‘I don’t know,’ Olga said at last. ‘Your papa thought you would be safer here. It’s not easy, the life of a police captain. Moving about wherever you are sent. Your papa does love you, that I do know. Sometimes love is complicated, though. When you were younger, you would host parties in his honour and all your toys would be police captains and lieutenants. Do you recall?’
I did. I remembered making my toys drink cups of milk while I watched my parents dance from beneath a table during a garden party my uncle was hosting in the Kremlin’s gardens. My uncle had asked my mother to dance. I could still see her fine pale hair caught up in an elegant chignon on the top of her head and hear the bell-like notes of her laughter as Uncle swirled her around, the flash of her teeth as they caught the dazzling light from the nearby fountain.
My vision swam with unshed tears.
‘You should rest,’ Olga said, heaving herself off the bed. ‘Your face will be sore tomorrow, I expect. Worse. I will send Zoya for some cold cuts to reduce the swelling.’ Gently cupping my chin, she inspected me. She ran her thumb lightly beneath my half-swollen eye but I still winced. Olga clicked her tongue. ‘Such a man it is who beats young girls. Ah. But to say such things is not wise. Even the walls in this place have ears.’ She turned to go but stopped with one hand on the door. ‘Don’t think too harshly of your papa or your mother,’ she said. ‘She was a beautiful woman but she was sad. Always homesick. You remember the stories she used to tell you, her Estonian tales. She always had to hide such things from your uncle. She did not dare remind him of her Baltic heritage. It was a sore point, with your uncle; the lost countries.’ Olga tilted her head, her eyes thoughtful. ‘Now that the Baltics belong to Russia again, I suppose he would not care.’
She let the door fall closed with a click.
I lay back on my bed, thinking about Joachim in Lubyanka, wondering if even now he was shivering on the concrete floor of his cell or whether he was already in a smelly boxcar travelling north to one of the barren oblasts. Wherever Joachim was, it was my fault. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to shut out the images of his arrest that kept repeating themselves over and over. I knew I should sleep but what point was there? When I woke up Joachim would still be missing – I knew that not only would I never see him again, but I would never know his fate – and I would still be prisoner to my uncle’s whims.
I must have dozed. A sound woke me, a small noise like a satin ribbon sliding through a woman’s hands. I sat up. The sky outside the window was pitch black. The oil in the lamp sputtered, throwing shadows across the walls. Although our apartment was one of the lucky few to have electricity, Olga preferred the peasant romance of an old-fashioned lantern, insisting that the Ilych lamps, naked electrical bulbs designed to hang from the ceiling, could never set the right scene for her tales.
Mamochka? Are you there? I let my mind become quiet, imagining I was standing beside a curtain in the stalls, like the one always reserved for Olga and me at the Bolshoi ballet. I imagined my mother on the other side, her shadow falling across the heavy crimson drapes, her hand just out of reach. I waited, holding my breath. I had a feeling that if she did not speak now, she never would again. I hesitated, wanting to be angry with her, but also afraid that if I banished her, she would not return. Mamochka, I forgive you.
Nothing.
I sighed. A vast emptiness yawned inside me. This was the truth, then. I was now all alone.
And then very faintly, I heard her. I am here. I sat up, my skin tingling. Her voice was soft. I strained to listen. The tin!
I jumped up and kneeled beside my bed, drawing in a sharp breath as my knees banged on the floor. Thrusting my hand beneath the frame, I felt around until I found what I was after; a loose board, its edges worn smooth. I wedged my thumb beneath its lip, levering until I felt the board give way and I could thrust my hand inside. My fingers met the rough surface of the metal. I pulled. It slid out into the pool of light thrown by the lamp: a biscuit tin, speckled with age.
As I flipped open the lid, dust flew into the air. It singed my throat, but I didn’t care. I waved it aside, impatient for it to clear, my mind focused only on the objects nestled inside.
When the air settled, I could see them clearly. An old lace shawl wrapped around a tattered book. A photograph, its edges curled with age.
They were the only items of my mother’s I owned. I had salvaged them as servants moved back and forth the week after her death, carrying her belongings out of the room. My uncle had ordered everything to be removed. Her beautiful takhta: the vanity table with its gilt-edged mirror. Her fur coats, her silver-backed brushes, the nylon fibres still woven about with long strands of her white-gold hair. Everything was piled up in a lorry downstairs, ready to be taken away. Watching between the banisters of the staircase, I had known that if I did not hurry, there would soon be nothing left. Waiting until the men were distracted by the bulk of an ornately carved armoire, I darted in, my heart beating like a thief’s, grabbing blindly at whatever came to hand. The result lay before me now; perhaps not what I would have chosen had I been given time to think. But the combination seemed a message in itself, or perhaps it was that I had never looked at them in quite the same way, thinking of them only as touchstones to a past I could not reclaim. At first, I had hidden them in my cupboard, bringing them out each week to pore over, trying to glean every last memory, imagining my mother’s hands placed over my own. But with Uncle’s surveillance everywhere, I grew fearful they would be discovered. When I had stumbled on Stepanov, one of my uncle’s bodyguards, reading my diary after school, I knew I needed a better place to store them.
The book was a small volume of Estonian poetry and folklore, some of it handwritten. Flicking back the cover, I read the inscription recorded inside. The ink had faded from black to brown but some of the words were still visible. They were written in Estonian, the strange symbols such a contrast to the Cyrillic we used.
For dear little Ana,
A gift for you from your fatherland to remind you always. Until we meet again.
PS. Do not drop your stitches!
The signature had faded. I ran my finger over the page, wondering for the hundredth time who the mysterious writer had been. Who had given this book to my Mamochka? I had never thought to ask until it was too late and she was gone. Skimming through the book of poems now was like meeting a long-lost friend. I understood most of the Estonian words from the lessons my mother had given me in secret as we sat in her boudoir each morning while Olga stood guard outside. As she read from the book’s pages, Mama’s beautiful language had flowed around me like dust motes in the air, the words settling on my skin. After each session, Mama had sworn me to secrecy. She’d told me that the poets featured in the book were all dead now, but they had been the forebears of Estonian culture, inspiring their countrymen to rise up against their oppressors, back then the Baltic Germans and the Russian Tsar, and to demand their independence. No wonder Uncle had not liked to be reminded of my mother’s culture. It was too close for comfort, too great a reminder of the power of ordinary people to do extraordinary things.