Chapter Forty-Four

IRINA... IRINA.”

I whip my head around at the sound of that name, just as I approach the waiting limousine outside the symphony hall. That name. That voice. Like a magnet to steel, I feel her presence, and then I turn and see her. I rub my eyes, thinking I am hallucinating.

“Stop,” I command Sienna before she gets into the car. “Stop right now.”

Sienna follows my gaze. “Who is she?”

“Anna... the dancer.”

Sienna holds back her security team as I stare at the elderly woman in the distance, standing near a group of symphony stragglers congregating close to the entrance of the auditorium. I leave Sienna and begin to walk toward her almost hypnotically. Piercing azure eyes, white fluffy hair to her shoulders, a silky blue clingy dress with a matching scarf that she is not wearing but I envision on her anyway. Anna the ballerina, the woman who saved my life, who, with Stach, helped save Dina’s life.

She is here for Dina too. A witness to the living miracle with her own eyes.

Anna is flanked by two stylish young women, one who looks exactly like her—the Anna of sixty years ago. I can barely breathe. They must be her granddaughters.

From the corner of my eye, I see Sienna approaching and signaling her cameraman to film this encounter. “Stand down,” I turn and hiss sharply, my voice scolding and louder than I intended. “This is not to be filmed or this project is terminated immediately.”

For once, Sienna listens. She takes a few steps back as I walk over to Anna.

“Anna,” I whisper. “It’s you.”

Her granddaughters look at her, then at me, and I understand. Her name isn’t Anna, the way mine isn’t Irina or Lena. The way Diana Mazur isn’t Diana. The way Sienna isn’t Sienna.

“Petra,” she says, her eyes illuminating. Of course. Petra Schneider. The name that ultimately saved my life. She turns to the young women at her sides. “Girls, please give me a moment. This is a dear old friend.”

“With emphasis on old,” I tell them in rusty Polish, and they both laugh.

Anna pulls me aside. “Irina, I knew it was you beneath that wig. I was sitting a few rows behind you.” She is momentarily speechless. “I would know you anywhere. I saw you walk toward the dressing room after the performance. I waited until you came out.”

“And you... So many years. I can’t believe it.” My voice is trembling, too, crackling fragments of sentences.

“So much to say.” She glances over at her granddaughters. “They don’t know anything about my past. Nothing. But not here, okay? Can you meet tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, where?” I ask excitedly, as though I’m still twenty-four and could run through a sewer or wear a coat laden with dynamite into a Nazi nightclub.

“Where else?” Her smile lights up her face and I feel the familiarity of its reassuring warmth, like a muscle memory, protecting me once again.