“No,” Nadia said, shaking her head. “I know I’m being stubborn about it, but I want to translate it myself. I guess I don’t want it to be fast. Because once I’ve copied it all down, it’ll be over.”
“I understand,” Nikolai nodded.
“You do?”
“I have a birthday card from my mother that I never opened. She wrote it the day before she died. If I open it and read it, it will just be another card. But for now, I can imagine that it says any number of things.”
“What do you want it to say?” Nadia asked.
“I don’t know,” Nikolai said. “She died in a car crash, so it’s not like she knew it was her last day. So, it probably just says ‘Happy Birthday.’ She wasn’t a poet.”
He had to stop bringing up his dead mother with Nadia. It wasn’t something he usually talked about. If he was going to accomplish his goal with this girl, he needed to keep the conversation more cheerful, more romantic.
But somehow, he kept finding himself telling her things that he had never told anyone before. He was being sincere when he needed to be strategic.
And the strategy at the moment was to get rid of Maxim.
“Why are you really here alone?” he said to Nadia.
“I was supposed to meet Maxim,” she admitted.
“Is he on his way?” Nikolai asked.
“I doubt it,” Nadia said. She took another large gulp of wine.
“Well,” Nikolai said, looking at her intently, “he’s a fool to keep you waiting.”
“I had something important to talk to him about,” Nadia said. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
She covered her left hand with her right, twisted the heavy diamond on her ring finger.
Nikolai thought the ring was extremely ugly. It was too heavy for Nadia’s slim little hands. He would get her something as light and elegant as herself.
Their waiter brought the food to the table, setting the plates down in front of them. Nikolai took a delicate curl of coconut on a slice of rich Russian rye bread, topped with glistening beads of black caviar. He held it out to Nadia.
“Try this,” he said, “and tell me it’s not the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted.”
Nadia leaned forward ever so slightly, allowing him to feed it to her.
* * *
15
Nadia
Nadia stayed at the White Rabbit with Nikolai far longer than she’d intended. Over the course of several hours, while they laughed and talked, they finished the entire bottle of Corton. Nikolai even convinced her to order the famous honeysuckle ice cream, with berry meringue and lavender water.
“I like watching you eat,” Nikolai said, grinning as Nadia spooned up the last bite of melting ice cream.
That was a far cry from Maxim, who liked to tell her she wouldn’t fit in her jeans if she ordered anything other than a salad.
Well, fuck Maxim. It didn’t matter what he thought anymore.
Nadia found herself surprised by Nikolai in a number of ways. She’d thought he was arrogant at first, and she didn’t entirely trust him. She was pretty sure he’d only insisted on driving her home from the party at his house in order to needle Maxim. And she wasn’t sure she believed that he was at this same restaurant by chance, out of all the dozens of upscale dining establishments in Moscow.
However, the longer they talked, the more she was impressed by his intelligence and humor. Most arrogant men hated to be contradicted, especially by a woman. But Nikolai seemed to like when she challenged his opinion on art or politics. They’d argued about nationalism for almost an hour—Nikolai believing that Russia’s success in the last two decades was due to a focus on Russian interests, and Nadia’s viewpoints being tinged with the liberalism of her upbringing in France, with its membership in the European Union.
At no point did they become annoyed with each other. It was more of a tennis match, where both Nadia and Nikolai couldn’t help but be impressed when their opponent scored a good point.
