‘It means peace,’ we said when anyone asked us why we had chosen her name, and that was what she brought to us: peace, the satisfaction of parenthood. When she cried, we thought it shocking that someone so small could produce so musical a sound. For me, returning every day from the library, I could barely stop myself from breaking into a run as I walked along the street, so anxious was I to arrive home and see the look on her face when I stepped through the door, that expression that told me that she might have forgotten about me over the previous eight hours, but here I was, and she remembered me, and how good it was to see me again.
Growing up, she was no more or less difficult than any other child; she did well at school, neither excelling at her studies nor giving cause for concern. She married young – too young, I had thought at the time – but the marriage was a happy one. Whether or not she faced similar difficulties to the ones her mother and I had faced I do not know, but it was seven years before she sat down before us, taking our hands in hers, to tell us that we were to become grandparents. Michael was born and his presence in a room was a constant joy. One evening over dinner, she mentioned that she would like to give him a younger brother or sister. Not immediately, but soon. And we were thrilled by the news, for we liked the idea of a house filled with visiting grandchildren.
And then she died.
Arina was thirty-six when she was taken from us. She worked as a teacher in a school near Battersea Park and late one afternoon, as she was walking home along the Albert Bridge Road, the wind took her hat and she ran out into the path of oncoming traffic without looking left or right and was hit by a car. As difficult as it is to admit, it was entirely her fault. There was no possibility that the car could have avoided her. Of course we had taught her to take care when running on to roads, it wasn’t as if she didn’t know that, but which of us does not get caught up in a moment and forget the things we have been taught? Arina’s hat was blown off her head; she wanted it back. It was a simple thing that happened. And she died of it.
The first that Zoya or I knew of the accident was later that evening, when there was an unexpected knock on our front door. I opened it to see a pale young man standing outside, a man I half recognized but could not immediately place. He wore an anxious expression on his face, almost frightened, and was holding a brown cloth cap in his hands, which he passed between his fingers constantly. I didn’t know why, but it was something I focussed on increasingly as he talked. His hands were quite bony, the skin almost transparent, not dissimilar to how my own hands had aged, although I was forty years older than him. I watched them as he talked, perhaps to keep myself steady, for there was something in his expression that suggested I would not like what he had come here to say.
‘Mr Jachmenev?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know if you remember me, sir. I’m David Frasier.’
I stared at him and hesitated, uncertain who he was, but Zoya appeared behind me before I had a chance to embarrass myself.
‘David,’ she said. ‘What on earth brings you over here this evening? Georgy, you remember Ralph’s friend, don’t you? From the wedding?’
‘Of course, of course,’ I said, recalling him now. Drunk, he had attempted to perform the Hopak dance, arms folded, kicking his feet out while trying to keep his body upright. He thought it was a symbol of unity, a mark of respect to his hosts, and I didn’t like to tell him that it was little more than an exercise to warm the body before battle.
‘Mr Jachmenev,’ he said, his face betraying his anxiety. ‘Mrs Jachmenev. Ralph sent me round. He asked me to get you.’
‘To get us?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean, to get us? What have we done to him?’
‘Ralph did?’ asked Zoya, ignoring me, the smile fading from her face a little. ‘Why? What’s happened? Is it Michael? Arina?’
‘There’s been an accident,’ he said quickly. ‘Now hopefully it’s not too serious. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, I’m afraid. It’s Arina. She was on her way back from school. A car hit her.’
It occurred to me that he was talking in short, staccato-like sentences and I wondered whether it was his natural mode of speech. His diction was like gunfire. That’s what I was thinking of as he spoke. Gunfire. Soldiers on the Front. Lines of boys, English, German, French, Russian, side by side, shooting at everything that stood before them, taking each other’s lives without realizing their victims were young men just like them, whose return home was anxiously awaited by sleepless parents. The images floated through my mind. Violence. I focussed entirely on this. I didn’t want to listen to what he was saying. I didn’t want to hear the words that this man, this fellow who claimed he had been sent to get us, this boy who dared to suggest that he knew my daughter, was uttering. If I don’t listen, I thought, then it won’t have happened. If I don’t listen. If I think of something else entirely.
‘Where?’ Zoya asked. ‘When did it happen?’
‘A couple of hours ago,’ he said, and I couldn’t help but hear him now. ‘Somewhere near Battersea, I think. She’s been taken to hospital. I think she’s all right. I don’t think it’s too serious. But I’ve got Ralph’s car outside. He asked me to collect you.’
Zoya pushed past him and out of the door, running up the steps towards the car, as if she would have happily left for the hospital without either of us, ignoring the fact that we needed Mr Frasier to drive us there. I stayed where I was, feeling a certain numbness in my legs and a giddiness in my stomach, and the room began to sway a little.
‘Mr Jachmenev,’ said the young man, stepping towards me with one hand outstretched as if he might need to act as my balance. ‘Mr Jachmenev, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine, boy,’ I snapped, turning and making for the door too. ‘Come on. If you’re to take us there, then for pity’s sake let’s go.’
The drive was a difficult one. The traffic was heavy and it took us almost forty minutes to make our way from our Holborn flat to the hospital. Throughout the journey, Zoya peppered the young man with questions, while I sat in the back of the car, silent as a mouse, listening, refusing to speak.
‘You think she’s all right?’ Zoya asked. ‘Why do you think that? Did Ralph say that?’
‘I think so,’ he said, sounding more and more as if he wished he was somewhere else entirely. ‘He phoned me at work. I’m not far from the hospital, you see. He told me where he was, asked me to meet him at the reception desk immediately and to take my car and to come and find you both.’
‘But what did he say?’ asked Zoya, a note of aggression entering her tone. ‘Tell me exactly. Did he say she was going to be all right?’
‘He said she’d been in an accident. I asked whether she was all right and he sort of snapped at me. He said Yes, yes, she’ll be fine, but you’ve got to fetch her parents for me right away.’
‘He said she’d be fine?’
‘I think so,’ said Mr Frasier. I could hear the note of panic in his voice. He didn’t want to say anything that he thought he shouldn’t say. He didn’t want to give false information. Offer hope where there was none. Suggest that we prepare ourselves when there was no need. But he had something that we had not and I could tell from his voice what it meant. He had seen Ralph. He had seen the look on Ralph’s face when he’d collected the keys for the car.
Arriving at the hospital, we ran towards the reception desk and were immediately directed along a short corridor and up a flight of stairs. Looking left and right at the top we heard a voice calling our names – Grandma! Grandpa! – and then young feet, our Michael, only nine years old, running towards us, arms outstretched, his face bleached with tears.