The right to a failed life is inalienable.

AMÉLIE

Dawn was breaking; outside it began to drizzle. The sky had filled with clouds like a herd of animals. Kitty had talked a lot about herself, and in detail: about her feeling that she had become a figure with no umbilical cord, disconnected, without desires, floating freely through the air like an orphaned balloon that had slipped from someone’s hand at a children’s birthday party.

Before, he had talked a lot himself, an astonishing amount. It seemed to him that he hadn’t talked as much in centuries. He felt weightless. Fearless.

He wanted time to stand still, just as it had all those years ago in Nelly’s little attic apartment; Nelly, who might perhaps have been able to give him the liberating knowledge he sought, and instead had gifted him, for his journey through life, a disappointment that could never be healed.

It was so good to be able to see himself for a while through Kitty’s eyes. And perhaps what she saw was actually true. Partly, anyway. Perhaps, in all the years of their long telephone calls, he had learned to be so much better than he was in real life. For her. For her voice. For her freedom, for the peace of her soul. Because she deserved it. He had never doubted that. She had not disappointed him.

Yes, of course he wanted to stay with her, to stop time. Still surprised that she had tracked him down. Unclear what the consequences of this encounter would be. Unsure how far he could let her into his life. And how he hated it, and had hated it all these years, that she thought it was fear of losing his position that held him back. How he would have loved to make clear to her that it wasn’t about him, but her — her security.

And how he loved to look at her. Constantly, once he had overcome the shyness that had been building inside him for years, shyness of the body to which her voice belonged. The woman in front of him was made of flesh and blood; like that time, that one time long ago that she didn’t even remember. Her mind had erased the image, the memory. The memory of that banal encounter in the sleepy little town near the steppe, in the empty station, when he gave her the package from her unhappy, lovelorn brother and asked her to stay with him until his train arrived and he could continue his journey home. But perhaps it was better that way. Better for her. He, however, had always had a phenomenal memory; this memory was precisely what had made him an irreplaceable secret agent. And this memory had retained, preserved forever, the image of the schoolgirl she had been back then, in this other life, in another era, in another world. This was the image he had recalled, this was the image he had pictured when he heard her voice, until her photos appeared in the press, until he even managed to see her in person, at one of her concerts, from the anonymity of the crowd.

He liked her way of gesticulating, her laughter lines, her expressions, her faint scent of baby cream, and the impression she gave of being slightly disorientated, out of place: even within her own four walls she seemed like a guest, as if she hadn’t learned to accept this place, this language, these objects, even these clothes as her own.

He had talked about his work, even though he’d firmly intended not to. About all the shadows that pursued him, all the faces that had burned themselves into his skin like invisible tattoos. She had drunk whisky without speaking while he went on sipping at his glass of lemonade.

Later, he had talked about Leningrad, about the Naval School, and about Kostya. His voice always grew animated when he talked about this happy time. Even now, after so many years, all the things that had happened in between had not managed to dim this happiness.

Alania had never married, although, in the course of his life, he had had opportunities to do so. There had been women who had shown him that they were impressed by his prospects, his knowledge, his power, his quick wit, his subtle, refined, almost polite brutality. He could have deceived himself, could have interpreted these longings as love and settled down. But he had sworn loyalty to one woman, and he always kept his promise. That woman was now sitting in front of him. The brothels of London had provided him with what Kitty’s voice was unable to give. It had always seemed the easiest way. He bought himself illusions, he bought himself a few hours’ intimacy, and in time he learned to give himself over to these illusions. He sought out cultivated prostitutes. He entertained them; sometimes he went out with them, sometimes he bought them presents. They liked him, and he liked them, because they were good liars. Better than most respectable women.

And lies were an important part of his life. Throughout his years in London, Giorgi Alania had located and personally repatriated so many people whom he lured with false promises, who followed him voluntarily or were forced to do so, that he now enjoyed a considerable reputation and a certain untouchability at headquarters in Moscow.

Yes, he had kept his promise, as he always kept his promises to Kitty. But in this instance he had done so with particular devotion, with particular conviction. Had risked everything for it. How often he had feared that it would all be exposed, that he wouldn’t be able to protect her; how much willpower this promise had demanded of him. And yet how happy he had been to keep it. For her. The only saint in his life.

In the beginning, he had done it for Kostya, for his effortless love, but then he had had to admit to himself that Kostya no longer played such a crucial role in his desire to go on being there for this disembodied woman, for this voice. He had been a shadow for many years, but now they were sitting opposite each other, telling each other about their lives, expressing their most intimate thoughts and wishes, admitting things to one another as if they were two old friends who had celebrated birthdays and weddings together, had mourned people together, had spent their lives together.

He thought back to the day when he had realised she no longer needed his protection, that she was free: the day he heard her first song on the radio. He had done it; he had made her untouchable.

And now, for her, he had thrown all the rules out of the window, disregarded safety precautions, risked everything to protect what had seemed to him, for so many years, so immeasurably important. He had also allowed himself to be found by her, and it would be child’s play for her to bring his house of cards tumbling down; he would have to fear for his life. But this, too, meant nothing to him in the light of her physical presence. Being caught, having his double life exposed, seemed laughably insignificant to him if he could have this face to go with this voice.

Night was now dangerously close to day. And the day that was dawning would be different from all the days of his life until now. Who would he be when he left this flat again?

Kitty took a deep breath and stretched on the sofa like a contented cat.

*

Elsewhere, in another world, a heavy, bloated body turned on its side. A bearded man, poisoned by alcohol and transgression, crippled by an unspeakable loss, battered by his own impotence, incapable of speech, let out an animal sound.

In the same world — in the same city, even — a thin, red-haired woman sat up on a mattress, beside a young woman whose name she did not recall, and bit her lip. The poison that consigned everything to oblivion had worn off; her head hurt, her body, too, but her mind was alert, and it raged and lamented, telling her that she had failed, she had lost someone and could not cope with this loss.

*

‘You have to help me. If I don’t go to Tbilisi, I’ll lose my mind. This feeling is paralysing me, it’s driving me mad. I can’t think about anything else any more. I have to go back. I don’t know what it is; for years I’ve been able to keep all these feelings and memories at bay, but I can’t, not any more. I’m going to go. I have a British passport, but … Help me.’

Kitty spoke quietly, in a monotone, like a prayer to be recited over and over again.

‘What do you hope will come of it?’

‘I don’t know, I just know I have to do it. It’s the last thing I’ll ask of you. I promise, Giorgi. Oh God, it’s so strange to be saying your name.’

‘I don’t know if I want you never to ask me for anything again. But what you’re asking lies outside my authority.’

The night melted down to a lump that stuck in the throat. They were like two acrobats who had fallen from their tightrope, circus people whose tents the wind had carried off in all directions.

His stomach clenched as if he were on a rollercoaster: with excitement and fear, at the thought of all that might happen. His legs were tingling. He knew the answer to the question she didn’t dare ask him; he had carried it on the tip of his tongue all these years without realising. The answer to the question of why he had ensured, all this time, that she stayed alive, that she was still here. But he couldn’t yet tell her that she was the longest — disembodied, but nonetheless the longest — and most constant relationship of his life.

A little chill ran down his spine. If she no longer needed him, if she were no longer dependent on his friendship, what else was there to give his life meaning? To stop the ice from filling his soul completely? No: he wanted her to ask him for help, wanted her to ask many more things of him.

‘I was nineteen. Or maybe only eighteen. In any case, I was still in my first year at the Frunze Academy. I was taking the train to the Black Sea coast. Kostya had given me a parcel to take with me; I was to deliver it to his mother, or his aunt, and I was willing to make the detour because he told me that his sister …’

Kitty, suddenly attentive, raised her head and stared at him incredulously, as if waking from long hibernation.

‘… that she was at his grandfather’s and maybe I could give her the parcel and she could send it on to Tbilisi. For some reason, he wanted this parcel to get there in a hurry. I remember it clearly: he put it together with such excitement. Anyway, I was happy to make the detour because I was so curious about Kostya’s family, about his sister …’

Kitty stared at him, dumbfounded. She knitted her brow, searching her memory for the missing pieces of the puzzle.

‘It was right at the start of the war, the day I met you at the station.’

‘Oh God — that was you,’ whispered Kitty.

‘I still remember it as if it were yesterday. That station entrance hall. I don’t know why, but I was excited. I was going to meet Kostya’s sister, I’d see a different side of him, find out more about him; I don’t know what I was hoping for. I really don’t. And then I saw you. You were wearing this awful school uniform, but without the pinafore. And your wild hair. It was falling over your face. When you arrived, you seemed to be in a rush, and so distracted, and I desperately wanted to talk to you. I was so curious. I wanted to know so much, to know how a man becomes like Kostya, and why, what sort of family he must come from … And I got you. You were impatient; you said you had homework to do. I could scarcely hide my disappointment; I thought, I don’t believe it, I’ve made such a detour, and for what, just these few minutes in this stupid hall to meet a schoolgirl who won’t even look at me properly, and then … I was annoyed. I didn’t know what to say, and you took the parcel and left. I was so crushed; I thought, that’s how it is, that’s how it always is, people, especially women, they look through me, why would it be any different this time. But then you came back into the hall and gave me this huge smile. I was so happy and surprised and overwhelmed. Yes, it’s true, I’m not exaggerating. Don’t look at me like that. You were so full of life. I remembered how often Kostya had been exasperated with you, and said how rebellious you were. And all of a sudden I decided that was a marvellous thing.

‘Later, you walked me to the train and waved me off. Yes: you waved me off. It was dark by then, and I pulled down the window and peered out, almost the whole of my upper body hanging out, and you stayed there, the whole time you stayed and waited, and for one brief moment I saw myself as a boy saying goodbye to his girlfriend. A boy in love, waving goodbye to a girl in love. That was enough. For a long time. A very long time.’

Kitty was silent. She stared thoughtfully into her empty glass, then down at the floor again, not daring to look him in the face. Then she turned to him, put her arms around his shoulders, and pressed her forehead to his.

Yes, from now on things would have to change, Alania knew that, after everything he had said. Decisively. Whether for better or worse he didn’t know, but he would let them change, he would let them, because before him sat the only woman who loved him.