Zoya by Danielle Steel

station.
    “We're going home, my love. Feodor is finding us a taxi.”
    But Zoya only began to cry, the woman she had become seeming to melt away, as she looked up at her grandmother like a lost child. “I want to go back to Tsarskoe Selo.”
    “Never mind, Zoya … never mind. …” Feodor was signaling frantically as he juggled their bags, and Evgenia gently led Zoya from the station and helped her into the ancient taxi. Everything they still owned was piled in beside Feodor and the driver, as Zoya and her grandmother slid onto the backseat with tired sighs. They had no reservations anywhere, no idea where to go, and the driver was deaf and ancient. All the young men had long since gone to war, only the old and the infirm were still in Paris.
    “ Alors? … On y va, mesdames?” He smiled into the backseat and looked surprised when he saw that Zoya was crying. “Elle est malade?” Is she sick? Evgenia was quick to reassure him that she was only very tired, as they all were. “Where have you come from?” he chatted amiably as Evgenia tried to remember the hotel where she'd stayed with her husband years before, but suddenly she could remember nothing at all. She was eighty-two years old and utterly and completely exhausted. And they had to get Zoya to a hotel and call a doctor.
    “Can you recommend a hotel to us? Somethingsmall and clean and not very expensive.” He pursed his lips for a moment as he thought about it, and Evgenia instinctively pressed her bag close to her. In it she carried her last and most important gift from the Empress. Alix had given her one of her very own imperial Easter eggs, made for her three years before by Carl Fabergo. It was an incredible piece of work in mauve enamel with diamond ribbons, and Evgenia knew it was the most important treasure she had. When all else failed, they could sell it and live on what it brought them.
    “Do you care where it is, madame? … the hotel….”
    “As long as it's in a decent neighborhood.” They could always look for something better afterward, tonight all she needed were rooms where they could sleep. The niceties, if any were still possible, would come later.
    “There's a small hotel off the Champs-Élysées, madame. The night porter is my cousin.”
    “Is it expensive?” she asked sharply, and he shrugged. He could see that they were not well off, their clothes were simple, and the old man looked like a peasant. At least the woman spoke French, and he thought the girl did, too, although she cried most of the time, and she had a fearful cough. He only hoped she didn't have tuberculosis, which was currently rampant in Paris.
    “It's not too bad. I'll have my cousin speak to the desk clerk.”
    “Very well. That will do,” she said imperiously, and sat back in the ancient cab. She was a spunky old thing and he liked her.
    The hotel was on the rue Marbeuf, and it was indeedvery small, but it looked decent and clean as they walked into the lobby. There were only a dozen rooms, but the night clerk assured them two of them were vacant. They had to use a common bathroom down the hall, which was something of a shock to Evgenia, but even that didn't matter now. She pulled the sheets back in the bed she and Zoya would share, and they were clean. She pulled Zoya's clothes off, after concealing her bag under the mattress, and Fe-odor had brought in the rest of their things. He had agreed to keep Sava with him. And the Countess went back downstairs as soon as Zoya was in bed, and asked the desk clerk to send for the doctor.
    “For yourself, madame?” he asked. He wasn't surprised, they all looked tired and pale, and she was obviously very old.
    “For my granddaughter.” She didn't tell him that Zoya had the measles, but two hours later when the doctor finally came, he confirmed it.
    “She is very ill, madame. You must tend her carefully. Do you have any idea how she caught it?’
    It would have been ridiculous to tell him that she caught them from