Chapter 6 - The Alpine Sanctuary
The villa above Lake Zurich did not resemble the dark sandstone fortress of Back Bay. Built from pale alpine granite and thick beams of seasoned larch wood, it sat against the slope of the mountain like an outcrop of the rock itself. Below it, the water of the lake was a deep, still indigo, reflecting the white peaks of the Glarus Alps that rose into the clean European sky like jagged teeth.
Here, the air didn't smell of diesel or salt; it smelled of cold pine needles, dry snow, and the clean woodsmoke that rose from the three massive stone chimneys of the main house.
Alexei—he had stopped answering to Milo within three days of their arrival—stood on the wide granite terrace, his hands tucked into the pockets of a new, thick wool coat of dark navy blue. He was no longer gap-toothed; one of his front teeth had fallen out during the flight over the ocean, leaving a small, pink space that gave his serious face a sudden, startling flash of vulnerability when he spoke.
Behind him, Dr. Borso was sitting in a wicker chair, a woolen blanket over his knees, watching the boy watch the mountains.
"He does not play," Borso said as Nikolai stepped out onto the terrace from the library. Nikolai was wearing a simple gray cashmere sweater, his long hair brushed back from his temples, his face looking less like a stone carving than it had in the gray light of Boston. "I bought him a set of German trains. The electric ones with the real brass boilers. He took them apart with a kitchen knife, looked at the gears, and then put them back in the box. He did not run them once."
"He is checking the mechanics," Nikolai said, his eyes following the movement of a hawk circling over the pine forest below the wall. "He does not trust things that move on their own. He wants to know what turns the wheels."
"He needs a tutor, Nikolai. He needs children his own age. He cannot grow up in this house with three old men and twenty Macedonian guards who spend their days cleaning grease from their submachine guns."
"He will have a tutor," Nikolai said. "A man from Zurich who used to teach the children of the federal judges. He will learn French, German, and the old law of the maritime courts. But he does not need other children. Other children will teach him to think that the world is soft."
He walked to the edge of the terrace, kneeling down beside his son. He didn't touch him; he had learned that Alexei still went rigid if someone reached for him without warning. Instead, he simply rested his hands on the stone balustrade, his long fingers parallel to the boy’s small knuckles.
"Do you like the mountain, Alexei?"
The boy looked up, his green eyes clear under the bright alpine sun. "The mountain doesn't move. In Boston, the houses were always shaking when the big trucks went by. Here, everything stays where you put it."
"That is why I bought it," Nikolai said. "In this place, nobody can see us unless we wish to be seen. The men at the gate... they have been with me since before your mother was born. They do not talk to reporters, and they do not take money from the people in New York."
"Mikhail gave me a knife yesterday," Alexei said casually, his hand moving into his pocket to produce a small, silver pocketknife with four folding blades and an bone handle. "He said if a man comes through the trees, I am to stick it into the soft part behind his knee."
Nikolai’s jaw tightened, but he didn't look angry. He made a mental note to give Mikhail a bonus, and then to tell him to keep the boy away from the weapons locker until he was ten. "Mikhail is a soldier, Alexei. He sees threats in every bush."
"Is he wrong?"
"No," Nikolai said, looking out over the indigo lake. "He is not wrong. But a Vulov does not use a pocketknife to fight a man in the trees. A Vulov uses the law, and the banks, and the shipping lanes until the man in the trees has no ground left to stand on."
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He stood up, extending a hand down to the child. "Come inside. The man from the bank is here from Geneva. He has brought the papers for your mother’s trust. It is time for you to sign your name with the new ink."
The boy looked at the hand, then at the silver knife in his palm. He folded the blade away with a sharp, clean click, slid it into his pocket, and took Nikolai’s fingers. His grip was warm now, the skin no longer rough from the cold water of St. Augustine’s, his small steps matching his father’s long stride as they walked through the tall glass doors into the warmth of the library.
