Danielle Steel - Zoya

“I want to go home,” she whimpered as she clutched the little dog. Sava was bigger now, and Zoya could hardly carry her as she followed her grandmother out of the station.

“We're going home, my love. Feodor is finding us a taxi.”

But Zoya only began to cry, the woman she had become seeming to melt away, as she looked up at her grandmother like a lost child. “I want to go back to Tsarskoe Selo.”

“Never mind, Zoya … never mind. …” Feodor was signaling frantically as he juggled their bags, and Evgenia gently led Zoya from the station and helped her into the ancient taxi. Everything they still owned was piled in beside Feodor and the driver, as Zoya and her grandmother slid onto the backseat with tired sighs. They had no reservations anywhere, no idea where to go, and the driver was deaf and ancient. All the young men had long since gone to war, only the old and the infirm were still in Paris.

“ Alors? … On y va, mesdames?” He smiled into the backseat and looked surprised when he saw that Zoya was crying. “Elle est malade?” Is she sick? Evgenia was quick to reassure him that she was only very tired, as they all were. “Where have you come from?” he chatted amiably as Evgenia tried to remember the hotel where she'd stayed with her husband years before, but suddenly she could remember nothing at all. She was eighty-two years old and utterly and completely exhausted. And they had to get Zoya to a hotel and call a doctor.

“Can you recommend a hotel to us? Something small and clean and not very expensive.” He pursed his lips for a moment as he thought about it, and Evgenia instinctively pressed her bag close to her. In it she carried her last and most important gift from the Empress. Alix had given her one of her very own imperial Easter eggs, made for her three years before by Carl Fabergo. It was an incredible piece of work in mauve enamel with diamond ribbons, and Evgenia knew it was the most important treasure she had. When all else failed, they could sell it and live on what it brought them.

“Do you care where it is, madame? … the hotel….”

“As long as it's in a decent neighborhood.” They could always look for something better afterward, tonight all she needed were rooms where they could sleep. The niceties, if any were still possible, would come later.

“There's a small hotel off the Champs-Élysées, madame. The night porter is my cousin.”

“Is it expensive?” she asked sharply, and he shrugged. He could see that they were not well off, their clothes were simple, and the old man looked like a peasant. At least the woman spoke French, and he thought the girl did, too, although she cried most of the time, and she had a fearful cough. He only hoped she didn't have tuberculosis, which was currently rampant in Paris.

“It's not too bad. I'll have my cousin speak to the desk clerk.”

“Very well. That will do,” she said imperiously, and sat back in the ancient cab. She was a spunky old thing and he liked her.

The hotel was on the rue Marbeuf, and it was indeed very small, but it looked decent and clean as they walked into the lobby. There were only a dozen rooms, but the night clerk assured them two of them were vacant. They had to use a common bathroom down the hall, which was something of a shock to Evgenia, but even that didn't matter now. She pulled the sheets back in the bed she and Zoya would share, and they were clean. She pulled Zoya's clothes off, after concealing her bag under the mattress, and Fe-odor had brought in the rest of their things. He had agreed to keep Sava with him. And the Countess went back downstairs as soon as Zoya was in bed, and asked the desk clerk to send for the doctor.

“For yourself, madame?” he asked. He wasn't surprised, they all looked tired and pale, and she was obviously very old.

“For my granddaughter.” She didn't tell him that Zoya had the measles, but two hours later when the doctor finally came, he confirmed it.

“She is very ill, madame. You must tend her carefully. Do you have any idea how she caught it?’

It would have been ridiculous to tell him that she caught them from the children of the Tsar of Russia. “From friends, I believe. We have made a very long journey.” Her eyes were wise and sad as he looked at her and sensed that they had been through a great deal But even he couldn't dream what misery they'd seen in the past three weeks, how little they had left, or how frightened they were of the future. “We have come from Russia … through Finland and Sweden and Denmark.” He stared at her in amazement, and then suddenly he understood. Others had made similar journeys in the past weeks, fleeing from the revolution. And he guessed easily that there would be more in the ensuing months, if they were able to escape at all. The Russian nobility, or what was left of it, was fleeing in droves, and many of them were coming to Paris.

“I'm sorry … very sorry, madame.”

“So are we.” She smiled sadly. “She doesn't have pneumonia, does she?”

“Not yet.”

“Her cousin has had it for several weeks, and they've been very close.”

“I'll do my best, madame. I'll come back to see her in the morning.” But when he did, she was worse, and by nightfall she was delirious with the fever. He prescribed some medicine for her and said it was her only hope. And the next morning, when the desk clerk told Evgenia that America had just entered the war, it seemed almost irrelevant. The war seemed so much less important now, in light of everything else that had happened.

She ate her meals in their simple room, and Feodor had gone out to buy medicine and fruit. They were rationing bread, and it was difficult to obtain anything, but he was ingenious at finding whatever the Countess needed. He was particularly pleased with himself, for having found a taxi driver who spoke Russian. Like them, he had only been in Paris for a few days, he was a prince from St. Petersburg, and Feodor thought he had been a friend of Konstantin's, but Evgenia had no time to listen to him. She was deeply concerned about Zoya.

It was several more days before the girl seemed to know where she was. She looked around the small, unadorned room, and looked into her grandmother's eyes, and then slowly she remembered that they were in Paris.

“How long have I been sick, Grandmama?” She tried to sit up but she was still too weak, at least her fearsome cough was finally a little better.

“Since we arrived, my love, almost a week ago. You had us all very worried. Feodor has been running all over Paris, trying to find fruit for you. The shortages here are almost as bad as they are in Russia.”

Zoya nodded, her thoughts seeming to drift away as she stared out the room's only window. “Now I know how Mashka felt … and she was even sicker than I was. I wonder how she is now.” She couldn't bring herself to think of the present.

“You mustn't think of it,” her grandmother reproached gently as she watched the look of sadness in her eyes, “I'm sure she's well by now. We left two weeks ago.”

“Is it only that?” She sighed as she looked into her grandmother's eyes. “It seems like a lifetime.” It did to all of them, and her grandmother had barely slept since they left Russia. She had been sleeping sitting up in a chair for days, afraid to disturb Zoya's sleep by sharing the bed with her, and afraid she wouldn't be awake if the girl needed her, but now she could relax her vigil a little bit. That night she would sleep at the foot of the bed, and she needed the rest almost as badly as Zoya.

“Tomorrow we'll get you out of bed, but first you must rest and eat and get strong again.” She patted Zoya's hand, and Zoya smiled weakly up at her.

“Thank you, Grandmama.” Her eyes filled with tears as she pressed the once graceful gnarled hand to her cheek. Even that brought back painful memories of her childhood.