I tapped my drinking glass with my comb one final time as I leaned close and whispered, “I went for a walk this afternoon, after the lunch, with Ivy Litvinova, who is a truly lovely woman. But you know what I saw? I think there was a pair of secret policemen following me.”
“Of course there was,” Joe answered.
I was about to express my outrage at this, but just then, there came a tap on the bedroom door. “Come in,” I called. A young woman appeared, her pale eyes fixed firmly on the floor. She was a Russian member of the household staff, but her English was passable. “Ambassador Davies, Madam Davies, will that be all for the evening?”
“Ah yes, thank you,” Joe said, dismissing her. “Good evening.”
The girl left without another word, shutting the door timidly behind her. I knew her name to be Katya. Poor girl walked around all day as though frightened of her own shadow. Joe waited a minute after Katya’s exit before leaning close. He tapped his glass as he spoke: “It’s not just the secret police outside. Every single one of them is spying on us as well.”
I sighed, nodding, picking up a pot of lavender cream and rubbing it into my hands. Joe spoke loudly now, no longer tapping his glass or whispering his words: “My Mumsie Blue Eyes.” He spoke so that anyone listening would hear. “I am thrilled that your lunch with Madam Molotova was such a pleasant one. You are showing the Russians that the Davieses and, indeed, the Americans, have put good relations at the top of the agenda.”
Chapter 38
Moscow
Late Winter 1937
Polina Molotova’s black limousine carried us out of the crowded city center and through a flat stretch of countryside populated by white birch trees, green-needled firs, and the occasional dacha or country farmhouse rising up behind a fence. Eventually, pulling off the wide, fresh-paved highway and into the lot of what appeared to be a storehouse or factory, we rolled to a halt, and I narrowed my eyes to stare through the heavily tinted windows. A massive, dilapidated building hulked before us. All around us, a vast lot loomed, empty of cars or pedestrians. “Where are we?” I asked, managing a blithe tone in spite of my unease.
“Commission shop,” Polina answered, making to rise as her chauffeur opened the car door. “This one houses some of the works of Karl Fabergé.”
“Fabergé?” I repeated the name as I emerged from the car into the pale winter sunshine. “As in Fabergé eggs?” I knew the name to belong to a Russian jeweler, the favorite artisan of the Romanovs.
“Yes,” Polina answered with a nod, her red-lipped smirk showing that she was less than impressed by the man’s reputation or intimacy with the murdered imperial family.
I followed her through a creaking double door and out of the sunlight. Inside the dank warehouse, the air hung unmoving and smelled of dust and concrete. “Fabergé’s work is in here?” I asked.
“Some of it,” Polina answered, leading the way, her heels clicking against the hard floor. “All those Romanovs and their kind fled faster than rats when the people came to power. Selling off their jewels and art. But what they left behind now belongs to the State, as it should. Think about all of the waste.” A wave of her red-nailed hand. “How many millions of rubles went toward the tsarina’s diamond necklaces rather than feeding her starving people?”
I nodded solemnly, assuming what I hoped was an inscrutable mask over my features. Polina continued: “Now we will sell it. To capitalists like you.” Polina winked at this last remark, flashing a teasing smile. “Ah yes, here we are.”
What she’d called a commission shop resembled a cavernous and run-down warehouse packed with overspilling crates and boxes, dustcloths and tarps sliding off piles covering nearly every inch of floor and wall. I suppressed the urge to gasp, instead breathing in a big gulp of the stale air as I surveyed the space before me: through the motes and the dim sunlight that seeped through streaked windows, I saw an endless sprawl of precious relics. But relics did not fully and accurately describe the scene: it was treasure. Treasure that the tsars and their impossibly wealthy nobles had spent centuries and fortunes commissioning and accumulating, only for it to now be left in disarray, the glistening spoils of a glorious and bygone dynasty, held in the grip of a new government that saw no use for such masterful skill or lavish splendor.
My eyes roved hungrily over the piles and rows that glimmered, brilliant, even in this gloomy warehouse: golden wine chalices, rich tapestries, jewelry forged of every precious gem, silver tea services, holy icons, diamond-encrusted ashtrays, crystal flutes brushed with gold, religious crosses made of egg-sized emeralds and sapphires. It was staggering to see—even the pens and letter openers were wrought of precious stones with masterful detail. Such treasure belonged in a museum! Not in some run-down warehouse furred by cobwebs and dank with water damage.