read earlier, now soaked through, on the front table. “Young man had this newspaper with him. Headed for the docks to find that ship. Says he’s looking for his mother.”
Madame LaBlanc turned to face Mamka. “Don’t I know you?”
“Yes, madame. I work for Madame Lanvin.”
“I thought so. If your daughter cannot keep constant watch on this boy, maybe keep him on a leash? He will end up crushed by a horse or worse.”
“Of course, madame,” Mamka said.
The policeman held the door open for Madame LaBlanc and the two hurried off.
I pulled Max by the hand, in from the vestibule. “You were a very bad boy.”
Mamka pulled the towel from the pillowcase and dried Max’s hair.
“Do you hear me?” I asked.
Max picked up his pillowcase and headed back to his room, sucking his thumb as he walked.
* * *
—
RADIMIR COULD BARELY CONTAIN himself the day he was to show me Luna Park, an amusement park in Porte Maillot, on the western edge of Paris. We came by metro to the park gates, French flags fluttering above us atop the stone crowns. How pretty the entrance looked, strung with foil bells and spiky tinsel. I smiled as Radimir paid my one-franc admission. This was a date, far from anywhere Taras would see us, and Mamka had agreed to watch Max. And best of all, my lips itched, which everyone knows is a sign a person is about to be kissed.
Radimir hurried us into the park, under the great arch, through the crowd.
“Come along,” he said. “We need to get to Shoot-the-Chutes before the line forms.”
It was half-price day since the park was closing for the winter and, as a result, much of Paris was there. Well-dressed people from all walks of life lined up for the rides. Women in their good coats and muffs, men in dark coats and bowler hats. Since admission was free to those in the military, men in uniform peppered the crowd.
Radimir had dressed up, too, in a dark blue coat, and his tie matched the color of his pond-bottom eyes. He had left his hat at home so his auburn hair shone in the little sun struggling through the clouds.
“This is the Theater of Flames,” he said as we passed a tall, white stucco building. I arched back my head to read Theatre de Flamme spelled out in bamboo letters across the facade.
“They eat fire there,” Radimir said. “We’ll come back later.”
Why would someone eat flames?
I didn’t want to go on the Shoot-the-Chutes ride in which brave people rode in boats down a steep chute and splashed into the water below, but I did it for Radimir. We rode in a boat with the name Gaston painted on its rear and I hid my face in his coat as we hit the water and great plumes shot into the air.
We rode the romantic, scenic railway in little connected train cars, high above Paris, and could see much of the city. Radimir wrapped his arm around me as we went higher and watched the lights of Paris coming on, the Tour Eiffel in the distance.
Radimir looked about to kiss me at the very top but just brushed something off my face.
I gathered my courage and whispered, “I have not been completely truthful with you. You may hate me.”
“I could never.”
“Max is not a child Mamka and I were watching. He’s mine.”
Radimir turned to face me. “Yours?”
“I mean I have sole care of him. The mother fell under unfortunate circumstances and I ended up with him. Mamka and I protected him. He would have died without me.”
“Well, certainly she wants her child back.”
I turned my gaze to Paris in the distance. “Perhaps. She is a cousin to the tsar. I am afraid she may come here to Paris for him.”
“Then, of course, you should return him to her, Varinka.”
“But I’m the only mother he knows.”
Radimir took my hand. “You were good to help him, but it’s wrong to keep them apart. I grew up without my own parents. You cannot rob the boy of his mother.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Come back to Russia with me, Varinka, and have all the babies you like.”
“It’s hard to explain how much I love him. He is so smart. I am teaching him to read. He sits on my lap when I read to him and burrows in close….”
“If you loved him you would put his happiness first. Come back to Petrograd with me, Varinka. We’ll travel. To Italy. Bring your Mamka. I’ve looked into