Winter Palace Read Online Free PDF Page B

enough money to fit into Monte Carlo society, while his charm and his skill at the gaming tables had made up the difference. Evenings he had enjoyed racing along the lantern-lit Corniche in a vintage cabriolet, taking the scent of night-blooming jasmine in great heady draughts.
    Evenings he had wound his way down the hillside to the Place du Casino. He had loved the casino. He had loved to enter late, impeccably overdressed. He had loved the acknowledging nods of the croupiers across the expanse of green felt that separated him from his winnings. He had loved to click his chips into tall stacks, concentrating on the cards and the numbers and the counting. He had loved to drink espresso and tip generously before calling it a night—or a morning, as the case had often been—usually several thousand francs richer for the experience.
    When he had finally sold his villa in the late eighties, the magic of Monte Carlo had long since faded. The landscape had changed beyond all recognition. The steep foothills of the Alpes Maritimes had been gouged with dynamite, linedwith concrete, and studded with apartment blocks, office complexes, and utterly charmless hotels. A high-rise skyline had been grafted along the rim of the old fairy-tale kingdom.
    The people had changed as well. When he finally departed, his neighbors had included deposed African dictators, Arab billionaires, retired arms dealers, and South American drug lords. Hulking bodyguards whose coats pinched around poorly hidden machine-pistols replaced the universal sense of secure comfort. The atmosphere of discreet pleasure once enjoyed by the patriarchs and players had been exchanged for a dismal blend of ostentation and secrecy.
    Alexander well understood the secrets of shared confidences between friends, of loyalty to a cause, of wounds kept hidden from the world. But this secrecy took on a conspiratorial quality, serving nothing more glorious than self-interest and bulging bank accounts. Such an atmosphere left him more and more the outsider.
    But still, Monte Carlo. The very name continued to hold a power over him. He remembered the place not with regret, but with a bittersweet fondness, as for a childhood sweetheart who had grown up to marry the wrong man. He would like the chance to visit again. There were still a few places that clung determinedly to the old charm. As he drifted toward consciousness again, he wondered if the jasmine was in bloom this time of year.
    Even before he opened his eyes, he was cuffed by the offensive hospital odors. This was his reality, being bound to a body that no longer leapt to his bidding. This was his fate, held by his own weakness to a starched white bed in a stark white room. Alexander knew a moment of crushing despair as he realized with the fullness of defeat that Monte Carlo might very well be beyond his reach—now and forever.
    He opened his eyes once more to find Jeffrey still seated beside the bed, awake and alert now, waiting patiently for his return. He motioned with his eyes toward the cup.
    Once he had drunk, he whispered, “Send for Gregor.” Thenhe closed his eyes once again upon a world where it felt as though he no longer belonged.
    ****
    When Jeffrey left Alexander’s room that evening, he found Katya standing by the nurses’ station, deep in conversation with Alexander’s doctor. He waited until they shook hands and separated, then walked over and asked, “So, what did she tell you?”
    â€œWell, it is still quite serious. But it could have been a lot worse, especially if you had not reacted swiftly and brought him here as fast as you did.”
    Jeffrey started to shake his head, winced and caught himself. “It felt like time was standing still.”
    â€œI’m sure it did.”
    â€œAre they going to have to operate?”
    â€œThey don’t think so. They need to monitor him for a few days before making a final decision about a pacemaker. But he appears to