Or worse.
Korsakov, his eyes scanning the faces of the men who dared oppose him, made a slight hand gesture, and the OMON troops withdrew and resumed their positions along the walls.
A thunderous explosion of applause greeted this show of magnanimity and mercy. Here, then, at long last, was a ruler for all the people!
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kuragin said, “it would appear that Russia has a new president! President Korsakov, would you say a few words?”
Then, from one of the last rows in the great hall, came a single voice, rising above the rest.
“Tsar!” the man shouted. “Tsar! Tsar! Tsar!”
The chanting of that word in the chamber was startling. It had remained unused in Russia since that terrible night in an Ekaterinberg basement in 1917, when the last Tsar and his family had been executed, their bodies dumped in a well deep in the forest.
But the men and women of the Duma remembered how to say that word, and the swelling of it grew until it filled the hall, every single one of them stamping their feet and shouting at the top of their lungs.
“Tsar! Tsar! Tsar!”
President Korsakov had moved away from the podium. He stood quietly, hands clasped behind his back, his head lifted high, his eyes shining. After a time, he thought the chant might go on for hours if he didn’t stop it, so he stepped back up to the podium and said nine historic words into the microphone.
“I accept with honor this ancient and noble title.”
Pandemonium, joy, and glee greeted his words.
Russia, after ninety-plus years, had a new Tsar.
HAWKE REMEMBERED ELEPHANTS onstage, but that was all he could recall of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, the first and last opera he’d ever attended. He’d been six years old at the time, seated between his parents in the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. Opera and ballet were not his bailiwick. He’d happily never seen a ballet in his life and was hardly looking forward to this one.
But nothing had prepared him for this moment.
From the very instant Nasimova appeared as a beautiful white swan gliding serenely across the frozen wintry pond, he’d been mesmerized. Perhaps it was simply Tchaikovsky’s genius at work, the full orchestra dipping and soaring with his inspiration. Perhaps it was the corps of ballerinas, each a white swan lovelier than the next. But whatever it was, Hawke felt a deep stirring inside, something moved within him that he’d not imagined even existed.
Rhapsodic, that was the word for how he felt, reaching for Anastasia’s warm hand in the dark. And a new sense of wonder at the mysteries of the schizophrenic Russian soul. It produced unholy monsters like Stalin, capable of murdering millions of his own people. And it produced men capable of imagining this loveliest of dreamlike fantasies.
Alone in the dark of the private Korsakov box with Anastasia at his side, he was entranced. He was actually leaning forward from his plush velvet seat, his elbows on the curved balustrade, his chin resting in the cup of his palms, his eyes sweeping the stage, not wanting to miss a single movement, a single note of the glorious music.
“Do you like it?” he heard Anastasia whisper softly, leaning into him.
He tore his eyes away from the stage, from Nasimova flying above Swan Lake, to look at his lover’s beautiful face. She was especially radiant tonight, a glittering diamond tiara in her golden hair and tiny waterfalls of diamonds suspended from each earlobe. She wore a dark blue silk gown with a plunging neckline, the silk contrasting with her full pale bosom, her whole being luminous in the soft blue artificial moonlight streaming from the stage.
“I can never thank you enough for this, Asia,” he said, kissing her lips. “I didn’t know there could be anything so beautiful.”
“My love,” she said, her eyes shining with a depth of feeling he had never seen.
“What is it?” he asked, falling into her eyes. All day, he’d felt she had something to tell him and that she’d been waiting for this moment.
“There is…something else I must tell you. But I am-afraid. I know I love you. I must have loved you from the moment I saw you. And I think you have feelings for me, too. But now, something has happened. Something that may make you run from me. The timing, you know, it’s just too soon for you, and now I am so afraid you will go away, and all this joy will end for me.”
“How beautiful you are…what is it, darling? Don’t be afraid. Tell me.”
“Something more beautiful than one woman could ever be.”
“Tell me.”
“We are making a baby, darling Alex. I am pregnant with your child.”
Hawke looked at her, saw the tears well up and begin to roll down her cheeks and all the questions and hope in her eyes. He wiped her tears away and kissed her mouth, mixed emotions racing through his mind so rapidly that he had no time to think, and so he just said what was in his heart.
“How wonderful, darling. How absolutely marvelous.”
“You are happy? You won’t run?”
“Deliriously happy,” he said, kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her lips.
“We made our baby during that storm over Bermuda, darling. I know it. That magnificent storm. He will be magnificent, too. Thunder in his heart and lightning in his veins. Just as you are.”
“Are you sure it’s a boy?”
“As sure as I can ever be. I know in my heart.”
TWO HOURS LATER, they emerged from the theater, both of them still glowing with the ballet’s lingering beauty and the bright promise of her news. Hawke had his arm around Anastasia, holding her close to him, protecting her and his child as they made their way through the bustling crowd streaming down the staircase toward the exit.
It had begun snowing, heavily. A warm front from the Mediterranean had brought high winds, colliding with a cold front from Siberia. A serious storm, exhilarating.
Storms and babies, he thought, smiling down at her, and he felt as happy as perhaps he had ever been. That a life marred by so much tragedy as his could have moments like this one made it all seem worthwhile. The whole night lay before them, and their lives would be forever entwined and filled with limitless wonder and possibility. He realized at that very moment that he truly loved this woman. And that his badly broken heart had at long last healed enough to take her inside.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he said, looking out at the frosted city.
Moscow looked its best under a blanket of white. The city was made for snowy nights like this one, and he was eager to make his way to the Pushkin Café, just five or six blocks from the Bolshoi, where he had booked a cozy table in the Library on the second floor. There they would drink champagne and plan their future together.
He was halfway down the steps when he felt the sharp pain in his ribs. He looked down and saw that a short, squat man in a black overcoat had thrust his hand inside Hawke’s own coat. It was the muzzle of a gun, he could feel it now, pushing between two ribs.
“You’re under arrest,” the man said, not even looking up, just jamming the gun harder into his ribcage.
Hawke made two moves at once. With his right hand, he gently pushed Anastasia out of harm’s way. His left hand he brought down hard, palm flat, on the back of the man’s thick neck, driving his head down, only to meet Hawke’s right knee coming up under his chin, breaking his jaw. The move sent the little fellow flying.
“Alex!” Asia cried. “What is-”
Hawke never had time to reply.
Instantly, he was surrounded by five more men similarly dressed in black overcoats, but these were big men, burly types. They were all armed, and they pressed in close, letting him see the pistols they carried.