Slowly, the man shook his head. “Who would I sell a watch like this to?” It was the same complaint Nadia had heard in Piryatin when she’d tried to sell her brooch.
“Plenty of rich people are leaving, wanting items they can easily carry. You could get a noblewoman’s entire wardrobe for something like that watch. Or a few paintings stolen from a manor by an enterprising peasant. But if you don’t want to risk it, we’ll go elsewhere.” Filip’s expression suggested that he didn’t care one way or another. He held his hand out for the watch.
The merchant opened the watch again and traced the detail work with a delicate finger. “I’ll make the trade.”
“Good.” If Filip was relieved, he didn’t show it, but Nadia felt like applauding.
After the man wrapped the purchases in paper and tied them, they left.
“I don’t know how to thank you.” She needed the clothing, but she hated to think of the cost. “I’m sorry you had to give up the watch.”
“My grandfather is a watchmaker, and he made two watches for me. I prefer the one I wear on my wrist.”
“Your grandfather is a watchmaker?” She would have been grateful to him even if his family were the poorest of farmers or the lowest of factory workers, but she could more easily find something in common with a family of craftsmen.
“Yes. His father, too, and his father. I apprenticed with him. If I ever get back home, I’m to take over the business.”
“I thought the shopkeeper would say no. Is the watch really that valuable?”
Filip shrugged. “I doubt he paid much for the clothes. Probably stole them or bought them cheap from someone desperate for a little cash.”
Nadia nodded. She would have traded a trunk of her clothes, all of them far nicer than the ones they’d just purchased, for a train ticket or a few loaves of bread. “Is your father a watchmaker too?”
Filip opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Yes.”
It was a simple question, and he’d given a simple answer, but not without hesitation. “But you’re to take over your grandfather’s business, not your father’s?”
Filip’s steps slowed but only for a moment. “My father’s not . . . well, he . . . he’s not really up to it. He spent eight years in prison. Since then, he’s been good at drinking.”
Her father-in-law, at least in name, was a criminal and a drunk. She hadn’t expected that. Awkward silence stretched out between them, so she filled it. “What was his crime?” She wasn’t sure it was any of her business, but she was curious.
“Conspiracy against the crown.”
Maybe she and Filip weren’t so alike after all. Did he share his father’s beliefs, and had his father been doing in Austria what the Bolsheviks were now doing in Russia? “What are prisons like where you come from?”
“About as awful as they are here.”
“I’m sorry.” She meant for his father’s suffering but also for Filip’s apparent uneasiness about the subject and for all the wrongs the wealthy had inflicted on the rest of society. Some nobles inherited lands and vast fortunes. Nadia had inherited the revenge of the lower classes, a resentment built up over generations. She wished her remorse could somehow be sufficient restitution.
“I didn’t learn a lot about watchmaking from my father. But he taught me something important: it’s a tragedy to lose your life for a cause you believe in. It’s an even larger tragedy to survive and live with failure for the rest of your life.”
What a melancholy childhood her husband must have had. “Was your father a Marxist?”
“No. A Nationalist.”
“And you?” She hoped he wasn’t a Bolshevik. He’d proven himself far kinder than the men from the Cheka, but what if his beliefs grew more radical? She’d seen it happen before—a peasant who wanted his own land being whipped into a fury and wanting not only land but noble blood as well.
“Me? I’ll be happy to see the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That’s why I joined the Družina. And why I’ve convinced a few hundred men to join the legion.”
Revolt. Revolution. They were closely tied. She was safer with the Czechoslovak Legion than she was with the Cheka, but she couldn’t relax. They might be her traveling companions, but they were not sympathetic allies.
The journey to Vladivostok would normally take eight days, but the legion was large, so it would move slowly. The Trans-Siberian Railroad had fallen into disrepair with the war, and she’d seen a portion of the motley collection of passenger coaches and freight wagons the legion had gathered so far. Most were old. The journey would take longer than usual. Significantly longer if any of the local authorities slowed them down. She would have to be vigilant until they reached the Pacific Ocean.