‘Viktoria tried her best, in those interviews,’ says Marina tersely, ‘to give everyone the glimpse they wanted into such terrible times. But she was a person too, with her own heartbreak, her own sorrows. She was not a living archive.’
Maybe I do have the tendency to forget, sometimes, that these are real people, real lives, and not just numbers in an equation, pieces in a puzzle I’m trying to solve. The waitress stops by again and I drop my gaze to my lap.
‘Valentin left the family years later, after Mikhail was born,’ says Marina. ‘Abandoned them. But as I said, Valentin was sick in the head, after so many years in the gulag. So, to conclude, it is possible that you are right. That he took a new name and just – became someone else.’
‘Do you know when he left?’
‘No. I don’t have all the facts, as my husband finds the subject so difficult,’ says Marina, switching back to Russian. ‘But if his father were alive now, Mikhail would want to know. I am absolutely sure. That is why I am telling you all this. I hope I can trust you.’
I start to say that she can, but she shakes her head. She clearly knows more than she’s saying, but our discussion is over. At least there now seems to be a way to crack Alexey. It’s been too easy for him to avoid hard questions all these years, I reckon, because every time he speaks, he renders everyone else speechless.
If he is in fact Valentin Andreyev, I doubt he could keep denying the truth while looking his own son straight in the eye.
‘Should they … meet?’ I ask.
‘I will talk to him,’ she says. ‘I can telephone you, after.’
Upon his return from Novosibirsk, Alexey is not his usual sanded-smooth self. He sits me down in the living room and he keeps giving heavy sighs, as if they’re supposed to be breaths. He asks if I made any headway with Akulina Burzinova. I tell him that I went to see her and learnt that the manuscript of the Countess’s memoir was mailed to her.
‘There was never any basement,’ I clarify.
Alexey visibly deflates. He does seem like a person who would enjoy basements full of old manuscripts. Like his apartment, only even more crowded, with even greater possibility of being dragged under.
‘You’ll need to go back to Akulina,’ Alexey says. ‘Ask her – ask her if she still has the original.’
Still has the original? What is he doing? Keeping me busy, just as a lark? Like the incessant note-taking? No. I’d wager he knew that Akulina would notice my resemblance to Tonya. He must know she’s the one who gave me the frame. What is it he wants her to do?
‘Why?’ I ask, bluntly.
‘Primary sources are always worth the effort,’ he replies. His eyes flash in my direction, but they stay unfocused, like he’s looking at somebody just behind me. Alexey Ivanov is haunted too, only his ghost won’t say his name, and he won’t say hers.
‘Now you are ready to speak with me,’ says Akulina, who sits on her sofa half swallowed by a large blanket. ‘Last time you couldn’t get away fast enough.’
Her cat manoeuvres between my crossed ankles. ‘I’m sorry to say this,’ I begin, ‘but the frame you gave me has been destroyed.’
‘Destroyed! How could you be so careless?’ she demands, a bit shrilly.
‘The photograph is OK. The glass, the frame – it was broken by the historian I’m working for. I think he knew Tonya. I thought I’d ask you.’
‘What is the name of this historian?’
‘Alexey Ivanov.’
‘I do not know of him.’ Her voice is rough again, papery. ‘What does he look like?’
‘He’s old,’ I say, and she chuckles, more like a goat’s bleat than a laugh. ‘Here. I’ve brought this along – that’s him.’
Akulina pulls eyeglasses from her breast pocket. A moment ticks by as she contemplates the back cover of The Last Bolshevik. She shakes her head. ‘If I ever met him, it was too long ago.’
‘So what happened to Tonya?’ I ask, returning the book to my bag.
‘I don’t know that either,’ she says. ‘I wish I did. I told you last time, how she took us in, my brother and me. At the time, I never even thanked her. We lost touch after I went east. She was still living at Otrada. By the time I made my way back, she was gone, and now all I have left of her is that one picture – or at least I did.’
‘Otrada,’ I say, rolling the r as Akulina has done. It feels light on my tongue. I’ve still been using the English r all this time. No wonder Marina thought my Russian sounded strange.
‘Tonya’s family seat, in Tula province.’
‘It’s her. Alexey Ivanov is searching for Tonya.’ I can’t believe how normal I sound. ‘She’s the project.’
‘Well, good luck to him.’ Akulina sounds unimpressed. ‘Tonya had many admirers.’ She pauses, and then realisation dawns. Our eyes meet, hers glassy with age. ‘But you. You look just like her. Is that why he—’
‘I think so.’
‘Did he say so?’ she exclaims.
‘No.’
‘Then you should leave Moscow,’ she says, with a wet-sounding cough. ‘You must get away. What if he tries to hurt you and not just photo frames? Let me see that book again, to make sure it’s not the partner she had when I lived with her. I didn’t like him at all. I just can’t remember his name. No, I do. Sasha.’
Dutifully I hand The Last Bolshevik back over to her.
‘No,’ says Akulina, sounding relieved. ‘It’s not Sasha.’
‘I honestly don’t think Alexey could move fast enough to hurt anyone. And he doesn’t seem dangerous,’ I say. ‘He seems lost.’
Akulina harrumphs noisily. ‘I would still leave, if I were you.’
‘But I hate unanswered questions.’ It tumbles out. ‘I have this pathological need to understand. You spend your life around people who seal everything off, who hoard the real story to themselves, and you can’t help it, you’d do anything just to know, and nothing is scary or too risky if you can just get at the answer. It’s like Alexey—’
Like he knows that about me.
‘The original manuscript of your mother’s memoir,’ I say tremulously. ‘Do you still have it? May I see it?’
‘I’m not going to live for ever,’ says Akulina, in an almost eerie voice, one that tells me she knows how much time she has. ‘You can take it with you, girlie. Just keep it safe. Don’t let the historian anywhere near.’
When I return to the apartment, nobody is home. Night falls. I’m already tucked into a blanket when I hear a key in the lock, the front door squawking in the way it does when someone is trying to stay quiet. It’s Lev. He enters the living room without turning on any lights. He smells different, a bit soapy.
‘You’re still awake, aren’t you,’ he says, sitting on the cot and stretching.
‘I want us to be friends again.’
‘Is that what you want?’ But he doesn’t give me a chance to answer. ‘I thought you’d be here this afternoon.’
‘I went to see Akulina Burzinova. I can tell you everything tomorrow.’
‘Tell me now,’ he says, switching on the lamp.
I kick aside my blanket and reach under the sofa. ‘Akulina has given me the original manuscript of Natalya’s memoir. I need to decide whether to show it to Alexey, as he’s asked for it, or hide it away, like she wants me to do. Have a look.’
Lev opens the small box that Akulina gave me, containing hundreds of loose-leaf sheets. He turns them over, one by one, as I look over his shoulder. At the piece of paper he’s holding. At the handwriting.
I spent a full hour in a cafe in Oxford examining this same handwriting.
I go over to my pillow, find Mum’s notebook, sit down again, turn to the first page. A Note for the Reader. These stories should not be read in order.
The same person wrote these.
The notebook, and Natasha’s memoir.
‘Are you OK?’ asks Lev.