loaf of bread, or a log for the fire, or even a few books for Evgenia to read. He even managed to find some for her in Russian, some poor émigrés must have even sold their books for a meager loaf of stale bread. But he always seemed to think of Zoya and Evgenia, and more often than not, he brought some small offering home to Zoya. Once he had even heard her say how much she loved chocolates, and somewhere, by some miracle, he had managed to buy a tiny bar of chocolate.
As the weeks wore on, she was kinder to him, grateful for his gifts, but more grateful for the kindness he showed the Countess. She was beginning to suffer from rheumatism in her knees and just getting up and down the stairs was suddenly agony for her. Zoya came home one afternoon from a rehearsal at the ballet, and found him carrying her grandmother up the stairs, which, with his wounded leg, was a painful task for him, but he never complained. He was always anxious to do more, and Evgenia had grown very fond of him. She was also not unaware of the enormous crush he had on Zoya. She mentioned it more than once to the girl, but Zoya insisted that she hadn't noticed.
“I don't know how you can't see how much he likes you, little one.” But Zoya was more concerned by the terrible cough that racked her grandmother as she said it. She had had a cold for weeks, and Zoya feared the Spanish flu that had killed Feodor, or the dreaded tuberculosis that seemed to be devouring Paris. Even her own health was not as strong as it had once been. With so little food, and such hard work, she had gotten desperately thin, and her girlish face seemed suddenly much older.
“How's your grandmother tonight?” he asked quietly one night as they were cooking together in the kitchen. It was a nightly ritual between them now. They no longer took turns on her nights off, but instead they cooked together, and when she had to work, he cooked for Evgenia himself, more often than not supplying the food himself, buying it on the way home with the pennies he earned from his teaching. Like everyone else in Paris these days, his small funds seemed to be dwindling. “She was so pale this afternoon” Antoine looked at Zoya with worried eyes, as she sliced two ancient-looking carrots to divide among the three of them. She was sick to death of stew, but it seemed to be what they ate almost every night, it was the easiest way to conceal the inferior quality of the meat and the near absence of vegetables.
“I'm worried about her cough, Antoine.” Zoya glanced at him from across the kitchen. “I think it's worse, don't you?” He nodded unhappily and added two small cubes of meat to the pot where Zoya was boiling the carrots in a watery broth. There wasn't even any bread tonight. It was fortunate that none of them were very hungry. “I think tomorrow I'll take her to the doctor.” But even that was more than they could afford, and there was nothing left to sell, only her father's last cigarette case, and three silver souvenir boxes that had been her brother's, but Evgenia had promised her that she wouldn't try to sell them.
“I know a doctor on the rue Godot-de-Mauroy, if you want his name. He's cheap.” He did abortions for the prostitutes, but he was better than most in that milieu. Antoine had gone to him for his leg several times, and had found him skilled and sympathetic. It pained him terribly now in the bitter cold and damp of winter. Zoya had noticed that his limp seemed to be getting worse, but he looked happier than he had when he'd first come to live with them. It seemed to do him good to have decent people to come home to, and her grandmother to worry about. It never occurred to her that his feelings for her kept him alive, and that at night he lay in bed and dreamed of her in the next room, sleeping huddled with Evgenia.
“How was school today?” she asked as she waited for the pot to boil. Her eyes were kinder now when she looked at him. He even dared to tease her now once in a while, and the exchanges vaguely reminded her of her brother.