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  "Of course. But please, there is no problem if you need to finish. I can wait."

  "I'm finished." She turned back to her screen, saved her mail as a draft, and began to log out.

  "How much is this café?" he asked. "How much to use the Internet?"

  "Yes."

  "It's four pounds for the first hour and then one pound for every half-hour after that."

  "It's expensive."

  "Yes."

  "People must be millionaires in London."

  "I know." The computer dropped offline. She swiveled in her chair and stood up. Now she noticed his coat and his backpack on the floor behind him.

  He said, "How much is the subway to here?"

  "The tube? It depends where you are traveling from."

  "Harrow Road."

  "There's no station there—you have to use Warwick Avenue, or Westbourne Grove is better. Three quid, something like that. Too much." They stood in line to pay. "How did you get here?"

  "I walked."

  She had forgotten how seriously poor the vast majority of Russians were. Even those on student visas were way below Western student poor. But the real Russians, the sixty-dollars-a-month Russians, simply couldn't survive a single day in London without immediate work. And thereafter they continued to be staggered by how much Londoners casually spent and the stuff they chose to spend it on. Isabella retuned her sensitivity. She realized too that she had suddenly developed butterflies. Too many reasons to be anxious, perhaps.

  It was becoming colder—the sleet thickening, the ragged wind snatching at the door. She had not been to the Petrel for five, maybe six years, since before she moved to New York. As she remembered, the pub used to have a full-sized old-fashioned pool table and regulars talking football and what-happened-to-Frank. It had been an unpretentious, unpremeditated pub: dog, London Pride, and piano. So she was surprised, and then not surprised, as she went in, to see that it had used the intervening years to convert itself into a faux-authentic, faux-gourmet place. She realized she was torturing herself again. Or maybe it was simply because she was seeing the place through his eyes. She turned. He was standing just inside the door, tall in his coat, carrying his backpack in front of him a little awkwardly, taking the measure of the place. She felt a prickle of shame, shame that she had bought him here; and embarrassment too, that he might think she liked this sort of phoniness. As ever, she overcompensated and went back toward him too quickly, eager to cut down the distance between them.

  "Christ, it's busy," she said. "They've changed everything since I was here last. Do you want to stick that over there? We can grab that little table by the window." It occurred to her that he must be about her own age. "I'll get them. What do you want to drink?"

  He didn't smile or soften. "Just water."

  She absorbed her first real impression of his personality—cold, distant, unyielding. She nearly asked him still or sparkling, but checked herself in time.

  "Water—are you sure? Not a glass of wine or something?"

  "Or tea. Tea. If there is tea here."

  "There will be ... I'll ask."

  She set off to the bar determined to procure tea, telling herself to relax. She could feel curiosity writhing in her blood alongside the overexcitement. (How did this man know her mother? What when how why who?) What was the matter with her? She told herself to calm down. Half of her childhood friends had been Russian. Even now there were twenty people she would love to see the next time she was there ... An awful thought occurred to her as she eased her way past a group of men arguing about ski resorts: maybe now that her mother was dead, she wouldn't be going back to St. Petersburg anymore; maybe there was no reason to; maybe now that her mother was dead, her connection with Russia itself was dead, severed. She had not considered this until now. She pushed forward and reached the counter. Tea. She wondered whether he was a teetotaler or merely too proud to ask for a drink when he knew he could not buy her one in return. Tea—tea would do it. How did this man know her mother? What when how why who? Something that mattered. Something that counted. In all of this.

  "So how long are you in London?"

  "I do not know. It depends."

  "Are you working here?"

  "No."

  "Is this your first visit?" She knew already that it was.

  "Yes," he said. "Do you have your brother's new address? I must write it down."

  "Yes, of course."

  He pulled a small exercise book from his jacket pocket. She told him the number on Grafton Terrace and watched him write it down in English. She was used to this curtness. Not with the boys in the trendy Petersburg bars, but with the men she had met with Yana in the crumbling table-football-one-beer-and-one-vodka bars away from the center, away from the tourists. Their definitiveness wasn't rudeness; rather, they simply didn't do small talk. There was talent, there was beauty, and there was power; either you had one of the three or you talked about one of the three or, by and large, you shut up.

  She tried another line. "Where are you staying?"

  He replaced his book. "I was staying at this place near Harrow Road."

  "And where now?"

  "It was full of scum."

  She registered this but did not know where to take it, so she said, "Your English is way better than my Russian." She intended genuinely to compliment him, but it sounded patronizing.

  He didn't notice, or he didn't care. "I have a very good teacher. An Englishman. I have his letter."

  The waitress arrived with the tea and they broke off. She had ordered some bread and olives because she felt awkward ordering nothing but tea. Now she felt awkward that she had ordered something besides the tea. The carefully careless patterns of the balsamic vinegar in the olive oil were somehow ingratiating, insulting, inappropriate. Then she noticed that the waitress caught Arkady's eye as she set the pot down. And that he met it steadily, without looking away. It was a shock to see the waitress blush.

  Too hastily, she asked, "Whereabouts do you live—in Petersburg?"

  "Yes." He misunderstood.

  The waitress left.

  "I meant where in the city—which part?"

  "I live on Vasilevsky."

  She waited for the usual "Do you know St. Petersburg, have you been there a lot?" But it didn't come. "And do you work there?"

  "I have worked. But now I am a student."

  "At the university?"

  "No."

  "Oh."

  He looked at her directly. "At the conservatory."

  Finally he was volunteering something.

  "Oh, yes, you said. Of course. You are a musician. You're studying music?"

  "Yes." And then he added, "All my life."

  Simply, fatuously, disarmed by his avowal, she said, "I love music."

  "Do you play an instrument?" he asked.

  "I used to play the violin. But only as an amateur."

  "Can you play ... can you play a Mozart violin sonata?"

  Straight to it again. "No. Yes—I used to. But I am really bad."

  "If you play a Mozart violin sonata, you are not so bad."

  "I haven't played for years."

  His face almost softened. "There is no bad. We are all students. We find the pulse. We make the first note. We start the journey."

  She could feel the thawing that the subject had brought them. And maybe it was the tea, but her tiredness finally left her and with it the troubles of this most awful day. The rest of the pub faded away and her naturalness returned and she was concentrating again, meeting his eyes with her own.

  This time it was Isabella who came straight to it. "How did you know my mother?"

  "I met her."

  "You met her."

  He sat forward. His voice dropped. "Yes. We met. A woman introduced us."

  "Who—I mean, what was her name? Was she one of my mother's friends?"

  "I don't remember her name. Zoya, I think. She was a detective."

  "A detective?"

  "Yes."
>
  "Why? I mean—why did a detective introduce you?" She searched his impassive face. "Was my mother in some kind of trouble? Was my mother involved in something?"

  "I don't know. Your mother—she hired a detective to find me."

  "To find you?"

  "Yes."

  This time she was prepared to outwait him. She noticed his hands on his cup—big hands, nails pared right back. Even the cuffs of his sleeves were frayed.

  He set his mug down by their untouched milk. "Your mother—did she ever say anything to you about her family?"

  "What do you mean?"

  Now he waited for her.

  So she continued. "You mean, did my mother talk about her mother or her sisters? Her extended family? No, she didn't say much about them. Why? I never met them."

  "I do not mean this. No."

  "Do you know something about my mother's family?"

  "Did she ever say to you anything about her life before she left Russia?"

  "Yes. Sometimes she did."

  "About ... about having a son?"

  "No." And now it gripped her, shook her, plunged her—that strange and sudden emotional vertigo of physically knowing what someone was going to say without her mind's acknowledging that she knew.

  "Did my mother have a son?" She was leaning forward, her voice as quiet as snow.

  "Yes."

  "How do you know? I mean, do you know him? When did she tell you this? When was—"

  "I am her son."

  She could not speak. She could only stare. She believed him utterly. Her mother's eyes.

  A moment of absence. From all that had gone before and all that was to come.

  He spoke again. "I am her son. I am your mother's only son."

  And then the world, her contexts, everything rushing back into the edges of the vacuum. "No ... God, no. I mean, I ... What you are saying cannot be true, Arkady. My God. It's just that my mother ... it's just that I have..."She could not say "another brother." "It's just that my mother has another son—my brother, Gabriel. Of course you know that, you were there at his—"

  "No."

  "Yes."

  "No."

  "I don't understand."

  "Gabriel is not her blood son. And you, you are not her daughter." His face was as full of meaning as any she had ever seen. "She is your mother, of course. That is true. I do not change this. Nothing changes this. But she is not your mother from your birth. This is also true. I am her son by blood."

  She was shaking her head, but no words were coming out.

  "Here. I have a letter. You must read." He began to unstrap his pack.

  Everything around her seemed to warp and swarm—the last of the vacuum vanishing too quickly, the wide world's daily normality layering itself upon her senses at the speed of light. People eating and drinking on a regular Friday night. Kentish Town, London. Date. Time. Place. Life itself unfolding, happening, every second, all around. And yes, just like when she had learned of her mother's death: the strange inconsequentiality of the general moment when for the individual the moment's consequence is everything, her whole life. And this is how news comes. A before, when you don't know. An after, when you do. A moment's glimpse of real life naked between its disguises. And stupid stupid stupid to look for it on the tops of yogic mountains or on your knees in the church or mosque or temple or staring at the setting sun, feet in the sand. When here it is all around you—in every view, in every instant.

  He handed her the letter and said, "Maybe your father knows some of this."

  47 A Letter from the Dead

  Dear Mr. Gabriel Glover, Ms. Isabella Glover,

  If you are reading this letter, then my friend Arkady Alexandrovitch has given it to you. So I'm glad that he found you and I'm glad that he's made it this far. It's been quite a struggle! My name is Henry Wheyland. I live here in St. Petersburg. I am Arkady's flatmate.

  Before I go any further, I wish to convey my condolences. I lost my own mother some years ago, and I know that there is nothing anybody can say that makes the sorrow any less. You have my deepest sympathies.

  I hope I can persuade you to believe that what follows is the truth as far as we know! What you choose to do or not do is, of course, up to you. I know Arkady well enough to be sure that he is too proud to ask for or expect anything that you aren't willing to give. I'm pretty sure he won't even read this. He wanted to make contact—just to meet you. The rest is mine. Anything you find presumptuous or thoughtless, therefore, please blame me, not him.

  You'll also have to forgive the fact that we don't know how much of this you know! If you are already aware of everything that follows, then you might have decided that this is a part of your mother's life you want to have nothing to do with. In which case, I am genuinely sorry for having brought up what may well be painful. If, on the other hand, you are unaware, then all of this is going to be an awful lot to take in, and I'm sorry that it's through me this information arrives! My defense is that at least Arkady himself is there and will vouch for my best intentions.

  This, then, is what I know about Arkady. He was born here in Petersburg. He grew up in the Veteranov orphanage, where he excelled at the piano. In 1985 he was chosen to play for Gorbachev. He was supposed to go to the Petersburg Conservatory sometime around 1988 or '89, but when the country collapsed his scholarship went the same way. I think he waited for a few more years in the hope that he would still get his place. He then spent five more unsuccessfully trying to raise the money himself by playing in bars and so on.

  Sadly, Arkady met his mother, your mother, only once. And I'm afraid he reacted angrily to their meeting. She would have liked them to become friends but had no desire to force herself into his life. Instead she offered him any kind of help he wanted. He refused this. I don't think the meeting between them went well, to be honest. He has never talked to me about it beyond the barest outlines.

  I met your mother twice. (I knew her as Mrs. Maria Glover.) The first time, some days after she had found Arkady. And then again, a few weeks after he started his course at the conservatory, when she approached me to ask if it was possible to listen to her son play. On this second occasion I spent two or three hours with her at her flat on the Griboedova Canal. This was when she told me the story of her defection, her new family, as she called it—her marriage to your father and her adoption of both of you. I understood that she had lived in London for more or less all her life since leaving Russia and that she and your father had no other, natural children. This life, she said, became her whole life.

  So in fact it was my idea to ask your mother to pay for the course to get Arkady back on the right track with his music. It's a strange thing to understand at first, especially of an outsider like Arkady, but an integral part of Arkady's ambition is graduating from the conservatory. I didn't appreciate this for a while, but it's to do with his institutionalism. As a Soviet orphan, he has total devotion to the institution, which, I suppose, has always been his home, his surrogate parents, if you like. In some way, he doesn't feel real unless he has passed through the system fully, passed the exams and been sent out officially stamped into the world!

  Your mother kindly agreed and paid a sum before each term to the conservatory. (In my opinion, she rescued him.) I think the total was something like £8000 a term. He is now midway through his second year of three.

  As well as for his own reasons already mentioned, there is a real practical career need for Arkady to finish the course: the whole system here still favors those who come up through the conservatories. It's virtually a requirement. This is how a pianist is first booked on the concert circuit. This is the system. This is how they get entered for the big competitions. And so on.

  Personally, I'm not sure that he needs any more lessons, and I'd prefer to see him at the Moscow Conservatory anyway. But, well, after this term, which she also paid for in advance, there are three more terms to go. (Two a year here.) You would have thought there would be some provision for the likes of
him, but I'm afraid the conservatory is a pretty ruthless (and corrupt!) place and he's too old now, I think, to qualify for the few established scholarships.

  In short, Arkady is completely stymied without your mother's help. It's a sad and desperate situation.

  Money being what it is, the remaining fees represent a huge sum if you do not have any, and nothing at all if you have lots! I would have liked to pay toward his lessons myself, but, well, that is no longer possible...

  The fact is this: if you or the wider family can contribute, then you'll be giving the world a really great artist. And I always think we need them! And I'm afraid it does feel a bit now or never. Arkady has an all-or-nothing approach to his music (the Russian mentality!), and I have a real worry that if he does not finish the course, he will see it in some way as proof that he was never meant to do so, and consequently take another path out of something like spite. You will appreciate that because of his age, this is absolutely his last chance. There are already ten years' worth of talented young Russians elbowing him out of the way. But I honestly believe he's better than any of them. I am a great follower of music, and I say here without any shadow of a doubt that he is the best pianist I have ever heard. In any case, you can also be absolutely sure that your mother wanted him to finish the course.

  In one way, I am afraid corroboration for all this is a bit thin on the ground. Below is the number of Zoya Sviridova, the woman your mother hired to trace Arkady. She is an independent private detective and will, I am sure, confirm your mother's instructions and corroborate much of what your mother told me. On the piano side of things, Arkady is registered at the conservatory and of course there is no better proof than listening to him yourselves ... As for myself, if it makes any difference, I trained to be a Catholic priest at St. Steven's Seminary in Birkenhead, was then a teacher at St. David's College in Reading—by all means check the records! My e-mail is below, as well as my postal address. And of course I am happy to arrange to speak on the phone (we don't have one at the flat, I'm afraid, and I'm between mobiles!) or best of all in person if you are planning to come to Russia.