Ted Bell: Phantom

The child peeked out at Hawke for a second or two, then hid his face once more in the folds on his mother’s skirts. Hawke went to him and dropped to a knee on the floor beside his son.

“Alexei?” he said softly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Alexei?”

The boy responded to the voice and touch and turned to stare silently at Hawke, seemingly memorizing every curve and plane of his face. Alexei’s eyes were big and blue and lively. He seemed totally unafraid of the tall stranger now. Hawke was shocked to see a very small version of himself. It was the face he’d seen in scrapbooks his own mother had kept, little Alex building castles by the sea, little Alex on his pony, little Alex reading a picture book.

“Does he speak English?” Hawke asked, his eyes never leaving his son.

“Almost as well as he speaks Russian. We’ve been teaching him both since he first learned to talk,” the young English nurse said, and then she slipped silently from the room.

“Hello,” Hawke said, reaching up and lightly stroking the boy’s plump cheek, lit to a lovely flame, the flush on the face of a child after a warm bath on a cold evening. Alexei turned to hide his eyes again, then, seeing his nurse gone, turned back to stare openly at this person called a “father.”

“Say hello, Alexei,” Anastasia said. “Say hello to your father. Wherever have you put your manners?”

“Hello,” the child chirped. “Hello, hello, hello.”

“How old are you?” his father asked.

He looked shyly at Hawke for a moment, then raised his chubby pink hand, holding up three fingers.

“Good for you! And how many is that, Alexei?”

“Free?”

“Three, that’s right. Do you want to know a secret?”

Alexei nodded his head vigorously, already a great lover of secrets. His father said, “When I was three, I was exactly your age. Isn’t that something?”

The boy nodded again, instinctively knowing he was expected to agree, and his mother watched father and son together, finding a lovely peace wash over her.

Alex said, “You’re a very big boy for three, Alexei. Will you give your father a wee hug? I would like that very much.”

Anastasia bent down and whispered in the child’s ear. Alexei looked at Hawke’s open arms for a moment, unsure of himself, but then stepped into his embrace. Hawke held him closely, looking up at Anastasia, his eyes gleaming with unchecked emotion. He saw her look away, overwhelmed perhaps, and he suddenly felt as if all the molecules in the room had risen up and then rearranged themselves before settling down into a strange new pattern.

He had found his life at last. The life he’d been meant to live.

“Our baby boy,” he said. “Our beautiful, beautiful baby boy.”

His mother turned her noble head slowly so that her eyes rested with overwhelming tenderness and affection on the man and the boy.

“Will you give him a kiss before he goes back upstairs, Alex? It’s past time for his nap, I’m afraid.”

Hawke bent forward and kissed his son on the forehead, then ruffled his curly dark hair, and stood back up. The nurse reentered the room and picked Alexei up in her arms. As he was carried away, looking back over her shoulder, unbidden, Alexei waved at his father and smiled, his blue eyes alight.

Hawke stood mute, staring at the door long after the nurse had pulled it closed behind her.

“Alex?” Anastasia said, stirring him out of his reverie.

“Yes?”

“Would you like to go for a walk along the lake? The snow has stopped and the light is lovely.”

“Yes. Fresh air would be good.”

“We can skate on the pond if you wish. The ice is perfect.”

“I’ve never learned. But I’d love to watch you.”

“Your coat is hanging in the entrance hall. I’ll run upstairs and get my skates and meet you at the door in ten minutes. All right?”

“Perfect.”

W atching Anastasia glide with such simple grace and style across the ice, Hawke could almost hear Tchaikovsky on the wind in the trees. He found himself remembering their evening together in Moscow at the Bolshoi, alone in the darkness of her father’s private box. The ballet had been Swan Lake, each member of the corps of ballerinas a perfect white swan, each one lovelier than the next, creating a rhapsodic fantasy in the air above the frozen wintry pond.

That night, in that privileged cocoon of privacy, with the music filling him up, she had told him she was pregnant with his child. She had been afraid it would make him run; he told her she had made him happier than he had ever been. It was true. That small moment would always be one he would treasure, the moment when the woman he loved told him she was carrying his child, his son.

Little did he realize then how that brief interlude would soon come to haunt his every waking moment.

J ust how long he sat there on that wooden bench, beneath a stand of bare trees beside the frozen pond, wrapped within his ridiculous bearskin coat, enraptured by the mere sight of Asia’s flashing silver skates, he would not remember. He would only remember what followed.

She flew toward him, her arms outstretched like slender white wings, one leg extended perfectly behind her. Suddenly she spun and stopped, her silver skates creating a small cloud of glittering ice around her. Then she was beside him on the wooden bench, bundled up in her long white mink fur, the hood pulled up, hiding her dark gold hair. Her eyes were big and shining, her cheeks aflame, her radiant beauty piped to the surface of her with the cold.

“I love you,” he said simply. “I always will.”

“And I shall always love you,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Until my last breath.”

He put his arm around her and drew her near.

“I will find a way, you know. I will find a way.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean? Find a way?”

“A way for us all to be together. The three of us. A way out of here. This prison, this frozen fortress. To go somewhere no one can find us. Ever. I will build a fortress around us. I will shelter you and Alexei. I will protect you from any harm. We will begin again. To love each other. To love our child. To raise him to become the-”

He felt her stiffen. And then convulse, her shoulders heaving. He heard her sobs from inside the cowl of white mink.

“What, darling?” he said, pulling her closer. “What is it?”

“It cannot be, Alex. It cannot ever be.”

“What cannot be?”

“What you want. Your beautiful dream. It is not possible.”

“Why? Why on earth do you say such a thing?” He felt his heart lurch within his chest.

She pulled away and looked at him, her eyes spilling tears.

“Oh, my darling Alex. You have no idea what you have done. By coming here.”

“Done? I have come to take you away. You and our child. What do you mean I have no idea-”

“Alex. Please. Listen.”

“I am listening.”

“I cannot go with you. I cannot ever leave here, leave this place. This is my home, Alex, my sanctuary. I am safe here. So is Alexei. Did you know there is a price on both our heads? The Tsarists in the politburo want Alexei and me dead. For betraying my father. Only Kuragin stands in their way. But he’s made sure that one can hurt us here. No one.”

“What are you saying? I don’t even-we love each other. We have a child to protect. We have-”

“We have nothing, Alex. Nothing.”

“Nothing? We have each other. We have Alexei! And that is nothing? God in heaven, Anastasia, what can you be thinking?”

Anastasia pulled away from him, stood up, and looked down at him, tears coursing down both cheeks, her lower lip trembling, wrapping her arms around herself.