Danielle Steel - Zoya

She blushed, aware of it herself. “I don't know what's happening to me. I seem to have this constant need to get the house in order.” She had redone Sasha's room too, she was away at a camp for young ladies in the Adirondacks, and it was a relief to Simon not to have to worry about her just then. And things seemed to be going well there, she had only escaped the counselors once, to go dancing with her friends in the nearby village. They had found her at the head of a conga line and summarily took her back with them, but at least they hadn't threatened to send her home. Simon wanted Zoya to be able to relax before she gave birth to their baby.

At the end of August, Germany and Russia stunned the world by signing a mutual nonaggression pact, but Zoya seemed uninterested in world news. She was too busy calling the store and changing the apartment around, and on the first of September, Simon came home and offered to take her to the movies. Sasha was due back the next night, and Nicholas was leaving the following week for Princeton, but he was out with some friends, showing off the car Simon had just given him to take to college. It was a brand-new Ford coupe, hot off the assembly line in Detroit, with every possible extra feature they had to offer.

“You're much too generous with him,” Zoya had smiled, grateful as always for everything he did for them. He had stopped by the store that night and gave her all the news, as he noticed that she looked even more uncomfortable than she had that morning.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“I'm fine.” But she said she was too tired to go to the movies. They went to bed at ten o'clock that night, and an hour later, he felt her stir, and then he heard a soft moan, and he turned on the light. She was lying beside him, her eyes closed, holding her belly.

“Zoya?” He didn't know what to do, as he leapt out of bed, rushing around the room, looking for his clothes, and unable to remember where he'd left them. “Don't move. I'll call the doctor.” He couldn't even remember where the telephone was as she laughed at him from the bed.

“I think it's just indigestion.” But the indigestion got a lot worse in the next two hours, and at three o'clock in the morning, he called the doorman for a taxi. He helped Zoya put on her clothes, and helped her into the cab, waiting for them downstairs. She could hardly talk by then and she was having trouble walking, as terror enveloped him. He didn't even care about the baby suddenly, he just wanted her to be all right. He felt frantic as they wheeled her away at the hospital, and he paced the halls as the sun came up. He jumped a foot when an hour later, a nurse touched his shoulder.

“Is she all right?”

“Yes” the nurse smiled, “you have a beautiful little boy, Mr. Hirsch.” He stared at her, and then began to cry, as she walked quietly away. And half an hour later, they let him see Zoya. She was dozing peacefully, with the baby in her arms, as he tiptoed into the room, and stopped in wonder as he saw his son for the first time. He had a shock of black hair like his own, and his tiny hand was curled around his mother's lingers.

“Zoya?” he whispered in the large sunny room at Doctors Hospital. “He's so beautiful,” he whispered, as Zoya opened her eyes and smiled at him. It had been a difficult birth, the baby was big, but even then, right afterward, she knew it was worth it.

“He looks like you,” she said, her voice still hoarse from the anesthetic.

“Poor kid.” His eyes filled with tears again, and he bent to kiss her, he had never been happier in his life, and Zoya looked so happy and proud as she gently smoothed a hand over the silky black hair. “What'll we call him?”

“What about Matthew?” she whispered as Simon looked at his son.

“Matthew Hirsch.”

“Matthew Simon Hirsch,” she said, and then drifted off to sleep again, with her son in her arms, and her husband looking on, the tears of joy falling into her mane of red hair, as he kissed her.

CHAPTER

44

Matthew Simon Hirsch was still in the hospital and he was one day old on the day that war was declared in Europe. Britain and France had declared war on Germany, when their ally Poland was invaded by Germany. Simon came into Zoya's room with grim eyes and announced the news, but a moment later he had almost forgotten as he held Matthew, and watched the baby give a lusty cry for his mother.

When Zoya came home to the apartment on Park Avenue, Sasha was there to greet her. Even she couldn't resist the beautiful baby boy who looked so exactly like Simon.

“He has Mama's nose,” she announced with amused delight, fascinated that everything was so perfect and so small as she held him for the first time. At fourteen, she was too young to visit at the hospital, but Nicholas had met his brother before leaving for Princeton. “And he has my ears!” Sasha giggled, “but the rest is Simon.”

On September 27, after being brutally attacked, Warsaw surrendered, with enormous loss of life. Simon was heartbroken by the news, and he and Zoya talked long into the night, as she remembered the revolution. It was terrible, and Simon mourned the Jews being massacred all over Germany and Eastern Europe. He was doing everything he could for those who could get out. He had established a relief fund, and was trying to get papers for relatives he had never heard of. People in Europe would use phone books to call people in New York with similar names, and beg them for assistance, which he never refused. But those he could help were a precious few. The rest were being led to their death, locked up in detention camps, or slaughtered on the streets of Warsaw.

When Matthew was three months old, Zoya went back to work, on the day that Russia invaded Finland. Simon followed the news from Europe avidly, particularly Edward R. Murrow's broadcasts from London.

It was December first by then, and Zoya was excited to find Countess Zoya swarming. And they all went to see The Wizard of when Sasha got out of school. Nicholas was home from Princeton and loving it, although he talked a great deal about the war with Simon, while he was home on vacation.

He liked it even more the second year, and before going back to Princeton again he went back to California for summer vacation. Zoya hadn't been able to go to Europe this year, with the war on, they had to use designers from the States. She was particularly fond of Norman Norell and Tony Traina. It was September 1941 and Simon was certain the country would go to war, but Roosevelt was still insisting they wouldn't. And the war certainly hadn't hurt the store, it was the best year Zoya had had. Four years after she had opened her doors, she was using all five floors of the building Simon had wisely bought. He had bought four more textile mills in the South, and his own business was doing extremely well. She had a whole department of his coats and she always teased him and called him her favorite supplier.

Little Matthew was two years old by then, and the apple of everyone's eye, even Sasha's. She was a blossoming sixteen, and by everyone's standards, a raving beauty. She was tall and thin as Zoya's mother had been, but instead of Natalya's regal bearing, there was a sensual quality that drew men like bees to honey. Zoya was just grateful that she was still in school, and hadn't done anything outrageous in almost a year. As a reward, Simon had promised to take them all skiing in Sun Valley that winter, and Nicholas was anxious to join them.

They were sitting in the library discussing their plans on December 7, when Simon turned the radio on. He liked to listen to the news when he was at home, and he had Matthew on his knee as his face froze. He pushed him into Sasha's arms, and ran into the next room to find Zoya. His face was white as he found her in their bedroom.