The Story of a Life

35

Razgulyai Square

I travelled to visit Mama in Moscow over the Christmas holidays. As the train was passing Bryansk, it snowed so hard nothing was visible outside the window. I could only imagine behind the falling snow the familiar little town with its streets carpeted in shiny white powder and Uncle Kolya’s house with its glass-enclosed verandah. It was my first trip to Moscow. I was excited to see Mama and to be leaving our southern, provincial Kiev for the northern capital. With every hour the train moved ever deeper into the white plains, slowly climbing to the edge of the dove-grey sky. There, in the dark haze, it seemed to me that up ahead on the horizon the day was merging with the eternal polar night.

I was afraid of the Moscow winter. I didn’t have a warm coat, just mittens and a hat with long ear flaps. Bells clanged in the cold air at the stations, and felt boots crunched in the snow. The man travelling next to me offered me some cured bear meat; it smelled of pine pitch.

That night, somewhere beyond Sukhinichi, the train got stuck in heavy snowdrifts. The wind howled in the metal ventilators. Guards, white and shaggy with snow like woodsmen, ran with their lanterns up and down the train, slamming the doors behind them with all their might. With each crash of the doors I was startled awake. In the morning I went out onto the platform at the end of the corridor. The icy air cut my face. Snow, driven by the wind through the cracks around the door, lay in small, fluffy mounds. With difficulty I managed to open the carriage door. The blizzard had died down. The magnificent snow embraced the train up to the buffers. It was so deep you could drown in it. Up above on top of the carriage a small blue bird sat chirping, twisting its head this way and that. It was impossible to tell where the white sky ended and the white earth began. It was so still I could hear the water dripping from the engine.

Dima met me in Moscow at Bryansky station. A stiff black moustache bristled on his upper lip. He was wearing the uniform of the Technological Institute. I was cold so we went to the buffet to have a tea. I was struck by the station – a low wooden structure like some enormous tavern. Orange sunlight fell on the counter, on the containers with their German silver lids, the tables and blue potted palms, the steam rising from the teapots, the muslin curtains. From beyond the windows etched with arrow-shaped leaves of frost came the shouting of cabbies.

We drank our tea with sugar cubes and were served crisp pastries sprinkled with flour. Then we went out onto the steps. Steam rose from the icy horses. The metal badges on the cabbies’ thick and heavily patched coats caught the sun, dazzling our eyes. Pigeons were landing on the manure-spattered snow.

‘Where to, Your Excellencies?’ the drivers shouted, smacking their lips and shaking the reins. One of them drove up. He threw back a worn wolfskin cover and we climbed into the narrow sleigh. We buried our feet in the straw on the floor. I looked around in amazement. Could this really be Moscow?

‘Razgulyai Square,’ Dima told the driver, ‘but be sure to go through the Kremlin.’

‘As you wish. It’s all the same to me,’ the driver grunted.

In an instant we found ourselves in Dorogomilovo just past the station in a tangle of sledges, their mighty wooden yokes painted with flowers and bedecked with little bells. The heavy wet breath of exhausted horses hit us in the face, policemen with frozen moustaches sauntered past, overhead hung the signs of a multitude of taverns and inns, and the peal of church bells rang in the air.

We drove over Borodino Bridge. The windows of the houses on the far side of the river caught the fading light and burned with a dying golden glow. The round clocks on the street corners showed only two o’clock. This was all so strange, bewildering and wonderful.

‘Well,’ Dima asked, ‘how do you like Moscow?’

‘Very much.’

‘Just wait, there’s still plenty of marvels to feast your eyes on.’

Beyond Arbatskaya Square we turned into a narrow street. At the end of it I saw a hill, upon which sat ramparts and towers, the tops of green-roofed palaces, and grey cathedrals. Everything was veiled in the reddish smoke of the evening’s setting sun.

‘What’s that?’ I asked Dima, confused by it all.

‘You really don’t recognise it? That’s the Kremlin.’

I sighed, uncontrollably. I was not prepared for this encounter with the Kremlin. It rose up above this enormous city like a fortress built of pink stone, ancient gold and silence. This was the Kremlin. This was Russia, the history of my people. ‘Who so proud as not to bare his head before the Kremlin’s holy gates …’fn1

My eyes began to fill with tears. We drove into the Kremlin through the Borovitsky Gate. I saw the Tsar Bell, the Tsar Cannon and the bell tower of Ivan the Great as it disappeared into the evening sky. We three removed our hats as the sleigh passed through the gates of the Spasskaya Tower, its interior dimly lit by a flickering lamp. The clock chimed with grand indifference over our heads.

‘And what’s that?’ I asked Dima, grabbing his arm as we exited.

On the slope above the Moscow River there rose an intricate cluster of cupolas, like brightly coloured heads of burdock.

‘Don’t you recognise St Basil’s Cathedral?’ Dima grinned.

Bonfires burned on Red Square, around which cabbies and passers-by stood warming themselves. Smoke hung over the square. On the walls I saw posters from the Moscow Art Theatre with its flying seagull and other posters with the words ‘Emile Verhaeren’fn2 in heavy black type.

‘What’s that?’ I asked Dima again.

‘Verhaeren is now in Moscow,’ he answered and laughed, looking at me. I must have had a silly expression on my face. There were still plenty of marvels awaiting me.

It was dark by the time we got to Razgulyai Square. Our sleigh stopped in front of a two-storey house with thick walls. We climbed a steep staircase. Dima rang the bell, and Mama flung open the door. Behind her stood Galya, craning her neck to see me on the dark landing. Mama embraced me and started to cry. She’d gone completely grey since I last saw her.

‘My Lord,’ she said, ‘you’re all grown up! You look just like your father! Oh Lord, just like him!’

Galya was now almost blind. She led me to a lamp in the flat and examined me for a long time. From her strained expression I could tell she couldn’t see me at all; still she kept insisting that I had not changed in the slightest. The furnishings were meagre and unfamiliar. But I did recognise a few things from my childhood – Mama’s jewellery box, an antique bronze alarm clock and a photograph of my father taken as a young man. The photograph hung on the wall over Mama’s bed.

Mama was upset that dinner still wasn’t ready and went off to the kitchen. Galya, as usual, began to ask me silly questions – how’s the weather in Kiev, why was the train delayed, does Grandmother Viktoria Ivanovna still drink coffee for breakfast? Dima was silent. I felt that our lives these past two years had been so fraught and difficult that I didn’t know what to say. Then I realised there was at this point no need to bring up anything difficult or important. During these two years our lives had gone in completely different directions. There was no way I could say all I wanted to in the ten days I was to be in Moscow. And so I said nothing about my life – not to Mama, Dima or Galya. With a faint nostalgia my thoughts turned to my grandmother and my room on Lukyanovka. It seemed that my real life was back there. Everything here seemed strange – Dima’s institute, the old, gloomy two-room flat, Galya’s boring questions. Only Mama’s eyes remained the same. But Mama now worried over trifles that she never would have given any thought to before.

I was waiting for her to ask me about my plans, but it was not until we’d sat down to dinner that she asked in a casual way: ‘What will you do after you leave school?’

‘Go to university,’ I replied.

After dinner Mama took some grey theatre tickets with seagulls printed on them out of her jewellery box. ‘These are for you,’ she said.

They were tickets to The Man Who Was Dead and Three Sisters at the Art Theatre. She had queued outside the theatre all night long in the freezing cold to buy them. Overjoyed, I kissed her, and she smiled and said how much she had enjoyed standing out all night in a crowd of students. She hadn’t had that much fun in a long time. Three Sisters was on that evening, and Dima and I left for the theatre straight after dinner. We rode in a cold tram to Teatralnaya Square. The electrical cables crackled and shot blue sparks.

Fresh snow sparkled on the square. Flakes seemed to be suspended in the night air, hovering in the light of the street lamps. The shop windows of Muir and Mirrielees cast elongated patches of light onto the pavement. In one of the windows stood a Christmas tree, all lit up and decorated with gold and silver paper chains, which hung down to the floor. We crossed Teatralnaya Square into Kamergersky Lane before entering the modest-looking theatre. The floors were covered in heavy grey cloth. People were moving without making a sound. A hot breeze blew from the radiators. The brown curtain emblazoned with a seagull rippled slightly. Everything was at once austere yet festive.

My cheeks burned and my eyes, I guess, sparkled such that the theatre-goers around us were looking at me with smiles on their faces. Dima said: ‘Pull yourself together or you won’t hear or see a thing.’ I ached for the characters who suffered so in Chekhov’s play. Yet at the same time, I was filled with a feeling of fresh excitement, a feeling that flowed from being in the presence of the arts. All the sad and miserable things I had seen at Razgulyai now struck me as temporary and unimportant. Despite all our poverty, insults and failures, no one could extinguish the light coming from that mysterious world of the arts. No one could take this treasure from me. And no one had the key to it but myself. I spent all ten days in Moscow in this state. Mama kept looking at me and repeating that I had become just like my father.

‘It’s clear to me,’ she finally said, ‘there’s little chance of you becoming a decent man.’ She fell silent and then added: ‘No, you’ll never be of much help to us, or even to yourself. Not with your passions, with your fantasies! Not with your frivolous approach to everything!’

I was silent. Mama pulled me towards her and gave me a kiss. ‘Well, so be it! I just want you to be happy. Nothing else matters.’

‘But I am happy,’ I said. ‘Please don’t worry about me. I’ve lived on my own for two years now. And I have no problem continuing to do so.’

Mama had started to wear glasses. The frame had broken and was held together by tape. She fiddled with the tape for a long while, then took off her glasses and looked at me carefully.

‘How cold our family has become,’ she sighed. ‘And secretive. It’s all because we’re poor. You’ve come all this way and haven’t said a word about yourself. And I don’t say anything either. I just keep putting it off. But we really need to talk.’

‘Well, all right, then. Only don’t upset yourself.’

‘Galya is blind!’ Mama said. She was quiet a long time. ‘And now she’s losing her hearing. She wouldn’t last a week without me. You have no idea the amount of care she needs. She requires all the strength I have. God alone knows how much I love you three – you, Dima and Galya – but I simply can’t be there for all of you.’

I told her that I understood everything and that very soon I’d be able to help her and Galya. I just had to finish school first. I no longer had any intention, as before, of coming back to live with Mama. But I felt sorry for her, I loved her, and I didn’t want her to torment herself on my behalf. I calmed her down and then, with a lightened heart, I left to visit the Tretyakov Gallery.

I felt like a guest in my own family. The contrast between Moscow, with its brilliant snow and icy winter sky, its theatres, museums and church bells, and the two cold rooms on Razgulyai, with their pinched and dreary life, was too big. It bewildered me to see Dima looking so perfectly content with his life – his institute and chosen profession that was so alien to me. It was with the same bewilderment that I noticed how Dima’s room was devoid of books, except for a few textbooks and mimeographed lecture notes. As for Galya, her blindness meant her days were spent in cautious preoccupation with various insignificant tasks. She had to do everything by touch. Time for her had stopped three years ago when she started to go blind. Now she lived in her memories, which were trivial and monotonous. The range of these memories grew ever smaller – Galya had begun to forget a great deal. Sometimes she just sat in silence with her hands folded in her lap. Once in a while Mama found some time in the evening to read a bit to Galya, usually from Goncharov or Turgenev. Then Galya would question her about every last detail from the story she had just heard in the hope of remembering it all. Mama patiently answered her questions.

I left for the Tretyakov Gallery. There was hardly anyone there. It seemed to me as if the still winter had somehow transported the gallery from the city to the quiet Moscow suburbs – not a single sound from outside could be heard. Some old women – guardians of these masterpieces – sat dozing in their chairs. I stood looking for a long time at Nesterov’s The Vision of Bartholomewfn3 with its thin birch trees as white as candles and its grass reaching up to the sky with faith and hope. I was moved by the painting’s touching and undemanding beauty.

On a couch sat a stout white-haired woman in black examining with a lorgnette the painting from across the room. Next to her sat a young woman with auburn plaits. I stood off to the side so as not to block her view. The white-haired woman turned and said to me: ‘What do you think, Kostik, doesn’t it remind you of the hills beyond the park at Rëvny?’ Startled, I looked at her confusedly. She gazed at me with a smile: ‘You young people are so unobservant!’ she said. ‘Have you really already forgotten us Karelins – Lyuba, Sasha and me? We met at Rëvny, true it was some years ago.’

I blushed and said hello. Now I recognised the white-haired lady – Maria Trofimovna Karelina. But I did not recognise Lyuba at first. She had grown up, and no longer wore the black ribbons in her plaits.

‘Have a seat,’ said Maria Trofimovna. ‘How you’ve grown! I suppose I shouldn’t be calling you Kostik anymore. Do tell us how you ended up here. And together we’ll reminisce about Rëvny. Oh, what a place, what a place! We really must go back this summer.’

I told her about myself. Maria Trofimovna informed me that she and Sasha were still living in Orël. Lyuba had finished school and enrolled at the Moscow College of Painting and Sculpture. Maria Trofimovna and Sasha had come to visit her in Moscow over the Christmas holidays.

‘And where is Sasha?’ I asked.

‘She stayed back at the hotel. She has a sore throat.’

Lyuba kept sneaking glances at me the whole time. We left together. I walked the Karelins back to the Loskutnaya Hotel. They insisted I come up to warm myself and have a cup of coffee. The large two-room suite was dark with heavy curtains and carpets. Sasha greeted me like an old friend and immediately began to ask about Gleb Afanasiev. As far as I knew Gleb was still at school in Bryansk. Sasha had a ribbon tied around her neck like a kitten. She took me by the hand: ‘Come! I’m going to show you Lyuba’s pictures.’ She began to pull me into the other room, but Lyuba grabbed my other hand and pulled me back.

‘Nonsense!’ she said, blushing. ‘You’ll look at them later. We’ll see you again, won’t we?’

‘I don’t know,’ I hesitated.

‘He’s going to spend New Year’s Eve with us!’ Sasha cried. ‘At Lyuba’s studio on Kislovka. You wouldn’t believe the bohemians who gather there. You have no idea, Kostik! Knights of the canvas and palette. There’s one painter – she’s straight out of a French novel. You’re bound to fall in love with her at first sight. She goes about in a black satin dress – frou-frou-frou! – and her perfume, oh her perfume! It’s called Sorrow of the Tuberose!’

‘Oh Lord, what rubbish you talk,’ said Lyuba. ‘Now I understand why your throat hurts all the time.’

‘I have the delicate throat of a nightingale,’ said Sasha, making a sad face. ‘It’s not suited to these harsh Russian winters.’

‘But seriously, won’t you join us for New Year?’ Lyuba asked.

‘I’ll be at home. It’s a family tradition.’

‘Fine, greet the New Year at home and then come to Lyuba’s,’ Maria Trofimovna said firmly. ‘They’ll be up having fun and being silly all night long.’

I agreed to come. Then we had our coffee. Sasha dropped four lumps of sugar into my cup. It was undrinkable. Maria Trofimovna scolded her. Lyuba sat quietly, staring at the floor.

‘Why are you sitting there like Vasilisa the Beautiful?’ asked Sasha. ‘She’s become quite the beauty, hasn’t she, Kostik? Look at her. Not like her little sister, the Ugly Duckling.’

‘Stop it once and for all, you chatterbox!’ Lyuba pushed away her cup and jumped up from the table. I looked at Lyuba. Blue sparks flashed in her eyes. She truly was quite beautiful.

I left. At home I told Mama that I’d seen the Karelins and they’d invited me to spend New Year’s Eve with them. Mama was happy. ‘You must go. I fear you’ve been bored here in Moscow. They’re nice people and very cultured.’

Culture was Mama’s yardstick for judging people. If she respected someone she would always say: ‘Now there’s a truly cultured person!’

New Year’s Eve was still two days away. These were marvellous days – white hoar-frost covered everything and a silver mist hung in the air. I went skating at the rink in the Zoological Garden. The ice there was thick and black, not like back in Kiev. The attendants swept it with enormous brooms. I raced a bearded man in a black sheepskin hat around the rink and won. He reminded me of the artist I had seen at the estate near Smela where I’d once been with Aunt Nadya. Mama kept saying she was going to take me to Aunt Nadya’s grave at Vagankovo cemetery but she never did. She told me that her grave was still decorated with porcelain roses. They had faded but hadn’t broken.

I went to see The Man Who Was Dead at the Moscow Art Theatre and I liked it better than Three Sisters. Up on stage was the real Moscow, with its courtroom and trial, its Gypsies and their songs. In the December snow of Moscow I recalled times past for some unknown reason – Alushta, Lena, and how she had called to me: ‘Go on! It’s just a load of nonsense!’ All these years I had kept meaning to write to her, but I never did. Now I was certain she had forgotten me.

I recalled Lena and was struck by the thought of how many people had gone from my life never to return. Not just Lena, but Aunt Nadya, my beekeeping grandfather, my father, Uncle Yuzia and so many others. It seemed so strange and sad, and although I was only eighteen, I felt as if I had already experienced a great deal. I had loved those people. Every one of them had taken a little piece of my love with them when they left. I couldn’t help but think that this had made me just a bit poorer. That’s what I thought at the time, but these thoughts didn’t rob me of my love of life, which grew stronger with each passing year. Since many people had gone out of my life forever or for a long time, I felt that meeting the Karelins – and I had completely forgotten about them – held some special meaning.

I greeted the New Year at home. Mama baked biscuits and Dima bought hors d’oeuvres, cakes and wine. At eleven o’clock Dima left. Mama told me he’d gone to fetch his fiancée, Margarita. Mama assured me she was a remarkable girl and she could not wish for a better wife for Dima. Not wanting to hurt Mama’s feelings, I feigned pleasant surprise even though I didn’t like her name or the fact that she came from a family of state officials. I helped Mama set the table. The room smelled of scorched hair. Galya had burned off a long curl doing her hair with a hot iron. She was very upset and I did all I could to cheer her up. We lit the candles. Mama put the bronze alarm clock on the table, and I set it for twelve o’clock.

I got out the presents I had brought from Kiev – for Mama, grey cloth to make a new dress, for Galya, a pair of slippers, for Dima, a large box of drawing instruments. The box was exquisite and had belonged to Borya, but I had convinced him to give it up. Mama was so pleased at the presents she even blushed.

A few minutes before midnight Dima returned with a tall, pale girl. She had a long, sad face and wore an ill-fitting lilac dress with a yellow sash. A lace kerchief was pinned to her bodice. She blushed the entire time and kept helping herself to pieces of cake from the serving plate with her fork. Galya immediately began asking her questions about her thoughts on proper child rearing. The girl responded reluctantly, looking over at Dima, who sat there with an uncomfortable smile on his face.

The bronze clock suddenly rang, putting an end to Galya’s talk. We raised our glasses of wine and wished each other Happy New Year. It was obvious Mama really wanted Margarita to like us. At the same time, she watched closely how Margarita looked at Dima, as if she were trying to gauge whether there was enough love in the girl’s glances. I talked about this and that and did my best to show everyone how much fun I was having, all the while stealing glances at the clock.

Mama drank her wine and began to relax. She told Margarita about Easters with our grandmother back in Cherkassy and about how fine and happy our lives in Kiev had once been. It was as if she couldn’t even believe it herself. ‘Isn’t that right, Kostik? Wasn’t that how it was?’ I kept telling her that she was right. That’s just how it had been. At half past one I excused myself and got up to leave. Mama showed me out. She asked me conspiratorially what I thought of Margarita. I knew telling her the truth would only cause her undue pain. So I said Margarita was a charming girl and I was very happy for Dima.

‘Well, let’s hope it all works out!’ she whispered. ‘It seems to me that Margarita likes Galya too.’

I went out into Basmannaya Street, stopped and took a deep breath of the cold air. Lights burned in the windows of the houses up and down the street. I waved down a cabbie and drove off towards Kislovka. The entire way the man swore at his horse.

Sasha opened the door at Kislovka. She was wearing a bright new ribbon around her neck. Some little girls followed by a handsome old man in a student’s uniform came running into the front hall. There was no sign of Lyuba. Laughing, the little girls removed my hat and coat and the old man began to sing in a clear voice: ‘Three young goddesses began to quarrel, upon a hill as evening fell.’

‘His eyes! His eyes!’ the girls shouted.

Sasha covered my eyes with her hands. The smell of her hair, her perfume and the touch of her fingers gently pressing against my eyes combined to take my breath away. I was taken by the hands and led away. I sensed some doors opening in front of me and then felt a rush of warm air hit me in the face. The room fell quiet and then a woman’s voice issued a stern order: ‘Swear!’

‘Swear what?’ I asked.

‘That tonight you shall forget everything but gaiety.’

Sasha’s fingers began to hurt my eyes.

‘I swear!’

‘And now swear the oath of allegiance!’

‘To whom?’

‘To her who has been chosen queen of our fête.’

‘Swear,’ Sasha whispered, tickling my ear with her breath.

‘I swear.’

‘As a sign of obedience, kiss the Queen’s hand, such is the tradition of all knights,’ said the voice, suppressing a laugh. ‘Sasha, now take your big paws off him!’

Sasha removed her hands. I beheld a brightly lit room crowded with paintings. A skinny man in a velvet jacket was lying in the pose of Vrubel’s Demon Downcast on top of a piano. His arms were twisted over his head, and he gazed at me with doleful eyes. A pug-nosed youth pounded out a chord on the keyboard. The girls all took a step back, and there before me was Lyuba. She was sitting in an armchair on a round table. She wore a flowing dress of white silk that pooled at her feet. Her bare arms hung down at her side, and in her right hand she held a fan of black ostrich feathers. Lyuba looked at me, trying not to laugh. I approached and kissed her outstretched hand. The old man dressed as a student gave me a glass of champagne. It was ice cold. I drank it down in one gulp.

Lyuba rose to her feet. I helped her down off the table. She took the edge of her long dress in one hand, bowed to me and asked: ‘We didn’t frighten you with our nonsense, did we? Why did he give you cold champagne? You need something warm. I think we still have some mulled wine.’

I was dragged to a table and was just being served when they forgot all about this and, with a laugh, pushed the table, and me with it, into the corner to make room for dancing. The young man at the piano struck up a waltz. The Demon jumped off the piano and began to dance with Lyuba. Leaning back in his arms and covering her face with the black fan, she flew about the room. Every time she passed by me, she smiled from under her fan, one hand holding the train of her dress. The old man was dancing with the woman Sasha called the heroine of a French novel. She was letting out a sinister laugh. Sasha pulled me up from the table and we began to dance. She was so thin I feared she might break in two.

‘Just don’t dance with Lyuba,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘She’s stuck up!’

Once we had finished dancing, the Demon downed all the remaining wine in the bottles and was soon drunk. ‘I thirst for summer!’ he screamed. ‘Enough of the icicles! Give me rain!’

No one was paying him any attention, and he disappeared. The old man sat down at the piano and began to sing in a heart-breaking voice: ‘My distant friend, do you know why I weep …’fn4

As soon as he had finished, we suddenly heard the sound of rain, a heavy and fresh downpour, from somewhere nearby. Startled, we fell silent, and then raced out into the hall and straight to the bathroom. The Demon was standing in the bathtub in his raincoat and galoshes, a black umbrella in his hand, while a powerful stream of water rained down on him from the shower. ‘Gold! It’s raining gold straight from heaven!’ he yelled.

We turned off the shower and pulled the Demon out of the bath. The night’s commotion dragged on, and I too found myself laughing, reciting poetry and blathering. I finally came to my senses when Lyuba extinguished the chandelier and the bluish haze of dawn crept into the room. We all fell silent. As the blue morning light mixed with the fire of the table lamp, faces became smudgy and beautiful.

‘This is the best time after all-night parties,’ said the old man. ‘Now we can leisurely sip our wine and talk about this and that. I love the dawn. It rinses the soul.’

The Demon hadn’t sobered up yet. ‘No rinsing!’ he shouted. ‘I don’t care to hear anyone, no matter who, rinsing his soul. A lot of Dostoevskian nonsense. Light consists of seven colours. I bow down before them. And I don’t give a damn about anything else!’

We were all quiet for a long time, caught in a dreamy drowsiness. Lyuba was sitting next to me. ‘Everything’s swimming in front of my eyes,’ she said. ‘And it’s all bathed in blue … And I have no intention of going to sleep.’

‘Catharsis!’ the old man pronounced with great importance. ‘The cleansing of the soul from tragedy.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Lyuba replied. Her mind wandered. The blue of the morning reflected in her eyes.

‘You’re tired,’ I said.

‘No. It’s just that I feel so wonderful.’

‘Is it true you’ll be in Rëvny this summer?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Are you coming?’

‘Yes, if Uncle Kolya will be there.’

‘Only “if”?’ Lyuba asked slyly.

Everyone began to get up and say their goodbyes. I was the last to leave. I had to see Sasha back to the Loskutnaya Hotel, but she was waiting for her throat to cool after a scalding cup of tea. Out in the street fashionable women and young men – we assumed they must be actors – were having a snowball fight. The snow was sprinkled with brightly coloured confetti. The sun was up by now, dissolving the night fog with its blurry fire.

After this exotic night I was ashamed to return to our wretched flat on Razgulyai Square and its stench of paraffin. But the thought lasted only a moment, and then my soul lifted again, as if all of life – the snow, the sunlight and Lyuba’s hand, which had grasped mine for an instant upon parting – had been imperceptibly transformed into a gentle piece of music.

Two days later I left Moscow. Mama, hunched and wearing a warm shawl, saw me to the station. Dima went with Margarita that evening to the theatre. Galya kept worrying that I’d miss my train. On the platform, Mama said: ‘Don’t be angry. I misspoke when I said you’re like your father. I know you’re a good boy.’

The train departed the station. It was evening. I stood by the window for a long time looking out on the lights of Moscow. Perhaps, I thought, one of them was the light from Lyuba’s room.