must insist you rest here for a while, Sofya. Take a nice bath.”
I smiled. “I would like to look nice for Afon when I see him.”
Mrs. Zaitz took my hand. “I’m sorry to be the one, but I need to tell you something, Sofya.”
“Mrs. Zaitz, just say it.”
“You don’t know how it hurts me to tell you this, Sofya, but we heard something about Afon—”
“Just tell me.”
“He came by here—”
I pressed one hand to my chest. “Afon, here?” I laughed. “Why did you not say so?”
“He didn’t stay long.”
“He was on his way back to find you,” Mr. Zaitz said. “Heard there was trouble at the estate.” He hung his head, unable to continue.
“What did he say?” I asked. “Who was he with?”
“He was alone,” Mrs. Zaitz said. “Said he’d left his fellow officers at the bridge. They were headed up to Malinov.”
So Afon had known of our situation after all. “But why did he not come?”
Mrs. Zaitz placed one hand on my sleeve. “They say the Reds got them.”
I stepped back from her. “They?”
“Mrs. Osinov’s friend—”
I turned away. “Mrs. Osinov’s friend? How can you believe hearsay?”
Mrs. Zaitz rubbed one hand down my back. “I’m sorry, Sofya.”
I shook my head. “No. Afon would never let that happen.”
I hurried toward the door. Could it be true? Afon dead? It was too horrible to consider. But whether he was alive or dead, Afon was not in Malinov and I knew I must leave for Paris immediately to find Max.
“I have to leave,” I said. “Thank you both.”
“Send us a letter when you get there,” Mrs. Zaitz said.
I stepped up onto the seat of the laundry cart. Was it possible Afon really had been ambushed by Reds? One thing was certain: He’d been on his way to help us. If only he’d arrived in time. If he’d indeed been captured, perhaps the Reds kept him prisoner still? Thoughts of Afon made me dizzy and I forced myself to think instead of Max’s sweet face.
I took my gun and map from my pocket, set them next to me on the wooden bench, pulled my dog fur coat tight around my chest and urged Jarushka on without a look back.
Off, the two of us, to Paris to find my son.
CHAPTER
37
Varinka
1918
It took us a year and a half to get to Paris. With the constant changes of plans from Taras’s bosses in Petrograd, Mamka and I felt lucky to get there at all. When we arrived on that freezing December day, we brought our bags to 24 Rue de Serene, a tall building on a backstreet across from a café. Taras kept us on a short leash and watched our every move, but had approved a brief trip to the Lanvin shop at 22 Rue du Faubourg, the richest part of town. I took some money from Taras’s boot, his bank of sorts, just enough to buy a hat. I had no idea how he earned his money. He was so secretive about it, it had to be bad.
I held Max’s hand. What a good-looking young man he’d become, at four and one half years old, so handsome in the little woolen suit Mamka had made for him.
I wore the countess’s sable coat, a bit too large for me in the shoulders, and ran one hand down the sleeve. The countess. How many times had she stood here at Lanvin? Perhaps it was better she was released from her suffering, but how terrible it had been to see the family die such painful deaths. Mamka said Vladi would burn in eternal fire for that.
I turned my attention to the front of the corner shop, Jeanne Lanvin spelled out in fat, gold letters above the facade. I barely felt the cold as I peeked into the white-curtained windows.
“I’m buying a hat,” I said.
“It will cost more than our izba,” she said. “Not that it’s ours anymore.”
Though Mamka’s health had improved after almost two years of good food and the pink was back in her cheeks, she was still so thin and stuck to her plain ways and wardrobe.
Mamka, Max, and I stepped into the blond-paneled showroom, the famous wooden spiral staircase curling up at one side. We passed an army of mannequins draped in fine dresses, one more exquisite than the next. It was just as it looked in Mamka’s dressmaking magazines.
Two women stepped to greet us, the older one tall and white-haired, dressed in a suit the color of fresh cream, with matching kid boots, the