All These Things I've Done (Birthright #1)(11)

Imogen, Nana’s nurse, was reading to her. ‘To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.’

Even though I wasn’t much of a reader, Imogen had a sweet voice that lulled me, and I found myself standing at the door to listen for a while. She read until the end of the chapter (which wasn’t very long), then closed the book.

‘You’re here for the start of this one,’ Imogen said to me. She held up the paper novel so that I could see the title: David Copperfield.

‘Anyaschka, when did you get here?’ Nana asked. I walked over to her and kissed her cheek. ‘I wanted something with more action,’ Nana said, wrinkling her nose. ‘Girls, guns. But this was what she had.’

‘It gets more exciting,’ Imogen assured her. ‘You must be patient, Galina.’

‘If it takes too long, I’ll be dead,’ Nana replied.

‘Enough with the gallows humour,’ Imogen reprimanded.

I took the book from Imogen and held it up to my face. The dust stung my nose. The aroma was salty and a bit sour. The cover of the book was disintegrating. There hadn’t been new books printed (on account of the cost of paper) for as long as I had been alive, maybe longer. Nana once told me that when she was a girl there used to be huge stores filled with paper books. ‘Not that I ever went to any bookstores. I had better things to do,’ she’d say with longing in her voice. ‘Ah, to be young!’ These days, most everything was digitized. All the paper books had been pulped and recycled into essentials like toilet tissue and money. If your family (or school) happened to be in possession of a bona fide paper book, you held on to it. (By the way, one of the goods the Balanchine semya dealt in was black-market paper.)

‘You can borrow it if you like,’ Imogen said to me. ‘It really does get more exciting.’ My grandmother’s home-health-care worker was an avid paper-book collector, which seemed ridiculously old-fashioned to me. Why would a person want all those dirty paper carcasses around? Still, the books had value for her, so I knew it was a sign of respect that she would offer one of them to me.

I shook my head. ‘No, thanks. I have a ton of reading for school.’ I preferred reading on my slate, and I wasn’t much into fiction anyway.

Imogen checked my grandmother’s machines one last time before she bid us goodnight.

‘I suppose you found Leonyd,’ Nana said after Imogen had left.

‘I did.’ I paused, uncertain whether to trouble Nana with the story of where (and with whom) Leo had been.

‘He was at the Pool with Pirozhki and Fats,’ Nana said. ‘I asked him this morning.’

‘Well, what’s your opinion?’

Nana shrugged her shoulders, which made her cough. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing. It’s nice that the family has taken an interest in your brother. Leo’s too much among us women. He could stand for some male companionship in his life.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t have a good feeling about this, Nana. Jakov Pirozhki is not exactly trustworthy.’

‘Still, he’s family, Anya. And family takes care of family. That’s how it’s done. That’s how it’s always been done. Besides, Fats, at least, seems a decent enough sort.’ Nana coughed again, and I poured her some water from a pitcher on the nightstand. ‘Thank you, devochka.’

‘Leo said something about getting a job at the Pool.’

Nana’s eyes widened for a moment and then she nodded. ‘He didn’t tell me that part. Well, there have certainly been made men that were far more simple-minded than Leo.’

‘Like who?’

‘Like . . . Like . . . Like . . . I’ve got it!’ She smiled triumphantly. ‘Like Viktor Popov. He was of my generation. Six feet ten inches, three hundred and fifty pounds. Would have been one hell of a football player, if he could have remembered the rules. The other guys called him Viktor the Mule to his face and the Donkey behind his back. When they needed someone to move the stuff from the back of the truck, they’d call the Mule every time. It doesn’t matter how high-tech things get, sometimes you need a guy who’s good with manual labour.’

I nodded. Nana was making some sense. For the first time since Leo had gone missing, I felt my stomach muscles unclench a little. ‘What happened to Viktor the Mule anyway?’

‘That’s not the important part.’

‘Nana.’

‘He got shot in the head. Bled to death. A real shame.’ Nana shook her head.

‘Not exactly a good end, Nana. And Leo’s not exactly the Mule’s body type,’ I said. My brother was tall, but he was thin as paper.

‘My point is, devochka, that it takes all kinds to run the business. And your brother’s a big boy now.’

I gritted my teeth.

‘Anyaschka, you’re too much like your father. You want to control the whole world and everyone in it, but you can’t. Let whatever this is – and it’s likely nothing – play out. If we need to intervene later, we will. Besides, Leo would never leave the clinic. He loves the animals too much.’

‘So we do nothing?’

‘Sometimes that’s the only thing to do,’ Nana said. ‘Although . . .’