Tempting Fate (39 page)

“Where?”

“Canada, I think. He said that was where he wished to go. I gave him a pearl bracelet to sell for their passage.” Yes, she thought, this is most certainly a dream. She had had just such another only the week before, when she had dreamed—oh, so vividly, so convincingly!—that she had been walking along the Seine with Leonid and the children, all of them alive and well and happy, comfortable and pampered, as they had been. At one point in her dream the Seine looked more like the Neva to her, and Notre Dame had become the Fortress and Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. It had been real to her, as real as the Count was now, but when the morning had come, all was as it had been the day before, and her heart was desolate.

“Irina!” Ragoczy said again, more sharply.

“It is good of you to come,” she said vaguely, still staring abstractedly at the curtains, her thoughts drifting.

“Irina, listen to me,” he insisted kindly, taking her face in his hands and turning her toward him. She was worn, tired, he saw. There was white in her hair now, and the creases around her eyes had deepened, delineated by grief. “Irina, my dear. I want to help you. Let me help you.”

She laughed a little sadly. “How? In the morning you will be gone.”

Ragoczy was taken aback as he realized that she did not believe this was happening to her. “In the morning I will be here, and for two or three days more.”

“Ah.” How clever it was of her dream to tell her this. She hoped she would not waken for some time yet. It was pleasant to think that Count Ragoczy had cared enough about her to seek her out and offer his assistance, and she wanted to keep the illusion as long as she could.

He read her doubt in her eyes. “This is no illusion, Irina. Touch my arm. It is as solid as your own. Feel my hands on your face. You have not dreamed me, or conjured me up from your memories.”

“I thought the same before,” she sighed, but reached up obediently and put her hands on his arms, as he had told her to do. “There now. I have touched you. For the present I am persuaded. You are real.”

“And I will be so tomorrow, I promise you.” His hands dropped to his sides. “Why have you borne this, Irina? If not your uncle, then surely you must know others who could assist you, keep you from this.”

“Most of the Russians I have met here are living for vengeance or with dreams of their glory. I want no vengeance. There has been too much suffering already. If my former life were given back to me, I would not be the same, and the innocence or ignorance I had then could not be restored to me. There are those who assume that if Russia could change by magic back to the old ways, they would return to their lives as if nothing had happened, but that isn’t possible, is it?” She pressed little pleats into her robe, and then smoothed them out. “Is it?”

“No, it isn’t possible,” he said, looking away from her and filled suddenly with memories of loss—of land, of position, of friends, of treasures, of love.

“Count,” she said, looking down into her lap, “you do not know how often I have wanted to die, so that this would end at last. I have lacked the determination to leap into the river, or drink poison, or step in front of a speeding taxi. I lack courage, I suppose.” Her tone was very matter-of-fact, and for that reason, if no other, Ragoczy believed her completely.

“You must not do that,” he told her, his dark eyes on hers once again. “Your life is brief enough without that.” He bent and kissed her forehead. “Let me help you, ma Duchesse. About your mourning I can do nothing, but I can alleviate your material situation.” He knew, and the knowledge was quietly anguished, how very trivial his gesture was. Those things which Irina most deeply desired—her family—were beyond any power of his. All he could provide was a more pleasant setting for her grief, yet that much he was determined to do.

“But how?” She had stopped resisting his presence, telling herself that she would accept him, and if he turned out to be a dream, she would deal with that when morning came, as she had done with other dreams.

“I have money,” he said somewhat grimly, feeling the inadequacy of it, “and there are better places to live.”

“But I cannot afford them,” she said at once. “And I dare not come to rely on you, Count, for who knows when it will all come to an end again, and I will be left with … nothing. Oh,” she went on with a hint of a smile, “you mean what you tell me, I’m certain. You’re not like so many of the others. But Leonid did not intend that our family should perish, and yet it happened. It may be that there will be another war, or the influenza will return, or another disaster will come upon us, and you would be unable to continue as you had begun, for excellent reason. And I, having grown used to depending on your kindness, would be worse off than before.”

Ragoczy touched her shoulder. “You are a remarkable woman, Irina. Tell me, then, what you will accept from me.”

She caught his hand in hers. “If you truly wish to help me, then tell me how I may make my own way in the world. There must be work that I can do that will provide enough money to let me live comfortably. I find I need very little. Two or three rooms to myself and decent food would do. I feel useless now. If you know of someone who would employ me. Not yourself, of course. It would be too great a reminder to have you always near at hand.”

“As you wish,” he said, thinking that she was very sensible, though the truth stung him. “In what capacity would you want to work?”

She knew that his curiosity was genuine, and that pleased her. “Well, I do know something of housekeeping, but only in a supervisory capacity. I do fine needlework, but in Paris this is not rare. I am competent with children, but I don’t know if I could stand to work with them yet.” As she spoke of these discouraging prospects, the sense of unreality finally left her. She was actually awake, she realized, talking to Count Ragoczy, who somehow had sought her put and was offering her his help. Her mouth trembled and she began to weep. “Dearest Christ, you found met” Impulsively she kissed his hand, holding it against her cheek as she felt a tenuous, painful joy.

“I have said so all along,” he reminded her wryly, then added, “Ah, ma Duchesse, ma Duchesse.”

She wiped her eyes with the hem of her sleeve. “The last time I saw you, I was crying, too.” She tried to make light of this, but the very statement brought another surge of tears.

Silently Ragoczy offered her his white silk handkerchief, waiting while she exhausted her overwhelming emotions.

When she had again mastered herself, Irina handed back the silken square. “You looked for me. You took the time to do that.”

“Why, yes. You told me you would be at your uncle’s, and when I discovered this was not so, and that no provision had been made for you, I wanted to see that you were well. One of your uncle’s servants told me of this place.” He looked around the room, his expression carefully neutral.

“Don’t say anything,” she requested, “please. I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I know what this building is like, what the street is like. I must scrub every day to keep the vermin out of my bed. My food is never quite fresh and what I have is nibbled by rats if I leave it unfinished. There are murders here which the police ignore, and things are bought and sold that horrify me.”

Ragoczy nodded. In his previous stay in Paris, more than a hundred years ago, he had seen such districts. The Inn of the Red Wolf had been in just such a blighted lane, and the alchemists who gathered there had seen as much as Irina. “It would be better if you did not continue to live here,” he said to her, his face strangely gentle.

“But where can I go? I have told you how it is with me—I have a little money, which I must husband. No one will give me more, I think. If I had work, real work, I would walk out of this place at once.”

“You will have work,” Ragoczy promised her. “And I will see you out of here.”

Though she doubted this, she thanked him and touched his hand again. This time she felt it not as a dream, but as his substance: the hand was smaller than her own, beautifully shaped, with a firm palm and long fingers. It was well-cared-for, as was everything about Ragoczy. “You searched for me. I can’t believe that.”

“Believe it.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it once.

“Yes, you are here,” she went on, faintly bemused. “Why did you bother? Why do this for me?”

“You helped me, Irina, when I was desperate. I owed you this much, surely.” He turned as a sudden crash sounded in the hallway. “What!”

“It is the Algerian, I think. He has fights with the woman he lives with.” She was accustomed to these outbursts, and paid no heed to the sudden argument that flared in the hallway. “They have a daughter who is ten and the woman wants to sell her. So far he has not consented, but the price keeps going up, and they are very poor,”

A loud exchange of gutter French came through the door; then there was a shout and a door slammed.

“They will be quiet now,” Irina said after a moment. “Once the door closes they are through for another day.”

Ragoczy said nothing, not wanting to offend Irina. He had heard and seen far worse in his wanderings, but he still had the capacity to be distressed for those trapped in poverty.

“The woman says that the girl will be treated well by the brothel owner, and it would be better to have her protected under the madame’s roof than prey to the rabble of the streets.” She let out a long sigh. “The child is a pert waif, and already there are those who watch her. I was thinking that at least I never had to make such a decision for Ludmilla. If my children had lived, and were with me, it would be their lot, as well as that girl’s. Evgeny would have worked, but the others were so young…” She ran her tongue over her lips, nervous at her thoughts.

Abruptly Ragoczy said, “The employment isn’t important. Tomorrow I will find you more suitable quarters. There is little I can do, but at least this…”

“It’s not necessary,” she assured him. “They leave me alone.”

Ragoczy looked down at her, his expression quite remote. “Ma Duchesse, there is not a great deal I can do for you, or for any of the poor wretches out there, but I must do something. You do not believe, do you? that I could leave you here, after seeing this place.” He almost added
and seeing you,
but he stopped the words in time.

“Finding me work is more than enough. No one has been willing to do that for me.” She got up out of the chair and went over to the icon. “I have learned, in the last two years, to be inconspicuous. That way, I believe I can get on without being too much hurt. If you want to aid me, I am grateful, but it must be done with prudence, so that there will be no cause to notice me.” She looked blindly at the old saint’s face, shivering from something other than cold.

“As you wish,” Ragoczy said after a moment. He should have looked for her sooner, he told himself. He should not have assumed that she was in the care of her uncle. “I will take you tonight to my apartment. Oh,” he added quickly, seeing her stiffen, “you need not fear that. I have a small staff and they will understand that you are my guest and nothing more.”

She touched the neckline of her robe in some confusion. “Your guest … But I thought … was there … do you want … How do I thank you?” She turned suddenly crimson, seeing the hurt in his dark eyes at the sharpness of her insult.

“Do you think I insist on payment for this minor assistance? Spasibah, Irina Andreivna, vi ochen lioubyesni. A fine compliment. How opportunistic I must seem to you, if you think I was prepared to use your difficulties for … You have believed that I could trade on your misery. Am I so vile to you?” His indignation was colored with old despair, and the intensity of his outburst disturbed him. “What do you take me for?”

“You misunderstood…” she began in a small voice, shrinking back from him. “No,” she capitulated after a moment of hesitation. “You didn’t misunderstand. That was what I meant, but the reason … I have seen too much on those streets, and with my cousin. I have grown unused to honor.” Here she faltered, her words becoming still more quiet. “I have been lonely, and frightened, and I thought that if you were willing to help me, it was because you also wanted me;”

Ragoczy’s anger was gone. “My dear—” he began compassionately.

She did not let him continue. “I wanted … you were so kind before, at the dacha. And it has been so long. I’ve thought that if one of the men who spoke to me in the street had the least trace of … humanity, I would have gone with him if only for the comfort of it.”

“Irina, I don’t know what to say to you.” He had come up behind her and with one hand smoothed back her hair. “I don’t wish to trade favors with you. That was not my intention at all. My bed is not a marketplace.”

“I know,” she said, leaning near the icon so that the little flame from the vigil candle threw her face into shadow. She had done it badly, and now she would be left here.

“My dear,” Ragoczy said, standing very close to her, not touching her. “Listen to me, Irina.”

“I’m listening,” she murmured. There would be the polite phrases, the promises that meant nothing.

“Find your valise and whatever you wish to take with you. We’ll leave now, if that is satisfactory to you.” He waited until she turned to look at him. “What have you that you wish to take with you?”

“Nothing,” she said. “A little money, three dresses. That’s all
I
have, Count.”

“Then pack those. Put on the dress you prefer. I will wait for you.” Again he kissed her hand, his features hidden by shadow.

“And the icon,” she said after a moment. “It was in my bedroom when I was a child. I used to think…”—she tried to laugh and failed—“that she was a relative of some sort, one I had never met…” The words trailed off. “I will pack.”

As she went into the cramped room where her bed was, she had to resist the urge to look back at her visitor, to convince herself that he had offered her this escape from what had become the most intolerable prison. She threw open the door of the little wardrobe and stared in dismay at the rumpled, patched dresses that hung there. She pulled the least threadbare one from its hook and began to draw off her robe. In ten minutes she had tugged herself into the dress and gathered the others in a heap. There was a carpetbag on the floor of the wardrobe, and she pulled this out and stuffed the garments into it without pausing to fold them. They were disgraceful, she knew, and hoped for an instant that the Count’s generosity would extend to allowing her to purchase something appropriate to wear to work. No employer would hire her if she presented herself in any of the three dresses. Her shoes were cracked and the soles nearly worn through, but she pulled them on and buttoned them, then opened the commode by her bed and from under the chamber pot took a small stack of bills, which she tucked into her skirt pocket.