Nadia had to kiss and shake hands with a few dozen more people, so many that she began to grow dizzy under the hot sun. God, why wasn’t there a single cloud in the sky to provide a little cover? She’d forgotten to eat breakfast, or much of anything the day before.
She wished she could skip the luncheon at the hotel. She wished she could just go home and pull all the blinds in her apartment and lay on her bed with the fan running full blast against her bare skin.
Most of the mourners had gotten into their cars by now. There was only one more person waiting to speak with her—her great-aunt Galina, who was tiny, wizened, ancient, and probably half-crazy. Nadia steeled herself for whatever Galina might say.
Galina took one of Nadia’s hands in her wrinkly old claw. Her skin felt uncomfortably soft and loose, though at least her hand was cool to the touch. Nadia was only average height, but Galina was much smaller, looking up at her with pale, rheumy eyes.
“I saw three ravens in a cypress tree,” Galina said. “As we were walking in.”
“That’s good,tetushka” Nadia said with a sigh, having no idea what superstitious meaning that omen might have, for good or for bad.
“You know,” Galina said, squinting up at Nadia, “your mother came and stayed with me for a time, when she first came to Paris.”
“Did she?” Nadia said. She knew about as much of her mother’s early life as she did about crows in cypress trees.
“I still have some of her things at my house,” Galina said. “In a little box, up in the attic. You come for tea tomorrow, and I’ll give it to you.”
Nadia had her mother’s entire house full of belongings to pack up, a task she was dreading with every fiber of her being. She didn’t need another box to add to the mess. Especially not if it meant going all the way to Galina’s little flat in Rocquencourt, where she’d have to pretend to enjoy watery tea and musty old biscuits for who knows how many hours.
But Galina wouldn’t let go of her hand until Nadia agreed.
“You come tomorrow,” she insisted, “at one o’clock.”
“Alright,” Nadia reluctantly said. “I’ll come.”
* * *
2
Nadia
Nadia begged off having Maxim stay the night at her place. She told him she was too exhausted from the funeral, but really, she just wanted to be alone.
Nadia kept her own flat on Avenue Montaigne, just as Maxim had his own place in St-Germain-des-Pres. They had never quite been able to agree in which neighborhood of Paris they should buy a place, so as yet they had never moved in together
Truth be told, they liked having their own space. They quarreled if they spent too many hours in a row together. Nadia secretly thought they would have to buy a very large house indeed, so they could each disappear to opposite corners when they started to annoy one another.
Maxim could be very particular, very critical. Nadia suspected that he didn’t like seeing her first thing in the morning, when she hadn’t applied her makeup yet, or brushed her hair.
For her part, she disliked how much he drank, and how late he stayed out with friends she considered boorish and spoiled. Maxim exclusively hobnobbed with the children of the Parisian elite. When Nadia made friends with models or artists or students who weren’t up to his standards, he called them her “little charity projects”.
Maybe he was right. Wasn’t there something condescending about spending time with people because their lives were so completely different from your own? They weren’t zoo animals, after all. But Nadia was drawn to people who had lived a different sort of life than herself. She’d been sheltered, growing up wealthy and protected.
That’s why she liked her cousin Violet so much. Violet hadn’t been wealthy or protected in the slightest before she found out that she was Viktor Turgenev’s daughter and heir to a mafia empire.
It seemed to give Violet a certain practicality and compassion that other people lacked.
People like Maxim.
He had his own good qualities, of course—he was handsome. Educated. Charming, when he wanted to be. And he was Paris Bratva just like Nadia, so he knew all the same people, all the same things. Their pairing was easy, natural—what everyone wanted.
They were supposed to be getting married within the year. So, they’d have to compromise on the house and their friends eventually. Nadia wore Maxim’s ring every day—an eight-carat pear-shaped stone, on a diamond-spangled band. She had small, slim hands. The heavy stone sometimes twisted around and hung down on her finger.
She’d be sorry to leave her flat when the wedding finally happened. She loved the night-time view of the long, brilliantly lit Champs-Elysees, as well as all the high-end fashion, and the bars and clubs and restaurants right outside her doorstep, that were always full of cheerful noise and commotion. She never felt lonely there.
She lived in a lovely stone building from the 1800s, with elaborate cornices without and plaster-molding within. The kitchen was tiny, but she never cooked. She’d turned the second bedroom into her closet—walls of gleaming leather shoes and purses, carefully organized and arranged by style, purpose, and season.
That closet used to bring her so much pleasure. She used to spend an hour or more per day picking out beautiful outfits for herself. But somehow it didn’t spark the same joy anymore. In fact, when she’d had to pick something out for her mother’s funeral, it had almost given her a sense of panic, looking at that mass of clothing and accessories. It was too much. It was overwhelming.
