“It’s also beautiful there,” said Klim. “High windows with shutters, and every door is a work of art. But there’s nothing fancy about the locals.”
“Will you move out of your apartment there now?” Lubochka asked.
“I don’t think so. My building has a restaurant on the ground floor, and above that, there’s an Italian family with six marriageable daughters. I’m on the floor above, and I have a beautiful balcony with an ornamental railing and some ancient aristocratic family’s coat of arms. By default, I have come to think of it as my own. How could I give up such delights?”
“I’m sure you can,” said Lubochka.
The waiters brought them some thinly sliced cured fish, golden roast quail, foie gras with prunes in tiny porcelain cups, and champagne in ice buckets. Here, in the Oriental Bazaar, it seemed that no one had heard of the alcohol ban that had been imposed since the beginning of the war and the empty food stores that were being besieged like fortresses.
“What do have to go back to in Argentina?” asked Lubochka, taking a sip of her champagne. “No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be fully accepted there. And neither will your children. Here you have a name, you are the scion of a noble family, but there you’ll always be looked upon as a stranger. You can’t come from nowhere and become someone important.”
Klim smiled and nodded toward the patrons at the neighboring tables: the young ladies in silks and gentlemen in evening dress or military uniforms.
Lubochka lowered her head, embarrassed. She had repeatedly told Klim that the world had been turned upside down by the war and that now everything was run by nameless upstarts. Alas, she had got so used to these new surroundings that she had often fallen victim to her own wishful thinking and failed to notice the alarm signals all around her.
The old ways didn’t work anymore, and Nizhny Novgorod was not what it used to be. Its fair, which had once hosted up to two million visitors per season, was now half boarded up. There were no goods to sell and no customers to buy them. Prices were rising every day, factories were closing, and thousands of soldiers were dying at the front—every single day. Sure, Klim’s inheritance might be able to buy him a semblance of civilized life, but he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it knowing that there were hungry women looting the food store next door.
The more Klim thought about it, the more he wanted to leave Nizhny Novgorod as soon as possible, but he did not dare mention this to Lubochka and her guests. If something bad were to happen, he would be able to escape to safety, but they had nowhere to go.
Suddenly, Lubochka’s expression changed as if she had spotted something strange behind him. He turned and noticed Countess Odintzova standing next to the terrace railing.
This time, she wasn’t dressed in mourning. The evening sun was reflected in the exquisite blue beading of her dress. Her dark hair fell loosely from her parting in waves and was swept into an extravagant chignon on the back of her head. She fanned herself with a large black fan, the delicate ostrich feather fronds waving to and fro like seaweed.
And I took her for a maid, Klim thought. What a fool!
Should he apologize for his stupid mistake? Invite her to his table and then summon the waiters and order whatever dish might take her fancy?
The orchestra struck up a tango, and a singer in a beautiful dress embroidered with red roses started to sing.
Klim rose.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Lubochka and headed across the terrace to the countess.
What is she doing here? he wondered. Is she waiting for someone? Or maybe she came with someone else?
Nina turned her head, and her black fan fell out of her hand and hung limply from her wrist on its thin velvet ribbon.
“Good evening,” Klim said and bowed.
His pulse beat faster. Will she slap me across the face? Or will she laugh at me, recalling my threats to fire her?
“Good evening,” said the countess.
Her gray-green eyes looked calm and impenetrable. If she were angry or annoyed at him, Klim was confident that he would know what to say. He would come up with some joke or droll phrase. But Nina was looking at him as if she had never seen him before. Maybe she did not recognize him?
“Are you dancing tonight?” asked Klim.
To his joy and amazement, she silently gave him her hand, and he led her to the dance floor.
“It’s an Argentine tango,” said Klim. “You should stand closer to me.”
“Like this?” Nina looked into his eyes for a moment, moved closer, and Klim felt her light breath on his neck.
“Yes, that’s right.” He placed her hand on his shoulder and took her gently by the waist.
“So, what do I have to do?” she asked.
“Just follow me.”
They danced, and he felt the hard touch of the rings on her slender hand, the warmth of her thigh through the silk of her skirts, the tense muscles of her back, and something else: the intimate seam of a shift beneath her dress under his shameless, tingling fingers.
The singer sang about impossible happiness. Klim looked at the woman in his arms, and his heart froze with the inspiration and foreboding of something huge and inevitable.
When the tango was over, Klim stepped back and bowed. “¡Gracias, señora!”
What now? Should he invite Nina to his table?
But she did not answer. Next to them, there was a tall, sturdy man with a shaved head, about forty-five years old.
“Nina Vasilievna,” he called to her respectfully, using her patronymic. “We need to talk.”
“Sure.” She turned to Klim. “Excuse me.”
They left, and Klim returned to Lubochka.
“Do you know who that gentleman was?” he asked.
“Everyone knows him,” she snapped. “It’s Mr. Fomin, the chairman of the city’s Provisions Committee.”
The plate in front of Lubochka was full of grapes, torn off from the bunch but not eaten. She took one of them and squeezed it with her manicured fingers. Slipping from her grasp, the grape rolled under the table next to them.
Lubochka waved to the waiter. “The check, please.”
Klim looked around the terrace for Nina, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“We’re going home,” Lubochka said. “I have a headache.”
All the way home, Lubochka lectured Klim.
“You do realize that Nina is trying to hook you, don’t you? She’s been wearing nothing but mourning dress for three years, and now, suddenly, she’s out at a restaurant, dressed from top to toe in her finest finery. I told her yesterday that we were planning to go to the Oriental Bazaar, and there she was.”
“Why are you so angry with her?” Klim asked in surprise. “It was me who invited her. I just wanted to make amends, and your friend was happy to accept it.”
The melody of the tango was still spinning in Klim’s head. His whole arm from his elbow to his fingertips still retained the vivid and treasured memory of what it had been like to hold Nina.
Lubochka narrowed her eyes, and her lower lip trembled as it used to do in her childhood when she was about to cry.
“Don’t be fooled by Nina. She owes you money.”