were so profoundly good and loving. In effect, they had not succeeded in destroying what they represented. Their bodies were gone but their spirit would live on forever.
“How did Zoya take the news?”
“I'm not sure she will survive it. She grows thinner day by day. She won't eat, she won't talk, she won't smile. It breaks my heart just to see her. Will you go to her?” He was ready to beg him. She must live on. Her grandmother had been old at least, but Zoya was young and alive, at nineteen her life was just beginning. He could not bear to see it end now. She had to live on, to carry with her the beauty they had all seen, into a new life, not bury it with her, as she was doing.
Clayton Andrews sighed, pensively stirring his coffee. What Vladimir had told him was shocking beyond belief, and more than that, it tore at his heart … even the boy … it was what Pierre Gilliard had said himself when he first heard the news, “The children! … not the children….” But he looked sadly at the Prince, thinking of Zoya again. “I'm not sure she'll see me.”
“You must try. For her sake.” He didn't dare ask the man if he still loved her. He had always thought he was too old for her anyway, and he had said as much to Evgenia. But he was the only hope left, and he had seen the light in Clayton's eyes the year he'd gone to Christmas services with them. At least then, he had loved the girl deeply. “She doesn't answer the door most of the time. Sometimes I just leave some food outside for her, and eventually she takes it in, though I'm not sure that she eats it.” But he did it for her grandmother. He would have wanted someone to do as much for Yelena. And now he was begging Clayton Andrews to go and see her. He would have done anything to help her. He was almost sorry Gilliard had come, but they needed to know, they could not go on hoping forever.
“I'll do my best.” He glanced at his watch. He had to get back to the hotel for one of the endless meetings. He stood up and paid for the coffee, and thanked Vladimir on the way back to the hotel, wondering if she would let him in. In her eyes, he had deserted her, and he knew that she had not understood his reasons. He thought she hated him now, and perhaps that was for the best, for her sake. But he couldn't let her just sit there and die. The picture Vladimir painted was a nightmare.
He sat impatiently through his meetings that night and at ten o'clock, he went outside and hailed a taxi, and gave the driver her address. It was a relief to discover that for once the driver was French, and not one of the noble Russians.
The building looked painfully familiar when he arrived, and for a moment he hesitated, before walking slowly up the stairs. He didn't know what to say, maybe there was nothing to say. Maybe all he could do was just be there. The walk to the fourth-floor apartment seemed interminable, and the halls were even colder and darker and more fetid than he remembered. He had left her six weeks before, but in that short time, so much had changed, so much had happened. He stood outside her door for a long time, listening, wondering if she was asleep, and then he jumped as he heard footsteps.
He knocked softly once, and the footsteps stopped. They stopped for a long time, and when she was satisfied he'd gone away, he heard them again, and this time he heard Sava bark. It made his heart beat faster just thinking of her so near, but he couldn't think of himself now, he had to think of her. He had come here to help her, not to help himself, and he had to force himself to think of that as he knocked again, and spoke through the door. “TaUgramme!” he called out, “toUgramme!” It was an awful trick, but he knew that otherwise she wouldn't open the door. The footsteps approached, and the door opened a crack, but from where he stood, she couldn't see him. And then with a single step and gentle push, he opened it wider and pushed her aside, speaking gently.
“You should be