Angelopolis A Novel Page 0,35
his time in exile. Indeed, that was the same period that Dmitri assisted his lover, Coco Chanel, in the creation of her perfumes, most notably her famous No. 5. Some people say he gave her the idea to use a secret ingredient: the wing fibers of a Phaskein angel. Ms. Chanel had connections with many Nephilim, and so this is not startling information. More interesting is that she managed to keep her perfumes in production for so long, and that the secret ingredient is used still in limited-edition batches of the perfume. It is the favorite scent of Nephilim everywhere. It was no coincidence that Chanel was embroiled in intrigues during the Nazi occupation. She had connections with Nephilim that went back to the Russian Revolution.”
Verlaine was at a loss for how to interpret this information. The imperial family’s Nephilistic lineage was well-known—their downfall was celebrated by the society as a great victory—but he had never imagined how this might manifest among their descendants. If Dmitri Romanov was a Nephil, what in the hell was he doing collecting feather specimens from fellow angelic creatures? What sorts of people were Nadia’s parents that they had associated with him? How did his connection with Chanel, and the Nazis, play into his family history? He wanted to press Nadia to tell him more, but a look from Bruno signaled that he should let it drop, and so he followed Nadia in silence to the far end of the room.
After unlocking a wooden door, she ushered them into a larger space. It took a moment for Verlaine to get his bearings, but soon he realized that they had just walked through the back door of the antique shop. An enormous brass cash register sat on a polished oak table, its gleaming keys reflected in a large plate-glass window that opened onto the street. The scent of tobacco hung heavily in the air, as if the residue of decades of cigarette smoke coated the walls.
Verlaine maneuvered through the room. It had been filled to capacity with curiosities: a barometer, a mannequin displaying a large muscovite headdress, and Baroque chairs upholstered in silk. One wall had been hung with mirrors in gilded frames. There were porcelain figurines, oil paintings of Russian soldiers, an engraving of Peter the Great, and a pair of golden epaulets. Verlaine noted the irony of a French-born Russian woman selling prerevolutionary Russian antiques to post-Soviet Russians in twenty-first-century St. Petersburg. Painted across the glass window in inverted letters were the words: LA VIEILLE RUSSIE, ANTIQUAIRE.
“Forgive the clutter,” Nadia said. “After my parents died, I took over La Vieille Russie. Now the entire stock of the antique shop is stored here.”
Another woman entered and stirred the dying embers in the fireplace, adding wood until a glow of warmth and light filled the room. Verlaine realized that the antique shop doubled as a guest apartment: There was a daybed and a cupboard with boxes of tea and jars of honey. Mismatched chairs, piano benches, stools, and trunks were scattered through the shop. Nadia gestured that they should sit.
Vera nudged his arm and nodded to a wall and whispered, “Look, it’s another missing egg.”
Verlaine turned his gaze to a framed oil painting behind Nadia. It was a portrait of a child, painted in creams and browns and golds. The thick application of paint gave the flesh a glossy texture. The child was five or six years old, dressed in a white smock trimmed with lace. Verlaine’s gaze lingered a moment on the large blue eyes, the abundance of curly brown hair, the rosy hue of the little hands that—to his amazement—held a pale Fabergé egg.
“The girl in the portrait is me,” Nadia said. “Painted in Paris by a friend of my father’s. The egg was Alexandra’s beloved Mauve Egg, given to her in 1897, in the happiest period of her marriage.”
Verlaine looked from the old woman to the painting. Although there was a resemblance in the eyes, little else connected her to the image. The painted Nadia displayed a childish innocence that was reflected in the trinket cupped in her hands. Rendered with quick impressionistic brushstrokes, the details of the egg were difficult to make out. Verlaine could see the Mauve Egg with what appeared to be hazy portraits on the surface. Looking from the painting to Nadia, he found that he was helpless to gauge the significance of finding this, the third in a set of eight treasures that had been lost for nearly