Page 49 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“The board?”

“You maybe say ‘on board.’ Anyway, is very exciting.”

“I appreciate the offer, and I’ll let you know soon,” Paul said.

Galkin lowered his voice. “Maybe you will let me buy my daughter a bigger diamond. Bump her up.”

Paul didn’t have a chance to reply. The gallerist with the big black-framed glasses immediately glommed onto Arkady. Paul wondered if Galkin was a major customer.

Paul caught Tatyana’s eye in the crowd, excused himself, and crossed over to where she was standing, in front of a large photograph of a man wearing white curlers in his hair and smoking a joint. Next to her were her friend Vera and Vera’s husband, Brent. Tatyana and he had seen them at dinner a few weeks ago. They were laughing about something. But when Paul approached, Tatyana turned away from them, looked at him, threw out her arms, and said, openly vulnerable, “Do you really like them?”

“I think they’re knockouts,” he said, hugging her. “Portraits of our time.”

“Oh, thank you, Pasha!”

He tried his Russian. “Ochen interestnyie fotografiyi.” Very interesting pictures. It wasn’t hard to remember:Interestnyiesounded like “interesting,” andfotografiyiwas obviously “photographs.”

“Otlichno!” she replied. Excellent. “Terrific.” Then she switched back to English. “I love them,” she said, meaning the subjects, not the photos themselves. “They’re my people.” Then she whispered nervously, “The critic fromArtforumis here!”

Just behind them, a buxom middle-aged woman came up to Arkady. “Wonderful show,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“Is my daughter show, not mine,” Arkady said. “Tell her.”

“Well, let me congratulate the gallery owner,” the woman said, leaning over and giving him a kiss.

Paul realized then that Tatyana’s photographs were here, at this prestigious gallery, only because of her father. That Niko, with all his mind games, knew it. That Tatyana, as a result, would never really feel any sense of validation as a photographer. And his heart broke for her.

31

That night, in the middle of the night, Tatyana cried out in her sleep, saying things Paul didn’t understand, in a high voice. He was pretty sure she was speaking Russian. He had noticed this happened with her from time to time. He went to comfort her, wiping away tears, and she just clutched him, pulled him to her firmly.

In the morning, he asked her what she’d been dreaming about that was so upsetting.

“It’s a dream I have so often. I’m going somewhere with my brother and my parents, and I turn around, and my parents are gone.”

“Did that ever happen to you?”

“Once, they took me to the zoo in Vienna when I was little, and I got lost. I guess I must have seen some ice cream, and my papa said I couldn’t have any until after lunch, and I wandered off in search of the ice cream, and he and Mama were looking at the monkeys, and they lost track of me.”

“Whatever happened?”

“A security guard saw me and asked me where my parents were, and I told him I didn’t know. He bought me an ice cream. Eventually, my parents went to Security, and the guard who was with me got a call and—but think of how scary it must have been for them! To think you lost your child in a foreign city.”

“Did your dad leave you when you were young?”

She looked sad. She paused a moment. “He was gone a lot. Long periods of time. My mama would tell me when he was coming back, and he’d call me on the phone, but I was still afraid he wasn’t coming back. I have dreams where I’m in an airport. I tell my parents to wait a moment, I want to buy something from a shop, and when I come back from the shop, they’re not there. I keep looking and looking, and there’s no trace of them. I ask people, and they shake their heads. I call out for them—Mama! Papa!—but they’re gone, and somehow I know they’re gone forever. They’ve deliberately left me, and they’re never coming back. I yell for them, but no sound comes out of my mouth. I try so hard to scream, and all I can do is make a high, squeaking sound. Like my voice has been taken away.”

“You ever talk to a therapist about it?”

“Of course. I’ve had lots of therapists. And they all tell me I have abandonment issues. Separation anxiety.”

“Oh, that’s a big help,” he said sarcastically.

“Yeah, brilliant insight. Thank you very much.” She added, dryly, “So don’t abandon me.”

“I won’t,” he said.

32

---