‘She was executed,’ Akulina says, with a scoff. ‘By the Cheka, in 1920. Your historian doesn’t know that?’
‘Right. Of course.’
‘There is no historian, is there?’
‘Excuse me?’ I say nervously.
‘You’re lying about why you’re here. You want to talk about Tonya.’
‘I’m sorry. What?’
Akulina reaches into the pocket of her mousy jumper vest. ‘I’ve just dug this out for you. I hope you appreciate.’
I reach over her cat, who is still sitting on me, feeling a bit like I’m reaching into a museum display. Akulina drops an object in my hand. A small wooden frame, not too much larger than an icon, brittle and blemished. The photograph within is black and white, behind glass that looks new, showing four people: two kids, a frizzy-haired teenager who bears a whimper of a resemblance to Akulina, and a young woman in a whitish frock, brought in at the waist.
The young woman is me.
‘What …’ I start to say. The picture gives off vibes, electricity. It can’t be me. I don’t own any ankle-length dresses. I’ve never worn my hair cropped just below the chin, curls held in place by a lace band. I’ve never even laid eyes on these children.
Whoever this is, she smiles into the camera in a way that tells me she doesn’t mean it. I wouldn’t mean that smile either.
Lev takes the picture from me. He lets out a low whistle, not an admiring one.
‘It’s yours now,’ says Akulina promptly. ‘I’ll tell you what I know. Tonya and my mother were acquainted well before the revolutions. Later, after my mother’s death, Tonya adopted me and my brother, and took care of us for a few years. See, he’s that young boy there.’
‘Who is Tonya?’ I stammer.
Akulina dissolves into coughing. When she looks at me again, her eyes are red-rimmed. ‘Obviously a relation of yours. Just look at the two of you! Was Lena your mother?’
‘Lena?’
Her nostrils flare at us. ‘Tonya’s daughter. She’s there in the picture too.’
My jaw clicks. ‘My mother’s name was Katya. You’re mistaken. This is all some kind of mistake.’ My voice is rising. I didn’t come here to be confronted by something like this picture. To be blindsided. The cat’s velvety fur suddenly feels like needles. ‘And I don’t know any Tonya. I don’t know why she—I don’t know why this is—I’m—’
‘Can I pour anyone more tea?’ asks Lev, in a more polite tone than he’s ever used before, and Akulina responds, smiling, displaying a row of coffee-browned teeth – but I see it as glee, like something’s lit up behind her features, like the glint of gold leaf beneath lacquer.
Alexey told us not to take the Mercedes on this visit, so as not to draw too much attention to ourselves in this area of town, but now I’m wishing we had done. I need to close my eyes and clear my head. Instead, Lev and I have to board a minibus, have to endure the return journey through the jungle of apartment complexes. Akulina’s photo frame is in my bag, the strap singeing my shoulder. I’m in Moscow to find Eduard Dayneko. And nothing else matters – not the map, the silver necklace, the picture of Tonya. It doesn’t matter if I have no idea why Alexey really sent me to Akulina.
Nothing matters except getting my answer, and leaving for ever—
‘You’re thinking too hard,’ says Lev. ‘I can almost see steam coming from your ears. I have friends who live just around the corner. Let’s get off here and say hello.’
‘Do people do that?’ I ask, swallowing.
‘Have friends? Yes,’ he says, with a straight face. ‘And social gatherings. And even food.’
It’s already early evening. The day has leached away, and I’m grateful for the distraction. The friends’ apartment used to belong to a renowned dancer, Lev says, on the way. It does look like the kind of place Mum would have liked – high ceilings, a lot of windows, plenty of space. Enough to put on a show. Lev’s friends, a talkative pair, show us every room, with modest pride, and then they lay out more spirits than even Mum could comfortably imbibe.
The wife asks me questions about life in England while she puts out snacks that sear your tongue: gherkins and salty fish. I sip raspberry kvass as she talks and the alcohol begins to hum in my veins. I might have been just like this woman, if not for that man, that one night. I might be chatty and cheerful. I might not mind living in a place that once belonged to a dancer.
On the metro home the seats and people are a blur, and when we emerge, the night air is unusually fresh. The cosiness of the friends’ apartment is a distant memory. We reach Alexey’s building. My skin feels sandpapered.
At the door Lev turns to look at me. There is a sizzling kind of silence, like he’s preparing to say something important. He bends his head, so that his forehead nearly touches mine, and suddenly I know what he’s going to say. I don’t know how to stop him. I don’t know how to stop myself.
‘I think my father wrote the notebook of stories, and not my mother,’ I blurt out. It’s the first thing I can think of.
He smiles. ‘Tell me.’
‘I think he wrote them in some kind of ciphertext. Maybe he suspected that someone was going to kill him. Maybe he even knew why, but he was scared to put me in danger by saying so outright, so he encrypted these stories just in case, wrote them down in the notebook, knowing that one day I would be able to break the code—’
‘But he wasn’t the one who gave it to you,’ says Lev.
‘Maybe my mother found out. She could have hidden the stories. She could have had some reason for not wanting me to know the truth, only her conscience got to her at the end. She had to let me have it before she died.’ I know how fanciful, how impossible this sounds, but I keep going. ‘Anyway, my point is, I have to look at the notebook again. I have to—I have to …’
‘I understand,’ he says. He brushes a strand of hair away from my face. His hand lingers. ‘You have a lot to do.’
Silence again.
Now he doesn’t have to say it.
I might be a bit tipsy, but I’m not drunk enough to be able to blame the alcohol. I want to lift my chin, kiss him, give in completely. I don’t think I’ve ever done very much wanting, or else it just hasn’t felt like this. Like it’s breathing underneath my skin. Like it could eat me alive.
This is the opposite of how I feel with Richard—
Richard.
I feel laughter bubbling up in my throat. There’s the tipsiness, right there. No wonder Mum was always laughing at nothing. Everything looks funny upside down. ‘I’m engaged,’ I say.
‘You’re …’ Lev stops.
‘I’m getting married in September.’ I show him my left hand. ‘It’s smart, I know. A family ring. I should probably be more careful with it.’
‘You’re wearing it on the wrong hand,’ he observes, tonelessly.
‘In England we wear it on the left, not the right.’
‘Mmm,’ he says. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Why should you?’
Lev doesn’t reply. He pulls out the key and lets us in, and we have to make it all the way up those stairs. The funny, fizzy feeling in my skin doesn’t go away, not when I collapse on the sofa bed, not when the lights go out. I’m tempted to crawl into the cot beside Lev, to lose myself to the feeling, but of course I don’t. I turn towards the wall, dizzy with disgust at myself. Lev doesn’t speak to me again.
As I close my eyes, I realise I haven’t felt haunted this evening by the past, or even by Zoya. Mum had it right, back in England: alcohol does have a way of expunging things, at least for a little while. Only she forgot to stop at a little while, and couldn’t get anything back.
I open half an eyelid to see Alexey in the living room, sitting in the upholstered armchair. I blink hard, and he comes into focus. There’s a niggly, spicy taste in my mouth. I forgot to brush my teeth last night. Alexey is sifting through some magazines and doesn’t seem to have noticed that I’m awake. He sighs, places them on the low table, and moves to grab one of the sofa cushions I have relegated to the floor.