16

YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Sylvie was sitting at the table in Mark’s kitchen. A ripe washed-rind cheese oozed onto a board alongside a crispy baguette, and the coffee pot was on the stove. Leonard was playing golf, and she and Mark had the whole afternoon together.

A rally was to be held at the city square in support of Nelson Mandela, and Mark had suggested they might go. Mandela had been transferred from prison to hospital because of a flare-up of his TB, but would be returned to prison on his recovery. The rally was to protest his imprisonment, both past and future. With the exception of the Vietnam moratoriums, when even conservative people with sons of call-up age took to the streets, Sylvie had never been to a political rally.

What do you do when you start so far behind?

That she should steer a steady course her entire life, and only at this late stage diverge onto the road less travelled, was incredible. That she should be a woman in clear sight of old age when first she experienced passionate love was incredible. That she might be washing dishes, peeling potatoes, driving for the Blind Society, baking for the hospital fête, and actually feel Mark’s hands on her, feel his mouth graze her neck, his body enfolding hers, his head pressed into her breasts, his legs entwined with hers, his tongue, his breath, his hands caressing her, it was incredible. Before Mark, she’d never made love during the day.

Where to begin when you start so far behind?

If she were to attempt to make up for time lost when she was twenty or thirty or forty, then she would miss out on the possibilities offering now, to middle-aged Sylvie Morrow. Once time was lost, it seemed you were always in arrears. These days, she found Mark in the pages of books and in the daily newspaper; she found him at the supermarket and at the petrol station. The most mundane aspects of her life had been changed by knowing him.

There had been times during the years when she could have screamed with boredom and frustration, but she had stifled those feelings, knowing they’d pass. And besides, she had no good reason to complain, although she did wonder if other wives experienced the same dissatisfactions. She’d recently read an article about the Women’s Liberation Movement changing the lives of women. It hadn’t changed hers, nor indeed the lives of her friends; the women’s movement simply hadn’t touched her. But Mark Asher had.

Was any marriage as simple as she’d once thought? How many husbands were like Leonard, men who loved their wives but sought sex with other men? She’d consulted a library copy of The Kinsey Report, and learned that 10 per cent of males had sex with other males; this meant there might be as many as two or three men in their social circle just like Leonard. Since meeting Mark, she had also wondered how different her marriage might have been if Leonard had been like other men. There would have been more and better sex, she supposed, and given her response to Mark, that would have made a difference. But what else? And again she acknowledged that perhaps it was Leonard’s being as he was that attracted her, that without this odd quirk of nature he would have been far less appealing.

She wondered, too, how many women in strong and enduring marriages took lovers. She’d prefer not to be deceiving Leonard, but, at the same time, she felt surprisingly little guilt, and no sense whatsoever of betraying him. Mark didn’t threaten her marriage — her marriage hadn’t changed — but the borders of her life had shifted substantially. These days it felt as if there were no borders at all.

She could hear Maggie accusing her of self-delusion, and knowing this, had not confided in her sister. But neither did she feel a need to confide. You confide when you want reassurance, or when you are conflicted; she did not need reassurance, nor did she feel conflicted. She loved her husband, and she had taken a lover.

So much to experience when you start so far behind.

She had always been a keen reader, but with Mark she was discovering vast new literary territories, all of which added currency to her life. He had introduced her to the system of inter-library loans, and she now regarded it as one of the wonders of the modern world. Such delight in collecting a book from her local library that originated from a distant suburb; one of the books she’d ordered had come all the way from Canberra. She found a book called Letters to Merline by a German poet, Rilke. She believed it to be wrong, like a literary peeping Tom, to read a famous person’s letters whose work you didn’t know, so Letters to Merline sat untouched while she read a volume of Rilke’s poetry. Such charged, singeing poetry. She read Rilke’s poetry, she read his letters to Merline, and she fell for Mark Asher; she suspected she was not the first person to have read Rilke while falling in love.

So much to learn when you start so far behind.

Mark was risk and passion, he was possibility made real, he was life writ large at a time when so many of her friends’ lives were shrinking. Mark pushed old age to the horizon and then, with a nonchalant shove, toppled it out of sight.

She was passionate about this man who had crashed into her life, and she loved being with him, but as to whether she truly loved him, she could not say. With Leonard, there was no such doubt. Her love for her husband had returned to where it always had been: essential and central. They understood each other and needed each other; they shared a son, plus thirty years of life. Leonard was bedrock. But Mark tapped into previously neglected aspects of herself, and all of life was richer for it. And Mark was new and different, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she now seemed hungry for change. Even an afternoon tea of a washed-rind cheese with fresh bread was a novelty to one more accustomed to orange cake and Nescafé.

No matter what happened, there was no going back.

Mark spread some cheese on a hunk of baguette and handed it to her. He moved his chair closer, brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, then traced her hairline down to her ear and lightly, slowly around the earlobe. The touch shot down her spine. She shivered.

‘Sometimes,’ he said with a smile, ‘I think your entire body must be an erogenous zone.’

A short time ago, she would have floundered in embarrassment at such a comment, now she just giggled. She swiped some oozy cheese from the side of the crust and sucked it off her finger, then took a proper bite and chewed slowly.

There was a tiny spider moving up the wall opposite. It was approaching a picture, a framed photo of Mark’s daughter, Zoe, with her mother, the two of them on a beach dressed in swimsuits, their arms around each other and laughing. As the spider disappeared behind the picture, Sylvie found herself thinking about secrets, perhaps exposed yet not actually seen, like the laughing woman in the photo who, within a few months, would kill herself.

Mark must have seen her looking at the photo. ‘She looks so happy — they both do,’ he said quietly. ‘But Rhonda was struggling at the time; she just wasn’t showing it.’

‘And yet women are supposed to be so emotional,’ Sylvie said, ‘and so emotionally undisciplined when compared with men.’

Was this just another myth promulgated about women, she was wondering. Her own experience, and there was nothing exceptional about it, made the case. She’d suffered multiple miscarriages without giving in to hysterics. She’d responded calmly and efficiently when Andrew had fallen off his bike and broken his arm, and similarly, when he’d fallen from his treehouse and broken the other arm. She’d responded without histrionics through any number of emergencies.

‘Women are supposed to be so emotional,’ she said again. ‘But it seems to me that many of us are experts in hiding our feelings.’ She paused. ‘And not just our feelings: we’ve learned how to hide what we really want.’

‘Is that what you’ve done?’

She nodded. ‘Until I met you,’ she said, and made a wry smile. ‘But if you hide what you want and what you feel well enough, and for long enough, your desires end up out of reach — not exactly forgotten, but somehow rendered unimportant, even irrelevant.’

Mark’s gaze was still directed at the photograph of his wife and daughter. ‘I’m not sure about that. I think what we hide, consciously and deliberately, tends to be truer to the self.’

‘But wouldn’t that suggest we’re ashamed of our true selves?’

He was rummaging in his unruly hair. ‘Freud might say that’s exactly the case. Or should be the case. The untamed self has to be controlled, even repressed, otherwise we’ll all run riot, and civilisation will be doomed.’

‘Of course, Dr Freud aside, you could widen the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable behaviour, and thereby allow for a little more diversity.’

‘You don’t think we’d all become savages?’

She shook her head. ‘I actually believe that human beings are fundamentally good, that we’re all fundamentally cooperative, and that we all want to build community.’

‘My own idealist,’ he said softly.

She shook her head again. ‘No, that’s too simple. I also believe in the human capacity for change.’

She heard the words from her own mouth, words that just months ago would have been no more likely than her speaking Chinese. But she’d come to see life differently. Home with its familiar routines was so comfortable, so secure, but there had to be more to life than a perpetual warm bath.

Open your front door and anything might be possible.

She reached over and let her hand rest on his wrist. Then she pushed the sleeve of his jumper up to the elbow. She brushed her fingertips over the pale skin of his inner arm, slowly, from wrist to elbow. They both watched her fingers on his skin. ‘Who would have thought this was possible,’ she said.

‘This?’

‘This love affair.’

‘Is that what we are?’

She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘You’re the experienced one, you tell me.’ She drew back, smiling.

He held on to her. ‘Don’t stop.’ His face was centimetres from hers. ‘I don’t want you ever to stop.’

Mark was not smiling.

‘You know what I’m saying?’ And he’s grasping both her hands. ‘I want us to be together all the time, Sylvie.’ He tightens his grip. ‘I want a lover and a wife.’ And to ensure there is no misunderstanding: ‘I want to marry you, Sylvie. I want you to leave your husband and be my wife.’

Her stomach is sinking, her heart is thumping, and her brain is shouting, No, not yet. And briefly she wonders if she might stretch this out, have another month or two of Mark. Waver a little, give him reason to hope, string him along. A brief moment before the temptation is expunged.

She knew this time would come, has always known, but hoped it would be a good deal later than this. She doesn’t want a husband; she has a husband. She has wanted, and still wants, a lover. But it’s no good if the lover wants a wife.

He is leaning forward, he is clinging to her, his whole face pressed into a plea. She loosens his grip, and hooks her hand around his neck. She touches the familiar skin and lightly moves her fingers; she must remember the texture of this skin. She draws him towards her and breathes him in; she must remember the scent of him. She holds him against her, his chest, his hips, his thighs; she must remember the weight of him. And she kisses him, slowly she kisses him, and he picks up her rhythm, their mouths together in the supple, cushiony fleshiness of a kiss she must never forget, a kiss that must last forever.

Sylvie missed Mark. She missed him that afternoon when she arrived home hours earlier than expected, she missed him the next day, and the day after. She missed him through all the days and weeks that followed. Perhaps if they’d had more time together, perhaps if they’d had less, it would have been easier. Perhaps premature departures are never easy.

The day after their last time together, she wrote him a letter. Just as he had wanted to be entirely clear about his desires, she needed to be entirely clear about her decision. It was a hard letter to write, not simply because she wished she didn’t have to write it, but because despite years of immersion in other people’s letters, she’d written very few herself. A single page took a morning to complete — not to her satisfaction, satisfaction played no part in this whatsoever, but a letter that could not be misinterpreted.

She used notepaper that had sat in her drawer for years. The sheets were ivory and lightly textured, with a watermark of a patterned shield. She had chosen an envelope with the same brown-tissue lining that Mark had used in his letter to Zoe, the letter that had brought the two of them together. The gesture would not go unnoticed.

Dear Mark,

In all our times together we never talked about the future, nor did we speak of an ending. We were for now, & as long as we held tight to the present we would continue.

Our being together, this now, was perfectly timed for both of us. If we’d met any earlier, you would have been too tied up with Rhonda’s death & your troubles with Zoe, any later, & some other woman would have snapped you up. As for me, my neat & tidy life had already started to fray. You found an opening & dived in.

You have given me more than I ever thought I wanted, more than I ever thought I’d missed out on. As you once said, quoting someone famous, ‘Life is not a rehearsal.’ I know that now. My future will be immeasurably different from my past because of you. I will live it differently because of you.

You probably think it is foolish of me to end it now. That I could have more, much more, if only I were prepared to take a leap. But if we had discussed the future I would have been clear: I’ve only ever wanted one husband. I married Leonard for better & for worse, & I married him until death do us part. But it’s important that you know I’ve only ever had one passionate love. I didn’t talk about Leonard to you, it would not have been right, either to him or to you. He was separate from you, as you & everything we did together was separate from him.

I expect there were features about my marriage you guessed from my behaviour, but I had neither need nor desire to discuss my marriage with you. However, it was never my intention to deceive you.

Now each of us must forge our own life apart. For me, I go from you having been changed & strengthened, I have been bettered. I hope there’ll come a time when you look back at us with the same gratitude & love I feel now.

Perhaps one future day when out with Leonard I’ll bump into you. You’ll have Zoe on one arm & your new wife on the other, & we’ll greet each other with unabashed delight. And when we embrace, as surely we will, we’ll hang on just a little too long, before turning away from each other & re-entering our own lives.

Until that time, goodbye, dearest Mark.

With love & gratitude from Sylvie.

Before she could make any more changes, she folded the sheet into the envelope, sealed and addressed it, and left the house. She was sad but calm, and in no doubt whatsoever about what she had chosen to do.

On the way to the letter box, she passed old Mrs Payne’s place. There were massive construction works underway, and she was forced to step off the footpath into the street. The old house and garden were long gone, and in their stead were the outer walls of two townhouses. She remembered so clearly how she’d felt when she first read those love letters from Lucien Barbier to Sophie Herbert; most particularly, she remembered their lovers’ duet in haiku. How she had marvelled, how she had ached. Never had she known such passion, nor, she thought at the time, was she ever likely to.

She pressed Mark’s letter to her chest and continued to the letter box. She stood a while, extending the moment, the leave-taking. Then she pushed the letter through the slot, heard it fall to a cushion of letters below, and made her way back home.

In the brief time she’d been away, Leonard had returned from church. She found him standing at the kitchen sink staring out the window, just like she had done every day of their long marriage. He twisted around when she entered, and must have seen something in her expression, because he walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned into him. He was so much bigger than Mark.

She was fifty-two years old, and this was her husband of thirty-plus years, and this, the two of them together, was the deeply forested landscape of their marriage. It was contentment of a kind.

They stood locked together for a long time. It was so silent in the kitchen, and when Leonard spoke she felt herself start. His breath was warm on the top of her head. He was suggesting they go somewhere for the afternoon. ‘Like Andrew’s Saturday outings with Galina,’ he said. ‘But for us, a Sunday.’

‘And after our Sunday outing,’ Sylvie replied without any forethought, ‘let’s go to Europe.’

He laughed. ‘This evening? Tomorrow?’

She pulled back, wanting to see his face, this face she was still adjusting to without the moustache, and she wanted him to see hers. ‘Soon,’ she said, ‘I’d like us to go soon. A proper journey.’

‘To Europe?’

‘Europe or anywhere, as long as it’s far, as long as it’s different.’ And an idea suddenly came to her. ‘No one we know has been to South America. We could go there, start a trend.’

She saw Leonard’s surprise, saw his confusion: this was not the wife he was accustomed to. What an irony, she was thinking, if her affair was discovered not because she was caught in flagrante delicto with Mark — she would never be with Mark again — but because of how she had been changed by their time together.

A moment later and Leonard’s frown had disappeared, he was smiling. ‘South America?’ he said. She heard the intrigue in his voice. And then more firmly, ‘South America. What an interesting suggestion. Long ago, I read a suite of poems — wait, I’ll find it,’ and he dashed into his study, returning with a thin book. It was called The Heights of Macchu Picchu. They sat at the kitchen table and looked at the book together. The original Spanish was on one page and an English translation on the facing page. Sylvie had never heard of the poet Pablo Neruda, nor this place Macchu Picchu.

Leonard told her that Neruda was Chile’s greatest poet. ‘Political poems, nature poems, love poems. Wonderful love poems, unrivalled by any other modern poet. Including Rilke.’

Her husband knew about Rilke? This poet she thought she’d discovered herself?

‘And Macchu Picchu?’

‘I’ve seen pictures of it,’ Leonard said. ‘It’s an ancient Inca citadel built high in the Andes, surrounded by stunning, rugged peaks. It’s in ruins now, and perhaps because of this, it looks to me more like a great sacred site than a fortress. Ever since reading Neruda’s poem, I’ve wanted to see it.’

‘So let’s do it,’ Sylvie said. ‘Let’s go there.’

He was smiling at her, lovingly, nakedly.

‘I prefer you without the moustache,’ she said. ‘I see you more clearly now.’

His smile disappeared. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know.’

The weight of those words was inescapable. She was deliberating on what to say, when he spoke again.

‘Do you forgive me, Sylvie? Can you ever forgive me?’

She didn’t forgive him, but that was not the right answer, or perhaps Leonard’s was the wrong question. In the long silence that followed, she tried to work out exactly what she did feel. Forgiveness didn’t seem particularly relevant to what had happened to them. And how useful would it be anyway? Forgiveness by itself would change nothing. And if Leonard had told her at the beginning that he had these tendencies, told the young, sheltered nineteen-year-old she was, she probably wouldn’t have married him. And what a great loss that would have been. He had been a loving and attentive husband, he’d been an involved father, he’d been a good provider. She had loved him for more than thirty years, and she still loved him.

At last she answered. ‘I accept you, Leonard.’

He did not move. The room was silent. The second hand of the kitchen clock jerked through the seconds. She saw the tears well up. Never before had she seen her husband cry; men like Leonard didn’t cry. She left her chair and moved around to the back of his. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him. She felt him shudder, she heard his deep sigh.

‘Tell me about Rilke,’ she said.

Across town, Galina and Andrew were admiring the window display of the Readings bookshop in Carlton. Arranged in tiered rows were the new releases, together with the Christmas titles. In the middle of the display was a copy of When Melbourne Meets Leningrad.

‘What a splendid sight,’ Andrew said.

Her first book, published and for sale in a shop; it was hard to believe, despite what her eyes were telling her. And it did look splendid, even to her hyper-critical gaze. Not only its central position in the window, but its eye-catching cover. She had wanted a painterly, impressionistic design, but the publishers had overruled her. And seeing her book among all these other books, she realised the publishers had been right. The cover’s style now struck her, not without humour, as a fine tribute to Soviet Realism. The illustration depicted a Soviet girl in her Pioneer uniform framed by the Church on the Spilled Blood, holding the hand of an Australian boy standing in front of a Melbourne tram; the colours were bright, the lines were sharp. Soviet Realism taking pride of place in a Melbourne shop window, and she smiled: it wouldn’t have happened without her.

Andrew produced a camera. ‘Posterity calls,’ he said.

Galina wanted a photo of her book on display, but she didn’t want to make a show of herself. Andrew must have seen her hesitate, because he leaned in close and spoke directly in her ear. ‘This is a special occasion,’ he said. ‘A unique occasion. It’s your book, your day, and we need to mark it for all eternity.’

He was right, and it was what she wanted. She hesitated a moment longer, then let him have his way. He positioned her against the window and took some photos; he asked her to move to the left and took more photos; he moved her to another position and took still more photos. He was taking each picture as if it were a masterpiece, while at the same time interrupting the pedestrian traffic.

‘She’s a new author,’ he explained to passers-by. And, pointing to the book in the window, ‘There’s her book. Don’t forget that name. Galina Kogan.’

It would appear that when it came to her being in the limelight, Andrew managed to overcome his shyness.

At last he was finished and the camera put away.

‘Did you take an entire roll of film?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘Not quite. But I’m happy to finish it off if you’d like.’

He was laughing at her, and she joined in. However, when he suggested they go inside the bookshop to see how her book looked on the shelves, she begged off. She’d had enough. ‘Another day,’ she said. And then, as explanation, added, ‘It is good to spread out your joys.’

He guided her to a nearby café where they toasted the success of her book with cappuccinos and jokes.

‘The Soviets might invite you back when your book becomes a runaway success.’

‘Success on foreign soil? No, they would not like that at all. This book makes me even more of an enemy in Soviet eyes.’

‘So different from Australia.’ Andrew was shaking his head. ‘When someone hits the big time overseas, having been previously ignored in Australia, he suddenly becomes Australia’s favourite son —’

‘Or daughter.’

Andrew nodded, ‘Yes, of course. Son or daughter.’

Galina recalled Zara telling her about the great Australian cringe. She raised the issue now with Andrew. ‘This is like relying on the acknowledgement and judgement of your betters?’

Andrew nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘You condemn this?’

‘Of course I do. It’s bloody 1988. Our generation of Australians must stand up for itself.’ He paused. ‘All Australians should.’

As Galina walked home, Andrew’s words resonated, not in the context he meant, but in her own situation. Ever since Mikhail had gate-crashed her life, she had not stood up for herself. He was still living under her roof, he was still eating her meals, he was still expecting her to look after him; he was, in short, still using her to negotiate his Australian life. Initially, all decisions had been beyond her, but with Mikhail’s expanding interests through the Russian club, she had regained something of her old self — though not enough, it seemed, to resume her life properly. It was as if she were becalmed, and while the state was not disagreeable, it was largely ineffectual. But now? She had to stand up for herself. She’d put her own life and her own future on ice for long enough. She needed to act.

She had long ago fixed on the solution to Mikhail’s housing: Alexei Lebedev from the Russian club. In the three months since their first meeting, Alexei and Mikhail had become firm friends. They met at the club two or three times a week, they’d been on several club outings together, and Mikhail had stayed over at Alexei’s place a number of times. Alexei was lonely, his family home was large, he would welcome Mikhail as a permanent housemate. And at Alexei’s place, Mikhail would have the space he had enjoyed as a member of the Soviet elite, along with all the Western conveniences he so admired.

When he first visited Alexei’s house, Mikhail had returned home full of admiration for the kitchen machines and household gadgets.

‘You live like a peasant,’ he had said to her. ‘No mixmaster, no Bamix, no air conditioner, no microwave. A peasant,’ he repeated in disgust.

A long time ago, Sylvie had asked if she were afraid of Mikhail. Galina had not answered, but of course she was. Though what could he do here, in Australia? To her, or to anyone, for that matter? And the answer was clear: nothing, nothing at all. But it seemed that rationality had no authority when it came to her fear. This man had been responsible for his own parents’ death, he had treated his sister abominably, he had thrived during the worst of times. This man now lived in her home, he slept metres from where she slept. She should have told him to leave long ago, but she was afraid of what he could do, a fear well founded on what he had done.

She recalled a startling moment in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground when the narrator, in describing his bullying of a work colleague, said he was scaring sparrows for his own amusement. A lot of Soviet officials scared sparrows for their own amusement; it was a way of flaunting their power while proving their loyalty to the Soviet state and its leaders. It wasn’t only what Mikhail had done as a boy to his family; as a member of the Soviet elite he would have scared plenty of sparrows. But he wasn’t in the Soviet Union anymore, he wasn’t in the power elite. He had no power. But for all her reasoning, the fear remained.

One evening, after a pleasant day spent with Alexei, Mikhail had tried to explain to her how it had been — not to make amends, and certainly not to seek forgiveness or excuse himself. ‘I have no need to make excuses,’ were his opening words. He just wanted her to understand the situation from his point of view.

He was fifteen when he informed on his father. ‘When you are young, the world is simple. You believe what you are told.’

Most of all, he believed in Stalin. Stalin could do no wrong. Stalin was truly ‘the best friend to all children’.

‘Stalin never met me,’ he said. ‘But I thought he knew me better than my own father.’

‘But surely you loved your parents?’ Her tone of voice was anything but neutral.

He shrugged. ‘I suppose I did, but my allegiance to my country and my leader was stronger. That’s how we were taught it should be. That’s how I believed it should be.’

He wasn’t sorry for what he did, and he felt no guilt. ‘I was doing the right thing.’

He explained that once you are inside the system, an insider committed to the system, you don’t see it, you don’t question it. ‘It’s your world, your normal world, and it looks after you. I did not need to analyse, I did not need to think.’ He lit a cigarette and inhaled thoughtfully. ‘It’s easy to forget what is inconvenient to remember. Your faith makes you forget, and the rewards for being a good Soviet citizen make you forget. I remember nothing about the night my father was taken away.’

Lidiya, in contrast, had remembered every single moment — like a series of snapshots played in slow motion, she used to say.

Mikhail sucked on his cigarette, vigorously, as was his way. Between drags, he said that if circumstances had been even slightly changed, if this or that or something else had happened, he might have acted differently as a fifteen-year-old. ‘But I think it unlikely. Your mother and I were opposites. I loved Stalin, I loved the Soviet system. And the Soviet Union was very good to me. It’s not hard to love what treats you well.’

He regretted very little, but he was sorry he hadn’t done more for Lidiya. ‘It’s too late to tell your mother, so I’m telling you instead. I’m sorry. I wish I’d done more for her.’

Lidiya would have scoffed at his apologies. Apologies, she would say, are no good to her now. Apologies don’t undo the damage he did; apologies don’t make all the pains disappear. If Mikhail had apologised forty years ago, or thirty or even twenty years ago, it might have been different; but he loses nothing by apologising now, he risks nothing. Her mother would reject his apologies, would regard them as empty. People like him would say anything to get what they want, she’d say. They’d lie, they’d distort, they’d cheat. And what he wants now is an easy old age in a country that is utterly foreign to him. And he needs you, his niece, and he’ll say anything to bring you onside.

Her mother would probably be right, but somehow Lidiya’s judgement didn’t hold as much weight in the Australian context. In fact, it occurred to Galina as she walked home after coffee with Andrew, that all these old animosities don’t transport well at all. It’s as if they lose muscle during the long journey.

She unlocked the door and entered the saddlery. The smell of Mikhail’s cigarettes hit her; she suspected the smoke had seeped into the furniture, into the bed coverings. When he was gone, as surely he would be soon, she would have to wash everything. Actually, there was much she wanted to throw out, and she felt herself smile: how very un-Soviet to throw out anything that retained a skerrick of usefulness.

She poured herself a glass of water and went out to the courtyard. Mikhail was playing cards at the Russian club — not with Alexei, who was babysitting his grandchildren, but with some other fellows he’d met. She’d sent him off this morning with a sandwich lunch, so she didn’t expect him home until mid-afternoon. Time enough to work up her courage.

She must stand up for herself. Mikhail must go.

When her uncle first turned up in Australia, she wanted revenge for the suffering he had caused her mother and grandparents. The desire for revenge had now gone. Revenge didn’t reverse the earlier wrongs; it changed nothing about those old hurts, nor did it bring justice. No matter what she might do to Mikhail, the losses would still be her losses, the pain her pain. But neither did it seem fair that he got off scot-free. And she wondered if evading punishment was another privilege of the privileged class. Bad, powerful men rarely got their comeuppance.

Whatever happened, she must take her life back.

Next week was the anniversary of her mother’s death — three years from the day in 1985 when her old life ended. And since then she had created so much new life: new country, new friends, new work. How much longer would she forfeit her life for this old man, this old Soviet who never gave any thought to anyone other than himself?

She sat on the edge of the planter box. Her tomato plants were growing nicely; she loved tomatoes almost as much as passionfruit and bananas. These small pleasures of her new life. A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves, and she raised her face to the blue Australian sky. She had let him suck the courage from her, but she must build it again.

And suddenly it burst upon her: Mikhail was in her debt. Mikhail owed her. Mikhail owed her for the deaths of the grandparents she never knew; he owed her for the neglect of her mother, and for all the deprivations that ordinary Soviet citizens like her suffered while he lived his life of caviar and ermine. Mikhail was in her debt. And he was adding to the debt right now; he was taking her shelter and her food, her English language and her Australian know-how.

It was time to make him stop. It was time for him to leave. It was time for her to take her life back.

She considered various strategies, but in the end, with her courage still faltering, she opted for the Soviet way. Mikhail would leave: she would arrange it. She picked up the phone and dialled Alexei’s number. The phone rang and rang. She prayed for him to be home. Finally, he picked up; he was out of breath, he’d run in from the garden. She went straight to the point. She said that Mikhail would like to come and live with Alexei. She said that he was too proud to ask for this himself, but she knew for certain it was what he wanted.

Alexei was delighted at the prospect, as she knew he would be. His house was empty, he was lonely. But he was worried about Galina. ‘You are Misha’s family. You will be lonely now.’ And she said it was because she was family that she could act in Misha’s best interests. She would manage.

‘I want my uncle to be happy,’ she said, with convincing ease.

‘You are a good girl,’ said Alexei.

Together they devised a plan. Most crucially, Misha must never know about this phone call.

‘You are a very good girl,’ Alexei said again. ‘You have made two old men very happy.’

She had been a good Soviet girl, that was what she’d been. She had called in her debts at no cost to herself.