“Isn't it enough that your father's gone, Nicholas?” She had come to refer to Simon as that and Nicholas didn't object. He loved him as a father.
“Mama, I have to. Can't you understand?”
“No, I can't. As long as they don't draft you, why can't you stay where you are? Simon wants you to finish school, he told you that himself.” She tried desperately to reason with him, but she could always sense that he wouldn't be swayed as she sat with him in the living room and cried. She already missed Simon desperately and the prospect of having Nicholas go too was more than she could cope with.
“I can go back to Princeton after the war.” But for years, he had thought that he was wasting his time. He enjoyed Princeton very much, but he wanted to enter the real world, to work as Simon did, and now to fight as he was doing in the Pacific. He wrote to them whenever he could, telling them as much as he was allowed to of what was going on around him. But Zoya wished now more than ever that he were at home to talk Nicholas into going back to school. After two days of arguments, she knew she had lost. And three weeks later, he was gone, to England to train. She sat in the apartment, alone, thinking bitterly of all she had lost and feared she might lose again … a father, a brother, a country in the end, and now her husband and son were gone. Sasha was out, and she sat staring into space. She didn't even hear the doorbell ring. It rang again and again, and she thought of not answering it at all, and then slowly she got up. There was no one she wanted to see. She just wanted the two of them to come home, before anything happened to them. She knew that if anything did happen, she couldn't bear it.
“Yes?” She had come home from the store an hour before, and even that didn't keep her mind full enough these days. Nothing did. She was constantly obsessed with thoughts of Simon, and now she would have Nicholas to worry about too, flying bombing raids over Europe.
The boy in uniform stood nervously outside. He had come to hate the job in the past few months. And he stared at Zoya now, wishing they had sent someone else. She looked like a nice woman, with her red hair intricately tied in a knot, and her smile as she looked at him, not understanding what was coming.
“Telegram for you, ma'am,” and then with the sad eyes of a child, he muttered, “I'm sorry,” as he handed it to her and turned away. He didn't want to see her eyes when she opened it and read the news. The black border said it all as she caught her breath and gasped, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she tore it open, and the elevator returned to rescue him. He was already gone as she read the words … Regret to inform you that your husband, Simon Ishmael Hirsch, was killed yesterday … the rest was a blur as she sank to her knees in the hall, sobbing his name … and suddenly remembering Nicolai as he bled to death on the marble floor of the Fontanka Palace….
She lay there and sobbed for what seemed like hours, longing for his gentle touch again, for the sight of him, the smell of the cologne he used … the fresh smell of the soap he used to shave … anything … anything … he would never come home again. Simon was gone, like the others.
CHAPTER
45
When Sasha came home, she found her mother sitting in the dark. When she heard why, for once in her life she did the right thing. She called Axelle, who came to sit with her and make plans for a memorial service. The next day Countess Zoya was closed, its doors draped with black crepe. And Axelle stayed at the apartment with Zoya, as she sat woodenly, unable to think coherently, or do more than nod, as Axelle planned the memorial service for her. Zoya seemed unable to make any of the necessary decisions which was so unlike her.
Her final act of courage had been in going to see Simon's parents on Houston Street the night before, his mother had screamed and wailed in her husband's arms, and finally Zoya departed