“This is good,” Nicky said, picking up a chicken leg and biting into it.
“It’s not caviar, but it ain’t bad,” Tom agreed.
“I don’t really like caviar,” Nicky answered, looking very serious.
Tom’s eyes widened. “I’ve never had enough of it to acquire a genuine dislike.” He waited a moment, as usual, for Nicky to expand on the theme, and, as usual, nothing appeared forthcoming from Nicky who now picked up his glass of beer and downed almost half of it in one long swallow.
They were sitting in O’Neal’s, just opposite Lincoln Center, the current “in” place for opera buffs, out-of-work ballet dancers, aspiring composers, musicians, actors and tourists on the lookout for celebrities. The price was right and the food was good; those attributes coupled with a reputation for attracting an arty crowd had made O’Neal’s instantly popular. Tom thought it the perfect place to take Nicky for their first confrontation outside the walls of the West Side Y. M. C. A.
Arriving at this moment had not been easy for Tom. After a month of seeing Nicky at the Y almost twice a week, and extending an invitation each time they met only to be refused, had exasperated Tom to the point of intimating that one more refusal on Nicky’s part would end their friendship, if their relationship could be called that. Nicky had looked so hurt by the insinuation that Tom could have kicked himself for having spoken the words.
“Look, I wasn’t serious.”
“Yes you were.”
“Okay, but it’s only because I like you and I would enjoy your company outside of a fucking swimming pool. You know I’ve never seen you with clothes on.”
Nicky grinned. “You hate my body.”
“No, Nicky, I like your body, but I don’t like sharing it with ten thousand gallons of water and fifty gawking faggots.”
Nicky hadn’t blushed. He had become accustomed enough to Tom’s picturesque phrases to avoid that reaction but he did smile his little-boy smile and had answered, “Next Friday night. I promise.”
Tom attacked his fried chicken-in-the-basket, sipped some wine and then, with an inaudible sigh, asked, “How often have you had caviar?”
“We used to have it every night before dinner. Uncle Alexis loves it.”
Tom put down his fork which, at the moment, was halfway between his plate and his mouth and stared at Nicky. “Every night?”
Nicky nodded as if acknowledging a commonplace occurrence. His clear blue eyes were bright, alert and deadly serious.
“Real caviar?”
Now Nicky paused, fork in midair, and looked questioningly at Tom. “Is there such a thing as fake caviar?”
Tom rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Sophisticated enough to nosh on caviar every night and naïve enough to never have heard of lumpfish. A ghost, Tom was certain, would have been easier to deal with. “Yes, Nicky, it’s called lumpfish.”
“What does it taste like?”
“Caviar…but it’s dyed black and the dye tends to stain the eater’s lips and tongue. Class will win out.”
Nicky stuck the tip of his tongue out between his lips. “See, it’s not black. I had real caviar.”
“The stain is not permanent, you nut. It goes away.”
“Ah…then I’ll never know for sure.”
Tom laughed. “You are a nut. But a charming one. Now, why did you stop having caviar? Did Uncle Alexis’s money run out?”
“No, his health. High blood pressure. Salt is a no-no.”
“So, Uncle Alexis goes salt-free and Nicky, in his prime, does likewise. I think Uncle Alexis is a shit.”
“Don’t say that, Tom, he’s like my father.”
“I don’t care if he’s like your mother. He can’t eat the expensive fish eggs so he cuts you and Aunt…what’s her name?”
“Aunt Marie.”
“You and Aunt Marie off. I think he’s a shit.”
Nicky looked torn between the desire to defend his Uncle Alexis and the need not to antagonize his new friend. The result was the frightened fawn look complete with glassy eyes. He solved his dilemma by finishing the beer that still remained in his glass.
“Another?” Tom asked. Nicky nodded and Tom signaled the waiter, pointing to both of their glasses. Their silence was audible.
“Look,” Tom finally sighed. “I didn’t mean to offend you or, God knows, Uncle Alexis. I expressed an opinion and if you don’t agree with me just say so, but don’t pout.”
“I’m not pouting.”
“You are pouting. If you think I’m a prick, say it.”
“You are a prick. But a charming one.”
And Tom laughed; what else could he do? It was as impossible to stay mad at Nicky Three as it was not to spoil an adorable two-year-old. “Level with me, Nicky. You had to plan on coming out with me tonight. I mean you had to give him some excuse for not coming directly home after your swim. Right?”
“Right “
“What did you tell him?”
“That there was a lecture being given at the Y and I wanted to stay and hear it.”
“And he asked the subject of the lecture.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact. Tom was beginning to know Uncle Alexis very well.
“Naturally.”
“And you said…?”
“A lecture on the Golden Age of Royalty.”
“Holy shit. And he fell for it?”
“Uncle Alexis loves royalty.”
“And caviar. Uncle Alexis is presumptuous, let me tell you. Nicky, you’re a man. You’ve got to be my age, at least —”
“I’ll be twenty-eight in February.”
The fragile wine glass Tom had just picked up almost shattered as he clenched his fist about its narrow stem. Eric Hall would have been twenty-eight in February. The same natal month as Tom and a fact he was not likely to be mistaken about. Until this very moment Tom had not once thought of Eric but the gods, whoever they might be, refused to allow Eric to be forgotten. The rich are indeed different, even in death. Eric’s birth date had been the seventeenth but Tom would not ask Nicky what his was. He was actually afraid to do so. Slowly, he brought the glass to his lips and sipped from it.
The wine helped to steady him and hoping Nicky had not noticed the momentary lapse he continued to lecture.
“You’re an adult, a full-grown man, why the hell do you have to account for your time to anyone?”
“He raised me, Tom. If it weren’t for Uncle Alexis and Aunt Marie I don’t know where I’d be now. I owe him something.”
“Sure you do…your gratitude, but certainly not your life.”
“It’s not as bad as all that,” Nicky countered.
“No…I think it’s worse. Do you always have to lie when you go out socially?”
Nicky hesitated before answering. Tom knew his friend was debating with himself between answering honestly or fabricating a plausible explanation for life with Uncle Alexis. If he did not speak the truth Tom would know it at once. Nicky Three’s face was an open book. He was too unworldly to get away with anything but the exact truth.
“I’ve…I’ve never gone out socially. This is the first time.”
Tom stared at his dinner companion. Nicky was telling the truth, but it was the last thing in the world Tom expected to hear and the last thing any sane person would believe. “You’re not kidding, are you?” Tom whispered.
“No, I’m not.”
“But in twenty-eight years there must have been someone…someone you…what about school? You couldn’t go to school and not speak to a living soul.”
Nicky took a deep breath. “I never went to school.”
“But that’s impossible,” Tom almost shouted. “You had to…Christ…Uncle Alexis arranged private tutors.”
Nicky nodded at the small pile of chicken bones on his plate.
He refused to raise his head and look directly at Tom.
“It can’t be true,” Tom exclaimed.
“It is.”
“I refuse to believe it.”
Nicky shrugged his wide shoulders. “Whether you believe it or not doesn’t change anything. It’s still the truth.”
“And you never talked to anybody…like this…before? Why me?”
Nicky managed a brave smile. “Because I have no one else to talk to.”
“I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted.”
“Flattered, I hope.”
“Oh, sure.” Tom waved his hand over his head. “I won out over all the competition.”
“I like you, Tom.”
Tom was beginning to melt, and when he answered his tone belied his words. “Fish like water…I mean what choice do they have?”
“I read a lot,” Nicky said, “and I go to the theater and the films and I watch television and I do live in this world. I’ve never had a friend but I know something about people and life. Christ, I’m not a fool. I know when I like someone.”
“But why me?”
“Because you spoke to me and befriended me and tried to teach me how to dive. And I know it wasn’t easy because I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to run and stay at the same time. You know that first time you spoke to me I thought about nothing but you for days. I even prayed that I would see you again and when I did I still didn’t know what to say or do but you did it all.” Nicky looked imploringly across the small table. “Don’t leave me because I’m different, Tom. Please don’t.”
Nicky Three had finally opened up. He wasn’t answering one of Tom’s questions and he wasn’t trying to make small talk. He was showing Tom something of himself, the man behind the frightened fawn façade and the almost childlike eagerness to please. It wasn’t much, but it was a beginning and it proved one thing beyond any doubt; Nicky Three was not an apparition but a very real and unhappy human being.
Tom was overwhelmed. Had they been alone he would have taken Nicky into his arms, held him as one would a frightened child and assured him that everything was going to be all right. But under the circumstances all he could do was stare at Nicky, feel his pain and try desperately to assuage the guilt which Nicky’s uninhibited words had evoked.
Tom had not pursued Nicky. He had pursued Eric’s clone. He had not talked to Nicky. He had talked to Eric’s clone. He had not befriended Nicky. He had befriended Eric’s clone.
Had Nicky not looked exactly like Eric Hall, would Tom have struck up a friendship? Or, if Eric had never existed in Tom’s life would he have befriended Nicky? “I don’t know,” Tom thought. “How the hell could I know?”
“I’m aware of what it’s like to be different, Nicky,” Tom finally answered.
“Tell me about it.”
“You first.”
Nicky tried to laugh. “You want the story of my life?”
“Just the highlights. Sooner or later we have to give up this table.”
“There are no highlights. Just one bloody bore, believe me. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Try me,” Tom smiled. What Nicky Three needed more than anything else was to let it all out. Tom knew the feeling well and was ready to be a sympathetic listener. Besides, he was sitting where he was now under false pretenses so he owed Nicky something.
Or would he do the same if he owed Nicky nothing? He looked into those clear blue eyes and thought he saw his own reflection in them. Yes, he would, whether he owed Nicky or not.
There was nothing remarkable about Nicky’s parents except for the fact that during the chaos which engulfed Europe following World War II they were able, with the help of Alexis Romaine, to flee Russia and settle in England.
Tom held up his hand. “Alexis Romaine is Uncle Alexis?”
“Yes, he was related to my parents, distant cousins or something like that.”
“And he was already living in England?”
“Yes. He and Aunt Marie got out of Russia before the revolution.”
“What?” Tom exclaimed.
Nicky, now acting the part of the teacher, looked at Tom patiently. “The Russian revolution, as Uncle Alexis never tires of telling me, is not ancient history, Tom. As history goes it’s a very recent event. Just think, World War I vets are still alive and kicking and marching in parades and the revolution was born when they were adults, and Uncle Alexis was just entering his teens.”
“You’re right, of course. Go on, I’m sorry I stopped you.”
Still unremarkable, but sad, was that Nicky’s mother died giving birth to him and his father was killed in an accident in the factory where he was employed before Nicky was a year old. The boy was legally adopted by Alexis and Marie Romaine and here the unremarkable beginnings of Nicky Three become very singular.
Nicky lived all his life in the country home of the Romaines, was schooled by private but very good tutors, and was literally never let out of the sight of either Alexis or Marie Romaine. They accompanied him wherever he went, which was never very far, discouraged even the idea of any social life for Nicky as well as themselves, leaving books, newspapers, films, television and the theater as the boy’s only communication between himself and the world around him.
Yes, a ghost would have been easier to deal with, an exasperated Tom Bradshaw thought as he listened to Nicky’s tale. One could define a ghost. How did one define Nicky Three?
“Then, about two years ago Uncle Alexis came to America and six months ago he sent for Aunt Marie and me.”
About two years ago, Tom now thought. Uncle Alexis appeared just about the time Eric Hall disappeared. No, forget that line of thinking there is no connection — just a remarkable resemblance. Then aloud, “Okay, bread and butter.”
“What?”
“Bread and butter,” Tom repeated. “How do you all live?”
“Oh, that. Uncle Alexis worked for the British Foreign Office. He’s retired now, of course.”
“The Foreign Office. Nicky, grow up. You don’t eat caviar every night and live in the country home you described on what the British Foreign Office pays you. There is money, real money, someplace.”
“There is some sort of trust fund” Nicky acknowledged. “A check comes every month from a bank in London, but it stops when Uncle Alexis and Aunt Marie die. I mean I don’t come into anything. They told me that.”
Tom, his sense of humor intact, smiled inwardly. Enter Tom Bradshaw, exit the trust fund. Nicky was Eric’s clone but two of the essential B’s were missing. Breeding and bucks. Could a bastard from Nebraska find happiness with just brains and beauty? The bastard didn’t think so.
“I never wanted for anything,” Nicky was saying. “And Uncle Alexis and Aunt Marie aren’t crazy. They’re just…different.”
“That’s putting it mildly, my friend. Why the recluse bit? I don’t get it.”
“I have a theory.” There was a note of excitement in Nicky’s voice.
“Good, because I don’t. Let’s hear it.”
“Uncle Alexis worked for the Foreign Office. I think he was a double agent.”
Tom looked startled. “You mean he was acting on behalf of Russia and England?”
“Not exactly. I think he was pretending to help the Russians, feeding them false information, but really gathering intelligence from them for the English.”
“How do you know it wasn’t the other way around?”
“Because I know Uncle Alexis. He hates the communists and lives for the day they’ll be overthrown. I mean he really hates them, Tom.”
“He would like to see England, or America rule Russia?”
Nicky was looking at his plate of chicken bones again and mumbled something Tom could not distinguish. “The Golden Age of Royalty,” Tom suddenly shouted. “Christ, he wants to restore the czar to the throne of Russia.”
“You’ve got it,” Nicky said.
“And you’re telling me he’s not crazy. He’s certifiable, Nicky. And the Romanovs are all dead. Weren’t they shot in a basement or something like that?”
“Uncle Alexis says there’s no proof they were and Aunt Marie screams at him and says they’re all dead and that’s that.”
Tom let out a low whistle. “You’ve led some life, baby.”
“But doesn’t that double agent thing figure, Tom? He couldn’t want himself or his family to be even remotely noticeable which accounts for the way we live and those monthly checks could come from the Russian government, or the English government.” Nicky once again sounded excited and Tom wondered if all this was the result of too many adventure novels and films and too little of the real world. “It also accounts for why the money stops when my uncle dies.”
“No it doesn’t. They told you it stops after they both die. That means Aunt Marie collects after Alexis is gone. Then it stops. And don’t tell me she’s a spy too. And…why are the checks still coming? You think he’s playing double-o-seven on West End Avenue?”
“He’s too old for that now…and sick.” Nicky looked defeated. “Besides, those are just details. What I think is the only logical explanation.”
“Nicky, there is nothing logical about Uncle Alexis. And why don’t you ask him? You told me you’re just like a son to him “
“I did ask him.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said the less I know the better off I am. Doesn’t that mean something?”
“Sure. It means mind your own business. Did you question Aunt Marie too?”
Nicky nodded. “She said pretty much the same thing.”
Tom now sat upright in his chair and leaned toward Nicky across the table. “They’re very old and the money stops with them. You’re very young and what the hell happens to you when they leave this vale of tears?”
“That’s what Aunt Marie keeps preaching. I have to get out, meet people, get a job, learn to fend for myself. If it wasn’t for her I would never have started coming to the Y. In England I was always out, horseback riding, playing tennis, even ice skating in the winter, but in the apartment I was beginning to go to seed. Uncle Alexis finally agreed to the swimming. God, he had to.”
“What does he say about your getting a job?”
“He says he needs a little more time.”
“He needs a little more time? What the hell is that supposed to mean? A little more time and he’ll be dead and you’ll be stuck.”
Nicky looked miserable. “Not if you help me, Tom.”
“I’m not rich,” Tom pleaded.
“I mean help me meet some people and find a job and…and shit, I don’t know what I mean.”
“Easy, Nicky, easy…it’s going to be okay,” Tom lied. “Do you mind if I ask you a rather personal question?”
“Why not? I just gave you the story of my life. What’s left?”
“Sex,” Tom answered, “as in fucking. That’s what’s left.”
Now Nicky blushed. “I have a strong right fist.”
“Don’t we all, and don’t bullshit me. What about it?’
“Nothing…I swear…just me and my buddy.” He extended his palm toward Tom.
“You mean…you…never…”
“No, Tom, I never.”
An embarrassing silence followed, relieved somewhat by the waiter who came to clear their table. They avoided looking at each other as plates, glasses, forks and knives moved from table to carrying tray. “Anything else?” The waiter asked.
“The check,” Tom said.
“I’ll pay.” Nicky began reaching for his wallet.
“No you won’t. You can’t afford it.”
“I’m not poor.”
“Not yet, but just wait.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Someone in your life has to be practical and I think I’m it. Let’s face it, Nicky, the Romanovs are not going to recapture Moscow and when those two old people die you are going to be up shit’s creek, as we used to say in the sixth grade.”
“Any suggestions?”
“I have the solution for one of your problems.”
“Which one?”
“Come home with me tonight and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Nicky tried not to look astonished and succeeded in looking twice as surprised as he actually was. “I can’t, Tom. You know I can’t. I have to get back.”
But Tom wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “If you didn’t have to get back would you come?”
Nicky grinned, his face lit up and he managed to look devastatingly handsome. “You know I would, Tom.”
Tom felt himself relax. He wanted to giggle, shout or jump out of his chair. Instead he winked at Nicky and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll work something out.”
“I trust you, Tom.”
“Don’t…I’m a real bastard.”
Outside the restaurant Nicky hailed a cab and just before he entered it Tom touched his arms and said, “I was born in February too. The fifteenth. What’s your date?”
“You’re two days older than me. Mine is the seventeenth.”
Ekaterinburg, Russia — 1918
It was still hours before sunrise when the train, which had been standing in the old depot for three days, moved slowly from the station and into the dark, summer night. Its departure was as quiet as Ekaterinburg itself. The train’s whistle did not sound nor did a conductor wave a lighted lantern from the moving steps of the end car. Only a cloud of smoke, the steady clack of the steam engine and the fact that train and station were no longer one would have announced to an observer, were there one present, that the train was actually departing.
The engine pulled only two closed box cars and, between them, a single coach. Inside the coach three passengers, alone in the dirty, hot car, sat close together as if the carriage contained a horde of invisible riders. A man, a woman and a boy. The man was handsome, bearded and bore a remarkable resemblance to England’s George V. The woman was pretty, if too thin, and stared out of vacant eyes down the length of the empty coach. The boy who sat between them was in his early teens and now sound asleep, his head resting on the man’s shoulders.
When the train was clear of the depot the man sighed and spoke without looking at the woman. “It is all over, Sonny.”
“English,” she responded quickly, her eyes glued to the dirty glass of the car’s door as if she expected it to part, like a curtain, and uncover a mystery long sought after by the observer. “We must speak only English.”
The man smiled a weary smile and careful not to disturb the boy he turned and looked at the woman. “English, French, Russian. It makes no difference. In any language it means the same thing, my dear. It is all over.”
The woman finally broke her gaze and turned slowly to look into the eyes of her companion. “Are you sorry, Nicky?”
The man stroked the boy’s soft, dark hair before he answered. “No, only relieved. We’re alive, Sonny, all of us, and soon we will be together, a family again with nothing to fear and only each other to look after. For a long time I feared.…“ He allowed the sentence to remain unfinished and once again touched the head of the sleeping boy.
“I know, Nicky,” the woman answered and tears welled in her clear blue eyes.
The boy moved fitfully in his sleep and immediately the attention of his parents was directed solely upon him. “We have disturbed him,” Sonny whispered.
“The tension of these past few days has given the Prince nightmares.”
“Do not use that word,” Sonny cautioned, trying to sound forceful while not daring to speak above a whisper. The man’s eyes flashed with anger as he strained to keep from shouting. “He is—”
“No, Nicky. You are not and I am not and Alexis is not.”
“Alexis will be —”
“He will not be,” his wife broke in again, “and you must keep your voice down or you will wake him. We made a bargain and to break it would mean our ruin.” Reaching out to touch the sleeping boy as if to make clearer her meaning she added, “All of us.”
Nicholas sighed and resting his head against the back of the hard seat he closed his eyes. “Mr. and Mrs. Romaine.”
Sonny smiled and her clear blue eyes lit up as if they suddenly beheld a scene as far removed from the shabby coach as was the pale moon which looked down upon the train’s snail-like progress through an endless landscape of black forest. “Do you remember, Nicky, when we used to pretend that we were Mr. and Mrs. Nobody?”
Nicholas, his eyes still closed, smiled in spite of himself. “I remember, Sonny. But pretense and reality are two very different things It is easy to pretend but difficult to accept the reality.” He opened his eyes and looked at his eerie reflection faintly outlined against the dark window of the moving train. “And now I am nobody. I am not even myself.”
“You are Mr. Romaine,” she answered, her blue eyes once again dull and lifeless. “Those were your cousin’s terms. He had no other choice.”
Nicholas looked at his wife out of the corners of his eyes, the hint of a grin beginning to form above his dark beard. “He is also your cousin, Sonny, or has the new Mrs. Romaine so soon forgotten her past?”
Sonny smiled and came as close to laughing out loud as she had in a long, long time. “No, I have not forgotten. And our German relations —”
“No, my dear, your German relations,” he quickly corrected her. Now they both laughed and then, suddenly remembering the sleeping boy, they stopped themselves and for a long while only the clacking sound of the iron wheels rolling over iron tracks filled the dreary carriage.
Finally, Nicholas whispered, “What are we going to do, Sonny?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Romaine and their children are going to grow old together, in complete obscurity…that is what we are going to do.”
More than forty-eight hours later, late in the afternoon, the strange train reached its destination, a small seaport town on the Baltic Sea. Its arrival was as unheralded and ghost-like as was its departure from Ekaterinburg. Once again the train stood in the depot with no one disembarking or approaching it until later in the evening when a car arrived at the station. The three passengers, like actors trained to respond to a cue, suddenly appeared at the door of the coach, descended to the platform and made their way to the waiting car. The boy, supported by his parents, walked with a decided limp. No one, except the man, woman and boy, was visible on the dark set. They could have been the only human beings on the planet, the last of their species, and in a sense that is exactly what they were.
From the depot they were taken to a deserted dock where they boarded a small craft that carried them over the dark water until, like an apparition emerging out of the fog, a British man-of-war appeared, towering above the small harbor boat as it made its way alongside the warship and the weary travelers once again transferred for the final lap of their journey.