Sasha had seen her brother.
Chapter 46
F
or the next hour, a steady stream of “courtiers” approached the stand. The liveried servants quickly brought red velvet ropes, which they hung on gold stanchions to guide the line of those wishing to pay respects to their new royalty. Levitin kept muttering uncomfortably, wondering how his sister was going to continue to keep them satisfied. Idolaters would chat with their “Princess” for no more than two minutes. Then, guided by some inner clock that governed protocol, they would make their smiling departure, now slightly more erect, more prestigious to themselves for having spoken to her.
Jana watched Sasha only intermittently; she was more interested in the crowd. There was no question in Jana’s mind that Sasha was here for an event. No, Jana corrected herself, she was here to create an event by her presence. Whatever the event, Jana was determined not to let it escape her, hoping to take advantage of the circumstances. The least she hoped to get was information.
Levitin’s cell phone rang. He pulled it from a tuxedo pocket, answered it briefly, and then handed it to a surprised Jana. “Trokan. For you.”
“Having fun?” was Trokan’s first question. “How much did it cost?” was his second. When she started to answer Trokan cut her off. “I couldn‘t reach you. Your cell phone is off.”
“There’s no room for a cell phone in what I’m wearing.”
“Then you shouldn’t be wearing a dress like that. It’s probably sinful.”
“Sin. Yes, something new and wonderful for me.” The cell phone had static on the line, so along with the music and the crowd noise, it was difficult to hear Trokan. She slapped the cell phone, then held it tightly to her ear. “I’m having trouble with reception. Talk like you are yelling at a new cadet.”
She stepped through tall glass doors and onto a nearby outdoor balcony to get away from the noise. Trokan’s voice became louder. “Why do I always have to shout when I talk to you? Listen closer.”
“I’ve been carefully listening for years.”
“Then why does your beloved commanding officer think that you do not?”
“He is insecure?”
“Careful, Matinova.”
“Always, Colonel.”
“Seges has been trying to reach you. He gave me some information to forward. He contacted the Irish police. The file that they had on the murder of this man named Walsh was purged some years back. Too old to keep any more. The investigator on the case died of lung cancer a few years ago. So they have nothing for you.”
Jana involuntarily winced. If there was anything more to Moira Simmons’s trial for murder, she was not going to find out about it. Trokan rolled on, back on his favorite topic.
“The minister wants you back. Now! He thinks you are taking a vacation on Slovak funds. From what you tell me, I am beginning to believe it.”
“We are close.”
“To what?”
“To finding out what is happening.”
“Matinova, come home.”
“Two days, three days. If I’m wrong, I will let you deduct all the expenses from my salary, including my salary.”
“Assuming you still have a job.”
“Take it from my pension.”
“We don’t pay you enough pension money for you to reimburse us for the trip. So, are you coming back?”
“All flights are booked.”
“Police officers are not supposed to lie.”
“I’m learning to be dishonest.”
There was a long silence on the phone.
“ . . . Colonel?”
“I’m here. You are also there. Two to three days, you say?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all the time you have, Matinova!” His voice had taken on an official tone. This was her limit.
“Thank you, Colonel.”
The phone went dead.
Jana looked out over the balcony railing, thinking that her time was running out. The colonel had given her his orders. She looked down. Directly below the balcony on which Jana stood, Moira Simmons was emerging from a limousine.
Jana walked back into the palace and over to Levitin, handing him the phone, waiting for Moira to make her grand entrance. When she appeared, there was another shock.
Moira Simmons entered first. Lagging slightly behind, so that Jana did not see her at first, was her daughter Katka. Jeremy walked behind them.
There was a second man, older, thick in the body, who trailed them, his eyes sweeping the room. He fixed on Levitin for a quick moment, then reached into his pocket for a cell phone, turning away to speak into it, turning back for an even briefer moment to say something to Katka, then leaving the way he’d come.
The others continued into the room. Both women wore gowns, Jeremy a tuxedo. They were offered glasses of champagne. The three of them smiled, clinking their glasses in a toast, sipping the wine, enjoying the moment. Jeremy leaned over Katka, his arms raised in dance position, asking her for a waltz. She shook her head. He exaggerated his dancing motion. Katka held her arms out in acquiescence. The two spun onto the dance floor, leaving Moira Simmons standing alone.
Jana watched Katka sweep around the dance floor in Jeremy’s arms, looking beautiful in her long white dress, swirled around in the dance by her obviously adoring husband, both of them caught up in the pleasure of the moment. Jana was very anxious. She desperately wanted to talk to Katka, to embrace her daughter after such a long separation. She took a half step toward them, then stopped herself, remembering the last disastrous time when they had seen each other.
Chapter 47
T
wo great events had occurred almost simultaneously: the communists had finally fallen, and Katka had finished her undergraduate studies. Katka was coming home. Before she went on for an advanced degree, she was returning home to Bratislava. Katka had flown first to Prague, then taken another plane which would arrive in Bratislava at five P.M.
Jana was at the Bratislava airport almost an hour before time. She paced back and forth, fearful that some last-minute event, a slight mechanical problem, a storm, some terrible act of God would prevent them from embracing each other, mother and daughter finally reunited after so many years apart.
Jana had brought flowers. Dissatisfied with the size of the bouquet, she returned to the flower shop, doubling the number of flowers, hoping that in some way they would fill a void for Katka. They were the only soft, welcoming things Jana could think of to give Katka to show her love.
How does a mother prove to her daughter that she wishes it had been different? Forced to relinquish all those years of her daughter’s youth, forced to miss all of Katka’s emergence as a young woman, Jana had not been the mother she expected—no, wanted—to be. If those were Jana’s expectations and disappointments about herself, what were her daughter’s? Jana could never soothe them. No triumphs witnessed together; no ideals or aspirations shared between them. No dreams they had dreamed together. What did they still have for each other?
Jana forcibly reminded herself: There was to be no sadness, no bitterness at the world for their separation and absence from each other’s lives. This would be a time of celebration. They would pick up the fragments and rebuild their relationship, together again.
Trokan came ambling into the terminal, a huge box of chocolates in his hands.
“I came to see our daughter return home.”
“
My
daughter.” Their little ritual of claim and counterclaim was complete. No, it was not as satisfactory as it normally was. “I am very frightened,” Jana admitted.
“Frightened? She is your daughter; she will always be your daughter. Katka knows that, so she will love you.”
“Easy to say.” Jana glanced through the glass windows at the runway. “Still no plane.” She went back to brooding. “I could have kept her here. I didn’t. I sent Katka to America. . . .” Her voice tapered off. “Will she resent my actions? Will she feel I abandoned her?” Jana’s eyes pleaded with Trokan to tell her that she had done the right thing.
“Children think a lot of crazy things.” Trokan shrugged, as if telling Jana that it was not within their ability to control Katka’s emotions. “What you think, here and now, is more important. I remember those times very well. You had more courage than most mothers would have had under the circumstances.”
“Thank you, Stephan.”
“I knew what you did at the time. As your commanding officer I ignored it; as her once-removed ‘father’ I applauded.” He smiled, a sly edge to his voice. “You took chances. You always take chances. If I had been ‘officially’ made aware of it, I would have arrested you and thrown away the key.” His belly quivered as he chuckled. “But you did just enough to make sure I was not slapped in the face with it.” He stopped laughing, nodding his approval. “You did well.”
“You helped.”
“Of course I helped. What are friends for? You gave me just enough to allow me to remain your friend.”
“You saved me.”
“You saved yourself. Maybe I just pushed you in the right direction. A little nudge here, a little nudge there. That was all that was needed. And if I lied a little to the
nomenclatura,
who cared? They lied enough to us.”
The plane abruptly came into sight, landing just as quickly, taxiing down the tarmac, pulling to the front of the terminal. The airport technicians rolled the stairs to the rear of the plane for passengers to disembark.
“Our daughter will come out of the plane and will be looking for you. Don’t you want to go onto the field to greet her?”
“Yes, and no. I will cry.”
“You will also cry here.”
“I’m not allowed on the field.”
“You have a police badge.”
“We shouldn’t use our badges to get personal favors.”
“Stop being sanctimonious. It’s not like you.” He hooked her arm into his. “Fortunately, I have no such qualms.”
Trokan hauled her with him, then pulled his credential case from his jacket, flashing it at the airline employee who tried to stop them from going onto the field. As they reached the tarmac, the passengers began disembarking. Trokan pulled his arm out from beneath Jana’s elbow, lagging slightly behind her as they approached the plane. Finally, a young American woman, fresh-faced, poised, came down the stairs. It was Katka.
When Katka got to the tarmac she immediately recognized Jana. The two of them faced each other, neither one seeming to know what to do. Then they both moved at the same time, Jana’s flowers crushed between them in their embrace. Katka was more reticent, a bit stiff, but Jana was crying, kissing Katka, laughing, then crying again. Each of them confessed that she’d missed the other. There was happiness, joy, their words interspersed with more hugs and tears from Jana.
Finally, Trokan moved up to the two woman. “Enough mush. I think it’s time to go inside.”
They paid no attention, so he spoke louder.
“I have candy for my adopted daughter.”
“She’s
my
daughter,” Jana emphatically stated. “No one else’s daughter.” Katka laughed; Trokan laughed. The three of them finally moved to the terminal entrance. The conversation turned into small talk.
“Was it a good trip?”
“Easy.”
“You must be tired.”
“A little.”
“Have you eaten?”
“Too much.”
“I can’t wait to show you Bratislava.” Katka stopped walking; the other two waited.
“Mother, I just want to go home.”
“Yes, home,” agreed Jana.
The two held each other in long embrace, then walked into the terminal. Trokan wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, glad no one was watching him, then followed them inside.
Chapter 48
M
oira Simmons glanced around the room as Katka and her husband took the dance floor, immediately noticing Sasha seated on her throne as she received her subjects on the reception line. Moira reached into her purse to pull out her cell phone, dialing rapidly, her eyes swiveling around the room as she appraised events. She noted Jana and Levitin in the sweep; her expression did not alter. Her eyes remained on them as she spoke, then listened. After a moment, she put the phone back into her pocket, then approached Jana and Levitin.
A smile appeared on her face. She seemed to be enjoying the moment.
“Good evening, Commander Matinova.” She nodded at Levitin. “Investigator Levitin.”
Jana nodded to her. Levitin, still mesmerized by his sister’s appearance, barely mumbled a greeting.
“You meet the most unexpected people at the Russian Friends’ Ball. Did you come all the way to Nice just to see it?”
“We’re hunting.” Levitin’s attention was still on the stage. Reluctantly, he focused on Moira. “I got hungry for a bit of Russia.”
“People who have a Russian relative, even a distant make-believe relative, come to the ball.” She turned back to Jana. “They pretend that the Romanoffs were never shot by the Bolsheviks and still rule their world.”
“What brings you here to Nice, Moira?”
“I have a place here. That’s where I first met Jeremy and Katka, at a diplomatic party. And Carnival is a wonderful time to be in Nice. A time for fun. And any excuse to have fun is a good excuse.” Moira glanced at Levitin. “This is a very odd place to go hunting, Levitin. All the animals in this room are tame.”
Levitin, his eyes locked on Sasha and the reception line, did not hear her. Moira followed his gaze.
“A very beautiful woman, your sister.”
Both Levitin and Jana were startled.
“You know she is Levitin’s sister?” Jana spoke softly, covering her surprise. “Please tell me how.”
“Pavel, her old boyfriend, the Czech who threw himself out of the window, once told me that Sasha had a brother who was a police officer in Russia. The way you were looking at her, and as I know her last name is the same as your last name, I put it together.” She laughed. “Maybe I should apply to a police force to become a detective.”