Despite the Falling Snow (39 page)

“She knew I’d got out?”

“Not for sure. She hoped. Anyway, she didn’t breathe a word to anyone until then, he says. Even him. She wanted to be as sure as she could that you were safe. But then she needed his help. And she told him that the government, or the KGB, had caught someone, and that she was worried that that person would talk and compromise Misha and herself.”

Alexander nods. “That’s why I left so quickly. The opportunity was there, and we had to take it. Otherwise they would have found her.”

“Yes, they would have. They would have found out both of you, Uncle Alex. You do know that, don’t you?”

Her concern to reassure him, and reinforce the point acts as an instant alert to his senses. His stomach sinks slightly with misgiving at what she might be about to say. But try as he might, he cannot weave a path through his thoughts and conjectures to prepare himself by imagining possible outcomes. He sits slightly forwards in his chair, cradling his wine glass, waiting anxiously.

“Uncle Alex, it was him.”

“What?”

“It was Misha that they’d caught.”

Now distant possibilities begin, vaguely, to jostle for position in his mind, but he cannot make sense of them. He has a sense of dread, like a small patch of acridity in his throat, but he cannot reason out why.

“But Misha was with us the night before I left. We had dinner with my parents, I’m sure of that. How could they have caught him?”

“They let him go.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you see, Uncle Alex? He switched sides. To protect himself. He became a double agent.”

He says nothing, but his mouth is slightly open as he thinks over this revelation. “Of course,” he says, softly. “Of course.”

She nods. She goes over to his chair and perches on the arm of it. Takes his wine out of his hand and places it alongside hers on the table. Her hand is on his back, and with bitterness she recalls touching Misha’s bony shoulders, reassuring him, in much the same way not so long ago.

Alexander can hardly speak, but he must articulate what he is thinking.

“Misha betrayed Katya?” is all he can get out, in a hoarse whisper.

She holds her uncle close, and pulls his head to her shoulder, as though trying to cocoon him, insulate him from her next words.

“Uncle Alex, he pulled the trigger.”

He is unresponsive – it is as though she has spoken in Chinese, and he cannot fathom her meaning. He looks at her, his eyes wide, trusting, as if willing her to explain again, to explain that what he just heard is a mistake.

Lauren is crying, she cannot help herself. “Uncle Alex, he shot her himself.”

“No…” is all he can say, and then there is a moment of complete stillness in the room. All life, and breath, and sound and movement has ceased. And then the shoulders beneath her hands are shaking.

“Oh God, Uncle Alex, I am so sorry. I thought you ought to know. I thought I had to tell you.”

She is holding him hard against her as he cries. She is helpless in the face of his grief, and has no idea what else to do. To her relief his shoulders stop moving after a few minutes, and he just sits quietly, beneath her hands, composing himself. She releases her hold on him when he shifts. He is reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief. She stands and pokes the fire, and waits for him to finish wiping his face and blowing his nose behind her.

“Are you sure it’s true? He told you this himself?”

She nods. “I’m so sorry, Uncle Alex.”

“How could he?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know.”

He is sitting very still again. It is as though all life is draining from him.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “Sorry to tell you this.” She wants to find something to do to help him, any small thing, even though he is so far beyond relief, and so she offers to fetch him some water. He nods, and she hesitates for a moment, because his breath is short now, his chest moving too quickly. He nods again, and quickly, she turns and hurries out.

In the cool darkness of the kitchen, the light of the open refrigerator door illuminates her face. Just as she reaches in for a cold bottle of water, she hears something. She stops, head up, listening. The noise comes again. A crash, something falling. Then another. Without stopping she runs back, the bottle clutched in her hand, listening to the continuing noise, and she throws open the living room door.

He is standing up, almost panting now, and in his raised hand is a small vase. It appears that this vase is the only breakable thing in the room that is still in one piece. She throws the bottle onto the sofa and goes straight to him taking the vase from his hand, and putting her arm around him. He sits down, covering his eyes.

“How could he? We were his best friends in the world. How could he?”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Alex.” There are shards of broken glass beneath her feet. She is a little fearful now, for she has never in her life seen him do anything remotely violent, and she does not know how to reach this part of him that is so wounded it cannot speak, only act.

“Don’t be. I don’t want to have another secret, or unanswered question in my life ever again.” He is shouting now. “Do you understand? However hard it is, it’s better than lies.”

She makes reassuring noises, but he cannot hear them. His eyes are everywhere, moving wildly.

“I have to kill him. I have to. For Katya’s sake. And my own. I want him to know what she must have felt when he put the gun to her, the bastard. I want him to beg my forgiveness for taking her away. For taking her life from her when she was so young. How could he do it?”

Tears of fury and frustration leak from his eyes.

“She had everything to live for, Lauren. We both did. He could have helped us.”

He sighs, deeply, twice, and she senses that his rage is spent for now. Physically, he cannot continue without giving himself a heart attack. She sits next to him and holds him, trying to calm him. She does not know how she can go on with this story, although there is more to say. But can she really leave the next part for later?

“I miss her so much, Lauren,” he whispers. “My poor Katyushka. What a way to die.”

She takes these last words as some kind of sign that she must go through with the rest of it immediately. Checking that he is calmer, she leaves the room, and returns within a minute, feeling weighted down by the small, light suitcase that she is holding in her hands. She comes to where he sits and places it before him.

“Do you recognise this?”

He shakes his head.

“Misha says they gave him no choice but to kill her; and that she gave him no choice by confiding in him. But he says he’s been consumed with guilt ever since…”

His voice is fierce. “He could have helped her. He could have escaped with her. He was our
friend
, Lauren.”

“I know.”

“I’m glad I didn’t come with you. I would have killed him myself.”

“I know. But if it’s any consolation to you, he’s been drinking himself to death for years now. Trying to forget what he did, I think. He’s dying. He has a few months left at the most. I think that’s what made him give me this.”

She picks up the case, gently, rests it on her knees, and watches as realisation crosses his features. There is shadow thrown over his face, as if the inner pain he feels is somehow being reflected darkly back through his skin.

“It’s not hers?” he whispers, nodding at the case.

“Yes.”

He reaches out for it, hands shaking, and she hands it over, placing it gently on his lap.

“She had it with her when she…. She was all packed to try and get out. He told her he was taking her to a safe house.”

The click of the catch opening sounds deafening in the quiet of the room. Alexander slowly lifts the lid. On top of a small pile of clothes is a photograph in a tarnished silver frame. He picks it up and looks at it. Then he sets it down on the table before Lauren.

“Her parents. Your grandparents.”

She resists the impulse to take it and examine it well. There will be time for that later. She looks respectfully at the photograph, but then watches her uncle closely. In his hand he has a yellowed envelope that has been lying, sealed, just beneath the frame.

“She gave Misha that letter,” Lauren says. “To give you in case anything should happen to her. He put it away after he…after she died and never looked at the case since. He says he couldn’t stand to see it, and couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. He said that keeping it in his house, knowing it was lying there, was his punishment these last decades.”

“There is no punishment hard enough for him,” Alexander says savagely. He holds the letter, passing his fingers over it, caressing it, a look of such seriousness and sorrow on his face that Lauren can hardly stand to watch him. Then, at last, he lifts it and hands it to her.

“Shall we keep it for later?” she asks. “You’ve been through too much already tonight.”

“Please open it,” he says. He is right, she feels that. How could either of them carry on without finishing this tonight? She gently pulls open the envelope and slides the thin paper out. It crackles slightly as she unfolds it. Then she hands it back to him.

“It’s in Russian,” she says, redundantly.

He nods, and begins to read.

My darling Sasha

I am on my way to you. My heart is so light at the thought of starting this journey towards our new life together, I have to force myself to remember you will only be reading this if I never reach you
.

I love you more than I knew I was able to love anyone or anything. Please remember this always – I don’t worry that you will ever forget, but I am afraid that you might come to doubt it because of everything you have so recently found out about me. You know now that I have spent most of my life working against the system that killed my parents. I used to think it was a life of such honour and nobility. But I have had enough of it. Enough of being driven by revenge and pain. That is why I am so happy that we have decided to try and get away from here. Outside, we can tell the truth about our country, about my parents. We can say it all, loudly, without fear of being silenced
.

You opened up my eyes and made me see a world that is worth living in. You have made me love life. I never did before. What a gift to be given – three years of discovering that the world can be an exhilarating place to be in. No matter what happens, I will always be grateful to you for that
.

Which brings me to the point of this letter. If something has happened to me, Sasha, don’t let it ruin your life. Carry on well, as though we were with you. I say “we”, my darling, because I have just found out I am pregnant. I wanted this to be the first news I told you when we meet again, so forgive me for not confiding it before you left. I am so full of hope for our new baby. I will always admire my parents, but their politics left me an orphan – it was a terrible childhood, and I will not put our baby through it, if there is a chance we can get out of here and live together in freedom. All I really wanted to say was I love you, and adore you. More than anything, I live to be with you again. But if that does not happen, I rely on you to live the life we dreamed of on my behalf.

Yours always

Katya

She thinks he has finished reading, but she cannot be sure. She is holding her breath, reluctant to make any sound or movement at all in that room. The fire crackles like distant gunfire in the stillness around them. His eyes have stopped reading, but his head is still down. Something is about to happen, she can feel it, but just as she makes a move towards him, he makes a sound, an utterance that is beyond the human or even animal, a noise that seems to have been ripped out of the very centre of him. The letter falls back into the suitcase, and his hands are lifting the clothes inside, lifting them up, and he is crushing the cloth and garments to his face, sobbing and trying to inhale the scent of his dead wife at the same time. He is rocking back and forth, his hands still clinging to the clothes, his arms drawn up around his head and ears, as though seeking protection. The sounds he is making are new to her, and are sounds that she never wants to hear again – a distillation of sorrow, pure sadness and a deep raging that she cannot begin to reach. She sits, paralysed, on the edge of her chair. She cannot touch him or comfort him at this moment, so she just waits, helpless, and watches her uncle disintegrate before her.

T
HE SMELL OF FISH
– even the pickled fish that they stock – makes Yuri’s wife dizzy, she says. All that vinegar, she complains, evaporating into the air around her head. Yuri and Alexander laugh about it, and tease her. Today, her complaining is defiant and loud, a challenge to her husband to listen. Yuri picks up a whole fillet of pickled herring, and chases her around the shop with it. Around the central table piled with candles and cans, past the sweet counter, and behind the cheeses and meats. She runs from him, screaming and laughing at the same time, finally gaining the front door and throwing it open with such force that the shop bell rings for ten whole seconds. She disappears down the street, and will probably not come back for two hours, because they know she will simply keep running, and go to see her friend Lulu, who works at the hairdresser’s on the next block.