‘Hush!’ she commanded.

  Lev growled, then split the dusk with a volley of barks.

  In the darkness below the pines, a greyness rose, shaking the air like a mirage. A wretched, flapping, scarecrow figure emerged, cloaked in rags; an apparition as thin as paper, filmy like the skin on a pond. Baba eyed it carefully, frowning and squinting, and clicked her tongue, muttering under her breath.

  ‘Come closer, come here in the light – slowly, mind!’

  The figure flickered, taking form out of the green and grey, solidifying from apparition to …

  ‘You’re no spirit. There’s no magic at work here,’ she said to Tolya, and then more loudly. ‘You’re no moth, are you? Who are you?’

  The apparition moved closer, and in the soft light of the lantern, Tolya could see it was, in fact, just a boy. Older than him, taller, maybe sixteen or seventeen, but thin and strange. The boy stood still a while, then slowly raised his hands and flapped them in front of his face, in and out, in and out. Yellow-white teeth like standing stones split his mouth in a strange grin.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted Baba, and the flapping stopped. He shivered, round eyes standing out from skin as pale as milk, as pale as the moon. He reached out a hand, emaciated and ground with dirt, as if to touch the rays from the lantern in Baba’s hand. ‘Come closer!’ she said. ‘Come see! We won’t hurt you.’

  The boy shuffled through the long brown grass until he stood at the fence on the edge of the yard. Again the hand reached out to the lantern, and this time gently tap-tap-tapped on the glass.

  ‘Baba!’ whispered Tolya, eyes round.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Baba.

  ‘Yuri,’ answered the boy, his voice coming slowly to his lips, stilted and hoarse, pushed out on a sigh.

  ‘Where are you from, Yuri?’

  The boy said nothing, and simply pointed over his shoulder in the direction of the forest.

  ‘Where are your people?’

  The boy shrugged and stared at the lamp.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  He reached out slowly with the same emaciated hand, and nodded. His gaze hadn’t left the lamp, but Tolya saw his eyes were never still, flickering across-across-across as he looked into the light.

  ‘Is warm, your house?’ Yuri asked suddenly, smiling his strange toothy grin as his eyes oscillated in their sockets.

  Lev sniffed at the boy’s calves, jaws hanging open, but made no sound.

  ‘It’s warm. And you are welcome.’

  ‘No, Baba! He scares me!’ Tolya pulled on her arm, but she flicked him off with an angry glance.

  ‘Quiet, Tolya! Come, we’ll have some broth, and you can warm yourself by the stove, Yuri.’ Baba’s eyes were watchful, and she peered in every direction as she strode back towards the cottage. Over the yard a silver moon rose, bright as a frozen sun, bathing the boys in its cold, blue light – one flapping, and one creeping behind.

  The forest sighed, and wood smoke rose to meet the heavens.

  ‘Anatoly Borisovich!’

  A jolt thumped through his chest. Strong hands clamped his shoulders and his head snapped back and forth.

  ‘Wha—? Who— oh!’ The shaking stopped. Green eyes stared into grey.

  ‘Did I fall asleep?’ Wings were flapping in his mind, shifting memories like leaves in the wind.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vlad, releasing his grip and easing himself back into the visitor’s chair. ‘I thought maybe … Well, you gave me a fright. You stopped talking and made a choking sound, like you couldn’t breathe. Like you were …’

  ‘Sleep, Vlad. There’s nothing to fear in sleep. It brings relief. You’ll learn that, as you get older.’

  Vlad snorted and slowly smoothed the blankets across the old man’s bed.

  ‘Maybe so. But I’m glad it was just a … nap.’

  ‘I must sleep more. But I feel we made progress, don’t you?’

  ‘Well …’ Vlad pushed the chair onto its two back legs and regarded the old man with a small smile. ‘I can’t really see it, myself. Hearing about your childhood in Siberia is very interesting, and I can see that just talking, just reliving things, is making you feel better. There’s colour in those cheeks, Anatoly Borisovich!’ The old man returned his smile with a grin. ‘But I need to know about your breakdown in September, and I’m still interested in those scars, for my case study. I have to write a report on you – for my medical degree, and for your best interests.’ He leant close to the old man’s face, seeking his eyes. ‘And my report can’t really be about your babushka and Lev, and this moth boy, can it? Do you understand?’

  ‘Ah.’ Anatoly Borisovich’s hand floated up to his face and his fingers felt into the relief of his cheek, following the crevices and smooth patches: the map of his past. ‘But it’s all related … you need to understand … family …’

  As the old man spoke, the kindly orderly appeared in the doorway.

  ‘You’re wanted,’ she said to Vlad with a coquettish grin, ‘in the office. It’s your girl again, and I think she’s in a temper!’

  ‘Blin,’ said Vlad, looking at his watch. He lurched from the visitor’s chair, its feet squealing sharply across the floor. ‘I’m going to be late.’

  ‘Tsk! Even with your fancy imported watch?’ She shook her head with a laugh and walked away up the corridor.

  Anatoly Borisovich pulled a face as he closed his eyes. ‘Your girl is cross. That won’t do.’

  ‘I think it’s all the stress! I thought a date would be different, but she’s …’ Vlad sighed, grabbing up his pens and paper.

  ‘Anywhere nice?’

  ‘Palace of Youth.’

  The old man grunted. ‘You’d better go then!’ His shoulders shook momentarily with silent laughter. ‘But come back,’ he gurgled eventually, ‘as soon as you can, and I will tell you all: everything you want to hear! We will get your case study complete!’

  He sank back on the pillows, feeling as if he had been sweeping the yard all day, catching the leaves above his head and breaking the ice on the well with his knuckles; exhilarated, and exhausted.

  ‘Very well. But listen, please.’ Vlad’s voice was hurried. ‘I will bring more pryaniki next time, or a cake perhaps?’ Anatoly Borisovich opened an eye. ‘Cake? You like cake? OK, so next time there will be cake, and you will get to the point, and answer some questions, and we will both be happy.’ He turned for the door, and then looked back. ‘You’ve spent almost the entire session talking about leaves and trees today, Anatoly Borisovich, and it won’t do: they’re not what caused your breakdown, are they? I need to know about you. I’ll be back when I can.’ The door slammed.

  The blinds were still up. In the distance, Anatoly Borisovich could make out the lone tree beyond the fence shifting in the wind, its branches outstretched, shivering.

  A knock at the door accompanied the scrape of its opening.

  ‘Do you need the toilet?’

  It was the grumpy orderly.

  ‘No, thank you. But I would like some paper and crayons.’

  ‘Matron said no: said it might excite you.’ The orderly stomped towards him and held out a small steel cup filled with a viscous green liquid. ‘Drink this, and settle down. You shouldn’t get excited. That Vladimir shouldn’t be exciting you. He’s only a student.’

  ‘Maybe so. But talking … is much better medicine than this.’ He took the cup and swirled its contents. She drew down the blinds with a clang.

  ‘Come on, drink up! I’ve got others to be seeing to,’ she snapped, returning to stand over him, hands on hips.

  Anatoly Borisovich held his nose, gave the orderly a wink and gulped down the medicine. ‘I drank it all.’ He grinned. ‘Do I get a prize?’

  ‘There’s no need to snatch,’ he whispered, after she had slammed out of the room.

  The Palace of Youth

  ‘My dear Gor!’

  ‘Good afternoon, Sveta.’

  ‘I am sorry to disturb you.’ She didn’t sound sorry. Her voice was warm and husky, like fresh rye bread.

  ‘That is quite all right.’ Gor frowned at the receiver.

  ‘But I wanted to know how you were.’

  ‘How I am? I am quite well.’

  ‘No ill effects at all? From the moth, the other night, I mean?’

  Gor considered for a moment, and ran his tongue around his very clean teeth.

  ‘None,’ he said firmly. ‘All residue was swept away when I returned home. I have had no problems with my stomach, or anything else. All is well.’

  ‘That is good. I have to say, Albina insists it was nothing to do with her.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And I believe her.’

  ‘Of course. We must all believe her. She is a child.’

  ‘Yes. So … I was curious. Well, not curious. I was worried … has anything else happened to you, since Tuesday?’

  ‘Since Tuesday?’

  ‘Since, since the moth incident.’

  ‘Of course, the usual has continued.’

  ‘The usual?’

  ‘The phone ringing out in the night. Generally around midnight, sometimes earlier, sometimes later.’

  ‘Do you answer it?’ Her voice was quick.

  ‘Occasionally. I don’t know why.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing. No one.’

  ‘How odd. Anything else? Any other foodstuffs disappeared?’

  ‘Thankfully, no.’ He paused. ‘But I got a letter.’

  ‘A letter?’

  ‘A letter.’

  ‘Who from? What did it say?’

  ‘I did not read it.’ Gor did not want to discuss the letter, shoved into his mailbox down in the foyer. How had it been delivered? Not by the postal service, that was clear enough. Someone had got in through the locked front door, delivered their message, and left. The dusty pot plants and the shiny brown floor tiles could tell him nothing. Baba Burnikova, nodding behind the desk, could also tell him nothing, apart from that a hand-delivered letter could not have come without her knowing. The empty courtyard, glistening with last night’s rain and a thousand snail trails, could tell him nothing. He had opened the letter there in the foyer, leaning against the solid mass of the radiator, warming the backs of his thighs as he read. His name and flat number had been written in a childish hand, no doubt to disguise the writer. Inside it contained six words in an ugly scrawl.

  ‘You didn’t read it? But it could have given us clues, Gor! It might have been a spirit letter!’

  ‘Too late, I’m afraid. It has gone down the chute.’

  ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘This is no criminal investigation, Sveta. It’s just some no-good hooliganism.’

  ‘Well, you were upset, no doubt. My news is good though – I have telephoned my contact.’

  ‘What contact?’

  ‘The psychic lady. Remember, I told you about her on Tuesday?’

  Gor closed his eyes and swallowed before he spoke.

  ‘And?’

  ‘She can do it a week today.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Is that too long? I’m afraid she is all booked up until then. Something to do with Greco-Roman wrestling at the Elderly Club. I couldn’t really tell: she can be a little vague on the telephone.’

  ‘No, no, that is very good. Next Friday it is. I do hope you haven’t gone to a lot of trouble on my account, Sveta, I’m really not—’

  ‘No trouble! I want to help. And Madame Zoya can certainly help us divine what, exactly, is going on here. She has a marvellous gift.’

  ‘Quite.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘You sound low. Like you need cheering up.’

  ‘I am quite cheery.’

  He grimaced into the mirror by the telephone table, baring his teeth in an attempt at a smile. It looked more like a snarl. He could almost scare himself with those eyes and teeth.

  ‘Come to the theatre with us!’ Sveta’s voice bounced off his eardrum. For a moment he was speechless.

  ‘Wh … what?’

  ‘I just … well … you seem sad, Gor, and lonely, and well, Albina is in a dance show, with lots of girls and boys from school, and she asked specifically if you could come, and I thought, well, why not? It will be fun! And there’s a craft show going on in the foyer at the same time. And pensioners get in for free.’ Her voice crumbled to quiet as she reached the end of the sentence. A long pause followed.

  ‘Hello?’ whispered Sveta.

  ‘That is kind of you, Sveta, to think of me.’

  ‘It’s the least I can do, after giving you such a scare with that nasty sandwich. You’ll come?’

  ‘Very well: I shall be pleased to escort you both to the show. What day, and at what time?’

  ‘Ah, hurrah! Albina will be so pleased! It is actually tonight, at seven thirty p.m., at the Palace of Youth.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘At the Palace of Youth?’

  ‘You know where it is? Just past the circus, and then the bus station, but before you get to the brick factory. It’s opposite Bookshop No. 3.’

  ‘No. 3? Where they sell stationery and records?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Sveta took a breath. ‘You’re not busy, no?’

  Gor looked at the cats, the piles of music, his lunch tray still lying beside his armchair.

  ‘No, I’m not busy. But I can’t promise to be good company.’

  ‘Your presence is company enough! We shall not burden you with conversation if it’s not welcome, dear Gor! Albina will be so pleased. She is not so confident in dance, and it will be nice for her to have the extra support!’

  Gor nodded and said his goodbyes and, looking up in the hallway mirror, noticed the vague shadow of a smile playing across his face. The calendar on the wall behind him winked. The smile faded, his face became set, and he stalked off to the bedroom, avoiding gambolling kittens as best he could, to select a clean shirt for the evening.

  He didn’t feel like driving, so took a trolleybus as far as the centre of town, and then walked.

  Long strides brought him quickly from the central crossroads to the wide boulevard named after Mayakovsky, where milk-bars and furniture shops turned wide, hungry eyes on trudging shoppers and workers. He averted his gaze from the windows and the price tags. He hurried on, away from town, heading past the circus, which shone like paste jewellery half-way up the hill. Round, almost majestic, its curved concrete walls were bathed in jagged, multi-coloured reflections thrown by the glass of its windows. It looked like a space-age Colosseum with a giant Frisbee for a roof. Gor took in its curves and its permanence as he hurried on. He had heard that, years before, circuses had been travelling affairs, housed in huge tents borne by troupes of gypsies from town to town. They entertained the masses, taking stories and characters from place to place, fertilising minds and more with ideas and characters picked up and scattered across the continent from the Baltic to the Sea of Okhotsk. For generations, travelling circuses had roamed like this, tossing ideas like seeds on the wind. But Stalin didn’t like it. The travelling circus meant danger. He ordered permanent circuses to take their place in all major towns, staffed by troupes trained in state circus schools. So circuses were tamed: tethered in one place, telling one, state story, and doing one show … the one that Stalin liked. They were cleansed of magic and mystery, and made safe for the masses. No more tents and ideas blowing in the wind; no more transience. The circus was castrated, to become a harmless eunuch, no danger to anyone.

  Gor had no love of the circus. He could not abide a white-faced clown or a leering, drug-addled lion. It was all fake, all manufactured, with a predictability that bored him rigid.

  He snorted as he passed the queue snaking out of the door. He shook his head and tutted, but despite himself, remembered a night more than twenty years before, when he’d been there, to this very building, and laughed. How he’d laughed. Not at the miserable animals and their antics, nor at the lackey clowns, but at his own daughter as she sat beside him, her face a delight as each act had unfolded. Such a young life: such a happy child. He had loved the circus that night, because she had loved it; little Olga. A smiling face in the queue caught his eye and he glowered, turning away sharply. He huddled his shoulders further into his coat, and quickened his steps. The circus was rot.

  He came to a halt outside what he surmised was the Palace of Youth. It was not a place he had been before. Great columns rose from the crumbling wash of the pavement to hold a canopy of dark grey concrete above windows that shone with a fizzing orange glow on Azov’s youth. An abundance of small girls with buns and huge pom-poms flocked in and out of the lights in front of the building, their anxious mamas in tow, blocking the doorway and holding up the traffic as they alighted from buses and communal taxis. They were a myriad fluff-encrusted fledgling birds, shrieking and dashing, peppering words with pi-pi-pi noises as they came and went through the warped double-doors. Gor stood very still, towering above the faeries and their mothers, silent, grey, dark. He held his arms stiffly by his sides and every so often made a little hopping movement to one side or the other, attempting to avoid a collision. Still they flocked, an occasional mama looking up at him with startled concern as she steered her charge away from his shins and elbows. They seethed and rolled around him, a throng of girls in pink and white, chattering like sea-gulls. Gor’s brow began to sweat.

  ‘Gor! Coo-eee! There you are!’ Sveta came breaking through the crowd like a steam tug, dragging an unwilling and extraordinarily gangly Albina in her wake. The girl bumped off every available surface, tangling limbs with her ballet-dancing colleagues, the tiny speckled waifs crumpling to the floor as Albina bobbed past in her grubby moon-boots, walrus grey. Her hair was piled into an elaborate bun, much like a nest. Gor smiled to the ladies and held out his hands in greeting. They drew together in the sea of fluff.

  ‘Good evening, Sveta. Good evening, Albina. I am glad to see you! But whatever is the matter?’

  ‘I don’t want to do it! Don’t make me! Please!’

  Together they ploughed through the dancers, heading for the clogged doors. They pushed their way through with elbows held high and struck out for the cloakroom.