‘I don’t think so. I don’t see how they could have. I only survived because of you – and for a long time I wished I hadn’t.’ Her voice was flat.
Dmitri felt the weight of his old familiar guilt. ‘I looked everywhere for you – all over Russia. When Anna Tschaikovsky appeared in Berlin, claiming to be Anastasia, I went straight there to see her.’
‘And?’ she asked, without hope.
‘Definitely not.’
‘You didn’t go to see any of the people who claimed to be me?’ There was a spark of irony in her voice.
‘I saw photographs. There was little resemblance.’
‘Huh! Such a strange thing to do.’ She tilted her face to kiss his lips, savouring the luxury, then asked, ‘Tell me about your children. You have two, don’t you? What are they like?’
She laid her head on his chest to listen as he described them. ‘They’re in their early twenties, and both at college, where they live in residence. Marta is very popular and has dozens of boyfriends, who call on the telephone or arrive on the doorstep at all hours when she’s at home. Nicholas is more of a loner, like me. I worry about him more …’
He couldn’t think what else to say. The children never confided in him, the way they did in Rosa. He’d catch them sitting in the kitchen chatting about their friends, their classes, but they’d change the subject when he entered. He did not have Rosa’s facility for making them open up.
‘I have a Borzoi as well,’ he added. ‘A beautiful animal called Malevich.’
‘After your army friend,’ she remembered.
He shivered, a vision of what happened to Malevich flashing to mind. ‘He’s a sensitive creature, very smart and affectionate. There’s something about his nature that reminds me of Ortipo. He’s no longer a puppy but he still runs after birds, even though he knows they will take off at the last minute. It’s a game he plays with them. He’s a happy creature.’
‘I loved Ortipo so much,’ she said with passion. ‘You’d be surprised how often I think of her, even now.’
‘How did you come to have her tag with you?’ Dmitri asked, stroking her hair.
She cuddled closer, burying her face so he could hardly hear her words. ‘Those last weeks, we sewed jewels into the seams of our clothes. The tag was in the boning of one of my undergarments. I escaped with a few more gemstones but had to sell them over the years to get by.’
‘Why didn’t you …’ he began, but Tatiana hushed him by kissing him. It was a long, hungry kiss that touched him deep inside and soon they were making love again, this time for much, much longer.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Lake Akanabee, New York State, 10th October 2016
Rebecca Wicks, the editor at Random House, emailed Kitty a couple of days later with a response to her question about Dmitri’s translator:
Our accounts department has two letters on file from your great-grandfather regarding Irena Markova. In the first, dated July 1958, he asks that in the event of his death a monthly payment of $300 should be paid to her from his royalty account, and gives an address in Albany. In the second, dated May 1975, he tells us that Irena has recently passed away, and that his royalties should be held in an interest-bearing account until one of his descendants gets in touch to claim them.
That’s me! Kitty thought, with a start. It felt as if Dmitri expected her to find out about him one day, as if he was reaching out a hand to her from the past.
The second shock came when she calculated that Irena Markova had died forty-one years earlier so that meant she really could be the body at the cabin. The dates fitted. But why would Dmitri have buried her there? Did he murder her? There was still so much she didn’t know about him …
Why had he been so concerned to keep paying Irena in the event of him dying first? The blackmail scenario didn’t fit. She wondered if they had maybe fallen in love after Rosa’s death. Perhaps that was the case, and Nicholas and Marta couldn’t forgive him for it. That might explain the rift between them.
But it seemed implausible that the grandmother she remembered as generous and fun-loving could have been so cold-hearted as to cut off her own father. She must have had a stronger reason. Kitty remembered her mum saying that Marta and Stanley were short of money after Stanley’s business failed. Why did she not ask Dmitri for help? And then it occurred to her that maybe Dmitri had been the one to break off contact. Could it have anything to do with the body found in his cabin? He didn’t want to risk them finding out … Kitty felt as though she was going round in circles.
She logged in to her genealogy forum to find there were some replies to her question, and scrolled down the list. Several mentioned websites in the Czech Republic but these would only be useful if she could post in Czech. She’d need to find a translator. One came up with a link to the immigration papers of Irena Markova, which gave an old address in Brno. But then, near the end of the list, she found a post in English, from a woman called Hana Markova, which said, ‘I think I am the person you are looking for. I am the stepdaughter of Irena Markova and this week I had a call about her from the New York state police. I work as an interpreter at a conference centre in Brno’ – she gave the telephone number – ‘and it is best to catch me between 12.30 and 2 p.m.’
Kitty was amazed. The Internet had come up trumps after all! She googled and learned that New York was six hours behind the Czech Republic, so that meant calling between 6.30 and 8 a.m. in the morning. While packing her bags to move back to the cabin for her last few nights at Lake Akanabee, Kitty made sure her mobile phone was fully charged. This might be a long call.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Prague, October 1947
The following morning, Dmitri opened his eyes and turned to look at Tatiana breathing quietly beside him, her soft auburn hair fanned across the pillow. It was the most precious moment of his life. He raised himself on an elbow to examine the curl of her lashes, the curve of her ear, the slender neck, and he was choked with the enormity of his love for her.
As if she could feel his gaze she opened her eyes and smiled up at him. In that instant there was no past, no future, nothing but the two of them. Without words they kissed then began to make love and it was glorious, the fulfilment of all Dmitri’s yearnings since 1914 when, at the age of twenty-three, he first set eyes on Tatiana in a hospital ward.
They bathed and dressed slowly, with many kisses and caresses. By the time they got downstairs the hotel had stopped serving breakfast so they went out to a café in Wenceslas Square and ordered dark bread, cold meats and cheeses. They sat close, their knees pressed together, as they ate.
‘Where is your home?’ Dmitri asked, smoothing a loose strand of hair from her brow and tucking it behind her ear. ‘Am I allowed to ask?’
He still couldn’t quite believe it was her, and kept touching her, gazing at her, making sure.
She finished chewing a mouthful. ‘I don’t have a home any more. This is something I need to discuss with you. I have a proposal.’
‘Anything you want. You only have to ask.’
‘I need money to rent a place … but I don’t want to take a gift from you – although I know you would offer without hesitation.’
He was automatically reaching for his chequebook but stopped.
She continued: ‘I don’t know if you’re aware that the English translation of your first three novels is dreadful: clumsy and wordy and not an accurate reflection of the delicacy and precision of your Russian prose. I was going to ask if you might consider hiring me to retranslate them. I know I could do much better.’
‘Oh God, of course! I’d love you to do that.’ He was excited at the thought.