The People in the Photo Read Free

meantime, I will of course let you know if anything else comes to light.
     
    Best wishes,
     
    Hélène Hivert
    PS My heart leapt when I saw the
Véronique
poster in the photograph. It was my stepmother’s favourite operetta; she used to sing arias from it while we cooked together.

    Ashford, 30 May 2007
    Dear Madame Hivert,
    I am intrigued by the Russian inscription which you kindly translated. Intrigued and somewhat perturbed, since I find it hard to imagine my father giving my mother such a nickname. I wonder whether he might have taken that photograph, which appears to be a gift, for someone else. And of course I’m curious to know who that someone else could be. To be frank, your letter has reawakened an old sense of unease and suspicion; for a very long time I have been wondering what really went on in my parents’ lives.
    To return to the subject, as far as I know, my father did not have any Russian friends, but I know that Jean Pamiat spoke the language fluently (where had he learned it?), and had connections with several St Petersburg families. He called my father
tovarish
(I’m not sure of the spelling), as a joke, and actually it took me ages to realise that it wasn’t a first name, like Igor or Sasha.
    I also went with my father, once, towards the end of his life, to the Russian Orthodox section of Thiaiscemetery. He was already very frail, but he insisted that I take him there. I don’t know which grave he visited, because he asked me to wait for him at a distance. Nor do I know the reasons for this pilgrimage. It is a tenuous clue, but it confirms that there could have been a Russian link. That seems to be where this trail is leading us.
    Let’s keep each other posted.
     
    Kind regards,
     
    Stéphane C.

    Paris, 6 June 2007
    Dear Monsieur Crüsten,
    I’m sorry if what I have told you makes you uncomfortable. If you would rather not carry on, we can stop now. But I won’t deny it would be a blow to me; now that I’ve made the decision to find out, I want to follow it through. I have spent my whole life surrounded by so much silence, trying to tell myself it didn’t matter, but as time goes on the unanswered questions gnaw away at me. I want to find out more about my mother’s life; I know almost nothing about her. Yet at the same time I’m aware that digging up the past is risky. Who knows what secrets they were trying to protect us from and at what cost?
    It’s not too late to put a stop to this. I could always continue on my own if you’re concerned about where it might lead. Let me know your thoughts.
     
    Kind regards,
     
    Hélène H.

    Miami, 15 June (email)
    Dear Madame Hivert,
    For once I’m replying to you by email. I very much enjoy receiving letters from you and writing to you (the quaint delights of corresponding), but at the moment I’m in Florida, and I didn’t want to delay my answer any longer.
    I fear that my last letter may have given rise to a misunderstanding, by suggesting that I had misgivings about our investigation. As I said to you in one of my earlier letters, one of the reasons that prompted me to write to you is that my father remains largely a mystery to my brother and myself. He was a fairly distant, solitary, silent man. It was almost impossible to have a conversation with him. When we were children, he found our boisterousness irritating, and would often leave the table in the middle of a meal. He’d come home several hours later, and we had no idea where he had been. And yet, I have memories of him dating back to an earlier time when he was more cheerful: I recall in particular when he taught me to ride a bicycle and to tell the time, on a big light-blue alarm clockbought specially for the purpose (probably some Swiss throwback!). He started teaching me to play tennis, and I remember sunny afternoons spent on the club terrace with Jean Pamiat. He sometimes came with a friend, Friedrich, whose sunglasses and leather jacket fascinated me.
    I don’t know exactly