Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [50]
Eugenia looked shocked, and her lorgnette trembled. “Sasha! How can you even suggest that!”
I shrugged, feeing my shoulder slip out of the taffeta and then dip back again. “It doesn’t matter, Aunt Genia. No one is playing by the rules anymore, not the emperor, not the English. You’re the only one who perseveres.”
“Sometimes one’s integrity is the only thing one has left.” She turned away, sighing, and pointed her lorgnette at the orchestra tuning their violins in the orchestra pit. I thought the time was right to talk to her about my expectations for her help.
“Yes,” I persisted, “but let’s try to save more than our integrity alone. Jack may be able to obtain proof the English are planning a war—but you will have to do everything you can to get it in front of Constantine.”
“He would do that?” She laughed softly. “Just be careful you don’t put your trust in those who are not worthy of it.”
I was about to reply, but the first bars of the overture sent a hush over the theater. I knew from experience that Eugenia took her music seriously, and it would be wise not to annoy her by talking during the performance. Besides, I thought, it would be good for her to consider my request.
I sat back in my chair and watched the velvet-draped figures bumping against each other and singing in Italian. Someone jumped off a papier-mâché wall, and then they sang some more. I could never follow an opera (probably because I never bothered to read the programme that helpfully explained the plot), so I just tried to enjoy the music, while watching Jack out of the corner of my eye. Between studying and dress preparation I had not had time to talk to him of late. He also seemed preoccupied with concerns of his own. Exams were drawing closer, and I surmised he was working on getting the documents from Nightingale. I couldn’t wait to show him Wong Jun’s letter.
During the intermission, Eugenia and I went to the foyer, where unobtrusive waiters dressed in white weaved in and out of the crowd with trays of Champagne glasses. Eugenia and I nodded to a few acquaintances but kept to ourselves—primarily, to spare the Obolensky and Orlov families the embarrassment of finding excuses to avoid us. I had been so engrossed in the life of the university that I had not noticed how the position of my family had deteriorated; it wasn’t any specific misdeed or overt scandal, but a cumulative effect of Eugenia’s unorthodoxy and my own small and unwomanly trespasses, coupled with the withdrawal of the emperor’s support. We were now considered somewhat less than desirable company.
“So what,” I whispered to Eugenia. “We don’t need those people.”
“Those people used to be my friends,” she said, and drained her Champagne flute in one long swallow.
“Mishkin still is,” I said. “Look, Aunt Genia. You told me yourself that you get to know who your friends are when things are not going well.”
She shook her head, sadly. “This is how one learns that one has very few friends.”
The end of second quarter and exam week came quickly and unavoidably. Beyond them yawned the abyss of the unknown—China. I’d soon embark on an important mission, more dangerous but only slightly less terrifying than the season with its social visits and occasional ball. Still, I thought myself lucky to be given this opportunity. I did not concern myself with idle thoughts of from whence it came—God, or destiny, or some other unknowable entity.
By the time classes ended, I was feverish with excitement, and Olga and Dasha both insisted that I looked consumptive. I was less worried about the exams, although I did study, than about the approaching journey.
To my surprise, Eugenia had agreed to assist us, and did not argue with me going to China. I wished she had; I wish she had some of my mother’s irrational protectiveness that would make her cling to me and beg me not to go. But Eugenia only sighed, and wrote letters for me to carry to bureaucrats in Moscow and every major city east of it. She cried at night, when she thought I could not hear her.
Jack and I were supposed to take a train