Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Kristina

Nice, June 1946

Kristina stood by the air vent, listening to the muffled voices of Lorenzo and the young woman, Eve Archer. Their words were indistinct, and she only caught snippets of their conversation, but it was obvious that Lorenzo was explaining her condition to their visitor. Kristina wished he’d given her enough time to talk to Eve herself before he’d whisked her away. But her dear butler was like that – protective and adamant that she shouldn’t be ‘disturbed’. All she had been able to ascertain was that a Serge Lavertu – a man she knew to be a friend of her beloved husband – was in trouble and needed her help. But Eve might have been able to tell her things – factual gaps in her life that Lorenzo either didn’t know or was hiding. She trusted that Lorenzo had her best interests at heart, but it was difficult for her to rely on the recollections of a nonagenarian who couldn’t remember where he’d put the bread most days. She knew her name: Kristina Bergeret, née Belova. Her age: forty-one. Her occupation: artist. Beyond those facts, the rest of her life felt uncertain. As fleeting as the sinking sun disappearing into the sea.

The villa for one. She knew her grandfather had built it and when her parents were alive it was splendid: the paintings, the tapestries, and the glass cabinets filled with Limoges porcelain. Before the Russian Revolution, it was an escape from the bitter winters of Saint Petersburg. Afterwards, it was a place of refuge out of the reach of the murderous Bolsheviks. Gazing out of the tall windows at the sweeping view, in the room where she stood now, were once princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, all assembled for one of her mother’s famous five-o-clocks. Kristina smiled as she recalled her mother. Always so beautifully dressed and mannered. Always so punctual. Yet married to her father who was perpetually late. In Kristina’s mind’s eye she saw him out in the garden with his trim beard and gentle eyes, tending to his roses with the devotion of a monk at his prayers. Is that the time, my dove? Already? This house had been a happy place – the light, the colour, the freedom. It had once been pure joy to be alive.

Kristina walked out onto the balcony where the balmy breeze caressed her skin. She considered that it was probably a mercy her parents didn’t live to see the Germans strip the place of its beauty and leave every room and glass case empty. There were some who believed it a mercy – as her physician Docteur Gabriel did – that Kristina couldn’t remember it either.

While she recalled her childhood and her youth vividly, her memory stopped at a very specific time in 1923. After that it was all vague and blurry. Occasionally a face or a brief memory would appear out of the mist, but it always retreated as quickly as it had come.

‘To have lost so many years of your memory prior to the war is highly unusual,’ Docteur Gabriel had said. ‘It leads me to believe that your trouble is the result of that injury to your head, and that those memories may never come back. At least you have your art, and you are painting again.’

Yes , thought Kristina, I have my art. But I want to remember. What my mind has done in making me forget is cruel, not kind. The past is a mirror we look into to make sense of who we are today.

She stepped back inside and breathed a sharp intake of air. A sweet gentleness pressed against her heart and she sensed it must be Nadia and Ginette, her daughters, whom Lorenzo had told her about. She strained to imagine their faces clearly, but her head started to ache. In frustration, she pressed her fist against her forehead. The Germans took so much more than artworks and heirlooms. The familiar sense of fear and dread welled up inside her and she tried to utter words she couldn’t speak.

Her attention turned to the portrait she had painted of Max. Handsome, warm-hearted Max. Uniquely charming,nothing could banish his gaiety or embitter him. The moment they met she knew something miraculous was happening, something intoxicating and enchanting. Her memories might have stopped in 1923, but those that she still had were beautiful ones to keep.