The Tsarina's Legacy (24 page)

 

ST. PETERSBURG
PRESENT DAY

Veronica punched her pillow and told herself she was being paranoid. The picture the reporter had taken of her with Dmitry Potemkin wouldn't make the papers. And if it did, why should she care? A surprisingly calm voice in her head whispered,
You don't want Michael to see it. You don't want him to think you're getting too close to Dmitry.

Should she tell Michael what happened? Risk hurting him needlessly? She may not have kissed Dmitry but they had shared an intimate moment that could easily be misconstrued. Or maybe it didn't matter; perhaps it was too late anyway. Maybe she had blown it at the airport when she told Michael they weren't getting back together. She thought she had meant it. But if it was true, then why was she so restless now, so worried about what Michael might think?

Giving up on sleep, she reached for her phone, texting Dmitry:

I'M GOING TO GET BREAKFAST ON MY OWN TODAY. AND THEN HEAD OVER TO SEE REB. I PROMISE I'LL GET TO ANYA EXACTLY WHEN I'M SUPPOSED TO MEET HER.

And then, before she could change her mind, she texted Michael.

WILL YOU MEET ME AT THE HOTEL AT 8 A.M.? LET'S TALK.

To her surprise, he wrote back immediately:

I WANTED TO TALK TO YOU LAST NIGHT. I WANT TO HEAR ALL ABOUT THE RECEPTION.

She replied:

I KNOW. I WAS OUT LATER THAN I EXPECTED.

For ten minutes, he didn't respond. Veronica knew it was ten minutes because she stared at the faded red digital numbers on the cheap alarm clock facing her bed, which blinked three a.m., and then slowly counted out the minutes past three. A wedding party had gathered at a restaurant across the street from her side of the hotel and she heard them pouring out of the banquet hall, loud drunken voices over rushing gusts of wind and the blare of a car alarm.

Finally, she heard the ping of a text and grabbed her phone.

SURE. SEE YOU IN A FEW HOURS.

Veronica rose from bed, got dressed, and then paced for a short while before turning on the television. Someone on the other side of the wall banged furiously. She turned the volume down, missing home and Abuela's little couch, missing Abuela's hugs. She reached for her phone and earbuds and found her new-wave playlist. As the music played, her mind still raced, but at least she could lose herself in the lyrics.

At a quarter to eight, exhausted and loopy, Veronica headed to the elevator and pressed the down button. She gave a friendly nod to the floor attendant, glad when the doors sealed her inside, even if it still felt like a cage. She needed a few moments to gather her thoughts.

When she stepped into the crowded lobby, she spotted Michael at once. He was in the front of the dining room reading a newspaper and frowning. Behind Michael, service people in white hats loaded platters of steaming food into the silver trays of the breakfast buffet. It smelled delicious, but she had no appetite.

As she passed the front desk, a man checking in caught her eye. He wore all black and had a shaved head with a tattoo of an eight-pointed star on the back of his neck. He looked her up and down as though he recognized her. Dipping his head, he addressed her in a voice hoarse with old smoke. “You are on our side after all, little brown one.”

Veronica's head shot up, but the man was now talking to a woman behind the counter.

She looked to see if Michael had noticed. He had one tense eye on her, but once the man moved away from Veronica, he returned to the paper. Any number of intriguing items could have been in that newspaper and Michael was a curious guy. Even so, a seeping sense of dread accompanied her every step.

She approached, heart galloping, and waved, but he didn't acknowledge her until she was right on top of him. Without even a hello, he opened the paper and held the page up to her eye level.

Veronica knew how weak the words sounded, how trite, and yet she could not stop herself: “It's not what you think.”

“And what exactly do I think?” He spoke in the same droll tone she liked, but with a hard edge she hadn't heard before.

Two pictures. Michael's hand blocked one of them. She was in the picture she could see, forcing a smile next to the man who had asked for a selfie with her at the reception last night.

“I don't understand,” Veronica said. “Why would anyone care about that picture?”

“You don't recognize him?”

Veronica shook her head. “He looked artsy. He was one of the Hermitage curators, wasn't he?”

Michael lowered his voice. “Vasily Turgekov. Does that name ring a bell? Haven't you seen any of his movies?”

That's why he sounded familiar. Veronica remembered an animated movie she'd watched in one of her Russian language classes in graduate school. Vasily Turgekov had played a sassy turtle. And then just as quickly an alarm went off in her head. “Oh!”

Vasily Turgekov was a self-described Russian nationalist, monarchist, and Slavophile, a devout Orthodox Christian, and a close friend of the Russian president. He had also recently told a journal in Moscow that all gay men should be “liquidated.” The
Moscow Review
—Anya's newspaper.

“I didn't know,” she said, horrified, shaking her head. “I didn't know.”

“Veronica, now I'm afraid,” he said. “Really afraid. I saw that thug in line. Now he thinks you're a homophobe. How will people like him react when you support Reb Volkov?”

“I'll be fine. It'll all be okay.” Veronica wished she actually believed it.

“And what about this?” Michael moved his hand so she could see the other picture.

Veronica snatched the paper. Dmitry Potemkin's head was inclined toward hers. Veronica's eyes were closed and she had a serene smile on her face, as though she were waiting for her lover to give her a kiss.

She surveyed the article and got the gist quickly enough. The woman who said she was the Romanov heiress. Russia's newest celebrity playgirl. A helpful adviser named Potemkin. No doubt she had taken him as a lover, emulating her famous ancestor Catherine the Great.

She heard herself say again: “It's not what you think.”

“Veronica, don't try to spare my feelings or anything pathetic like that,” Michael said. “I need to know what's going on. I deserve to know. Don't lie, and I won't be upset.”

Don't lie. Ah, the irony. He had lied. Everyone lied, didn't they? Massaging the truth was a self-protective instinct, one she should cultivate more.

“You're not the only one who was hurt in the past,” he said. “You got screwed over by your fiancé. I got screwed over by my ex-wife. I know what you told me at the airport … that I shouldn't expect we would get back together … but I thought we were growing close again, that we were working past everything. I thought because we had both been hurt in the past, and understood each other's anger, maybe … maybe we were meant to be together.”

She thought he would dip his head the way he used to do, so that he was looking up at her. Instead he took a step back, lips pressed in a tight line.

“But maybe it doesn't work that way. Maybe both of us are too broken.” He ran his hand back through his hair and scratched his head. “Did you kiss him?”

At that moment, as far as Veronica was concerned, it didn't matter whether she had kissed Dmitry Potemkin or not. She had been attracted to him. Michael must have sensed this as well. Otherwise he wouldn't have been reacting so strongly. Guilt clouded her thoughts and she was tempted to confess. But a self-protective instinct still winked faintly inside of her. “No.”

“You look as though you were thinking about it.”

Her first impulse was to tell him fine. To hell with him. Who needed him anyway? But she knew she would regret it later and she was tired of living with regrets. “I'm not interested in Dmitry. Do you know what we were talking about when that photo was taken? You. Michael, it always comes back to you. Don't you understand that by now?”

Michael's features softened momentarily before returning to stone, his emotional walls as carefully guarded as hers. Her heart sank.

“Even if that is the case, you've compromised your position,” he told her slowly. “The Society is ready to accept you and your claim. But this makes it look suspicious, like Dmitry might have a special interest in you and pushed you forward because of your relationship.”

“I told you! There is no relationship! Who would even care about this picture?”

Michael nodded his chin. Slowly, Veronica took stock of the lobby. No one was touching her, yet she felt violated all the same. The American men she had seen at breakfast earlier in the week held copies of the newspaper, and they were all looking intently at the paper and then at her. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to remain calm. “I didn't say it wouldn't attract interest, only that it won't matter.”

“They're interested,” Michael said. “And considering what you want to do, getting involved with Reb, interest could be dangerous. That's the point.”

“I hoped you would … I want…” She hesitated. She wanted to make sure she really understood what she wanted before she said anything further.

“What?” He looked away from her, moistening his upper lip with the tip of his tongue. “If you have something to say to me maybe now is the time to say it.”

Veronica closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. “Look, back at the airport, I shouldn't have told you I was done. It wasn't true.” She opened her eyes once more. “Because right now I don't care about what they think. I don't care about the potential danger. All I care about is what you think. You.”

She thought she saw a bit of the old magic in his eyes. “What are you trying to say?” he asked carefully.

I miss you. I miss how it feels when you touch me. I miss the smell of your hair. I just … I miss you.

“I want … I want us to do this together,” she said.

“Come with me today then,” he said, his tone urgent. “I'm going to talk to Irina about your grandmother's mysterious phone call from Laurent.”

“Thank you.” She put her hand on his arm. “But I need to meet Anya. She's taking me to Reb Volkov.”

He threw his hands up in frustration. “How can you be so casual about all of this? You're going to see Reb? You understand where we are, right? In Russia?”

Veronica winced. He may have been trying to make a point to protect her, but he didn't need to act like a flippant jerk in the process. She had already put herself out there. She shouldn't have to tell him he was hurting her feelings. Thinking back to her conversation with Dmitry the previous night, she took another tactic. “You're overreacting. Besides, we're in St. Petersburg. Things are different here.”

“Really? What about the graffiti by
The Bronze Horseman
?” He looked around self-consciously and lowered his voice. “You remember that?”

She shook her head. “I still think you're overreacting.”

“Maybe you don't care if you're in danger, but I do. Your grandmother does too.”

“It's not that I don't care,” she said, defenses rising. “But it's why I'm here. To meet with Reb. To help him. I'm not going to abandon that now.”

They looked at one another a moment more, but to her disappointment, Michael dropped his gaze first. She stared at his dark lashes and the curve of his forehead, wishing he would just hug her. Something. Anything to show the distance between them was closing.

“I'm not standing in your way,” he said. “But at least be careful. For my sake if not for your own.”

*   *   *

“But how could you not recognize Vasily Turgekov? He is one of our most famous public figures!” Anya's tiny car, a shaky product of some Eastern European factory, pulled into a narrow alley lined with a jumble of buildings, showing their age but newly painted in cheerful pastel hues of blue, green, and pink to counter the dull gray sky. “Don't you watch movies?”

“It's just been so long since I've seen him,” Veronica said.

“He is a monarchist, you know. Is he funding the Society? Is he a friend of Irina who gets special treatment? A major donor?”

“I didn't know. I mean, I don't know if Irina knows him.”

“You don't know. You don't know. But I know! I interviewed him. Me! I was so excited. I admired his early work. I wanted to think the best of him.”

“I know. I know.” Veronica put her head in her hands, trying to concentrate on the rattle of Slavic pop music coming from Anya's car radio. As they made their way down the narrow alley, Veronica peeped through splayed fingers. The last remnants of flowers and ferns clung to pots clustered haphazardly on balconies with intricate iron railings.

“But the things he says in the interview! And he
knows
.” Anya pounded the steering wheel with one closed fist. “He knows Reb is my brother. He knows Reb is gay. And still he would say these things to me. Liquidated! Can you imagine?”

“I am so sorry, Anya,” Veronica said. “I will make this right. I promise.”

At the end of the street, a group of approximately ten young men and women had gathered with picket signs. The men sported hipster beards and the women had dyed their hair turquoise and violet. Veronica translated their Cyrillic signs in her head: “Free the Wolf,” “Gay Rights Are Human Rights,” and “I stand with Reb Volkov.”

“Wow!” Veronica said, switching to English without thinking. “This is awesome.”

Anya glared at her.

Veronica returned to Russian. “I only mean I didn't realize Reb's fans were so devoted. Have they been out here long?”

“Since the announcement of Reb's sentencing. It is nice of them to come, but it would be far nicer if the press covered their protest. Or if there were more of them.” Anya leaned back in her seat and pressed her voluminous head scarf down so she could look over her shoulder as she made her first attempt to navigate a tricky parallel-parking space.