I was there, too. I drank mead and beer;

they flowed down my beard but did not go in my mouth.

RUSSIAN FORMULA FOR THE HAPPY ENDING TO A FAIRYTALE

The tall blonde woman with the cherry-red lips was called Alla. She was forty years old and the neighbour of the silk merchant who let his children throw parties in the big house. It was at one of these parties that Kostya had met her. She had studied medicine in Moscow, where she was regarded as an up-and-coming star in the field of psychiatry. As a result, she was approached by the NKVD and joined the organisation. On one of her business trips she met her future husband; he, too, worked for the NKVD, but with the Georgian branch. She moved with him to Tbilisi and continued her work in the Caucasus. Her husband was about twenty years older, and she soon grew tired of him; for Alla displayed a healthy appetite, not only for tracking down ‘spies and counterrevolutionaries, saboteurs and other vermin’: her body also had a great hunger that her husband, a very busy man, was soon no longer able to satisfy.

In the twelve years she had so far spent in the service of the most powerful organisation in the country, she had had nine abortions — all children of different men — the last of which had gone wrong, and since then she had been barren. Infertility, then, became her punishment for the toughest women who fell into her clutches — her small, personal revenge — and it bore impressive fruit. She was known as one of the NKVD’s most loyal employees, and also one of the most feared. It’s even said that the Little Big Man had pinned a medal to her breast with his own hand. But I don’t know that for sure.

When she met my grandfather, her appetite was piqued. That very night, she dragged him into the house next door and unbuttoned his trousers. Her alacrity and decisiveness reminded Kostya of Ida, and he willingly surrendered to Alla. From then on they met regularly.

I don’t know how she did it, but Mariam found her. The humiliation of a woman scorned can work miracles. She must have lain in wait for Kostya night after night, standing outside the glittering house. The laughter and loud music coming from within must have felt like being slapped, until she found what she was looking for.

Mariam followed the blonde woman, who kissed her fiancé goodbye behind the house before hurrying down the cul-de-sac, where she stopped in front of the first house. Before, in the dark, all Mariam had been able to make out was her tall figure and elegant clothes, but now, as she stood directly in the light from the streetlamp, looking for her front door key, Mariam too recognised the woman from Hell.

The soft, blonde hair, the red lips, the slow movements, the litheness of her body.

Mariam’s horror at the thought of this woman making love to the man she planned to marry was inconceivable. And it was easy for her, so appallingly easy, to picture those manicured fingernails digging into Kostya’s back: the coquettishness with which she would throw back her head, snarling at him, lips and eyelids moist with lust. It was so easy for her to imagine the woman urging Kostya on, using the same soft words with which she had once ordered Mariam to pick up the syringe of poison.

*

That night, Mariam threw gravel at Kitty’s window. Kitty slipped on a coat and hurried out into the street. When they were far enough away from Christine’s house, they sat down on the pavement, and Kitty knew that Mariam had found what she herself had sought so long and so bitterly.

‘You wanted me to see her, didn’t you? You knew who it was, and you didn’t tell me.’ Mariam spoke quietly. Her face was empty. It didn’t even express anger. ‘Why didn’t you tell me then and there?’

‘You wouldn’t have believed me,’ murmured Kitty, not sure whether she had done the right thing, whether she’d had the right to let Mariam walk into this trap.

‘How long has it been going on?’

Mariam crumpled like a pricked balloon.

‘How should I know?’

‘How could he … It’s too ridiculous to be true. Why did you let me …?’

Mariam stood, walked a few steps along the dark, empty street, turned back, and sat down again. Her whole body seemed to baulk at this outrageous fact, as if refusing to acknowledge the truth.

‘I can’t even blame you. What sort of degenerate is he, arranging to go to someone else’s house for a rendezvous with a woman who isn’t even invited to the party?’

She laughed. Her laugh sounded shrill, forced. Kitty’s thumbnail was bitten down to the quick.

‘I don’t know why I sent you there. Perhaps I wanted you to confirm that it couldn’t possibly be her. But it is. It’s her, and none other!’

Kitty wondered what reaction she had anticipated from her friend. Certainly not this. Fits of weeping, perhaps; hysteria, panic, but not this emptiness in her face, this irrevocable determination in her voice.

‘I’ll go and find her and talk to her. It’s nothing to do with you any more.’ Kitty got up off the pavement and looked down at her friend. She hoped this position would lend weight to her words, but Mariam was laughing again. She was laughing in her face.

‘Talk — to her? Are you pretending to be more stupid than you really are, Kitty, or what are you actually saying? And don’t tell me it’s nothing to do with me. If that were true, you wouldn’t have set me on your brother like a bloodhound. Be honest enough at least to admit that to yourself.’

Kitty couldn’t think of anything to say. Of course she should never have sent Mariam to the house, but it was too late. Kitty refused to think about that; she couldn’t hesitate now. It would only make Mariam more determined, whatever that might mean.

‘Yes, perhaps you’re right, but please — let me put an end to this by myself.’

‘Put an end to it? What, are you going to report her to the police?’ Another derisive laugh.

Kitty was gradually losing control of the situation. Mariam was steering this conversation, this whole situation, in a direction that made Kitty very uneasy, one she couldn’t fathom. She cursed her own rashness, her impetuosity.

Perhaps for both of them the blonde woman had once been an angel of death, but to Mariam now she was, above all, her rival for Kostya’s affections; the classroom, the village school, were just an inevitable black mark on her immaculate white skin.

Kitty began to shiver. She rubbed her hands.

‘You want to put an end to it, but you’ve already made me your accomplice. Here I am again, and we’ll put an end to it together. Because that was how you wanted it, and apparently God did, too,’ said Mariam, before turning her back on her friend and walking swiftly away down the road.

*

When she got home, Kitty sat on the window sill and asked herself, for the first time since that mild evening on the Holy Mountain when she had seen with her own eyes something she would never have thought possible, what exactly it was she really wanted. Whole armies, political organisations, countless people in uniform and Little Big Men stood between Kitty and her angel of death. Between them lay mountains of weapons, files, and bones, over which she would never be able to climb. Feverishly, Kitty ran through her options. The easiest thing, of course, would be to confide in the woman’s husband — obviously a very powerful man — and reveal to him that he was a cuckold. But a man married to a woman capable of brutally robbing another of her unborn child would surely be her equal in this respect. His fury would be directed not against his wife but against the man she had chosen. And his revenge would be no less terrible than his wife’s. Kitty couldn’t risk putting her brother in such danger.

By the time she fell asleep, exhausted, she had come to the conclusion that taking revenge was no less a burden than renouncing it.

*

Mariam withdrew. She didn’t show up at the Institute, didn’t leave the boarding house, didn’t meet Kostya any more, and didn’t respond, either, to the notes Kitty shoved under her door. Kostya tried to confront Kitty, but she denied having anything to do with Mariam’s behaviour.

Kitty focused on her studies, the theatre, and above all her guitar. But at night, when she was alone, an ice-cold fear that made beads of sweat stand out on her brow would overwhelm her, and she would toss and turn, trying to find a solution. She sensed, however, that after all the weeks Mariam had spent obsessively searching for the blonde woman, she was not just going to walk away from this, would not just let it go.

When she thought of what Mariam might be going through, she pictured all kinds of dreadful scenarios. Memories of the days in the classroom, the days in the barn, began to plague her, and when her nightmares started to pursue her in the daytime, too, she went to the student boarding house where Mariam lived and sat down in the corridor outside her door. She decided she would wait for her friend for as long as it took. Sooner or later Mariam would have to go out — sooner or later she would at least have to eat something.

For the first two days, Kitty’s efforts were fruitless: the door remained closed. She hammered on it again and again, slipped many more notes under it, begged, pleaded with her friend, tried all her powers of persuasion, but nothing happened.

On the third morning, after most of the students had gone to their lectures, leaving the boarding house empty, Mariam appeared at the door. She was wearing a long raincoat and had done her hair.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she said, as if nothing had happened, as if everything were as before, when the two of them had had an — almost — normal friendship and would stroll through the alleyways chatting and eating sunflower seeds. Mariam strode out purposefully into the street and marched over to the bus stop. Everything about her seemed cheerful, smart, the same as always. Only the dark rings around her eyes betrayed something of the grim labyrinth she was trapped in.

‘We’re going to the Old Town,’ said Mariam, as they boarded the first bus that came along. Kitty sat beside her friend. It was foggy and damp in the city. The sky was overcast. The autumn still hadn’t really arrived; it wasn’t chilly yet. They stared out of the bus window at the streets, the passers-by, the people fleeing the grey day. Kitty laid her head on Mariam’s shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief.

They got out at Lenin Square and walked up Kirov Street. Mariam set the pace and the direction. In a cheerless, empty grocery shop displaying half a sausage and two types of cheese, they bought some malt beer, which they drank quickly. Mariam didn’t stop anywhere for long, but continued unerringly on her way, which led up and up into the green hills. Kitty asked no questions; she was happy just to be walking here with Mariam, and tried to keep pace with her friend.

They left the big, screened garden of the Central Committee building behind them, turned left, cut through some side streets, sat on a lonely bench for a moment, passed the cable car stop, and watched the people getting into the little cabins.

All at once, Mariam turned to Kitty, reached out, and lifted her jacket and jersey. She stared at Kitty’s bare belly. With her other hand she pushed down Kitty’s skirt and tights and studied her abdomen.

‘What are you doing?’ Confused and unnerved, Kitty permitted herself to be examined.

‘I wanted to see your scars again. The ones I left you with. Whether they’ve healed well. I haven’t seen them since then.’

They left cobbled Chitadze Street behind them, and were already looking up at the artists’ cemetery when Kitty realised where Mariam was heading. The silk merchant’s house was just a few metres away. She stopped, demanding that her friend explain what this was all about, where she was going. But Mariam didn’t stop. She called for Kitty to follow her: it was all right, her husband was away.

Kitty tried to protest, but Mariam was already pausing at the corner of the street and climbing the three steps that led up to a red-brick house. Kitty screamed at her not to do it, but before she could reach the house her friend was banging on the front door with a metal lion’s head knocker.

Kitty had just set foot on the bottom step when the door was thrown open and Alla stood before them, a cigarette between her painted red lips, curlers in her hair, in a full-length white silk slip.

‘Yes?’ she asked in Russian, looking at them both crossly. Kitty wanted to grab Mariam’s sleeve, to drag her away, but she stood there, firm as a rock, staring spellbound at those scarlet lips.

‘Yes?’ the blonde woman repeated, and her tone was unfriendly, as if she had just been disturbed in the middle of something important.

‘My friend’s hurt herself, she fell over and grazed her knees, we’d like to use your bathroom for a moment, if …’

Mariam’s voice was frighteningly calm. She asked the question in Georgian. Kitty’s legs were clad in dark woollen tights; the woman, who glanced only briefly at Kitty’s knees, couldn’t see anything. She seemed to consider for a moment. Her face tightened a little. Perhaps she had recognised one of them, or both. She must have done, Kitty thought. It was madness, really, to assume that someone like her, at the top of her game, would simply let them into her house, right into the mouth of the dragon.

But she did. She gave a brief nod, and just added curtly, in Russian, before opening the door wider and letting them both slip inside, ‘Hurry up, though, please, I don’t have much time!’

Kitty could feel her whole body trembling. Mechanically, she followed Mariam, who was following the blonde woman, who was showing them to the bathroom. She couldn’t believe it, she couldn’t take it in. This couldn’t be happening. Not like this, not now. Surely it couldn’t be this easy.

It was a high-ceilinged, airy house, cool and shady. It smelled of fresh coffee beans. She led them through the dark hallway into a tiled bathroom with a bidet and a porcelain washbasin. Kitty closed the door behind her and started hyperventilating.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, suppressing a scream.

Mariam smiled, which disturbed Kitty even more; she was just looking at the door and smiling. Kitty turned on the tap.

‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it? We’re here. At last we’re here.’

‘I’m sure she doesn’t live alone. And anyway, what are you intending to do? If she takes a closer look at us, we’re done for. Let’s get out of here, fast.’ Kitty was stuttering with anxiety.

‘No. Everything is as it should be. She didn’t recognise us, she didn’t even look at you — not even you, Kitty. But she will remember us, I promise you that!’

And before Kitty could say anything else, Mariam stormed out of the bathroom.

Kitty felt nothing but horror: overwhelming, paralysing, all-consuming. She stood there, petrified, listened to the running water, tried to calm her breathing.

Suddenly, she heard something fall to the ground, followed by screams, but she couldn’t work out whose. She tugged at the door handle and peered cautiously into the corridor, which was still in darkness.

Slowly, she left the bathroom and followed the sounds, which had come from the depths of the house. She reached the end of the corridor and entered the kitchen. Heavy, dark cupboards on the walls, a wide dining table, a fruit basket filled with oranges. Two unwashed plates beside the sink. A faded landscape painting on the wall. Then a small portrait of the Generalissimus, then another photo, of the blonde woman with an older man, his arm around her shoulders.

‘Mariam?’

Kitty’s voice seemed to be swallowed up. It was eerily quiet in the house, as if she were completely alone. Suddenly, there was a laugh; it came from her right, where a door led out of the kitchen. Kitty opened it and stepped into the living room. In the middle of the room stood a tapestry sofa; in front of the sofa was a glass table with fashion magazines on it. She was sitting on the sofa in her slip, chest heaving, eyes wide and clear as glass. She was laughing in Mariam’s face, laughing so grotesquely that one might have thought she found the situation hysterically funny. A rough, almost vulgar laugh that didn’t seem to fit her sophisticated manner at all.

Mariam stood in front of her, and it was only now that Kitty realised she was holding a large kitchen knife; she must have had it in her bag all along. Her hand wasn’t shaking; her grip was firm, as if she’d been practising this for a long time. But her face was contorted; she clearly didn’t know how to deal with this laughter. When she turned to Kitty, her eyes were clouded, swamp-like.

‘Mariam … what are you doing?’

Kitty took a tentative step towards her friend.

‘I want you to look at her. Well? Do you remember now?’ Mariam turned to the blonde woman. On the ground beside the sofa lay a shattered vase; it must have got knocked over when Mariam forced her to sit down.

‘Stop laughing, stop laughing!’ screamed Mariam suddenly. Kitty felt as if she were about to faint.

‘Mariam, please, don’t make a mistake here!’ Kitty reached out her hand to her friend.

‘What? Isn’t this what you’ve wanted all these years? Didn’t you want it? Huh? Now you’ve got it. Here, go ahead, enjoy it!’

The blonde woman suddenly sat up, picked up a cigarette case from the glass table, took out a pink cigarette, and lit it. A couple of rollers had fallen out of her hair, and thick, wavy strands were dangling in front of her face. Not even now, not even in this dreadful situation, could she manage to look ugly.

‘You’re creating some really big problems for yourselves right now, my darlings. Really big. So I suggest you put that silly knife down right away, say what you have to say to me, and then get out. I’m not angry yet, which means you’ve been lucky so far, but you won’t be for very much longer.’

‘She doesn’t understand — what a shame! We’ll just have to make it clearer for her. Come here, Kitty, come here!’

Mariam waved Kitty over.

Hesitantly, Kitty put one foot in front of another, as if fear had made her forget how to walk. Mariam grabbed her wrist, pulled her towards her, tugged at her skirt, and lifted it to reveal her belly. Rigid with shock, Kitty resisted, reeling backwards, but Mariam held on tightly to the hem of her skirt and lifted it up again. Alla shrugged, and watched with complete indifference as Kitty was exposed.

Kitty felt nausea rising in her chest again.

She was faking — of course she had recognised them both by now, it was impossible that she hadn’t — she’s just faking, thought Kitty. That ostentatious body, on display, that supercilious smirk around her garish red lips, that cold face: this was all part of her game. Perhaps it even amused her; perhaps it even gave her a bizarre pleasure.

Kitty felt herself seized by unexpected revulsion. A revulsion that tipped over into hatred. A hatred that deadened all other feelings, even puncturing her fear: suddenly, all that was left was this one, single emotion.

‘Do you remember now? Is it starting to come back to you?’ shouted Mariam. But the woman didn’t stir. Her expression remained unchanged.

‘You’re very confused about something here, darling!’ she said, in Russian, and tapped her cigarette ash onto the floor.

‘But we remember — we remember you! Bloody well, in fact, don’t we? And if you hadn’t got your harlot’s hands on Kostya, too, perhaps we wouldn’t even be here.’

Mariam was raving.

At the mention of Kostya’s name, the thin, painted eyebrows shot up. The woman opened her mouth and blew a perfect smoke ring. The smirk vanished; she appeared to be thinking. Apparently Kostya’s name didn’t fit into her game.

Kitty looked at her red-faced, sweating friend, who looked so lost, so weak, compared to this angel of death; she looked at the stockings that had fallen down and were sagging around her ankles, at her shaking hands; she felt the sweat on her forehead, felt how powerless she was, how ridiculous and hopeless, and knew that she had made a mistake. And if you hadn’t got your harlot’s hands on Kostya, too, perhaps we wouldn’t even be here.

She should never have told Mariam about this woman. Mariam, who apparently still believed that the woman sitting smoking in front of them had stolen her man — the man who had promised her a happiness that tasted of the great wide world. She didn’t realise her mistake. She didn’t realise that this woman was just a proxy, one of the many Kostya lusted after. And Kitty herself, standing here with her scars exposed, in this surreal tableau of intimidation, this ludicrous attempt to achieve justice, had been no less mistaken. It had been a disastrous mistake to believe that anything would change, that the acknowledgement of an unspeakable guilt could provide any kind of reparation.

This woman’s crystalline blue eyes told Kitty that she would never receive any kind of reparation from her; that no matter how many knives she was threatened with, she did not and would not acknowledge her guilt. She believed in her life, in the man she served; she believed in the state she was helping to shape, and neither Mariam nor Kitty, nor the scars on display, nor the knife were going to change that in any way. Someone who was capable of feeling remorse, someone with compassion, someone who was able to put the truth of a human being above the truth of a state would not have driven to the village school, would not have converted a classroom into an operating theatre, would not have made a nurse into a murderer and a heavily pregnant girl into a childless mother.

Kitty realised that no matter what the outcome of this afternoon would be, she would always feel her dead child’s body under the earth, all the time, every day. She realised that her scars would always reveal traces of Hell whenever she ran her hand over them. She realised that whatever happened she would remain powerless, a victim. This was how it had been, and how it would always remain, because the days she had spent in the village school had branded themselves onto her. This realisation was so abhorrent to her, so sickening, so repulsive, that she turned her face away, shrank back, and vomited in the corner.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ said the blonde woman angrily, jumping to her feet. Mariam thrust the knife towards her; the tip was just a hair’s breadth away from touching the fine silk slip. The woman sat down again.

‘So what’s it like, then? What’s it like with him? Do you run after him like a bitch on heat? Do you enjoy it?’

Mariam was still chasing her desire for personal retribution.

‘What do you mean?’ Alla’s face darkened. ‘I don’t know you; I don’t know either of you. This has gone too far. I’m starting to lose my patience, and believe me, darling, once that happens you will know about it.’

‘We mean nothing to you, the classroom means nothing to you, the syringe means nothing to you, all that blood means nothing to you, the dead baby means nothing to you …? Look at these hands: they cut out this woman’s womb. Does that mean nothing to you either? But Kostya’s dick means something to you — how wonderful!’

Kitty was astonished at Mariam’s choice of words, at the way she was reviving the memories.

‘Please, Mariam, stop, there’s no point … Please. Let’s go. I feel sick.’

Kitty wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her jersey.

‘You feel sick now, do you, Kitty? And how did you feel then, when she asked me to kill your son? Didn’t you feel sick then? So sick that you wanted to die? We’re not going anywhere until this whore —’

‘That’s enough. Get out of my house!’

How composed she is, despite everything, thought Kitty. How well she has mastered her game.

*

Outside, night was drawing in. The room was dissolving in the twilight. Features grew increasingly blurred. Memories, like first snow, slowly settled on this woman’s beautiful, half-painted eyelids; they settled there so softly, they were almost transparent, and Kitty would have liked to gather her hatred into a single lump, to take that lump of hatred in her hand and hurl it with all her might at the woman’s face. The hatred would hit her and smash her beautiful face to pieces, disfigure her forever; it would rain down onto her shoulders, force her to her knees, she would have to cut open her ribcage, maybe Mariam would help her, a clean, thin cut, and it would disappear inside, that heavy, bloody lump, then Kitty’s blood would run through her veins, would mingle there with her blood and turn to poison, in seconds her blonde hair would turn white —

‘Kitty!’

Mariam’s voice shook her out of her reverie. The woman had stood up and was approaching Mariam.

‘Put that damned knife down, you don’t know what you’re doing or who you’re dealing with; put it down and then get out of my house. I’m giving you one last chance. I’ve had enough, you crazy, feeble-minded little monsters!’

She kept moving slowly towards Mariam, who took a step back, still gripping the knife.

Despite the quickly gathering darkness, Kitty could make out the tears on her friend’s face. Would they always have to keep losing, again and again, in this senseless battle?

‘Kitty, do something. Why don’t you help me, damn it?’ Mariam began to moan.

‘You’re finished — this is the end for both of you! I should never have let you live, I should have finished you both off back then, you ungrateful little monsters, you scum!’ Alla’s voice was clear and piercingly high.

At these words, Kitty froze, and, for a fraction of a second, Mariam loosened her hold on the knife. For a moment, time seemed to stand still, the earth stopped turning, thoughts tumbled thick and fast. The woman from Hell was acknowledging that this hell had really existed. She admitted to being its ruler. But, at the same time, her brutal admission made Kitty feel more helpless than ever.

Naked fury was now written on Alla’s face. She was glaring at them both, full of hatred. Kitty took a step over to Mariam, who was backing towards her.

‘What do you think is going to happen here, you little monsters? You come into my house just like that, threaten me with this ridiculous thing, and expect me to be moved, to burst into tears? Do you have any idea what punishment is? Do you have any idea what pain means? Not enough, apparently; it looks like it’s time you learned.’ Her eyes glittered unhealthily in the dim evening light. For the first time, her beautiful face was twisted and ugly. She was very close to Mariam now.

‘Don’t come any closer, don’t you dare — stop there!’ Mariam screamed, and Kitty sensed her friend’s fear.

They had gone too far. They could no longer just walk out of this room; however often and however much she had to vomit, they would have to stick it out.

The blonde was standing right in front of them now; they could smell her cloying scent, her lipstick.

It was as if they had switched roles, and Mariam was now the observer. She stepped to one side and switched on a little table lamp. Just at that moment, Kitty’s ribcage expanded and a scream came out. It came from the very centre of her body; she let herself be carried along by it, followed the sound, and threw herself at the woman. The blonde seemed startled; she didn’t defend herself, fell — and suddenly there was blood. Her bare body had fallen on the shards of the vase and she had cut herself. She groaned, but even in her pain she kept her composure.

Kitty was breathing heavily. Alla sat up and examined the cuts on her knee, her wrists, her elbows.

There was a moment’s silence. Then she stood, put her hands around Kitty’s neck, and her manicured, white, bloodstained fingers began to squeeze.

‘You pieces of shit, you’re finished, you’re —’

Kitty clutched at the hands and tried to pull them away from her neck. She couldn’t breathe.

Mariam threw herself between them, knocking over the lamp as she did so, and they were plunged back into darkness. She yanked at Alla’s blonde hair, dragging her off Kitty, who crawled aside, coughing.

‘I shouldn’t have taken pity on you. People like you must be exterminated, you never learn anything, you’re not worthy of our society,’ the woman yelped, hugging her knees, which were now bleeding heavily. ‘I need a bandage, I have to … I have to go to the bathroom,’ she added, almost pleading.

‘You’re not going anywhere. She bled for long enough, too, back then.’

The knife was clearly visible in Mariam’s hand.

‘What do you want from me? What do you wretched bastards want?’

For the first time, there was something like desperation in her voice.

‘She still doesn’t understand. Well, Kitty, what do you think, shall we clarify it for her? Shall we do her that favour? Yes, come on, we don’t want to keep such a nice surprise from her!’ Mariam seemed to feel secure again, back in control of the situation. ‘This is his sister. She’s Kostya’s sister. Do you get it now? Whose baby and womb you ordered me to remove. The sister of the man you’re running after like a bitch on heat, the man you put these curlers in your hair for, who you can’t wait to have mount you!’

‘Stop, stop, stop, please, please, stop!’ begged Kitty, her hands over her ears. The blonde woman’s face slowly twisted into a grimace; in the darkness, it was hard to tell if it was of disgust or fear.

*

Just as Alla was slowly beginning to understand how all the elements of this macabre spectacle fitted together, Stasia was sitting down on an old rocking chair in a corner of her sister’s garden and lighting herself an unfiltered cigarette. What she saw before her made her mouth fall open in astonishment; the glowing cigarette dropped out and she leaned against the back of the chair so hard that she tipped over backwards.

At the little wooden table where Christine and Kostya liked to sit, where she herself had so often sat drinking cherry liqueur with her sister as the daylight faded — there, now, sat Thekla and Sopio, playing cards. Thekla wrapped in a pink peignoir adorned with a feather boa; Sopio in a dinner jacket. There they sat, absolutely tangible, absolutely real, absolutely alive, playing cards! Stasia blinked several times and looked again, in the hope that it might just be a silly daydream, but the two of them had by no means disappeared: they were still sitting at the table, playing placidly and with total concentration. Stasia’s throat tightened.

*

Alla had lost control. Her fear was palpable now. In a single movement she had reached out to grab Mariam’s sleeve and struck her in the face. It was pitch dark in the room; Kitty heard noises, a piece of furniture falling over, cries. She couldn’t see clearly who was hitting whom, but Alla now had hold of Mariam. Kitty flung herself on the blonde woman, clasped her body with both arms, clenched her fist, and punched her in the back with all her strength.

Kitty saw the knife slip from Mariam’s hand; she saw the glint of the blade, and heard it hit the floor.

Alla whipped round in a flash, letting go of Mariam; the curlers flew through the air and her magnificent blonde hair slapped Kitty’s face, then Kitty felt her long fingernails on her face, felt the talons pushing her away; the sweetish smell of her skin reached Kitty’s nose and made her feel dizzy. The woman twisted her whole body round to face her and punched Kitty in the stomach. In the very place where her son had struggled with his fear, as if he’d already known that being born always means that you must also die.

Kitty was winded; she hung on to the arm of the sofa to stop herself falling over backwards. She felt another heavy blow, a little higher, to her diaphragm: this time, the woman had kicked her. Kitty gasped for breath.

Mariam leaped on Alla from behind and clung on, and for a moment the scene was like a children’s game that had got out of hand, one child whirling another around the room for fun, an improvised carousel. Until finally one of the children sank to her knees, because the other was holding a knife to her throat. And the third child saw the sharp blade against that delicate throat, pressing more and more firmly. Then Alla turned her head sharply, stretched out her arm — she looked like an acrobat, her arm so unnaturally flexible — and stuck her middle and index fingers into Mariam’s eye-sockets, and the blood spurted, pattering like summer rain, it smelled of iron, it spurted lukewarm and heavy onto Kitty’s face, her neck, her breast.

And Alla fell backwards as if in slow motion, with a rattling breath, and the bloody knife slipped from Mariam’s hand and hit the floor with a loud, metallic clack, followed by a horrified scream, although Kitty wasn’t sure whether it came from Mariam or the angel of death. Then silence. Nothing moved. Kitty tasted the iron on her tongue, and once more suppressed an urge to retch. And then she heard Mariam say quietly:

‘Arteria carotis communis … We had it in a lecture recently.’

Her voice seemed to come from a distant planet.