The Secret Language of Stones (21 page)

Chapter 21

“I don't want to speak of it here,” Monsieur said to me the next day, shortly after lunch. “But you will come upstairs for dinner tonight, yes? I have a favor to ask you.”

I couldn't very well refuse.

We worked in companionable silence through the next hour. I was halfway to completing a complex necklace that would be displayed in the window when it was finished. The amount of pavéd surface made it difficult and painstaking work, but I was really only at peace with myself when living inside the process. Even though the magnifying glasses were heavy on my face, they centered me. Bending over strained my back, but at the same time the physical exertion distracted me from thoughts of my late-night visitor and my curiosity over the favor Monsieur was yet to ask of me.

“I need to visit the vault—may I have your key?” I asked Monsieur midafternoon.

“What is it you need?” He came over to my table and inspected the piece.

The necklace consisted of twenty large round sapphires, each cut so as to expose a wide flat table. They were the canvas, the dark blue nighttime skies. I'd carved a crescent moon around one side of each stone, pavéd with light blue sapphires, and planned for tiny diamonds in the curve that would sparkle like tiny stars.

“I don't have the stars . . .”

Monsieur looked at me quizzically. “I thought you'd already brought those diamonds up.”

“Yes, I did. But when I interrupted this to finish the grape brooch, I replaced them. I didn't want that many stones in my desk.”

Nodding, he handed me his key. I threw my shawl around my shoulders and went down the hall to the doorway to the steps.

Despite how much I despised going underground, how much I hated the chalky smell of the dungeons, how the damp got into my bones, how the cries and whines and whispers made me shiver, I had to learn more about what was going on.

Inside the vault, I started removing the objects from the shelves on the back wall. I needed to work quickly. Monsieur would be concerned if I took too long, and I didn't want to alert him to what I was doing. He'd forbid me from getting involved. Anna too would have me stop. They wouldn't want me inviting danger by investigating further, but after the confrontation with the stranger and the note he'd shoved in my hand, I was scared.

At least I didn't waste time picking out stones. The diamonds I required for the necklace were in my smock pocket. I'd chosen them the week before and, as Monsieur had thought, taken them upstairs. I hated lying to him, but I'd needed an excuse for visiting the vault again.

Only halfway through my efforts, I heard voices. Hurrying, I removed six jeweled goblets and three frames, and then two large silver candelabras, almost dropping one. I had to be careful: if I could hear them, then they could hear me.

I dug the mortar out of the crevice, fragment by fragment, hoping once I'd exposed the peephole I'd see a more complete clue.

Who were these men? Why were they meeting? And why had one of them warned me away?

Rising up on tiptoes, I put my eye to the crevice and . . . nothing but blackness. Gently I reached in with my forefinger and hit an obstacle. Either plaster or mortar—I couldn't be certain which one be
cause my view was obstructed. I could hear them, but mixed in with other voices, other sounds, I couldn't glean any information at all.

That night at the Orloffs' apartment, there were two other Russian men whom I'd seen at dinner before, Serge Kokashka and Alexi Vanya. Along with Monsieur and Grigori, they were drinking vodka and arguing loudly in their mother tongue when I arrived upstairs.

Anna greeted me warmly, kissing me on both cheeks and taking me by the arm to sit with her on the couch.

“Would you like some tea or wine?”

I asked for wine and she winked. “For me too.”

She filled two glasses and handed me one. The same gold double-eagle insignia on all of her china and silverware glinted in the candlelight as if the bird were preening.

Grigori broke away from the caucus to come over to me. He gave me a formal bow and smile, then pulled me up and kissed me as his mother had, on both cheeks. At the same time, he whispered he'd gone to the police.

I looked into his eyes, and he nodded. Anna, sensing we wanted to be alone, though for very different reasons than she probably thought, busied herself with the dinner. Once she left, Grigori and I sat on the couch and I told him what I'd seen in the vault and that mortar had been put in the crack.

“I must have been discovered, which had to be why I was attacked.”

“I'll go back to the police tomorrow. I don't want you to worry. I'm here, Opaline. I can watch out for you. I can protect you.”

“Thank you . . .” I wanted to say more but was confused about how to show my appreciation without him thinking I was encouraging him romantically.

Anna announced dinner, and we all sat at the table. The men continued their conversation in Russian, while Anna and I chatted
in French. But once the maid served the soup, everyone switched to French and Monsieur directed his comments to me.

“We hear the Dowager, the tsar's mother, is distraught. The lack of news about Tsarina Alexandra and the children weighs on her more and more every day,” Monsieur Orloff said. “No one has any idea if her grandchildren are alive or dead. It's a terrible situation, as you can imagine, and she is not coping with it well.”

“Why would they have been killed? What political purpose would that serve?” I asked.

“The Bolsheviks are monsters. They easily could have murdered the children simply to destroy any chance that royalty would ever rule over Russia again.”

“But it will happen despite them,” Serge said. “If there are no children, there are cousins. Dozens of them. The Romanov line cannot be wiped out so easily.”

The soup, a fine consommé with delicate dumplings floating on top, tasted of beef, sherry, and dill. The cuisine served at the Orloffs' combined French food with a Russian sensibility.

“The Dowager,” Monsieur Orloff continued, “will do anything to get an answer about the fate of her beloved grandchildren. Are they alive? Where are they?”

“Yes, I know, it's indeed terrible,” I said.

Serge and Alexi nodded at me, murmuring their agreement. I noticed Anna had stopped eating her soup to watch me. So had Grigori.

“You know the Dowager Empress's sister Alexandra is mother of the king of England?” Monsieur asked me.

“Yes.”

Outside, I could hear the wind beating on the windows, as if it wanted to come in and hear what it was my mentor was asking.

Serge inched closer to the edge of his seat. Alexi kept flexing his fingers nervously. This was an important conversation, but I didn't know why.

“The Dowager is planning a clandestine trip from the Ukraine
to England. As you can imagine, it will be dangerous, but she's going to travel in disguise. The trip is a long one and there is a war on, but she is determined to find out what has happened to her family. King George has been using all his power to investigate, but still has no answers. She needs to know more than what the king can tell her.”

Monsieur Orloff paused. Anna reached out and put her hand on mine. “You don't need to do this. It's as dangerous for you as it is for her.”

“But I will go with you,” Grigori said. “I'll make sure you are as safe as possible.”

“Do what?” I looked from Anna to her husband. I'd missed something. I'd lost the thread of what they were asking.

“We want you to go to England. The Dowager Empress is in need of your services,” Monsieur said.

“I don't understand.”

“We want you to meet with the tsar's mother. To help her,” he said.

“How can I help her?” I still didn't understand.

“If she gave you locks of the children's hair, you could make talismans for her and see if they speak to you. If they don't, then she can hope, she can believe they are still alive,” Monsieur said.

“But you don't even believe what I do is real,” I said to him.

“Yes, he does,” Anna said. “It's just Pavel's way to always express his cynicism first.”

“Will you do this, Opaline?” Monsieur asked.

I shook my head before I even finished processing the request. “No, I can't. What I do isn't a discovery process. If I was wrong either way, I could cause her so much pain.”

“We need you, there's nothing else we can think of,” Alexi said.

“The empress is distraught. Grieving,” Serge said.

“And I'd be going with you. To protect you. You'll be safe.” Grigori gave me a proud, almost smug smile.

“I'm sorry to disappoint you all, but I can't. I'm not a soothsayer.”

Anna looked from Grigori to Monsieur. “I agree with Opaline. It is too dangerous to leave Paris, to cross the channel, to go to England with a war raging around us.”

Not one of them responded to her.

“Yes, it is dangerous, but the Dowager is a grieving mother who doesn't know if she is also a grieving grandmother. She has five missing grandchildren and can't find out what's happened to a single one of them,” Monsieur repeated.

“Do you actually expect me to travel across the channel during the war to meet with the mother of the tsar and the grandmother of his children and tell her the fate of her family? How could I bear the responsibility? What if I was wrong? I don't predict death. I don't read the future. These women come to me, and I tap into some tunnel of last thoughts for them.”

“She is desperate, she's lost her only remaining son,” Monsieur said. Then he turned to Anna. “Tell Opaline how it feels to lose a son.”

Furious for Anna's sake, I interrupted. “I know how she feels. I've looked into the faces of so many mothers in mourning. Don't exploit your wife's grief to pressure me.”

I'd never talked back to Monsieur before, and he looked stunned. But I wouldn't let him do this to her. I didn't need a reminder of Anna's anguish. I dreamed of her and other mothers like her. They haunted me even more than the voices of the men who'd died . . . for the men moved on to a place of peace after passing on their messages. All except for Jean Luc. Not moving on, he couldn't let go. There was something he needed to do or to tell someone and hadn't yet figured it out. But this was not the time to think about him. Not with Monsieur and his companions and his son trying to coerce me into taking this trip.

“There must be some other way to find out. Aren't there spies in Russia? Bolsheviks who would take a bribe for the information?”

A shadow passed over Grigori's face. I couldn't tell if it was because I'd referenced the Bolsheviks—this family hated them with an all-consuming passion—or if, despite the risk, he'd envisioned the trip as a way for us to spend more time together. A way for him to prove he could stand up to danger and protect me.

“Every other avenue has been exhausted. We tried bribes, but there is no news we can rely on. They say anything for money. One day that they are alive and hidden somewhere. The next that they were executed,” Alexi said.

“Opaline,” Monsieur said as he put down his spoon and leaned toward me, “will you at least consider it?”

I shook my head. “I'm sorry, no.”

“There is nothing we can offer you truly worth the effort and danger,” Monsieur continued. “But—”

I started to protest.

“Hear me out. You are a fine jeweler with a keen eye and a wonderful imagination. To be young and so talented. I envy your future. Once the war is over you will be able to soar, and the pieces you will make will take Paris by storm. I know this. I can see it in your work. I taught you like I taught my own sons. You are almost ready to go out on your own. If you take on this journey, if you help us, then when you are ready, in a year or two, whenever it is, I will set you up in a shop of your own and stock it with all the gold and silver and gemstones you need to open your doors.”

The offer took me by surprise. I could hardly imagine how much money it would take to accomplish what he'd suggested. I knew the Orloffs were well-off, as was my family, but this offer required a small fortune. Was Tatania Tichtelew helping finance the effort? I'd seen her in the shop earlier that day.

“No, I just can't.”

“But Opaline—” Monsieur began, but Grigori interrupted.

“This is too much. You asked her, she said no. And why shouldn't she? It's not her country, it's not her empress, it's not her
problem. You are exploiting her. Opaline”—he turned to me—“there's no reason for you to do this. Or even to sit and listen to any more of it.”

Grigori's compassion touched me. The room was swimming. Too many eyes watched me. The rain had become a storm, and outside the howling wind distracted me. My mind was crowded with what everyone had said. It was ridiculous to even entertain the idea in exchange for a shop. If I wanted one, my parents might become my patrons. Or maybe one of the other wealthy women who came to La Fantaisie Russe would want to be able to brag to her friends that she'd financed a jewelry store. My great-grandmother was another avenue. She knew immensely wealthy men whom she sent to our store to buy baubles for their wives and mistresses. Perhaps one of them would want to finance a shop. Besides, I was years away from going out on my own. Or was I ready? Had I in less than four years learned what Monsieur Orloff could teach? Was working with him actually stifling me? Didn't I have ideas for pieces, journals filled with drawings, that he'd dismissed? But how mercenary—to be bribed into taking this trip!