City of Shadows Read Online Free Page B

panic. The barricade around that bed had been a bunker. She’d lain like a leveret in the long grass hoping the fox wouldn’t find it. Two years of it, two years of silence in a cacophony of the afflicted. Refusing an identity. Either very crazy or very frightened. Perhaps both.
    “Nick, you saw her. She doesn’t even speak Russian.”
    “Would you?” The fork summoned up a funeral drum. “If your own people took you down to a cellar, Russians, and shot your daddy, your mommy, your brother and sisters in front of your eyes, wounded you, maybe, would you want to speak the same as those bastards? Not if you didn’t have to—and those girls were educated, remember. They had other languages. They were . . . what’s the word?”
    “Polyglot?”
    “Yeah, polyglots. Why’d she want to talk Russian? With those mem ories? Too terrible. She sticks to German. That makes sense, the press’ll understand that.” He began eating again, swaying slightly to the symphony in his head.
    “The press?”
    “Obviously we’ll call a press conference once she’s ready.”
    “You’re calling a press conference,” she said flatly.
    “Not yet. We’ve got a long way to go, but . . .” He faced her look. “Esther, we’ll be doing people a favor. That was a terrible thing happened at Ekaterinburg. Made the whole world sad. Maybe as a Jew you don’t feel it the same, but for us loyal subjects”—he thumped himself on the chest—“that pierced our hearts. We’ll never get over it.”
    He was frightening her; he was sobbing. She wanted the cynic back. This was an alien being crying real tears. Her own eyes were stony dry.
    “Beautiful things happen sometimes,” he said. “Now and then the saints in their grace grant us a miracle. They just did. We got one of them back.” He knuckled his eyes with his forefingers, wiping them. “I tell you, such a cheer will go around the earth. Stock market’ll go up, maybe. I must get in touch with my broker.”
    That was better. Nick the opportunist she could cope with.
    “It won’t work,” she said. “She’s just a sick, scared young woman.”
    He became impatient. “Sure she’s scared. Maybe she thinks the Bol shies are out to get her. ‘You want to stay here forever?’ I said to her— she understands German well enough. ‘You’ve got me to protect you now.’ ”
    “And suppose the Romanovs say she’s not Anastasia?”
    “They’ll have to. New teeth, plenty of coaching . . .” He began tap ping his own teeth with his fork and then waved it at her. “Listen, Es ther, there’s a hole in the market just waiting for her. People want a happy ending, I’m giving them one.”
    Another thought struck him. “What a movie it’d make. I could get rich out of the film rights alone.”
    “And Little Miss Unknown has agreed to all this, has she?”
    “Anna Anderson,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Anna Anderson. That’s who she’s going to be for now. I suggested the name, and she liked it. Nice and neutral. It’s the name I’ll get put on her identity papers.”
    Esther raised her eyes to heaven. “She’s agreed to this arrangement, has she?”
    “She will. Fifty-fifty, I told her.” Absentmindedly, he took over Es-ther’s plate and began clearing it. “Maybe I’ll make it seventy-five–twenty-five, I’m going to have a lot of expenses.” He beckoned to a white-aproned waiter. “Do you make palatschinken here?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Two portions.”
    He was silent until the pancakes came, and then he said, “You could put her up in the new apartment I’m getting for you.”
    Ah.
    “Suddenly Moabit’s looking attractive,” she said. “I think I’ll stay there.”
    “Moabit’s a shithole. I was going to take you out of it anyway.”
    “I’m not going to do it, Nick. It’s fraud on a grand scale. It’ll hurt peo ple.”
    “Not if she’s the real Anastasia. Who’s it going to hurt? Her? I’m go ing to restore her to her rightful place, cherish her