Sadly, within the space of eight more years — split evenly for Georgina and Ilya between Bucharest and London — time had caught up with both of her parents. All squabbles were long forgotten by then and Georgina had been left fairly well off — which was as well. In those early years Ilya certainly wasn't earning enough from his teaching to keep her in her accustomed style.
But it was then that Ilya had been offered a lucrative position as an interpreter-translator with the Foreign Office in London; for while in life Georgina's father had once been something of a pain, in death his legacy included an excellent introduction to diplomatic circles. There was one condition: to secure the position Ilya must first become a British citizen. This was no hardship — he'd intended it anyway, eventually, when the right opportunity presented itself — but he did have a final term's contract at the Institute, and one more year to complete in Bucharest, before he could take up the position.
That last year in Romania had been a sad one — because of the knowledge that it was the last — but towards the end of his term Ilya had been glad. The war was eleven years in the past and the air of the reviving cities had not been good for him. London had been smog and Bucharest fog, both were laden with exhaust fumes and, for Ilya, the taint of mouldering books in libraries and classrooms too. His health had suffered a little.
They could have come back to England as soon as he'd fulfilled his duties, but a doctor in Bucharest advised against it. 'Stay through the winter,' he'd counselled, 'but
not in the city. Get out into the countryside. Long walks in the clean, fresh air — that's what you need. Evenings by a roaring log fire, just taking it easy. Knowing that the snow lies deep without, and that you're all warm within! There's a deal of satisfaction in that. It makes you glad you're alive.'
It had seemed sound advice.
Ilya wasn't due to start working at the Foreign Office until the end of May; they spent Christmas in Bucharest with friends; then, early in the new year, they took the train for Slatina under the Alps. In fact the town was on the slopes gentling up to the foothills, but the locals always spoke of it as being 'under the Alps'. There they hired an old barn of a place set back from the highway to Pitesti, settling in just before the coming of the first real snows of the year.
By the end of January the snowploughs were out, clearing the roads, their blue exhaust smoke acrid in the sharp, smarting air; the townspeople went about their business with a great stamping of feet; they were muffled to their ears, more like great bundles of clothing than people. Ilya and Georgina roasted chestnuts on their blazing, open hearth fire and made plans for the future. Until now they'd held back from a family, for their lives had seemed too unsettled. But now… now it felt right to start.
In fact they'd started almost two months earlier, but Georgina couldn't be sure yet. She had her suspicions, though.
Days would find them in town — when the snow would allow — and nights they were here in their rambling hiring, reading or making languid love before the fire. Usually the latter. Within a month of leaving Bucharest Ilya's irritating cough had disappeared and much of his former strength had returned. With typical Romanian zeal, he revelled in expending much of it on Georgina. It had been like a second honeymoon.
Mid-February and the impossible happened: three consecutive days of clear skies and bright sunshine, and all of the snow steaming away, so that on the morning of the fourth day it looked almost like an early spring. 'Another two or three days of fair weather,' the locals nodded knowingly, 'and then you'll see snow like you've never seen it! So enjoy what we've got while you can.' Ilya and Georgina had determined to do just that.
Over the years and under Ilya's tuition, Georgina had become quite handy on a pair of skis. It might be a very long time before they got the chance again. Down here on the so-called steppe, all that remained of the snow were dark grey piles heaped at the roadsides; a few kilometres up country towards the Alps, however, there was still plenty to be found.
Ilya hired a car for a couple of days — a beat-up old Volkswagen beetle — and skis, and by 1.30 P.M. on that fateful fourth day they had motored up into the foothills. For lunch they stopped at a tiny inn on the northern extreme of lonesti, ordering goulash which they washed down with thick coffee, followed by a single shot each of sharp slivovitz to clean their mouths.
Then on higher into the hills, to a region where the snow still lay thick on the fields and hedgerows. And there it was that Ilya spied the hump of low grey hills a mile or so to the west, and turned off the road on to a track to try to get a little closer.
Finally the track had become rutted under the drifted snow, and the snow itself deeper, until at last Ilya had grunted his annoyance. Not wanting to get bogged down, revving the little car's engine, he'd bumpily turned it about in its own tracks, the better to make an easy getaway when they were through with their sport.
'Landlaufen!' he'd declared, getting down their skis from the roof rack.
Georgina had groaned. 'Cross-country? All the way to those hills?'
'They're white!' he declared. 'Glittery with dust over the hard, firm crust. Perfect! Maybe half a mile there, a slow climb to the top and a controlled, enjoyable slalom through the trees, then back here just as the twilight's coming down on us.'
'But it's after three now!' she'd protested. Then we'd better get a move on. Come on, it'll be good for us…'
'Good for us!' Georgina sadly repeated now, his picture still clear in her mind a year later, tall and darkly handsome as he lifted the skis from the beetle's roof and tossed them down in the snow.
'What's that?' Anne Drew, her younger cousin, glanced back at her over her shoulder. 'Did you say something?'
'No,' Georgina smiled wanly, shaking her head. She was glad for the intrusion of another into her memories, but at the same time sorry. Ilya's face, fading, hung in the air, superimposed over her cousin's. 'Daydreaming, that's all.'
Anne frowned, turned back to her driving. Daydreaming, she thought. Yes, and Georgina had done a lot of that over the last twelve months. There'd seemed to be something in her, something other than little Yulian, that is, which hadn't come out of her when he had. Grief, yes, of course, but more than that. It was as if she'd teetered for twelve months on the very edge of a nervous breakdown, and that only Ilya's continuation in Yulian had kept her from toppling. As for daydreams: sometimes she'd seemed so very far away, so detached from the real world, that it had been difficult to call her back. But now, with the baby… now she had something to cling to, an anchor, something to live for.
Good for us, Georgina said again, but this time to herself, bitterly.
It hadn't been 'good' for them, that last fatal frolic in the snow on the cruciform hills. Anything but. It had been terrible, tragic. A nightmare she'd lived through a thousand times in the year gone by, with ten thousand more to come, she was sure. Lulled by the car's warmth and the purr of its motor, she slipped back into her memories…
They'd found an old firebreak in the side of the hill and set out to climb it to the top, pausing now and then with their breath pluming, shielding their eyes against the white blaze. But by the time they'd pantingly reached the crest the sun had been low and the light starting to fade.
'From now on it's all downhill,' Ilya had pointed out. 'A brisk slalom through the saplings grown up in the firebreak, then a slow glide back to the car. Ready? Then here we go!'
And the rest of it had been… disaster!
The saplings he'd mentioned were in fact half-grown trees. The snow, drifted into the firebreak, was far deeper than he might have guessed, so that only the tops of the pines — looking like saplings — stood proud of the powdery white surface. Half-way down he'd skied too close to one such; a branch, just under the surface, showing as the merest tuft of green, had tangled his right-hand ski. He'd upended, bounced and skittered and jarred another twenty-five yards in a whirling bundle of white anorak, sticks and skis, flailing arms and legs before grabbing another 'sapling' and bringing his careening descent to a halt.