But that, I believed, would surely be enough.
We celebrated Christmas twice that winter.
In mid-December, our friends Leo and Sophie extended an invitation to us to join them for a meal on the twenty-fifth, the traditional day of Christian celebration, in their flat near the Place du Tertre. I was concerned at how Zoya would cope with such festivity and suggested that we ignore Christmas entirely and spend the afternoon walking the banks of the Seine, just the two of us, enjoying the rare peace that the day would offer.
‘But I want to go, Georgy,’ she told me, surprising me with her enthusiasm. ‘They make it sound like so much fun! And we could do with a little fun in our lives, couldn’t we?’
‘Of course,’ I said, pleased by her response, for I wanted to go too. ‘But only if you’re sure. It may be a difficult day, our first Christmas since leaving Russia.’
‘I think,’ she replied slowly, hesitating for a moment and considering the matter carefully, ‘I think perhaps it would be a good idea to spend it with friends. There will be less time to dwell on unhappy things then.’
In the five months that we had been living in Paris, Zoya’s personality had started to change. Back in Russia, she had been lively and amusing, of course, but in Paris, she had begun to let her guard down more and was free with her enthusiasms. The alteration suited her. She remained entirely unspoiled, but had become open to the pleasures that the world had to offer, although our financial state, pitiful as it was, ensured that we could take advantage of little of it. However, there were moments, many moments, when her grief resurfaced, when those terrible reminiscences stormed the barricades of her memory and brought her low. During those times she preferred to be left alone and I do not know how she fought her way through the darkness. There were mornings when we met for breakfast and I found her pale, her eyes ringed with dark circles; I would enquire after her health and she would shrug off my questions, saying that it was hardly worth discussing, that she had simply been unable to sleep. If I pushed to know more, she would shake her head, grow angry with me and then change the subject. I learned to allow her the space to confront these horrors by herself. She knew that I was there for her; she knew that I would listen whenever she wanted to talk.
Zoya had met Sophie at the dressmaker’s shop where they were both employed and they had quickly become friends. They made simple, plain dresses for the women of Paris, working in a store which had provided functional clothing throughout the war. Through Sophie, we became acquainted with her painter boyfriend Leo, and the four of us made up a regular quartet for dinner or Sunday-afternoon strolls, when we would cross the Seine in a spirit of great adventure and wander through the Jardin du Luxembourg. I thought Leo and Sophie were terribly cosmopolitan and rather idolized them, for they were no more than a couple of years older than us but lived together in unapologetic harmony, betraying their passion even in public with frequent displays of affection that I confess embarrassed but excited me.
‘I’ve cooked a turkey,’ Sophie announced that Christmas Day, placing a strange-looking bird on the table before us, part of which seemed to have been in the oven for too long, while the rest remained curiously pink, an extraordinary trick that made the entire dish appear quite unappetizing. However, the company being what it was and the wine flowing as it did, we cared not for such niceties and we ate and drank all night long, Zoya and I looking away whenever our hosts exchanged their long, expressive kisses.
Afterwards we lay on the two sofas in their living room, talking art and politics, while Zoya rested her body against my own and allowed me to place an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer towards me, the warmth of her skin adding to my own, the scent of her hair, typically lavender, perfumed earlier with one of Sophie’s fragrances, quite intoxicating.
‘Now you two,’ said Leo, warming to his favourite topic, ‘you came from Russia. You must have been steeped in politics all your life.’
‘Not really,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I grew up in a very small village that had no time for such things. We worked, we farmed, we tried to keep ourselves alive, that was all. We didn’t have time for debates. They would have been considered great luxuries.’
‘You should have made time,’ he insisted. ‘Especially in a country such as yours.’
‘Oh, Leo,’ said Sophie, pouring more wine, ‘not this again, please!’ She scolded him, but with good humour. Whenever we spent an evening together, the conversation always turned to politics eventually. Leo was an artist – a good one, too – but like most artists he believed that the world he re-created on his canvases was a corrupt one, which needed men of integrity, men like himself, to step to the fore and reclaim it for the people. He was a young man, of course, his naivety attested to that, but he hoped to put himself forward for election to the Chamber of Deputies one day. He was an idealist and a dreamer, but indolent too, and I doubted whether he would ever summon the necessary energy for a campaign.
‘But this is important,’ he insisted. ‘Each of us has a country that we call our own, am I right? And as long as we are alive it is our responsibility to try to make that country a better place for all.’
‘But better how?’ asked Sophie. ‘I like France the way it is, don’t you? I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I don’t want it to change.’
‘Better as in more fair to everyone,’ he replied. ‘Social equitability. Financial freedom. The liberalization of policy.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Zoya, her voice cutting through the atmosphere, for she had neither Sophie’s drunken enthusiasm nor Leo’s antagonistic self-righteousness. She had also been quiet for some time, her eyes closed, not sleeping but apparently relaxed in the warmth of the room and the luxury of the alcohol. All three of us looked at her immediately.
‘Well,’ replied Leo with a shrug, ‘only that it makes sense to me that every citizen has a responsibility to—’
‘No,’ she said, interrupting him, ‘not that. What you said before. About a country such as ours.’
Leo thought about it for a moment and finally shrugged his shoulders, as if the whole thing was perfectly obvious. ‘Ah, that,’ he replied, propping himself up on one elbow as he warmed to his topic. ‘Look, Zoya, my country, France, she spent centuries under the oppressive weight of a disgusting aristocracy, generations of parasites who sucked the lifeblood out of every simple, hardworking man and woman in the land, stole our money, acquired our land, kept us in starvation and poverty while they indulged their own appetites and perversions to excess. And eventually we said “Too much!” We resisted, we revolted, we placed those fat little aristocrats in the tumbrils, we drove them to the Place de la Concorde, and swish!’ He passed the flat of his hand quickly down through the air, mimicking the blade descending. ‘We cut off their heads! And we took back the power. But my friends, that was nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. My great-great-great-grandfather fought with Robespierre, you know. He stormed the Bastille with—’
‘Oh, Leo,’ cried Sophie in frustration, ‘you don’t know that. You always say it, but what proof do you have?’
‘I have the proof that he told his son the stories of his heroism,’ he replied defensively. ‘And those stories have been passed down from father to son ever since.’
‘Yes,’ said Zoya – a certain chill entering her tone, I thought – ‘but what has that got to do with Russia? You are not comparing like with like.’
‘Well, pffft,” said Leo, exhaling a whistle through his lips. ’I only wonder why it took Mother Russia so much longer to do the same thing, that’s all. For how many centuries were peasants like you – forgive me, both of you, but let us call things what they are – forced into a pathetic existence just so the palaces could remain open, the balls could continue to be thrown? The season could take place?’ He shook his head as if even the concept of such things was too much for him. ‘Why did it take you so long to throw out your autocrats? To reclaim the power of your own land? To cut off their heads, as it were? Not that you did that, of course. You shot them, as I recall.’