Sashenka

As Luda closed the study door, Zeitlin sank down in his high-backed chair, pulled out his green leather cigar box with the gold monogram and absentmindedly drew out a cigar. Stroking the rolled leaves, he eased off the band and smelled it, drawing the length of it under his nose and against his mustache so that it touched his lips. Then with a flash of his chunky cufflinks, he took the silver cutter and snipped off the tip. Moving slowly and sensuously, he flipped the cigar between finger and thumb, spinning it round his hand like the baton of the leader of a marching band. Then he placed it in his mouth and raised the jeweled silver lighter in the shape of a rifle (a gift of the War Minister, for whom he manufactured the wooden stocks of rifles for Russian infantrymen). The smell of kerosene rose.

“Calme-toi, Mrs. Lewis,” he told Lala. “Everything’s possible. Just a few phone calls and she’ll be home.”

But beneath this show of confidence, Zeitlin’s heart was palpitating: his only child, his Sashenka, was in a cell somewhere. The thought of a policeman or, worse, a criminal, even a murderer, touching her gave him a burning pain in his chest, compounded by shame, a whiff of embarrassment, and a sliver of guilt—but he soon dismissed that. The arrest was either a mistake or the fruit of intrigue by some jealous war contractor—but calm good sense, peerless connections and the generous application of gelt would correct it. He had fixed greater challenges than releasing an innocent teenager: his rise from the provinces to his current status in St. Petersburg, his place on the Table of Ranks, his blossoming fortune, even Sashenka’s presence at the Smolny Institute, all these were testament to his steely calculation of the odds and meticulous preparation, easy luck, and uninhibited embrace of his rightful prizes.

“Mrs. Lewis, do you know anything about the arrest?” he asked a little sheepishly. Powerful in so many ways, he was vulnerable in his own household. “If you know something, anything that could help Sashenka…”

Lala’s eyes met and held his through the grey smoke. “Perhaps you should ask her uncle?”

“Mendel? But he’s in exile, isn’t he?”

“Quite possibly.”

He caught the edge in a voice that always sounded as if it were singing a lullaby to a child, his child, and recognized the glance that told him he hardly knew his own daughter.

“But before his last arrest,” she continued, “he told me this house wasn’t safe for him anymore.”

“Not safe anymore…,” murmured Zeitlin. She meant that the secret police were watching his house. “So Mendel has escaped from Siberia? And Sashenka’s in contact with him? That bastard Mendel! Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything?”

Mendel, his wife’s brother, Sashenka’s uncle, had recently been arrested and sentenced to five years of administrative exile for revolutionary conspiracy. But now he had escaped, and maybe somehow he had entangled Sashenka in his grubby machinations.

Lala stood up, shaking her head.

“Well, Baron, I know it’s not my place…” She smoothed her floral dress, which served only to accentuate her curves. Zeitlin watched her, fiddling with a string of jade worry beads, the only un-Russian hint in the entire stalwartly Russian study.

There was a sudden movement behind them.

“Shalom aleichem!” boomed a broad-shouldered, bearded man in a sable greatcoat, astrakhan hat and high boots like a hussar. “Don’t ask me about last night! I lost every kopek in my pocket—but who’s counting?”

The door to the baron’s sanctuary had been shoved open and Gideon Zeitlin’s aura of cologne, vodka and animal sweat swept into the study. The baron winced, knowing that his brother tended to call on the house only when he needed his funds replenished.

“Last night’s girl cost me a pretty fortune,” said Gideon. “First the cards. Then dinner at the Donan. Cognac at the Europa. Gypsies at the Bear. But it was worth it. That’s paradise on earth, eh? Apologies to you, Mrs. Lewis!” He made a theatrical bow, big black eyes glinting beneath bushy black brows. “But what else is there in life except fresh lips and skin? Tomorrow be damned! I feel marvelous!”

Gideon Zeitlin touched Mrs. Lewis’s neck, making her jump, as he sniffed her carefully pinned hair. “Lovely!” he murmured as he strode round the desk to kiss his elder brother wetly, twice on the cheeks and once on the lips.

He tossed his wet fur coat into the corner, where it settled like a living animal, and arranged himself on the sofa.

“Gideon, Sashenka’s in trouble…,” Zeitlin started wearily.

“I heard, Samoilo. Those ideeeots!” bellowed Gideon, who blamed all the mistakes of mankind on a conspiracy of imbeciles that included everyone except himself. “I was at the newspaper and I got a call from a source. I haven’t slept from last night yet. But I’m glad Mama’s not alive to see this one. Are you feeling OK, Samoilo? Your ticker? How’s your indigestion? Lungs? Show me your tongue?”

“I’m bearing up,” replied Zeitlin. “Let me see yours.”