‘But I’ve come specially to see you, Albina,’ said Gor with some concern, as they took off their coats and handed them to the stout woman behind the counter. ‘I am sure you will be … spectacular.’ His goatee twitched as he attempted a kindly smile.

  ‘But I hate it, and I don’t feel well.’ She gripped her stomach under her bright blue jumper.

  ‘Now, now, petuchka, we’ve had all this at home. Gor has come here specially to see you dance, so don’t disappoint him. No one is going to laugh at you. I promise!’

  ‘But I can’t even see properly! My hair is in my eyes!’ said the girl, screwing up her face to squint around her.

  ‘Look, Albin-chik, there is your teacher, waving – see?’

  The girl pretended she was unable to see and crashed heavily into yet another dancing nymph.

  ‘Now Albina, that is enough! Go over to Madam immediately, or I shall get cross. She needs you in the dressing room.’ Sveta’s brows were drawn into a tight furrow, and her eyes bulged. She was wearing blue eye-shadow and large amounts of mascara, Gor noticed with concern.

  ‘I hate you,’ Albina hissed.

  Sveta blinked, sniffed, smiled brightly, and pushed the girl sharply between the shoulder-blades in the direction of her dance mistress.

  ‘She’s so glad you’ve come, Gor. And so am I. It is difficult, when we have no man around the house.’ She smiled up at him, eyes wide, and wiped imaginary lipstick marks from the corners of her raspberry red mouth. ‘Shall we take our seats? We’re in the balcony. I can’t wait!’

  Gor stared after her receding form as she made her way up the glistening concrete steps. He frowned. He was not sure he should have come at all.

  Row B2 was very full. The short battle to claim their seats combined with the damp heat of the auditorium brought a glow to Sveta’s cheeks and nose. Once roosted in her rightful place, she pulled out her compact to repair the damage and, angling it for a suitable light, spied the most beautiful man she had ever seen, sitting just behind her. A young man with curly brown hair, full lips and a strong, angular jaw. She wiggled her mirror for a bit more. She observed his neck: smooth pale skin stretched taut over muscular flesh, sporting what appeared to be a love-bite. She squinted and adjusted the mirror once more: his eyes were the clearest grey, framed by long, dark lashes, so sensitive … almost feminine. His gaze bounced off hers in the mirror, and she snapped it shut, almost bursting into a giggle. Here, just behind her, was a sentient statue straight from the olive groves of the Roman world: a living David-cum-Hercules. She stowed her mirror, and, after waiting a few seconds, turned her head to have a proper look. Yes, there he was, not more than a few metres from her, a living god bursting out of a cream-and-grey patterned roll-neck sweater. He must be a swimmer, she thought, or a gymnast, perhaps. He was reading the mimeographed programme and holding the hand of a dark-haired girl, his thumb stroking the inside of her wrist. Her face was turned away, dark locks hiding her expression, but Sveta could see a strong nose and her jaw, set firm. She felt her own brittle hair with her fingertips, and her small, soft chin. The man spoke and played his fingers through the tips of the girl’s hair as if to discover her face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I know how much it means to you.’

  ‘Oh really? I’m not sure you do. You’re just not trying hard enough!’ the girl replied loudly.

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you need to do more.’

  His programme dropped to the floor, and Sveta turned back in her seat. She smiled to herself: young love could be hard work. She could well believe the gorgeous young man wasn’t trying hard enough.

  Gor turned to her, humming a little tune, vague ‘pom-pom-poms’ escaping his mouth. He looked a little less severe than usual.

  ‘Isn’t this nice?’ She wiped imaginary lipstick from the corners of her mouth.

  ‘It is certainly different,’ he nodded, looking around the auditorium. ‘Such excitement! Such babble!’

  The young couple behind her were still at loggerheads, now embarking on an exchange of urgent whispers. She sighed contentedly and turned her attention to the stage.

  Fifty minutes later, Gor looked at his watch for the sixth time. They had so far endured ballet, folk dancing, a spot of folk singing, folk rock, some sort of modern expressionism, and something noisy and energetic that Sveta informed him was ‘disco’, beloved of black people in America. Gor harrumphed and expressed a hope that the black people in America performed it with more aplomb than the children of School No. 2 in Azov. At this point, Sveta had dug him in the ribs with her elbow, and tutted loudly.

  Albina had looked miserable throughout her eight minutes of the modern expressionist segment. She was supposed to represent ‘technology’. Her hands had flailed and her feet had stumbled as she tried to convey the positive global outcomes of mechanisation. Things got worse when she caught her toe in a thread hanging from her costume. She wobbled and fell, crushing the white papier-mâché dove placed centre-stage to represent world peace.

  ‘Oh, that’s a poor omen,’ said Sveta, ‘I don’t think we want technology to do that, do we?’ She smiled a brave smile, and waved to her daughter as she stomped off stage, sniffing and carrying pieces of mashed dove.

  At the interval, Sveta propelled Gor towards the ice-cream queue, where their stoical patience was eventually rewarded with a pair of stubby brown cornets. They were squished, chewy looking, each with a small paper disc stuck atop an ice-cream permafrost, becoming part of it. Sveta sucked hers off quickly and bit into the ice-cream, while Gor hesitated, looking perplexed, then applied long fingers to peel off the disc with a great deal of care. Sveta watched, strangely enthralled, as he took a tiny wooden spatula from his pocket and began to chip away the ice, flicking milk crystals onto the steps where they stood on the edge of the heaving foyer.

  ‘My teeth,’ he explained as he caught her gaze. ‘They are all my own, which I sometimes think is a disadvantage. Cold or hot, it can all be a problem.’ He curled his top lip to reveal fangs that went on and on, right up towards the base of his nose, almost like those of a rodent. Sveta shuddered and looked away, straight into the dark eyes of the Roman god’s girl. She was staring at her, across the room, really looking at her this time – with the ghost of a smile on her lips.

  ‘This séance—’ Gor began.

  The bell clattered for the second half, and Sveta jumped.

  ‘Tell me later,’ she mouthed and turned away, hurrying back up the stairs to the comfort of their seats.

  ‘Give me strength!’ muttered Gor as he wiped his whiskers and trod slowly behind her.

  They pushed themselves back along the crowded row like toothpaste in a tube. A copy of the programme, pink and crumpled, lay on Gor’s seat. He picked it up, sat himself down, and offered it to Sveta. ‘It’s not mine,’ she said, ‘I didn’t buy one.’

  ‘Neither did I.’

  He opened it, stared for a moment, and then dropped it as if it had burnt his fingers.

  Sveta looked from Gor to the paper and back again. His eye was twitching. She bent to retrieve it and flicked open the pages. There, in the middle, scrawled across the fuzzy purple lettering, was a message just for Gor:

  Sveta’s Acrobat

  ‘Here we are, now you sit down and have a little brandy. In fact, I think I’ll join you. Watching one’s daughter perform is always nerve-racking.’ She fussed around, finding glasses. ‘And what with the dove and everything … Yes, a tot of brandy will help us both! What a trying evening!’ Sveta pulled the cork out of the ancient bottle on Gor’s sideboard, and poured two large measures. ‘There, a taste of the old country for you!’ she said with a smile, and handed a glass to him.

  ‘Sveta, I’m not really Armenian, I’m—’

  ‘Not to worry!’ she said brightly. ‘Down the hatch!’ She drained her glass in a single gulp without the slightest shiver or cough, although her hands trembled. ‘Oh! There’s nothing like Armenian brandy!’

  Gor took a tiny sip and coughed as the richness burnt the back of his nose and slid like embers down his throat. It was a welcome sensation, replacing the cold of the street and the bone-rattling of the bus. He was glad to be home, glad to be away from the Palace of Youth and the crowds and the faces and the hidden threat that lurked behind them. Something about that message, and the way it had been left, had chilled him to the core.

  ‘Are you sure you will be all right this evening, Gor? Shall we stay with you? I could make up beds?’ She sat opposite him, curled on the sofa.

  ‘No, no, Sveta. I shall be quite all right.’

  ‘We can stay as long as you like?’ Her eyes were on his face, determined, probing.

  ‘No, no, really. Albina needs her own bed, I can see. She too has had an exhausting evening.’

  The girl lay next to her mother, a collection of tiny white kittens cradled against her belly. She was already asleep, but every so often snuffled slightly, rubbing her face.

  ‘Yes, she is a tired baby-kins. But we needed to get you home, safe and sound. You had a nasty shock.’

  ‘Yes, I did. But now all is well, and you have to get home. Sveta—’ He frowned, and stopped.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well. I, er … um, you have no man, around the house, or … Albina’s father, I mean? To look after you?’ He cleared his throat.

  ‘No, no, Gor. We have never had a daddy.’ Sveta stroked Albina’s foot.

  ‘Ah. How – never?’

  ‘Well, now Gor …’ Sveta giggled and reached for a top-up from the brandy bottle. It glugged in her hands. She took a sip, sighed and let her eyes wander along Gor’s neat, book-laden shelves. ‘He was not the marrying type,’ she said eventually, her face stretching out in a broad smile.

  ‘Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘He was an entertainer. Here today, gone tomorrow. I knew that, from the start.’

  Gor frowned. ‘But he cared for you?’

  ‘Oh yes, he cared very much. He would have stayed.’ She took another sip. ‘But I made him go.’

  ‘You made him?’

  She nodded, still smiling. ‘Yes. I wasn’t a young girl, Gor: I was a woman, a teacher already. It was my decision. I knew I’d be all right, and I knew it wouldn’t work with him. He wasn’t designed to live in a flat in Azov. He needed the wind in his hair.’

  ‘What sort of entertainer was he, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  She grinned. ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘Erm …’

  ‘No?’

  Gor felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘Not a magician?’ he ventured, creasing his forehead.

  She threw back her head and laughed, the sound brassy like a trumpet in the quiet of the flat. Albina muttered in her sleep as a kitten crawled over her neck for warmth, dabbing at her face with a tiny white paw.

  ‘Ha! No, Gor! Whatever gave you that idea?’

  He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably, and felt a flush burn his cheeks.

  ‘He was an acrobat, of course!’

  ‘An acrobat?’

  ‘Yes! Oh, how he flew through the air!’ She gazed up at the murky ceiling, as if she could see her lover flying there. ‘That’s how we met.’

  ‘How? In the air?’

  ‘Oh Gor, you’re being silly!’ She giggled and took another sip of brandy. ‘I took a party from the school, for an evening performance. Year 4s, I think they were. He was a visiting artiste – not the usual that we get here, day-in, day-out. He was a special, just for the season. High-wire, trapeze … He had a wonderful Cossack costume, I remember it all: long black boots, military jacket with shiny brass buttons, a tall fur hat – real fur, you know—’

  ‘On the high wire?’

  ‘No! Gor, really! Listen: he’d jump into the circus ring – I can see him now – a dark jewel of the Caucasus: the cheekbones, the flashing eyes, that chin, such a nose! Akh! I knew from that first moment … I went to the circus every day after that. Very soon, he picked up on my passion … he could feel it, from where I sat. And he returned it – four-fold! How my heart would leap! He would stride to the bottom of the ladder and disrobe, very slowly. That in itself was a performance, Gor! He would place each item of clothing on his upturned shield. And do you know …’ she leant forward, eyes dancing, ‘he did that in the bedroom for me, also.’

  ‘Oh no, Sveta, really!’ Gor jerked in his chair, spilling brandy down his front. ‘Now look what’s happened!’

  She chuckled, ignoring Gor’s discomfort, her voice a low, sing-song melody. ‘I was under his spell: it was the spell of love. You know how they sing about it? Well, it’s true. He was amazing … not just beautiful to look at, but so tender, and funny, and just …’ She sighed. ‘But I knew it could never last. That was my bargain: supreme happiness, for a few months. And it was worth it. In the end, he had to go. I saw him off at the station. He went back to Leningrad. Of course there were tears, he could barely tear himself away. But it was for the best. And now, I have my Albina: I look at her every day, and I remember the day Bogdan and I met. And I remember how we created her, in that magical cauldron of our love, when—’

  ‘Quite,’ muttered Gor, and took a gulp of brandy. ‘I’m sure you—’

  ‘And what about you?’ she cut in, an inquisitive smile lighting her face.

  He raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

  ‘Have you known love, Gor? Have you a family? I can’t help but notice … You have no photographs on show … is there anyone? Or are your piano and your cats enough for the master magician?’ Sveta reached out a hand towards Pericles, who ignored it and proceeded to lick his fluffy white behind.

  ‘Well, I … It’s a long story, Sveta.’

  ‘We have all night,’ she replied in a sing-song voice, putting her head on one side.

  ‘Well, ah. I—’

  The phone rang out in the hallway, its bleeps rattling off the doors and windows. For once, Gor was relieved to hear it.

  ‘I must get that,’ he said, bracing his arms, hands gripping like crab claws on the chair to lever himself up and out: he felt seized up.

  ‘No, no, Gor. I will get it. If it’s your phantom caller, I’ll speak with them.’ Her tone was determined and she jumped off the sofa, stockinged feet knotting slightly, and made for the hallway with quick, uneven steps.

  He heard her lift the receiver, wait to listen, and then bellow into it. Silence followed, then again the sound of Sveta’s voice, huge and hard, as if in a school hall or a playing field, eating the distance, loud in every ear. The clunk of the handset going down echoed through the flat.

  ‘No one?’ asked Gor, rolling his eyes across the ceiling.

  ‘No one. But I gave them what for.’ She winked at him as she came back in.

  ‘Right. Well, thank you for trying. I should call you a taxi, Sveta. It’s getting late.’

  ‘I could hear them breathing, you know. That’s the creepy thing. They were listening, breathing, waiting to hear what I would say.’

  ‘You must have surprised them.’ He smiled slightly. ‘You’re a brave woman. I’ll call that taxi.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ she said, her voice soft again, getting sleepy as she curled up on the sofa next to her daughter.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘But do you know what?’ she called out. ‘I could hear something else, in the background.’

  ‘Really? What could you hear?’ Gor flicked through his directory for the taxi number.

  ‘I don’t know. It was just when I put the phone down. It was something like the wind.’

  ‘The wind? They were calling from the street, then?’

  ‘Maybe. But it was a strange sound … as if they were calling from the forest.’

  ‘The forest?’ Gor laid the directory aside.

  ‘I could hear it: the wind, rushing through the trees.’

  Open Flame

  His physical health was returning. He felt in charge of his body, the master of his limbs. However, he still slept poorly. It was as if the weather had slipped inside him: the wind blew on his thoughts, heralding the ice that would eventually solidify his veins, the bog that would form where his heart still beat. His dreams were filled with the roar and rush of forest air, the snap of twigs, and always the smell of wood smoke.

  After two bad nights and an empty, lonely day, Vlad came back. He launched into the room on a Sunday afternoon, all energy and muscle, smelling wholesomely of baking and washing powder, grey eyes bright under his mop of dark hair. He stood by the door a moment, observing the kindly orderly’s backside as she leant forward to replace the notes at the end of the bed.

  ‘Come in, come in! Don’t stand on ceremony! Is that for me?’

  Vlad laid before him a folded newspaper in which reposed a voluptuous serving of creamy torte Napoleon. Anatoly Borisovich licked his lips.

  ‘Well how lovely!’ Excitement made the words jump. ‘What a treat!’

  ‘She was thumping about in the kitchen half the night making that. I told her about you, you see. And then I couldn’t sleep, she was making so much noise. A lot of work, apparently!’ He was walking around the end of the bed, talking to Anatoly Borisovich, but his eyes were mostly on the orderly, slipping to her bosom as she pressed past him on her way out.

  ‘Nice jumper,’ she said.

  ‘Italian wool. Feel it.’

  He offered her his arm to touch. She trailed her fingers across it, the cracked skin snagging on the fine knit.

  ‘Lovely. Must have been expensive?’ Her lips twitched as she pushed through the doorway, not waiting for his reply.

  The old man found himself frowning, mouth open, but didn’t know why. Vlad turned to him, and he pushed his cheeks into a grin.

  ‘Well, I do appreciate it! Look at this!’ He raised the paper to his face to inspect its contents more closely, fingers scooping up the layers of fluffy, fragile pastry enveloped in rich yellow custard. Delight dropped into his mouth and he savoured it, eyes closed, indulging the sweetness with every cell of his tongue, the sugar saturating his being and making his teeth itch. The clatter of the blinds going up brought him back to the moment. ‘The weather is against us today, Vlad. It won’t be long until the first frost. But the heating is working again. It has quite a gurgle.’