by Lesley Lokko
Towards the end of dinner, with just the two of them left sitting at the long table, she broke the news to him. He was happy; how could he not be? Finally, the news he’d been waiting almost a decade for. Yes, of course she should go back to Paris. The sooner the better. It was all settled. No bad thing, either, he murmured as they walked upstairs together, for the child to be born in France. One never knows. She kept her fingers crossed as he undressed her, tenderly laying his head against her abdomen. Finally, after nine years . . . a child? His obvious delight delighted her. A good thing she hadn’t mentioned the pregnancies that had been – and gone – before, she thought to herself as she stroked his head. Sylvan, for all his obvious strengths, was a surprisingly sentimental man.
21
1974
LYUDMILA
Krylatskoe, Moscow, USSR
Vladimir and Elsa Gordiskayo gingerly turned over the leaflet as though it might bite. Split. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A week.
‘A week, eh?’ Vladimir stroked his moustache.
His fifteen-year-old daughter, Lyudmila, nodded confidently. ‘A week.’
‘How . . . how will you get there?’ Her mother, who, as far as Lyudmila knew, had never been further east or west than Moscow (or north or south, for that matter), turned the leaflet over again, as though there might be something she’d missed the first six or seven times she’d read it.
‘By train. We’ll go from Moscow to Kiev, then from Kiev to Belgrade. It’s easy.’
‘Easy?’ Elsa murmured apprehensively. ‘It’s so far. And your teachers will be with you the whole time?’
Lyudmila nodded again. ‘The whole time,’ she said emphatically. ‘The whole team’s going, Papa. Everyone.’
‘Everyone,’ her mother murmured again. She looked nervously at her husband. ‘If they’re all going,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any harm?’
‘No.’ Vladimir said decisively. ‘No harm at all. It’s an honour. She’s fifteen now. Next year she’ll join the Komosol . . . it’ll be her last chance to prove herself.’ Her father looked at her, pride shining in his eyes.
‘Thank you, Papa,’ Lyudmila said fervently.
‘Well, if Papa says it’s all right, then of course you should go. It’s only for a week, though, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right, just a week.’ Lyudmila wondered how many times she’d have to reassure her mother. ‘We leave on Monday and we’re back the following Sunday. There’ll be two games – the semi-final and the final – and that’s it.’
‘I think this calls for a small celebration, don’t you?’ Vladimir looked at his wife. ‘Just a small glass. And one for Lyudmila.’
‘She’s only fifteen!’ Elsa protested. ‘I’ll get her some raspberry juice.’
‘Mama! It’s not as if I’ve never had vodka before,’ Lyudmila exclaimed. Her father winked at her.
‘Get three glasses, woman!’ he roared. Elsa hurried to the kitchen, returning with three glasses and a half-empty bottle. ‘Tvoye zdorovye’ Vladimir poured a generous measure for each of them.
‘Zdorovye!’ Lyudmila tipped back the small glass and downed her vodka in a single gulp. Her mother looked nervously at her father. Nothing further was said.
The night before she left, a pale half-moon hung in the sky, sending out a thin trickle of light across the slate rooftops. She sat in the bedroom window with her legs drawn up underneath her. Her parents were in the sitting room. Theirs was a standard two-roomed apartment, like all the others around it. One room housed the dining table and four chairs and a sofa which was usually reserved for Papa when he came home from work; the other, partitioned by a screen, housed two beds – one double, for her parents; the other a single one, for her. The kitchen, little more than a narrow cupboard leading off the hallway, was where her mother spent most of her day. She baked almost incessantly – sharlotka, syrniki, blinchiki – whatever she could, whenever she found the ingredients. Elsa could make a cake out of thin air, she’d often heard her father say proudly. She bartered with their neighbours for extra food – without it, there were times they’d have gone hungry. Vladimir was a foreman in the steel plant that lay half a kilometre down the road; Elsa had once worked as a nursery-school teacher. Housing in the Soviet Union was free, as was Lyudmila’s schooling and heating and lights, but food was sometimes scarce. Not that anyone complained – it was just the way things were.
She felt in her back pocket for the single cigarette she’d put there and drew it out carefully. She and Tatiana had pooled their pocket money for a single packet of ten Poctobs. Five each. They’d smoked one together after volleyball practice the other night, giggling hotly together. She passed the cigarette under her nose; the strong scent of tobacco flooded her nostrils pleasurably. She practised holding the cigarette between her index and middle finger, just the way she’d seen Sophia Loren, the most glamorous woman in the whole wide world, do. Sophia Loren. The sound of her name alone sent a shiver down Lyudmila’s spine. Sophia Loren was the most beautiful, most voluptuously decadent film star the fifteen-year-old had ever clapped eyes on. The mere fact she even knew of Sophia Loren’s existence was something of a miracle. In one of the inexplicable cock-ups that occur every once in a while, even in the most repressive of regimes, the Youth Workers’ Club of Krylatskoe had screened Arabesque, a film starring Loren and Gregory Peck, which had somehow slipped past the censors. Everyone in Krylatskoe – not just the youth – had watched it every night for an entire week. When the party official responsible for community entertainment realised his mistake, he’d hurriedly pulled it, but the damage had been done. Every teenage schoolgirl at the Joseph Gymnasium in Krylatskoe dreamt of being a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty with a heaving bosom. Lyudmila, whilst undeniably pretty, looked nothing like Sophia Loren, however. She was just over six foot tall, with long blonde hair, light, hazel-brown eyes and the sort of athletic, muscular figure that made her one of Joseph Stalin High School’s star volleyball players . . . but sadly not a sexpot actress. Not that it mattered. Whatever else Lyudmila lacked, she certainly didn’t lack ambition. One of these days she would find her way out of Krylatskoe, out of the depressing grey that surrounded them . . . one of these days. It was just a matter of time.
She lit her cigarette and inched her way a little further out of the window. Tomorrow morning, for the very first time in her life, she would be leaving Moscow. The Communist Youth League volleyball match in Split was hardly an invitation to the Paris haute couture shows but still . . . she was leaving. That was the main thing. She circled her knees with one arm, hugging herself tightly. ‘It’s a long way away,’ she whispered to herself. ‘A very long way from here.’ Their little apartment was on the fourteenth floor of the eighteen-storey, horseshoe-shaped block of flats. In front of them, behind them and on either side were similar units, stretching all the way down Osenniy Bul’var. They were in 18K2. Opposite, where her best friend Tatiana lived, was 18K1. Beyond the flats were the forest and the two-lane highway, Rublevoskoe Shosshe, that led straight into Moscow. Krylatskoe was at the edge of everything, including ambition. She finished her cigarette and flicked the butt away with her fingers. She watched it fall, arching away from her then plummeting straight to the ground. In one of those rare flashes of insight that occasionally happened to her, she wondered if the falling cigarette butt were a metaphor for her own life.
22
It was the first time she’d ever seen the sea. On the second day of their week-long holiday, the Russian teenagers were bundled into a bus that took them from Zmovnica, the suburb where the matches were being held, down to the harbour. The entire bus fell silent as the enormous and elegant Diocletian Palace loomed into view, and beyond it, the shimmering, hazy, azure sea. There were gasps from the girls whilst the boys tried to look as though they’d seen it all before. Lyudmila grabbed Tatiana’s arm. In her bag was a brand-new swimsuit – red, with small white dots – which her mother had carefully wrapped and left o
n her bed the night before she left. It was a little small – that was the problem with being so damned tall – but she knew just how good it would look. She still had her summer tan and she’d just started shaving her legs and underarm hair, which few of the girls did. She couldn’t wait to sink her feet into the soft sand, pull her hair out of its ponytail and run into the cool, clear water. Dimitri Petkanchin, the star of the boys’ team, would be watching her every move.
Dimitri wasn’t the only one watching her that afternoon, she saw. At the water’s edge, protected from the fierce midday sun by a jaunty yellow-and-white striped umbrella, was a group of middle-aged men whose eyes were firmly locked onto the red-and-white dotted swimsuit as she and Tatiana alternately swam and floated nearby. They were both good swimmers but neither had ever swum in the sea before. To Lyudmila, everything about the trip seemed like a fairy tale. Even the bleak, uniform dormitories where they were staying had an air of mystery and romance about them. She closed her eyes against the sun and let go of the breath she’d been holding, feeling it go out of her body in a slow, powerful sigh. The water was warm and clear; it held her gently, tipping her from side to side, Tatiana’s dark, streaming hair just visible out of the corner of her eye.
Someone spoke suddenly. A man’s voice. ‘Vy Russkaya?’ Schoolboy Russian, spoken haltingly.
She opened her eyes. A middle-aged man was bobbing beside her, fleshy neck and shoulders breaking free of the blue. She nodded cautiously, looking surreptitiously around for Tatiana. She was nowhere to be seen. ‘Da,’ she said after a moment. He was one of the group who’d spent the afternoon watching her.
‘I’m Martin,’ he said, smiling and holding up a hand to shade his eyes against the light. ‘And you’re Lyudmila. I overheard your friends calling you,’ he said with a smile. ‘D’you speak any English, by any chance? I’m afraid my Russian’s atrocious.’
‘Little.’ Lyudmila was pleased to be able to say at least that. There’d been an English girl who’d married a Russian engineer – Lyudmila forgot how she’d wound up in Krylatskoe – living across the hallway from them for a couple of years. Whatever little Lyudmila had picked up had come from Rosie. ‘Little bit.’
‘Very good,’ Martin grinned at her. ‘I’ll speak slowly then. Where did you learn it? Are you on holiday?’
She shook her head. She understood the word ‘holiday’. ‘No. Tournament.’ She mimicked hitting a ball.
‘Ah. Volleyball.’
‘Da. Voleibol.’ They smiled at each other. He had short, greying hair, plastered flat against his skull. Blue eyes, crinkled at the corners, like her father’s. He looked like the kind of man who smiled a lot. ‘Are you English?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘Scottish. From Dundee. You ever been to Dundee?’
They both laughed. Lyudmila shook her head. ‘I’ve never been anywhere,’ she said in Russian. ‘First time leave Russia,’ she added in English.
‘Really? Your first trip abroad?’ He sounded disbelieving.
She nodded. ‘First time.’
‘How old are you, Lyudmila, if you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Eighteen.’ She dared him to challenge her. He didn’t.
‘Lyudmila! Ty chto delaesh?’ It was Tatiana. She’d swum up to her, bobbing a few yards away.
Both Lyudmila and Martin turned at the sound of her voice. ‘And you must be Tatiana,’ Martin said, beaming.
‘Poshli, poshli,’ Tatiana said anxiously. Let’s go. She looked nervously back at the shore where their teachers were waiting.
‘We have to go,’ Lyudmila said reluctantly. She submerged her face, pushing her hair away from her eyes à la Loren, just as she’d seen her do in the film. His eyes narrowed appreciatively as she came back up.
‘How about a drink, girls?’ he called out to them as they turned tail and headed back for the beach. ‘Tonight? We’re at Hotel Luxe . . . it’s on the Riva, right beside the ice-cream shop.’
‘Maybe,’ Lyudmila shouted over her shoulder.
‘Are you crazy?’ Tatiana hissed as they swam towards the shore. ‘He’s an old man!’
‘He’s not that old. Besides, it’ll be fun.’
‘Fun? You really are crazy, Lyudmila! How’re you going to get out of the dormitory, anyway?’
‘We. How’re we going to get out? You’re coming with me.’
The air inside the bar was thick with smoke. Outside, amidst the bustle of waiters and conversations in foreign languages, cars drove slowly up and down the promenade; motorcycles wove in and out; all was noise and light. One eye narrowed against the bluish haze, Lyudmila looked around her in delight. She couldn’t believe how easy it had been. Their teachers, already emboldened beyond belief by the freedom of being on holiday and in another country, were already in the bar at the community centre where the team were staying. They were drunk. No one had bothered to do a roll call after dinner; she and Tatiana merely slipped away from the crowd of students returning to the dormitory and made their way to the bus stop. Tatiana, the scaredy-cat, kept looking over her shoulder as if she expected to see the Red Army hot on their heels.
But look at her now. Lyudmila smiled to herself. She’d knocked back two gin and tonics in rapid succession and her hair had come out of its pony-tail . . . she looked happy. Relaxed. Sexy. They both looked sexy. It was obvious from the way every head in the bar turned as they walked in and no one looked happier to see them than Martin. He was sitting in the corner with the same group of friends whom she’d seen on the beach. He jumped up, almost knocking over a chair in his haste to get their attention. ‘Whoo hoo . . . Lyudmila! Here . . . we’re over here!’
‘He sounds like a schoolboy,’ Tatiana muttered under her breath.
‘I told you he wasn’t that old.’
‘Hello, hello girls . . . fantastic you could make it!’
Both Tatiana and Lyudmila giggled. He was right. His Russian accent was ridiculous. In his mouth, the word ‘fantastic’ had come out sounding rather silly. Eto fántastika! Accent on the wrong syllable.
‘Another one?’ Martin leaned towards her now, indicating her half-empty drink.
Lyudmila shook her head. ‘Not yet.’ She was in no rush whatsoever. It was an evening to savour, slowly. It was hardly the first time she’d drunk alcohol but it was certainly the first time she’d done it in the company of four middle-aged men, in a bar in a foreign city, outside the USSR and she was in no hurry to see the evening end. She took another sip of her drink, letting the ice cubes swirl around in her mouth before swallowing them whole. Martin’s eyes were like saucers, watching her.
An hour later, she got up from her seat. One drink had turned into two, then three, then four . . . it was time to stop. She looked across at Tatiana. Her hair had come completely free of its ponytail, falling in long, looping curls across her face. Her lipstick, too, had smeared; there were more traces of it on the face of the man sitting next to her. Lyudmila had already forgotten his name. There were three men with Martin. Businessmen. Biznesmenov – one of those new Russian words that had crept in via black-market American TV shows. Martin was eager enough but he seemed out of his depth. Chelovek – glupets! Nothing so foolish as a man. It was one of her mother’s favourite sayings. If Martin thought she’d been taken in in any way by his tales of success then he was even more foolish than he looked. That wasn’t the reason she’d agreed to meet him that night.
‘Tatí.’ She hissed at the now-drunk Tatiana. ‘Get up. Come with me to the bathroom.’
Tatiana looked up, slightly befuddled. ‘Now?’
‘Now.’ Lyudmila’s voice brooked no argument. Martin looked up the length of her legs and his eyes immediately glazed over. ‘Come on.’
‘Okay, okay. I’m coming.’ She detached herself with some difficulty from Dirk – or whatever his name was – and stumbled into the toilets after Lyudmila. ‘This is so much fun,’ she trilled happily over the partition between them. Lyudmila zipped up her skirt and flushed the toilet. She
stood outside Tatiana’s cubicle until she heard her do the same. Down the long mirror a couple of local girls stood looking haughtily at them. Lyudmila ignored them and calmly reapplied her lipstick. ‘Don’t you think so?’ Tatiana asked, fluffing out her hair in the mirror.
‘Nyet. It’s boring. They’re boring.’
‘So . . . what are we doing here?’ Tatiana asked, looking at her uncertainly.
‘You’ll see.’
She didn’t even tell Tatiana what she was up to. During the day she practised her volleyball strokes alongside everyone else, or joined in the activities at the beach. On their third day, the day of the semi-final match between the Joseph Stalin Gymnasium of Krylatskoe and the Josip Broz Tito Gymnasium Split, she excelled, driven by some invisible inner force that saw her take most of the winning shots. Afterwards, accepting congratulations from her teammates and teachers, she caught Tatiana’s eye. There was a new wariness in her friend that she hadn’t seen before, as though Tatiana were trying to work out what it was that Lyudmila was thinking. What was she thinking? Sitting in the bar on the Riva with the Englishman and his friends had offered her a glimpse of a different sort of life – champagne, cigars, beautiful clothes, older, wealthy men who could buy her things . . . Split was hardly Paris or London; she wasn’t stupid. Martin was no Jean-Paul Belmondo and he looked and sounded nothing like Gregory Peck. She thought about the tiny, two-roomed apartment back home in Moscow, her mother’s tired and drawn face, her father’s distant, preoccupied gaze; the bored, indifferent look of her teachers, the bleak greyness that stretched all around . . . she felt her very skin shrinking away from it. She wanted something different, something better. She listened to Martin’s ramblings about the lucrative Eastern bloc and their taste for whisky which he, Martin Donaldson could provide, with half an ear, one eye on the clock above the door, the other on some distant point in the future when she wouldn’t have to put up with the incoherent fantasies of a middle-aged sales rep.
