About the Author

INVENTED LIVES

Andrea Goldsmith originally trained as a speech pathologist, and was a pioneer in the development of communication aids for people unable to speak. Her first novel, Gracious Living, was published in 1989. This was followed by Modern Interiors, Facing the Music, Under the Knife, and The Prosperous Thief, which was short-listed for the 2003 Miles Franklin Literary Award. Reunion was published in 2009, and The Memory Trap was awarded the 2015 Melbourne Prize. Her literary essays have appeared in Meanjin, Australian Book Review, Best Australian Essays, and numerous anthologies. Her shorter articles and reviews are posted at www.andreagoldsmith.com.au. Andrea Goldsmith lives in Melbourne.

Title Page

Dedication

To the Porters:

Jean, Chester, Maudie and Josie

Epigraph

‘Exile itself has become an emblem, no matter whether it is experienced by someone in his own country, his own room, and in his own language, or outside and far removed from them. The moment we are all experiencing is convulsive. The theatre of the world is convulsive … no matter where we live. We are all exiles.’

Norman Manea, The Fifth Impossibility

‘I am like a pelican of the wilderness:
I am like an owl of the desert.’

Psalm 102

1 DEATH AND RECKLESS BEHAVIOUR IN LENINGRAD

1

DEATH AND RECKLESS BEHAVIOUR IN LENINGRAD

Galina Kogan completed the documents to record her mother’s death. She filled out forms to stop wages, cancel benefits, and nullify identity papers. She parted with a week’s pay for a coffin, and when told that transport from the state mortuary to the cemetery would be delayed several days, another fistful of notes solved the problem. A few more roubles here, a few more there, and her mother would be laid to rest the following week.

It was now official: Lidiya Yuryevna Kogan had died at 8.37, on the morning of Wednesday, 27th November, 1985.

Galina gathered up all the documents. The bag was bulging with her mother’s belongings, so she shoved the papers down a side pocket. She fixed her mother’s watch to her own wrist, surprised to see it was already four o’clock; this day of her mother’s death had passed without her noticing. She hefted the bag over her shoulder and hurried along the corridor to the stairs. She made a brief phone call in the hospital foyer to say she was on her way home, and finally emerged through the doors into the fresh air outside.