Zoya

Prince Markovsky was often there when Zoya got home. He always had stories to tell, and he frequently had brought her little cakes, and fresh fruit whenever he could find it. He even brought them one of the few treasures he still had, a priceless icon that her grandmother didn't want to accept, but he insisted. Evgenia knew only too well how desperately they all needed the things they could sell, but Markovsky only waved an elegantly veined hand with long graceful fingers and told them he had more than enough for the moment. His daughter already had a job teaching English.

And the night of her first performance they were all there, in the third row. Zoya had bought the tickets for them with her wages. Only Feodor didn't come. He was proud of her as well, but the ballet was beyond his ken, and Zoya brought him a program, with her name in tiny print near the bottom. Even her grandmother had been proud of her, though she had cried with bittersweet sorrow when she first saw her. She would have preferred anything than to see her own granddaughter on the stage like a common dancer.

“You were marvelous, Zoya Konstantinovna!” The Prince toasted her with champagne he had brought when they went back to the apartment. “We were all so proud of you!” He smiled happily at the young girl with the flaming hair, despite an austere glance and a sniff from his daughter. She thought it shocking that Zoya had become a dancer. The two had never met before, and she was a tall, spare girl with all the earmarks of a spinster. Life in Paris was excruciating for her. She hated the children she taught English to, and it was embarrassing beyond words to see her father drive a taxi. But Zoya shared none of her prim views. Her eyes seemed to blaze with excitement. There was a warm flush on her cheeks, as her fiery hair fell from the bun she had worn and cascaded like flames past her shoulders. She was a beautiful girl, and the excitement of the night seemed only to have enhanced her beauty.

“You must be tired, little one,” the Prince said kindly as he poured the last of the champagne.

“Not at all.” Zoya beamed and pranced around the room on feet that still wanted to dance. It was so much easier than rehearsal had been. It had been everything she'd always dreamed, and more. “I'm not even a little bit tired.” She smiled and then giggled as she took another sip of the champagne he had brought, as Yelena, his daughter, looked on disapprovingly. Zoya wanted to stay up all night and tell them the tales of backstage. She needed to talk about it with people who cared.

“You were fabulous!” he said again, and Zoya grinned. He was so serious and so old, but he seemed to care about her. In a way she wished her father had been there, although it would have broken his heart to see her on the stage … but perhaps, secretly, he might have been proud of her … and Nicolai … tears filled her eyes at the thought, and she set down her glass and turned away, to walk to the window and stare at the gardens outside. “You look lovely tonight,” she heard Vladimir whisper at her side, and she turned to look up at him as he saw the tears shimmer in her eyes. Her lithe body was so young and strong. He ached with desire for her and it shone in his eyes, as she took a step away from him, suddenly aware of what she hadn't noticed before. He was even older than her father had been and she was shocked at what she thought she saw in his eyes now.

“Thank you, Prince Vladimir,” she said quietly, suddenly sad at how desperate they all were, how hungry for love, and some shred of the past they could still share. In St. Petersburg, he would never have looked at her twice, she would have been nothing more than a pretty child to him, but now … now they were clinging to a lost world, and the people they had left behind there. She was nothing more than a way of continuing the past. She wanted to tell Yelena that as she stiffly said good night to them.

Zoya thought of Prince Vladimir again as she undressed and waited for her grandmother to return from the bathroom down the hall.

“It was nice of him to bring us champagne,” her grandmother said as she brushed her hair, her lace nightgown framing her face and making her seem younger in the dim light. She had been beautiful once, and the two women's eyes were almost the same as they met and held. Zoya wondered if she knew that Vladimir was attracted to her. His hand had touched hers as they left, and he held her too close when he kissed her on the cheek.

For a long moment, Zoya didn't answer her. “Yelena seems so sad, doesn't she?”

Evgenia nodded and set her brush down with a solemn air. “She was never a happy child, as I recall. Her brothers were far more interesting, more like Vladimir.” She remembered the handsome one who had asked for Tatiana's hand. “He's a nice man, don't you think?”