passing similarity more noticeable.
Alexander understood that the mystery and tragic elements of Katya’s story could have lent it a kind of glamour in his niece’s eyes, for she was distanced enough from the events and emotions of that time for them to seem dramatically unreal. And Katya had lived her brief life with an intense passion and conviction that would be irresistible to any young woman. It was with slow inevitability then that Lauren moved away from her uncle’s reticence in excavating the past, and towards a trip to Russia to explore the places where he and Katya had lived and grown up. It had been a momentous journey for her, a revisiting of roots that was accompanied by all the romance and excitement of a new city and a wholly different culture. She had visited the usual museums and galleries and the Kremlin, but what she remembers best, what she still savours inside when she recalls that trip, are the small, quiet moments. She remembers standing on a street corner outside the building where Alexander and Katya had once lived. She had imagined them returning there, both weary after work. She imagined them walking out together along the snow-crusted river. She rode the metro that her aunt might have taken on her way to work. Or to so many other, secret places. She had sought out archives that might shed more light on her death and her life, but found nothing more than a sparse, clinical summary that added nothing more to what they already knew. She had even looked, without much hope, for their old friend Misha. Someone who might give her a more intense taste of their lives then, of why things had turned out as they had. She had asked Alexander to accompany her, but he had made his excuses and declined. Without wishing to fully consider his own reasons for refusing, he had simply attributed her fascination to her artistic, romantic temperament, and left it at that.
“I wish you could have met her,” says Alexander softly, as he watches Lauren looking at Katya’s photograph.
“I would have liked that.”
Alexander runs a hand over his head. He is weary and an air of melancholy, of unfulfilled longing, has taken him over. She returns to the fireside, where they sit in silence for a few minutes, and when she finally glances at him, she sees that he has fallen asleep. Quietly, she removes their plates and when she comes back he has nodded awake again.
“You fell asleep,” she says.
“I was just resting my eyes,” he tells her, and his smile lets them both know that he is lying. “What shall we do now?”
“I’m going to read a bit,” she tells him. “And you’re going to bed.”
He protests, but she is adamant and knows how to handle his insistence; and with an effort that he tries to hide, he gets up from the chair.
“Are you sure?”
“A good book, a glass of wine and a roaring fire. I’m in heaven,” she tells him.
She walks with him to the staircase, the panelled hallway cool after the warmth of the flames, and he leaves her with a kiss. She watches him walk upstairs and then returns to the living room. Halfway back to her chair she stops with an abrupt turn, and moves back to the piano. She sits down on the cracked leather stool and lets her hands move over the keys; the ivory is soft, almost powdery to the touch, and her fingers recall their character at once, remembering that they need only the most delicate pressure to coax out the full tone and nuance of each note. She plays for perhaps twenty minutes, a series of melancholy pieces that leave her somehow indulged and depressed. She sits back and looks at Katya’s picture once again. She gives it a close, detailed stare that now contains no emotion, only the cool precision of the artist’s eye. She is evaluating angles, shade, light, expression. She remains absorbed in this way for several minutes, until at last she steps back with a nod to herself.
Chapter Four
Moscow – March 1956
T HERE IS NOT ENOUGH WATER in the
Alexander understood that the mystery and tragic elements of Katya’s story could have lent it a kind of glamour in his niece’s eyes, for she was distanced enough from the events and emotions of that time for them to seem dramatically unreal. And Katya had lived her brief life with an intense passion and conviction that would be irresistible to any young woman. It was with slow inevitability then that Lauren moved away from her uncle’s reticence in excavating the past, and towards a trip to Russia to explore the places where he and Katya had lived and grown up. It had been a momentous journey for her, a revisiting of roots that was accompanied by all the romance and excitement of a new city and a wholly different culture. She had visited the usual museums and galleries and the Kremlin, but what she remembers best, what she still savours inside when she recalls that trip, are the small, quiet moments. She remembers standing on a street corner outside the building where Alexander and Katya had once lived. She had imagined them returning there, both weary after work. She imagined them walking out together along the snow-crusted river. She rode the metro that her aunt might have taken on her way to work. Or to so many other, secret places. She had sought out archives that might shed more light on her death and her life, but found nothing more than a sparse, clinical summary that added nothing more to what they already knew. She had even looked, without much hope, for their old friend Misha. Someone who might give her a more intense taste of their lives then, of why things had turned out as they had. She had asked Alexander to accompany her, but he had made his excuses and declined. Without wishing to fully consider his own reasons for refusing, he had simply attributed her fascination to her artistic, romantic temperament, and left it at that.
“I wish you could have met her,” says Alexander softly, as he watches Lauren looking at Katya’s photograph.
“I would have liked that.”
Alexander runs a hand over his head. He is weary and an air of melancholy, of unfulfilled longing, has taken him over. She returns to the fireside, where they sit in silence for a few minutes, and when she finally glances at him, she sees that he has fallen asleep. Quietly, she removes their plates and when she comes back he has nodded awake again.
“You fell asleep,” she says.
“I was just resting my eyes,” he tells her, and his smile lets them both know that he is lying. “What shall we do now?”
“I’m going to read a bit,” she tells him. “And you’re going to bed.”
He protests, but she is adamant and knows how to handle his insistence; and with an effort that he tries to hide, he gets up from the chair.
“Are you sure?”
“A good book, a glass of wine and a roaring fire. I’m in heaven,” she tells him.
She walks with him to the staircase, the panelled hallway cool after the warmth of the flames, and he leaves her with a kiss. She watches him walk upstairs and then returns to the living room. Halfway back to her chair she stops with an abrupt turn, and moves back to the piano. She sits down on the cracked leather stool and lets her hands move over the keys; the ivory is soft, almost powdery to the touch, and her fingers recall their character at once, remembering that they need only the most delicate pressure to coax out the full tone and nuance of each note. She plays for perhaps twenty minutes, a series of melancholy pieces that leave her somehow indulged and depressed. She sits back and looks at Katya’s picture once again. She gives it a close, detailed stare that now contains no emotion, only the cool precision of the artist’s eye. She is evaluating angles, shade, light, expression. She remains absorbed in this way for several minutes, until at last she steps back with a nod to herself.
Chapter Four
Moscow – March 1956
T HERE IS NOT ENOUGH WATER in the
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