The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [96]
Tragedy and fortune weren’t distributed evenly through the world, Stevie thought; so few things were, not even sunlight. But in this way, while it wasn’t possible to change the past, it was possible to change the way it shaped us. Sometimes it was other people who branded us for easy consumption. The subtle patchwork disappeared, and we became one single, adjectival being: ‘poor Fatima’, ‘a strong man’, ‘a dark past’, ‘a good woman’. Perhaps sometimes it could seem like a comfort to have the burden of self-fashioning taken from our shoulders. The crude equation had then an equally crude answer that would satisfy a blunted mind: you are unhappy because—
But Stevie thought about how nothing was ever that simple, no matter how much we wanted it to be. The human mind had the power to create Heaven and Hell and all things in between. It was a gift and a burden, bestowed by God, the universe, by an accident of biology, to every person on the planet to use as they could.
Fortunately the conductor arrived to remind her that lunch was being served in the restaurant car and Stevie was able to turn her thoughts to the menu.
Over a Bündnerteller with pickles and a small carafe of red wine, Stevie read Josie’s notes on Alexander Nikolaievitch Yudorov and caught up on the Hammer-Belle situation.
11
The tea must have been drugged—just like the first time, at GUM.
Anya woke in degrees, slipping and sliding reluctantly towards consciousness. She knew without opening her eyes that she was lying across the backseat of a car.
She was getting pretty good at knowing where she was without even opening her eyes. Although, since Gregori and Tamara had handed her on to these guys, she hadn’t been blindfolded. They had taken it off to photograph her and the flash had been so bright after all the days in the dark that she saw red suns in her eyelids for hours afterwards.
Anya couldn’t decide if it was a good or a bad thing that she was no longer blindfolded. She liked being able to open her eyes, but was it ominous that the men didn’t mind if she saw their faces?
Not that being able to see around her had told her much. She had a picaresque impression of dark, deserted streets, a man with a fat, square face, the car stopping, starting, doors slamming—had she been locked into the boot at some point? And voices outside the car speaking in Ukranian?
She couldn’t trust her muddled senses. All she could think about was hearing her father’s voice on the phone, the concern in it, imagine his strained face. All the feelings and tears she had frozen deep in her heart for the last few days had rushed up to the surface and exploded.
She wept. The pictures in her head broke her heart over and over again.
All she wanted was to see her family again. Nothing else mattered— not glamour, not fame, not even music. Only love could fight terror and cold and death. It was as simple as that, and it had taken this nightmare for her to understand. Worst of all, her hope—so carefully nurtured and sustained so far—was ebbing away like water down a plughole.
Anya had no idea where Gregori and Tamara were, nor who these new people were, or where they were taking her. But she had clung to the thought that whoever was holding her prisoner wanted money from her father. It followed that once the ransom call had been made, her father would give them the money and it would all be over. But now it seemed that the nightmare was only just beginning.
The thing that frightened her most—if it were really possible to pick one single thing—was the growing certainty that she was no longer in Russia. She had been taken out of the country and she despaired that she would ever be found.
Happily, Yudorov’s chalet was a stone’s throw from the Suvretta House Hotel and a room had been booked for Stevie there. Although the Suvretta was enormous—and rather fabulous in its own right—it was five minutes’ drive from the centre of town and less popular with the Euro flash/cash/trash set. They all preferred the more