Snegurochka Judith Heneghan (most read book in the world .txt) 📖

gestures towards the tent and starts fiddling with the dials on his recorder. Rachel steps out of his way. It doesn’t seem like the right time to ask him whether he has spotted Sorin.

A young man with thinning blond hair pulls gently on Ivan’s foot.

‘Malchik?’ he asks, smiling.

Rachel knows this word. Boy. She nods. The young man puts his head on one side.

‘Ameree-can?’

‘Oh no,’ whispers Rachel. ‘English.’

‘Engleesh,’ repeats the young man, grinning. His forehead is inflamed with acne, its surface like the woodchip that lines her mother’s front room. ‘London. Film London.’

She nods again, but now the director on the step ladder is speaking, his voice ringing over the crowd’s swelling chorus. It is only when the chatter reverts to its usual formlessness that she realises the segment has ended. Lucas has disappeared, so Rachel watches while two women clear a space in front of the tent, shooing people away and frowning. Inching sideways, she sees that an old-fashioned microphone is suspended from wires just inside the tent. She stands on tip-toe as a shortish man steps forward and positions himself beneath it. The director signals to the crowd to stop talking. At this point, however, few people are watching, so he claps, twice, his palms cracking like a starting pistol. Instantly, everyone falls quiet.

It is the silence that upsets Ivan, not the clapping. He is seven months old, already settling into the life-long yearning for pattern, the fear of the broken rhythm. Silence jolts him into self-awareness. He makes a fretful droning sound. Rachel, alerted, pushes her finger into his mouth, but he doesn’t want a pacifier. He wants milk. She looks around, eyes searching for an exit. Not now, she thinks. Then, of course now. Anxiety prickles along her arm and provokes her son still further. The more she bounces him on her hip, the more his limbs resist. Ivan leans back, arching away and then, before she can raise her hand to stop him, he smashes his forehead into her cheekbone. The blow is so sharp that Rachel actually stumbles sideways. She utters a short cry, then clamps her mouth shut and tries to move back so she can steady herself against the wall. She knows what is coming. Ivan’s eyes are wide with shock. His throat is opening.

He screams.

* * *

‘So,’ says the man from the white goods shop as he leads Rachel down the passageway. ‘I will take you to a quiet place. Here it is, to your left.’

‘Mykola,’ she mouths, her skull still pounding. She is unsure whether she is speaking out loud but relieved she has remembered his name. At least Ivan’s cries have slowed; he hiccups and starts to suck his fingers, calmed by the dim lights and his mother’s steady pace. The man opens a door. Beyond it she sees a small store room with shelves and a mop and bucket in one corner. Two middle-aged women with dyed hair sit on stacking chairs with a picnic laid out on their laps.

‘Eezvenitye,’ says Mykola, motioning to the women to continue with their meal. He turns to Rachel. ‘Your baby is hungry.’ He gestures to a third chair. ‘Sit.’

Rachel stares at this man with the rounded shoulders and dark, soft eyes. She cannot fathom why he is here, but the stillness envelops her and the warmth from a small electric heater makes her sigh and sit down.

‘You will not be disturbed,’ he says, placing his hand on the door handle. ‘I will wait outside.’

Rachel looks at the two women. They are laying out strips of pickle. ‘Thank you. I’ll be fine.’

‘You are safe here.’

‘Yes . . .’

He nods, then closes the door with the gentlest of clicks. She doesn’t hear a key turning, but neither does she hear his footsteps retreating. Even Ivan has fallen silent. A strange kind of peace settles across her shoulders, like feathers, soft and weightless. As the two women politely incline their heads, then dip their black bread in a little pot of salt, chew their sausage and wipe their fingers on yellow cotton napkins, she opens her jacket and feeds her son.

* * *

Some time later, when Ivan is asleep and Rachel’s head is nodding with tiredness, Lucas opens the door.

‘Hey! Are you okay?’

Rachel looks up. The two women have gone. There is no trace of their picnic, no heater, no yellow napkins. They must have slipped out while she was dozing.

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’ She tries to remember who else entered the room. ‘Did you see anyone come in – or go out?’

‘No. I’ve been tied up with Lukyanenko for the past hour. Got a great interview, though we all heard Ivan bellowing. Kashmar! as the babushkas say. Mind you, I’ll probably keep him in my piece. These sound accidents often create a more authentic audio experience.’ Lucas walks over and lifts Ivan out of Rachel’s arms, settling him into his shoulder. ‘Your first brush with fame, son of mine! Just as well you managed to tuck yourselves away in here. Hey, what happened to your cheek?’

Rachel touches her face, wincing where her skin feels tender, then stands up and checks Ivan’s forehead. His skin is white, unmarked.

‘Ivan head-butted me.’

‘Ouch – that’s quite a bruise,’ says Lucas. ‘This’ll make you feel better. Sorin brought it.’ He fishes something out of his pocket with his spare hand. It is a paperback book with a silhouette of a T-rex on a yellow disc on the cover, scored by a familiar white crease. Her copy of Jurassic Park.

Rachel stares, caught in a moment’s disbelief. She takes the book in both hands and grips it, testing its density, its solidity beneath her thumbs. Her arms tremble. She will not let it go again. Quickly she pushes it into the inside pocket of her coat.

‘Thank you.’

‘Thank Zoya,’ says Lucas, hoisting Ivan a little higher. ‘She remembered to ask for it. She told Sorin you needed to know who gets eaten at the end.’

* * *

Back at home in the flat on the thirteenth floor, Rachel settles Ivan into