Chapter 7
7
DARYA
I sit with coffee on the terrace in the brilliant Granada sunlight and stare at the burner phone I bought from one of the illegal street traders.
Lesson one of running is to never look back. But I’ve barely slept for worrying about the children, and the news is giving me nothing. I can’t exactly call the hospitals and start asking questions.
I don’t know what, if anything, Papa might know. I doubt Roman is beating his door down for company right now. But I’m certain Papa would have kept his burner phone a secret, and dangerous as it is to risk calling him, he is the only link I have to everything I’ve lost.
I brace myself and hit the numbers.
The phone rings for so long that my heart sinks. They must have found his phone.
Then, miraculously, the call is picked up.
“ Da? ”
It takes all I have not to burst into tears. “It’s me, Papa.”
“Dayushka!” There’s no hiding his relief. “Listen to me.” He speaks before I can respond. “You must come back. Make Roman listen. He has it all wrong.” Good as it is to hear Papa speak so fluently, I’ve never heard him sound so agitated.
“About what? What has he said?” More to the point, what has he done?
If Roman has hurt Papa . . .
I wince. I can’t even imagine that. Surely, no matter how much he hates me, Roman wouldn’t hurt an old man in his care? Is he truly capable of that?
“Come back, Dayushka. You both need to know the truth—”
“I can’t come back, Papa. Roman—I can’t come back.” Fuck. It’s so hard to know what I can and can’t say. “I just need to know if the children are safe.”
“The children?” He sounds genuinely bewildered. “Why wouldn’t they be safe?”
I frown over the terrace, staring at the dull ocher walls of the Alhambra, pale in the early-morning brilliance. There’s something calming about the sensual curves of the ancient palaces, a timelessness that lulls me into a false sense of security and makes the noise and terror of the explosion seem like a distant dream.
But it wasn’t. The explosion happened. And the children were there.
“There was a bomb.” I pick uneasily at a loose thread on my headscarf.
“A what? Why have I heard nothing? Ah.” He pauses. “That is why they have kept me from the television.”
“There was a bomb at the ball. And Alexei.” My breath hitches, the words falling clumsily from my mouth as I realize I haven’t even told Papa about my brother. “I saw him. He came to warn me, Papa, to tell me to run. He said the children were in danger if I stayed.”
“Alexei?” Papa’s tone sharpens. “Did he say why? What did he tell you? Darya.” He continues before I can answer his questions. “You must come back. You can’t be out there alone, and I need to speak to you both.”
“The children, Papa.” I keep my voice even with an effort. “Can you just ask one of the guards if they’re okay?” I can feel tears beginning to form behind my eyes. It’s something that happens more and more frequently lately.
Hormones, I guess.
“Yes. I will ask. But, Darya. Tell me where you are.”
I shake my head. “I can’t,” I whisper. “Find out about the children.” I hang up before the tears begin to fall.
I stare dumbly out over the valley at the growing morning. I have no idea what to do next.
Or for the rest of my life.
I feel none of the edgy excitement I did back when I ran from the Orlovs, nor any of the single-minded determination that has carried me through the lonely years that followed. I can’t find the hard thread of tenacity that I’ve clung to, the certainty that one day there will be an end to this. All I see now is an endless road into nothingness ahead of me, a journey that has no end nor even the promise of one. Just a lonely string of days where I must live a lie—and raise my unborn child to live it with me.
What kind of a life is this for a child? To never belong anywhere, to have no past or family to call their own? To live with the constant threat that one day they may be found and held hostage to a legacy they don’t even understand?
To never know their father?
I groan aloud, covering my face with my hands. I can’t escape the memory of Roman’s face when he believed I’d betrayed him. My own hurt at discovering his true identity is nothing compared to what I felt when I saw that implacable wall rise in his eyes. Anytime I think of our unborn child, that wall is all I see. A barrier to any possible future.
I stand up impatiently. I have to walk. I can’t sit here all day, seeing Roman’s face over and again. I saw it a thousand times on the journey here, every time I reread his letter. It’s one of the reasons I burned it.
I have to put those memories aside now. Try to find the space to build something new.
Try not to imagine the lifeless bodies of the children.
I shudder, feeling another cold wave of fury that Alexei could have knowingly endangered them like that. My feet hit the cobblestones hard as I move mindlessly through the labyrinthine alleys that make up the Albayzin, the medieval part of Granada. The brisk pace and beautiful surroundings do nothing to ameliorate my anger.
My brother is as lost to me as Roman is. Though for different reasons.
While I have sympathy for what Alexei has suffered at the Orlovs’ hands, I can’t ever forgive him for that bomb. For knowingly risking the children’s lives.
I even feel angry at Papa. He told me Alexei would only be in touch with our Argentinian contact in the event of an emergency. Yet Alexei knew the name on my new passport. The only way he could have known that is if the contact told him, and that means he’s been in touch more than just in emergencies. I find it impossible to believe that Papa doesn’t know that. Which means that he, too, knows more than he is saying. That my father and brother have been keeping me in the dark, planning together, just like they did back when we escaped the Orlovs and they didn’t tell me that Alexei was going to stay behind.
I’m tired of the secrets and lies. Exhausted by what has taken place and all that I’ve lost because of it.
I walk up and down the steep, narrow alleys, stopping occasionally to buy a bottle of water. I have no appetite and I can’t stop. Every time I stop walking, I’m swamped by emotions I can’t handle. As dusk comes closer, I turn toward the steep road that leads up to and past the Alhambra, heading for the mountain above it, and the solitude of nothing but wind and birds.