“I couldn't get her to come out, Mama … she was hiding under the couch when the men came in,” Nicky sobbed. “I wanted to take her, Mama … but they wouldn't let me …”
“Shh … darling, don't cry …” Her long red hair had come loose from its knot as she fought the firemen to go in after her children, and it hung over her torn white dress with the blue flowers. There were streaks of ashes on her face, and Nicholas's nightshirt reeked of smoke. It was everywhere, but he had never smelled so sweet, or meant so much to her as he did then. “I love you so much … she was very old, Nicky … shh … baby, don't cry …” Sava had been almost fifteen, and she'd come so far with them, but the only thing Zoya could think of now was the children.
A neighbor took them in, and Zoya and both children slept on the floor of their living room, on blankets. No matter how often they bathed or she washed their hair, they still smelled of smoke, but each time she looked outside and saw the charred relic across the street, she knew how lucky they had been. The sight of it made her shudder.
She called the theater the next day, and told them she wouldn't be coming to work, and that night, she walked to the theater to pick up her last paycheck. She didn't care if they starved, she would never leave them alone again … ever.
The paycheck would be just enough to buy them some clothes and a little food, but they had nowhere to stay, nowhere to go, and with a look of total exhaustion, she went looking for Jimmy to say good-bye to him.
“You leavin’ us?” He looked sad to see her go, but he understood when she told him what had happened.
“I can't do this anymore. If anything had happened …” And it could happen again. It was sinful to leave them alone. She'd have to find something else, but he only nodded. He wasn't surprised, and he thought it was just as well.
“You don't belong here anyway, Mama. You never did.” He smiled. All of her breeding showed just in the way she moved, although she had never said anything to him about her past, but it always made his heart ache to see her doing high kicks with the others. “Get yo'seff something else. A good job with your own kind of folks. This ain't for you.” But she had been there for a year and a half and it had paid the rent. “Don't you got no family or friends you can turn to?” She shook her head, thinking again how lucky she was to still have her children. “You got any place to go back to? Like Russia or something?” She smiled at how little he knew of the devastation they had left behind them.
‘I'll work it out,” she said, not really knowing what she was going to do.
“Where you stayin’ now?”
“With a neighbor.” He would have invited her to stay in Harlem, with him, but he knew that it wasn't right for her. Her kind of folks went to the Cotton Club to dance and raise hell, they didn't move into Harlem with an old piano player from a dance hall.
“Well, let me know how you're doin’ sometime. Y'hear?” She leaned over and kissed his cheek and he beamed as she went to pick up her check, and he shook her hand warmly when she left, relieved at what she had done. It wasn't until late that night that she discovered it in her bag. Five crisp twenty-dollar bills he had slipped into her handbag when she went to get her check. He had won it in a hot card game only that afternoon, and he was just glad to have it to give to her. She knew it could only have been from him. She thought of hurrying back to the theater to give it back, but only she knew how desperately she needed it. Instead, she wrote him a grateful note, and promised to pay it back as soon as she could. But she knew she had to think fast. She had to get a job, and to find them someplace to live.
By the end of the week, their building had cooled sufficiently to allow the residents to go back in. There was