The Mistress(64)
She kept opening cupboards and closets in the apartment all night and realized that his suggestion to sell what she had had been right. There was no point keeping all the fabulous couture, furs, and evening gowns, the alligator Birkin bags with the diamond clasps. She had nowhere to wear them, and couldn’t imagine herself in that kind of life again. It was the only one she had known for eight years, but she wanted a simple life now, a life where she depended on no one but herself. And she could use the money to live on, after whatever she had in her bank account ran out. She had to call the bank and look into that in the morning.
She was still up when the maid came in at eight, and she asked her to get boxes when the stores opened. She asked no questions, so Natasha knew that someone had warned her that Natasha was moving out. Ludmilla was very quiet as she made a cup of tea and set it down in the bedroom while Natasha went through drawers. And she asked her to set up racks in the long hallway to her dressing room so she could divide things up between what to keep and what to sell. She knew there would be a lot more of the latter. It was like being deported from the life she had known, and becoming a refugee overnight. Ludmilla said nothing to her as Natasha began dragging clothes out of her closets and putting them on the racks. She tried to think in an organized way, but every few minutes she had to stop just to catch her breath, or sit down. She was trying hard not to panic, and not to remember his face and his words when he banished her, standing on the dock in Antibes.
The golden life was gone forever, and she didn’t know if she’d miss it or not. She was about to have the freedom she had longed for occasionally to do what she wanted, that she had given up when she accepted being his mistress. She could get to know people as someone other than the woman who lived by his schedule and waited for his commands. But in many ways, she thought it had been a good life, and a safe one. Or maybe she’d been wrong. She wondered now. She thought of the two women who had been murdered the year before while they were in Sardinia, women like her, whose only crime was that they lived in servitude to the men who kept them and paid their bills. Just being his woman had its risks. She saw that now, but she couldn’t allow herself to dwell on it as she made order in her life, or tried to.
She hung all the gowns on a rack and divided them by designer. They were all haute couture, and she realized quickly that there were far too many for one rack. She filled six racks with them, all with their numbered tags to identify them as haute couture, and she had the presentation drawings to go with them, which she had kept as souvenirs, and the photographs from the fashion shows they were in, with famous models wearing them, before they were handmade for her. She had gone through only the evening gowns by noon, and took a break to lie on her bed for a few minutes and then got distracted by what was in the drawers in her bedroom, mostly papers, and costume jewelry, and some nightgowns, which were all satin and very sexy, the way Vladimir liked them. As she looked at them, she saw them for what they were for the first time, the costumes of a sex object, who wore them to arouse and entice the man who paid her bills. In the end, she had not been so different from her mother, just luckier and better dressed. Now she wanted that to change. She was no longer going to trade sex for protection and a lifestyle. She could see now why Theo Luca had asked her the questions he did, and realized what he must have thought of her. But it hadn’t stopped him from wanting to paint her, and talk to her. She had liked him when they met and would have liked to be friends with him. She thought about calling him at the restaurant to tell him she was glad they had gotten the paintings back, but it didn’t feel right. She had no part in it really. She had informed the police, but Vladimir had had them returned himself, by the same people who had taken them in the first place, without ever being caught by the police. It had been brilliantly done, without a hitch. As revenge for the painting he couldn’t buy, or the one of Natasha. He had proven his point, that he could do whatever he wanted.
She went back to her sorting then, and took out jumpsuits and winter suits, pantsuits and dresses, and the things she wore out to dinner in London and Paris. There was a rainbow of colors on the racks, in myriad fabrics, each outfit exquisite and wonderfully made. It took her all day to get all the clothes on the racks, and she remembered to call the bank in the late afternoon. She needed to know what she had in the account. It sounded like a large sum of money to her, and then she realized it wouldn’t have been enough to pay for one of her evening gowns, but if she was careful she could live on it for a while. She had never paid rent in Paris, or anywhere, or for a hotel. He had taken care of everything with his staff, and she could only guess what a small apartment would cost to rent, maybe somewhere on the Left Bank on a quiet street. She hoped what she had in her bank account would carry her for several months, and once she sold the clothes and jewels, she would have more, possibly a great deal more. But she had to get busy selling things. She continued sorting and hanging until late at night, and finally collapsed on her bed still wearing her jeans and T-shirt, and fell asleep.
When she got up in the morning, she called the real estate agent she had liked best, and told her she had a cousin arriving from Russia who needed a small, inexpensive apartment in a safe neighborhood, preferably in the sixth or seventh arrondissement, where many of the art galleries were, or a less expensive neighborhood if necessary. She asked who to call for a rental, and the woman offered to help her—they had been great clients and Vladimir had paid a staggering price for the apartment. Natasha hoped he wouldn’t lose money on it now, which was more than most women would have thought in her situation, being banished overnight. The realtor told her how sorry she was to hear that they were already selling, and that she had heard that Natasha had done a beautiful job decorating. So Natasha knew they had already called her to put it on the market. Vladimir had thought of everything and lost no time. The realtor said they were going to begin showing it as soon as she moved out. Vladimir was selling it with the furniture. He wanted no souvenir of their lost life either, which hurt her for a moment, and she forced herself not to think about it. She couldn’t afford to or she knew she would fall apart. She couldn’t allow herself to get sentimental now, or frightened. She just had to keep going until it was over and she had found safe haven somewhere. She told Ludmilla to pile the boxes she had gotten in the living room. Natasha didn’t ask her to help otherwise, and she didn’t offer. She stayed in the kitchen and was about to be out of a job too. Vladimir’s office had notified her that she could stay until the apartment sold, and then they would give her a month’s pay when she left. It was proper but not overly generous. He was a businessman above all.