had both survived.
It seemed miraculous now, in the face of everything, and he didn't tell her how close he had come more than once to being killed on the Marne. It didn't matter now. He was alive, and she was safe, and he silently thanked whatever guardian angels they had as they made their way through the crowds back to the apartment.
He was billeted in a small hotel on the Left Bank this time, along with dozens of other officers. Pershing was back in the Mills house himself, and it was difficult for them to be alone anywhere, but they stole what private moments they could, and one night they even dared to make love quietly in Antoine's old room, long after Evgenia had gone to sleep. She was so tired now, and she slept so much of the time. Zoya had been worried about her for months, but even those fears seemed to dim in the light of being reunited with Clayton.
They talked about Nicholas late one night, and he admitted to her that he had always feared it might come to that. And she shared her fears with him about the others.
“The Russian newspaper said they had been moved to safety … but where? I've written to Mashka five times, and I still have no answer.”
“Botkin may not be able to get the letters out anymore. It may not mean anything, little one. You just have to have faith,” he said quietly, hiding his own fears from her.
“You sound like Grandmama,” she whispered to him in the dark room as they lay pressed close together.
“Sometimes I feel as old.” He had noticed how frail the old woman had become since July. She didn't look well, and he sensed that Zoya knew it too. She was almost eighty-four years old now, and the past two years had been hard for all of them. It was remarkable that she had survived at all. But they both forgot their concerns for her as their bodies meshed again as one, and they made love until he tiptoed stealthily down the stairs before morning.
They spent as much time as possible together in the next few weeks, but on December 10, almost exactly a month after the end of the war, he came to her with a heavy heart. They were sending him back to the States at the end of the week, but more important than that, he had made a painful decision about her.
She heard him say he was leaving as though in a dream. It seemed impossible to believe. He couldn't be. The moment she had never faced, the day she had thought would never come, was finally upon them.
“When?” she asked, her heart like a stone in her chest.
“In two days.” His eyes never left hers, there was still more to say. And he still wondered if he'd have the courage to say it.
“They don't give us much time for good-byes, do they?” Zoya said sadly. They were in her tiny, bleak living room, and it was a gray day, as Evgenia slept peacefully in their room, as she did most of the time now. Zoya was back at work again, but her grandmother didn't seem to notice.
“Will you be coming back to Paris again?” Zoya asked him as though he were a stranger, feeling separate from him now, preparing herself for what was to come. There had already been too many good-byes in her life, and she wasn't sure she would survive this one.
“I don't know.”
‘There's something you're not telling me.” Maybe he was married and had ten children in New York. Anything was possible now. Life had already betrayed her too often, not that Clayton ever had. But she was even angry at him now.
“Zoya … I know it won't make sense to you, but I've been thinking a great deal … about us.” She waited, blinded by pain. It was amazing that just when one thought there couldn't be any more pain, there was. It seemed to be endless. “I want to set you free, to lead your own life here. I thought about taking you to New York with me … I wanted to very badly. But I don't think the Countess could make the trip, and … Zoya,” he seemed to choke on the words, he had been thinking about it for days, “Zoya, I'm too old for you. I've told you that before. It's not fair. When you're thirty, I'll be almost sixty.”
“What difference