City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin Read Free Book Online Page B

how, she’d extended her empire to take in the cloak room, waiters, cigarette girls, and cleaners. Nick, recognizing an effi ciency, more Germanic than Russian, that kept everyday problems off his shoulders, had allowed her a certain autonomy in hiring and firing of nonmanagerial staff—a latitude that enabled her to rule by terror.
    When Esther had arrived at the Green Hat, she’d put Olga’s hostility down to anti-Semitism, only realizing later that the woman resented as a rival any female whose position took her closer to the management of the club than her own—which Esther’s did.
    Olga went with her into the office, tightening her lips at the sight of Anna slumped and unconscious on the sofa. “Is she drunk?”
    “No.”
    “Well, who is she? What’s she doing here?” She strode around Nick’s desk and seated herself in his chair. “I shall stay. Somebody has to keep an eye on things.”
    “For God’s sake, Olga . . .” Usually Esther was prepared to put up with a one-sided war in which she was the noncombatant—every or ganization had its Olga and even needed one—but she was tired, and the thought of spending the rest of the night catering to the woman’s self-importance by feeding her curiosity was intolerable. “This is a nightclub, not a bloody convent. Go home.”
    Boris came in, and Olga appealed to him. “Somebody responsible must stay, Boris. Esther brings a strange woman into the office—how do we know what she may do?”
    Boris’s eyes met Esther’s over Olga’s head. “Nick’s business, not ours,” he said. He went to the safe and began cramming in the night’s receipts—inflation was resulting in so much paper currency that they’d soon need an extra safe to contain it. He straightened up. “Get along home now, Olga.” He put his hand under the woman’s armpits, raised her gently, and steered her to the door.
    “But, Boris, do you know about this?”
    “We don’t need to. Esther’s in charge. Off you go.”
    Olga went, furious.
    Boris said, “Thinks she owns the place. Doesn’t own much else, I guess.”
    “I know. Thank you, Boris.”
    “You all right now? I’ll lock up, then. Good night.” He went down stairs.
    Theo was making a pillow of his jacket on the baccarat table in the gaming room.
    “I’m sorry about this, Theo.”
    “I slept on worse.”
    They all had. There probably wasn’t one among the émigrés who hadn’t bedded down on pine needles or the floor of a truck, a train compartment, or a barn during the flight from Russia—and they thought themselves lucky it wasn’t a Bolshevik execution cell.
    She left the gaming room doors open so that she could call him if necessary and went through her office into Nick’s. Anna’s eyes were still eerily half open, but her breathing was quieter. Esther took off her coat, tucked it around the girl, and switched off the light, relying on the dim glow from the window overlooking the club floor.
    For a while she played Goldilocks, trying to emulate Theo and stretching out on Nick’s desk—but that was too uncomfortable. So was sitting in his chair and putting her legs up on the desk. Eventually she dragged the chair to the window and rested her ankles on its low sill.
    Better, though not much.
    She was tired. Below, light from the entrance hall spilled over the dance floor, leaving the rest of the great room in shadow. Don’t think about Russia. ...But Kandinsky and Nick had done their work well, and the club became a silent, darkened forest through which the great, brown bear lumbered in its search for berries. Her father had made her a present of a cub— “Ursus arctos,” he’d said. “A little Ursus arctos for my little girl”—and taken it away when it got too big. Don’t think, don’t remember....She could almost smell the scent of pine trees trapped in snow.... Clara Peuthert capered naked in the grove playing pan pipes to a bear....
    Which had moved.
    Her eyelids went up. One of Nick’s