Gold Dust

by Kimberley Freeman

Genres: Cultural Heritage; Historical Fiction; Women's Fiction; Mystery; Historical Mysteries; Historical Romance; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

Three women linked by their blood, their dreams ... and their sins. From Leningrad in the 70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?

Release date: July 1, 2010

Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Print pages: 544

Sample

Prologue

Of course she was anxious. She had never planned a murder before.

It had taken a long time for the whirr of blackbird wings in her head to settle enough that she could think straight. But now she had arrived at this moment, it was time to work out how she was going to do it.

She had fought her battles against guilt, fear, anger and a white-hot sense of injustice. Now she had to be cool-headed. No turning back, only going forwards.

The morning sun strained her sleepless eyes. It skimmed across the back of the armchair, highlighted dust on the TV unit. Her gaze was drawn to the photograph of the three women. Her own face. Her victim’s face. Smiling. Their companion looked more serious; what had she been thinking? A glimpse of the future perhaps? In the photograph, the snow and the sunshine had bleached away shadows. The three of them had their arms slung around each other. Nothing will ever come between us. They had said that to each other so often. She called to mind just how many things had come between them. Cruel betrayals, seething anger, painful jealousies, and the ordinary variety of carelessness that can lead anyone, unwitting, to devastating consequences.

She sat on the arm of the chair, dropping her face into her hands. Steeling herself. She hadn’t the stomach for violence, nor the focus for mixing poisons. If an accident could be arranged . . .

The answer was remarkably simple when it came. Winter Gathering was in Briggsby this year. The cliff path was a favourite route for all of them. Twenty-five metres below were rocks, the sea. She experienced a giddy rush of vertigo, as though the ground were slipping away from the arches of her own feet. She pushed her toes firmly into her shoes to combat the feeling.

A fall, a tragic accident. Then it would be over, and she would remain standing, alone.

Alone. The word was like a bell tolling on a distant hilltop. She felt her own sense of loneliness, the empty despair that had lately imbued her life. There was no way she could back out of the murder now. It was the only thing that could right these wrongs.

And so, despite their shared blood, their shared dreams and their shared sins, she turned her thoughts towards the unthinkable.

Chapter One

‘You are not beautiful.’

Sofi Chernova leaned her seven-year-old face close to the corroded bathroom mirror. Her mother had not intended for her words to be cruel, only matter-of-fact.

‘You are not beautiful, Sofi. Not like your cousins,’ Mama had said as she cleared away the breakfast dishes in the communal kitchen that morning. ‘But you have a good brain, and that counts for something. When they get themselves into trouble, they will need you to help them out.’

But now, studying herself in the gloomy bathroom, the compliment about her cleverness was forgotten. Instead, she counted freckles, studied large flared nostrils, traced a finger along lips that seemed determined to turn down at the corners even if she smiled. No, she wasn’t beautiful. She wondered what benefits beautiful people acquired in life that she wouldn’t. She’d never given much thought to it, but beauty was arriving this afternoon in the form of her two cousins, Natalya and Lena.

A thunderous knock at the door. ‘Will you be in there forever?’

This was Papa, who had been tense for a week. Ever since the letter came from his brother asking if he could take care of the two girls for three months. Mama and Papa wouldn’t speak about his tension in front of her, but she had picked up shreds of ideas and – thanks to her clever brain – formed a clear picture of what was going on. Uncle Viktor and Papa didn’t get along. Natalya and Lena’s mother had died giving birth to Lena nearly six years ago. Since then, Viktor had off-loaded his daughters to relatives and friends all over the Soviet Union. Now it was Sofi’s family’s turn.

Sofi didn’t mind so much. She had met her cousins twice before, at their grandmother’s house in Izhevsk, at family gatherings so large that everybody and nobody supervised their wild games. Marching in circles around the lightning-struck birch whistling the Soviet national anthem, scrambling over the rocks behind the garden pretending to be cosmonauts on the moon, nursing their grandmother’s fat ginger cat as though it were a baby, and threading the stalks of dandelion clocks through the chain-link fence so that the wind could carry away the seeds, while they wished and wished so hard that their chests hurt afterwards.

Papa knocked again, and Sofi climbed down from the stool she used to reach the enamelled basin and opened the door. ‘Sorry, Papa.’

She emerged into the dim sitting room. The radio was on low: barely audible voices, an interview with a farmer whose chickens had laid so many eggs that he had been declared a Soviet hero. Mama had cleaned the apartment. The red-and-white-checked cloth was smoothed over the table, dust had been lifted off the sideboard and the mismatched armchairs, the cushions on the sofa had been plumped and arranged so that the embroidered kittens and swans were facing out, and the curtains had been pinned open as far as possible. Sofi loved the few hours after the apartment was cleaned. There was a sense of expectation in the air, as gentle yet as unmistakable as the scent of furniture polish.

Sofi went to the window. It looked directly across at the next apartment block, but in the space between the two buildings she could see down to the street. Summer rain, rainbow pools of leaked car oil on the uneven pavement, umbrellas moving like cumbersome beetles. A car pulled up, a dinted beige monster that miraculously fitted in the gap between a garbage truck and a belching bus that waited for damp passengers to climb aboard. The doors opened and her uncle and cousins climbed out.

‘They’re here!’ she said to Mama.

Mama joined her at the window, her mouth set in a firm line. ‘Ah, so they are.’ She turned Sofi’s face to hers gently. ‘You take the little girls into your room, show them where they will sleep, keep them occupied with a game. Papa and I need to speak about important things with Uncle Viktor. Understand?’

Sofi nodded. ‘Does the building superintendent know they’re coming? Will he let them in?’

‘Yes, and we have permission for them to stay.’ She moved to the bathroom door and knocked quietly. ‘Ivan, it’s time.’

They were wet when they came in the apartment’s front door. Lena, long hair dripping, wore a mournful expression. Natalya, whose chestnut curls still gleamed despite the damp, was impatient with her sister, calling her horse-face and skidding her suitcase along the floor with her foot. Behind them loomed Uncle Viktor, handsome but dark and sallow, and reeking of tobacco and vodka. Sofi did as she was told and took her cousins with her into her bedroom.

It had been a squeeze to get in the two thin mattresses, one parallel to Sofi’s bed and the other arranged so that its corner had to be lifted for the door to open fully. Mama had left space for Sofi’s art tray, her paints and her boxes of beads. She looked forward to sharing the space. All of her friends at school had siblings, and were crowded on top of each other. It sounded like fun. Though she did wonder how she was going to pull up a chair next to her art tray with the mattresses in the way.

‘This is your bed, Lena,’ Sofi said, leading the little girl to the mattress next to her own bed.

‘I don’t like it,’ Lena said, shaking her head.

Natalya pushed Lena onto the other mattress. ‘She can see under your bed from there,’ she explained. ‘Monsters. She’d never sleep and we’d never hear the end of it. Go, Lena, have that bed instead. I’m not afraid of monsters.’

As if to prove it, Natalya stored her suitcase under Sofi’s bed and crashed onto the mattress with a sigh and a toss of her pretty hair. Lena propped her suitcase up against the art tray, and sat down on her mattress to pull off her muddy boots gingerly. Outside the bedroom door, Sofi could hear adult voices, urgent, rapid. But not a word was clear to her.

Lena had already found Trushka, Sofi’s raggedy-cat doll, and was making her drink imaginary milk from a tea-set dish. Soon, all adult seriousness was forgotten as they drew the blind and Trushka was forced to confront the monsters under Sofi’s bed – this made Lena laugh and cry in equal measure – until they were squealing and giggling, damp-cheeked.

Then a sharp, rasping voice cut through their merriment. It was Uncle Viktor. ‘Don’t tell me how to raise my girls!’

Placating tones, and the conversation continued, dull now. Sofi glanced from Lena’s face to Natalya’s. Both were frozen, uncertain.

Then the door cracked open and Mama stood there, a forced smile on her lips. ‘Lena, Natalya. Come out and say goodbye to your father.’

Lena’s mouth turned upside down and she began to sob. ‘But Papa said he’d stay a week with us.’

The tight expression returned to Mama’s face. ‘He’s decided it would be best if he got away earlier. He has a long trip ahead of him.’

‘Where is he going?’ Sofi asked.

‘Vladivostok, for a job,’ Natalya said with a sniff.

‘A very important one,’ Lena added.

Uncle Viktor joined Mama at the bedroom door. ‘Well, now, you girls. Behave yourselves. None of your nonsense. Lena, wipe your nose. A man has to work; your tears make me feel guilty.’

Lena scrambled to her feet and clung to his waist. Viktor glanced away, patting her shoulder lightly. ‘There, there. Aunt Stasya will look after you. Nothing to cry about. I’ll be home in time for your birthday.’

Natalya hung back, trying hard to look brave, defiant. Sofi knew it was a performance. She felt so glad to be in her own home, with her own mother and father, and decided that beauty was not a charm for good fortune after all.

•

Before Natalya and Lena’s arrival, Sofi’s childhood had been quiet. Almost sedate. But now the tiny apartment was filled with noise and long hair and elbows. Sofi’s feelings about the new situation changed from hour to hour. Sometimes she loved it: there were games and laughter. Sometimes she just wanted to sit down, shut them out and draw. Her cousins did their best to fit in to the new family routine, though Natalya’s approach to chores was slapdash to say the least.

Every Saturday night was games night. Usually Mama, Papa and Sofi played their favourite card game – The Fool – on a folding table set up near the bathroom door with a blanket on the top so the cards couldn’t slip away. This Saturday, the first since the cousins’ arrival, Papa invited Natalya and Lena to sit up with them and play.

‘I’m sure your father has taught you this one,’ Papa said, carefully removing the low cards from the deck.

Lena, at mention of her father, went mirror-eyed with sadness.

Natalya shrugged. ‘He didn’t teach us anything, Uncle Ivan.’

Papa frowned and dealt the cards. ‘Is that so? We always played it as children. I’m surprised he didn’t pass it on.’

He began to explain the rules. Lena looked blank and Natalya’s brow furrowed with concentration. Sofi picked up her cards and looked at them: a mediocre hand; she began to strategise.

‘So, Lena,’ Papa said, ‘you go first.’

Lena stared at her hand, then ventured to put out an ace in the trump suit.

‘Not that one, silly,’ Sofi said.

Lena’s hand collapsed, her lip began to quiver. Papa pulled her into his lap and kissed the top of her head. ‘I think this one is too little to play,’ he said. ‘Here, Lena, you can share my hand.’

Natalya went next, with a six of diamonds. Sofi defended with an eight of diamonds. Natalya played a seven of hearts. Sofi defended with a six of spades.

‘That’s lower,’ Natalya protested.

‘It’s a trump,’ Sofi explained.

‘What does that mean?’

A brief argument ensued. Natalya was concerned that everyone had seen her cards now and the game was no longer fair. Papa shuffled and dealt again. This game proceeded more smoothly. Sofi was the first one to hand in all her cards. Natalya looked as though she would be the last, the Fool, but then Mama played the wrong card.

‘Oh, is that the trump suit? How silly! I really do deserve to be the Fool,’ she said, as Natalya played a ten of hearts and Mama had nothing left to defend with.

Sofi knew Mama had lost the game on purpose so that Natalya wouldn’t. The irritation itched in her stomach. Her parents had never, not once, played badly to let her win. Papa always insisted she had to think things through, pay attention; he had even encouraged her to count the cards in her head to deduce what might be left. If she lost, she lost. She was the Fool. And here was Mama making a mistake as silly as the one Lena had made.

On the next hand, Papa leaned over Natalya and showed her which cards to play. Natalya struggled and struggled with the rules, remembering sometimes and forgetting others. After four hands, Papa suggested it was time to pack up.

‘But we usually play until eight o’clock!’ Sofi protested.

Natalya had already shot away from the table, and Lena was gratefully climbing down from Papa’s lap.

‘Hush, my child,’ Mama said softly, stroking her hair. ‘Things are a little different at the moment, that’s all. You must understand.’

An urge to cry overwhelmed her. Her cousins had only been here a week and everything was different. She had to share her room, her toys and her parents. And now games night was ruined. ‘I don’t want to understand,’ Sofi said. ‘I just want to play cards.’

Mama glanced at Natalya and Lena on the sofa, heads bent together, giggling, then back at Sofi. She crooked a finger and beckoned Sofi to come with her to the bathroom, where they would be out of earshot. She sat on the edge of the bath and held Sofi between her knees.

Her voice echoed softly. ‘Lena and Natalya have no mother. Their father is far away. They have lived in a dozen different homes. We must be kind to them.’

‘But what about me? What about games night?’

‘Perhaps we’ll do it again sometime. Or you and I can play quietly together. But it’s not right to make your cousins feel lost and foolish. Their lives are already so uncertain.’ Mama grasped Sofi’s wrists softly, pulled her hands to her lips and kissed her knuckles. ‘I still love you as much as I always have.’

Sofi felt a tear pop out and roll down her cheek.

‘Papa does too,’ Mama said.

Sofi nodded.

Mama stood, pulling her close. Sofi buried her face in the hollow between her mother’s breasts, breathed the warm scent of her. She tried to understand, and promised to be kinder in her thoughts towards her cousins.

•

That summer was particularly humid. Lena found the nights unbearable. With the window to the bedroom closed, she would perspire until her sheets were wringing wet. But to open the window was to let in the mosquitoes and midges that bred in the swamps around the city. She knew she shouldn’t scratch the bites, but she couldn’t help herself, knocking the tops off them until they bled. Then Aunt Stasya would order the window be closed and the sweat would sting the wounds, and Natalya would roll her eyes and call her a baby for scratching.

Apart from that, she liked staying in Leningrad. Aunt Stasya was kind, and Uncle Ivan – who looked a lot like Papa – was a reassuring presence. Sofi made up the best games, and Natalya didn’t pick on her so much when there were three of them. Every Thursday afternoon, Aunt Stasya worked late at her job in the bakery. Uncle Ivan took the three girls walking and she came to know the wide avenues of Leningrad, its overgrown gardens, its vast grey public squares decorated with bright red splashes of Soviet banners and posters, and its sour-smelling canals. She admired with awe the gleaming cupola of St Isaac’s Cathedral and the many statues of Soviet heroes, especially one of Lenin with his resolute face and swirling coat. Uncle Ivan bought them ice-creams in square cones to eat outside on the street while he went into a bar and had a drink or two with friends. Then they would make their way back in the endless afternoon, to eat huge bowls of fresh pelmeni that their elderly neighbour, Irina Petrovna, had cooked in the communal kitchen while they were away.

But Lena did not forget that Papa would be back soon, and secretly counted down every day on the calendar hung on the back of the bathroom door. Papa had said he would be home in time for her birthday, August the nineteenth, and she marked off the days with her eyes, anticipation tight in her chest.

When Aunt Stasya tucked her in the night before her birthday, Lena was almost too excited to sleep.

‘Your birthday tomorrow, little one,’ Aunt Stasya said, smoothing her hair away from her forehead. ‘Six years old. Such a big girl.’

Lena loved Aunt Stasya’s hair, which was fair and thick and always bundled up in a knot at the back of her neck. She reached for it impulsively, loosening a strand to twine between her fingers.

‘I’m looking forward to Papa coming home,’ she said.

Aunt Stasya smiled, but it wasn’t her usual easy smile. The first tingle of alarm touched Lena’s heart. ‘I’m sure it will be a lovely day,’ her aunt said, climbing to her feet.

Lena watched her go to Natalya’s mattress, then to Sofi’s bed; she always lingered the longest there, stopping to sing a lullaby with a haunting tune: ‘Bayushki bayu’. The dim room, the faraway sounds of cars beyond the windows, Aunt Stasya’s melancholy voice – all of it impressed itself deeply upon her, and she longed for Papa’s warm arms and gruff voice. She felt dislocated, a long way from home, and, remembering Aunt Stasya’s strained smile, began to worry that Papa wouldn’t come for her.

She tried to reassure herself. He had made a promise, he wouldn’t let her down. But then she remembered all the times he had let her down. She had never noticed before: she was small, he was Papa. Perhaps she was old enough now to see him as fallible; all of the little disappointments he had wrought returned to mind. Selling her bicycle to pay a debt, the countless times he had been late to pick her up from the babysitter, the hurried goodbyes at another relative’s house for another long separation.

Since they had been staying with Aunt Stasya and Uncle Ivan, Papa had not been in contact. It was true that she could barely read a letter, and that there was no telephone. But usually he sent a cheerful card with a few words on the back, renewing promises to arrive on a certain date and to bring presents (which were always lost in transit).

As Aunt Stasya left the room and shut the door, pulling all the light out with her, Lena wondered for the first time, with a desolate hollowness, whether Papa would be back at all.

•

The sun was weak outside the curtains, but it was definitely morning. Lena stretched her mind back as far as she could, but she couldn’t remember turning five. Today, she was six, a terribly big number that made her feel tall, and a little frightened. She tried to guess what time Papa would arrive, and if she would seem noticeably bigger to him. Over breakfast, she imagined what he might say. ‘Lena, you’re as long as I can remember,’ was always one of his favourite complaints if she had her legs stretched out across the sofa or under the table. Perhaps he would say that. Imagining it made her feel safe: if she could hear it in her mind so clearly, then it would probably happen. He would come, he would say it, all would be well. In no time they would be packing their suitcases and heading home – wherever that would be – with Papa.

Uncle Ivan and Aunt Stasya went to work, but the girls were home for the school holidays. Irina Petrovna from next door came over to watch them. She brought Lena a gift, a packet of coloured pens and a little notebook with stiff white pages. Lena thanked her, kissed her cheek (avoiding the stubbly mole near her ear), and returned to the window. She had pulled up a seat and now knelt on it, watching for Papa.

After lunch, Sofi tried to encourage her to come down and play.

‘No, thank you,’ Lena said, eyes not leaving the road. If she kept watching, he would come. If she looked away, even for a moment, her lack of faith might somehow make him dissolve, disappear.

By four o’clock, Natalya had grown impatient with her. ‘Will you get down from there?’ she said, pulling Lena’s hair hard.

‘No. Then I won’t see Papa.’

Natalya stormed off, and Lena knew it was because Natalya was frightened Papa wouldn’t come.

Aunt Stasya came home with a pie from the bakery with Lena’s name and age carved into the crust. Uncle Ivan brought with him a present, a tambourine wrapped in lilac paper as pale as the summer evening outside. Reluctantly, she was coaxed away from the window to eat under the dusty hanging light in the communal kitchen. But after dinner, she returned to her position. By now, the twitch under her skin had become acute.

He would come. Wouldn’t he?

She knew that Aunt Stasya and Uncle Ivan were murmuring about her behind her back. She knew that Natalya was hiding in the bedroom, that Sofi was making a show of reading a book while she secretly stole pitying glances at Lena. But Lena kept believing. If she couldn’t believe in Papa, then what could she believe in?

The evening light went on forever. Finally, Aunt Stasya approached her. ‘Lena,’ she said.

Lena turned, had trouble keeping her mouth right side up.

‘It’s time for bed.’

‘I would like to wait up, just a little longer, and see Papa when he comes.’

Aunt Stasya looked at Uncle Ivan, who stood and moved towards Lena, an expression of sadness on his brow. Then he stopped in the space between them and squared off his shoulders. ‘Lena,’ he said in a very stern voice, ‘your aunt has given you instruction. Do as you’re told and go to bed at once.’

All the sadness in the world welled up inside her. Shuddering sobs in her chest. Tears spilling over and running down her cheeks. She cried like a baby. Aunt Stasya put warm arms around her, tried to shush her. Uncle Ivan grabbed his key from the hook by the door and left the apartment. She couldn’t imagine how she had made him so angry. Lena pressed her hot face into her aunt’s soft cotton shirt and called her papa silently, over and over. Knowing he would never hear her.

Chapter Two

Seven weeks after Papa had gone missing – Natalya liked to think of him as being missing rather than having simply run away – the first of the cold winds of autumn began the business of stripping bare the lime trees along their street. The small round leaves gathered in the courtyard of the apartment building, rotting in the moulded corners. The girls were playing outside, having been thrown out of the apartment for being rowdy.

Lena heard a car engine and climbed on top of the courtyard’s brick wall to see who it was. Natalya knew that Lena thought it was Papa; that every car, every footstep, every letter collected in the mailbox raised her hopes anew. Natalya could not bear her sister’s hope and disappointment. Unlike Lena, she knew that Papa was not a good man, or an important one. He had gone to Vladivostock to work the fisheries; he had probably liked being shed of his paternal responsibility, and now he wasn’t coming back. Papa was gone, it was easier to accept that. Natalya didn’t like to feel unhappy, so she didn’t think about it, and grew increasingly irritated with Lena for wanting to talk about it constantly.

Sofi sat on the bench – carefully avoiding the loose bolt that poked up through the wood – creating a necklace fit for a princess. Because that was what Natalya was in this game: an American princess, who lived in a palace and starred in movies about her life. Natalya put the finishing touches to her castle, which consisted of old sheets tied to the back of the gate and secured on the legs of the bench. Sofi held up her creation and Natalya gasped with pleasure.

‘It’s beautiful!’ she said, eager fingers reaching for it. It was made of wool and plastic beads, but it was deliciously perfect for a princess: an intricate interweaving of strands, knotted and beaded in gradated colours.

‘Let me put it on you,’ Sofi said, standing up to fasten it around Natalya’s neck. Natalya held her long hair out of the way while Sofi’s clever fingers did their work.

‘Look, Lena,’ Natalya called.

Lena climbed down from the wall and joined them. ‘It’s pretty, Sofi. Can I have one too?’

‘I only have odd-coloured beads left,’ Sofi replied. ‘Maybe Natalya will let you wear it later.’

‘Only if we play American princesses all afternoon, and I get to be the princess and you are the servants.’

Lena bristled. ‘I don’t want to be a servant.’

‘It’s only a game,’ Sofi said, giving Lena a good-natured shove. ‘Come on.’

They fell into play, inside and outside the castle. The afternoon shadows grew long too quickly now, and the pressure of time’s passing made their game frantic, stupid, giggly. Natalya could hear her own voice grow raucous as she shouted imperious commands at her two servants. Eventually, a window opened in the building above them and a red-faced man called out for them to be quiet.

After he’d shut his window, Sofi turned to Natalya soberly. ‘Let’s not annoy him. He’s an official with the district Party committee.’

But it was almost impossible for Natalya to be quiet when she was a princess. Ten minutes later the red-faced man appeared at the gate to the courtyard. As he pushed it open, the castle collapsed and Natalya suddenly found her own sobriety. Her face was hot.

The red-faced man stood in front of them, his hairy forearms folded across his belly. Natalya smiled at him brilliantly; her secret weapon. Most people softened towards her as soon as she smiled, but not this man.

‘I have been listening to you girls,’ he said, scowling, ‘and I am ashamed of what I have heard. America? Princesses? Do you not know that princesses grow fat on the blood of workers? You are not princesses, and girls who are not princesses do not survive long in the capitalist paradise they dream of. They are bought and sold by wicked men. Shame on you, all of you. I will let the building superintendent know that you’ve violated house rules by disturbing your neighbours. Pack up this silly game and go home.’

Lena burst into tears, and Sofi quickly untied the sheets and folded them. But Natalya was frozen with anger. How dare he ruin their game?

‘Come on, Natalya,’ Sofi said.

Lena pulled her hand. ‘Natalya? Can I wear the necklace now?’

The red-faced man was still watching them. ‘Not now, Lena,’ Natalya muttered, taking the sheets from Sofi and bundling them under her arm. ‘Aunt Stasya needs help with dinner. We should go.’

As she entered the dim staircase, though, her imagination returned to the fantasy of never having to help with dinner or set a table, of necklaces made of gems rather than beads, and palaces that Party officials could never tear down.

•

That night, while she was supposed to be drying the dishes, Natalya faked a tummy-ache and went to the bedroom alone. Under her mattress, pressed flat and cool, was her special scrapbook. She turned the stiff, crackling pages lovingly. One of Papa’s friends had once given her a stack of foreign magazines and she had cut the pictures out of them – models and movie stars – glued them neatly in the book and decorated them with coloured borders or carefully drawn ribbons. As she couldn’t read English letters, she had no idea who the people were. But she was in love with them all, the women as much as the men: their glossiness, their addictive beauty. Lena was always trying to get the book off her, but to Natalya it was sacred.

She went through it now with an ache of longing in her chest. What the red-faced man had told them wasn’t news to her. They learned at school all about princesses and palaces and the evils of the decadent west. Two weeks ago, Uncle Ivan had taken them to an art gallery that had once been a palace; now it had been restored into the hands of the people. But she had been awestruck by its size and its opulence and, even though she was fearful that somebody could read her thoughts, had imagined herself living there. Why couldn’t she be a princess, or at least a very rich and beautiful and famous lady? She had seen the old, bent woman with the birch broom who swept the gutters on their street and knew that she definitely didn’t want that for her future. Was it so wrong to want pretty things, a nice life?

Sighing, Natalya closed her book and slid it back under her mattress. She felt guilty about not drying the dishes and about Aunt Stasya’s concerned face. She supposed she should go back and help, but for now she just wanted to lie here and imagine the biggest, brightest life she could for herself. Surely that was more important than housework.

•

After seven months at Sofi’s school, Natalya was dropped back a grade. One December afternoon, as early dusk crowded the windows, Sofi looked up to see her cousin standing uncertainly in the door to the classroom. Natalya was seized by the teacher and plonked next to Sofi, who was then charged with the responsibility of ‘helping your cousin to learn’. Sofi was partly pitying of her cousin and partly irritated. Natalya never spent a second on homework, excusing herself by saying she wouldn’t ne