Hot Siberian (29 page)

“Darling, play a little,” Vivian suggested.

“I'd just as soon watch,” Nikolai whispered. He found fascinating the losings and winnings of such large amounts, the almost disrespectful lack of regard for money. For instance, the German gentleman seated nearest the wheel. He probably would have raised screaming hell had he found a four-mark error on his dinner bill an hour ago, and here on that last turn of the wheel he'd impassively lost a thousand.

“My roulette angels seem to be telling me you'd be lucky,” Vivian said.

“You play if you want,” Nikolai told her.

She understood his reluctance. “Set a limit on yourself and see how it goes. Come on,” she urged good-naturedly, “we're in Baden-Baden.”

Nikolai didn't want to be a killjoy. He purchased fifty chips worth a pound each.

“What number should we play?”

“Don't think, just play the number that you seem told to play.”

“What about your roulette angels?” He was amused.

“What about them?”

“They're yours, aren't they, not mine?”

“We're soul mates,” she said. “They'll talk to you. But of course you have to listen.”

He waited a moment, as though listening, then placed five chips on the place on the layout of the table that was designated
ODD,
thus betting at even money that the winning number would be odd. The spin was in progress. The wheel slowed. The white ball seemed to have a mind of its own. It fell into number 18 and as though dissatisfied there hopped out and went into the adjacent slot, number 29. Nikolai had won. The croupier paid him five chips.

“Let the ten ride,” Vivian said. “That is, if you feel
told
that you should.”

He did and won on odd again. He picked up his original bet and his winnings of fifteen pounds.

“See?” Vivian said and gave his ear a fast celebratory kiss that sounded to him like a minor explosion.

Nikolai hadn't done much gambling in his lifetime. For most of his years there hadn't been either the opportunity or the time for it. In his youth he'd played cards with Lev and some fellows once in a while, but that was for the comradeship of it and the vodka they drank more than the few kopeks that were wagered. Soon after he was assigned to the trade mission in London he went alone to the races on three occasions, spring Saturdays when he had nothing better to do than satisfy his curiosity about what it was like. He went to Beverly and Salisbury and one night to Kingfield. Watched, altogether, nineteen races run, made four small bets, and lost all four, but seeing such handsome horses run was worth it. Since Vivian, he'd gone with her twice to her private gaming club, the Clermont, and spent more time at the bar than at the table with her. In fact, the second time he'd gone to the Clermont with her, while she was caught up in play he'd gone out and sat on a bench in Berkeley Square Park across the way for nearly an hour and hadn't been missed. She came away claiming she'd broken even. He thought she was white-lying about that and he did the same by letting her think he believed her. On several nights during the past year he had lain in the dark feeling paired by touch with Vivian in her bed while she explained the rudiments of blackjack and baccarat, roulette and craps, wanting to share her interest with him. Every so often she'd stop and ask if he was listening and he'd umm-hmm for her and sometimes would even ask a question for her sake.

Now he was fifteen pounds ahead at Baden-Baden and discovering how entirely different was the feeling of knowing the next bet he made would be his trying to win their money while betting their money. He sat out a spin and then placed ten pounds on the space designated
1st 12
. The slot that the ball finally took rest in was number 6, making Nikolai a winner three times in succession, and this last time at two-to-one odds.

He played on. At the end of an hour he had learned the game fairly well and was two thousand and some pounds ahead. Possibly, he thought, there
was
something to Vivian's roulette angels, because never once during his hour of play had he allowed logic to influence him. Rather, it was as if he'd put himself completely at the command (or was it whim?) of a determining force that sort of poked hunches into his head whenever it was pleased to do so. Those times when he lost it seemed that some force also determined that he should, for contrast, to keep the reaction to winning at its proper intensity. Vivian was with him all the way, pulling for him, encouraging after a loss, squeezing him one place or another after a nice win. Once during a relatively critical wager, Nikolai felt himself getting an erection and could only partly attribute that to Vivian. Strange, he thought, and wondered what other such recesses were in him that he'd never been aware of.

The wheel was again spun.

Nikolai was suddenly indecisive about which play he should make and how much. The force that had been providing him with guidance seemed to have deserted him, or at least was no longer paying attention. He believed in the number 6 but the number 14 was more of a possibility but 23 was perhaps better. He hadn't known such ambivalence until now. He took it as an indication that he should quit while he was ahead. He skipped three turns and then told Vivian, “You play.”

“You're doing fine.”

“No, please, you take over.”

“Why?”

“That's what I feel.” Also he felt selfish. Vivian had shown marvelous patience, especially for someone who so enjoyed wagering. He relinquished to her his two thousand in chips and plaques and stood behind her chair. By how much his neck and shoulders and arms now relaxed he realized how tense he'd become.

Vivian's play was swifter, more decisive. Her wagers were spread out over the layout of numbers, and seldom did she stop placing chips on various lines and intersections of lines until the croupier announced there could be no more bets. Nikolai told himself he wouldn't mind if she lost the entire two thousand that had required so much emotional energy for him to win.

However, she didn't lose. The plaques on the table in front of her piled up. At one o'clock Nikolai was happy to have her back with him when she turned to him, looked up, and said, “Let's make it an early night.” An attendant was summoned to accompany her to the cashier, who exchanged the hard pieces of plastic for banknotes, a thick sheaf. Twenty thousand pounds.

They were marvelous winners, Nikolai and Vivian. Their arms-around walk back to the hotel was practically a strut that was practically a dance. They'd beaten the house, the Omniscient favored them; they were cleverer than fate, the angels were hovering, circling, doing loop-the-loops above their heads.

That emotional climate carried over into their love-making.

The next afternoon they went exploring around the small town and ended up climbing one of the surrounding hillsides, a steep open slope with grass so tall and thick it made the going strenuous. Vivian called it “hiding grass,” because when they lay down in it they were out of sight, except for whatever was in the sky. They kissed a lot. After that romantic laziness they had an excellent light dinner at Katzenberger's Adler in the nearby village of Rastatt. They were at the casino by ten.

It had been decided that Vivian would do the playing. She saw no reason why they both shouldn't, but Nikolai really didn't want to. His previous night's play had been a short high-feverish sort of positive experience that he felt would be better left singular. Even winning again would dilute it.

Vivian had the twenty thousand they were ahead to play with.

The angels weren't around. By midnight it was lost.

“Sixteen!” she muttered on the way back to the hotel. “Fucking sixteen.” Several times during her play she had bet heavily on number 16, but, perversely, it wouldn't come up except when she wasn't on it. It was as though the number disliked her. When they arrived at the suite they went straight to bed. Vivian didn't even remove her makeup, which was not like her. There was no mention of the casino, but Nikolai doubted that it was very far back in her mind. She got right into her current reading, a book entitled
Angels and Man
, skipping pages to get to that part headed “Angelic Responsibility.” Nikolai dozed off. Gambling was surprisingly enervating.

He awoke around four. Vivian wasn't there. He called out to her but didn't really expect a response. He knew immediately where she was, and for a while considered getting up and going there. However, he reasoned it would be worse if he did. He remained in bed, waited in the dark. He couldn't recall having felt lonelier. At close to five he heard her come in quietly. There was the stealthy sound of her barefoot steps on the rug, the rustle of her undressing, the puff of the pillow as it received her head, the frictional whistle of the sheet on her skin as she pulled it up over her. Nikolai sensed her condition, the hurt. She was like a wounded creature torn by a trap. He reached for her, brought her to him, silently soothed her, cupped and stroked her head. The tempo of her heart against him gradually slowed. She was drained.

He was certain she had lost, but actually it made no difference whether she had or not.

When she was deep asleep, Nikolai got up, careful not to disturb her. Noiselessly as possible, and automatically, as though having no choice, he removed his things from the wardrobe and its drawers and from the bathroom. He packed in the sitting room and then dressed. He didn't inflict upon himself the pain of a look in on her before he went out. He hired a car to take him to Stuttgart, where he caught the first available flight to Frankfurt. From there Aeroflot would take him home to Leningrad.

Vivian's eyes opened at ten-thirty that morning. Consciousness came to her with the dubious tidings that she was once again broke, fresh out except for a leftover thousand or two. There'd be mortgages in her immediate future.
Merde
, part of her said.
Tant pis
, said the other part. She would tell Nikolai over breakfast, she decided. She'd grin and admit to having been defeated. Would she have to say how sorry she was? She called out, and when there was no reply thought he might be out for a walk, perhaps gone up on the slope again. She imagined him sitting up there, his gaze fixed on the windows of the suite, waiting to see the drapes drawn, telling him she was awake and to hurry to her.

She didn't realize the extent of his absence until she was in the bathroom peeing and noticed his razor and brush and other such essentials were gone from the marble shelf above his sink. She went to the other room and saw the empty wardrobe, his luggage not in the foyer closet.

She couldn't remain standing, lowered herself to the edge of the sofa, hunched tightly, elbows on knees, fists jammed to cheekbones. She was beyond crying. The air seemed anesthetic. She was numb all over. Her mind tried to come to her rescue. It's only a tiff, it said. Nikolai was probably hurrying back to her this instant.

Finally, she presented something to herself that she could put stock in:
Self-preservation, Viv, is an antidote for panic
.

CHAPTER

16

A
RCHER BELIEVED HE KNEW HIS
V
IVIAN, IF NOT PHYSICALLY
at least psychologically, better than anyone. What he was for her now would be extremely important in nourishing what he hoped she would be for him in the near future. Don't be too hasty or clumsy in picking up her pieces and putting them in your pocket, he cautioned himself.

He gauged the depth of Vivian's hurt and took a position on the edge of it, a vantage from which he would surely know when it reached the stage of healing over. He filled it as much as possible with listening. In her unhalting manner, as though to drain a wound, she related to him the entire episode in detail, from Madrid to desertion. In fact, she went over it twice, as though searching for anything she might have left out. Throughout, Archer soaked up her words with concern, understanding frowns, sympathetic well-timed nods. Now and then, trying to splash a little laughter up out of her, he threw in one of his most arid or cynical quips. He also suggested distractions on the chance that she might grab hold of one and pull herself more quickly up out of this emotional mire. For instance, would she care to go trout fishing in Nova Scotia? Nothing salvages certain sunken hearts more readily than the taking of a couple of ten-pound browns. Or would she want to go somewhere and shoot something? What better way to separate the wrath from the woes?

The farthest Archer succeeded in getting her to go was to dinner at La Tante Claire. He had to wangle a reservation from a club crony who'd booked that scarcity a month ago, promised the fellow a stack of expensive favors in return. As it turned out, Archer might as well have taken Vivian to a fish-and-chips place. She didn't care what he ordered for her, just anything, she told him, and sat there sucking on the slice of lime that came in her Perrier without making a sour face. She didn't want to talk about her Nikolai dilemma anymore. She didn't want to talk about anything. Nothing was worth words.

Thus, Archer had to fuel the conversation, hardly a pleasure for him. He could see everything he said passing right through her as though she were incorporeal. Hearing so much of only himself and coming up against the blanks of so many mute moments made him realize how tiresomely dull he'd probably been all along. Anyway, not nearly as amusing as he'd thought.

Another revelation for Archer was his own reaction to Nikolai's absence and the prospect that it might be permanent. The departure of Nikolai was not surprising to him. He'd anticipated that eventuality. However, now that it had come to pass, Archer felt part of himself was missing; a fresh, fairly potent hollow had taken a place within him where all his longtime most personal hollows dwelled. Of course, Archer thought, Vivian could alleviate that if only she were able to sustain a genuine smile in response to him and indulge in some of her normal wry rapport. Well, couldn't she? In the course of his one-sided conversations Archer steered around the mention of Nikolai as though it were a perilous obstacle. Several times he forgot and came within a syllable of collision. His public-school mentality suggested that now that his rival was down he should kick him, but for some reason, he could not bring himself to denigrate Nikolai. Besides, his better judgment advised that that would be an unwise and ineffective strategy.