Even if Valera had wanted to tell them, she couldn’t. She was completely lost in what was happening in her head. When the figures shouted at her, she shouted back, her voice cracking. And when they wrapped her in blankets and gently whispered their constant demand in soft voices, all she could do was mumble ‘Mama’ or ‘Ledjo’ before breaking down in desperate tears and falling back into the endless rhythm of memory and fantasy.

She didn’t know when, but at some point the voices in the room changed. They stopped speaking as one and began fighting over each other to be heard. They came at her from every angle, getting louder and louder until the cacophony became too much and her mind took her back to Mikhailovsky Garden.

This time the trees were bare, the domes of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood were dull and cracked, and Valera was very heavily pregnant. She stood in the middle of the park, cradling her swollen belly. It didn’t occur to her that this was wrong, that she didn’t become pregnant with Ledjo until long after the siege. Her only thought was to protect her unborn child. She started walking east towards Saint Michael’s Castle, and almost made it to the trees before the bombs started to fall.

Then she was in Povenets B again. The explosion at the power plant, the shattering glass, the feeling of hot dust on her skin. But instead of just being confronted with rubble or Ledjo’s broken body, she saw a man standing in the ruins of the school, untouched by the destruction around him and reaching out to her. She’d never seen the man before, but she also had, in other, more peaceful fantasies. It was Ledjo, all grown up. She tried to run to him, pushing her legs harder and harder as she screamed his name. But no matter how fast she ran, she could never reach him.

And then, the dark room once more. She wanted to go back to Povenets B, back to Ledjo. She kept screaming. Her screams became a whimper, then a whisper, then silence. The masked figures were still there, surrounding her. But as she let her head fall and her body go limp against her restraints, the voices didn’t start shouting at her. They shouted at each other. Voices fought for dominance, shifting from Russian to English and back again, until only two remained, battling it out.

Then a piercing crack ricocheted around the room and there was just one voice left, telling Valera everything was going to be okay. Now she fought with what little energy she had left to stay in the room and not fall back into more twisted memories. She felt the restraints on her wrists loosen, her body being lifted out of the chair, and a prick in her arm. She started to slip away again, not into a dream but into oblivion.

Chapter 44