Despite the Falling Snow (21 page)

“Excellent protection against malaria,” he informs them, taking another drink.

Lauren laughs, and his eyes fix on her. They are fierce, and birdlike, giving the impression of continual movement and extreme concentration at the same time.

“You remind me somewhat of my wife,” he tells her. “Though not superficially you understand. Something in the eyes. ‘All the wild summer was in her gaze…’”

Estelle smiles, but busies herself with scooping tea leaves into a pot.

“Thank you,” says Lauren.

“William Butler Yeats,” continues the professor. “The quotation, just now.”

He is a big man, broad in the chest and shoulders, and yet somehow he contrives to look lanky. He walks slowly back to the door of the kitchen, placing his legs gingerly, as though they have not been tested away from the confines of his desk for some time. He shakes his head when Lauren asks him if he will join them.

“I don’t take afternoon tea,” he tells her. “I have to save something to look forward to in my old age.”

Alexander can see Lauren examining his face and frame, placing him against an empty canvas even as she smiles at his joke. And then something happens, something which Alexander would give much to be able to undo. He reaches for his teacup, but Estelle is still pouring milk into it, and their hands brush, and without thinking, he reaches out to hold hers to steady it. The touch is brief, intimate, and he feels it in every fibre of his body, and a second after the nervous, pleasurable tension has faded, he is appalled that the professor might also have seen and sensed what has happened. Estelle glances up at her husband as she pours Lauren’s cup, but he is not looking at either of them. Alexander cannot help but feel, however, that the professor does not miss a trick.

Estelle’s voice is bright when she breaks the pause. “I’m stealing Lauren’s research on Russia for my own purposes.”

There is a slight snort from her husband, a residual response to what he has just seen perhaps. “Not another book attempt, my dear?” he says.

Estelle is silent, compact, pulled in suddenly. Like an animal on alert. Professor Johnson smiles at once.

“You know, you mustn’t feel badly about appropriating Lauren’s research. After all, much of academia rests on the study of stolen books and papers.”

Perhaps he feels badly for having denigrated her attempted work, or perhaps, Alexander thinks, he just feels badly that he did so in front of their guests. But Estelle’s glance at her husband is kind, if cautious.

“Never mind, Frank,” she says, and he seems to take this as an absolution of a sort, and with a cough, he turns and walks back down the hallway.

It takes almost two hours for them to go over the history of Alexander’s life with Katya as he remembers it. His discoveries, her decisions, and then her death; the central issue, as overpowering as a poisonous gas to the rest of the conversation. It is here that he has always been at a disadvantage when faced with Lauren’s probing and questions – for what he knows is hearsay. He was not there before, during or afterwards, and he cannot therefore know precisely what happened and when. That is Lauren’s point, one that seems to make sense to Estelle also. It is now, for the first time, that Alexander recognises something of Melissa in her mother’s clear eyes, a reflection of the careful sifting going on in her mind.

“I think there’s a lot more that we could try and find out. Especially now,” Lauren tells him.

“Why now?” asks Alexander.

“Because I found out that Misha is alive,” she says gently. “Their best friend in Russia,” she adds, for Estelle’s benefit.

Why this should hit him as a physical shock, he has no idea. It is not as though he had known or believed that Misha was dead. But for all the years since he has left Russia, his thoughts of Misha have been like those of Katya – rooted in the past. In some ways, it was as though they had died together. He had rarely thought of the possibility that he still existed, and he had always told himself that this was because it would have been too difficult and too dangerous for them to have kept in touch for the first decades. This was true enough, but if he is to be honest with himself, that close friendship with Misha was also the strongest remaining reminder of Katya, and Alexander had found in the immediate aftermath of her death that he wanted a clean break, a pure, deep cut that would sever him from their country, and from everyone and everything in it.

The women watch him expectantly, but he is at a loss. He has been feeling his grip on the afternoon, on the whole situation, loosening for some time, and now his head feels light and as though it is filled with cotton wool or the meringues that he is so fond of. Everything is soft, there is nothing solid to grasp hold of, and he hates the feeling. It is how he has imagined the onset of senility might one day feel, and the very idea makes him want to shiver.

“How long have you been keeping all this from me?”

“I wasn’t hiding it. I didn’t know if we’d find him, and I didn’t want to bother you with it unless we did. It started when I went to Moscow last year. I couldn’t find him then, so I hired a private agency – a detective, really – to look for him.”

Alexander nods. “And?”

“They’ve found him. A couple of weeks ago. Still living in Moscow. I’ve been trying to find a good time to tell you.”

Alexander feels the last thread unravel in his mind. He can no longer think or feel. He touches his forehead, and Estelle hands him a glass of water.

“He was in Moscow, when Katya died. He was her best friend, and yours. He must have tried to learn something about her death. And since you were never able to speak to him, you don’t know what he might have found out.”

“You want to see him?”

“I think so. Don’t you?” Lauren’s hand is on his shoulder. Estelle is sitting forward in her chair.

“I think we should.” Lauren continues. “I think a trip out there would help a lot. I could help you figure out the full story, and Estelle says she’d love to join us – it would be a great chance for her to do some research. I think it would be good for all of us. Maybe it would help you, Uncle Alex.”

He does not reply. His throat is still dry, despite the sips of water.

“Uncle Alex? All I’m trying to say is that there are all these missing pieces, and maybe it won’t change anything, but don’t you want to know the whole story, once and for all? You might even find out that you weren’t as responsible as you feel. That’s what I’m hoping,” she adds, her voice dropping.

He is listening, she knows, but he makes no sign, he is just leaning forward, eyes staring at the floor. When she looks up at Estelle, the blue eyes are thoughtful. With a glance at Lauren, Estelle shakes her head slightly, and Lauren nods, knowing she has taken things as far as she can for the moment.

Lauren has an image of her own mind as a canvas, spattered with wildly coloured paints, colours that are random, without any coherence, colours that are bleeding into each other, forming a coagulated mass that is confusion and uncertainty. This bewilderment has been with her since she began having doubts about her work. But now, the re-visiting of Katya’s story is also seeping into the mess. She has not previously had any doubts about looking for Misha and going to meet him – she has been more and more convinced that the loose ends, the unknown parts, of Katya’s story should be found. How can partial information be a good thing, when the full story is potentially available. How can ignorance be better than knowledge? But the distress she is causing her uncle is causing her to reconsider...

She is reading a memoir about Africa when the telephone rings. She is still surrounded by dunes and desert as she answers, so it takes her a moment to realise that it is Melissa, but when she does recognise the voice, the book drops and she sits up. After the standard pleasantries, she offers to call Alexander to the phone, but Melissa refuses.

“I’m calling for you, actually.”

“Really?”

“I’ve just been given two front-row seats to the ballet. For tonight. And I wondered if you’d be interested to join me. It’s
The Nutcracker
.”

“I’d love to.” Lauren feels the confusion in her mind spreading again, although now the feeling is a pleasant, heady one. As soon as she has accepted it occurs to her that perhaps she should be checking with her uncle first regarding the etiquette of the impending business deal. They arrange to meet at the theatre, and only when she hangs up the phone does it occur to Lauren that perhaps this invitation is part of closing that deal as far as Melissa is concerned.

The theatre is warm and dark, the lights of the stage reflected softly back onto the entranced faces of the audience. Without moving her head, Melissa takes a sidelong glance at Lauren. She seems fully engrossed by the dancing, her eyes following the light movement of the leads, her mouth slightly upturned, happy. Melissa looks back at the stage. The music is dramatic and moving, but she does not know enough about ballet to be able to tell whether the dancers are superlative or merely good. She will ask Lauren later what she thinks. In the meantime, she is a little restless. There is still another hour to go, and Melissa can think of a number of things she could do in that precious amount of time – she could be working, or working out; she could be catching up with the news on TV, or even taking a long soak in the bath, a luxury she rarely has time for. But she is here, with a guest, and she makes an effort to relax about the wasted time. When did life become so frantic, that to sit still, listening to music that she cannot even imagine having the brilliance to write, become something she has to remind herself she enjoys? Clearly, Lauren does not see it that way, nor do most of the people sitting here around her. With cool analysis, Melissa wonders if she is slowly losing whatever capacity she once had for pure pleasure, for learning, for art, for spending her time outside work in a way that might not be the most efficient, but that could be the most enlightening. She resolves to relax and enjoy the rest of the performance. Then, later, she will make an effort to schedule in some down time, perhaps an art gallery. Something she can ask Lauren to show her.

Later, over dinner, Lauren questions her about her parents. Melissa’s conversation is terse and to the point, but with an undercurrent of dry humour that Lauren finds particularly amusing when she talks about her father’s lack of awareness of anything outside his books. After a few moments, though, Melissa’s tone changes, becoming more subdued.

“You know, the last two times I had dinner with them, my mother’s been talking non-stop about Russia. And my dad answers all her questions, but it never once occurs to him to ask why she’s interested. He has a kind of purity in his thought process which I admire, but I guess it can blind you when you’re in a close relationship.”

From Melissa’s slight shifting, and the movement away of her eyes, Lauren senses that this is her hesitant way of explaining something of herself, but she decides not to pursue the point at this moment.

“Why is Estelle so into Russia?”

“Because of your uncle. And Katya. I think she’s developing quite a fascination.” She smiles. “Everyone seems taken with this woman, who none of us have ever met.”

“I guess when I was younger, Katya seemed like a comic book heroine to me. Exotic and exciting, leading a double life. Spying, the cold war, all that stuff.”

“But you still admire her, don’t you?”

“Sure. I mean, she lost both her parents very young, in the most horrible way, and yet found a way to be so strong, so sure of herself and what she believed in. Even when believing it meant defying everyone and everything around her. She lived with passion and I aspire to that.”

Melissa smiles. “She sounds a little like you. Losing your parents, living with passion. I mean, you don’t become an artist to get a regular income. You do it because you love it, right?”

Lauren has not considered herself in the same light as her aunt since she was a teenager, and is even less inclined to do so now.

“I think I have a long way to go before I’m anything like Katya,” Lauren replies. “She really knew what she wanted in life. She had a purpose.”

“And you don’t?”

Lauren hesitates. “I love painting. I’m just tired of portraits. I’ve been playing it safe for too long. Taking commissions that don’t stretch me intellectually or physically. I’m not learning anything new.”

“That’s a problem,” says Melissa. “You don’t ever stay still in life. If you’re not stepping forward, you’re falling behind.”

“Did you get that from a desk calendar?”

Melissa sighs. “You love thinking of me as a corporate robot, don’t you? I might not be able to express myself poetically, or through art or whatever, but I know what I believe. Sorry if it sounds trite.”

Not for the first time, Lauren finds herself cursing her own quick tongue. She has also continually overlooked the fact that here in front of her is a woman who is also passionate about what she does.

“No, I’m sorry,” she says. “I really am. I’ve been giving you my artist’s superiority complex from day one, and you don’t deserve it.”

Melissa smiles and re-fills their wine glasses. “You have been pretty feisty. But nothing I can’t handle.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really.”

There is a pause, and Lauren looks at the dessert menu noting that Melissa has pushed hers to one side.