“Oh,” he said.
“Who gave this to you?” she asked.
“There’s a cafe I go to in Geneva. There are some young Russian emigres who go there to drink, smoke, and gossip. This one girl, very pretty, very lovely. She was an actress in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She gave this to me and told me I should read it. She said she once played the part of a girl named Varya. She wants to play the role again and wishes me to finance a production in French.”
“I know the character,” she said.
“You’ve read this?”
“Yes. And I once saw the play performed in London.”
“What is it about?”
“If I remember correctly,” Alex said, “it’s about an aristocratic white Russian woman and her family in Yalta about a hundred years ago. They return to the family’s estate just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. They’ve lost most of their family fortune. The play ends with the estate being sold and the family leaving to the sound of their beloved cherry orchard being cut down. Varya is an adopted daughter, a mysterious girl who is central to the story.”
“Ha!” he laughed. “That’s very old-style Russian. They probably sat around trying to figure out what to do and meanwhile their home disappeared.”
“That’s exactly what happened,” Alex said.
“Then I don’t need to read it. And the story shows the merits of having money,” he said. “If the family still had money, even if they had stolen it from someone else, their estate would not have been sold.”
“That’s very Russian too.”
“What is?”
“Your attitude.”
He laughed again. “That is the way of the world,” he said. “And that’s
“But it’s not the morale that Chekhov wanted you to take from the story.”
“No? Then what is?”
“Read the play,” she said. “Then you tell me what you think the author had in mind.”
He nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “This young girl whom I know, the actress,” Federov said, “she wants me to finance a small theater production in Geneva so she can play the role again. This time in French.”
“And will you? Finance it?”
He smiled. “Maybe.”
“If she sleeps with you, you mean.”
“Maybe,” he said again. “She is very pretty, the way young Russian girls are very pretty at age twenty. If she became my mistress, I would do that for her.”
“Does she know that?”
“I’ve told her.”
“And what did she say?”
“She gave me the play and told me to read it.”
Alex laughed out loud. “Then you should read the play,” she said. “Do yourself two favors at once.”
“I had an uncle who was an actor,” Federov said. “He was always reading plays and performing. He did Chekhov too, but I never paid much attention.”
“Well, now you have the time. So you can read.”
“There were a lot of Jews in his theater.”
“So what?”
“I’m just saying,” he said. “There were a lot of Jews.”
“Every time I think you almost might be a normal human being you do something to undermine that notion and offend me.”
“What did I do to offend you?” he laughed.
“How much longer is our flight?” she asked.
“Not much longer,” he said, taking back the book. “The trip will be worth it,” he said. “I know that’s something that worries you.”
“I just need to get a job done,” she said.
“Oh, you will,” he said. “I have a matter or two to attend to myself. So this is not bad.”
She nodded. He gave her a friendly tap on the nearest knee, stood, and went back to sit with his bodyguards. They were playing cards. She watched him put the book aside. Alex glanced across the aisle. Peter was smiling, having listened in on the entire exchange.
A few moments later, she felt the pilot reduce the thrust of the Cessna’s engines. They had started their descent into Genoa.
FIFTY-SIX
ROSANATO, VILLA MALAFORTUNATA, ITALY, SEPTEMBER 16, 7:24 P.M.
They touched down at the landing field in Italy less than an hour later. The field was small and serviced private planes only. It was adjacent to the much larger Genoa airport. The terminal was small, and they walked through customs with barely a nod from the Italians at each of their passports.
Then they were in a parking area. It was past nine in the evening and they walked to a van. Rizzo was already there, having connected earlier with Federov’s driver, a young Italian kid with a distinct northern accent. Alex pegged him as a Genovese, but wasn’t sure.
They piled into the van, the driver, Rizzo, Federov, and Alex, and one of the bodyguards, Dmitri, who came along. The driver also had some sandwiches in a box, with some more bottles of water.
“It’s not far from here,” Federov said. “The house where we are going.”
“Are you taking some precautions?” Alex asked. “About being followed?”
“Of course,” Federov said.
Federov gave the Italian kid a nod and they took off. They were on a motorway within a few minutes. The sandwiches were passed around with the water. They were lifesavers at this point. They hit a village that had a surprising amount of activity for the hour. But it was very late summer, so the Italians were enjoying evenings in their cafes, dining, laughing, and drinking.
Minutes later the van rolled to a halt in front of a public garage, part of a gas station. The garage appeared to be closed, but when the driver of the van honked twice, a large door came up noisily and automatically.
The van rolled in. Federov instructed everyone to get out and move quickly. He led them to a BMW SUV, a big overpowered Black Mariah of a vehicle that had a new driver and its engine running. The group quickly jumped into the SUV, all except for Federov’s bodyguard Dmitri, who jumped into a second car by himself, a compact Fiat. Obviously, the bodyguard knew the directions and grudgingly, Alex had to admire the efficiency of Federov’s team, even in retirement.
Another door rolled upward in the rear of the garage.
Dmitri hit the gas on the Fiat with a sharp jerk and rolled out first, followed quickly by the SUV. Federov sat up front, his broad shoulders more than filling the seat. The new driver, another Italian kid in a white open-collared shirt and a cigarette over his ear, floored it.
Alex was in the backseat sitting in the middle between Rizzo and Peter. Out they rolled into the darkness.
They went through some side streets with the driver following the first car closely but constantly checking the rearview mirror. But there were no other cars behind them, and they seemed to be traveling cleanly.
No watchers, no shadows. At one point they passed a police vehicle but it gave them no notice. There was no traffic. The driver drove fast but smoothly. Half a moon was shining on northern Italy. They hit one of the older highways that meandered upward along the shore and then along cliffs where the guardrails had been badly dented from years of haphazard driving. At one point on a curve, there was a section that had been knocked out by a car that hadn’t quite navigated the turn, either through fog, Alex guessed, or the fog of beverage. But then
