I throw my hands up. ‘This is unbelievable. Do you know how upset my mom was? We didn’t know what to think. She could have been dead.’
She shrugs. ‘We are Russian. We are not so emotional. We are more, how do you call it, stoic. No one was hurt. Sometimes it is only when something bad happens to the people you love that you come to see just how much you love them. It teaches you to appreciate them more.’
I hold my head. ‘You can’t seriously think what he did was not wrong?’
‘Wrong? What is wrong? One hundred years ago it was not wrong to buy a man and use him as a slave. In Aleksandr’s world it was not wrong to take your sister to have you. In his world she was bait he put on a hook to catch a fish he wanted.’
My God. How he must have laughed at me. Calling me rybka and letting me think it was a Russian endearment. ‘That’s so fucked up,’ I say, my voice quivering with anger. Little fish, my ass!
‘Aleksandr makes his own rules.’
‘And that makes it OK?’ I demand angrily.
She looks directly into my eyes. ‘Aleksandr makes his bed and he lies on it. You think it was an accident that you found out what he did today?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Aleksandr has many secrets buried inside him that he will carry to his grave. You will never know them even if you spend a lifetime with him. If you have found out something it was only because he wanted you to know.’
Then I remember his eyes, the way he watched me while he told me to take up yoga and meditation like my sister. There had been something there. He knew how I would react.
He wanted me gone.
I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand. ‘Oh my God! He doesn’t want me anymore and that is his way of getting rid of me.’ My heart aches with this new knowledge. It was better when I thought I was the one leaving him.
She shakes her head and sighs deeply. ‘You are too young to understand a man like him. He does not want you gone.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask instantly.
‘Have you ever thought it may be the opposite of what you think? Perhaps he wants you too much, and he is afraid of being hurt by you.’
‘Hurt by me? I’ll never hurt him,’ I deny hotly.
‘Look at you. At the first sign of trouble you’ve packed your bags and are running away with your tail between your legs. What good are you for a man like him? He needs a strong woman. A woman he can trust.’
‘Why, because he’s an asshole and a criminal?’ I retort, stung by her criticism.
She smiles a secret smile. ‘Have you seen him play the piano?’
I still with the memory. ‘Yes,’ I whisper.
‘Then you have seen the real man. The criminal is just the mask he puts on to survive. That man playing the piano.’ She drops her voice to a whisper. ‘That’s the real him. That’s the man who needs a good woman he can trust because he has wounds that only she can heal.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
She opens a drawer near her and takes out a thick, hardcover book and shows me the title. The Big Book of American Recipes. ‘They won’t give me the money back and it will be a useless buy if you don’t stay.’
I try to smile but I can’t.
She opens the book and looks at the random page she has opened it to. ‘I can make you fried pickle. You like that? Remind you of your home. Hmmm?’
I smile through my tears. ‘That’s Southern food. I’m not from the South.’
She raises her hands into the air dramatically and says impatiently, ‘So. I will make you Northern food.’ She taps the book and nods. ‘Recipes from all of America are in here.’
I rest my chin on my fists. God, what a mess I’ve gotten myself into.
She looks at me seriously. ‘Both Noah and I want you to stay.’
‘Noah? He doesn’t even like me.’
She laughs. ‘Ah, child! Sometimes you are like an American tourist. You need a map for everything.’
‘Those are Japanese tourists you’re talking about,’ I tell her.
‘Japanese, American, what’s the difference?’ she dismisses roundly. ‘Noah has always been on your side. He told me he arranged you on your bed in such a way that when Aleksandr came into your room later, he would see not a drunk slut, but a sleeping angel.’
I stare at her dumbfounded. ‘Noah did that?’
She nods.
‘Then why is he so cold and distant with me?’
‘Noah works for Aleksandr. There is a phrase, what is it, way of conduct—‘
‘Code of conduct,’ I correct.
‘Yes, that is right. Code of conduct. He cannot be too friendly with you.’