Winter Palace (4 page)

Andrew took one look at his neck brace and commented, “What a loving little company you work for, lad. One gets sick, the others all get sick with worry.”

“Worry did not put this thing around my neck.”

“No, of course not.” He patted Jeffrey's shoulder. “How's the old gent getting on?”

Jeffrey repeated the official, “As well as can be expected.”

Andrew nodded his understanding. “Doctors, they all get their lips sewn together at graduation.”

“He looked okay yesterday, and I just learned they've shifted him out of intensive care,” Jeffrey said.

“Then trust your own gut, I say.” Andrew inspected the collar more closely. “So how did you get yourself fitted up?”

“Long story. How are things with you?”

“Oh, I'm suffering a bit. Seem to have swallowed a fire-breathing dragon sometime during the night. Otherwise, I suppose I can't complain.”

“Tie one on last night, did we?”

“We?” Andrew looked confused. “Were you there too?”

Jeffrey found it nice to have a reason to smile. “Figure of speech.”

“Don't do that to me on such a morning, lad. Makes me worry if I pickled my marbles.” He extended the flowers. “Didn't have any desire to bother the old gent. Just wanted you to pass on my best regards and these posies.”

“That's very kind, Andrew,” Jeffrey said, accepting the sheaf of blooms. “I'm sure he'd like to thank you himself.”

“That can wait for when he's dressed in something more than a drafty gown and slippers. Just let him know that I'm thinking of him.” He patted Jeffrey's arm. “Take care of yourself, lad. And do let me know if you're ever in need of the old helping hand.”

“I believe I have caught my second wind,” Alexander declared weakly as Jeffrey entered the room.

“Have you?”

He nodded. “A small breeze, at any rate.”

“Your color's better,” Jeffrey observed. Alexander still looked very ill, but life was back in his eyes.

Jeffrey lowered himself carefully into the bedside chair. He looked around at the four bare walls, the flickering monitor screens, the hospital bed, the tubes and wires, the starched sheets, the roll-away table with plastic tray and utensils and food. “A long way from Claridge's.”

Alexander managed a shaky smile. “You should try the food.”

“I already did.” Jeffrey returned the smile. “You're resting well?”

“My body draws upon slumber like an elixir,” Alexander replied. His voice remained barely above a whisper. “I relish it as I never have before. I slide in and out as one draws a fine silk covering over his body. Sometimes it is so delicate that I am scarcely aware of its arrival.”

A gentle knock announced Katya's entry. She walked in, bringing a sense of joyous sunshine with her. She pecked at Alexander's cheek, gave Jeffrey something more substantial, asked, “How are my two favorite men this morning?”

“Alexander is feeling better,” Jeffrey said, giving up his seat and pulling over a second chair.

“Of course he is.” She inspected Jeffrey's neck brace. “Did you sleep in it as the doctor ordered?”

He nodded as far as he could. “Turning over has become a major event.”

“Better than having to wear that contraption on your honeymoon,” she replied primly, then turned to Alexander. “After Jeffrey left to come visit you yesterday afternoon, a Mr. Vladimir Markov called you from Monte Carlo. He seemed most distressed when I said you would be indisposed for the next few days.”

“Markov. Sounds more like a spy than somebody living on the French Riviera,” Jeffrey commented.

“Hardly a spy,” Alexander replied in his hoarse half whisper. “Quite a distinguished gentleman, actually. I believe he may even be some long-lost relative of the Romanovs.”

“Romanovs, as in the Russian kings?”

“Czars,” Alexander corrected. “Exactly.”

“Is he a client?” Katya asked.

“I suppose you might say so,” Alexander replied. “He purchased my home in Monte Carlo. I haven't seen him in well over a year.”

“Monte Carlo,” Katya sighed. “The name alone sounds divine. What was your place like?”

“Quite simple—well, no, I suppose that would be a bit of an understatement.” He paused to cough weakly. “It was built of stone, two stories high, and tucked into the hillside overlooking the sea. It had the charm of a Provencal farmhouse, but with these marvelous arched windows.”

Slack muscles pulled up in a vestige of a smile. “When Markov walked in, he threw his hands in the air and said, I'll take it. He was perhaps halfway through the entry hall. The real estate agent was as surprised as I. And Markov insisted on purchasing one of my antiques from Eastern Europe. Gave me a bit of a pang, but where was I to place the item otherwise?”

“Perhaps return it to the shop,” Jeffrey murmured.

A spark of the old Alexander returned. “So that you might have the pleasure of selling it to someone else? I do so admire your logic.”

“So how did this Russian become so rich?”

“It's not that he became rich,” Alexander replied. “It is that he held on to a small share of what before was one of the world's largest fortunes. At the turn of the century, the Russians considered it quite chic to travel to France. They positively loved the Riviera, and those who could built magnificent villas there. They learned the language and spoke it with the most atrocious Russian accent. A number of blue-domed Orthodox cathedrals still remain today, quite at odds with the local Provencal architecture.”

“But the Revolution changed all that,” Katya added.

Alexander nodded. His voice was gradually losing strength. “When it looked as though the Bolsheviks would succeed in overthrowing the government, those of the nobility who did not have their heads in the sand became panic-stricken. Some managed to escape at the last moment, the fires that destroyed their palaces and their heritage and many of their kinfolk lighting their way.”

“So Markov's family was in Monte Carlo when the Revolution broke out in 1917?” Katya asked.

“Quite likely,” Alexander replied. “He had an amazing house, a palace really, erected by his family around the turn of the century. It looked like an art-deco wedding cake by the sea. It was surrounded by elaborate gardens, with dozens of statues, Greek gods and goddesses. A most remarkable place.”

“So he gave this up to buy your home?” Jeffrey asked.

“Yes, I suppose sentimentality can only hold a person for so long,” Alexander replied, his eyelids threatening to close of their own accord. “I heard rumors that the place was bought by an Arabian prince for a positively staggering sum.”

Katya rose to her feet. “You are growing tired. It's time we let you rest.”

Jeffrey stood with her. “I'll be back as usual this afternoon.”

“Thank you both,” Alexander murmured, slipping away.

Katya held on to her smile until the door had closed
behind them. Then she stopped and clung to Jeffrey with fierce strength, her face buried in his chest. Jeffrey stroked her silken dark hair. “Alexander's going to be all right,” he said, and for the first time truly believed it was so.

****

Alexander awoke in time to watch the afternoon sun emerge from behind thunderclouds and paint his hospital room with a thousand rainbow hues. Jeffrey was dozing in the chair by his bed, his neck still protected by the foam collar. Alexander stared at him, and saw how the rain-cleansed light turned the young face into that of a world-weary king, burdened with the woes of many.

Sleep was a blanket that never entirely left Alexander's mind, a drug that demanded ever more of him. He had turned the day into a swatch of gentle breaths, was only halfway conscious as later the nurse eased him over to bathe a body that was only partly his. He had slept during the doctor's afternoon visit, dozed as Jeffrey and the doctor conferred, caught only snatches of the talk. But it did not matter. It was enough to lie in a sort of floating awareness and to see the world anew.

Alexander looked around, taking in as much as he could while moving only his eyes, seeing everything as for the first time. There was a glory to each object, a burnished quality, as though reality had been polished and set on display for him to savor. But no matter where he looked or what he saw, always his eyes returned to his slumbering friend. Always.

The sunlight inched its way across the linoleum floor as Alexander continued his inspection of his surroundings. Bit by bit, impressions came to him through reawakened senses—the sharp hospital smells, the dividing lines between pastel shadows and angled brightness, the beep of machines attached to his body, the squeak of shoes in the hallway, the sound of his own breathing, the memory of how he came to be here.

Memories. All he had to do was shut his eyes, and the past
rose vividly before him. There was a clarity to his internal vision that made memories appear as real and fresh and immediate as the world outside. One world with eyes opened, a thousand worlds when the veils fell and his sight searched inward.

Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo. Alexander replayed the morning's conversation as he drifted along the edge of sleep. Monte Carlo. As a young man he had loved the place; the city had made him feel
alive
. All the loss and hunger and deprivation of the war years in Poland had been softened by the thrill of his times in Monte Carlo.

There the senses surpassed themselves. The sea was an impossible blue, fringed with palm trees and sand-castle mansions. Champagne had more bubbles. Just breathing the air made a man feel rich. Alexander had lived for himself there and made no apologies to anyone.

By 1955, Alexander's London-based antiques trade had earned him almost enough money to fit into Monte Carlo society, while his charm and his skill at the gaming tables had made up the difference. Evenings he had enjoyed racing along the lantern-lit Corniche in a vintage cabriolet, taking the scent of night-blooming jasmine in great heady draughts.

Evenings he had wound his way down the hillside to the Place du Casino. He had loved the casino. He had loved to enter late, impeccably overdressed. He had loved the acknowledging nods of the croupiers across the expanse of green felt that separated him from his winnings. He had loved to click his chips into tall stacks, concentrating on the cards and the numbers and the counting. He had loved to drink espresso and tip generously before calling it a night—or a morning, as the case had often been—usually several thousand francs richer for the experience.

When he had finally sold his villa in the late eighties, the magic of Monte Carlo had long since faded. The landscape had changed beyond all recognition. The steep foothills of the Alpes Maritimes had been gouged with dynamite, lined
with concrete, and studded with apartment blocks, office complexes, and utterly charmless hotels. A high-rise skyline had been grafted along the rim of the old fairy-tale kingdom.

The people had changed as well. When he finally departed, his neighbors had included deposed African dictators, Arab billionaires, retired arms dealers, and South American drug lords. Hulking bodyguards whose coats pinched around poorly hidden machine-pistols replaced the universal sense of secure comfort. The atmosphere of discreet pleasure once enjoyed by the patriarchs and players had been exchanged for a dismal blend of ostentation and secrecy.

Alexander well understood the secrets of shared confidences between friends, of loyalty to a cause, of wounds kept hidden from the world. But this secrecy took on a conspiratorial quality, serving nothing more glorious than self-interest and bulging bank accounts. Such an atmosphere left him more and more the outsider.

But still, Monte Carlo. The very name continued to hold a power over him. He remembered the place not with regret, but with a bittersweet fondness, as for a childhood sweetheart who had grown up to marry the wrong man. He would like the chance to visit again. There were still a few places that clung determinedly to the old charm. As he drifted toward consciousness again, he wondered if the jasmine was in bloom this time of year.

Even before he opened his eyes, he was cuffed by the offensive hospital odors. This was his reality, being bound to a body that no longer leapt to his bidding. This was his fate, held by his own weakness to a starched white bed in a stark white room. Alexander knew a moment of crushing despair as he realized with the fullness of defeat that Monte Carlo might very well be beyond his reach—now and forever.

He opened his eyes once more to find Jeffrey still seated beside the bed, awake and alert now, waiting patiently for his return. He motioned with his eyes toward the cup.

Once he had drunk, he whispered, “Send for Gregor.” Then
he closed his eyes once again upon a world where it felt as though he no longer belonged.

****

When Jeffrey left Alexander's room that evening, he found Katya standing by the nurses' station, deep in conversation with Alexander's doctor. He waited until they shook hands and separated, then walked over and asked, “So, what did she tell you?”

“Well, it is still quite serious. But it could have been a lot worse, especially if you had not reacted swiftly and brought him here as fast as you did.”

Jeffrey started to shake his head, winced and caught himself. “It felt like time was standing still.”

“I'm sure it did.”

“Are they going to have to operate?”

“They don't think so. They need to monitor him for a few days before making a final decision about a pacemaker. But he appears to be in good general health, they say. They are hoping it won't be necessary.”

“Alexander would hate having to go through surgery. Anything that reminds him of his mortality is a hard blow.”

“He'll probably be insisting that the doctor send him home this weekend.” She hesitated. “Especially with our wedding coming up. But the doctors said he will have to be in for at least another ten days. Maybe more.”