laughed mischievously, as Simon relaxed again, “I'd be happy to deliver it for you, anytime you like.” And then he turned to his mother with the smile that so often reminded her of her own brother's. “I just want you to know that I think it's wonderful, about the baby.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” she went to him and put an arm around her tall, handsome son, looking up at him sheepishly.
“You're not going to be too embarrassed that your old mother is having a baby?”
“If I had an old mother, maybe I might be.” He smiled at her and a moment later his eyes met Simon's, and he saw the man's love for him there. He went to him and hugged him too.
“Congratulations, Dad,” Nicholas said quietly, embracing him as tears leapt unrestrained to Simon's eyes. It was the first time the boy had called him that. A new life had begun, for all of them, not just for Simon and Zoya.
CHAPTER
43
In April of 1939, the World's Fair opened at Flushing Meadows, and Zoya was anxious to go, but Simon didn't think she should. It was terribly crowded, and she was four months pregnant. She was still working full-time at the store, though she was being a little more careful than before. And Simon took the children to the World's Fair instead, and they were both thrilled when they saw it. Even Sasha behaved, as she had much of the time since Simon's now famous explosion. But she was difficult with Zoya as often as she could get away with it, which was still far too often.
In June, the first transatlantic passenger flights were begun by Pan Am, and Nicholas was dying to go to Europe on the Dixie Clipper, but Simon wouldn't let him. He thought it was too dangerous, and more important than that, he was even more worried than before by what was going on in Europe. He and Zoya had gone over on the Normandie again in the spring, to buy for the store and fabric for his line of coats. But he had felt the tension everywhere, and he was far more aware of anti-Semitism than he had been before when he was there. He felt certain now that there was going to be a war, and he offered Nicholas a graduation trip to California instead, which delighted Nicholas. He flew to San Francisco and back, in love with everything he'd seen there, and amused by the size of his mother when he returned. In August, she finally stopped going to the store, and called them every half hour instead. She didn't know what to do with herself when she wasn't working. Simon brought her candies and books and the magazines she liked best, but all she could think of by the end of August was the nursery she'd made of the guest room next to the library, and he found her there every day folding tiny baby things. It was a side of her he had never seen before. She even reorganized his closets and changed the furniture around in their bedroom.
“Take it easy, Zoya,” he teased, “I'm afraid to come home at night. I might sit down in a chair that isn't there anymore.”
She blushed, aware of it herself. “I don't know what's happening to me. I seem to have this constant need to get the house in order.” She had redone Sasha's room too, she was away at a camp for young ladies in the Adirondacks, and it was a relief to Simon not to have to worry about her just then. And things seemed to be going well there, she had only escaped the counselors once, to go dancing with her friends in the nearby village. They had found her at the head of a conga line and summarily took her back with them, but at least they hadn't threatened to send her home. Simon wanted Zoya to be able to relax before she gave birth to their baby.
At the end of August, Germany and Russia stunned the world by signing a mutual nonaggression pact, but Zoya seemed uninterested in world news. She was too busy calling the store and changing the apartment around, and on the first of September, Simon came home and offered to take her to the movies. Sasha was due back the next night, and Nicholas was leaving the following week for Princeton, but he was out with some friends, showing off the car Simon had just given him to take to college. It was a brand-new Ford coupe, hot off the assembly line in Detroit, with every possible extra feature they had to offer.
“You're much too generous with him,” Zoya had smiled, grateful as always for everything he did for them. He had stopped by the store that night and gave her all the news, as he noticed that she looked even more uncomfortable than she had that morning.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“I'm fine.” But she said she was too tired to go to the movies. They went to bed at ten o'clock that night, and an hour later, he felt her stir, and then he heard a soft moan, and he turned on the light. She was lying beside him, her eyes closed, holding her belly.
“Zoya?” He didn't know what to do, as he leapt out of bed, rushing around the room, looking for his clothes, and unable to remember where he'd left them. “Don't move. I'll call the doctor.” He couldn't even remember where the telephone was as she laughed at him from the bed.
“I think it's just indigestion.” But the indigestion got a lot worse in the next two hours, and at three o'clock in the morning, he called the doorman for a taxi. He helped Zoya put on her clothes, and helped her into the cab, waiting for them downstairs. She could hardly talk by then and she was having trouble walking, as terror enveloped him. He didn't even care about the baby suddenly, he just wanted her to be all right. He felt frantic as they wheeled her away at the hospital, and he paced the halls as the sun came up. He jumped a foot when an hour later, a nurse touched his shoulder.
“Is she all right?”
“Yes” the nurse smiled, “you have a beautiful little boy, Mr. Hirsch.” He stared at her, and then began to cry, as she walked quietly away. And half an hour later, they let him see Zoya. She was dozing peacefully, with the baby in her arms, as he tiptoed into the room, and stopped in wonder as he saw his son for the first time. He had a shock of black hair like his own, and his tiny hand was curled around his mother's lingers.
“Zoya?” he whispered in the large sunny room at Doctors Hospital. “He's so beautiful,” he whispered, as Zoya opened her eyes and smiled at him. It had been a difficult birth, the baby was big, but even then,
right afterward, she knew it was worth it.
“He looks like you,” she said, her voice still hoarse from the anesthetic.
“Poor kid.” His eyes filled with tears again, and he bent to kiss her, he had never been happier in his life, and Zoya looked so happy and proud as she gently smoothed a hand over the silky black hair. “What'll we call him?”
“What about Matthew?” she whispered as Simon looked at his son.
“Matthew Hirsch.”
“Matthew Simon Hirsch,” she said, and then drifted off to sleep again, with her son in her arms, and her husband looking on, the tears of joy falling into her mane of red hair, as he kissed her.
CHAPTER
44
Matthew Simon Hirsch was still in the hospital and he was one day old on the day that war was declared in Europe. Britain and France had declared war on Germany, when their ally Poland was invaded by Germany. Simon came into Zoya's room with grim eyes and announced the news, but a moment later he had almost forgotten as he held Matthew, and watched the baby give a lusty cry for his mother.
When Zoya came home to the apartment on Park Avenue, Sasha was there to greet her. Even she couldn't resist the beautiful baby boy who looked so exactly like Simon.
“He has Mama's nose,” she announced with amused delight, fascinated that everything was so perfect and so small as she held him for the first time. At fourteen, she was too young to visit at the hospital, but Nicholas had met his brother before leaving for Princeton. “And he has my ears!” Sasha giggled, “but the rest is Simon.”
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