But I got nowhere. Indeed, for a time, I resolved to drop the whole subject. But I couldn't; I kept coming back to it — or it came back to me. In September, a magazine sent me a book to review, a history of the Stalinist Comintern, and it was full of stuff on Dimitrov; so I went over that angle again. And kept coming up against the same old blank wall..The child wasn't Dimitrov's, and why should he have cared about Yuri Shastov's daughter? In 1940, especially, he'd had other things on his mind. Bern must have been right: if he'd saved that baby, it was only because it might have saved him… which meant that May must have been a truly miraculous child.
Still, I didn't give up, and, in the end, I decided that Dimitrov must be involved in some way. In 1940, Harry Brightman had been in Povonets, in 1940 both men and the child had turned up in Halifax — the coincidence was too great to be without meaning. Night after night, I thought about what Leonard Forbes had told me and read over the letter Dr. Charlie had written, the one Subotin had been trying to steal. Was it true, any of it? Some of it had to be. Travin's photograph confirmed that Dimitrov was there, and Brightman would hardly have gone through the Florence Raines business without having a reason. But what was that reason, and why had he gone to Russia in the first place? Grainger, of course, claimed that he didn't know; and I believed him. That whole story about Brightman and the woman on Zinoviev's staff— Anna Kostina — that all rang true: rang true, that is, as the sort of lie Brightman would have told him. But perhaps, I considered, it might even be more substantial than that. Hadn't Cadogan mentioned, right at the very beginning, that Bright-man had worried aloud about someone named Anna? And as
Grainger himself had pointed out, the best lies contain a germ of the truth. So one might reasonably ask: did Anna Kostina truly exist? Leonard Forbes hadn't heard of her, but then he doesn't know everything — quite — so I spent a day trying to find her; and, to my surprise, came across her name almost at once. Khostina, A. P… It was right there, in the index of one of the standard histories; and then, having found her the first time, I began seeing her everywhere.
Just as Grainger had said, she'd been part of Zinoviev's entourage, and had been sentenced to a term in the Gulag during the first wave of the purges — I could find nothing about her after 1935.
Earlier, however, she'd been a genuine political actor, albeit with a small part. Close enough to Zinoviev to be considered a confidante — though probably not his mistress — she carried out several sensitive missions on his behalf. Of these, the most interesting had been in 1917, for it was she who'd actually received, and transmitted, the order to murder the Czar. Fearful that the local soviet might take matters into its own hands, Lenin and Zinoviev had dispatched her to Ekaterinburg, where the Czar and his family were being held prisoners, with strict orders on their treatment and a new set of telegraph codes. Everything that had happened afterward had passed through her hands…
What could I think when I made this connection? The possibility which it raised was so improbable, so unrespectable — if you call yourself a professional in this field — that I dismissed it immediately. Or I tried to. But it kept coming back. Was it possible that Yuri Shastov's wife had a personal claim to the arms on the little icon he'd given me? Was it possible that Travin had taken all those photographs of May because he wished to compare her face to another? Was it possible — even for a second — to imagine a survival, an escape, a moment of pity?
If one could, then it became almost certain that Anna Khostina, alone, had known what had happened.
If any of the family had survived the original massacre, they must have done so because of her; and if any of them had ultimately escaped or been allowed to go free, that moment of pity must have come from her heart. And later, either fearful over her failure or regretting her moment of weakness, she might have followed the fate of her own private hostage, realizing later, as her own pitiless fate was revealed, what a weapon she had. Except she couldn't possibly use it—as long as the child, or the child of the child, was still inside Russia. The child of the child… But if she'd told someone, and that person had managed to get the child out — away from Stalin's long grasp — then they would have possessed a talisman, a surety, of almost magical potency.
The child of the child…
Did I believe it?
Could anyone?
Russia, as Peter the Great once said, "is the land where things that don't happen, happen." God knows, he was right about that. As the weeks passed, and Indian summer came and went, I found myself wondering if this was one of those "un-happening" things. I would never know — obviously. But now it became a question of what I believed in my heart, and beliefs, notoriously, are much harder than facts, so I swung back and forth… until late in October I received the only sign, the only help, that I ever would get: a message from May.
Except it was hardly a message.
Only a photograph, May smiling into the sun, with a scrawl on the back: "All our love, M."
Postmarked in Schiphol, the Netherlands — the great airport for Amsterdam — it merely proved that they were alive, and might be living, or traveling, any place in the world. And the photo wasn't any more helpful. It reminded me of that picture which had been so much in my mind, taken by May, with her own Brownie, for it had precisely that stolid, amateur competence of a generation brought up on box cameras: Harry Brightman was positioned with the sun right over his shoulder and his shadow filled up the foreground while his daughter's eyes squinted into the glare. She was standing on a pier. Tied up to it, grand yachts jostled together, filing away in magnificent perspective, and a blue sea glittered beyond — it could have been Cannes, Rio, Palm Beach, any place where the rich spend their time; it could have been that same scene, years ago, when May had first learned that she'd been adopted. I studied her face — for hours, I studied her face. She was the woman I'd loved. Was she happy? If she was who I thought she might be, did she know? There was no way to tell. The breeze pressed her dress around her legs, she had to hold her hat on with her hand, but it was hard to make out her expression. In fact, her face wasn't even in focus: it wasn't in focus because the focus of that picture was behind her, halfway down the pier.
And about the tenth time I looked at it, that fact caught my eye. No; May wasn't in focus — because the focus was on one of the yachts, a good piece behind her. It was a fine, old vessel; not a sailboat, but one of those old diesel yachts from the twenties, all bright varnish and shiny brass trim.
One afternoon, I took a glass and studied it carefully.
Huge, upright, very old-fashioned, she bore the proud lines of an era when the rich were not afraid to look rich: her deckhouse was high, the teak lovingly polished, and her name was spelled out in gilt. In itself, the style of this reminded me of both Brightman and May — reminded me of that anachronistic quality she always seemed to possess — but in truth there was nothing to connect them to it, or even — I repeat — to tie them down to this place: they might have been just passing through, spending their money, enjoying the sights, their presence here pure coincidence. Still, for whatever it's worth, the name of that yacht leapt up through my glass, bright as gold and clear as life: a hint, a hope, or a last message from Bright-man… believe what you will. In any case, I can only say what I saw, tell what I know; and I know she was called Anastasia.