And she would go home with him and help Mama feed the hens, or sort the eggs, or draw water from the well. And the summer wind would blow, soughing in the trees, and she would hear birdsong and the sound of the carts bringing the men back from the fields. Nearby, the hens scratched and clucked, and bees hummed in the flowers that grew round the door.
And away in the distance, to the east, she heard the whistle of the train.
Jake parked his car in the road outside the Yevanov house. It was in a similar suburb to Marek Lange’s, from the same era, and built in the same style. But there, all similarities ended. Sophia Yevanova’s house was surrounded by a well-kept garden that had been planted with a view to year-round colour. As Jake walked up the drive–swept free of autumn leaves weeks ago–he admired the brilliant reds and greens of the dogwood, the yellow of the winter jasmine that climbed up the front of the house among the last leaves of the creeper, whose stalks were now almost bare.
As he stepped through the front door, smiling his thanks to the woman who admitted him, he felt the warmth of the house envelop him. The hallway gleamed with polished wood. Vases of spring flowers on the hall table and windowsills dispelled the winter. ‘Good morning, Mr Denbigh.’ The woman, Mrs Barker, greeted him with the warmth that befitted a favourite. She led him through to the room at the back of the house where Sophia Yevanova customarily spent her days.
She was confined to her chair, but she sat upright, as though she could rise from it with the ease of a dancer rising en point. In fact, she looked like a dancer, with the fine-boned delicacy of a classical ballerina, or like a sculpture or a painting, a work of art ravaged by time.
As Jake was ushered through her door, she put down the tapestry she was working on–every time they had talked, her hands had been restlessly occupied–and held out her hand to him. For all her elegance and composure, he thought she looked poorly–paler and more tired than the last time he’d talked to her. The illness that had imprisoned her must be making its presence felt.
‘Miss Yevanova.’
‘Mr Denbigh. How good of you to call.’
‘My pleasure.’ The courtesy was the simple truth. He took pleasure in her company.
Her dark gaze held his, then she smiled. ‘I will have tea, Mrs Barker.’ She raised an enquiring eyebrow at Jake, who nodded. ‘Mr Denbigh and I would like tea–the Darjeeling, I think. Thank you.’ The woman withdrew.
Sophia Yevanova laid her tapestry carefully on the table and waited until the door was closed. ‘I thought I had told you enough stories to keep you occupied for longer than this, Mr Denbigh,’ she said. ‘I see I must try harder.’
The last time he’d visited, they had talked about her life in Minsk as a girl, living in the shadow of Stalin’s terror. In a way, she was right. There was more than enough in everything she had already told him for a book, but so far, they hadn’t talked about the Nazi occupation. They’d touched briefly on the deaths of her fellow partisans, and her response had been unequivocal: ‘They are gone. I will not speak of such deaths.’
He looked at the wall behind her chair. An icon hung there, its jewel-like colours gleaming from the shadows. It had been the one thing of value, ‘apart from my son’, that she had brought out of Belarus. She had smiled when she said that, her eyes going to the photograph on the side table that she kept within easy reach–her son, Antoni Yevanov.
She’d told him the story. Passing by the church in Minsk after it had been looted by the fascists as they retreated from the Red Army, she’d seen the gleam of gold in the dirt and rubble, and found the icon–the virgin and child–intact and undamaged. It had been a sign. ‘I knew then that God was going to let me live, He was going to let me get away.’ She had brought the icon to England, and even in her darkest moments, she had never considered selling it.
He was struck again by the shadows under her eyes, the parchment-like whiteness of her skin. ‘You look tired,’ he said.
She arched her eyebrows at him. ‘If you tell a woman she looks tired, she will assume that you mean she looks old.’ He began to speak, but she raised her hand to stop him. ‘I am old. I am not foolish enough to pretend otherwise.’
‘I’ve got something I’d like you to see,’ he said.
‘Well then, you must show it to me.’ The tea arrived, and she took care serving it. For her, tea was an important social ritual, poured from a silver teapot into white, translucent china.
He took the photographs out of his wallet, and waited until she put her cup down on the occasional table beside her, then passed them to her. She studied the first one, the family standing outside the house, holding it away from her face. ‘There were many such,’ she said indifferently, handing it back to him.
He watched her carefully as she gave the photo of the young man in uniform the same careful scrutiny. He thought her lips tightened a bit, but otherwise she displayed no emotion. ‘Old photographs,’ she said. ‘You have been doing your research, Mr Denbigh.’
He nodded, not letting his disappointment at her lack of reaction show. He knew from past experience that she would sometimes appear to ignore something he said or something he asked, then return to it later when he’d given up hope of an answer.
‘So you are going to Minsk,’ she said.
He’d told her about his planned trip. ‘I’m leaving after the weekend,’ he said. ‘Just for a few days. Where should I go?’
She shook her head. ‘There is nothing left,’ she said. ‘Not of my city. I can’t advise you.’
‘I want to find the old city, what’s left. I can bring you back some photos, if you want. I could try and go to the village where you were sent when you were twelve.’
She smiled faintly. ‘You are assuming I want to find my past,’ she said. ‘I left it behind years ago.’
He nodded. He could understand that. ‘I’d like to hear more of your story,’ he said. ‘If you have time.’
‘Very well.’ The room was silent apart from the sound of the rain. The last time they had talked, she had given him a spare, unemotional account of her childhood in Minsk. Her parents had both been members of the communist party, but life in the city had been hard. There was poverty and deprivation throughout the country. ‘My father was a good party member,’ she had said. ‘He was also a good husband and a good man.’ She had ended her story when she was twelve, when her parents had sent her to live with relatives in a village on the outskirts of Minsk, Zialony Luh.
‘We lived in the aftermath of the revolution,’ she said now. ‘It was a terrible war. You know about the history?’
He nodded. ‘I’ve read the books.’
‘The books…’ Her smile mocked knowledge gained that way. In the dull light of the afternoon, her face was a paler shadow among shadows. ‘I remember my last weeks in Minsk. It was winter, 1937. So cold. I have never known cold like it before or since. It was as if the world had frozen in the face of what was happening and all that was to come. I remember it was late and I was hurrying to get home. I was walking along the road near the building where the police worked–these were Stalin’s police, the NKVD. The building was just ordinary offices. Many people worked there.
‘And then I saw it. Narrow openings at the bottom of the walls. They were barred,