Chapter 2
Zina
The next morning was mild yet overcast as I hurried back to the tearoom from Katya’s flat, where I had spent the night. I was late. Any minute, Baba Valya would be changing the sign on Samovar’s doors from Fermé to Ouvert.
My feet ached from all the walking and dancing, my mouth dry from the drinks and kisses. But I sobered up as I approached rue Daru.
Instead of lilting French, I heard bursts of excited Russian, glimpsed Cyrillic signs engulfing the pale yellow and ivory European buildings.
Instead of French baguettes, the yeasty smell of hot pirozhki buns wafted on the air with their succulent meat and cabbage flavors, making my empty stomach contract.
Especially as it was accompanied by the sharp feeling of nostalgia that I usually felt whenever I stepped onto rue Daru.
The flickers of an unseen land, in an unlived time.
I tossed aside the stub of my cigarette and ran down rue Pierre le Grand toward Samovar.
The cathedral slid into view with its trio of towers topped with golden onion domes and Orthodox crosses.
I felt the energy rubbed into its worn stones particularly keenly that morning—of wistfulness clouded by uncertainty, of regret tinged with bluish sorrow.
I ignored the energy—it was too sad—relieved to see the tearoom ahead of me.
Samovar was three sloping floors painted the faded brick red reminiscent of the Kremlin walls I had seen in photographs of Moscow. But as I approached the corner onto rue Daru, I nearly collided with a woman.
I sprang aside—just in time—expecting to hear a stream of angry French. “Pardon,” I muttered and would have continued on but for a silvery laugh.
“Why, how perfectly Parisian.” The woman’s voice was refined, her Russian skewed with a French accent.
She was noble, likely of the aristocracy, mostly fled to all corners of the earth after the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia and murdered Tsar Nicholas and his entire family, severing the Romanov line and its aristocrats along with it.
“I was looking for you, and here we meet in the middle of the street. Comme c’est charmant! ”
The sparkling emeralds on the woman’s slender, porcelain-white fingers caught my gaze first. Then her almond-shaped eyes, the brilliant green of her gemstones.
I was instantly curious. Jewels were unusual for the colony’s poor inhabitants.
Even if noble, even if a Romanov, most had long sold off such baubles in exile.
They hinted at excess, at waste. Baba Valya was adamant: No royals.
I didn’t like her rules, this one especially.
Katya proved that not all royals were rotten to their core.
She and her mama are the exception, Baba Valya would retort.
But the woman in front of me was smiling warmly.
Judging by her smile lines, she was older than me, in her late thirties or early forties.
Yet her energy vibrated youthfulness in an electric green mist, her emeralds whispering of money.
Despite their excesses, royal women intrigued me.
They had entirely different experiences.
Baba Valya had thought the same once—they had been her main clientele when she had told fortunes with Mama during the Belle époque.
To which she liked to say, It is because of my work for them that I realized all royals are bad apples.
“Forgive me, but I don’t believe we are acquainted,” I said to the woman.
“Ah, but I am acquainted with you. There is talk about you on rue Daru. That you are a very talented psychic.” She smiled widely.
“Who are you?” My curiosity grew. So did my ego.
“Princess Olga——.” She said her family name, but it didn’t matter. I recognized it. A Romanov, her father cousin to the late tsar. Fallen royalty. None of our business.
Yet I didn’t move. “People usually talk of my grandmother first, me second or not at all.”
The princess’s smile turned a touch embarrassed. “I…knew your grandmother a long time ago. She and your mother used to tell fortunes for my father. But she—well, she never liked me.”
My curiosity turned to suspicion, particularly as a cool, pale gray wave of energy unfurled from her. What did it say about her heart? It was hard to tell. Bad memories sometimes momentarily cooled hearts. “Why is that?”
“I do not presume to know.” The princess glanced furtively at Samovar, as though my grandmother stood just beyond its windows, listening to her, to us. Watching.
I followed Princess Olga’s gaze; there was no one there.
Still, I felt the prickle of guilt for even speaking to her.
Despite not liking Baba Valya’s rules, I was loath to break them.
Samovar was her tearoom, her business. “I am sorry, but I suggest you find somebody else. Do excuse me.” I made to sidestep the princess, but a swish of her fashionable skirts with their silks and pleats prevented me.
She dipped her head—she was very tall—and peered down at me. “You see, I am trying to find out what happened to my father. He disappeared many years ago in Paris.”
I felt a twinge of sympathy. I knew what it was like without a father. Baba Valya refused to tell me who mine was or what had happened to him—if she even knew. Maybe he was dead, or maybe—just maybe—he was out there, walking the same streets as me.
“My brother and I are staying on rue Daru for several days.” Princess Olga procured an ivory calling card from her coat. “Then we will remove to our old house near Bois de Boulogne. Both addresses are provided on the card.”
“Why not inquire with the police? They might…” I stopped, seeing her face drain of blood like that of a beautiful yet dead vampire.
“I have inquired. They know nothing. Besides, my father believed in the occult, trusted in it more than the real world. I am exceedingly curious to try it his way. Do consider it, Mademoiselle Lenormand. We will pay handsomely for your efforts. And I can tell you about her—your mother,” Princess Olga added. “She died, did she not?”
The protestations evaporated on my lips.
Baba Valya spoke of Mama even more rarely than of the past. This was a chance to learn more about her—and about Princess Olga.
Money was good, too. Her jewels didn’t bother me.
The princess would be my own client, on my own terms, without Baba Valya’s menial tasks or meddling.
Still. A question niggled at me like a tick.
“What do you think you will be paying for?” I asked carefully.
Princess Olga blinked her lovely eyes at me, and I took in the rest of her—the bobbed blond hair, the pert nose, the dewy face, the glossy black furs. A melancholy hung about her like a shroud. It could explain the moment of coolness.
“What is it you think I can do for you? To ask the cards where he is? To divine his whereabouts in the coffee grounds? Some other method to locate him?”
A mysterious little smile played on her lips. “If that is how you locate the dead, for I am fairly certain he is no longer of this world. I heard you not only read fortunes but commune with departed spirits. Am I mistaken?”
I could have told the truth, but I didn’t. Fraudulent or no, I would protect Baba Valya’s séance business. And I felt that searing longing at the thought of holding another séance by myself. “No,” I said. “You aren’t mistaken.”
Princess Olga broke into her chiming laugh, pressing her calling card into the flesh of my palm.
“That settles it! If you agree to help me and my brother, I ask you to reach out to my father’s spirit.
If he is dead, and I believe deep in my marrow that he is, perhaps he will tell us what happened to him.
And, well”—her smile widened—“maybe it will give us a measure of peace, or whatever people seek in circumstances such as ours.”
As Princess Olga hastened away and I stepped toward Samovar, with the sign in its scarlet-red letters surprisingly proclaiming Fermé, dread weaved around my heart like a net. Chance meetings were rarely good omens. And I wanted to take the princess on as a client regardless of that.