A Waltz with Traitors полностью

The woman returned with a small faded blanket. It was more gray and pink than white and red, but the size was right. “Was this your son’s?”

Anton took the blanket and examined the seams. Neat and even and done by hand instead of by machine. “These look like my wife’s stitches.”

“Good. The nurse says she’ll be glad to be rid of that one. Used to climb on everything. Broke his leg a few months back.”

“Is he all right?”

The woman shrugged. “Follow me.”

Despite being full of babies and toddlers, silence filled the ward when they arrived.

“Why don’t they cry or babble?” Anton asked.

The woman shrugged again. “We don’t have the staff to tend them when they cry. They stop trying to get our attention after a few weeks.”

What had little Marek been subjected to? Loss of his mother, typhus, neglect, and a broken leg? A pit grew in Anton’s stomach. It seemed he had finally found his son, but suffering like that could follow a child the rest of his life.

The woman stopped before a crib with a lethargic boy lying on his side, sucking his thumb. Brown eyes. Stubble on his skull that might be brown. A face that was thinner than it should be. And yet . . . the eyebrows, the nose. “He looks like his mother.”

Anton reached for the child and lifted him from the crib. He should have weighed more. Food must be scarce in the orphanage, just as it was elsewhere in Russia. Marek took his thumb from his mouth and studied Anton with an intent expression. He didn’t make a single sound. “Does he speak?”

“No.”

“Does he walk?”

“Not since his fall.”

Anton pulled the boy to his chest. He was small and skinny and underdeveloped, but he was his son. He felt it as much as saw it. “May I have his things?”

The woman handed Anton the blanket. “This is all he has.”

Anton nodded and shifted the boy to his hip so he could carry him more securely. He had no idea how to care for a baby. He would give his son lots of food and talk with him and tell him stories about his mother. He hoped that would be a good start.

He couldn’t read the papers the woman handed him, but he signed them anyway. Whatever it took to get his son.

“Good luck,” she said.

Anton nodded. Then he tucked his son into his coat, left the orphanage, and headed for the barracks. “Marek, it seems that heaven is not out of miracles after all. Somehow, we’re going to figure this out.” Two solemn eyes peered at him from the folds of his greatcoat. There was no fear in those eyes. Soon, Anton hoped, there would be trust.

***

Nadia stood on the deck of the troopship President Grant as Vladivostok harbor faded from sight. It had taken six weeks to travel from Irkutsk to Vladivostok. They’d spent another few weeks there, awaiting evacuation. Now, finally, they were leaving aboard an American vessel. Their departure was none too soon. Most foreigners were withdrawing, but not the Japanese, and they were growing more repressive and volatile by the day.

Notes from Dalek’s violin carried across the deck, danced around the thick smokestack, and mingled among the masts. Nearby, Anton pointed to seagulls and spoke softly to his son. She’d been shocked upon seeing Marek again. So quiet, so thin, with a leg that hadn’t healed properly from a break. But he seemed to learn a new word every day, and he’d taken his first steps the night before. His mother might have gone on to heaven, and he might never walk without a limp, but there was something innately sweet about the little boy, and he was blossoming under his father’s care. Love was a powerful antidote to the depravations of war.

Recovery for Dalek, reunion for Anton, and repatriation for all of them.

Filip stood behind her, his arms around her waist, his chin next to her cheek. “This might be your last sight of Russia.”

“I know.”

“Will you miss it?”

Russia was her home, and deep down, her soul was tied to the land, tied to the history and the music and the art. It always would be. “The Russia I love disappeared.” It had been buried, by a war, then by a pair of revolutions. Maybe it wasn’t gone forever, but it would never be the same again. “I’m ready for a new home.” A new home, a new country, a new chance to make a life with Filip. They were really on their way now, though the ship would stop in China and India, then transit the Suez Canal before reaching Trieste. After that, they’d have a final train journey that would take them to Prague.

“And I’m ready to return.”

“You’ve been gone a long time.” They weren’t scheduled to arrive until June. It would be nearly six years since Filip’s call-up. She leaned her face against his. He needed a shave, but he smelled clean, and his arms were strong and warm, and he was hers. “Will your family recognize you?”