“Because he’s jealous. You’re happy, and he likes to interrupt that as often as he can.”
Anton kept his laughter soft. Veronika had Jakub Zeman figured out completely. “I am happy. And cold.” He wrapped Veronika in his arms and pulled her closer.
Chapter Three
Nadia stood before her aunt’s drawing room window, looking out, wishing she could ride off on Konstantin again. Her taste of freedom had whetted her appetite, and she wanted more.
Mama cleared her throat. “Nadia? Have you nothing to say?”
She turned to her parents, seated for tea with her aunt. “I’m sorry. My mind was elsewhere.”
Papa gave her a serious look. “In Switzerland, I hope.”
“Switzerland?” Why was he talking about Switzerland?
“Haven’t you been listening?” Mama, as ever, retained her polite, almost bored tone. Emotional displays at tea time were a sign of poor upbringing, and Mama would never do anything that might allow others to question her upbringing.
Sometimes when Nadia’s mind wandered, she could get by with appropriate nods and murmurs, but this wasn’t one of those times. “I apologize. What about Switzerland?”
Papa stood and joined Nadia at the window. “Switzerland, America, France. Wherever I can convince your mother to go.”
“Go? Why?”
Nadia’s aunt, her father’s sister, placed her teacup on her saucer and set it next to the samovar on the low table before her. “Your father believes the Ukraine is no longer safe. He doesn’t think Russia is safe either, so emigration is our best option.”
“I don’t think we should abandon our homeland.” Mama kept her voice calm but firm.
Papa gazed out the window. “This is no longer our homeland. The Bolsheviks signed away a third of our people and a third of our farmland—including the Ukraine. It’s a disgrace. The tsars of the past must be turning in their graves.”
“If it is shameful to sign such a humiliating treaty, surely it is also shameful for us to flee when you have spent your whole life in devoted service to the empire.”
Nadia had never seen her parents argue before, though this wasn’t really an argument. Neither raised their voices, and no flush appeared on Papa’s pale cheeks nor on Mama’s olive skin. And yet, they were clearly divided.
“Would you lose our last child to the war?” Papa asked. “See the end of our family line?”
“Russia is out of the war now.”
Papa paced to the hearth. “We are no longer in Russia. We are in the Ukraine, and the Ukraine has just opened the door to the German Army. They will strip the land of every last kernel of grain, and their presence will intensify the civil war between the Nationalists and the Bolsheviks. I’ve heard rumors, Anna, of what happened to people like us who stayed in Petrograd. We should leave while we can.”
Painful silence filled the room. They’d found safety in the Ukraine, but they couldn’t stay forever. They no longer received rents from their peasants, the Bolsheviks had seized all their bank assets, and their properties in Petrograd, Moscow, and Tambov Oblast had been requisitioned. Nadia didn’t want to leave Russia behind forever, but the things she loved most about her motherland—the balls, the music, the ballet—those things had already been taken from her. If the German Army was coming, surely it was time to leave.
“I’ve heard lovely things about Paris,” Nadia said.
Papa smiled. “That’s my girl. We’ll start a new life in France.”
Her father spent the next two hours convincing his wife and his sister to emigrate to France, at least until the Bolsheviks lost power.
Mama gave in, finally. “I suppose, if it will keep our little Nadia safe.”
“I’m not so little anymore, Mama.”
Mama smiled. Her smile held so much beauty, as always, but since the deaths of Alexander and Nikolai, it also held a permanent sadness. “No. But you’re all we have left. I can live knowing we’ve lost Lavanda Selo and our jewels and our paintings. But I don’t think I could live knowing I’d lost my last child.”
***
Nadia was about to dress for supper that night when loud bangs shook the house. She’d heard knocks like that before, in Petrograd, when the Bolsheviks had come to arrest her father. The family had sneaked out through the servants’ quarters and fled to Lavanda Selo, then fled again to the Ukraine. The fear still chased them.
Several heartbeats passed before Nadia moved. The noise came from the front of the manor, so Nadia headed for the back.
The cook rushed through the hall toward her. “It’s the Cheka. Run!”
The secret police, here? Despite the numerous hearths and stoves heating the manor, it suddenly felt very cold. Nadia followed the cook until she heard her mother scream.
“Mama?” Nadia glanced at the hallway leading to safety, but she couldn’t leave her mother. “I have to find Mama.”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll run.” The cook shooed her toward the servants’ staircase, but Nadia rushed the other way. She ran down the main staircase and reached the ground floor just as two men hauled Papa from his study. One of them pointed a revolver at her.