‘So she left.’
‘Yes, she had left Bright Meadows.’
‘Selwyn,’ said Frank, with extreme bitterness. ‘You could have told me all this before.’
‘I did what I could to help you.’
‘Yes, you found Lisa for me.’
‘I tried more than once to explain my actions to you in detail. I came to your house only a few evenings ago, not criticizing you in any way, nature and humanity are the only standards I recognize, but it was hardly a moment for discussion, you were with Lisa Ivanovna, with your hands on her breasts. But Frank, perhaps you don’t want to discuss this incident.’
‘I don’t mind talking about Lisa, as long as you don’t say she’s like a birch tree in the wind. She’s solid flesh. She’s not an incident.’
Selwyn shook his head.
27
On the following morning Frank was called to the telephone. ‘It’s very early, Toma.’ ‘Yes, sir, but it’s someone speaking from the Alexandervoksal.’
The time was just before seven o’clock. ‘Mr Reid, for the second time your children are here all by themselves at this station. Could you make it convenient to fetch them at once?’
‘I should like to speak to the elder of my two daughters,’ said Frank. ‘Please fetch her to your office.’
He stood listening for what seemed a very long time to the distant surge and grind of the station, pierced once by a warning bell.
‘This is Darya Frantsovna Reid. Do you hear me?’
She spoke clearly, but not with her old decisiveness.
‘Yes, I hear you. Dolly, what have you done with Lisa?’
‘She came with us to Ostanovka. Then she put us in a carriage in the train to Moscow. We were quite all right.’
‘But what did she do?’
‘She just turned away and walked down the platform, so we couldn’t wave.’
‘But Dolly, where is she?’
‘She was going to take another train.’
‘Where to?’
‘Papashka, I’m here with Ben and Annushka. What am I supposed to do?’
When he arrived at the Alexandervoksal he found at first only Dolly. Ben had gone to the engine-cleaning shed, Annushka was counting the money with the attendant in the first class ladies’ lavatory. Dolly was standing alone outside the stationmaster’s office. She clung to him fiercely, sniffing at his spring overcoat, just out of store, like an animal. The two of them clung together.
She would not be parted from him. The two younger ones wanted to go back to the house where they were received like survivors from an earthquake. Dolly came with him to Reidka’s, and sat all morning in the customer’s chair in his office.
Agafya came up from the tea-place, carrying sugar with her, prepared, as in former days, to indulge the office’s princess. When she saw Dolly she stopped, with the brownish-white sugar sticks still in her hand. Seeing that the comedy was over, she put them back in their paper wrapping, and nodded to the pale and silent Dolly.
‘She’s helping me a bit with the letters,’ said Frank, not very convincingly.
‘God will make her of use to you,’ said Agafya.
After a time he asked Dolly one or two questions, cautiously, not being sure himself how much he wanted to know. Had they locked the doors of the dacha properly, and given the keys to Egor and Matryona? – Oh, yes, all that! – Had they been into the woods? – Yes, they had. – Were the paths wet? – Yes, rather wet. – When Lisa Ivanovna told them to stay in the train and get out at Moscow, did she say where she was going herself. Yes, Berlin. She had to go to Berlin. – Frank asked nothing more about the visit to the dacha either then or ever.
Volodya, thought to be a conspirator, had turned out to be nothing more than a lover. Lisa, who, Frank could have sworn, was a lover, had turned out to be heaven knows what. It was clear enough now why the Security were in favour of his leaving Russia. He had dangerous employees, or one dangerous employee, at least, a dangerous young woman, pretending to be looking after his children. He had let her escape, more likely arranged it. He must, for example, have given her back her papers, without reporting this to the authorities. But whatever they thought now, they hadn’t thought it on Palm Sunday, and Frank couldn’t imagine who, in all Moscow, could have suggested it to them since then.
By midday, he saw that he must take Dolly home. He told Selwyn and Bernov to carry on. Selwyn unexpectedly shook his hand.
‘Remember that what binds us together is the knowledge of the wrongs we have done to one another.’
Bernov, on the other hand, asked if he could come with them in the taxi, if they were getting one, as far as the Alexander Gardens. It was his lunch hour. On the way he took the opportunity to tell them that he was thinking seriously of going to England. No, not for a visit, to emigrate. He had collected most of the necessary forms.
‘Bring them in tomorrow, then,’ said Frank, feeling as if he were lifting a heavy weight. ‘Have you got an address to go to in England?’
Yes, Charlie had told him that he would always find a hearty welcome in Longfellow Road.
Along the river-banks the grass from last year was showing, indescribably seedy, through the drenched earth, and with it the first patches of new grass. Even in Moscow there was the smell of green grass and leaves, inconceivable for the last five months.
At 22 Lipka Street, Annushka came to the front door with Toma, bellowing ‘We’re opening the windows!’ In the hallway, Ben was energetically turning the handle of the ‘Amour’ gramophone, which a moment later outroared Annushka with the splendid voice of Fyodor Chaliapin.
‘We can’t wait any longer, sir,’ said Toma. ‘The ice has been melted for days, the children are back from the country, the fowls must come out of their shed, or they’ll become diseased.’
‘I left it entirely to you,’ said Frank. ‘Go ahead.’
The hens, in fact, were already out, stepping delicately about the backyard, alternately stretching out their long necks with dignity and rummaging, with squalid abandon, in the crevices between the brickwork.
It’s not true, Frank thought, that she was pretending to look after the children. She did look after them. It’s not true that she pretended to make love to me. She did make love to me.
All morning the yardman had been removing the putty from the inner glass, piece by piece, flake by flake. Blashl, frantic at his long disappearance, howled at intervals, but the yardman worked slowly. When all the putty was off, without a scratch from the chisel, he called, lord of the moment, for the scrapings to be brushed away. The space between the outer and inner windows was black with dead flies. They, too, must be removed, and the sills washed down with soft soap. Then with a shout from the triumphant shoe-cleaning boy at the top of the house to Ben, still in the hall, the outer windows, some terribly stuck, were shaken and rattled till they opened wide. Throughout the winter the house had been deaf, turned inwards, able to listen only to itself. Now the sounds of Moscow broke in, the bells and voices, the cabs and taxis which had gone by all winter unheard like ghosts of themselves, and with the noise came the spring wind, fresher than it felt in the street, blowing in uninterrupted from the northern regions where the frost still lay.
A horse-and-cab pulled up outside. There were still a good few of them left, for those who had time to spare or didn’t want to spend too much. Toma, still dusty and splashed with soap and water, ran out, buttoning up his grey jacket as he went. He opened the door, and Nellie walked into the house.
Praise
From the reviews of The Beginning of Spring:
‘The story spans a few weeks, yet it evokes a whole life. An astonishing amount of research has been effortlessly incorporated. Moscow is seen and smelt. In splendid vignettes, Penelope Fitzgerald conveys the complexity of its denizens, their strangeness and charm, in elegantly simple, flawless prose. She conveys too the inconsequences of life and all that is curious and fascinating in human relationships. She is wonderfully witty – i
t is impossible not to laugh out loud. This is a marvellous, intelligent and beautifully crafted book.’
Monique Charlesworth, Daily Telegraph
‘The Beginning of Spring is a charming, unexpected and deceptively simple novel. The surface of the book is so pleasing that the careless reader could glide over it happily without troubling to listen to its undercurrents. At a time when so many novels promise so much more than they deliver, it is agreeable to come on one that does the opposite. The picture of Moscow is completely realised. Reading the book offers the same pleasure as turning over an album of old photographs … There is a gentleness and good humour to the life she portrays which are rare qualities in contemporary fiction.’
Alan Massie, Scotsman
‘Reading Penelope Fitzgerald’s remarkable new novel is like finding the roaring torrent of a great literature distilled into a clear, elegant glass. I have never seen more brilliantly evoked a Russianness which Russians themselves cannot describe because they take it utterly for granted. She has written a fitting fable for the age of perestroika.’
Virginia Llewelyn Smith, Harpers & Queen
‘This, her latest work, has something of the grandeur of Balzac, and a similar overview of life as a human comedy with little logical plot development and fewer rational explanations … One cannot deny Fitzgerald’s ability to engage and hold the reader’s attention. I found it impossible to skim or skip for fear of missing a subtle piece of gossip … Compulsive.’
David Self, Literary Review
‘She can sum up people in a single sentence that begs as many questions as it answers, but which is worth pages and pages of analysis.’
Victoria Glendinning, Observer
‘With interest in Russia now so fashionable, a delicate, intelligent and readable piece of fiction like this cannot fail to please. It would only be a pity if popularity diverted attention from the high quality of Penelope Fitzgerald’s writing, which must make The Beginning of Spring one of the outstanding novels of the year.’
Lesley Chamberlain, Times Literary Supplement
‘Penelope Fitzgerald’s skill lies in conjuring up worlds so intensely imagined that they seem like a dream, yet so real that you feel you were there, at their busy throbbing centre, only yesterday … No one is better at drawing with a few slight strokes characters who are more genuine for being unpredictable and who need time to work their surprises on us.’
Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times
‘This quiet but fascinating novel, one of the best I’ve read this year, is written with a pellucid style and a superb eye for detail, right down to the “Dundeekeks” which are to be found in a Moscow tea house. This is a novel I shall re-read with pleasure.’
Ian Rankin, Scotland on Sunday
‘Her characters’ dialogue is full of non sequiturs and off-the-point elaborations about love and religion, just like real human communication. In her books whole communities come to life, their ambitions and regrets all carefully noted by a wise and all-seeing Recording Angel.’
Sunday Times
‘How is it done? How could she know so much about the minutiae of dascha housekeeping or the rituals of hand-printing craft, or the habits of Moscow nightwatchmen, or the nature of the entertainment at the Merchants’ Club? … The plot may be inexplicit, but it is told with a virtuoso storyteller’s technique, is illuminated by classic moments of comedy and keeps one (as the old blurb-writers used to say) guessing from the first page to the very last line.’
Jan Morris, Independent
‘The Beginning of Spring can be adjudged a complete success. Fitzgerald’s style is cut carefully to the size of her thought so that one has a constant sensation of a real intelligence never having a quarrel with itself in what it creates. In short, she persuades us, for the length of this quite exquisite text, to accept the world on her own terms, which are individual and intense, never mere echoes of someone else’s sensibility … I reckon a fair number of readers will see no need to withhold their tears.’
Robert Nye, Guardian
‘It requires considerable courage for an English writer to enter Russian territory made so familiar by the great writers of that land. It requires equal skill to pull off so bold an act, and Penelope Fitzgerald is triumphant on both scores. In The Beginning of Spring she has succeeded in writing a novel which does not feel as if it is written by a mere visitor to Russia, but is actually of Russia. Such authenticity may be the mark of the true novelist, but it is remarkable all the same when it works so flawlessly. This extraordinary book is Mrs Fitzgerald’s best to date … No wonder, with this rare, riveting and highly mysterious novel, Penelope Fitzgerald is on the Booker shortlist yet again.’
Angela Huth, Sunday Telegraph
‘The Beginning of Spring is a surprise, and something of a tour de force. The great messy city, muddling towards its destiny, is conjured up in vivid and astonishing detail: the narrow back streets with their seedy basement workshops; the crowded markets and railway stations; the exuberantly noisy club where the merchants drink tea and vodka; the vast dark river choked with broken ice and rubbish.’
Margaret Walters, London Review of Books
‘Scrupulously well written, subtle in its effects, and feels completely authentic. The Beginning of Spring opens out into something more than you might expect.’
Hermione Lee, Observer
Other Works
Also by Penelope Fitzgerald
THE GOLDEN CHILD
THE BOOKSHOP
OFFSHORE
HUMAN VOICES
AT FREDDIE’S
INNOCENCE
THE GATE OF ANGELS
THE BLUE FLOWER
THE MEANS OF ESCAPE
EDWARD BURNE-JONES
THE KNOX BROTHERS
CHARLOTTE MEW AND HER FRIENDS
A HOUSE OF AIR: SELECTED WRITINGS
SO I HAVE THOUGHT OF YOU: LETTERS OF PENELOPE FITZGERALD
Copyright
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1988
Previously published in paperback by Flamingo 1989, 1996 and 2003
This edition published by Fourth Estate in 2014
Copyright © Penelope Fitzgerald 1988
Introduction © Andrew Miller 2014
Preface © Hermione Lee 2013
Series advisory editor: Hermione Lee
Cover design by nathanburtondesign.com
Cover photograph © Mary Evans Picture Library
Penelope Fitzgerald asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 9780006543701
Ebook Edition © January 2014 ISBN: 9780007370092
Version: 2014-01-22
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