“Nicholas … my love … we're going to have to move.” The words seemed wooden and strange as he looked up at her with confused eyes.
“Because Papa died?”
“Yes … no … well, actually, because …” Because now we're poor … because we can't afford to live here anymore … because … “because these are going to be difficult times for us. We can't stay here anymore.” He looked at her seriously, trying to be brave, as Sasha played with the dog, and the nurse quietly left the room in tears. She knew she would have to leave them now too, and it broke her heart to leave the children she had cared for since they were born. But Zoya had told her the day before. There was no hiding from it now.
“Mama, are we going to be poor?”
“Yes,” she was always honest with him, “in the way I think you mean. We're not going to have a big house or lots of cars. But we're going to have the important things … except Papa …” She felt a lump rise in her throat,“… but we have each other, sweetheart. And we always will. Do you remember what I told you about Uncle Nicholas and Aunt Alix and the children when they took them to Siberia? They were very brave and they made kind of a game of it. They always knew that the important thing was to be together, and to love each other, and to be strong … and that's what we have to do now,” the tears were running down her cheeks as she spoke, but Nicholas was looking at her solemnly, trying desperately to understand.
“Are we going to Siberia?” He looked intrigued for the first time and she smiled.
“No, darling, we're not. We're going to stay here in New York.”
“Where will we live?” Like all children, he was interested in the simpler realities.
“In an apartment. I'll have to find a place for us to live.”
“Will it be nice?”
She thought instantly of Mashka's letters from Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg, “We'll make it nice, I promise you.”
And then with sad eyes, he looked at her again, “Can we take the dog?”
Her eyes filled with tears again as she looked at Sava playing with Sasha on the floor, and then back at him. “Of course we can. She came all the way from St Petersburg with me” She choked on the words but she looked into his eyes reassuringly, “we're not going to leave her now.”
“May I take my toys?”
“Some of them … as many as we can fit into the apartment. I promise.”
He smiled, a little mollified, “Good.” And then his eyes grew sad again, thinking of his father and the fact that he would never see him again. “Will we go soon?”
“I think so, Nicholas.” He nodded, and with a last hug for her, he took Sasha and the dog and they left the room, as Zoya sat on the floor, watching them go, praying that she would be as strong as Evgenia had been for her, and as she thought of her, Nicholas tiptoed slowly back into the room and looked down at her where she sat.
“I love you, Mama.”
She closed her arms around him and tried not to cry, “Hove you too, Nicholas … I love you so very, very much….”
He bent closer to her then and pressed something into her hand without a word.
“What's this?”
It was a gold coin, and she knew how proud of it he was. Clayton had given it to him only a few months before, and he had showed it to everyone for weeks. “You can sell it if you like. Then maybe we won't be quite so poor.”
“No … no, my love … it's yours … Papa gave it to you.”
He stood very tall then, fighting back his own tears. “Papa would want me to take care of you.” Zoya only shook her head, unable to speak, as she pressed the coin back into his hand, and holding him close to her, walked him back to his room.
CHAPTER
32
The Wrights had lost their money too. Cobina and her daughter had formed a supper club singing act, wearing frontier garb and funny hats. She and Bill were getting a divorce and the house on Sutton Place had been sold for almost nothing. Other women were selling their fur coats in hotel lobbies, and polo ponies were being traded for quick cash. Everywhere, Zoya saw the same kind of panic there had been in St. Petersburg twelve years before, but without the physical threat of the revolution.
