“I can get you another blouse.” His voice had an edge to it. He stood a little closer to her and eyed the crowd. At first, she thought him angry that she hadn’t told him the entire story. If he thought she’d been compromised . . . But he seemed more protective than upset.
Filip led her to one of the larger shacks full of secondhand clothing. “See if you can find something that will fit.”
She sorted through the items until she found a dress and two blouses.
“Would these work?” Filip handed her a wool skirt and another dress.
They looked about the right size. “Yes. Thank you.” She put the dress she’d picked out down. She didn’t want him to have to buy two, and maybe he preferred the one he’d selected. She didn’t care one way or the other. She loved neither. That would be the new normal. She’d once taken great pleasure in new clothing, but there would be no more dresses of damask or velvet in exquisite cuts and daring colors. Now she would blend in, wearing what was practical, warm, and tidy.
Filip stood before the merchant, somehow holding the dress she’d put aside. “I’ll need several pairs of stockings as well. And drawers and chemises.”
As the man presented the items, Filip felt the thickness and checked the ends of the stockings. He motioned her over and took the items she held. “See which of these will fit.” He nodded at the underthings.
There wasn’t a place to try anything on, so she did her best to hold them up and guess. One chemise was stained to a gray-yellow hue under the arms, so she put that one aside. “Any of these others will do.”
Filip put a pile of clothes on the counter. In addition to the skirt and dress he’d picked out, he had the two blouses and dress she’d chosen, a coat, two headscarves, a fur cap, a belt, a hairbrush, two blankets, and a leather attaché case. He added the stockings and underthings and motioned for the shopkeeper. “I’ll take all these, for this.” He held out a pocket watch.
The merchant took the watch and examined it skeptically. “You ask a great deal for one watch.”
“Yes, but it was made by the finest watchmaker in Prague. It keeps excellent time and has gold detailing. See?” Filip pointed to something, but Nadia was at the wrong angle to view the craftsmanship. “And look at the work here.” Filip opened the watch to show the inside.
The merchant considered it. “Yes, it’s a nice piece, but you’ve picked out a lot of clothes.”
“You’re getting the better deal, my friend. If I weren’t in a hurry, I’d sell the watch and go from stall to stall. And I’d get far more by doing it that way. But since you are so convenient, I’m willing to let you have it. It’s a wonderful watch. My grandfather gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday. See how well it’s held up?”
He was trading a watch from his grandfather? That was too much to ask. “Filip, I don’t want you to give up a present from your grandfather for me.” She would have treasured any keepsake from her family—knowledge that she’d allowed someone to steal her brooch still cut deeply, and that hadn’t been anything special.
Filip caught her eye. “I’m not sentimental about it. I just want to receive its full value.”
The merchant weighed the watch in his hand. “How old is it?”
“About eight years.”
“No scratches . . .”
“Hard to believe I carried it through the trenches, isn’t it? It’s extremely durable. Ought to last someone a lifetime.”
The man looked from the clothing to the watch. “The watch for these.” He separated the clothing into two piles and pointed to about two-thirds of the original amount. Nadia was inclined to accept the offer, grateful for anything. But she’d gotten her hopes up that she would have two dresses and two blouses, and a warmer coat. She could make do with less, so she forced her face into a neutral expression. She wouldn’t sully Filip’s generosity by showing disappointment.
Filip chuckled. “All of it, or the deal is off.”
The merchant hesitated. “I’ll give you the entire pile in exchange for your handgun.”
“Not a chance.” All mirth left Filip’s voice. “My weapons are not options for bartering.”
Slowly, the man shook his head. “Who would I sell a watch like this to?” It was the same complaint Nadia had heard in Piryatin when she’d tried to sell her brooch.
“Plenty of rich people are leaving, wanting items they can easily carry. You could get a noblewoman’s entire wardrobe for something like that watch. Or a few paintings stolen from a manor by an enterprising peasant. But if you don’t want to risk it, we’ll go elsewhere.” Filip’s expression suggested that he didn’t care one way or another. He held his hand out for the watch.
The merchant opened the watch again and traced the detail work with a delicate finger. “I’ll make the trade.”
“Good.” If Filip was relieved, he didn’t show it, but Nadia felt like applauding.
After the man wrapped the purchases in paper and tied them, they left.
“I don’t know how to thank you.” She needed the clothing, but she hated to think of the cost. “I’m sorry you had to give up the watch.”
“My grandfather is a watchmaker, and he made two watches for me. I prefer the one I wear on my wrist.”
“Your grandfather is a watchmaker?” She would have been grateful to him even if his family were the poorest of farmers or the lowest of factory workers, but she could more easily find something in common with a family of craftsmen.
“Yes. His father, too, and his father. I apprenticed with him. If I ever get back home, I’m to take over the business.”
“I thought the shopkeeper would say no. Is the watch really that valuable?”
Filip shrugged. “I doubt he paid much for the clothes. Probably stole them or bought them cheap from someone desperate for a little cash.”
Nadia nodded. She would have traded a trunk of her clothes, all of them far nicer than the ones they’d just purchased, for a train ticket or a few loaves of bread. “Is your father a watchmaker too?”
Filip opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Yes.”
It was a simple question, and he’d given a simple answer, but not without hesitation. “But you’re to take over your grandfather’s business, not your father’s?”
Filip’s steps slowed but only for a moment. “My father’s not . . . well, he . . . he’s not really up to it. He spent eight years in prison. Since then, he’s been good at drinking.”
Her father-in-law, at least in name, was a criminal and a drunk. She hadn’t expected that. Awkward silence stretched out between them, so she filled it. “What was his crime?” She wasn’t sure it was any of her business, but she was curious.
“Conspiracy against the crown.”
Maybe she and Filip weren’t so alike after all. Did he share his father’s beliefs, and had his father been doing in Austria what the Bolsheviks were now doing in Russia? “What are prisons like where you come from?”
“About as awful as they are here.”
“I’m sorry.” She meant for his father’s suffering but also for Filip’s apparent uneasiness about the subject and for all the wrongs the wealthy had inflicted on the rest of society. Some nobles inherited lands and vast fortunes. Nadia had inherited the revenge of the lower classes, a resentment built up over generations. She wished her remorse could somehow be sufficient restitution.
“I didn’t learn a lot about watchmaking from my father. But he taught me something important: it’s a tragedy to lose your life for a cause you believe in. It’s an even larger tragedy to survive and live with failure for the rest of your life.”
What a melancholy childhood her husband must have had. “Was your father a Marxist?”
“No. A Nationalist.”