sleep in one room here, and the house is very small, but at the same time cozy. Perhaps a bit like your apartment with Aunt Evgenia. Give her my love, dearest, dearest one, and write to me when you can. Your dancing sounds fascinating, when I told Mama she was shocked, and then she laughed and said how very like you to go all the way to Paris to run off to the ballet! We all send you our love, and I most especially …” And this time, she signed her letter as she hadn't in a very long time, “OTMA.” It was a code they had devised as children for letters sent from all of them, signifying Olga, Tatiana, Marie, Anastasia. And it made Zoya's heart long for them all.
With Clayton gone, she was even more lonely. There was nothing to do but work and come home to Grandmama after each performance. She realized then the extent to which Clayton had spoiled her. When he was around, there were always outings, presents, surprises, plans. And now, suddenly, there was nothing. She wrote to him even more often than she wrote to Marie in Tobolsk, but his answers were brief and hurried. He had a great deal of work to do in Chaumont for General Pershing.
October was even worse, Feodor caught the Spanish flu, and Zoya and her grandmother took turns nursing him for weeks, but finally, unable to eat or drink, or even see anymore, he succumbed, as both women sat crying silently at his bedside. He had been so loyal and kind to them, but like an animal taken too far from his home, he was unable to survive in a different world. He smiled gently at them before he died, and said softly,“… Now I can go back to Russia….”
They buried him in a little cemetery outside Neuilly, Vladimir had driven them there, and Zoya cried all the way home, feeling as though she had lost her only remaining friend. Everything seemed suddenly so grim, even the weather. Without Feodor there was never enough firewood and both Evgenia and Zoya couldn't bring themselves to use his room.
It was as though the pain of their losses was never going to end. Clayton hadn't been to Paris in almost two months, and when Zoya came home from work late one night, she got a dreadful shock as she opened the door and saw a man standing in their living room in his shirt sleeves. And for a moment, Zoya's heart stopped because she thought he was a doctor.
“Is something wrong?”
He looked at her in equal amazement, as he stared at her with wide eyes, momentarily silenced by her unexpected beauty. I'm sorry, mademoiselle … I … your grandmother …”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes, of course. I believe she is in her room”
“And who are you?” Zoya couldn't understand what he was doing there in his shirt sleeves, and she almost reeled from his next words.
“Didn't she tell you? … I live here. I moved in this morning.” He was a pale, thin, youngish man in his early thirties, with thin hair and a crippled leg. He walked with a marked limp as he went back to Fe-odor's room and closed the door, as Zoya flew into hers in a fury.
“What have you done? I can't believe it!” Zoya stared at her angrily as she sat in the bedroom's only chair, and then Zoya noticed that Evgenia had moved a few more things into their room for their private comfort. “Who is that man?” She offered no preamble, she couldn't believe what her grandmother had done, as Evgenia looked up quietly from her knitting.
“I've taken in a boarder. We had no choice. The jeweler offered me absolutely nothing for my pearls, and there's very little left to sell. Sooner or later we would have had to do it.” Her face was filled with quiet resignation.
“Couldn't you have at least asked, or even warned me? I'm not a child, and I live here too. That man is a total stranger! What if he kills us in our sleep, or steals the last of your jewels? What if he gets drunk … or brings in awful women?”
“Then we'll ask him to leave, but calm yourself, Zoya, he seems perfectly nice, and very shy. He was wounded at Verdun last year, and he's a teacher.”
“I don't care what he is. This apartment is too small to take in a stranger, and we get enough