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Back The Double Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
  1. 1
  2. 2
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  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
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  17. 17
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  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
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  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
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  60. 60
  61. 61
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  63. Acknowledgements

His sweet tooth has only grown since coming to Paris, and he can’t seem to get enough of those glass pots of confiture. Strawberry, especially. Though perhaps he should hold back a bit. Act more like a lodger than a member of the family. But the woman they affectionately call ‘Anya’ has become a mother to him as well. Just last week she kissed him on the forehead as he came through the door, laden with vegetables from the market he’d offered to buy, and called him her fogadott fiú, adopted son.

What else but fate has brought him to this place that feels more like home than any he’s known? Though the affectionate and light-hearted atmosphere is punctured at times with a darkness difficult to fathom. Friends from the old country, sipping tea in the front room as they murmur of lucky escapes. Not just from the Soviets, he’s come to understand, but from an earlier, darker time before he was born. The time of the purges and the camps, of families vanishing in the night, never to be seen again.

He closes his book and steps into the kitchen, just as Katerina is heading out the door, and hastily retreats.

Rennie laughs. ‘Don’t be shy. Pull up a chair. You can help me peel the potatoes. Did you know that I’m a women’s libber?’ She cocks her eyebrow. ‘All men should learn how to cook.’

He drops into a chair and gets to work, flushed with an absurd joy at being a part of this family, even in the tiniest way. The son is a different story, scowling at the interloper in their midst, so he tries to stay out of his way.

The door flies open, and the family scion strolls in, his cheeks flushed from the spring sunshine, his hair tipped with gold.

His heart thumps. He knows it’s silly, but he has a strange schoolboy yearning for this beacon of light. Though the son treats the family lodger like dirt, everyone seems to worship him, trailing in his wake, as if hoping to be blessed by a moment’s regard.

The boy’s face darkens. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

He drops the knife. ‘Peeling potatoes.’

‘Foutre le camp! Get the hell away from my sister. She’s not some random chick you can mess around with.’

He stands and ducks as the boy takes a swing at him. Rennie rushes over and whacks her brother on the arm. ‘Are you crazy? Leave him alone.’

‘I will not. Can’t you see he’s trying to seduce you?’ The boy’s sneer turns ugly, his voice menacing. ‘I want you out of our flat.’

Sick at the thought of being tossed into the street like a mongrel dog, he wipes the boy’s spit from his face.

‘Today. If you’re not gone by suppertime, I’m calling the cops.’

43

Clinique Les Hirondelles
Saint-Odile, Switzerland
17 December 2008