was the most beautiful sleigh Hawke had ever seen, a gift to Anastasia’s forebears from Peter the Great. He’d ridden in it before, when Anastasia had brought him to Jasna Polana for the very first time.
Hawke had not spoken to Anastasia since leaving her alone at the skating pond the prior morning. He found her already in the sleigh, speaking quietly to the nurse who was holding little Alexei in her arms. The child, like his mother, was swaddled in white fur and looked like a rather large bunny sneaking peeks at his father over his nurse’s shoulder. Hawke walked around the rear of the troika, leaned down, and peered unblinking into his son’s face until the boy broke into a wide smile, a torrent of tiny bubbles erupting from his cupid’s bow of a mouth.
He recognizes me, Hawke thought, his emotions churning.
“G’morning, Alexei,” Hawke said, leaning in to kiss his chubby cheek and inhale the indescribable warm, precious baby scent. The love he felt literally almost killed him where he stood. But he looked over at Anastasia and did his best to smile.
“Good morning,” he said, almost pulling off a convincing smile.
“It’s a beautiful day.”
“Yes.”
She smiled bravely and said, “I thought we’d bring Alexei with us to the station. He adores riding in sleighs.”
“The love of speed,” Hawke said, tossing his leather bag behind the curved leather bench seat and climbing up and inside. “Takes after his father. May I hold him during the trip?”
Anastasia whispered to the nurse and she took the child around to Hawke’s side of the troika. Hawke held out his arms to receive his son, his heart beating with gratitude that at least he’d have a few precious hours to spend with him. The nurse spread the fur throw of white sable over Alex and the baby and wished them all a safe journey.
“There’s a word the cowboys in America say,” Hawke whispered to his son. “You’ll learn what it means some day. Giddyup!”
Anastasia flicked the reins and gave a shout to her three white chargers. The horses were arranged like a fan with one in the lead. Anastasia needed no whip to launch them into a breakneck speed down the lane toward the stand of birch trees and the great forests beyond; she spoke to them continuously, urging them on with either cheery encouragement or harsh invective.
“You still have the same horses,” Hawke said, looking over at her lovely profile. “The noble white steeds.”
“Yes. How kind of you to notice. Do you remember their names?”
“I do. Storm, Lightning, and Smoke.”
“My three gallant heroes.”
“How lucky you are with heroes, Anastasia.”
They were silent then. Hawke squeezed his sleeping son to his breast and held him tightly for the duration of the journey. The golden sleigh flew through the snowy hills and valleys like the wind. He put his head back and looked up through the trees at the blue sky, the crystalline air, the cottony white clouds drifting high above. He lulled himself into a kind of peace of mind, using these last few hours with his son and the woman he still loved to create a far, far different reality than the bleakness he was facing.
H awke stood and studied the filigreed black hands of the tall station platform clock as they moved relentlessly toward twelve noon. In the distance, he could hear the approach of the onrushing train. Minutes later, he watched the sleek red-and-silver locomotive, a half mile away, come barreling down the steeply sloped incline, bulldozing a great white avalanche of snow before it.
Anastasia, rocking Alexei in her arms, had been standing at Hawke’s side on the platform for an eternity. He had heard her weeping silently as the hands on the clock above her head continued their steady progress. Yet Hawke felt paralyzed, physically unable to speak or even make a move to comfort her; a hollow man, his unspoken words as dry and meaningless as wind in dry grass.
An eternity later, he heard her say quietly, “This has been the saddest day of my life.”
To which he solemnly replied, “Just this one?”
At this, Anastasia stood frozen in place, a character finding herself in the final act of a tragic drama, unable to remember her lines or move about the stage, hitting her marks while delivering coherent dialogue.
At last, as the long slash of the Red Arrow thundered into the tiny station, its noisy rumble shattering the unbearable impasse of their sadness, it was then that his arm found its way around Anastasia’s shoulders, gently pulling her toward him, his eyes offering hers what little comfort he had left in him to give.
“Well,” Hawke said, “time to go.”
He bent down to pick up his portmanteau and the red leather case. As he did he saw two men at the far end of the streamlined train step forward to board. They were dark men, dressed in dark suits, dark coats, dark hats. The doors hissed open and he watched them climb aboard, each carrying a thin dark case. Not large enough for clothing, he thought. Odd.
“Time to go,” he said again, realizing how flat and trite his words were but unable to even begin to say what was in his heart.
“Oh, Alex,” Anastasia said, turning her face up to him, the tears glistening on her rosy cheeks. “Won’t you at least kiss us each good-bye?”
“Of course I will,” Hawke said.
He put his hand on her shoulder and bent to put his lips to hers, ever so briefly, before turning to kiss his son, staring at him, his creamy pink cheeks, fresh from some past spring, and his enormous blue eyes, the very image of a beautiful child. He pressed his lips to Alexei’s warm cheek, prolonging the kiss as long as he could, imprinting it upon his memory.
“Must you go?” she said, a gleaming tear making its way down her cheek.
“Yes. There’s nothing left of us,” Hawke said, a profound sadness in his voice despite his attempt to be strong. Her reply was barely above a whisper.
“All that’s left to us is love.”
Hawke pulled away, unable to bear what he saw in her eyes. He kissed his son on the forehead.
“Good-bye, Alexei. Good-bye, Anastasia. Keep safe, will you both? Stay well, Alexei. Grow up into a big strong boy so you can take care of your mother. Will you, son? Promise your father that, all right?”
Hawke’s heart broke then, and he quickly turned away, the words of farewell in his throat straining with sadness. The conductor was sounding the final whistle, the last call. He tossed his old leather satchel and Peter’s sword aboard and then grabbed the rung and climbed up to the bottom step. He determined to remain there, and to do so as long as he could see the two of them.
“Good-bye, my darling,” Anastasia said. “Take our love with you and keep it safe.”
The train began to move, slowly at first, and Anastasia began moving with it, walking alongside at the same speed as the train, clutching her baby, seemingly unable to let Hawke go, let him fall away from her sight. He hung there on the lower steps, one hand clenched on the cold steel grip, as the train gathered speed.
She was running now, dangerously fast, trying hard to keep up and he feared she would fall, trip in the mushy snow, the baby in her arms and “Whatever happens,” she called out to him through her tears, “I’ll love you just as I do now until I die.”
He started to warn her, but suddenly she was reaching out to him. Reaching out with both arms, running beside the train and at the very last possible moment she did it.
She handed Alexei up to him.
He gathered the child in with his one free arm and brought him quickly to the safety of his chest, staring down at her with disbelief.
“Anastasia, what-what are you-”
She cried out, straining to be heard above the gathering speed of the train, “He’s yours, my darling. He’s all I have to give.”
Hawke, his eyes blurred with hot tears, had a last impression of that beautiful haunted face, the tortured eyes, the drawn mouth. He held his son tightly and watched Anastasia for as long as he could, standing there all alone on the deserted platform, a small solitary figure waving good-bye to the two of them forever.
