Page 83 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“The rich stay rich by not giving it away,” Paul said.

She laughed again, more openly, and it sounded like Tatyana’s laugh.

*

As the sun went down, they circled back to Galina’s dacha. Inside, the house was open and spacious. Exposed beams on a pitched ceiling. There were old-looking caramel-colored leather couches with rolled arms, Persian throw rugs, and icons hung on the maroon-painted walls. Paul smelled something delicious being cooked. A young man in a white shirt and dark jeans, apparently a member of Galina’s staff, offered them flutes of champagne from a tray.

Mother and daughter were in the middle of a conversation about a childhood friend of Tatyana’s who had gotten into trouble. That was as much as Paul could discern; they were speaking only in Russian. Galina asked for more champagne, and so did Tatyana. Paul didn’t want to get drunk, not in front of his mother-in-law—plus, he had a business meeting in the morning. He asked for mineral water.

Dinner was leg of lamb with whipped potatoes and green beans, simple but savory, all served by the butler, who seemed also to be the cook.

“We are being very rude to your Pasha,” Galina said. She had just told Tatyana a story about a woman with whom Arkady had been conducting an affair when Tatyana was a toddler. Galina spoke in Russian, but Paul was beginning to understand spoken Russian more and more.

He said, in English, “I assume this was after he’d gotten rich.”

“In fact, yes,” said Galina with a grin.

“Arkady says that women are attracted to rich men like flies to shit,” Paul said.

Both women laughed. “He’s very direct, your husband,” Galina said.

They started on the lamb and were silent for a moment as they ate.

“How’d you meet Arkady in the first place?” Paul asked.

“I went to a party with a lot of people from the Bauman Institute, and we were immediately attracted to each other. In those days, he was kind of cute.” Galina took a long sip of red wine. “Forgive me for saying this, but the lady engineers he went to school with were not exactlyPlayboycenterfolds.”

“Not his type, huh?” Paul said.

“What about that professor?” Tatyana asked. “Didn’t they have an affair?”

Galina’s eyes lit up. “Ah, yes.” Turning to Paul, she said, “One of his teachers took a shine to him. Ludmilla something. A younger faculty member.”

“One of his teachers?” Paul asked.

“I remember she had very thick glasses. Coke-bottle glasses, you would say. But veryconnected.” A long, significant pause. “She made him rich, you know.” This was directed at her daughter. “She was connected.”

“How’d she make him rich?” Paul asked.

“She knew the right people in the Kremlin. Ludmilla was kind of a recruiter.”

“Recruiting for what?”

Galina shrugged, uninterested in explaining further. “The Kremlin was looking for promising young Russians to take the economy private. All the men who became oligarchs— and they were all men—were well connected to the power structure. You had to know the right people. This is how it is in Russia—who you know.”

Not so different in America, Paul thought.

“Didn’t you say Ludmilla tried to convince him not to marry you?” said Tatyana.

“Ah, yes,” Galina replied. “My biggest enemies were not his girlfriends but the women, his platonic friends he made at Bauman. They thought I was a . . . I believe the term isbimbo, right? Worst of all was Ludmilla. Maybe they were threatened by me.”

Paul was about to ask what Ludmilla’s last name was when Tatyana said, “Polina had her eyes on Papa for years”—and the opportunity passed.

In the car on the way back to the hotel, Paul saw another chance and asked Tatyana for Ludmilla’s surname. Tatyana was drunk, pleasantly so. Too drunk to ask him why he wanted to know.

“I don’t remember,” she said after a moment. “Ludmilla Sergeyevna something.” She remembered only Ludmilla’s patronymic, but maybe that was good enough.

Tatyana crawled into bed as soon as they arrived in their room. Paul brought her a couple of aspirin and a glass of water to ward off a hangover in the morning.

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