But Paris water was hard water. For fifteen hours a day, every day, he would be up to his elbows in it, in a never-ending battle to wash away the grease from the mounds of pans, crockery, cutlery, and glasses, a battle he could never win. After standing on his feet for so long, Alyosha’s legs would be like jelly, and his back would be on fire. In spite of all Marya’s furious scouring, by the end of service, the kitchen would be pretty squalid: the floor was always covered with grease and spillages, the dirty pans and dishes were stacked everywhere, and there was always a pervasive smell of fat and rotting vegetables. It was a narrow space, with not enough room for them to work comfortably, which added to everybody’s bad humour, apart from Marya, who remained serene through everything.

  One evening the restaurant was particularly busy, and the Serpent was constantly ringing the bell for service. During a particularly frantic half-hour, one of the waiters wedged the kitchen door open with a bit of wood so that they could bring out the plates of steaming food that much quicker, although this was strictly against the rules, as it wouldn’t do for the guests to see the state of the kitchen. Looking up from his greasy sink, something about a couple drinking vermouth-cassis caught Alyosha’s attention. The woman was dressed in a plunging blue dress, her hair swept up on her head, her crystal earrings shimmering in the candlelight. As she took a sip of her drink from red-painted lips, lifting her eyes languorously over the rim of her glass to look at the man sitting opposite her, he recognised her. It was Zepherine. Alyosha turned his attention to her companion and, although he now had a thick beard, his face was coarser and his hairline had receded, it was his uncle, there were no two ways about it.

  His Uncle Artyom.

  Alyosha’s heart was beating faster as he wondered what he should do. Should he go out and speak to him? He considered for an instant whether he was ready to forgive him for taking Grete away from him, but then he remembered that this was the man who had broken his heart and smashed his dreams to dust. This was the man who had turned his life into an empty shell. No. He had never forgiven him for taking Grete away.

  He never would forgive him.

  24.

  Too agitated to go home, Alyosha went over to the Flamant Rose as soon as he had finished his shift. He would often visit Galina there, because she could slip him past the door without paying, and would usually manage to slip him a gin fizz as she was serving the other tables, warning him to ‘drink it slowly’ so that he wouldn’t look out of place without a drink in front of him.

  Le Flamant Rose belonged to Harot and Léonard, two quiet brothers with a murky past, who shared a delight in boar-hunting in the Corbières with the Viscount – his real name was Henri Dupont – a small-arms manufacturer with a substantial bank account at Crèdit de France. He was also a member of the Chamber of Deputies. There had been a rumour going around that his wife had had an affair with some young man in Monte Carlo the previous year, but he had succeeded in avoiding a scandal by paying the gigolo to keep his mouth shut.

  ‘To be suited to politics, you need to be essentially insincere,’ he’d told Alyosha one night at the club. ‘It’s nothing but an unholy mixture of ritual, hypocrisy and compromise.’

  Alyosha saw very little of Galina that night. The club was full and the head barman was a tyrant with a gimlet eye, so she was careful not to spend too much time talking to her friend. But she was always happy to see him, and had come to think of Alyosha as a big brother, especially as she was an only child.

  He knew a couple of the other waitresses by now as well. Galina had introduced him to Isabelle, a dreamy girl from a small town near Limoges, and Adelina, a round-faced girl from Alsace. Adelina was a silly creature, with not much personality, and he much preferred Isabelle. According to Galina, they both had their eye on him.

  ‘Try your luck…’

  ‘What makes you think I fancy either of them?’

  ‘You must be looking for someone surely?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I am…’

  ‘Of course you are. Nobody can wrap themselves up in their disappointment forever. Everybody wants to be loved.’

  Galina’s biggest headache was her husband, Marcel. She was so bored of him, and wanted to leave him, but however cruelly she treated him, he still followed her around like a puppy. How was she going to get rid of him? Yves was still in the picture – in fact the bank clerk wanted her to divorce Marcel and marry him. But it was the man from Sardinia – Camlo – who was meddling with her heart. He came and went like the wind, which drove her crazy.

  Alyosha often felt she talked for the sake of talking, because their discussions never led to any firm conclusions, they just went around in circles. But he had found himself telling her about the pain he’d suffered at the hands of Ludwika. Galina called her a bitch, and was surprised how he flinched at the word.

  ‘But that’s what she is, a proper bitch,’ she insisted, ‘to treat you so shabbily. I wouldn’t even bother to spit on her if I saw her.’

  Did he still love her? It was hard work to kill that feeling. Every time he discussed Ludwika, Alyosha still felt as though some fist was squeezing his heart dry.

  25.

  Margarita’s working hours at Aznefttrust were so long that Larissa barely saw her. She often had to travel to conferences, too, and would regularly be away for a night or two. But when Larissa complained to Bruno that the company was working her sister too hard, he replied that she was lucky to have work at all. She was perplexed all the same. Margarita had told her that she and another girl, Natalya, were both secretaries to the chairman, a Russian from Simferopol called Osip Nikitich. But, if he had two secretaries, why on earth did her sister have to work so hard?

  On Ella’s second birthday in June, it had been Natalya who delivered a present and a card to the house on Margarita’s behalf.

  ‘But she said she’d be here in time for Ella’s tea party,’ complained Larissa ‘She’ll be so disappointed, she thinks the world of her aunt.’

  ‘I’m sure she does. Margarita thinks the world of her, too, she has her picture on her desk at work,’ answered Natalya, looking slightly embarrassed.

  Bruno asked what exactly was keeping Margarita from being able to come to the party.

  ‘There was an important meeting at work that she simply couldn’t get out of.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have taken her place?’ asked Bruno, a little belligerently. Larissa spared Natalya having to answer by thanking her for delivering the present and card.

  In fact, Margarita wasn’t even in Berlin. She had been sent by Aznefttrust to Hamburg, to meet a sailor who worked for the Woerman Line in a house in one of the suburbs, where she was to hand over a large sum of money from Moscow, which would be transferred in turn to somebody from the Finnish Sailors’ Union.

  Generally, Margarita’s work consisted of sending money or messages to communist cells. She would always travel on a fake passport, even if she was travelling within Germany. Aznefttrust had also sent her to Italy, to a questura on Piazza Annunziata in Genoa, where she handed a small diamond over to a sailor who was about to sail to Panama, for the revolution in Brazil. Another time, she was sent to Budapest, where she was meant to collect a package to bring back with her to Berlin. It was a small package, not much bigger than her fist, but as she returned to the hotel, she had the impression that she was being followed, and so paused at the window of a café on Andrassy Street. In the reflection, she saw two men on the opposite side of the street halt, too. Her heart started to race as she strode quickly on her way. Shortly, one of the men seemed to have disappeared but the other had crossed the road and was following about ten yards behind her. She was approaching a tram stop and, letting the first tram pass by, she leapt suddenly onto the next, but the man leapt on, too. She tried to quell her mounting panic and, fingering the little package in her coat pocket, wondered what it contained. She got off the tram at the next stop and went into the nearest shop. The young man in a white coat behind the counter had just finished serving a customer and Margarita asked him hurriedly if he spoke German. He did not. French? A little. She explained quickly that the man loitering outside was harassing her, and she a respectable wife and mother of three. The young man took her to the back of the shop without further ado, and ushered her through the door at the back to a yard which opened onto another street. He also promised to send the man packing if he came in to the shop. He must have been as good as his word because she made it safely back to her hotel unmolested.

  26.

  Alyosha was sitting on his own at the Flamant Rose, drinking a glass of beer, while a couple at the next table were happily celebrating something with a bottle of champagne. Galina had already told him about them: they were Swedish, and styled themselves Baron and Baroness Eklund, but although they lived as a married couple, no rings had been exchanged. He smoked a cigar, and she smoked a cigarette in a long Meerschaum holder, and they both greeted or acknowledged everybody cheerily. They were never short of a franc or two, but nobody was quite sure who they really were, or where their money came from.

  Another club regular was Manon de Sainte-Estèphe (or Marie Nérichon as she had been christened). According to Galina, she had once tried to poison her lover, a promising tenor from Rome, and had very nearly succeeded. These days, Monsieur Bougremel, the owner of a silk factory, kept her in an apartment on Rue Chaptal. Once a month or so, he would visit Paris on business, and would beg her every time to move nearer to him. Manon could turn him round her little finger, and would always have some excuse why she couldn’t possibly leave Paris. The true reason for her not moving south to Lyon was that she had another lover, a Spaniard by the name of Don Alonso de Zamora y Tinto, who lived in a large house on Avenue Kléber, tended expertly by his butler, a deaf-mute from Montenegro. In return for her favours, the Spaniard had promised to leave her a château on the outskirts of Nîmes, as well as three million francs in an account at Crédit Lyonnais after he died. Little wonder, then, that Manon longed to see the man breathe his last.

  ‘But,’ said Galina, ‘the maid told her that some other woman has been making house calls lately.’

  Manon was sipping crème de menthe at the bar.

  ‘What will she do?’

  ‘Why do you think she’s talking to him?’

  He was Jean-François Ooterelle, a Belgian who had been forced to quit his native soil. He lived under various names in Paris – Jean-Jean Flageolet was one – and made a living through petty theft and fraud. Every so often, he’d turn up at the Flamant Rose, but whenever things started to heat up, Jean-François would vanish for a few weeks to Libya with his lover, Yvette de Merlanges, a former primary school teacher who was convinced that he was the most innocent and blameless man alive, inexplicably the victim of police harassment.

  Jean-François used a walking stick, as his left leg was quite lame from when he’d tried to kill himself by throwing himself over the balcony of his apartment some ten months previously; he’d landed on a Doberman, killing it instantly, and merely broken his hip. The dog had undoubtedly saved his life, but his landlady had been highly unsympathetic, and had thrown him out. The last thing she’d wanted was to have unstable individuals living under her roof. And if he wanted any tips about killing himself, all he had to do was to catch the train to Dubrovnik, walk into the nearest bar, wear a false black moustache, and claim to be a Serb.

  From the tête à tête Marie and Jean-François were having at the bar, it was obvious something important was being discussed.

  ‘I imagine it’s the easiest thing in the world to kill a man in a wheelchair,’ said Galina sagely, blowing a ring of smoke above her forehead. ‘A steep flight of stairs, one shove, and there you are. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what they’re planning. When people really want something, they’re willing to do anything to get it.’

  A night or two later, Galina was due to meet Camlo after work, and she persuaded Alyosha to keep her company until he arrived. Over their coffees in the Rat-Mort Bar on the corner of Rue Pigalle and Rue Victor Masse, which stayed open more or less all night, she told her friend that Marcel had finally agreed to a divorce. Yves was still in love with her and wanted them to marry. What did Alyosha advise? He had little to say about it: increasingly he felt that Galina enjoyed being constantly in a state of emotional flux, because that made her life somehow more meaningful. An hour went by, and Galina started to fret about Camlo’s non-appearance. She dried her nose with the back of her hand and looked through rheumy eyes at Alyosha. ‘I think something must have happened to him.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s on his way.’

  ‘Not tonight. I have a feeling he won’t come…’

  ‘If he said…’

  ‘He won’t come.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Believe me.’

  The time dragged on, with Galina becoming more restless by the second. She was also exhausted. In the end, with her nose running worse than ever, she asked in her little girl voice, ‘Will you go and look for him?’

  Alyosha sighed quietly and turned his head away.

  ‘Don’t then, I’ll go myself,’ she snapped petulantly, and leapt to her feet, but then half-staggered back down into the chair. They both knew he wouldn’t let her wander the streets and bars of Paris her own.

  ‘Alright, alright, I’m going. But this is the last time Galina.’ He put on his coat wearily. ‘And I mean it this time.’ He stuffed the money she had given him into his back pocket and stepped out into the night.

  Alyosha eventually found Camlo in a nightclub called Buffe in Montmartre. He was with a woman of course. Camlo winked at him, and introduced him to his companion, an extraordinarily beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed woman from Oslo called Halldora. Alyosha looked on in wonder as she ran her fingers along the gypsy’s back, underneath his greasy hair.

  ‘So,’ Camlo smirked, ‘she can’t wait till tomorrow then?’

  Alyosha shrugged and Camlo passed him a little packet under the table. He wore a signet ring on his little finger, with a solitaire of at least five carats. The barflies were both envious and admiring of Camlo’s ability to bed so many tourists – especially women who had crossed the ocean on bright, white ships to find the romance of the ‘real Paris’.

  He went back to the Rat-Mort, but Galina had disappeared, and nobody knew where she’d gone. He stayed for a while, but she didn’t come back, so he returned wearily to the room he shared with Stephanos Sourlis. Luckily, he had the bed to himself for what remained of the night.

  27.

  One Thursday night, after Galina’s shift, the take was thirty-five francs short. She swore tearfully that it had nothing to do with her, but it made no difference and she lost her job at the Flamant Rose on the spot.

  Alyosha had witnessed her recent deterioration, and her chaotic life worried him more and more. He was very fond of her, but he could see her plummeting towards the gutter. He could also see that Camlo ran rings around Galina, and it made him angry on his friend’s behalf. Sometimes he’d be attentive and passionate, other times he’d become unavailable and distant. It drove her mad, as she veered constantly between hope and despair. At such times, Galina would be willing to pay any price for her supply of drugs.

  When Alyosha turned to Prince Yakov for advice, as he so often did, his friend told him that it was always dangerous to become involved in another family’s business, as, more often than not, meddling only made a bad situation worse. His advice to Alyosha was to stay at arm’s length and not to interfere.

  ‘Why must she drag you into all her troubles?’

  ‘I’m her friend. I’ve known her for ages, since we were children.’

  The Prince shrugged. She had people who loved her, who would want to protect her. There was no need for Alyosha to go out of his way to do anything for her, apart from remain her friend. But Alyosha had met Yves by now. He was younger and even more ineffectual than Marcel, so Alyosha didn’t think he’d be any match for Galina. As for her father and Duchess Lydia, they had no idea of the real situation. On top of which, there was Roksana to think about. What would happen to her if her parents divorced?

  One night, towards the end of August, Alyosha was lying in bed, totally awake. By now, Stephanos was sleeping regularly in the bed of a woman who was married to a captain in the French Army, currently stationed with his battalion in Morocco. Outside, a storm was brewing, the first low rumblings becoming more powerful as it approached, until it ripped through the silence of the stars: thunder and lightning, crack upon crack piercing the sky with a fury so awful, he imagined seeing huge mountains reduced to dust.

  How could he stand by and not do anything, as Galina’s life went from bad to worse? Every time they met, she was slipping further into addiction. He had no choice but to interfere. He must tell Andrei Petrovich the truth, so that he could make efforts to support his daughter. He didn’t want to go behind Galina’s back, so, the next day, he went to the Rat-Mort, where she was drinking with Camlo, and told her what he intended to do. She seemed unconcerned, and told him if that’s what he wanted to do then what did she care?

  ‘You’re such a two-faced, sly little snitch… I always preferred Margarita and Larissa to you…’

  He was hurt but understood why she was being so cruel. He searched for the words to placate her. ‘Galina, look… Do you remember the two of us going on the train to Potsdam? To that clinic to see your aunt?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Yes, you do. Don’t deny it…’

  ‘I don’t…’