her cough was better, she seemed to be failing. She reproached Zoya almost daily about Antoine, and their financial situation became so desperate that shortly after the New Year, Evgenia struggled down the stairs and had Vladimir drive her to the jeweler in the rue Cambon.
It was hardly worth the trip, but she felt she had no choice. She carefully unwrapped the package she had brought and revealed Konstantin's gold cigarette case, and three of Nicolai's silver souvenir boxes. They were covered with enamel replicas of his military insignia, engraved with amusing slogans and his friends’ names, one of them bore a tiny frog, and another a string of white enamel elephants. They represented all the things he held dear or that meant something to him, and had each been gifts from friends. She had promised herself and Zoya long before that she would never sell them.
The jeweler recognized them instantly as pieces by Fabergo, but he had already seen more than a dozen more like them.
“I can't offer you very much,” he apologized, and the sum he wrote down brought tears to her eyes, but they had to eat. And she had so hoped they could keep them. “I'm sorry, madame.” She inclined her head in silent dignity, bereft of words, and accepted the small sum he offered. It would keep them for less than a week, if they didn't buy anything too extravagant.
Prince Vladimir noticed that the old woman looked pale when she emerged, but as always, he asked no vulgar questions. He simply drove her home, after stopping to buy a loaf of bread and a very thin chicken. Zoya was waiting for them when they returned, looking subdued, but extremely pretty.
“Where were you?” she asked as she settled her grandmother into a chair, and Vladimir went downstairs to bring up some more firewood.
“Vladimir took me out for a drive.” But Zoya suspected more than that.
“Is that all?”
She started to say yes but tears filled her eyes, and she began to cry, feeling tired and old, and as though life had finally betrayed her. She couldn't even allow herself to die. She still had Zoya to think of.
“Grandmama, what have you done?” Zoya was suddenly frightened, but the old woman blew her nose on the lace handkerchief she still carried.
“Nothing, my darling. Vladimir had very kindly offered to drive us to St. Alexander Nevsky tonight.” It was Christmas Eve for them, and Zoya knew every Russian in Paris would be there, but she wasn't sure it was wise for her grandmother to go to church for the midnight mass. Perhaps they were better off at home. She wasn't in the mood for it anyway, but her grandmother looked stern as she straightened her back, and smiled at Vladimir as he returned with the firewood.
“Are you sure you feel up to it, Grandmama?”
“Of course.” And what did it matter now? “I have never missed midnight mass on Christmas in my life.” But they both knew it would be a hard year for them. With so many lost, the service could only remind them of the previous year, when they had celebrated Christmas with their loved ones all around them. And Zoya had been thinking all day of Mashka and the others, spending Christmas in Tobolsk.
“I'll be back at eleven o'clock,” Vladimir promised as he left. Zoya was planning to wear her best dress, and her grandmother had washed and ironed her only decent lace collar to wear on the black dress Zoya had bought her.
It was a lonely Christmas Eve in the quiet apartment, with Antoine's empty room staring at them like a reproach, Evgenia had offered it to Zoya a few days before, but she found that she couldn't bring herself to move in. After Feodor, and Antoine, she didn't want the room, and preferred to continue sleeping with her grandmother until they found a new boarder.
She cooked the chicken for her that night, roasting it carefully in their tiny oven. It was a luxury not to make soup of it, but it was the only gift they shared, and both of them concentrated desperately on trying not to remember years past in their days of grandeur. They had always stayed at home on Christmas Eve, then gone to church with the family at midnight, and then to Tsarskoe Selo the next day to celebrate there with Nicholas and the others. Now instead, they commented on the chicken, talked about the war, mentioned Vladimir, anything to avoid