The Lying Down Room (Serge Morel 1) (29 page)

Later, in his study, Morel laid out the plans for his owl and tried to work on them, but his heart wasn’t in it. He tried Golyubov’s number again, and again he got the answering
machine.

It was getting late, and there was nothing more he could do.

He opened the window to let in some air. Then he poured himself a cognac and sat at his desk for a while, nursing his drink and watching shadows flit across the wall as the wind came and went
with a mind of its own.

It was dark when Marie Latour finally got home. She had called her daughter to say that she would be going back to her own place tonight. Her daughter had been out and
she’d ended up leaving a message on the answering machine.

She was nervous at the prospect of being back home, especially since the tall police officer, the good-looking one, had made it clear she should not be alone. But she was relieved too. Her
daughter was finding her presence a strain, Marie could tell. The fact that she wasn’t even home yet, that she had chosen once again to work late, made it even clearer.

Then there was also the fact that Guy would be coming over for lunch the next day.

They had spent the afternoon together. Marie was never out this late but in the end Guy had suggested she come over to his house after their excursion to the Museum of Primitive Arts (no one
called the Quai Branly museum that, but in essence that’s what it was, Guy said). The museum’s artefacts had provided plenty of opportunity for commentary. They were both still shaking
their heads as they came out into the bright sunshine.

Then they had caught a taxi and ended up at his apartment. Together they watched an old François Truffaut film which happened to be on television. Guy offered coffee and biscuits. Marie
limited herself to one. She couldn’t really hear what was being said on screen but she wasn’t going to point out just how much she needed the earphones nowadays. Instead she smiled and
laughed when Guy did.

She’d turned down his offer of dinner and said she’d better be going. It wasn’t dark yet but by the time she got on the train the light was beginning to fade. Guy stood on the
platform and waved as the train pulled out.

Luckily it wasn’t crowded and she was able to pick her seat. Watching through the window as the landscape changed from rows of warehouses to residential homes and gardens, she felt happy
and thought about the next day when Guy would come over. For the first time since Hector’s death, he would travel to Maisons-Laffitte. Maybe she would splash out and make a
confit de
canard
with diced potatoes fried in duck fat, something Hector had loved too. A fleeting sense of sadness washed over her but she brushed it away.

By the time she got home, it was dark. She turned all the lights on and took off her coat and shoes. Then she made herself a two-egg omelette and had a yoghurt with a spoonful of sugar in it.
After dinner, she changed into her nightgown and brushed her teeth. She put on her earphones, sat down to watch the late news and resisted the urge to get a bar of chocolate from the pantry.
Somehow she could never stop at one piece.

When she heard the knock on the door, she wondered fleetingly how long the person had been knocking. With the earphones on it was impossible to hear unless someone was banging the knocker hard.
The doorbell had stopped working several months ago and she hadn’t bothered getting it fixed.

For a moment she wondered whether it might be Guy at the door and she panicked, wondering just how untidy her house was and what she looked like. Then it occurred to her that it would be strange
for him to have followed her back after they’d just spent the day together.

She looked through the spy hole and saw a familiar face, though she couldn’t immediately place it. It must be one of the new neighbours, she thought. Nowadays her memory failed her when it
came to new names and faces.

But when she opened the door and saw the person more clearly it gave her a shock.

‘You!’ she started, aware suddenly that she was standing there in her nightie and slippers, her pale shins exposed.

The person at the door stepped in and quickly closed it so that suddenly they were standing too close together in the hallway. Instinctively, she took a step back. He raised his arms and she
flinched, thinking he would strike her. Instead he stepped closer and hugged her tight. The intimacy of this gesture horrified her so that she simply froze with her arms by her side, unable to move
or make a sound. He held her for a long time, and when he pulled away she saw he was crying.

He led her down the hallway and into her room. She waited, trembling, trying to summon up the strength to run or pick up something she could fight him with. But instead she just stood there,
listening to the splash of water coming from the taps in the bathroom.

When he returned she saw that he had dried his tears. There was a new resolve on his face, like he had steeled himself for whatever came next. When he started unbuttoning her shirt, she made a
weak attempt at stopping him. He removed her hand gently. After that she just closed her eyes.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, leading her into the bathroom. The air was cool against her skin. The bath warmer than she liked it. She knelt in the bath like a supplicant, not daring to
look at him, ashamed of her nakedness.

After what seemed like an eternity, she felt his hands on her. Moving in slow circles across her chest and back.

Soaping her like a newborn child.

Nina Dimitrova unlocked the door of her apartment on the twenty-sixth floor and let herself in. The smell of damp clothes in the cramped, overheated flat filled her nostrils.
She could smell dinner too, reminding her of how hungry she was. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She could hear her mother say she was too thin and should eat more. But she had always been
small, finding her clothes in the same places where adolescent girls shopped.

The memory of the large, old-fashioned department stores where her mother took her as a child, with their stout, unsmiling saleswomen and drab offerings, belonged to a different era. Nowadays,
the women who could afford it flocked to Benetton and French Connection and the Gap and the salesgirls were young and glamorous, thinking they’d somehow made it, that selling foreign goods
meant they had gained access to a better world. Nina knew that things were probably a great deal better now than they had been for many Russians, but in some ways she regretted the old days. She
wasn’t deluded like those women who stood at street corners waving Stalin’s portrait. But some things she had valued were lost forever.

Not all of these were tangible or easily identifiable. Which was why she never talked about the way she felt.

‘I’m home!’ she called out.

She could smell fried onions and chicken, making her stomach rumble. The trip home always exhausted her. Going to the hospital wasn’t so bad because she started after lunch and she
wasn’t stuck with the other commuters. But coming home so late on the tram she struggled to keep awake. And there was always an element of anxiety. Moscow really wasn’t safe any more.
Several of Nina’s friends had told her how unhappy they were to see her taking public transport so late. She would generally respond to say she preferred to be sitting in a crowded tram than
alone in a stranger’s car. There was another thing that had changed. She remembered how, in the old days, she and her mother could get in a car with someone they didn’t know without
thinking twice about it. It was an easy way for people to make some extra money and sometimes it led to an interesting exchange along the way. Nowadays she wouldn’t risk it.

In the dark hallway she took her shoes and socks off. The socks were soaked through. She needed new shoes, but not this month. The money was running out faster than she’d expected, and the
shoes would have to wait.

‘You look tired.’ Her husband Volodya stood before her in the hallway. He touched her face with his right hand, leaving the useless, left one hanging by his side.

‘I wish you would tell them you want to work a different shift. How long are they going to keep you on this one? It’s not right,’ he said.

‘Soon, soon.’ She was too tired to have this conversation.

Instead she reached up and kissed his cheek. There was comfort in his height, the way he towered over her. At the university she had fallen in love with this man who was twenty-two years older
than her before they’d ever exchanged a word. Lately he’d decided to grow a beard. It grew unchecked and made him look even more like the earnest and distracted academic he was.

He sat next to her and watched her while she ate, his legs touching hers under the table. Only when she had finished eating and thanked him with her eyes, too tired to speak, he said,
‘There’s a letter for you.’

She noticed the envelope then, her name and address in bold capitals across the front. There was nothing on the back.

‘Open it.’

She could see he was anxious too. No one ever wrote to either of them. There was something ominous about the envelope with her name written in black ink.

She opened the envelope with a knife. Inside it was a single sheet of paper, with a few lines of writing. She looked at the signature to see who it was from. She was so startled she let out a
cry.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s from Dima.’

‘Dima? Which Dima?’

‘You know. The boy.’

Volodya gaped at her. ‘My God.’

All of a sudden she felt dizzy with exhaustion. She thought of the boy with the big dark eyes that never blinked; the quiet and stillness that always accompanied him. A boy so defenceless she
had thought he would soon be swept away, like a scrap of paper in the wind.

‘Where is it from?’ Volodya held the envelope up and peered at the stamp.

Nina rested her head on her hands. Despite the shock of receiving the letter, she was falling asleep, her stomach filled with chicken and rice, her feet tingling with warmth. She heard Volodya
laugh, a short, sharp sound that made her look up, sleepy-eyed, at her husband.

‘Your little orphan has come a long way. See, he’s in France!’ He showed her the stamp on the envelope. Nina stared at its serrated edges. She was too tired to read.

Nina forced herself to laugh too. As though it were a surprise for her as well, though of course she had known all along. After all it was thanks to her that Dima had left. The Frenchman had
taken him to France, to start a new life. But she had never told Volodya. All he knew was that the man had visited the orphanage once. He would not want to know about the money that had changed
hands. The risks she had taken. For his sake, she had kept quiet about it.

Now Dima had written. It meant that he hadn’t left her completely behind. She thought of the scrap of paper she had slipped into his pocket all those years ago, the day before his
departure.

‘This is where I live,’ she’d said, forcing a smile so he would not guess how she felt. ‘If you ever need to get in touch.’ Thinking that she would never hear from
him again.

In bed, Nina looked at the letter. Dima’s handwriting was tidy. He’d written in French. That must be his first language now. Nina wondered whether he still spoke Russian. She felt a
surge of pride at how far he’d come. In the morning she would have to find a way to translate the words.

Later, in bed, she had time to wonder why Dima had written. Was he in some kind of trouble? She thought of the child she’d known, who had never asked for anything. Now he’d written
to her. The thought disturbed her, but she was too tired to think it through. She fell into a deep sleep, full of incoherent dreams in which she drove home from the orphanage and each time got
lost, moving further and further away from Moscow. In the car beside her there was always someone. Her husband, Dima, or her mother, who was dead now. There were voices in the back seat but she
could not see who else was with her.

It was still dark when Nina got up. She felt worn out, like she’d been up all night doing housework – which would probably be a good thing, she reflected, looking
at the mess around her. Her arms and legs ached.

She pulled a top over her head and went to the kitchen. She made a cup of tea and took it with her to the living room, where she curled up on the sofa in her T-shirt and underwear. Outside the
window the sky looked menacing. It was going to be another dusty, muggy day, but maybe it would rain, Nina thought. Rain would be good, to wash away the dirt.

‘What are you doing up so early?’ Volodya asked. She’d closed her eyes and hadn’t noticed him come in. He sat next to her and she moved into his arms.

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Come back to bed. I’ll rub your back while you close your eyes and try to.’

She knew she wouldn’t sleep but she followed him anyway and lay on her side while Volodya moved behind her and started running his hand along her spine. He knew she loved this and that it
comforted her.

No one had ever worked out why Dima wouldn’t speak. There was nothing wrong with his vocal cords, according to the doctor who had come once, stopping at each bed to examine the listless
children. A brusque man with a self-important manner, who kept looking at his watch and was clearly in a hurry. Examining the children as if they were chickens, or sheep, except that chicken and
sheep would probably be treated with more care. Prodding and pinching and opening their mouths. He had never visited again, which was just as well.

When Dima arrived at the
internat
Nina had been working there for ten months. There was so little of him you’d hardly notice he was there. Except for his eyes. You couldn’t
get past those.

She had never figured out why he was assigned to the lying-down room. As far as she could tell there was nothing wrong with him. He didn’t talk but he understood everything. She could
tell. When she brought him his food she spoke about anything that came through her mind, keeping her voice light and carefree, and she saw that he listened intently, his eyes never leaving her
face. For some reason the fact that he didn’t say anything, just stared at her, made her blabber on. The words just kept pouring out of her. You would have thought she had no one to talk to
the rest of the time.