***
“Something I want you to see,” Irina Borisovna Suslova panted at Olivia on one of their runs, this time through the historic Zamoskvorechye district in the center of old Moscow, in sight of the Kremlin towers. It was a district of museums, the remains of old churches, and increasingly of restaurants and retail shops and upscale residential real estate.
“I’m game,” she gasped back. Taylor hadn’t made it that day and Olivia didn’t know whether that was good or bad. Suslova was a hard partner. She knew to a hair’s breadth what each woman was capable of, and she pushed them all up to that point, then well beyond it. Taylor’s presence mercifully diluted the intensity Suslova was able to apply to Olivia. Still, the results of working out with her one-on-one were spectacular.
It had been a long run, leisurely but hard, on a Saturday morning and they were cooling now, jogging briskly along an ancient narrow lane, when Irina Borisovna stopped before an iron gate that reminded Olivia of an old portcullis set in a high brick wall. The front of the property was a neatly manicured and planted lawn. The tower house itself was white brick and ornate white stonework of Naryshkin Baroque architecture, the roof tiles of the dome surmounting the building a fine, dark, blue-green.
“God knows what this building has seen,” Suslova said as she unlocked the front door. “Yakov Bukhvostov built it for a mistress of Peter Naryshkin long before he became Peter the Great. After the Revolution, it was turned into a multi-family residence.”
Suslova unlocked the front door of reveal an entrance vestibule with a vaulted ceiling. Beyond it were the public reception rooms: a catering kitchen, a formal dining room and ballroom with manicured gardens behind, a formal parlor. The walls and windows were hung with a fortune in paper and silk. Another fortune of furniture occupied the rooms.
“When we showed you your apartment more than two years ago, we expected it to be an interim measure. We did not expect you to take the first apartment we showed you.” Suslova had suggested it because it had been on the top floor, which Russians did not normally prefer because they never knew what condition the roof might be in. That roof had been very sound. “Nor for you to stay there for two years. Were it not for Maria Fedorovna, I think you would be living in a single room, eating…”
“Not so well as I do. And I admit, I now like coming home to her. You know she will always have a place with me.”
“We take care of our own, but it’s not the same as what you offer her. She has no living children, so you have become that to her.”
Olivia heard something in her voice. “Does it make you uneasy?”
Suslova shook her head. “No, actually. The more you are bound to this land by love for its people, the less likely you are to betray the faith we place in you.”
Olivia could not help growling, angry and frustrated—after all this time and everything else. But she growled only softly. They had become very close, closer in some ways, if also differently, as she and Malinovsky were, and Olivia did not believe it was a professional charade.
“Don’t be angry,” Suslova said gently.
“I apologize. I am being unfair.”
“Only a little and I would bear it no better.”
“It would be no different in America for someone in my position.”
The first floor above them was much smaller: a living room and eating area with vaulted, ceilings floors of wide boards, polished like silk, anchored at each end by a massive hearth. The second floor was smaller still: two spacious offices and a library between them. The third floor was two bedrooms with a spacious bathroom between them.
“For Maria?” Olivia asked.
“No. She will have her own apartment above the garage—overlooking the gardens.”
“You sound like an American realtor.” They began to climb the last spiral of the stairs. “Anything else to recommend this wonderful house?”
“Yes. The wiring and plumbing have all been replaced by new. The roof is in good repair. We’ll inspect the gardens in a while. For now…”
They entered the master bedroom, high in the octagonal tower that dominated the front facade. It was nearly filled by something large and very irregular, covered with a heavy tarp.
“What is this?” Olivia asked.
“Take a look.”
Olivia threw back the canvas. All the possessions her father had sent, all the trunks and boxes and chests she’d left with him and a few extra, were there, neatly stacked and awaiting her. After some minutes, wondering how long she’d been crying in Suslova’s steady embrace, Olivia gently extracted herself. “How long have these been here?”
Suslova smiled. “They came in one or two at a time. It was Madame Getmanova’s idea not to tell you until the shipments were complete and in the house the State now wishes to give you as an expression of gratitude and in the hope that you will continue to be ours.”
Olivia wiped her eyes and nose, then laughed, then asked, “To whom did this house belong before? I hope that the previous owner was fully compensated.”
“The previous owner,” Suslova said drily, “has received compensation befitting what he did to be able to afford this house. You are certainly a better…Russian…than he was.”
Olivia understood.
“When I first saw this house, after I’d finished my task with the previous owner, I knew it ought to be yours. To avoid provoking jealousy of a foreign woman and a Jew, I doubt you will ever be adequately paid. But there are other ways the State expresses its gratitude. This is one: the formal rooms are regularly rented out for events and should you wisely continue to do so, they will provide you with an income more than adequate to maintain the property. Now, let’s finish up here and inspect the gardens. Some of the vegetables need immediate harvest and preserving, so Maria is going to be busy. As for all this,” she gestured to the trunks and boxes, “my brother can help you unpack.”