“I’m so proud of you,” Natalia said. “You earned it.”
Had he? The months following the disaster at the Amur had been harrowing, but now he garnered accolades and acclaim from it. As soon as he got official word from the embassy, he would return to Russia, but he didn’t want to leave Natalia behind, especially not after her dreams had been stolen because of her association with him.
“Natalia, marry me. We could elope right now and start a new life together. I would gladly introduce you to the world as Countess Sokolova, and no one would dare cast aspersions on you.”
She startled and looked at him with such hope in her eyes that it made his spirit soar. “Are you going to stay in America?”
He looked away. Staying in America was not a possibility. He was a misfit in New York and would never belong. With every beat of his heart, he longed for home.
“I can’t stay,” he said gently, hating the way disillusionment took root in her face again. They could be happy in Russia.Shecould be happy in Russia. He just had to make her believe it. “Natalia, you could come with me. As my wife, you could be whatever you wanted, and I would make it happen for you. If you want a bank, I will buy you a bank.”
Her smile was sad. “No one in Russia would patronize a bank run by a woman.”
It was probably true. Russia was even more conservative than America.
She continued to rattle off the reasons she couldn’t move to Russia. “Dimitri, I love you, but my entire world is here. My father. Alexander. I want to be a part of his life as he grows up. I love that boy as if he were my own.”
And he could never give her a child. The fever had robbed him of that possibility forever.
“We could adopt children,” he said. “Natalia, I want us to walk into the future side-by-side. Come with me to Russia.”
Her look was part hurt, part curiosity, and his heart ached because he suspected what she was about to say.
“Can’t you stay here? Has it been that awful?”
Noise from the street leaked into her house. Even in her father’s mansion, the noise was ever-present. The city felt tight and congested and, yes, awful. He could never be at home here, but he had other reasons for needing to go back to Russia.
“If the czar restores my land and titles, I can use my influence to make sure the treaties are honored. I will need to be inRussia to ensure that happens. I shall stay in New York until I receive official word about the restoration of my title and estates, but then I must return home.” He cupped her cheeks between his palms, trying to memorize every facet of her face. It didn’t seem possible that this could be the end. “I don’t know what is ahead for us.”
“I don’t either.” Then she brightened and pulled away. “But I know what will happen for the next few minutes.” She crossed the room to the table that held her bell-shaped phonograph and began cranking the lever. “Brahms,” she said with satisfaction, and moments later, she placed the needle on the rotating disc, filling the dreary room with symphonic magic.
“Isn’t it a miracle that so much joy can be immortalized on that little bit of pressed wax?”
“Indeed it is, dearest Natalia.”
He moved to stand behind her, and they held each other, listening to Brahms in the rain.
Natalia snapped awake in the middle of the night with the perfect idea to capitalize on Dimitri’s triumph at Carnegie Hall.
Music could move the human soul. The few moments while Maxim Tachenko serenaded the elite audience at Carnegie Hall had been powerful, but it was already fading from the collective imagination of sympathetic New Yorkers. That emotion could be stoked again. Why not commission a recording of the song and distribute it all over the city? All over the country?
She rolled from bed, yanked on a robe, and darted down the steps to her phonograph and the stack of records beside it.
Natalia understood how musical recordings were made because she once considered investing in a record company for the bank. She rejected the proposal because the process was expensive, risky, and had a slow rate of return.
She hugged herself in the chilly night air and smiled. What was the point of being born with a fortune if it couldn’t be deployed to do something good? A shaft of bright hope piercedher veil of despondency. Commissioning a recording of “Waves of the Amur” would use her talents as a businesswoman and Dimitri’s budding appeal with the public. It would keep the pressure on the czar to deliver on his promise to reaffirm the 1858 treaty.
All she had to do now was track down the notoriously fickle Maxim Tachenko and convince him to cooperate in the recording.
28
Dimitri was gratified at how quickly Natalia’s mood lifted now that they had a mission. Her idea to make a recording of “Waves of the Amur” was excellent, provided they could get Tachenko’s cooperation. The reclusive violinist had retreated to his lake house for the rest of the summer, where he lived like a hermit when he wasn’t on tour. Luckily, Natalia’s cousin had a summer cabin on the same lake and was friendly with the difficult violinist.
One week after the concert at Carnegie Hall, Natalia made arrangements to visit Gwen and her husband at their lake house. They used Oscar’s carriage for the one-hour drive north of the city. The windows of the carriage were open, and the peaty, green scent of the deeply wooded forest permeated the air as they neared their destination.
“I like this place,” Dimitri said. Sunlight filtered through the green canopy of foliage, and the twisty paths cutting through the woods reminded him of home. “I can see why your cousin would prefer to live here rather than in the city. The air smells good.”
Natalia shook her head. “They live in downtown Manhattan,” she said. “Gwen is working on a doctorate at New York University, and Patrick is a lawyer in one of the rougher parts of the city. They only come to their cabin for a few weeks a year.”
