The People in the Photo (5 page)

Rovaniemi, 14 October (email)

Dearest Hélène,

Forgive me for not writing sooner, the days are flying by (or rather the nights, I should say), and my trip has turned out to be rather demanding.

I was enthralled by the description of your visit to Saint-Serge. I think I understand how churned up you must be feeling and to some extent I share your emotion, at least partially. The more I’ve thought about these events, the fonder I’ve become of these two people about whom you and I knew so little. And like you I am on the hunt for the slightest scrap of information. Your encounter with this Madame Vassilyeva was a real stroke of luck: a place, a date, photos, new clues. And there is so much more for us to find out!

One thing intrigues me: where did you learn to speak Russian?

Here, everything is going very well. The students are delightful, keen, and my colleagues are very kind, although Finnish hospitality is somewhat reserved. The university has lent me an apartment not far from the campus, in the middle of the countryside, or almost,
and I’m enjoying not having to be involved in the admin side of things. That said, I’ll be glad to be home and eat real marmalade, and pick up my post.

Send my love to Bourbaki. And kisses to you.

Stéphane

Paris, 16 October 2007 (email)

Dear Stéphane of the Arctic,

Bourbaki says thank you and sends his love back. In fact, I had to lift him off the keyboard to write this.

Glad to hear all’s going well. I envy you being up there in the remote northern reaches. Is there snow already?

In answer to your question, I learned a smattering of Russian at INALCO, the Oriental studies institute in Paris, where I took lessons for five years. I would describe my level as pretty elementary; I could never get my head around the verbs. But let’s just say I know enough to tell the difference between a hamburger and caviar on a restaurant menu.

I have always felt drawn to the language, and I’m beginning to understand why. While I was learning Russian, certain words would strike me as strangely familiar, particularly strings of words like the names of the numbers, colours and days of the week. Weird associations too: the adjective
goluboy
always reminds me of a certain fabric, with beads and gold thread. The first time I heard the word
kotyonok
, a jumble of
images came back to me: a bedcover, a fur throw. The same topsy-turvy sensation I once felt breathing in the perfume worn by the woman at the next table in a café in Aix-en-Provence, a scent I was sure I had inhaled as a small child. In other words, Proust’s ‘madeleine effect’.

One of my teachers once asked me if I had spoken Russian in the past or heard it spoken around me, and raised an eyebrow when I assured him I hadn’t. It was one of those passing comments you put to the back of your mind without a second thought – until the day you realise what it meant.

If my mother was Russian, as her name suggests, she must of course have taught me these words when I was little, though I’ve since forgotten them.

She must have held me in her arms, sung to me, taught me to count,
odin, dva, tri, chetyre
, and I’ve forgotten all about it.

When are you coming home?

Love,

Hélène

Rovaniemi, 20 October 2007 (postcard)

Dear Hélène,

Fond wishes from Scandinavia. You who love the north, and the cold, you’d be like a duck in (frozen) water here.

All my love,

Stéphane

Paris, 23 October (email)

Dear Stéphane,

I don’t know where this message will find you, but I wanted to let you know that Sylvia died last night. I’ll write as soon as I can.

Hélène

Rovaniemi, 23 October (email)

Dearest Hélène,

I am so sorry. Words are useless in these situations, but I can imagine your grief, and I share your sorrow. Is there anything I can do for you at this distance? If nothing else, let me reassure you that you are constantly in my thoughts, even though we are far apart.

A big hug,

Stéphane

Paris, 26 October (email)

Dear Stéphane,

Thank you for phoning and please don’t worry about calling so late. You did the right thing. It was so comforting to hear your voice. I had known for a while that Sylvia was going to die and in a way she had already left us, but it still came as a terrible shock. As I said, those final moments were … difficult.

After all, she was my mother, even if she didn’t give birth to me.

I’ll be in touch soon.

Love,

Hélène

Paris, 16 November 2007

Dear Stéphane,

I hope you’ll forgive the long silence. Things have been pretty hectic following Sylvia’s death and I still haven’t finished dealing with all the formalities. At least it has kept me busy. I went back to work last week, which has also helped take my mind off things. As I said last time we spoke on the phone, no matter how much you’re expecting it, it still comes as a shock. In the words of that song by Barbara, I feel like a (nearly) forty-
year-old
orphan.

Thankfully, at the very end, Sylvia was no longer aware of what was happening to her. She was cremated according to her wishes in a non-religious ceremony, and her ashes have been laid to rest beside my father’s. Her brother came to the cremation, along with her surviving friends and a good turnout of former colleagues. It was a beautiful day; the sun shone on her final journey.

I’ve given up on our search for the time being; I don’t feel up to it. I can only grieve for one person at a time. For now, all I want is to reflect on the woman who has
just left us and who was no ghost, even if she did hide a great deal from me.

Please don’t hold it against me.

I hope all’s well with you and that you’re happy to be back in England.

Love,

Hélène

Ashford, 21 November 2007

Dearest Hélène,

Thank you for taking the time to write. I was anxious to hear from you, although I realise that you must need time to yourself to adjust. I well remember that feeling from when my father died last year. That initial shock of being alone from now on, the panic of the survivor who knows that it will be their turn next in the natural order of things. And for you, having no siblings, it is probably even harder.

With time, that feeling has faded, it’s become less … violent. It will be the same for you, I think. It is the transition that seems to drag on.

And of course I don’t hold it against you. Why would I? Sylvia was there for you during most of your childhood and then your adult years. I think that putting your grief for her before mourning the death of a young woman in a fifty-year-old photo is a very healthy reaction. The living first, shadows second. You told me that when you left Vera’s house you were haunted by the feeling that your life had been a lie, a fabrication. Whatever you were told or not told, every
one of your letters seems to confirm one thing beyond all doubt: your parents loved you. And on that point, lying is not possible. You can’t deceive a child over the quality of your love for them for thirty-nine years.

I know that this probably isn’t the time for an invitation, but if you feel that a few days away from Paris would help you to get through this difficult period, my house is open to you.

Affectionately,

Stéphane

Paris, 27 November 2007

Dear Stéphane,

I really appreciate your thoughtful offer, but it’s still a bit soon for me; I don’t think I’d be very good company. For the time being, work is helping me cope (which is lucky, since I’ve got mountains of it). But if you can hold the invitation open a little while, I can think of nothing I’d like better than to pay you a visit. I’m curious to see where you live, along with your garden filled with weird trees.

You’re right, my parents did love me. I sometimes had doubts about my father, who could be quite tetchy and distant, but they passed. He was an army man who wasn’t very demonstrative either verbally or physically. Even at the end of his life when he was very ill, I found it difficult to touch him. Sylvia told me that when I was little, I sometimes addressed him as ‘vous’ instead of ‘tu’, I was so in awe of him. Occasionally he would fly into a violent rage (like the time he snatched my Red Army Choir record, which I used to play on a loop in my bedroom as a teenager, and snapped it in two), and I’m beginning to understand why. With hindsight, I
think he was a man who had suffered a lot but didn’t want to show it.

Thank you for the photo. Two of the albums you left with me are full of pictures taken in Brittany, and I browse through them often: your father managed to capture the light, the rugged character, the mineral beauty of the place. He must have had a real fondness for the region. I can tell you what’s in the picture: it’s the Grand Hôtel des Thermes in Saint-Malo – an iconic building, right on the waterfront. Every now and then I head up there for a couple of days’ break from the noise and chaos of Paris. There is indeed something eternal about the place.

Love,

Hélène

Paris, 1 December (email)

Dear Stéphane,

I had a nightmare last night. You and Sylvia were deep in conversation, and she was telling you that my father had been away too often.

I haven’t slept properly for weeks; I keep turning things over in my mind. Especially something Sylvia said before she died, very clearly, in Russian, which meant something like, ‘the child has forgotten her birth’. She used a distinctive form,
zapamyatovala
, which is a variant of the verb ‘to forget’ and literally means ‘she has put it behind her memory’. I don’t know what she was trying to tell me, or which child she had in mind. Those were her last intelligible words.

I heard from her solicitor yesterday. He wants to meet me to read the will. Words like that bring her death home to me almost more brutally than the death itself. I miss Sylvia. But then I’d been missing her for years.

Winter has taken hold of Paris: it’s snowing, and the overground section of the métro was completely white this morning. I like this cotton-wool coating, this watery velvet: it slows the city down, makes it more
human. Normally I run out and take pictures, but this time I’m just standing looking at it.

I’m sorry this letter is rather gloomy. I wish I had more cheerful news. It will come soon, I hope. I think of you often.

Hélène

Ashford, 2 December (email)

Dear Hélène,

I often think of you too, and feel a little concerned right now. Are you sure you don’t want to come and visit me in Ashford? Bourbaki is invited too, if his vaccinations are up to date; he can act as chaperone.

There’s another option, which may sound a little casual when you are in mourning, but here goes: would you like to join me for Christmas and New Year in Geneva? I normally go for ten days and spend Christmas with Philippe and his partner Marie. They’d be delighted to have us to stay, and you can be sure they’ll welcome you without making assumptions.

It would also be an opportunity to show you the entire collection of photographs, which I wasn’t able to do in August, and for you to have a change of scene, if you like winter walks. I know how emotionally difficult the first Christmas without one’s parents can be, and perhaps a short break in a new place would be a way of cushioning your grief.

But you probably have hundreds of friends who have already invited you to spend the holidays with them.

I came across something rather strange in the album, but I feel uncomfortable bothering you with that at present. Let me know when you feel like talking about it again.

A big hug,

Stéphane

Paris, 4 December (email)

Dear Stéphane,

I would have taken up your invitation without making assumptions, as you put it:-) The prospect of a winter break in Switzerland and going for walks in the snow would have helped lift my spirits. But I’m afraid I’ve already agreed to go to Germany for the holidays, and I can’t really get out of it. Thank you for thinking of me, though – I’m really touched. Will you be coming via Paris, like last time?

In the meantime, please do tell me what it was that piqued your curiosity. Now it’s me who’s curious.

Love,

Hélène

Ashford, 6 December 2007

Dear Hélène,

What a pity you won’t be able to join us! I would have loved to take you on some mini hikes to show you ‘our’ winter. Unfortunately, I’m flying to Geneva this time, as the Shuttle was fully booked. Much to my chagrin, I won’t be stopping off in Paris.

The thing that intrigued me – to put it mildly – was to discover the ‘twin’ of the photo that Vera Vassilyeva gave you. I found it in the album that my father made in Brittany in 1968. It is almost the identical image, taken within a few minutes, or even a few seconds of the other one. I can’t understand how it ended up there. But there is something alarming about the coincidence that made these two photos surface at almost the same time, when they had been lying forgotten for forty years in two different places, so far from each other.

All my love, and I hope to see you very soon.

Stéphane

Paris, 14 December 2007

Dear Stéphane,

How odd. I can’t think of an explanation for it either, and shan’t try to find one for the time being. If something occurs to me, I’ll let you know.

At least twenty centimetres of snow has fallen here, making Paris unusually silent; all you can hear is the muffled sound of cars crawling past and the scraping of street cleaners’ shovels clearing the pavements. The overground part of the métro is totally white. I went for a walk in the Buttes-Chaumont yesterday morning, wearing my wellies and wrapped up like an Eskimo, and I took some pictures for you. I love winter; over the years it has become my favourite season. This winter, which has blanketed my sadness, has me completely spellbound.

I need to snap out of it though, because the disruption of the last few weeks has thrown the catalogue way off schedule.

I keep putting off going to see Sylvia’s solicitor. I still haven’t phoned him back.

To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to
visiting my friends in Germany either. I would have liked to come to Geneva, and I’m more eager than ever to look at the rest of the photo collection. From the little I’ve seen of your father’s work, it seems to me that you and your brother might consider exhibiting it – it really is that good. I could help you find a venue in Paris, if you like.

You’ll be gearing up to leave by the time this letter arrives. So I’ll take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful trip to Geneva, a merry Christmas and a very happy New Year.

Love,

Hélène

1 January, 00:04 (text message)

Wishing you a very happy New Year! And all good things, as we say here. 2008 kisses. Stéphane.

1 January, 01:17 (text message)

A very happy New Year to you too from Göttingen! Love, Hélène xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (and so on to infinity!)