Page 46

Four months passed; the murders of Mr. Lebedev and Mr. Walters remained unsolved.

It was early in the morning. Anyu walked into the showroom holding a cigarette and an ashtray.

She had been up since midnight, crafting the orders she had received after winning the award for her brooch design.

She had grown thirsty, but the thermos in the kitchen was empty. The aunts were not in the kitchen.

Under the bright chandelier, Samuel and Esther were arranging the jewelry pieces in the shop.

She was pleased to see Esther, who had started to help out in the mornings.

But only in the morning, as she needed to look after Matthew at home.

Motherhood suited Esther, who laughed more often and hummed lively tunes when not with customers.

She was still a protective and caring sister to Samuel, however, asking Anyu about girls who could be Samuel’s potential dates.

And Anyu, true to her promise to Samuel, had not told Esther about his relationship with Miss Rose or his role in Mr. Walters’s murder.

“Where are the aunts?” Anyu asked, smoking her cigarette.

“They’ll be back shortly. Don’t smoke in the showroom, Anyu. Customers won’t like it if the shop is too smoky.” Leaning over the shelves, Esther adjusted a stand that held five rings.

There were knocks on the door.

Esther went to open it. She explained that the shop was not open, but the person at the door refused to leave.

Anyu went to the window. Near the door was a girl wearing a blue kimono printed with cranes, and behind her was a red palanquin carried by four men in long tunics, while the street, which should be bustling with carriages and carts at this hour, was unusually empty.

“If you don’t mind, could you return in an hour?” Esther said.

“Sorry, I’m Chizuko.” The girl had a plump face and eyes tilted upward at the end, reminding Anyu of the Japanese women in Harbin.

“We can’t wait for the shop to open. Please be prepared to receive Her Highness Yoshiko Kawashima, formerly known as Aisin Gioro Xianyu, the fourteenth daughter of Prince Su of the Aisin Gioro tribe, the ruling clan of the great Qing Dynasty, the cousin of Puyi, the emperor of the newly founded Manchukuo in northern China.

” The girl bowed, her hand extending to the palanquin.

The curtain of the palanquin was pulled up, and a woman in a white embroidered kimono emerged.

She looked in her late twenties, had long hair that almost reached her waist, and a garland of chrysanthemums on her head.

Her face was almond-shaped, her eyes black as midnight.

A samurai sword hung on her belt, and she walked with a strange gait, soundless, like a deer padding through a forest. All the people around the palanquin prostrated themselves as she paced toward the shop.

Anyu forgot to smoke. The Qing Dynasty had ended decades ago, and she had never heard of the princess.

“My apologies. As you can see, we’re in the middle of setting up for the day,” Esther said.

Kawashima didn’t seem to hear her. She looked around. Her gaze passed Samuel at the counter, and then she dipped her head. “I’d like to meet the owner of the shop.”

Her Chinese had a Northerner’s accent; her voice was soft. She had the submissive air that Anyu often saw on the faces of Japanese women in Harbin, but also the aloofness common to those high-ranking aristocrats.

Anyu stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray. She was about to speak when she heard a cough.

“I am the owner of the House of Mandelburg.” Isaac appeared. “How may I help you, dear customer?” he said in Chinese.

“I’d like to place a very special order for a piece of jewelry in the shape of an egg.”

“An egg?” Isaac asked.

Anyu frowned.

“It has to resemble one of the Fabergé eggs, with a surprise inside. Have you any knowledge of them?”

“I humbly confess such curios are not my specialized area.”

“I read about your jewelry shop in the newspaper. Your shop was praised by Queen Mary, a high honor. I don’t suppose you’ll have trouble creating an egg.

I request my egg, the Kawashima Egg, to be crafted with the same sophisticated ingenuity and perfection as Fabergé eggs.

” The princess waved, and behind her, her assistant, the Japanese girl, came up to the counter with a bag.

From the bag, she took out gold ingots and counted them. Twenty gold ingots.

“This is the deposit of one thousand dollars. The rest of the money, another thousand, shall be paid when I receive the order.”

Isaac didn’t look at the bag. “This is a great honor for my house, dear customer. But if it makes any difference, many jewelers in Shanghai have excellent knowledge of Russian jewelry.”

“I’d rather my egg come from your house.” She turned to face Anyu. “You are my chosen jeweler for my Kawashima Egg. I expect the egg to be completed in six months.”

Anyu cleared her throat. “I’m afraid I can’t. I have other commissions in the queue. Six months doesn’t give us sufficient time to design and craft.”

“Would you agree to seven months?”

Anyu looked at her. “I’ll do my best. Although, Your Highness, it is customary that I know about my clients’ taste before I design their jewelry. Why are you interested in making an egg similar to a Fabergé egg?”

The princess said, “If you promise not to share my personal details with the journalists, I’ll be glad to tell you. I do not fancy a life in the spotlight of the media.”

Anyu nodded.

“I was five years old when my family’s reign ended, the traitors of the country executed many of my relatives, and my entire family fought to survive.

Fearing for my safety, my father gave me up to be adopted by his friend Samurai Kawashima in Japan.

I was eight when I sailed to Japan, and I knew I was doomed to an exile’s existence, and I would never see my parents again.

In my adoptive father’s home, I lived a lonely life.

My only comfort was the imperial Fabergé egg my father gave me as a parting gift, a token to remember my birth.

I cherished it. The artifact of ultimate perfection gave me something that nothing else could—happiness.

When I was fifteen, my father died and my mother committed suicide to follow him to the afterlife. I became an orphan.”

An orphan princess of a bygone imperial family.

“Then I lost my Fabergé egg. It was stolen, I’m sure. I never saw it again. I still dream of it. It is the only memory I have of my parents and my family. You would make one for me?”

Anyu nodded, staring at the sword she carried.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to see the design in three weeks.” Kawashima walked out of the shop. On the street, she entered the palanquin, surrounded by people who remained prostrate.

“What’s her name again?” Esther said.

“She’s beautiful,” Samuel said.

“I don’t know how to say this. I feel like I’ve met her before.” Isaac’s face was pale.

“You have?” Anyu asked.

“But I don’t know where we could possibly have met. She’s a princess, and she grew up in Japan.”

“If you’re worried about it, we don’t have to take the commission.”

He wiped his face. “Never mind.”

“We’ll take the commission, then? How would you design the egg, Anyu?” Samuel asked.

She thought. “She has a Japanese name, even though she is a Manchu. What do you say we look at that angle?”

But she shared Isaac’s unease. The princess was not telling the truth.

The Qing Dynasty’s reign ended in 1911, when she was five years old.

If she left for Japan at eight, it was in 1914; that was before the revolution that overthrew the Romanovs in 1917.

Her parents couldn’t possibly have had access to the tsar’s eggs.

Three weeks later, the princess’s assistant, the girl Chizuko, came over to inspect the design.

Cautiously, Anyu presented an egg steeped in Japanese culture: two halves of eggshells made of moonstones, gold filigree of cherry blossoms inlaid with sapphire, a button-sized palace carved out of jadeite, and a round Pigeon’s Blood ruby as a rising sun, peeking from a bed of opals shaped as clouds.

The surprise was an orthorhombic sword made of diamonds with a high degree of fire and dispersion.

It was a work of art, but she knew little about Kawashima’s taste. She might reject it.

“It’s a beauty. I’ll pick up the egg in six months and one week,” the assistant said and left the showroom.

Six months later, Anyu put down her polish cloth and wiggled her stiff shoulders.

Finally, the egg was finished. The past months, however, had been intense and full of pressure.

Every day, she had carved, sawed, and polished, but she could feel an ominous cloud coalescing at the back of her head.

This Kawashima Egg had been one of the most challenging ornaments she had completed.

Isaac looked as if he had drained all his energy; his mustache grayed, and his eyes were rimmed with red threads.

When they were alone, he confessed that he was worried about the Guild and her Fabergé egg.

Several times he had met Mrs. Brown, who said that she had found some suspicious men loitering around her estate. She didn’t give details.

“Only you and I know about the Winter Egg; no one else knows,” Anyu reminded him.

A few days later, the assistant sent word that Kawashima would come to pick up the egg tomorrow.

The next morning, Anyu waited in the showroom with Isaac. She was nervous, and so was Isaac, pacing, holding the briefcase with the egg. Would the princess accept the egg with grace? She couldn’t wait to hand it over and be done with it.

The sun rose and crept to the top of the roof across the street; the customers came and went. The princess didn’t show up.

“Does she still want the egg?” Esther asked, little Matthew chasing her around the counter.

She had started to help out regularly in the showroom, and the little one was three years old and had grown up to be a fearless explorer.

Wearing a plaid romper, he was chuckling, crying out, “Mama, Mama!” Then he tripped and fell on his bottom; his lips flattened to a line.

Anyu picked him up and brushed dirt off his pants. Little Matthew always got her attention, even now.

“Anyu, could you take him to the kitchen? He needs a change,” Esther said.

“Do you have a stinky? Do you? Do you?” Anyu carried him to the kitchen, where the two aunts were making lunch. Little Matthew was giggling, his fist in his mouth. Anyu kissed him on each cheek, and little Matthew grabbed her fingers and stuffed them in his mouth.

It tickled.

Anyu laughed. She lifted his tiny fist and kissed his fingers one by one.

The boy had grown, the fine down of his hair lengthening into strands of gold.

She had been seeing little Matthew almost every day, but still, when Esther took him home with her, Anyu missed him.

He was Esther’s child, but he had wrapped his auntie Anyu around his finger.

When she returned to the showroom again, Isaac was standing by the counter, holding a piece of paper in his hand. “Anyu, Kawashima just sent word. She prefers that we deliver the egg to her residence, Maison Iwar.”

“Why?”

The ornament, encrusted with diamonds and other precious gemstones, was worth two thousand dollars. Why would Kawashima ask them to deliver it at the last minute?

“She didn’t say.”

“I wish she would honor her word and come here,” Uncle David said.

“I could deliver the egg for you, Father, but I have a doctor’s appointment for Matthew.” Esther took Matthew from Anyu’s arms.

“I’ll deliver it,” Anyu said.

Isaac glanced at several customers who had just entered the showroom. “May I have a word with you in the workshop?”

“Of course.” Anyu gave Matthew a squeeze and went in. She followed Isaac into the workshop and closed the door.

“Anyu, I’ve been thinking about this. Something is amiss. The princess is making excuses. Let me deliver the egg.”

“I think it will be fine, Isaac.”

He rubbed his face. “How about this: I’ll go with you. Let’s deliver Kawashima’s egg together.”

“Fine.” She reached out to touch his face, a light touch, to remind him she cared about him, to let him know she respected his will and she wouldn’t cross the line and give him grief.

Isaac smiled, a brilliant yet poignant smile that would haunt her in her dreams for many years to come.