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Interlude

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The newspaper project in Kiev fell through, so Max and his family packed up again and moved to Odessa. His wife and children enjoyed the summer beauty of the seaside town, and he started working at Juzhnoe Slovo, a local newspaper edited by Ivan Bunin, among others.

I’d miss doing this kind of work, thought Max, miss it terribly.

It was never easy starting over in a new place, particularly not during wartime. The conflicts around Odessa had died down enough for them to move there, but the normal trials of moving took on even more difficulty due to wartime scarcities.

Still, Max had a job, and so they did all right. The ongoing civil war continued to concern him. The Bolsheviks had not come this far south, and a man named Denikin held the town. But there were still enough soldiers in the streets that it worried Ekaterina. Max had promised her that he would keep abreast of current events—it was his job, after all—and that they would be ready to move again if it became necessary.

Ekaterina hadn’t greeted his assertion with enthusiasm. Resignation, yes. But not enthusiasm. And how could a man blame her?

Today, though, as Max hurried home through the wind-whipped streets of the seaside town, he had something interesting to share! A bit of news had come in that would go out in the morning edition, but Max didn’t intend to wait before confiding in his wife.

“Max, welcome home—” Ekaterina called out as she stirred a pot on the stove. Max didn’t know where the children were, and for the moment, he didn’t care. Perhaps better if he told their mother alone, first.

“Ekaterina, I have something important to tell you,” he said as he let the front door close behind him and strode through the tiny foyer into their kitchen. The house they’d rented in Odessa was smaller than what they’d had in Saint Petersburg, a condition which he knew Ekaterina disliked.

She turned from the stove, dismay pinching her face for just a breath before she smoothed it out and hid her feelings under her usual practical stoicism.

“What is it?” she asked. “Must we move again?”

“Not just yet,” he said. He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek in what he hoped she would interpret as reassurance. “But something significant. We knew that some of the Imperial family was rescued, but not much beyond that. Apparently, Tatiana has crowned herself Tsarina, and is fighting the Bolsheviks with the very forces that rescued her!” Max couldn’t keep the thread of excitement out of his voice as he spoke, even as he watched his wife’s eyes remain blank and shuttered.

“What is that to us?” she asked, ever the practical one.

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing, maybe everything. Denikin holds this city, and he has imperialists in his forces, yes. But he has socialists and democrats as well. I do not know if he will throw in with the young empress. Nor do I know how we will fare if he does. But it is interesting, is it not?”

“If you think it is interesting,” Ekaterina said, a hint of tartness entering her tone. “That is all very well, Max. I am happy to listen to you. But unless you have something else to tell me that requires my immediate attention, I’m going to return to what I was doing so that our dinner doesn’t burn, and we don’t starve.”

Max ducked his head as she turned back to the stove. “I am sorry, Mother. I just thought you would like to know. This . . . this could change everything. We may be able to return home someday.”

“Someday, yes. But not today.”

“No, my love. Not today.”





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Framed