Then he continued to please her, holding her in his arms and comforting her, stroking her cheek and her back, telling her lovely things about herself. It would have been wonderful to fall leisurely, warmly to sleep amidst all this, but she had lost her weariness despite the exuberance of their lovemaking. Her mind was working. She turned onto her back and, folding her arms over her breasts, looked out the tall window at the night full of stars. She had turned on only one lamp upon entering, and its light illuminated only a corner of the large room. There was no moon, but she could not imagine a Russian night with a moon. Russian nights should be cold and starry. Moons were for the Hamptons.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m thinking about the sky.”
“It’s a sky worthy of thought. The Soviets haven’t yet been able to change the sky, although I suppose there’s enough in their nuclear arsenal to manage that.”
“Chesley always thought you such a liberal. And you carry on about the Communists as though you were Ronald Reagan.”
“I’m still a liberal. Communists are the most conservative people I know.”
For some reason, the heavy scent of her own perfume came to her in a sudden rush, the chemistry of the heating and cooling of her body, she supposed. His would restore her warmth, but she resisted the urge to move nearer.
“I’m also sorting out reasons,” she said.
“Reasons?”
“Reasons for your having done this. I can’t narrow them down. I don’t know if it was because you go to bed with women compulsively, or whether you had thought of seducing me all those years when you couldn’t, or whether I’m a surrogate for Chesley, or whether this is a blow struck against Chesley, or whether you just haven’t had a woman for a long while, or what.”
“I can make this problem easier for you. I wanted to do this for all of those reasons. Every one of them. Plus one more.”
“Yes?”
“Lyubov.”
“Lyubov. Indeed.”
“Chesley demanded that she be the only woman in my life, but she made that impossible. To have been that faithful to Chesley would have meant being her possession entirely. Being her possession and nothing else. I could not imagine such a life. Not for me. Do you understand?”
“Well, in part.”
“I could imagine a life in which there was no one else but you. No other woman. I’ve thought I could be happy having you and only you. I’ve thought about that many times. I thought that the first time I saw you on the stage. Do you understand that?”
“No.”
“Do you believe me?”
He was leaning on an elbow, looking down at her. She kept her eyes on the window.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that was not a conclusion you could have come to without having had me.”
“You’ll see.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
“Now you tell me something. Why did you do this?”
“I can’t tell you. That’s something I have to sort out tomorrow.”
They lay there close but not touching, in silence. If this were still an era in which people smoked, she supposed that in this interlude they would smoke. Finally, quietly, she began to sing.
“All night long, the glasses tinkle,
While outside, the raindrops sprinkle,
Do you think another drink’ll
Do us any harm?”
“Chesley’s song,” he said. “I’ve not heard that in years.”
“It’s a lovely little song.”
“She was afraid it encouraged me.”
“I’m sure it did. It encourages me. Would you like the Armenian brandy or some vodka?”
“The brandy. To better remember you by. I drink vodka every day.”
“Don’t you want to remember me every day?”
“No. I want to save that for very special times.”
She put on her coat, then went to the bureau and poured drinks. There was something odd about the room that made her hesitate before bringing his glass to him. She looked about it, but could see nothing amiss. Then she realized it was something she could only hear amiss. The volume of the radio had decreased dramatically.
She handed him the brandy. “Do you suppose that with all our gymnastics we somehow rattled the volume down? I can barely hear the radio.”
He laughed, then put a finger to his lips.
“Did I tell you what I heard about the Soviet premier today?” he said, his voice falling to a whisper.
The radio turned off completely.
He began to laugh. Realizing what was happening, so did she. Their laughter became convulsive, hysterical. She laughed so that she spilled brandy on her bare knee, and kept on laughing. A minute or so later, the radio returned to full volume, very loud indeed, as though it were angry.
“You will find, dear Tatty, that conversation in the Soviet Union is an outdoor sport.”
He drank. His bare shoulders were trembling. She was reminded of something that took away her happy moment. She sat down in a chair by the window before speaking to him, then realized that was the wrong place to be. She moved to the bed and sat down beside him, taking his hand.
“Chesley said you were seriously ill. You haven’t seemed at all ill, but now you do.”
He sighed, then gulped down most of his drink, ending with a cough.
“I suppose I must tell you then. Actually, it has nothing to do with how I feel now. I’m just cold, and run down. I suppose I’ve been drinking too much. I’m probably not really up to the Russian winter.”
“Tell me what?”
“I have a bomb in my head.”
“What?”
The radio volume lessened again.
“An aneurysm. A ballooning artery in the brain.”
She gripped his hand quite tightly. Her own had suddenly gone cold.
“Jack. Dear Jack.”
“No pity, please. We’re all going to be pulled down by something. This could go off five minutes from now, or in twenty years, or it could never go off. It’s just there.”
“Does it, is it, hurting you? Is there anything that can be done?”
“The operative phrase is ‘inoperable.’ But it’s no great bother. Occasionally the vessel inflates a little and I get some spectacular headaches, but nothing strong drink can’t cure.”
“There’s no medicine?”
“They gave me a prescription. I tried it for a while, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. The headaches still came. I stopped after a few months. I’m still alive.”
“Did Chesley …? Was this why …?”
“No, no. I discovered it months after she left me. It was just before I went to Iceland, if you recall my adventures there. Chesley is the noblest of women, Tatty. There’s nothing that would fulfill her more than devoting hours to my sickbed.”
She kissed his hand, then released it. “You need sleep, Jack. And so do I. It’s no problem for me if you want to stay here.”
“Well, it could be.” He rose, went to the bureau, and poured himself another brandy. Then he dressed. When he was done, he picked up his drink. “God, Chesley—”
“Tatty.”
“Tatty. God yes. I am tired. I’m twitterpated, Czarina. This has all rendered me bananas. I’ve got a lot of sorting out to do myself.”
“When will I see you?”
“I’ll pick you up at six o’clock. We can have cocktails and then I’ll drop you at the theater.”
“There’ll be a rehearsal tomorrow. I’m to be there at six-thirty.”
“Then I’ll pick you up at five.”
“Kiss me.”
He did so very gently, without parting his lips, much as he did the first time he had kissed her, when she was still a teenager and he the courtly step-brother-in-law.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, tonight. I think. I will see you tomorrow and I will look very much forward to it
.”
He said no more. When the door closed behind him, she went to the chair by the window to finish her brandy.
Mila. “Dear.” That was the word she had wanted instead of podruga. But she had chosen lyubov, and now she was left with lyubov. She drank and looked to the Russian night sky, and saw that there was a moon after all. Wrapped in her coat, she fell asleep in her chair.
9
In the morning, having sometime in the night put herself to bed, Tatty awoke all rosy and flush, a woman in love. She sang to herself in the bath, closing her eyes as she savored the more physical memories of the past evening, leaving the tub with strong erotic urgings and needs she could not, alas, fulfill. She had not felt this way in years; she could not remember which man it was who had last made her feel this way. Perhaps none.
Later on, she was positively giddy at the Kremlin, going “oooh” and “ah” and laughing merrily even as Raya dragged her through the great armory and its exhibits of horrid medieval helmets worn by the likes of the father of Alexander Nevsky and Prince Ivan, son of Ivan the Terrible and murder victim of Ivan the Terrible. Finally, outside a golden-domed cathedral where the Terrible once, in his unique fashion, worshiped, Raya asked if she was drunk.
“A little,” she said. “But I’ve been that every day. I’m just in good spirits. It’s your wonderful country, so bright and gay. Who could help feeling so marvelous?”
Raya merely grunted.
After lunch, however, as fatigue returned and the repetitive boredom of all the touring accumulated, Tatty’s rapture began to diminish, making room for some depressing thoughts—all about Jack Spencer. She had had them the night before, in the times when there had been no lovemaking, and they kept leading to the same unwanted conclusion: John August Spencer was a weak man. He drank out of weakness. He philandered out of weakness. He let Chesley leave him out of weakness, when a stronger man, a Captain David Paget, for example, might have dragged her screaming back to their marriage. Jack was a brave man. He flew sailplanes and strange little motorized aircraft called ultralights. She had seen him walk into a riding ring to quiet a hysterical horse with nothing more than a short crop. She had heard from others vivid accounts of his conduct in all his precious wars. But even in this bravery there was weakness. It and the wars it required were an escape constantly resorted to. When bullets are flying, one need only endure.
She chided herself. The man had an aneurysm. He had lost the most desirable woman he probably had ever known. He’d been exiled to Russia. There were reasons for his depression, for his dark looks and mournful gazes.
She and Raya were walking along the Kremlin Embankment adjoining the Moskva River.
“I take you to Alexander Gardens,” Raya said. “Then you have seen Kremlin.”
“I just remembered. Chairman Griuchinov promised to take me on a special tour of the Kremlin, and now I’ve gone and done it myself.”
“So go again. Is worth seeing twice.”
“He hasn’t called.”
“Maybe you offended him, becoming so drunk like that.”
“He left gifts in my hotel room. Brandy, wine, and vodka.”
Raya shrugged. “Why is this American newspaperman bothering you?”
“He isn’t bothering me.”
“He is with you all last night.”
“It wasn’t all last night and it didn’t bother me.”
“You say you know him for long time before. You know him well?”
“He’s a good friend.”
“Newspapermen are always trouble. Especially American.”
“I don’t feel troubled.”
“After Alexander Gardens, I take you back to hotel. I think you need sleep.”
She tried to sleep, as though to placate Raya, but it was no use. Love, depression, confusion, and her professional anticipation of tonight’s Moscow debut kept her even from dozing. She worked on her scripts a while, then went for a walk around the hotel, which seemed greater in circumference than even the Kremlin. She continued walking, gripped by hard thoughts. As she completed her third circumnavigation, she saw Jack Spencer walking up from what Raya had said was a subway stop, walking with a serious limp.
There was a purple bruise above his right eye, and a purple and yellow one upon his swollen left cheek.
“Jack! My God! What happened?”
“No system is perfect. Even in the worker’s paradise they have muggers. The son of a bitch jumped me as I was going into my building. Hit me twice with some sort of billy right across the face and had me down in a second. I kicked him in the balls before he could get my wallet. Unfortunately, that gave him an idea and he did the same thing to me, with far greater effect, I fear. I had an interesting morning with the good Sovietski doctor.”
Jack had that ballooning artery. She reached and touched his face.
“I’m all right, Tat. I won’t exactly be running the high hurdles today, but we’ll survive. Always do.”
He always did. Bravery was not his only game; there was also stoicism, almost to the point of masochism. She had seen him ride horseback—and take jumps—with a broken foot. Cold, heat, burns, great bloody cuts, nothing seemed to bother him. He took his pain from other things.
She took his hand, deciding to say nothing more about his injury, or anything else that had happened the previous night, unless he brought it up. He didn’t, not until after a long walk around a wide curve of the river, a look through two small museums, and several cups of coffee in a warm, many-windowed restaurant. Finally, as she had expected, he ordered vodka for them both. She carefully sipped hers; he gulped down a glass and then refilled it from the carafe.
“Better,” he said. “Everything.” There was an odd look to his face, a boyish grin beneath sad old eyes. For all he had done to himself, he was still the handsomest man she had ever known, even with the two awful bruises. “Well,” he continued. “What are we now?”
“Still you and I, but more, more to each other. This morning I was wildly in love with you.”
“And this afternoon?”
“This afternoon I’m sad and terribly confused, but no less sure that I’ll be wildly in love with you again.”
“Not,” he said, with a groan, “quite just yet.”
She smiled, as demurely as possible. “Tonight I have to go to a Soviet dinner; tomorrow to one at our embassy. I know of nothing after that, yet.”
“What about afternoons? Tomorrow afternoon?”
“I don’t know. I have this very bossy Intourist nanny, who I don’t think approves very much of you. She could complicate things. I suppose she could get me in trouble, or may have already. It was stupid of me, really, but I had this little pistol.”
He put his hand on hers firmly, finished his drink, and rose. “I think we should resume our stroll. It will improve the conversation.”
They didn’t speak again until they were far down the street. “All right. What pistol?”
“I had it in my suitcase. I knew of course that they searched everything, but they didn’t bother with it, not for several days. Then suddenly it was gone, taken from my bag. Is firearm possession a serious crime?”
“All crimes are serious in a Soviet Socialist Republic, but that one can get you the full fifteen years in a gulag. If they haven’t bothered you about it, you may get a pass. They may even hand it to you in a sealed box at the airport when they return your passport. What in hell prompted you to bring a gun into this country? I can’t imagine how you pulled it off.”
“I didn’t. It was given to me when I arrived, by the embassy, for self-protection. I had a bad experience in France last year. A man tried to rape me. The State Department knew about that.” She let her revelations end there.
“So they gave you a gun. When those people aren’t being fools, they’re being complete idiots. Was it someone in their security section? The CIA people here wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“It was someone from the cultural section.”
“
Incredible. Well, be wary of your Russian nanny. Be wary of all the Russians.”
“What about my Russian self?”
“It should be wary of my self, at least when I’m ready to run the high hurdles again.”
The street opened onto a large square. She recognized one large building on it, embellished with grand colonnades and statues of horses, as was the Bolshoi.
“Your theater is there,” he said, pointing to a smaller structure just to the right, the roofline of the great GUM department store visible above it. “It used to be called the Little Imperial Theater, back in the good old days.”
“Is this called Bolshoi Square?”
“Oh no. It’s Sverdlov Square.”
“Sverdlov?”
“It’s named after Jakov Sverdlov, Lord High Executioner and Great Comrade Hero of the Revolution. They have a city named for him also—”
“I know. In the Urals. Jack, I’d better go into the theater now. Do I have your number? I’ll call you as soon as I can get free again.”
He started to kiss her hand, but she pulled his to her lips instead.
“Your number.”
He dug in his wallet for a card. “Here are all three. I’ll stay close to one of them as long as you’re here.” Placing it in her hand, he kissed her softly on the lips, then turned to limp away. For a nervous moment, she wished he wasn’t leaving her, but she collected herself. The worst would soon be over. Only a few more Russian days.
The rehearsal went well, and the performance much better than that. The chamber orchestra was of a higher quality than the one in Leningrad and the printed translations of Tatty’s readings had been replaced by a live actress who sat off to the side and repeated each of Tatty’s lines in Russian. It was the same sad-faced blond woman who had come up to her at the Friendship and Cultural Ties Union reception in Leningrad. Whether for her or for Tatty, the theater was full, including all the VIP seats—though there was nothing to be seen of the Cheshire-cat face of Valeri Jakovich Griuchinov.
Blood of the Czars Page 15
