The Property of a Lady (20 page)

He knew at once that something terrible had happened. Her eyes were tired pools of gray shadow in her colorless face and she just stood there as if she had suddenly found herself in the wrong place.

“Gut evening,” he said politely. “How can I help?”

Her face blushed a fiery red. “I need money,” she blurted, thrusting out her hand and showing him the diamond.

Zev drew an astonished breath. Even without his jeweler’s glass he knew he was looking at a stone of fine quality and at least four carats. He glanced at her again quickly, but she had wrapped her shawl around her hair, half hiding her face.

“Where did you get such a stone?” he demanded suspiciously.

“I … it was my grandmother’s,” Missie mumbled, wishing she hadn’t come, but she had to get the money, she just had to.

“This is a fine stone, worth a lot of money. Why are you not taking it to a smart jeweler’s uptown? For sure they’d give you a good price.”

“I … because I can’t,” she said, placing both hands on the counter for support. “Don’t ask me why, I just can’t.”

“It’s because you have stolen it, the diamond!” Zev shouted angrily. “You bring such goods to my shop to get rid, and then I’m in jail … that’s it, isn’t it?”

Missie’s colorless face became transparent and her violet eyes grew dark with fear. “Stolen?” She gasped. “Oh, no! No, I swear to you it’s not stolen!”

“Then how only would you get such a diamond?”

“I told you the truth,” she said shakily. She knew she was going to cry and hid her face despairingly in her hands. “My grandmother is dead,” she said, sobbing. “And I need money to bury her so she won’t have to go to a pauper’s grave. But even to do that, I wouldn’t steal.”

Zev stared at her uncertainly. If what she was saying was true, he was sorry for her, but he just couldn’t run the risk of handling stolen property; he had to stay as far away as possible from the police because he had his own secret to hide. Still, her reason for wanting the money was so noble and she looked so sad and young and vulnerable he wanted to help her.

“If you wish the money,” he said more gently, “you must tell me honest how the stone came by your grandmother.” He stared at her bewilderedly as she buried her face in her hands again, sobbing noisily. “Please,” he begged, “in the neighborhood I know everybody’s business. I give you my word, with me your secret is safe.”

Missie lifted her face from her hands and stared at him, wondering if she could trust him. “She brought it with her from Russia,” she said at last.

“Russia!” Now he understood. Many people running to escape had put their savings into diamonds. They were small and easy to hide and could be sold again when they reached the new country. But that meant that she was Russian too!

“Tell me your name?” he asked excitedly in Yiddish, but she just shook her head in bewilderment.

“Your name,” he repeated in half-forgotten Russian, “and where you come from?”

“We are from St. Petersburg,” she said warily. “My name is Missie O’Bryan.”

“O’Bryan? Then your husband is not Russian?”

“My father’s name was O’Bryan. I have no husband.” She gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. She
had forgotten all about her story and now he had caught her out in a lie.

Zev turned away, embarrassed. “Excuse me,” he muttered, “such a personal question I should not ask.”

He picked up the diamond, inspecting it once again. He could feel her violet eyes fixed on him hopefully but he said nothing.

Missie knew he was waiting for her to tell him more, and how could she blame him? Where else would a poor girl like her get a valuable diamond if she hadn’t stolen it? “My grandmother’s name is Sofia Danilova,” she said quickly. “We escaped the revolution, along with many others.”

He pushed the diamond silently through the grille and she knew it was no good, he was not going to lend her the money. Sofia had been right after all. The jewels were worthless.

“Thank you, Mr. Abramski,” she said sadly, putting the diamond in her pocket. “I understand.”

Zev stared after her as she walked to the door; her thin shoulders drooped as if she bore the burdens of the world on her shoulders. She looked so pathetically young and alone: She reminded him of himself years ago, a boy all alone on the streets of New York with nowhere to go, no one to turn to….

“Wait!” he called, banging his clenched fist on the counter.

She swung around, her eyes filled with fear.

“I will lend you fifty dollars only,” he said. “Naturally, the diamond is worth much more, but I do not mean to cheat you. I will hold it until you can repay me, even though it may be a long time.”

Missie felt a quiver of relief in her stomach, but she knew she must tell him the truth. She said quickly, “I earn twelve dollars a week working in O’Hara’s Saloon. Out of that I have to pay the rent and keep my family. And with the threat of Prohibition, who knows how much longer
even that job will last. I must tell you honestly, Mr. Abramski, that I may never be able to repay your fifty dollars.”

“Someday your fortunes will turn,” he said, opening the old wooden till and counting out the money briskly. He pushed the crumpled notes into the groove under the brass grille. “Fifty dollars. Let us call it a loan of trust.”

Missie stared at the small pile of money that meant so much to her.

“Go, bury your grandmother properly,” Zev said gently, “and
shalom aleichem.”

“Shalom?”
she asked, puzzled. “It means ‘peace be with you. ’”

Her tear-swollen violet eyes met his and Zev knew they were eyes for a man to drown in, a man in love.
“Shalom aleichem,”
she replied softly. Then, after hiding the money under her shawl, she turned away.

The bell tinkled noisily as she closed the door behind her and Zev stared at the glittering diamond lying on the scarred wooden counter. In all the years since he had watched his mother and father die, he had never allowed himself to feel emotion—no matter what he had gone through, no matter what terrible things he had seen, no matter how despairing the stories he had heard—but now tears stung in his eyes. His heart had finally been touched by an unknown girl.

Missie’s heart was breaking as she thought of the grand funeral that should have been Sofia’s by right: the bronze coffin with princes and noblemen to carry her to her final resting place alongside her husband and the Tsars of All the Russias in the great Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. The air would have been heavy with the scent of incense and flowers and the deep, sonorous chanting of a male choir, and the Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church himself would have conducted her service. Her family and all her many friends would have gathered to pay tribute
and to mourn her, and afterward a lavish but dignified reception would have been held in her honor at the beautiful palace on the Moika Canal. But instead, there was just Azaylee and herself and two indifferent men from the funeral parlor carrying Sofia’s cheap pine coffin down the four flights of narrow, malodorous stairs, cursing as it stuck at every bend.

Azaylee clutched her hand tightly. She was wearing a pink cotton dress and her long blond curls were brushed back and tied neatly with a black ribbon. She was pale but tearless and Missie felt glad there was no money to buy proper mourning because she knew Sofia would have hated to see her little granddaughter dressed all in black. Azaylee was carrying a posy of fresh flowers chosen from the pushcart that morning, and she bowed her head gravely to the watching women, who covered their heads with their shawls as Sofia’s coffin was loaded onto the shabby hearse.

Silence fell suddenly on Rivington Street; the pushcart peddlers stopped their shouting, the women their bargaining, and even the children stopped their play as the hearse set off with Missie and Azaylee walking behind. With a great howl, Viktor broke his leash and hurled himself down the fire escape to join them, his flaglike tail cutting an arc in the air as he led the hearse, just the way it had as he led the sled through the forest on that cold, dark, terrible night in Russia.

Missie clutched Azaylee’s hand even tighter. She lifted her chin high and stared straight ahead, afraid to catch anyone’s eye in case she broke down and cried. Without Sofia, she felt alone and helpless.

She heard footsteps and turned, surprised to see O’Hara walking behind her, looking hot and uncomfortable in a stiff collar with his old striped tie knotted around his neck instead of holding up his pants as it usually did. He wore his special St. Patrick’s Day shamrock-green suspenders and a black broadcloth jacket straining at the
seams. “I thought I’d best give you me support,” he whispered, clutching his black derby respectfully to his chest.

There was a sudden murmur along the street as another man fell into step beside him. Zev Abramski had broken his Sabbath to attend Sofia Danilova’s funeral. Missie was torn between hysterical laughter and bitter tears as she thought of their ridiculous little procession: an Irish saloonkeeper and a Jewish pawnbroker, an English girl, a small child, and a borzoi dog escorting one of Russia’s greatest princesses to her grave.

St. Savior’s was lighted by a hundred flickering candles as Father Feeny said the beautiful Catholic mass, and as they lowered Sofia’s coffin into the ground she thought wistfully that before there had always been hope, the thought that maybe this was just a charade they had to play for a while the way they used to at Christmas parties and that soon everything would return to normal. But as they threw earth onto Sofia’s coffin, she knew it was real and forever. Before she had been a child. Now she must become a woman.

Azaylee tugged at her hand. “I want to go home,” she wailed in Russian, “to my real home. I want Papa and Princess Maman. I want Alexei.” Missie hugged her tightly, and their tears mingled. “I’m tired of this game, Missie,” she screamed hysterically. “I want to go home, I want it all to be the way it used to be. I want Varishnya. I
want my grandmother Sofia Ivanoff back.”

Missie’s eyes met Zev Abramski’s and she knew he had understood what the child had said and that she had lied to him. He knew now that they had buried Sofia Ivanoff, not Sofia Danilova.

His face was expressionless as he bowed to her and said, “My condolences. May your grandmother be your messenger to God in heaven.” Then he turned and walked quickly away.

O’Hara stared after him, mystified, then he checked the pocket watch strung on a gold chain across his front. “I’d
best be getting back to the saloon,” he said, thrusting some money hurriedly into her hand. “A funeral always makes a person hungry, and there’s to be no proper wake the way there should be. Buy yourself and the little one a good dinner and you’ll feel better.” His red hair curled wildly in the heat and he tugged uncomfortably at his stiff collar, mopping the sweat from his forehead with a large red-spotted kerchief. “Remember what I said before, Missie. I’ll not be rushing you now, I’m a patient man. I just want you to know I’m ready whenever you are.” And settling the small black derby on his halo of red curls, he marched back down the street.

As the diggers began filling in the grave, Missie followed him from the cemetery. But she wasn’t thinking of O’Hara and his offer of marriage, nor of Zev Abramski. Like Azaylee, all she wanted was the impossible. She did not want to face tonight’s despairing dreams and tomorrow’s reality. She just wanted to go home to her father.

Istanbul

No one could say that Michael Kazahn was an old man: His eighty years sat as lightly on him as they had his father, and even though his hair was white, it was as thick and luxuriant as when he was twenty. His olive complexion was unlined, his bushy eyebrows and mustache black, and he bristled with energy. Of course he still used his ebony walking cane, but mostly he just waved it around to emphasize his point. And the fiery temperament he had inherited from his father had not changed one jot.

Ahmet Kazahn watched calmly as his father limped around the enormous office with its tall windows overlooking the Sea of Marmara, waving his cane and raging about the foolishness of women—especially granddaughters—and the trouble they were bringing to the house of Kazahn.

“Why?” he demanded, his thick black brows beetling angrily.
“Why
, I ask you,” he repeated, banging his ebony cane so violently on the beautiful parquet floor that it snapped. “Bah!” He tossed it from him disgustedly and limped to his desk with the odd swinging motion of his paralyzed right leg that enabled him to cover more ground faster than a normal man. “Asil,” he yelled to his secretary on the intercom, “fetch me another cane!”

“Why
did they do this?” he demanded again of Ahmet. “Why did Anna not come to us—to the family—if she needed money? And—in the name of heaven—
why did
she need the money?
Did not Tariq Pasha leave her enough? Is one million dollars not sufficient to keep an Ivanoff in the style to which she was accustomed? And why did Leyla,
your daughter
, help her?”

Ahmet sighed. He was used to his father’s outbursts, but this was a serious one. “I suggest, Father, that instead of encouraging your blood pressure to new heights asking rhetorical questions, you ask the girls themselves.” He shrugged. “A simple question, a simple answer. Then we shall know how to proceed.”