me get them transported to Russia? I would like to have them with me.”
Bruno nodded, and in the austerity of the gesture, Verlaine could almost taste the regret over what
had happened to Nadia’s husband.
She stood and left the room, returning with a pear tart, which she cut into slices and served on
gilded dessert plates, releasing the scent of caramelized sugar and cloves. She dispensed the tea from
the samovar, pouring it into teacups shaped like tulips.
“Nadia, there is a specific reason that we came to you,” Bruno said.
“I gathered that there was something on your mind.” She straightened in her chair as Bruno gave her
the Cherub with Chariot Egg wrapped in cloth.
Nadia slid a pair of reading glasses onto her nose and, pulling the cloth away, examined the egg,
her hands shaking. Her face became flushed; her eyes brightened. Verlaine could see that she was
struggling to contain her reactions.
“Where did you get this?” she asked at last, her voice filled with excitement.
“It was found among Vladimir’s effects by your daughter and, by various twists and turns over the
past twenty-four hours, came into our possession,” Verlaine explained, glancing at Bruno, to see how
much information he could divulge.
“We believe that Angela Valko gave it to Vladimir,” Bruno said.
“Perhaps with the intention that he would hold it for Evangeline,” Verlaine added.
“They brought it to me, at the Hermitage, and I was able to help them identify it as one of the
missing Fabergé eggs,” Vera said.
“Now I understand why you are here,” Nadia said, weighing the egg in the palm of her hand.
“You recognize it?”
“Of course. It was in my parents’ possession for many years. It was the companion of the egg you
see in the portrait.”
“Then you understand its significance?” Verlaine asked.
“Perhaps,” Nadia said quietly. Standing, she walked to a shelf filled with dusty books and removed
a leather-bound album. “You should know, however, the egg alone is not significant. It is a mere
vessel, a kind of time capsule, something that carries significance inside it, preserving it for the
future.”
She pressed the pages flat on a table, gently, so that they were clearly visible. The pages were
filled with dried flowers, each blossom fixed by a square of clear wax paper. Some pages contained
three or four of the same variety of flower, while others featured only a single petal. Nadia moved the
pages under a lamp and the colors sharpened. The rows were neat and meticulous, as if the position
of each item had been carefully considered before being assigned its place. There were examples of
iris, lily of the valley, whole rosebuds closed tight as a fist, and a number of speckled orchid petals
that curled like tongues. There were also flowers that Verlaine didn’t recognize, despite the tags
pasted below identifying them in Latin. Some petals were as delicate and transparent as the wings of
a moth, their fanning tissues pale and dusted with powder. He was tempted to touch them, but they
were so lovely and ephemeral, so delicate, that it seemed they would turn to dust at the slightest
contact with his finger.
The flowers formed the original content of the album. On top of this, however, a second layer
emerged, more modern, less picturesque, and more haphazard than the first. Notes had been written
directly on the pages between the rows of pressed flowers, messy jottings that sprawled at odd angles
in a slanted script. Mathematical equations were scrawled in the margins; chemical symbols and
formulas written carelessly, as if the notebook had been kept at hand during sessions of laboratory
experimentation. There was little order to the notes, or none that Verlaine could discern, and strings
of numbers often bled over one sheet and onto the next in complete defiance of the edges.
Nadia flipped through the book until she found a loose yellowed page with sentences scrawled
across it in French. “Read this,” she said, giving the album to Verlaine.
And we explained to Noah all the medicines of their diseases, together with their seductions,
how he might heal them with herbs of the earth. And Noah wrote down all things in a book as
we instructed him concerning every kind of medicine. Thus the evil spirits were precluded
from harming the sons of Noah.
They sat together, silent, considering these cryptic words. Verlaine could feel the direction of their
minds turning toward a new path, as if the album were a clearing in a forest of brambles, one that
allowed them to move forward.
Suddenly Nadia closed the book, causing dust to rise into the air. “I am the child of average
people,” she said, narrowing her eyes, as if challenging them to contradict her. “People whose lives