that night, knowing how totally she had failed her. But could she have done otherwise? She knew, with searing pain, that she would never have the answer. All she could do now to make up for it was love Marina as though she were her own. She put the baby's crib next to her own bed, and sat for hours looking at the baby sleeping there, her eyes closed, her skin warm, her hair silky red, like Zoya's own, and she promised to keep her safe, and do the best she could this time. And then, as a sob caught in her throat, she remembered the night Sasha and Nicholas had almost died in the fire … little Sasha had lain on the pavement, the firemen fighting to revive her from the thick smoke, and then she had stirred, and Zoya had held her sobbing, as she did now, remembering her … how could things have gone so wrong. In the end, in spite of everything, at only twenty-one, she had lost her.
The funeral was two days afterward, attended by some of her friends from school, and the people she had known growing up in New York. Their faces registered silent shock, as Zoya left the church on Nicholas's arm, Matthew holding her hand, and she saw Paul standing solemnly in the back row, his white hair standing out above the crowd, his eyes offering her everything he felt for her. She looked at him for only a moment and then walked on, her sons on either side of her, and tiny Marina, her whole life about to begin, waiting for them at home, in the bed next to Zoya's.
CHAPTER
49
Nineteen forty-seven was the year of the New Look from Dior, and Zoya took Matthew and Marina to Paris with her, when she went to order her new lines. Matthew was almost eight years old by then, and Marina was still a baby. But she took him to the Eiffel Tower, walked along the Seine with him, and to the Tuileries, where she had gone with Evgenia so very long ago.
“Tell me again about your grandmother.” She smiled as she told him all of it again, about the troikas in Russia when she was a child, and the games they had played, the people they had known. It was a way of sharing her history with him, and in effect his own. They went to the south of France afterward, and the following year, with both children again, Zoya went to Rome. She took Marina everywhere with her, as though in some way she could make up to her for the mother she had lost. Marina was like her own child now, and she looked so much like Zoya as she staggered happily around the ship on the way home, that people naturally assumed she was Zoya's child. At forty-nine, she still had an air of youth, and it wasn't incredible to anyone that she should still have young children around her.
“It keeps me young, I suppose,” she told Paul more than once. And he agreed with her. She looked even lovelier than before. Nicholas was running the company by then, and by the spring of 1951, he had the textile mills well in hand. He was almost thirty years old, and when Zoya came back from Europe with the little ones, he came to see them to hear all about the trip. Matthew was eleven, and Marina was four and a half, with her shining red hair, and big green eyes. She squealed with laughter when Nicholas tickled her, and he put Marina to bed himself, and then returned to the living room to tell Zoya his plans.
“Well, Mama …” He hesitated, smiling at her, and she sensed that something important was happening.
“Yes, Nicholas? Am I supposed to wear a serious face, or are you just trying to frighten me?” She had been expecting it for a while. He had been seeing a charming southern girl. He had met her when he was in South Carolina, checking on the mills. She was very beautiful, and a little spoiled. But Zoya never commented on that. He was a grown man, and free to make his own choices with his life. As she said to Paul, she respected his judgment. He was a sensible young man, with a kind heart, and a mind that had been honed by running Simon's businesses.
“Will you be very surprised if I tell you I'm going to