The broken piano, the poem on the wall.
My father’s tears.
I snatch up the locket and begin to run, along a corridor, down a flight of stairs, then through a half-open door and out into the night. I collide with two men who happen to be passing. One is fair-haired, the other has a beard. The Danes. When they see me, all the laughter drains out of them. Their smiles disappear. The bearded man wraps his coat around my shoulders. His mouth is moving but I don’t understand. Everything’s just noise. Then one or two words get through.
“You’re all right now,” he says. “You’re safe.”
They take me back to the hotel. The bar is darker than before, one tube light where the vodka bottles are, the maroon of the tablecloths almost black. Ivonna stands against the wall, in the shadows, her arms folded. The man with the beard boils the kettle, makes some tea. Ivonna watches him but says nothing. She looks the same as always, except around her eyes, perhaps, where there’s a tightness — confusion, or concern. The other man walks this way and that, one hand in his fair hair. He seems to blame himself. The bearded man is talking to Ivonna.
I sip my tea.
Steam lifts past my face, and I can feel dirt on my hands, dirt from the canteen floor, a gritty layer between the china and my skin. The fair-haired man is still walking up and down, up and down. It’s difficult to bear. I ask him if he has a phone.
He stops, then looks at me. “You need to call someone?”
“Yes,” I say. “I’d like to call my dad.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the following people, who were a great help to me during the writing of this book: Mariann Albjerg, Christiane Bauermeister, Evgenia Belousova, David Bickerstaff, Ted van Broeckhuysen and the crew of the Noorderlicht, Mick Brown, Elena Bukay, Mary-Ann Dahle, Dara Faramani, Rory Farquhar-Thomson, Rebecca Horn, Lea Iversen, Joanna Kavenna, Eva Koralnik, Anne Marczinczek and the staff of the Kempinski Hotel Bristol in Berlin, Viktorija Mauvik, Olga Maximova, Luca Merlini, Dr. Kaye Mitchell, Francis Pike, Ilka-Carina Rhein, Emanuela Siciliani, Sir Richard Temple, Hunter Thomson, Angelina Voronina, Dr. Maria Vourliotis, and Gray Watson. I would also like to thank David Austen, Robin Farquhar-Thomson, Calvin Mitchell, Jean Norbury, and John and Maria Norbury for their support and encouragement, and everyone at Other Press for being so passionate and so committed. My gratitude and love, as always, to Katharine Norbury and Evie Rae Thomson.