Olga's Egg

  Olga’s Egg

  Sophie Law

  This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  for Henrietta

  When you touch or hold a Fabergé object, you are in contact with something, coming down to you, not only from the era of the Tsars, but of an ancestry far more ancient; for it is typical of all the Imperial courts there have ever been.

  Sacheverell Sitwell

  A note on Russian Names

  Russian names consist of a first name, patronymic and surname; for example, from War and Peace, Nataliya Ilyinichna (daughter of Ilya) Rostova, sister of Nikolai Ilyich (son of Ilya) Rostov. The majority of Russian names have a diminutive, mostly formed with a range of contractions and suffixes, which can be varied according to familiarity, hence ‘Tanya’ for ‘Tatiana’ with ‘Tanyusha’ being one of the more familiar variations. Other examples are ‘Olya’ for ‘Olga,’ ‘Vika’ for ‘Viktoria,’ ‘Alyosha’ for ‘Alexei’ and ‘Kostya’ for ‘Konstantin.’

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  A note on Russian Names

  Prologue

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Oxford, 1929

  Set them, Lord, in bright places of light, in places of green pasture, in places of rest whence all pain, sorrow and sighing have fled away, and where the light of Thy countenance shineth and gladeneth forever all Thy saints.

  Grant unto them Thy Kingdom and participation in Thine ineffable and eternal blessings, and to delight in Thine unending and blessed life.

  For Thou art the Life, the Resurrection and the Repose of Thy servants who have fallen asleep, O Christ our God, and we render glory to Thee, with Thine Eternal Father, and with Thine All-holy, Gracious and Life-giving Spirit, now and forever and unto ages of ages.

  Amen

  Father Alexei’s voice was not deep but it was strong and sure. Finishing the prayer, he raised his head to behold the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God before describing the Sign of the Cross, sinking to his knees and prostrating himself so that his knuckles shone white as he clenched his fists on the cold floor. He stayed there for longer than necessary before getting up and moving towards her image. The flames of the candles flickered as he approached and her face was dappled with the light, her eyes alive with tears. He closed his eyes and kissed her.

  I

  A black cab ran through the blue neon shimmer of the Curzon sign which floated in a shallow puddle on the road. A London sound if ever there was one, thought Assia. There was something very soothing about a city that had just been rained on; heavy umbrellas shaken down, tyres spraying through puddles, sodden coats peeled off in warm, steamy halls. That feeling you get when you have finished crying.

  As she shuffled into the cinema lobby next to Ben’s damp woollen shoulder, Assia watched as rich Russian after rich Russian rocked up and rolled out of Porsches, Bentleys and any other Mayfair car you could think of. This was an event to which they brought their wives, not their girlfriends. Assia had begun to respect the men who had retained their first wives but kept mistresses openly; it showed a kind of reverence for the women who had borne their children all those years ago. Russians married when they were very young and often oligarchs-in-the-making had had children in wedlock by the time they were twenty. Then they did a front-wheel skid into money, and everything changed.

  ‘This place is quite extraordinary, n’est-ce pas?’ Assia cast her eyes around the lobby of the Curzon Mayfair before taking a sip from a squat glass of icy sludge layered with exotic leaves, the sort of thing that was offered by expensive caterers desperate to do something different. ‘Different’ was essential because the people who made it their job to cater to the very rich had realised that when you serve expensive champagne to Russians at drinks parties they slate it because being rude about what you drink shows off your sophisticated palate. Assia had become very used to drinking the finest champagne while the Russian guests complained: This champagne is disgusting, I can’t drink this filth! How can you drink such dish water?

  Ben nodded in agreement. ‘Hmm, yeah. Very 70s, very retro. Quite a time capsule.’ He paused and crunched a mouthful of ice while surveying the guests as they arrived. ‘Normally you can rely on the Russians to look pretty vintage fashion-wise but this lot seems to have come on. In fact, you could say they’re giving you London girls a run for your money.’

  ‘You really don’t get out much, do you?’ said Assia. ‘Rich Russian girls, mostly second generation oligarchy, have been elbowing their way to the front of the fashion pack for a while now.’ Assia lowered her voice. ‘It’s the girls who are new to money who slip up: the Oligarch Girlfriends or Second Wives who take the Versace route, thinking that you can’t look like a hooker if your dress is expensive.’ With her eyes she steered Ben’s gaze to a tall woman with a high ponytail of long peroxided blonde hair. Wearing a thigh-length white snakeskin coat with gold studs around the collar, entire stretches of long leg emerged where the coat ended prompting doubt as to whether she was wearing anything underneath. She was standing next to a dark bull of a man who looked as surly as she did.

  ‘That coat is probably fresh from the Versace Autumn/Winter 2016 collection and I bet it cost thousands, but she still looks like a tart from Volgograd. You can take the girl out of… and all that.’

  ‘You might want to be careful what you say, young lady,’ said Ben smirking and rubbing the sleeve of her coat between his fingers. ‘From looking at your coat… hmm… There’s got to be a drop of Russian blood there. In fact, you’ve got to be half-Russian, am I right? Am I right? This coat is just that little bit too sexy on you.’

  ‘Shh, for goodness’s sake!’ Assia swatted Ben’s hand away and avoided his gaze. ‘I would say something foul to you in Russian, but I don’t want to offend my fellow countrymen.’ She laughed and stirred the melting pile of ice in her glass with the stubby straw. She hadn’t admitted it to herself, but she didn’t like it when Ben tried to seduce her, even jokingly. He turned into a man she didn’t recognise and she felt tricked in some way, as though all he had ever wanted was to get her into bed. Her eyes wandered over his shoulder and she looked suddenly preoccupied. Ben followed her gaze.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Tanya’s here with some man.’ Assia sighed. ‘Great. Just what I feel like on a Friday night. Get ready for the Tanya Show.’

  A beautiful woman with dark shoulder-length hair and fierce eyes came towards them followed by a red-headed man in a pinstripe suit. The man smiled at Assia when he saw her. br />
  ‘My sister!’ Tanya pointed at Assia while beaming at her companion expectantly. Her smile split the deep red of her full lips and her eyes wrinkled beguilingly.

  ‘How do you do, I’m John.’ The man with red hair stepped forward and grasped Assia’s hand warmly. ‘It’s quite incredible meeting Tanya’s doppelganger. I mean, I understand the science of it but it never fails to be utterly surprising to see identical twins. Am I allowed to say it? You are just like her!’

  ‘Real twins’ said Tanya looking serious, her dark brow furrowed. ‘Not those fertility-clinic multiple-birth type twins.’

  ‘Well, quite’ said Assia, nodding with mock concern. ‘It’s lovely to meet you. And this is Ben.’ Assia ushered Ben forward and watched as the men shook hands and muttered the platitudes of greeting. She had no idea where her sister had found him, but she liked John immediately. It was hard to put her finger on it but something about him seemed warm and authentic.

  ‘Little sister, how are you?’ Tanya opened her arms extravagantly, sweeping her fur-trimmed pashmina around her twin. Assia allowed herself to be embraced. It felt strange hugging like this in public; a display of affection for everyone except her. Assia knew that Tanya was just playing to the crowd, to John specifically, showing him how much she loved her darling, sweet identical sister – aren’t we a scream? – and yet a part of her longed to please Tanya again and so she went along with the display of sisterly love.

  ‘Yes, good, good, thanks.’ Assia wriggled out of the pashmina and folded it back onto Tanya’s shoulder. ‘What are you doing here? We don’t normally see you in the halls of art. Has its siren call seduced you at last?’

  ‘Hang on, little sister? You just called Assia your little sister. How can that be? Are you really twins?’ John caught Assia’s eye as he asked the question and she grinned at the faux inquisition intended to wind up Tanya.

  ‘Yes, John,’ said Tanya, knowing she was being played, ‘Assia was born six minutes after me and therefore she is my younger sister.’ She addressed John as a headmistress would a naughty child and he pretended to look chastened.

  Tanya continued archly, ‘And to answer your question, Assia, we are here because one of John’s friends is a producer of the film we’re all going to see and obviously I am interested in Fabergé because of Mama. Apparently they are showing a clip of her.’

  Assia felt a flare of acid blaze in her stomach. Her cheeks flushed. She was sure that Tanya was studying her, looking for a reaction and her cheeks throbbed even more in defiance. Turning to John she said casually ‘Our mother is in the film?’

  John appeared to dip his head in a reverent little bow. ‘Yes, my friend Sam is very much in awe of your mother and he wanted to feature her in the film. He just loved learning about Fabergé and said he devoured her books while he was researching. In fact, he was quite stunned when I said I was stepping out with one of Olga Wynfield’s daughters!’

  At this Tanya threw her head back and laughed loudly while John continued. ‘I understand that you work with Fabergé, like your mother did?’ Again, he seemed to bow to Assia and she wondered whether he knew what had happened and was trying to be sympathetic towards the vulnerable twin who had ruined everything.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she said and smiled back into his eyes. ‘I consult for a few clients on the acquisition of Fabergé pieces and I curate their collections. I spend half my life on a plane.’

  Ben stepped in. ‘Assia is also editing Olga’s Encyclopaedia of Fabergé Eggs for re-publication, aren’t you?’ He touched her arm lightly and moved next to her protectively.

  ‘Are you? I didn’t know that! Why didn’t you tell me?’ Tanya snapped shut her Bottega Veneta woven leather clutch. The move was strangely aggressive.

  ‘Thames & Hudson want to update it,’ said Assia matter-of-factly. ‘Obviously there are some recent discoveries to add and new information which has been uncovered since Mama wrote it in 1991. It’s been twenty-five years after all!’

  As they followed the drift of people towards the screen doors, Tanya said to Assia under her breath ‘You should have told me that you were editing Mama’s book. I have a right to know!’ Assia looked at Tanya sharply and was about to speak before she was shunted away from her sister by the stop-start movement of the crowd. She knew Tanya wanted to cause a scene but couldn’t and she drew some small satisfaction from this as her sister pursed her beautiful lips and glared at her when she thought John wasn’t looking.

  II

  The door clanged shut and silenced the whine of the freezing wind. It was as cold inside the building as it was outside, but Konstantin Stepanyan didn’t notice. He knew what a Russian winter was, the fight it demanded, and he had no time for it anymore; no time for the fatty food which his sister nagged him to eat to ward off the cold and no time for the snow which had arrived for its long stay in the city. Standing on the steamy trolleybus on the way there he had thought about all the struggles today’s generation had ahead of them and he pitied them. Russia felt like a new beast now. The status quo had shifted since Communism fell and all the old paths in the snow had gone. Konstantin would never have called himself a die-hard Communist - he was anything but - and yet he couldn’t help but feel that the better devil was the one you knew.

  He made his way towards the lift which stank of urine and pressed the stiff button with a well-insulated finger. A tinny noise approached and hovered behind him, accompanied by the sound of chewing. Konstantin turned and saw a youth with shiny black headphones playing with his phone. The boy didn’t look up at him but carried on swiping at the screen of his device. Konstantin hoped that he was good to his grandparents and listened to them. They would tell him that young people spent too much time on their phones and that when they were young they had read or discussed art and ideas with their friends as a way of passing the time. Our world was materially poor but rich in thought, they would say. You young people disappear down a black hole when you’re playing with your phones. You find it impossible to concentrate on anything for more than a minute. How will you ever learn anything?

  The lift arrived with a muffled thud and only one of the stiff, metal doors drew back as the other was jammed shut. Konstantin and the youth stepped in and jabbed the button pad on the left to request their floors. Konstantin noted that the boy was going two floors above him and that he would have to hear the incessant bass beat which leaked from his headphones for the whole of his journey up to the eighth floor. When the lift stopped abruptly at his floor, Konstantin got out and turned left down the concrete corridor, wondering at the source of the acrid smell. He was just a few doors away from the door to his daughter’s hallway when he realised that he could hear the sound of the youth’s music behind him. He turned around, baffled because he thought the boy was travelling two floors further up, and saw him ring the bell of an apartment a few doors away and wait for an answer. Pausing a second, Konstantin concluded the boy must have pressed the wrong lift button and carried on to his daughter’s door. She had opened the door to her hallway and was crouching down arranging a series of little shoes and boots on the brown carpet.

  ‘Vika.’ He bent a little to touch her shoulder and she stood up immediately and hugged him.

  ‘Pap. Oy, spasibo, Papochka.’ She spoke with her face pressed into his broad chest and then drew back, sniffing loudly. She wiped the tears from her cheek, shut the hallway door and led him into the apartment by his hand. She helped her father take his large shearling coat off and hung it by the door.

  ‘Alyosh, Papa’s here,’ she said calmly, poking her face around the door frame of the living room. A thin man sprang up off the sofa and embraced Konstantin.

  ‘How can I thank you, Kostya?’

  ‘You don’t need to say anything, Alyosh.’ Konstantin patted his son-in-law on the back and smiled softly at him before moving to the corner of the room where a little boy was sitting, propped up by a cushion. Konstantin lowered his large frame slowly so that he was resting on his kne
es and looked into the face of the blond child who was inspecting a teddy bear.

  ‘Grandpa’s here, Mishenka. And I’ve brought something for you.’ He plunged his large hand into his pocket and pulled out a small gold sphere. The gold was matt and smooth and Konstantin opened his grandson’s palm and placed the sphere in it. The boy curled his fingers over it and looked up at his grandfather’s grey face. He looked down at his hand again and his lips rounded with concentration, a stream of dribble flowing out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Look inside it, Mishenka.’ Konstantin delicately unfurled his grandson’s fingers from around the yellow orb and, cradling his small hands, helped him to pull its two halves apart. As he did so, a little golden hen with pink eyes rolled out and fell onto the floor on its side. Misha made a gleeful noise when he saw the hen and stretched his arm out to retrieve it. He strained unsuccessfully and his little face reddened with the effort.

  ‘Careful, Mishenka,’ said his mother. She had appeared next to Konstantin and handed him a glass of amber-coloured tea before picking up the gold hen. ‘Pap, what is this? It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Don’t worry, he won’t break it. It’s a present for the boy. I wanted him to have something that will last, something that will make him think of me when he is older.’

  ‘You’ve already given him enough. Did I tell you that we have a date now? – I can’t believe it. I had a Skype conversation with Dr Macfarlane and we will take Misha to see him in Boston next month for the pre-surgery assessment. Then, all being well, they will do the operation three days later.’ Vika stroked her son’s left foot and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘That is marvellous, darling. I am so pleased.’ Konstantin got to his feet and leant down to pick up Misha. He lifted the small boy up with ease and Misha, still clutching his little gold hen, giggled as his grandfather whisked him about the room in his arms as though dancing a waltz.