their sides. I was told that they walked that way because they had been bound in swaddling clothes as babies. Or perhaps they were balancing themselves on icy streets and a slippery society.
Ivan caught me staring and wheezed, “Your Radiance; yes, that fits.”
“That was a long, long time ago,” I said. “Anyway, as Boris may have told you, I’ll see to it that Universal Bank participates in the Sov-Gas financing. That’s conditional, of course, on you not telling Universal and the American authorities about my grandfather.”
“I’ll see to it.” I detected an ember of satisfaction in Ivan’s damp eyes. “But tell me, Your Radiance, does it bother you that your grandfather was a war criminal?”
A Soviet secret policeman calling anyone a criminal was preposterous. “I never knew my grandfather. On the other hand, the French and the British gave my father medals for his service during the Great Patriotic War.” I stood up. “But why, in heaven’s name, are we discussing my grandfather who died more than forty years ago?”
Ivan yelled, “He was hanged. Now, sit down.”
“I’ll stand.”
Boris’s eyes widened.
Ivan glared. “People like your family…” Coughing stopped him.
“People like you killed most of them, ” I said.
“Obviously, we missed a few.” Ivan gasped after several shallow breaths. “My father’s family came from the south, where your accent is from. White cavalry squadrons took his village. Those fancy officers—like your grandfather—declared the village Red and nailed the men to a barn. My grandfather, an old man, hands nailed, freezing to death.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
Ivan tossed back another vodka. “My father was Red Cossack cavalry, a squadron leader, in the south. His troopers came across one of those big estates. The men had gone with the Whites and left behind the women and old men. My God, what those women went through.” Ivan drifted off into his thoughts; from his expression I couldn’t tell if they were pleasant or troubling. Then he refocused. “Your grandfather got what he deserved.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Ivan said, “Your grandfather—”
Boris took over. “Ivan, all of our grandfathers are dead. Awful deaths…yours, mine, his.”
“The aristocrats,” Ivan said, “I’ve never seen any in person. Only their pictures, like you in fancy clothes.” I was wearing a summer-weight, gray-striped Brooks Brothers suit. “And talking with that aristocratic drawl, you’re one of them, a pampered lap dog. You’re a banker pandering to rich capitalists, like your mother pandered to the Nazis.”
“She did not.” I glanced at Boris, who seemed surprised.
“The French resistance was Communist,” Ivan sneered. “They didn’t miss anything and reported everything. And why would our informants lie?”
“Communists believed that aristocrats were capable of anything.”
“They were right. But that’s between you and your mother.”
“She’s dead.”
“Sorry,” Ivan said.
“You’re not.”
Pointing to me, Boris said, “He’s one of the few left; their time ended years ago.” Taking Ivan’s shoulder, he said, “Let’s go.”
Ivan staggered and pointed at me. “You’re a ghost. A damned ghost.” Clapping his hands, he said, “Boo, go to hell, where you belong.”
Returning to my room, I was drawn to the window. Northern cities come alive in the summer, releasing energy the winter had muffled under heavy wraps. Lines were forming at the theaters. In the parks children were playing, young couples were flirting, older folks reminiscing accompanied by the balalaika’s fluttering cords. I thought of joining them for the homemade pirozhki and sausages blistered over open fires; the beer would be fresh, the vodka clean. More vodka was tempting, but I had a report to write.
Exhuming my grandfather and my uncle in a memo to Personnel was demeaning for my parents and the relatives I had never known. They were gone, along with the millions that Communism had consumed. Not mourned then, they had become ciphers in the history books. As Stalin himself once said, “A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.”
I sat down and wrote the report.
Stretched out on the bed, I waited for my mother. Early that morning, she would emerge from dawn’s frail light; we would talk, as we had before she became ill. About to leave, she would ask if I loved her more than anyone; I’d say yes. When I asked if she had loved me, she would fade away without answering.
CHAPTER 2
JUNE 1985
NEW YORK CITY
I arrived in New York City early in the evening, checked into a hotel near the airport, and phoned Fiona Sinclair in San Francisco.
Fiona had been my mother’s closest friend. I was seventeen when my father died, and my mother never recovered. Her grief was diagnosed as acute depression, but the doctors had it wrong. She had become insane.
I can’t imagine what would have happened to us without Fiona; she moved us into her home and arranged for my mother’s care. Fiona became my legal guardian and sent me to college. My parents’ money didn’t cover my mother’s care, let alone my education. When I asked for an accounting, she refused to discuss the matter.
Fiona picked up on the second ring. “Fiona, I’m in New York. I need your help.”
“What went wrong in Russia?”
“A retired high-ranking policeman who knew of my mother and Adrian Romanovsky questioned me. He said that mother pandered to the Germans during the occupation.”
“Tatiana sold some art to the Germans. I’m sure you know that.”
“I do, but the policeman used the word pandered.”
“Pandered, how?”
“He didn’t say; I wasn’t about to ask.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you know,” Fiona said, “and I’ll fill in any gaps. On second thought, why don’t we discuss this tomorrow when you get home?”
“I’d like to get this cleared up now…if you don’t mind?”
Fiona said, “Before the Revolution, Tatiana’s family had an incredible art collection. Your maternal grandmother, Olga, did the purchasing and oversaw the collection. Olga passed her talent to your mother; both of them had the eye. Why don’t you continue, Alexander?”
“As you probably know, after the Civil War, the Communists coerced Olga to catalogue and appraise confiscated art—much from her family’s collection—and were selling
