Chapter 5
NORA
Ileave the conference room with a husband in forty-six hours, a signed contract tucked under my arm, and no idea what one wears to a wedding arranged under threat of organized violence.
I've barely reached the east staircase when I find four women waiting below me in the entrance hall.
At the foot of the stairs, the oldest woman stands in black silk with one hand resting on the silver head of a cane she clearly doesn't need.
White hair curves beneath her chin, and diamonds flash at her ears, though flat shoes make a quieter argument about what she values.
Behind her wait three women of different ages and manners, each carrying the composed posture of someone who enters a room without wondering whether she belongs there.
I slow on the last step under four assessing faces, one hand remaining on the railing.
"You look exhausted. Konstantin told me you'd rested," the older woman says.
"Konstantin and I may use different definitions, since six hours appears to satisfy his."
She blames years spent among men who regard sleep as an administrative weakness. "I'm Galina, his father's sister. He's informed me that I have forty-six hours to produce a wedding. Come and eat before I explain why this is offensive."
She turns without waiting for consent, yet the other women hold back until I follow. I might have missed the small distinction yesterday. Today, after four hours spent negotiating control down to the door logs, it matters.
Nearest Galina, the blonde offers me her arm without touching me first. Perhaps forty and lushly built, she wears a cream suit with nothing visible under the jacket but skin and a fine gold chain.
Her polished hair falls almost to her waist, while immaculate tailoring makes all that exposed skin more indecent.
"Larissa," she says. "Widowed, friendly, and available for several forms of emergency."
Beside her, a dark-haired woman gives Larissa a level look before introducing herself as Irina. In charcoal trousers and an ivory shirt, she could walk into a corporate boardroom without alteration. A slim folder crowded with colored tabs rests under one arm.
At the end of the line, the youngest woman introduces herself as Dasha, Konstantin's cousin.
A deep blue sweater covers the soft stomach left by a recent birth, though nothing about the directness of her gaze feels tentative.
An older son waits at home, a fact I learn when she checks a message and smiles at his photograph with the baby.
Near one cuff, a smear of mashed banana dries unnoticed.
I like her before she sees it, swears under her breath, and rubs at it with the corner of a linen handkerchief.
During the longest clauses in the conference room, I imagined women with inherited diamonds inspecting the stranger Konstantin had dragged into their family.
In my head, they found my borrowed sweater embarrassing and my modest life worse.
Dasha's banana-stained cuff, Irina's overworked folder, and Larissa's offered arm spoil that picture before anyone mentions my clothes.
They take me into a small salon overlooking the rear garden.
Breakfast has been laid across a round table despite the afternoon light, with hot bread wrapped in linen beside smoked fish and pots of dark tea.
The first bite reveals how little I ate upstairs.
Butter melts into the torn bread, warm and salty on my tongue, loosening a knot beneath my ribs that coffee had merely aggravated.
Galina watches until I finish half a slice before opening the folder Irina passes her.
Inside are photographs of gowns, flowers, rooms, and a glass building shining against snow.
"Before anyone chooses anything," Galina says, "I need to know whether you hate lace, whether you can tolerate a heel, and how much of your back you wish to show several hundred people.
We intend to make you feel entirely like yourself, because my nephew created a deadline and his bride shouldn't carry it by feeling disguised. "
The words take the shape of a welcome before I can defend myself against an inspection.
"I don't want to look like a woman his family might have selected from a photograph," I say. "I want to recognize myself. I also want to sit down without assistance and eat at my own wedding. Circulation in my feet would be useful too."
Beside shoes, Dasha writes under three inches, then assigns me a hidden second pair and a meal before the reception.
At her own wedding, numb ankles sent her crying into a pantry because nobody would give her a dumpling.
Galina recalls only that Dasha looked magnificent and earns a wounded glance for it.
Her phone lights with a photograph of a solemn baby holding a wooden spoon. Dasha smiles at it and then turns the screen facedown.
"My daughter is with her father and perfectly content," she tells me.
"Since she was born, half the family has begun addressing every question about my time or travel to him.
Protection can shrink your life while everyone congratulates themselves for loving you.
If that begins happening here, tell me. I've become inventive about making them regret it. "
Her warning comforts me more than a promise of perfect safety. She understands the danger hidden inside being cared for, even if her version comes with drivers and a nursery requiring its own floor plan.
"Then you tell me too," I say. "If they start discussing you as somebody's mother or somebody's cousin while you're in the room, I'll ask the question again until they remember you're the one answering."
Dasha studies me for a second, and her smile loses its social polish. "Good. I was hoping you would be difficult."
Before Galina can respond, the door opens on a tall man carrying two phones and a tube of architectural drawings. Across the shoulders of his coat, snow melts. Konstantin's pale eyes look out of a face with none of his solemnity.
He introduces himself as Mikhail, Konstantin's cousin and the unwilling aviation organizer of incoming relatives. "If you know anyone in Buenos Aires who can convince one of my uncles that a ceremonial saber can't ride in the cabin, I'll put them on staff."
Galina reminds him that the saber belonged to its owner's grandfather. Mikhail's expression suggests family history won't make the blade less capable of harming an aircraft.
Mikhail kisses Dasha's head, steals bread from Larissa's plate, and gives Irina a revised arrival sheet. He asks whether her husband approved the seating plan for the port delegation.
Irina's expression doesn't change. "I designed the seating plan. My husband approved my conclusion after I explained it to him twice."
"Then Irina's answer is the one we need," I say. "Unless the chairs have developed a preference."
Mikhail glances from Irina to me, then crosses out a note on his sheet. He leaves Irina's plan untouched, promising the chairs will hear the decision.
Irina looks down at her folder, but I catch the brief curve of her lips.
The glass building in the photograph belongs to Konstantin's private estate outside the city. Mikhail unrolls the plans across the breakfast table, pinning one corner with the teapot.
"The family has been preparing a port-alliance wedding for months," Galina says. "Crews, glass, flowers, aircraft, and rooms were already reserved. We are changing the bride, the ceremony, and every design chosen without her. Even with the work already underway, forty-six hours is an insult."
Broad and pale, the original house draws its steep roofs against the lakeshore with the grave beauty of another century.
From its southern rooms, an old conservatory runs into the garden.
Beyond it, construction crews enclose the terraces beneath a temporary glass pavilion large enough to hold several hundred guests among mature trees, with an orchestra platform near the southern doors.
He shows us heated paths being laid beneath the new floor and hidden corridors for security.
The temporary walls and roof are laminated security glass, and the outer perimeter extends beyond rifle range.
Screened entrances, shield panels, and two enclosed evacuation routes hide inside the beauty of the plans.
"Glass still seems like an interesting choice after last night," I say.
"It will stop what the restaurant windows did not," Mikhail answers. "If any pane fails, the shield walls rise before the fragments reach the aisle."
The flowers will arrive overnight in temperature-regulated aircraft. Crystal fixtures are already coming down from storage in Montreal. The temporary construction alone has crossed six million dollars, a number so detached from my rent and clinic wages that I can only stare at it.
I look again at the picture of the estate. Beneath the additions, the original conservatory is a slender room with old iron ribs and winter roses climbing the interior wall.
"That house has belonged to the family for more than thirty years," Galina says.
Her thumb rests against the old glass room.
"My brother acquired it before any of us understood what his ambition would make possible.
We buried him from there, and children learned to walk in those halls.
Konstantin wants to give you a palace, but I don't want the home swallowed while he does it. "
I look down at the plans again. The enormous pavilion presses against rooms holding the private history of people I'm about to join, its scale threatening to hide what made the estate matter before this wedding.
"Could the ceremony stay in the old conservatory?
" I ask. "Keep the roses visible and let the palace begin after the vows.
Anyone with money can order more glass. They can't manufacture what happened in those rooms."
Galina's fingers go still against the photograph.