“I get that,” I said. “What does that have to do with my meeting him so he can thank me?”
“I can’t have you getting into it with him.”
My jaw literally fell open. Fortunately, I wasn’t chewing any food at the time. “Excuse me?”
“You’re the strong Ukrainian woman—”
“Ukrainian-American woman.”
“Who’s proud of her ancestral heritage.”
“And this is a problem because?”
“Valery can be provocative. Sometimes he says things that can be shocking to a foreigner not used to his manner or his sense of humor. I can see him saying something that offends your feminist or ethnic or some other Nadia sensibility…”
I feigned shock and mouthed the word. “Me?”
“And I simply can’t have that,” Simmy said. “I need this to be a friendly meet and greet, filled with love, joy and fine manners all around.”
I recalled George Romanov describing me as the American whore with Russian bloodlines. I had little doubt I was going to shake the hand of a man who would think of me in the same light, or worse. But what did I care what he thought of me?
“Have you given thought to how you’ll describe me to him?” I said.
Simmy frowned. “What are talking about?”
“How you’ll introduce me to the President of Russia. Will you say I’m your friend—”
“God no. Russian men don’t have female friends.”
“Your investigator?” I said.
“Better.”
“Or your dietary whip mistress?”
“Oh, he’d have a party with that one,” Simmy said.
“And if I shake his hand and act like a European lady, that will help keep you in his good graces?”
“God willing.”
“Then it’s settled,” I said.
We turned our attention back to our dinners. The attendants checked on us again. After they left I asked my one remaining question. I’d purposefully waited until our conversation seemed to have ended on a congenial note in hopes that Simmy would drop his guard and I’d be able to measure his body language when he heard my query.
“Is there any truth to it?” I said.
Simmy looked up from his plate, food in mouth, genuinely confused.
“Did you ever whisper, even in the quietest tones, to the most trusted of friends, under the influence of adult beverages or not, that you could do a better job as President of Russia, even in jest?”
Simmy glanced at me with a stoic expression and then averted my eyes, leaving me with the distinct impression that he’d made at least one such proclamation.
“Since you asked a personal question…” he said.
“You have one for me?”
Simmy studied me. “I believe you’re a passionate person who loves life, but sometimes I get the sense that you’re incapable of trusting another human being, especially a man. And there is a melancholy about you. I see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice, and it leaves me wondering, what is it that caused you to become an isolationist?”
I laughed, out of self-defense as much as confusion over his choice of words. “A what?”
“An isolationist. You are like the country that doesn’t want anything to do with any other country. You might conduct some trade, but you don’t want to be intimate. You look only inward. You never speak of men. You never speak of boyfriends. Why do you insist on being alone?”
Deflections, excuses and lies flooded my mind. Anything but the truth, for I couldn’t stomach thinking about it let alone the humiliation of revealing it to anyone else. And yet I found myself reaching for words that at least broached the subject. A need propelled me, the same kind I’d heard in Simmy’s voice when he’d begged me to come here.
“My first husband cheated on me,” I said.
Simmy waited a beat. “I’m very sorry.”
“We were living in New York. He commuted to his job in New Haven. One day he was giving a lecture in Hartford at Trinity College. My mother called me in an agitated state. She said her date was drunk and determined to take advantage of her. She refused to call the police because the guy was a fellow immigrant she’d known a long time. So I called my husband and told him to drive out to her house. The roads were slick from hail and he had this old Volkswagen with bald tires, and when he said it was too dangerous I told him to get his dick out of his little red-head’s mouth and go save his mother-in-law.”
I stopped because I knew Simmy could figure out the rest for himself.
“I remember you told me your husband died in a car crash. That was the night.”
“That was the night.”
Simmy took a moment to think about it. I considered speaking some more but I simply couldn’t go there.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Simmy said. “You blame yourself for his death, you think you’re unworthy of another man. You are too intelligent for that, Nadia. You must stop that kind of thinking at once.
“Yeah,” I said.
Ever the oligarch issuing orders about what I should and should not think, but I still loved him for asking. No one else gave a shit, and he was right. I didn’t let them. In truth, I didn’t feel guilty about my husband’s death at all. It was his choice to drive fifty miles per hour around the bend to complete his errand and get back to his lover as quickly as possible.
“We are alike then,” Simmy said. “We are both damaged goods.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said.
“Shall we make a fresh start when we land?”
“You bet.”
I might have gone on to finish my dinner in a genuinely pleasant state of mind if I’d told him the complete truth.
But I hadn’t.
CHAPTER 28
We landed at terminal five at Heathrow. A limousine picked us up and drove us a few hundred yards to an unmarked white door. It looked like an entrance for airport personnel or the door to a storage room for equipment, but in fact it was the portal to the Windsor Room, Heathrow’s VIP lounge.
Inside, bonsai trees flanked white leather sofas and chairs beneath a bombproof glass roof. A man resembling the Dali Lama stood talking to a man resembling the actor, Tom Hardy, in one corner. A party from the Middle East, men dressed in dark business suits and white robes alike, occupied another.
Russian President Valery Putler’s entourage took up center stage. Six bodyguards surrounded his sofa. All of them stood at attention with their hands by their sides and their eyes on the interior of the suite.
As soon as he saw Simmy, Putler burst out smiling. He rose to his feet, ignored his bodyguards, and headed our way. He bounded more than he walked, with a strange hitch in his step. He looked like the kid in school who was determined to compensate for his diminutive stature by walking like a tough guy. He was compact, svelte and fit in a perfectly tailored suit but a bit puffy in the face, as though he’d attended one too many Botox parties.
He embraced Simmy, kissed him on both cheeks and appeared to have tears in his eyes when he grasped Simmy by the shoulders.
“Thank you, my friend. Thank you so much.”
Simmy bowed his head. His face flushed and he seemed to be trying hard not to smile like a child who’d pleased an impossible parent. Then he quickly gathered himself and introduced me.
“Mr. President, this is Nadia Tesla. This is the woman who is truly responsible for both our happiness. She’s the one who deserves your thanks.”
“Thank you, Miss Nadia Tesla,” Putler said, “for your service on behalf of this girl, who is very special to me. I am deeply indebted to you.”