Page 85
Story: The Oligarch’s Daughter
85
Sunshine flooded the suite the next morning. They had left the drapes open. The light glinted on the ocean waves. The light was different at sea. The water looked dark blue.
Paul kept thinking of Ilya Bondarenko’s gray face as they loaded him onto the chopper, and he wanted to obliterate the image. He looked to see if Tatyana was awake. In the old days, they would have made love. But he couldn’t imagine doing that right now.
She opened her eyes, smiled at him. “Is this whole thing just crazy to you?”
“This . . . ?”
“This . . . What can I say? This boat, this food, this suite . . . this luxury . . . ?”
“It’s crazy, yes. It’s very alien to me.”
“You could get used to this, no?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think I could ever get used to this.”
She kissed him. “And this is why I love you. Mmm. I want some coffee.” She picked up the phone on her side table. “Yes,” she said, “coffee for me, black.” She looked at Paul. “And you, darling?”
Paul was hungry. He ordered an omelet, bacon, multigrain toast, orange juice, and coffee. “You’re not eating?” he said to her.
“I’m going to work out first. What did you do last night? Where’d you go? You weren’t in bed.”
“I went exploring,” he said. “Wanted to see the yacht.”
“So what ever happened to that guy who sat next to you at dinner? ‘Bondarenko’ I think his name was.”
“Last night they took him away in a medevac helicopter. Probably taking him to the nearest hospital, which must be on Bermuda.”
She looked suddenly concerned. “How do you know this?”
“I saw the helicopter land.” He decided to be selectively honest. “I had a drink with Polina,” he said. He wasn’t going to tell her what Polina had been up to.
“And Papa, too?”
“No.”
A bell rang, and Tatyana pressed a button on the bedside table. Paul heard the door to the suite open. Tatyana called out, “In here, please.”
There was a knock on their open bedroom door. Tatyana said, “Come.”
An older Black steward, wearing a blue uniform, entered wheeling a silver cart. “Good morning, ma’am, sir,” he said with a Caribbean accent. “Would you like a bed tray?”
“Yes, thank you, Simon.”
The steward opened a concealed compartment in the room’s paneling and withdrew a silver tray, unfolded its legs, and placed it on the bed. Tatyana had pulled the sheets up to cover herself. The steward set up Paul’s breakfast on the silver tray, poured coffee for both of them. “Would you like anything else?”
“We’re fine, Simon, thank you,” Tatyana said, and with a nod, he left the room.
The coffee was amazing, and the orange juice was freshly squeezed and delicious. The cloth napkins were monogrammed with Galkin’s intertwined English and Cyrillic G .
Paul held the napkin up. “Funny your father goes with G for himself instead of a P for Pechorin .”
Tatyana took a careful sip of the hot coffee. She set the cup down, sighed. “Not so long ago, this yacht was named for his wife, Galina, my mother, so all the towels and everything had a G on them. For ‘Galina,’ not for ‘Galkin.’ Or maybe both. Then they divorced, and he married Irina, and everything was monogrammed with a capital I . And after they divorced, he had to order a whole new set of towels, for the third time, and he must have decided to stop naming his yacht after his wives.”
“Makes sense.”
She took a few more sips of her coffee and then got out of bed to put on her workout togs, Lululemon yoga pants and a black T-shirt. She left for the gym, and Paul had a leisurely breakfast. He pressed the button for the TV; the Rothko descended, and the TV screen appeared. He watched CNN for a while, then CNBC, as he ate his breakfast. Everything was surpassingly delicious. He felt strangely calm.
After an hour, Tatyana still wasn’t back, and he decided to get dressed and work out, too. But when he got to the gym, three floors down, he found it was empty. No Tatyana.
He went back upstairs and made a detour on the main deck, walked to the outdoor seating area, which was also deserted. Where had she gone?
On his way back to their suite, he heard Tatyana’s voice. She was standing outside the door to someone’s cabin, talking with a man whose voice Paul recognized. Then the man emerged from the room, and he saw the gray-and-ginger head of Andrei Berzin.
For a moment, he considered walking down the corridor and greeting Tatyana. Then he thought better of it and took the stairs up to their suite.
He was washing his hands in the bathroom when Tatyana returned.
“Did you work out?” he asked. Normally, her face was flushed and she glowed with perspiration after a workout. But not now.
“Yeah.”
“Why were you talking to Berzin?”
“What? When?”
“A few minutes ago. I saw you coming out of his room.”
A strange expression crossed her face and just as quickly vanished. “Oh, Berzin, he has a one-track mind,” she said. “He’s obsessed with threats to the family, and he wanted to talk about my personal security.” She didn’t sound very convincing.
“What about your security?”
“Oh . . .” she faltered. She fluttered her hands. “Everything. It’s so boring. Do we have to talk about this?”
“I think I’m going to finish my tour of the yacht. Want to come with me?”
“I’m starving,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower and order my breakfast.”
The suite phone rang, startling him. He picked it up.
“Is this Mr. Brightman?” An Englishwoman’s voice, crisp and efficient.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Galkin would like to see you, please,” she said.
“Sure. When?”
“Right now, if you could. Do you know where the owner’s suite is?”
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