dress as one of the men held her back forcefully. “I said you can't go in there!”
“My children!” she gasped … “My babies …” She was wrestling with him with strength she didn't know she had, and for a moment she escaped his grip and then he caught her again as she tried to run past him. “Let me go!” She swung at him, and he grasped her arms in his powerful hands, as the neighbors looked on in silent horror. “My children are in there … oh, God … please …” She was sobbing uncontrollably, almost overcome by the smoke that burned her eyes and her throat as he called to two of the men rushing back into the building. They had already brought out several old women, and a young man was unconscious on the street, while two firemen tried to revive him.
“Hey, Joe!” the fireman called to one of the others, and then turned quickly to Zoya. “Where are they, lady? Which apartment?”
“The top floor … a boy and a girl …” She choked in the smoke-filled air, she had already seen that their ladders didn't go past the third floor.“… Let me go … please … please …” She fell against him, as he relayed the information to the two men, and they hurried back into the building for what seemed like hours … as Zoya watched, knowing that if they died, her life would finally be over. They were all she had left in the world, all she cared about, all she had to live for. But the firemen did not emerge again, and three more went in, with axes and anxious faces. There was a terrifying crashing sound, and an explosion of sparks and flames as part of the roof caved in, and Zoya almost fainted as she watched it. Her eyes were filled with terror, and suddenly she darted forward, determined to find them, or die with them. She slipped past the firemen too quickly as she ran into the hall, but then, in answer to her prayers, she saw the firemen rushing toward her through the thick smoke, two of them with bundles in their arms, and she heard a child crying through the roar of the flames. She saw that it was Nicholas waving his arms, and crying out to her, as the third fireman swept her into his own arms, like a child, and the three men rushed from the building with their precious burdens, just as the fire reached out to engulf them. They barely reached the street before the whole building sounded as though it were caving in. There was a wall of flames behind them as they ran, and Nicholas clung to her, coughing and crying her name, as she kissed his face over and over again and then she saw that Sasha was unconscious. She knelt on the sidewalk beside her child, moaning and calling her name, as the firemen worked desperately to save her, and then slowly, with a small cry, she stirred, and Zoya lay down beside her and cried as she stroked her curls and held her.
“My baby … my baby …” She felt it was her punishment for leaving them alone every night. All she could think of now was what it would have been like if she had come home and … it was almost beyond thinking. She sat huddled on the street, clutching her children, watching the building burn, as they cried and watched everything they owned go with it.
“All that matters is that you're alive,” she said it again and again, remembering the night her mother had died in the burning of Fontanka Palace.
The firemen stayed until dawn, on another blistering hot day in July, and they said it would be days before anyone could go in. They would have to find somewhere else to stay, and before even attempting to go back to look in the ashes for whatever remained of their belongings. She thought of the photographs of Clayton that would be lost … the small mementos she had kept … the photographs of her parents, her grandparents, the Tsar … she thought of the imperial egg she had kept in case she ever needed to sell it, but she couldn't worry about any of it now. All that mattered was that Nicholas and Sasha were safe. And then suddenly, with a sharp pang of grief, she remembered Sava. The dog she had brought from St. Petersburg