EARLY AFTERNOON. THE rays of the sun pour through the whirling motes of dust in Frank’s apartment to create a golden kaleidoscope on the far wall. Although Serafima doesn’t yet know that her friends are about to be released, she senses they will soon be home and all seems right with her world. Frank is there already and there is no need to say anything for a while. He gives her the jaunty two-finger salute that he always gives her, and she can see that he’s in high spirits.
She savours the lemony scent of his cologne, the softness of his skin, the texture of his hair (soft as a girl’s), his eyes. She kisses his cheek, and then he takes her chin in his hand and starts to kiss her. Her eyes shut and she sighs in the back of her throat.
He starts to undress her and this time she unfastens his shirt herself, her fingers suddenly so agile that they can unbutton at record speed. When he helps her pull her dress over her head, she does not fear the revelation of her snakeskin. On the contrary, she cannot wait to show him that she is still his, all of her, the delicate and the rough. When they are naked, she feels her snakeskin anticipating his touch. The craving is answered as his fingers lightly trace the burnt, parchmenty skin. ‘This means you’re mine and you’ll be mine forever,’ he whispers.
After they have made love, he holds her in his arms. ‘Serafima Constantinovna…’
‘You’re using my patronymic? Why?’
‘I have something to ask you.’ Serafima feels his body tense next to hers as he gathers himself. ‘Will you marry me?’
‘Are you joking?’
‘No. I’m not much of a jester, am I?’
‘I suppose not,’ she agrees. ‘You’re a serious young man.’ She pauses, thinks. ‘You don’t have to do this, you know. I’m not sure they’ll let me out of the country, and this could cause so much trouble for you…’
‘Darling, all I want is to spend the rest of my life with you. Look, I’ve brought you this.’
He opens a small red box lined in satin. Inside is a gold ring with three diamonds in a row, a large one in the middle. ‘I want you to wear this for the rest of your life with me. Please, please, say you will?’
Serafima is so overcome she fears she might faint. Only a few weeks ago, she was in prison. Now she might go from Communist Moscow to New York City in America, from schoolgirl to wife. Suddenly all she wants is to be married to Frank. Yet there is much to fear. Her schoolfriends are still in jail, and she senses the jeopardy in their relationship.
‘Are you all right?’ Frank asks, concerned. ‘You’ve been through so much recently. There’s no need to answer now. I just…’
‘What?’ she asks.
‘I just can’t face being separated like this again without knowing where you are and how much I love you.’
Slowly she gives him her hand. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I will marry you. I want to be with you forever too.’
He slips the ring on to her finger and it fits as though she’s always worn it.
‘What are the chances of that?’ he asks. ‘It fitted my grandmother and it fits you.’ He raises her hand, the one wearing the ring, kisses it, and then her lips. ‘Now you’re going to be Mrs Frank Belman, we must make our plans carefully.’
The next day at the Golden Gates, a holiday mood. The pollen floats like the flurries of a snowstorm. The air smells of lilac. There’s just a week left of term.
‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you,’ said Satinov to his three children as they walked from Granovsky Street, guards in front and behind them, ‘don’t discuss anything about the case with each other.’
At the gates, they greeted their friends with three kisses, feeling almost like adults after the nightmare they had been through.
‘What’s news?’ George asked Andrei, like old times. Except after the Children’s Case, things were very different.
‘Everyone’s out of prison,’ asked Andrei. ‘Thank God.’
‘Except our teacher, Benya Golden,’ added Minka Dorova, putting her arm through Serafima’s. ‘But I’m sure he’ll be out soon.’
Satinov watched his children going through the school gates. Things may have changed but a fragile normality seemed to have been established, he was thinking as he walked back towards the street, and then stopped.
There was Dashka Dorova on her own, kissing her Senka, her darling Little Professor, as she sent him into school.
She flushed when she saw him. ‘Greetings, Comrade Satinov. It’s like the start of another term,’ she said. ‘And congratulations on your promotion!’
The day suddenly seemed dizzily sunny. He longed to explain to her that his promotion wasn’t quite what it seemed. Only she would understand, and only telling her would make the thought worth thinking.
‘We don’t have to discuss the weather today,’ he said instead, remembering what she looked like with her thick black hair, now decorously restrained in a bun, loose on her bare amber-skinned shoulders.
‘It just got sunnier for me,’ she said, smiling in her dazzling, slightly crooked way.
‘I wondered…’
‘What?’ she said, a little breathlessly.
