Alex studied the different designs for some time before he said, ‘Wow, I see what you mean.’
‘They’re only preliminary sketches,’ said Anna. ‘I’ll have a more polished version by the time we go to Virginia.’
‘I can’t wait,’ said Alex, as the waiter whisked their empty plates away.
‘But you’ll have to,’ said Anna, checking her watch. ‘Must dash. Mr Rosenthal will raise his cultured eyebrow if I’m a minute late.’
While Anna returned to the gallery, Alex took the subway to Brighton Beach and dropped in to Elena’s to let his mother know Paolo would be joining them on Monday.
‘And Anna?’ said Elena.
‘She’s fine,’ said Alex, who quickly left for his other world, before she could remind him he only had three days left to beat his father’s record.
He was sitting in the front row of the lecture theatre at Columbia only moments before Professor Donovan made his entrance.
‘This evening, we will consider the significance of the Marshall Plan,’ said Donovan, ‘and the role President Truman played in assisting the Europeans to get back on their feet after the Second World War. The financial instability facing Europe in 1945 was such that . . .’
By the time Alex got home just after ten, he was exhausted. He found his mother in the kitchen chatting to Dimitri, who’d just arrived back from Leningrad.
Alex collapsed into the nearest chair.
‘Dimitri tells me that your Uncle Kolya has just been made convener of the dockers’ union,’ said Elena. ‘Isn’t that wonderful news?’
Alex didn’t comment. He was sound asleep and quietly snoring.
30
ALEX
Boston
‘I’d love to hear more about your life in the Soviet Union, and how you ended up coming to America,’ said Anna, as the train pulled out of Penn station.
‘The sanitized version, or do you want all the gory details?’
‘The truth.’
Alex began with the death of his father, and everything that had happened to him between then and the day he met her on the subway on 51st Street. He only left out the real reason he’d nearly killed Major Polyakov, and the fact that Dimitri worked for the CIA. When he came to the end, Anna’s first question took him by surprise.
‘Do you think it’s possible your school friend might have been responsible for your father’s death?’
‘I’ve thought about that many times,’ admitted Alex. ‘I’ve no doubt Vladimir was capable of such an act of treachery, and I only hope for his sake we never meet again.’
‘How different it might have been, if you and your mother had climbed into the other crate.’
‘I wouldn’t have met you, for a start,’ said Alex as he took her hand. ‘So now you’ve heard my life story, it’s your turn.’
‘I was born in a prison camp in Siberia. I never knew my father, and my mother died before I could even—’
‘Good try,’ said Alex, placing an arm around her shoulder. She turned and kissed him for the first time. It took him a few moments to recover, before he murmured, ‘Now tell me the real story.’
‘I didn’t escape from Siberia, but from South Dakota, when I was offered a place at Georgetown. I’d always wanted to go to art school, but I wasn’t quite good enough, so I settled for art history, and ended up being offered a job at Rosenthal’s.’
‘You must have done well at Georgetown,’ said Alex, ‘because Mr Rosenthal didn’t strike me as someone who suffers fools gladly.’
‘He’s very demanding,’ said Anna, ‘but quite brilliant. He’s not only a scholar but a shrewd dealer, which is why he’s so highly respected in the profession. I’m learning so much more from him than I did at university. Now I’ve met your indefatigable mother, tell me something about your father.’
‘He was the most remarkable man I’ve ever known. Had he lived, I’ve no doubt he would have been the first president of an independent Russia.’
‘Whereas his son will end up as president of a pizza company in Brooklyn,’ she teased.
‘Not if my mother has anything to do with it. She’d like me to be a professor, a lawyer or a doctor. Anything but a businessman. But I still have no idea what I’m going to do after I leave business school. I have to admit, though, that you and Lawrence have changed my life.’
‘How?’
‘While I was searching for you, I dropped into several other galleries. It was like discovering a new world where I kept meeting so many beautiful women. I’m hoping that when we get back to New York, you might introduce me to even more.’
‘Then we’ll have to start at MoMA, move on to the Frick, and if the love affair continues, I’ll introduce you to several reclining women at the Metropolitan. And to think I thought it was me you’d fallen for.’
‘Anna, I fell for you the moment I saw you. If you’d only turned around after you got off that train and given me even the hint of a smile, I would have battered the doors down and chased after you.’
‘My mother taught me never to look back.’
‘Your mother sounds as bad as mine, but can she cook a calzone?’
‘Not a hope. She’s a schoolteacher. Second grade.’
‘And your father?’
‘He’s the principal at the same school, but no one’s in any doubt who really runs the place.’
‘I can’t wait to meet them,’ said Alex as Anna rested her head on his shoulder.
Alex had never known a journey pass so quickly. They swapped stories about their upbringing, and she introduced him to Fra Angelico, Bellini and Caravaggio, while he told her about Tolstoy, Pushkin and Lermontov.
They’d only reached the seventeenth century by the time the train pulled into Union Station just after eleven-thirty. Alex didn’t speak as the taxi drove them to the National Cemetery. When he and Anna walked along the manicured lawns, passing row upon row of unadorned white gravestones, he was reminded of his conversation with Lieutenant Lowell in a dugout, and the word ‘futility’ rang in his ears. Not a day went by when he didn’t remember the Tank. Not a day went by when he didn’t thank whatever god there might be for how lucky he was to have survived.
They stopped when they reached the gravestone of Private First Class Samuel T. Burrows. Anna stood by silently as Alex wept unashamedly. Some time passed before he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, unwrapped it, knelt down, and placed the Silver Star on his friend’s grave.
Alex didn’t know how long he stood there. ‘Goodbye, old friend,’ he said, when he finally turned to leave. ‘I will return.’
Anna smiled at him so tenderly that he began to weep again.
‘Thank you, Anna,’ he said as she took him in her arms. ‘The Tank would have loved you, and you would have approved of him being my best man.’
‘If that was a proposal,’ said Anna, who couldn’t help blushing, ‘my mother would point out that we’ve only known each other for two weeks.’
‘Twelve days was enough for my father,’ said Alex, as he fell to one knee and produced a small velvet box from his pocket. He opened it to reveal his grandmother’s engagement ring.
As he placed the ring on the third finger of Anna’s left hand, she delivered a line he would remember for the rest of his life.
‘I must be the only girl who’s ever been proposed to in a cemetery.’
*
‘How do you like the new menus?’ asked Alex.
‘Classy, like your mother,’ said Lawrence. ‘Did she design them?’
‘No, Anna did, in her spare time.’
‘I can’t wait to meet this girl. Perhaps I should invite her up to Boston for the weekend to see my art collection.’
Alex laughed. ‘And I can tell you she’d accept, because Anna can’t wait to meet you and view the collection. So, Lawrence, as I suspect you didn’t fly down to New York just to flatter me, I can only hope you don’t want your money back, because I’ve already spent it.’
‘But are you ready for me to invest even more?’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because if Elena’s is going to expand, the only thing Todd was right about, you’ll need an injection of capital.’
‘And you’d be willing to supply it?’
‘You bet. It’s in my interest to do so, as I own fifty per cent of the business.’