Despite the Falling Snow (31 page)

His mind is staggering under the weight of her idea. Let’s go. As if they can just stroll out of this country with no difficulty and no consequences. Let’s go. As if they have no life, no responsibilities, no ties here. They are of this place, born here, raised here. And she especially, has been scarred here. And, he realises, they are not welcome here any more. They are not accepted, or acceptable. She is a traitor to the government, and he is too, because he loves her and because he trusts her so much that he is willing to listen to what she believes in and to try and understand it if he can. In the end, she is all that is important to him. So they are both traitors. And they live in a place where there is no real dissension without terrible consequences.

“Sasha,” she says again. “Can we really stay here any longer?”

He thinks for a few moments, and then just shakes his head, for he is beginning to admit to himself that, despite everything, he does not see how they can.

T
hey lose each other in the confusion of the airport for a few minutes, until Lauren finds Melissa looking in the window of an electronics store.

“I was just looking for you,” she says. Her laptop case is slung over her shoulder, and she holds a cappuccino in one hand.

“Oh really?” Lauren asks. “And did I come with a DVD and a one year warranty?”

Melissa smiles. “I just glanced in there as I was going past…”

“Sure.”

“Got this for you.” She holds up the coffee.

Lauren smiles her thanks, and takes the cup. As they walk to the first-class lounge to wait for their flight, she asks Melissa about Estelle. “I can’t believe your mother dropped out of this,” Lauren says “It’s not like her.”

“As far as you know,” Melissa replies. Lauren has found that the easiest way to entice Melissa to talk more is to meet her short comments with an expectant silence. She checks them into the lounge while she waits watching Melissa’s darting eyes take in the people around them.

“My mother has this feisty, fun thing going on,” Melissa offers at last. “But when it comes to the crunch – well, she’s always taken the easy route out.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, she doesn’t have the guts to follow anything through. My father only has to have a moment of drama, and she drops everything. I mean, look at him. He’s had the passion and drive to follow his love of literature all his life – even when it’s been at our expense. I’ve always wanted a career in business, and I’ve built one. But she’s never really followed through on anything. Sometimes I wonder how much she really wants to be a writer. If you can’t get started by this age, when will you?”

Lauren stands to get some water from the complimentary bar. The collecting of bottles and glasses gives her time to collect herself, so that she will not have to embark on a week’s trip by losing her temper.

“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?” she asks when she returns to their table.

“No, but you do.” The grey eyes smile.

“Yes, I do. Maybe it would help her if your father and even you were encouraging about her writing. No drama, no sarcasm, just some positive feedback.”

“Maybe. But at the end of the day, she shouldn’t need it. Either she really wants to write, or she doesn’t.”

“Oh, to live in your world, where everything is so black and white. Must be great. No trouble figuring out work, family, relationships…”

“I didn’t say it was easy,” Melissa returns. “I’ve found a way to get through the mess of everyday life, that’s all. At least with work and family.”

Lauren considers whether to ask the next question.

“And relationships?” she says.

“Haven’t had one for a while,” Melissa says simply. “When you’ve had your heart broken, you don’t necessarily feel like jumping back into the fray right away.” She shifts in her chair and pours more water for them both.

“Anyway,” she says briskly. “Explain it to me. About my mother.”

“I just think that she might not have the confidence to write. Especially if your father is busy judging her all the time. And also, it’s understandable that she might not want to upset him. Or her marriage of however many years. Seems to me like she gets the burden of keeping things together in your family.”

Melissa waits.

“Think about it. You and your father are busy doing exactly as you like, no matter what the cost to your relationships. So who keeps you all together?”

Melissa checks a monitor that hangs above them.

“Well, maybe you have a point. About my mother. I’m not sure, but I’m going to think about it.” She points at the screen. “They’re calling our flight. Now you’ve made me feel guilty, maybe we can call my mom and check in on her before we leave.”

Estelle hangs up the telephone, sits at her desk, and starts crying. For the duration of the call from Melissa and Lauren, she has managed to convey brightness and excitement for them and their trip. But as soon as the receiver is back in its cradle, she cannot hold the tears from edging out. There is nowhere else she wanted to be on this day than boarding that flight to Moscow with them. She has pictured it all in her mind ever since Lauren suggested it, has hoarded the anticipation that she felt to herself in the dark hours of the night when she would wake up, bubbling over with excitement. After a couple of minutes, she stops crying, wipes at her eyes and nose. Leaning back in her chair, she looks out at the hallway. She can see one half of her husband’s door at the far end of it, closed to the world and to her. But behind that door, he is happy, or comfortable at least, pleased to know that she is there in the apartment with him.

“You old fool,” she says, to herself. The desk before her is clear and clean, and the computer is switched on. There are no emails, and no bills waiting to be paid, and no reason for her not to sit here and try to type out a chapter, or a few pages at least. Except that she has decided, at last, that she will not bother any more. She opens a fresh document, and watches the cursor blink. With a sudden, decisive movement, she picks up the telephone and dials Alexander’s number.

“Alexander Ivanov.”

She hangs up and is immediately mortified by her own behaviour. She dials again.

“Alexander Ivanov.”

“Alexander? It’s me.”

“Estelle! I was worried about you. Lauren told me you weren’t going to Moscow, and I called you, but you never called me back.”

“I’m sorry about that. It’s been a crazy few days.”

“Are you well?”

She feels like crying again. She realises that she is rarely asked that question, and the realisation strengthens her brand new resolve.

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks. Listen, Alexander, I was wondering.
My Fair Lady
is playing at the Colonial Theatre. Frank doesn’t want to see it, so I wondered if you’d be interested?”

“I’d love to. When were you thinking of?”

“How about tomorrow? There’s a matinee at three.”

“Sounds good. I’ll pick you up at twelve.”

“That’s early,” she says.

“Well, maybe we can make a day of it?”

“Okay,” she says. “But don’t pick me up. How about if I come to you?”

“If you prefer,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When he opens his front door to her the following day, he greets her with a shake of the hand, a formality that seems incongruous now that they know each other so well, but one that he almost cannot help. Since his meeting with Frank Johnson, he has been on edge, questioning his own motives in pursuing a friendship with Estelle. She looks at his hand for a moment and then takes it.

“Enchanté,” she says, with a half-curtsy. When they look up, her eyes hold a familiar half-laugh. Alexander smiles, and leans to kiss her on the cheek.

“Is that better?”

“Yes indeed,” she replies.

“Shall we?”

“Sure,” she says. “Do you mind if we walk? Or take the T? I feel like seeing the city a little.”

They stroll to the nearest station, to catch a T to Beacon Hill. Across from them, as they walk down to the platform from the busy, Saturday afternoon street, they can see the overland station. She looks over at it, remembering. She recalls waiting at different Boston stations, for her husband to come home. He would travel all around the country on lecture tours, and once they had Melissa, Estelle rarely joined him. He loved to take the train. He always hated the individual concentration on the mechanical, and the reliance on the ability and good will of others that came with driving. Trains, he liked to say, were much more civilised. Someone else worrying about steering and braking. A night on a train could leave you with a new novel read and absorbed into the mind, a good dinner, eaten and digested, and time for a sleep. A night in a car got you to a destination with nothing else accomplished.

She smiles to herself. She sees herself down there on the platforms, waiting, waiting for his train, walking down with it, watching for the doors to open. After the first couple of times, she knew that he would never be among the few eager young men hanging out of the windows. He was always busy inside, in the shaded carriage, putting away books and papers, shrugging on a jacket, waiting by the door. He was not a hanger out of windows. She never stopped looking up at those train windows though, for she liked to see the joyous faces of those boys, the breeze shifting through their hair, their tanned arms waving. Her husband was not boyish. She had met him when he was thirty-six, but even in the few photographs that he possessed of himself as a teenager, he had a dark, heavy look that precluded any real sense of youth. He had loved her, but there was never any trace of puppy-dog adoration or young, eager passion about his love. It was mature and reasonable, with a depth that showed itself now and again when he found himself caught off guard.

Alexander walks on beside her in silence, for a glance at her face has revealed that she is far away. When at last she looks back at him, with a sudden movement of her head, he smiles and gives her a querying look.

“I was thinking about my husband,” she says.

“I see.”

A few minutes later they are walking through Beacon Hill. The tall, imposing houses of rich red brick, the ornate streetlights, the quaintly cobbled streets – all of these form the backdrop for distant memories for both of them. Estelle walks a half-pace ahead of him, her eyes clouding with recollection. Without speaking, he follows her through the narrow streets, and into a broad, cobblestone road; the type of street that he remembers well from his early days in Boston, delivering food in those first months and years, building his catering business from his brother-in-law’s kitchen.

“It’s here,” she says, and she turns to him with a smile of delight.

“Your house?” he asks, looking around.

“My father’s,” she nods. “They’d moved here by the time I finished college, and I lived with them for two years. It was a fun couple of years, let me tell you. My parents loved people. They were always entertaining. The parties! And dinners.”

“Sounds like a lot of cooking.”

She does not answer. Her eyes frown and she shakes her head vaguely, then continues walking up the street towards her old home.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. We had a full time cook,” she says, turning to him. She stares at Alexander for a moment, with a look of concentration on her face, and then she shakes her head, as though throwing off a wild idea, and as she stands before her old front door, she begins to tell him stories of her father and mother.

She is remembering those Beacon Hill dinner parties. The light, the abundance, the enjoyment. She realises now how much she misses the bustle of guests, the casual, lively inflow of people into the house for tea or drinks or dinner. Her mother did not cook. Few people did, when entertaining. They had a cook, or a housekeeper at least. And then, from time to time, her mother would engage a caterer. Someone she had found whose food was incredible, or so she told them. Estelle does not remember who it was, or even when it was, but a moment steals into her mind as Alexander asks her those questions. A moment of memory that she feels may not be real after all, may perhaps be an imaginative extension of what she has learned about Alexander’s early work here. She sees in her mind the quiet excitement of the early evening, just before one particular party. She sees herself in a pale blue satin dress (can her memory be that good?) walking into the kitchen where Perpetua stands at the stove, stirring, and arranging. Picking up a canapé. She remembers that, and complimenting Perpetua on it.

“Not me, Miss Estelle,” she can hear the cook saying. “That gentlemen there.”

She had looked at the back door, which hung open to the night, a block of black in the white, light wall of the kitchen, and she had seen the smudged, soft silhouette of a young man. That was all. She had not looked into his eyes, or seen his face, or spoken to him, and he nodded and was gone in a moment, leaving her with a polite smile on her face, before she turned to go back to their arriving guests.

It crosses his mind, briefly, that he may even once have catered a party at her parent’s house; until she tells him that they had had a cook. In truth, he cannot remember a single doorway or alley that he walked through all those years ago. Many of the houses look familiar in some respects, but many are also similar to each other, and the details have long been lost to him.