Sixteen
Nina spent a restless night dreaming of imprisoned kings and black carriages drawn by dragons and girls who cut off their fingers for love.
Finally, she gave up trying to sleep and turned on the bedside lamp. Rubbing her eyes, she pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.
The fairy tale was changing.
Or maybe changing wasn’t the right word; they’d gotten to a place in the story that was new to Nina. She’d never heard this part of the peasant girl and the prince before. She was sure of it.
And it was so detailed. Not like a fairy tale at all. But what did it all mean?
She wrote: FONTANKA BRIDGE (real).
She tapped her pen against the pad and went through the story point by point.
CIGARETTES (since when did fairy-tale mothers smoke? And why hadn’t the mom smoked in the earlier segments?)
GALINA SOMETHING. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember the ballerina’s last name, but it had been Russian.
On that, Nina went down to her dad’s office and booted up the computer. The dial-up connection took forever to engage, but when the Internet came up, she ran searches on every word she could think of. She was so caught up in gathering information that when Meredith touched her shoulder, she actually jumped.
“You look like you haven’t slept,” Meredith said.
Nina pushed back from her chair and looked up. “It’s the fairy tale. Last night was all new, right? We’ve never heard that part before?”
“It was new,” Meredith said.
“Did you notice the changes? Vera’s mother is smoking cigarettes and wearing sagging stockings, and Vera is pregnant before she gets married. When did you ever hear shit like that in a fairy tale before? And listen to this: Galina Ulanova was a great Russian ballerina who danced at the Mariinsky Theatre in Leningrad until 1944, and after that, she was at the Bolshoi in Moscow. And check out this picture: the theater has a lyre and crown on its cupola. ”
Meredith leaned closer. “That’s exactly how Mom described it. ”
Nina hit a few keys and a picture of the Summer Garden came up. “Real. In St. Petersburg, which used to be Leningrad. And Petrograd before that. These Russians change the names of everything with every leader. Notice the marble statues and the lime trees? And here’s the Bronze Horseman; it’s a famous statue in the park. Not a winged horse, but a man on horseback. ”
Meredith frowned. “I found a letter in Dad’s files. From a professor in Alaska. He was asking Mom about Leningrad. ”
“Really?” Nina scooted closer to the computer, her fingers flying on the keyboard as she pulled up the biography on Galina Ulanova again. “She was most famous in Leningrad in the thirties. If we knew how old mom was, it would help. . . . ” She typed in LENINGRAD 1930.
On screen, a list of links finally came up. One of them—GREAT TERROR—caught Nina’s attention and she clicked on it. “Listen to this,” she said when the Web site appeared. “The thirties were characterized by the Great Purge of the Communist Party, in which Stalin’s secret police arrested peasants, perceived political radicals, ethnic minorities, and artists. It was a time of widespread police surveillance, middle-of-the-night arrests, secretive ‘trials,’ years of imprisonment, and executions. ”
“Black vans,” Meredith said, leaning over Nina’s shoulder to read the rest.
“The secret police came to get people in black vans. ”
“The Black Knight is Stalin,” Nina said. “It’s a story within a story. ”
She pushed back from the computer. She and Meredith looked at each other, and in that look, Nina felt the first true connection of their lives. “Some of it is real,” Nina said quietly, feeling a shiver move through her.
“And have you noticed that she hasn’t been crazy or confused lately?” Meredith said.
“Not since she started the fairy tale. Do you think Dad knew it would help her?”
“I don’t know,” Meredith said. “I don’t know what any of it means. ”
“I don’t know, either, but we’re going to find out. ”
At work, Meredith had trouble concentrating on the details of her job. She didn’t think anyone noticed, but while she was in meetings or listening to someone talk on the phone or reading some report, she found her attention wandering back to Mom and the fairy tale.
By the end of the day she was as obsessed as her sister. After work, she drove straight home to feed the dogs and then went to Belye Nochi and into her father’s office.