Raisa put her hand to her head. “I understood the part about painting your friend’s hair to look like you, but the rest is a bit of a jumble. Promise me that once I bring you the paints, you’ll explain it all again.”
I nodded, relieved to be safe, at least temporarily. As I had hoped, Raisa did have some old paints, and I set to work on Dmitri’s hair. Raisa helped me mix the paint, and we managed a shade of red, though it wasn’t nearly as vivid as Miles’s hair. I hoped a hat and a scarf would help the illusion. I told myself it was just like a magic trick. We’d have to convince the audience and use a little distraction if necessary.
I looked at the clock. “We need to hurry if we are going to get to the embassy before it closes,” I said. I gave Raisa a quick hug.
“Write to me,” she said.
We nearly ran all the way but we were too late. I could see people inside but the door was locked and no one would open it even after knocking.
“Do we have to wait until tomorrow to get on the train?” Sophie said.
“No, I’m done waiting,” I said. Every hour we stayed in the city, Dmitri would be in more and more danger. “We’re going to get some help. We need to go to the Hotel de France.” I remembered Carter telling me he was sleeping on the billiard table at his hotel. I hoped he’d still be there.
It ended up that I didn’t need to find Carter. He found us. As we approached the hotel, I heard a voice from down the street and then saw Carter jogging toward me, followed by his photographer friend. “Charlotte, Charlotte!” he cried, as if there were some way we hadn’t seen him.
When he reached us he was all out of breath, so before he could start talking, I explained what we needed, introducing Dmitri as Count Lieven. Both Carter and the photographer, whose name I thought I remembered was Patrick, acted as if they were a bit in awe at meeting a count. That was exactly what I had hoped.
“Our escape will make a wonderful story for you,” I said to Carter. “And all you have to do is get us into the embassy. We’ll do the rest.”
“I don’t know,” Carter said slowly. “It would make a wonderful story, but journalists aren’t supposed to help make stories. We just report on them.”
I couldn’t believe he was having an attack of ethics. “You’re not making the story. You’re just going to get us inside.” I was not going to give up.
He looked at Dmitri as if he were some sort of specimen. Dmitri scowled.
“I suppose that’s true, and golly, what a story it is,” Carter said. “Young Russian Count disguises himself to escape certain arrest, helped by beautiful American girl.”
“What about us?” Nika asked. “Do we get to be in the story too?”
I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her in front of me. “And children caught up in the politics of war, being forced to escape the only country they’ve ever known.”
“With a kitten!” Sophie said, pulling the kitten out of the basket. It squeaked in protest.
Carter laughed. “With a kitten. I’ll do it.” He slapped his knee. “I can’t pass this up.”
“Wonderful!” I said. “Once we get the documents, you can interview us at the train station while we wait.”
Dmitri’s scowl deepened. “Do you have to use my name?”
“Yes!” Carter said. “It wouldn’t be newspaper-worthy if I didn’t. It has to have facts!”
“It’s all right.” I didn’t want a disagreement to ruin things. “The story won’t be published for a while, right? Carter, you said you had trouble getting information out. And it will be published in St. Louis. That’s a long way away,” I said to Dmitri. I wanted to add and no one you know will read it but I was afraid Carter would be insulted.
“I’ll get the story out one way or the other. And Patrick here can get some pictures.”
I thought Dmitri might refuse that, but he didn’t say anything, though I knew he wasn’t happy. We walked to the embassy while Carter peppered us with questions.
When we arrived, Carter knocked on the door so loudly that someone finally answered. The man who opened the door immediately began to tell us to go away and stop knocking, but Carter interrupted him.
“Say, I know you.” Carter grabbed the man’s hand and pumped it up and down. “I’m Carter Jenkins. We met a few weeks ago. I’m Walter Jenkins’s cousin. Is he here? It’s important.”
The man looked over at us and at the photographer. “These are my friends,” Carter said. “We do need to see Walter pretty badly.”
The man opened the door wider. I saw that Dmitri had pulled up the scarf around his mouth and had his hat pulled down low. Enough of the orange hair showed to make him sort of believable as a brother.
I hoped Walter Jenkins was not the young man we’d seen before, and when a slightly older man appeared, I breathed a sigh of relief. Carter introduced all of us, remembering to refer to Dmitri as Miles and explaining why Dmitri couldn’t talk. “I’ll let Charlotte tell you what she needs.” Dmitri hunched over and coughed a few times.
I launched into our story. When I was finished, Walter looked at me doubtfully. “This is very, very irregular,” he said. “I’m not sure I have the authority to do this, and the consul is not here. Can you come back tomorrow?”
“No!” I knew my voice was trembling but I couldn’t help it. “Please help us. Everything has gone so wrong, and I need to get my little sisters out of the country as soon as I can. I don’t know if there will be any more trains after today. Please. We don’t have any other choices.”
The begging worked, probably helped by the woebegone faces of the twins.
The man gave several more reasons why he shouldn’t but then said, “All right, I’ll do it, but don’t tell anyone else. Just this once.” He sighed. “I’ll explain to the consul tomorrow and hope I don’t get fired. Everything is in such an uproar. We’re doing the best we can to get Americans out of the country. You certainly qualify as Americans who need to get out of the country.”
Once we had the paper in hand, I clung to it. I knew if it got lost, we couldn’t go back a third time.
“What are you going to do about the exit visa?” Carter asked. “Do you know someone who can help you get it?”
“I’m going to forge the stamp mark,” I said. “I looked at the one on our other passport. It’s just black ink, and now that I know what it looks like, I can draw the same stamp. No one looks at them that closely. Can we go back to your hotel so I can use a pen there?”
“This story is getting better and better,” Carter said. “Come on. Patrick, you’ll have to get a picture of her forging the stamp.” Patrick nodded. He had said nothing the whole time.
“You’ll get your cousin in trouble if you write the story,” Dmitri pointed out.
Carter stopped in his tracks. “Hmm … that is a problem.” He snapped his fingers. “I won’t say which documents are forged and where you got them. That will work out fine.”
I hid a smile. Poor Dmitri. Foiled again. He’d just have to accept that his name was going to be in a newspaper.