Сергей Редькин – Hide-and-Seek (страница 10)

“What on earth does that mean?”

“Beats me. Whatever it is, he’s willing to pay top dollar for it.”

“You still need to start the project with your money, though.”

“Yes, but there’ll be much more later. We just need to get a few offers, and we’re golden.”

“If you get those offers.”

I smiled. Mr. Goldberg was a very cautious man. I tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

We walked to the parking lot and stopped by Mr. Goldberg’s Range Rover.

“I didn’t know the house was for sale in the first place. Your parents had been keeping it and hoping that one day you’d have a family, and you know…”

Charlie would be found alive, and we would all go back to being a happy family in a big house.

“…you know what I mean,” Mr. Goldberg said, getting his keys. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it wasn’t for sale. Until now, I suppose. I mean, it’s been empty for more than a quarter of a century.”

He unlocked the car, and we both got in.

“You aren’t seriously thinking about that preposterous offer, are you?”

“Well, it will be nice to have more cash for the project, but I need to speak to my father about this.”

“You bet you do,” Mr. Goldberg said, starting the engine. “Say hello to him from me and be sure to let me know the outcome of that conversation.”

Chapter 10

I couldn’t have that conversation with my dad because he passed away from some cold virus complications three days later. I had been going through the details of the proposal and postponing the talk to make sure I could present it correctly to him. I had missed a few calls from my mother and not bothered calling her back. I didn’t want to make any mistakes and miss any details, which was something I had been known for.

When I thought I was ready, I had called my mother the day before and told her about my plans to visit them. My dad had been unwell for some time and couldn’t join the conversation, but my mother sounded happy and excited about seeing me. When she called me the next day to break the news, I’d thought she was merely wanting me to bring her the Turkish treats she liked and so didn’t bother to answer my phone. She always asked me to do that. When I saw that she’d tried to call me three times in a row, I picked up my phone.

No treats this time. Just a black suit.

“It happened so fast, Alex. He was doing better. He was excited about your visit and then he just stopped breathing while he was asleep last night. The doctor said it was some sort of a respiratory syndrome, a lung failure.”

She started to sob quietly. I was considering ways to console my mother, but all I could think about was the fact that my dad’s ancestors had all been buried in the family cemetery situated in one of the park’s corners, and he was probably going to be buried there as well. The corner wasn’t in the deal I was working on, but the idea of my dad’s headstone overlooking the house that wasn’t going to be ours anymore made me feel even sadder.

My father, Alexander Montague I, was the only child of Theodore and Adelaide Montague. He received a good education at the places where children from the upper class usually went, worked with the tenants on the estate to ensure everyone was happy, kept the income coming, and began developing some investment projects. He wasn’t susceptible to the charms of the local female candidates among the “equals” but was known as a desirable match for many.

Before he was given the reins to Maple Grove House, he was sent to Europe to learn about art—something he hadn’t shown much interest in but was expected to understand in order to help enhance the family’s art collection. My grandfather wanted him to distinguish between Manet and Monet and be able to hang the right paintings in the right places to impress guests. Not that the family had acquired a large art collection, but it was “an essential element of a good house,” and Theodore had believed it important.

It was on this trip that my father met a young and beautiful French woman, Elizabeth Baudelaire-Nazarova, who spoke fluent English and would, a year later, become his wife—and a year after that, my mother. He met her at a Roerich exhibition in Paris, where they were both admiring the Himalayas landscapes and the artist’s unusual choices of colors. He asked her if she liked the paintings, which he hadn’t fully understood, but kept that fact to himself. She did, and their conversation went on for thirty indecent minutes, neither of them willing nor able to stop. My father was smitten and completely disregarded social proprieties when he invited young Elizabeth, who was ten years his junior, to have a cup of hot chocolate at a café on Rue de Rivoli. There, they discovered they both shared a love for Jules Verne. The place was called Angelina, and my father, enchanted by this young woman, referred to her as “an angel.” He had been calling her Lizzy, my Angel ever since.

My mother was an independent spirit who wanted to see the world, but she willingly adjusted most of her dreams when she married my father. “Love makes you do things,” I often heard her saying. They had travelled a bit before my father became the head of Maple Grove House, they had children and slowly became “merry country folk,” as my mother liked to call themselves.

“Mother, I’ll be there later today, and I’ll take care of everything,” I said, feeling that I wasn’t doing well at consoling her.

“Thank you, Alex. I want you to know that I want him to be here with me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want him to be buried here in France because I want to be buried here,” she said softly but resolutely.

“But Mother—”

“We made that decision together and you’ll find it in his last will. The reading will take place tomorrow morning. I trust you’ll be here to hear it.”

I didn’t have to literally bury my father amongst my entrepreneurial projects. Fewer complications, but it didn’t make me any happier. I tried to remember my time with him as a kid, which wasn’t that much. I was used to seeing him entertaining his guests more than his own children and going away on his business trips way more frequently than travelling with us. Nevertheless, there were a few rare moments – a couple fishing of trips and assembling a boat model together–which could’ve almost overshadowed the loneliness of a boy who spent more time with his nanny than with his parents. Almost, but not quite.

I had never compared my parents to anyone. When it came to my parents, I dealt with what I had been given without even thinking that it could be any other way. Despite the status and social calendars, living in a big house could be quite solitary for a boy. It was before Charlie was born. When he came along, he instantly became the center of attention, and I realized that solitude had various levels. That initiated quite a lengthy period during which my tiny and fragile connection with my parents became stretched to its limit. I was lucky, though, that Charlie had adored his elder brother despite all my flaws, and I cherished that in my own way.

It was time to say goodbye to my father. I had done that many times when he was alive. This time was supposed to be different, and I was trying to feel the loss in my callused heart. I loved my father, and I was sure he loved me too. Unfortunately, we hadn’t had a strong enough connection to convey that feeling to each other.

“I’ll be there, Mother,” I said and rang off.

I suspected that I would be away for a considerable amount of time and decided to make one more phone call before I started packing. I felt that I needed to let Natasha know about what had happened. It was a curious feeling because I had never needed to report my movements to anyone. Was I developing feelings for her, serious enough to make a phone call like that? Or was I simply trying to ensure that she wouldn’t gallivant with other men while I was gone?

“I’m so sorry, Sasha,” she sounded genuine on the phone. “Would you like me to go with you?”

“Thank you, Natasha. I think I just need to spend some time with my mother, you know?” I didn’t feel that it was the real reason why I wanted to go alone, but it was all I could think of at that moment. “Why don’t I call you from France and let you know how it goes? Will that be all right?”

“Sure. Whatever you need, Sasha,” she said and sighed. “I wish I could’ve met him.”

“He would’ve liked you, Natasha,” I said, suddenly realizing that it could have been a real possibility, even though Natasha was not of noble rank. My father would have recognized the hardworking essence of her personality if he’d had a chance to meet her.

“I’ll let you go. Sorry. You’ll probably be insanely busy with all the funeral stuff and the inheritance.”

Oh, there it was. Natasha was sorry, but never missed an opportunity to gather useful information.

“Yes, I suppose I will.”

***

My parents lived in a château in the picturesque eastern part of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes with my mother’s sister Lucy. The place was called Chateau de Rossignol. It was purchased by their father, Etienne Baudelaire, a successful French entrepreneur, for their mother, Anna Baudelaire-Nazarova, a daughter of Russian immigrants who had been quite wealthy before the Russian revolution but had lost everything during it. It was said that the place had reminded my grandmother of the estate her family had owned back in Russia, which she couldn’t really remember because she was too little when they left but saw it in the family photos. She did remember, or thought she did, nightingales singing beautifully in the morning outside her nursery. Her maiden name was, Nazarova, originated from the old Hebrew Nazar which meant “devoted to God.” Anna became quite religious and superstitious over the years, but she could never refuse her daughters anything. She loved them dearly and saw “a piece of the Motherland” in their eyes. Etienne was a serious businessman, but he loved his women more than anything.