She could have sworn disappointment crossed Dombasle’s face.
Aimée checked her messages. Svetla had left the name of a bar and the time for their rendez-vous. It was the last thing she wanted, but when she called Svetla back, her phone went to voice mail. Great. She hoped it wasn’t a leather bar. But first she had a stop to make.
MAREVNA—AN APRON tied around her waist over a T-shirt with IT’S BETTER IN THE UKRAINE—nodded to Aimée. She set down a bowl of maroon borscht with a dollop of cream topped by dill in front of an old man, the only diner at Le Zakouski, then jerked her thumb to the back. Aimée followed her into a narrow galley kitchen where an old woman wearing a babushka chopped onions.
“Cigarette break,” Marevna said.
The woman, her eyes tearing, nodded without looking up.
Marevna lit a Sobranie from a black box and offered Aimée one. Tempted, she glanced at the gold band, the pink paper. She figured she deserved it. One drag wouldn’t kill her.
Marevna took a long drag then passed it to Aimée. “Finish it.”
The jolt hit her lungs and her brain at the same time. A moment of clarity. Then she wished she hadn’t.
“So important but you forget last night?” Marevna’s pink-lipsticked mouth turned down.
Like she could have helped it?
“Bad men, Marevna. Better you don’t know.”
Marevna took one look at her and nodded. “Right. I don’t want to. But what’s this so urgent?”
Aimée stubbed out the Sobranie and handed her the sealed envelope. “First we need to steam it open.”
Back in the kitchen, Aimée held the envelope over the steaming pot of borscht on the stove. She wondered if it was worth using this short time she had for Marevna to listen to the recording she’d made of the diva and Tatyana. Probably just champagne-fueled ramblings. She decided against it.
The old babushka kept slicing onions, tears trailing down her wrinkled cheeks. The smell of dill and alcohol emanated from a gray-haired man snoring on a stool by the pantry.
“Who’s he?” Aimée asked.
“Lana’s uncle. Never called you, did he?”
Aimée shook her head, careful to keep her fingers away from the steam as she moved the envelope flap back and forth over it. “The old Trotskyist. Guess he didn’t have much to say.”
“But he did,” Marevna said. “He knew that Yuri. Kept saying old Trotskyists never die, they just go underground. Or into the government.”
What did that mean? “Care to enlighten me?”
Marevna reached above the ledge near a set of dusty red Russian nesting dolls. Pulled out a newspaper, Socialist Daily, dated November of last year.
“He never sober very long, but he want to show you this,” Marevna said. “Said Trotsky group met underground at Saint Anne’s hospital during the war.”
That wouldn’t help her. “I’m interested in the seventies.”
“The operating room functioned in the bomb shelter then. One of the orderlies was a Trotskyist and a Jew. He hid there—many others, too. Trotskyists kept meeting there after liberation. Still do, as far as he knows. Said to tell you.”
Taped to the back of the envelope with yellowed cellophane tape was a note.
“What’s this note say, Marevna?”
“Lenin left in 1912 in hurry to Zurich. Entrust—that’s how you say?—to him, Piotr. Made him swear on his mother’s life never open or show this to anyone. Lenin say keep for me.” The edges of the envelope flap curled up and Aimée pulled it away from the steam. Everything smelled like borscht here; no doubt her jacket would reek.
“Can you read this and give me the gist of it?”
“Gist?”
“A quick summary.” Aimée slipped two hundred francs in Marevna’s apron pocket. “I’m in a hurry.”
“Da.” Marevna read and nodded. “On envelope say, ‘In case I die.’ ”
Inside was a single sheet of blue paper. Marevna held the page to the light above the stove. Paused. “November 14, 1910. Very old-fashion Cyrillic. Words we don’t use anymore.”
Marevna read, then reread, her brow furrowed. Two long minutes. “Letter, how you say, intime? Private between man to a woman.”
“A love letter?”
A blush spread over Marevna’s face. This modern girl was embarrassed by an ancient love letter?
“Go ahead, Marevna.”
“Much passion. Full of longing, wants to smell her on his fingers, feel her skin on his skin.… He aches that he won’t see her again. Not sure he’s doing right thing … but.…” Marevna’s breath caught. “He loves this woman. Begs her to understand. He’s consumed, thinks of her every minute. But he must do what he said. No other choice but forget his … how you say? Doubts. Forget his doubts.”
“Doubts?” Aimée said. Huppert’s words came back to her.
“This part—it’s not clear.” Marevna bit her lip. “Something how his beliefs, the lies, worth the price, the sacrifice. Nothing holds him back now.” Marevna’s voice quivered. “She’s left him.”
And by this hot stove in the back kitchen, Aimée sensed a presence. A spirit. As if the soul released from this missive after eighty years now hovered and breathed in their midst.
“We say a passion that shakes the tree roots,” Marevna said, “happens once in a life. Makes the pain worthwhile.”
Aimée knew there was an equivalent expression in French but couldn’t remember it.
Marevna’s hand shook. She pointed to the signature on the letter. “Vladimir.”
Aimée gasped. “You mean … Vladimir Lenin wrote this? That’s his handwriting?”
Shaken, Marevna leaned against the dishes.
Proof of what Huppert had intimated. Modigliani painted Lenin in love, a man caught between his lover, his comrade-wife, his political aspirations, his theories, his doubts before he sacrificed ideals to fanaticism.