Zoya (45 page)

“I have to, Zoya. I couldn't live with myself if I just sat here on my ass and did nothing to defend my country.” And it wasn't just for his country, it was for the Jews in Europe that he did it. All over the world, the cause of freedom was being destroyed, he couldn't sit back quietly and let it happen.

“Please …” Zoya begged, “Please, Simon …” She was overcome with grief, “I couldn't live without you.” She had lived through that before, losing the people she loved, and she knew she couldn't survive it again … not Simon, so gentle and so dear, and so loving. “I love you too much. Don't go. Please …” She was gripped with fear but he couldn't be dissuaded. “Zoya, I have to.” They lay side by side in their bed that night, and he touched her gently with the big hands that held his son so lovingly, the same hands that touched her now and held her close to him as she cried, terrified of losing the man she loved so dearly. “Nothing's going to happen.”

“You don't know that. We need you too much for you to go. Think of Matthew.” She would have said anything to make him stay, but even that didn't persuade him.

“I am thinking of him. The world won't be worth living in when he grows up, if the rest of us don't stand up now, and fight for decency and what's
right.” He was still aching over what had happened in Poland two years before. But now that his own country had been attacked, there was clearly no choice. And even Zoya's passionate lovemaking that night and renewed pleas didn't sway him. As much as he loved her, he knew he had to go. His love for Zoya was equaled only by his sense of duty to his country, no matter what it cost him.

He was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, to train, and three months later he came home for two days, before leaving for San Francisco. Zoya wanted to go back to Mrs. Whitman's little place in Connecticut to be alone with him, but Simon felt he should spend his last days at home with the children. Nicholas came home from Princeton to see him off, and the two men solemnly shook hands at Grand Central Station.

“Take care of your mother for me,” Simon spoke quietly in the din around him, always gentle, always calm. Even Sasha was crying. Matthew was crying too, although he didn't understand what was happening. He only knew that his daddy was going somewhere and his mother and sister were crying, and his big brother looked unhappy too.

Nicholas hugged the man who had been a father to him for the past five years, and there were tears in his eyes as Simon spoke to him. “Take care, son.”

“I want to go too.” He said it so low that his mother didn't hear him.

“Not yet,” Simon answered. “Try to finish school. They may draft you anyway.” But he didn't want to be drafted, he wanted to go to England and fly planes. He had been thinking about it for months, and by March he couldn't stand it any longer. Simon was in the Pacific by then, and Nicholas told them the
day after Sasha's seventeenth birthday. Zoya didn't want to hear it, she raged at him and she cried.

“Isn't it enough that your father's gone, Nicholas?” She had come to refer to Simon as that and Nicholas didn't object. He loved him as a father.

“Mama, I have to. Can't you understand?”

“No, I can't. As long as they don't draft you, why can't you stay where you are? Simon wants you to finish school, he told you that himself.” She tried desperately to reason with him, but she could always sense that he wouldn't be swayed as she sat with him in the living room and cried. She already missed Simon desperately and the prospect of having Nicholas go too was more than she could cope with.

“I can go back to Princeton after the war.” But for years, he had thought that he was wasting his time. He enjoyed Princeton very much, but he wanted to enter the real world, to work as Simon did, and now to fight as he was doing in the Pacific. He wrote to them whenever he could, telling them as much as he was allowed to of what was going on around him. But Zoya wished now more than ever that he were at home to talk Nicholas into going back to school. After two days of arguments, she knew she had lost. And three weeks later, he was gone, to England to train. She sat in the apartment, alone, thinking bitterly of all she had lost and feared she might lose again … a father, a brother, a country in the end, and now her husband and son were gone. Sasha was out, and she sat staring into space. She didn't even hear the doorbell ring. It rang again and again, and she thought of not answering it at all, and then slowly she got up. There was no one she wanted to see. She just wanted the two of them to come home, before anything happened
to them. She knew that if anything did happen, she couldn't bear it.

“Yes?” She had come home from the store an hour before, and even that didn't keep her mind full enough these days. Nothing did. She was constantly obsessed with thoughts of Simon, and now she would have Nicholas to worry about too, flying bombing raids over Europe.

The boy in uniform stood nervously outside. He had come to hate the job in the past few months. And he stared at Zoya now, wishing they had sent someone else. She looked like a nice woman, with her red hair intricately tied in a knot, and her smile as she looked at him, not understanding what was coming.

“Telegram for you, ma'am,” and then with the sad eyes of a child, he muttered, “I'm sorry,” as he handed it to her and turned away. He didn't want to see her eyes when she opened it and read the news. The black border said it all as she caught her breath and gasped, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she tore it open, and the elevator returned to rescue him. He was already gone as she read the words … Regret to inform you that your husband, Simon Ishmael Hirsch, was killed yesterday … the rest was a blur as she sank to her knees in the hall, sobbing his name … and suddenly remembering Nicolai as he bled to death on the marble floor of the Fontanka Palace….

She lay there and sobbed for what seemed like hours, longing for his gentle touch again, for the sight of him, the smell of the cologne he used … the fresh smell of the soap he used to shave … anything … anything … he would never come home again. Simon was gone, like the others.

CHAPTER
45

When Sasha came home, she found her mother sitting in the dark. When she heard why, for once in her life she did the right thing. She called Axelle, who came to sit with her and make plans for a memorial service. The next day Countess Zoya was closed, its doors draped with black crepe. And Axelle stayed at the apartment with Zoya, as she sat woodenly, unable to think coherently, or do more than nod, as Axelle planned the memorial service for her. Zoya seemed unable to make any of the necessary decisions which was so unlike her.

Her final act of courage had been in going to see Simon's parents on Houston Street the night before, his mother had screamed and wailed in her husband's arms, and finally Zoya departed quietly, stumbling as she left, clutching Sasha's arm. She was blinded by grief and pain and the loss of the man she had loved more than any other.

The service itself was an agony, with its unfamiliar litany and his mother's wails, as Zoya clutched Axelle's
and Sasha's hands, and then they had taken her back to cry endlessly at her apartment.

“You must go back to work as soon as you can,” Axelle looked at her and said almost harshly. She knew how easy it would be to let go, to give up, she almost had when her own husband died. And Zoya couldn't allow herself that luxury now. She had three children to think of, and herself. And she had survived tragedy before. She had to do it again now, but she only shook her head, as the tears continued to stream down her face as she looked bleakly at Axelle. There seemed to be nothing left she wanted to live for.

“I can't even think about that now. I don't care about the store. I don't care about anything. Only Simon.”

“Well, you have to. You have a responsibility to your children, yourself, your clients … and to Simon. You must continue in his memory, continue to build what he helped you start. You can't give up now. The store was his gift to you, Zoya.”

It was true, but the store seemed so trivial now, so ridiculously unimportant, without Simon to share it with, what did any of it matter?

“You must be strong.” She handed the beautiful redhead a glass of brandy from the bar, and insisted that she take a sip as she watched her. “Drink it all. It will do you good.” Axelle was suddenly a martinet as Zoya smiled through her tears at her friend, and then only began to cry harder. “You didn't survive the revolution and everything that happened after that, only to give up now, Zoya Hirsch.” But the sound of his name attached to her own only made her cry more, and Axelle returned every day until she convinced
Zoya to go back to the store. It seemed a miracle when she finally agreed to go back, but only for a few minutes. She wore somber black, and sheer black stockings, but at least she was back in her office. And the minutes became hours after a few days. And eventually she went and sat at her desk, for most of the day, staring into space and remembering Simon. She went there like a robot every day and Sasha had begun giving her trouble again. Zoya knew she was losing control of her, but she couldn't deal with that just then either. All she could do was survive the days, hour by hour, hiding in her office, and then go home at night to dream of Simon. Even little Matthew broke her heart, just seeing him was a constant reminder of his father.

Simon's attorneys had been calling her for weeks, and she had avoided all their attempts to see her. Simon had left two loyal employees in charge of his mills and the factory where they made his coats. She knew everything was in control there, and she was having enough trouble running her own store without facing that as well. And talking to the attorneys about his estate would mean facing the fact that he was gone and she couldn't. She had been thinking of him, remembering their weekend in Connecticut when one of her assistants gently knocked on the door of her office.

“Countess Zoya?” The woman spoke through the door as Zoya dried her eyes again. She had been sitting at her desk, staring at a photograph of Simon. She'd had another argument with Sasha the night before, but now even that seemed unimportant.

“I'll be right out.” She blew her nose again, and glanced in a mirror to patch up her makeup.

‘There's someone here to see you.”

“I don't want to see anyone,” she spoke quietly as she opened the door a crack. ‘Tell them I'm not here.” And then as an afterthought, “Who is it?”

“A Mr. Paul Kelly. He said it was important.”

“I don't know him, Christine. Just tell him I'm out” The girl looked nervous, it was so upsetting to see Zoya as devastated as she had been since her husband was killed, but it was understandable. They were all worried these days about husbands, brothers, friends, and the dreaded black-bordered telegrams, like the one that had been delivered to Zoya.

Zoya closed the door again, praying that no one important would come in that day. She couldn't bear the sympathetic looks, the kind words. It just made it worse, and then there was a knock on the door again. It was Christine, nervous and flustered.

“He says he'll wait. What should I do now?”

Zoya sighed. She couldn't imagine who he was. Perhaps the husband of a customer, someone who was afraid she'd discuss a mistress with a wife. She got visits like that sometimes, and she always reassured them with polite restraint. But she hadn't dealt with anyone since Simon's death. She walked back to the door and opened it to her assistant again, looking gaunt in her black dress and black stockings. And her eyes told a tale of grief beyond measure. “All right. Show him in.” She had nothing else to do anyway. She couldn't keep her mind on anything anymore. Not here, or at home, she was no good to anyone now. And she stood quietly, as Christine ushered in a tall, distinguished man in a dark blue suit, with white hair and blue eyes. He was struck by how beautiful she was, and how grim she looked, all dressed in
black, with eyes that seemed to look right through him.

“Mrs. Hirsch?” It was unusual for people to call her that here, and she nodded unhappily, wondering who he was, but not really caring.

“Yes?”

“My name is Paul Kelly. Our firm is handling your husband's … er … ah … estate.” She looked grief-stricken as she shook his hand, and invited him to sit down on one of the chairs near her desk. “We've been very anxious to get in touch with you.” He looked at her with gentle reproach, and she noticed that he had interesting eyes. He had an Irish face and she correctly guessed that he had once had jet-black hair, now turned snowy white. “You haven't been answering our calls.” But seeing her, he now understood why. The woman was devastated by grief, and he felt deeply sorry for her.

“I know.” She looked away. And then with a sigh, she looked at him. “To tell you the truth, I didn't want to hear from you. It made it all much too real. It's …” Her voice dimmed to a whisper as she looked away again,“… it's been very difficult for me.”

There was a long silence as he nodded, watching her. It was obvious how stricken she was, and yet beyond the pain, he sensed enormous strength, strength she herself had forgotten. “I understand. But we need to know your wishes on some of these matters. We were going to suggest a formal reading of the will, but perhaps under the circumstances at the present time …” His voice drifted off, as slowly her eyes met his again. “Perhaps all you need to know right now is that he left almost everything he
had in trust for you, and his son. His parents and his two uncles have been left large bequests, as have your two children, Mrs. Hirsch.” And then, sounding official, he went on, “Very generous bequests, I might add, of a million dollars each, in trust, of course. They can't touch any of the principal until they're twenty-one, and there are some other conditions in the trust, but very reasonable ones, I'm quite sure. Our trust department helped him with all that,” but he stopped as he saw Zoya staring at him. “Is something wrong?” He was suddenly sorry he had come. She was really not up to listening to what he was saying.

“A million dollars each?” It was far more than she'd ever dreamed, and they were her children, not his. She was stunned. But it was so typical of Simon. Her love for him cut through her like a knife again.