The Romanov Succession

“Keep it under control,” Alex said. “You’ve got nearly thirty-six hours before you take off.”

“You’ve got only twenty-four. How do you feel?”

Alex shook his head. “That’s a military secret.”

“You’re scared half to death like the rest of us.”

“Of course he is,” Irina murmured.

Alex dropped his voice. “I don’t like losing that third bomber. It doesn’t leave you much margin for error.”

“We’ll manage,” Felix said. “We’d manage with one if we had to.” His teeth flashed. “It’s only one train, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be cocky,” Irina said.

“Still trying to change my character, aren’t you.”

“Felix, I adore your character.”

Felix drifted away and Irina said in her soft way, “Did you know he was up half the night composing letters to the families of the men who died in that bomber crash-Vinsky and the others?”

“No-”

“Compassion is a quality Russia’s not used to in her leaders. Felix will be something new to all of them. I wonder how they’ll take to him.”

“I wonder how he’ll take to them,” Alex answered. “I hope he doesn’t get bored with it.”

“He’ll find ways to make it interesting. Trust him.”

“I do,” he said. “In the begi

“Like Vassily.”

“Yes…”

“Do you still dream about him?”

“No. Not since that night we talked about it.”

“Sometimes the answer’s that simple-talking it out. It gets the poison out of your system so that it can’t stay and fester.”

The room was a sea in which animate islands floated, each of them absorbed in its own storms and troubles. He turned and a trick of acoustics carried to his ears a soft exchange between Anatol and Baron Ivanov; Anatol was saying, “… unprecedented to say the very least. We are not a society that is accustomed to having its opposing views aired in public forums.”

“It will be an interesting experiment,” the little Baron answered, “to find out whether men of our persuasion can live and work in the same halls with men like Oleg. I am rather eager to see what comes of it.”

Anatol grumbled a reply. Irina was laughing very softly in her throat. “I’ve made a fine discovery,” she whispered. “My awesome brilliant father is in fact an old grouch.”

He was able to laugh and the ability pleased him more than the amusement itself. He began to steer her toward the door but they’d only crossed half the room when Oleg intercepted them. “A word with you?” Oleg gave Irina his brusque nod of apology. “Only for a moment.”

Oleg took him away into the corner and spoke as conspiratorially as a pimp in a third-class hotel. “The moment of truth is upon us.”

Alex had to fight down the impulse to laugh.

Oleg kneaded the pipe in his fingers; the veins stood out along the backs of his blunt square hands. “It has been torture for me these past weeks-not knowing whether I had done the right thing. You have kept faith with Vlasov. I owe you my apologies and my deepest thanks. His safety was my responsibility-it would have been my fault, my guilt if he had been exposed.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” He was harsh because he didn’t want Oleg misplacing his loyalty.

“I realize that, Alex. Quite fully. Nevertheless I must apologize again for my lack of faith in your discretion and your talent. Indeed I might say your genius. I’m quite prepared now to believe that neither Vassily Devenko nor any other man alive could have brought us this far, let alone made success possible. The debt we all owe you is incalculable.”

“We’d better wait and see how it turns out before we start parceling out the glory, Oleg.”

“I have no more doubts of our success. None at all.”

He wondered what it was that had brought the always skeptical Oleg around to such an extreme position of faith. Perhaps it was the panic of these last hours: needing an anchor Oleg had pounced on Belief and was clinging to it with the grip of hysteria.

Alex said, “In any case we’ll know soon enough, won’t we,” and managed to break away.

He reached Irina at the door; Felix was there, sparkling. “Just one thing before I let you both go.” He hesitated and his glance whipped from Alex’s face to Irina’s and back. Then with a sudden shy tip of his head: “Alex, I’d very much like to be your best man.”

Over the top of Felix’s head his eyes met Irina’s; they had gone very wide and he thought she wasn’t breathing. She gave him no helpful signals. In the end he gripped Felix’s shoulder.

“Done.”

The bedroom was tiny, spartan, stark: a flying officer’s cell, the place where a knight hung his armor and broadsword between jousts. Bare wooden walls and a single shelf nailed along one wall; a steel-frame cot with a green wool blanket; a row of wooden pegs for hanging clothes; a single lamp suspended from the ceiling with a conical metal shade.

“It’s a little narrow,” she said, “but we’ll ignore the crowd. Alex darling-if we’re really to go into the tiresome business of marriage there’s one thing you must promise me.”

“I’ll promise you the stars and the moon. With parsley.”

“Promise me that we’ll always share the same bedroom and sleep in the same bed.” She was watching him with genuine anxiety: poise had deserted her.

He faced her across the length of the little cubicle; very gravely he said to her, “I promise that.”

Only then did she stir. She took a slow step forward and then another and then she came into his arms, ravenously greedy.

When they slept finally they were pressed together on the narrow mattress like two spoons. But at some hour of the morning he came awake and was startled by the vividness of the image: every line and hair of Vassily Devenko’s high contemptuous face.

4

Apart from the others she stood on the runway hugging her breasts; her long hair blew across her face. The soldiers were drawn up in formations beside their transports, bulky in their Red Army winter uniforms, heavily laden with combat field packs and parachutes. There were no lights; the guns snapped fitfully on the distant border. The sky had cleared during the day but it was still bitter cold. The moonlight was enough to see by; from inside the airplanes came the faint glow of the red lights inside their cabin spaces.

Prince Felix and his air crews stood off to one side at attention, in formation; and Leon’s group had a semblance of military order to it when Alex came across the tarmac to say his good-byes. She was too far away to hear the words they spoke. The soldiers began to climb into the airplanes. She saw Oleg reach out and grasp Alex in a bear hug-a ritual the Baron hardly ever practiced-and then her father shook Alex’s hand. General Savinov gravely drew himself to attention with a faint click of his heels; he lifted his thick right arm in a salute which Alex answered in kind. Then Alex returned to Prince Leon and the old man’s hand, a withered claw, sketched the Orthodox cross against Alex’s forehead and coat. Then Leon drew Alex to him and kissed him on both cheeks. The old Prince was visibly weeping when Alex turned away.

Alex said his good-byes to Cosgrove and the Americans and then walked to the pilots’ formation and spoke briefly to Prince Felix. She saw the flash of Felix’s grin once. The two men exchanged salutes and bear hugs and then Alex was coming toward her.

She was numb. He touched her under the chin with his forefinger, lifting her face. She heard the cough and wheeze of the aircraft engines starting up; beyond Alex’s shoulder she saw old Sergei waiting by the open airplane door in his combat uniform, beaming with incandescent eagerness.

Alex lifted his hands to her shoulders. He said, “I love you,” very quietly so that she hardly heard him against the racket of the airplane engines and then he was striding away from her and she wasn’t sure whether he had kissed her or not. She realized her arms were still folded. She watched the planes swing out onto the field and roll down to the far end of it. A single light came on at the opposite end of the runway to mark their way. She stood without moving anything except her head and eyes while the airplanes gathered speed down the runway and launched themselves upward into the night.