Free Natasha's Dream by Mary Jane Staples

Mr Gibson.
    ‘Oh, he only asked if someone had been talking to you.’ Natasha looked sorrowful. She also looked a different being. Two nights of sound sleep and several good meals had taken from her the appearance of a starveling. Her pinched, sooty-eyed look was almost completely gone, her wretchedness only a memory. Her new coat, with its deep revers, belted waist and long full skirt, had a Cossack-style appeal that entirely suited her, for she was long-legged and taller than the average young lady. Mr Gibson thought her a revitalized creature, except that she was still painfully thin. ‘You have wasted your time,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I couldhave told you what Count Orlov’s answers would be. All the monarchists speak as he does. Not because they believe what they say, but because they use the voices of others.’
    ‘What others?’
    ‘Who knows?’ said Natasha. ‘But you would not have found Madame Tolstoy as sure of herself as Count Orlov was. He did not speak with her voice, nor even with his own. It is no good asking me why, dear sir. Important people do not confide in me. All Russians hear things, but not many of us can say we were confided in.’
    ‘Damned if the whole thing isn’t a lot more mysterious here than it sounds in London,’ murmured Mr Gibson. ‘Damned if it doesn’t feel as if the Tsar himself survived and is commanding a strange silence in certain people. Well, let’s find a café where we can enjoy coffee and cognac. What d’you say, Natasha?’
    Her face expressed familiar delight. ‘I say that to be with Your Excellency is like standing in the sun,’ she said in earnest simplicity.
    ‘You’re going to be an embarrassment to me,’ said Mr Gibson.
    ‘This way,’ she said, and walked beside him in pride. She was quite sure such a distinctive and civilized man commanded great respect inEngland. She took him in the direction of Unter den Linden, the magnificent thoroughfare that always set her imagination to work and made her dream of an existence in which there was beauty, grandeur and a ready-made family of sons, daughters and husband, all of whom adored her and heaped her with the riches of love. The dream could uplift her and make her live it in her mind, but there was always an underlying note of haunting sadness.
    Many times she had gone into Unter den Linden’s cafés and restaurants to beg for work, any kind of work, even work that would only earn her a meal. Because she was just one more Russian émigré among so many, she had sometimes been hustled out or thrown out. In some places, there was a certain kind of work she could have done to earn money, but she would never do it, never, however desperate she was. She had been offered jobs in some clubs, clubs that offered customers a little more than glittering lights and risqué cabaret. She retreated from such offers in shame and disgust. She was a fierce virgin. Before continuous hard times had wasted her flesh, before she had lost her figure and become unattractively thin, more than one oily procurer had made propositionsto her and had their faces angrily slapped. And there were women procurers too in Berlin, sweet-smiling women, with beautifully painted faces and soft, sympathetic eyes.
    How good it was, and how exciting, to enter Unter den Linden feeling well dressed and quick with life, and in company with Mr Gibson. The dull morning had become bright, and the avenue looked majestic in the pale November sunlight. The linden trees had lost their autumn gold, and stood in silvery winter array down the whole length of the central promenade. Before the war, before the fall of the Hohenzollern monarchy, Berlin had been an Imperial city bursting with pomp, pride and energy. Colourful uniforms, glittering helmets and the music of military bands had created an atmosphere of brilliance and power. Now Berlin was no longer Imperial. It was merely the capital of the struggling Weimar Republic. The military bands these