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Claire laid both her palms flat against his chest. ‘I’d say we got off lightly. Let’s not let it ruin the weekend, eh?’
She watched him straighten his back and stretch his neck, visibly pulling himself together. She could almost hear the voice in his head telling himself to buck up.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘looks like you’re buying dinner.’
‘That’s alright.’ Claire was surprised to register that she wasn’t all that bothered by the stolen wallet. What she felt, when she thought about it, was a sense of relief. Maybe they’d paid what was due to the gods of fortune.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Time to see where we’re sleeping.’
Surprise!
The foyer was momentarily brightened by the headlights of a passing car, then dimmed again. The illuminated sign above the pizzeria that occupied the ground floor of the building provided a reddish half-light, but it didn’t penetrate beyond the second turn of the staircase. Miscalculating, Yeva stubbed her toe on the final step and stumbled onto the fourth-floor landing.
‘Kurva!’ In Ukrainian, she cursed whoever had stolen the light bulb.
She felt her way past two doorways and, working on muscle memory, unlocked the third door. She reached inside and hit the light switch.
‘Merde,’ she muttered under her breath. She was practising her French.
Yeva dropped her bag on the floor and threw herself onto the double bed, which was pushed under the window and spanned the entire width of the room. A kettle, a porcelain teapot, and two cups sat on a hard chair next to the bed. She and Olena liked to sip tea late at night while they sat, shoulder to shoulder, watching videos on TikTok.
Reaching over the side of the bed for the cable, Yeva plugged in her phone. It binged as it connected to the power source – a noise she found both reassuring and enervating. It was vital to keep her phone charged, but every single time she heard thatbing, just for a second, she thought it was a message. It never was.
‘Chort.’ Reverting to cursing in Ukrainian, Yeva thumped the mattress.
She unplugged the kettle and carried it across the room to the curtained-off area Olena insisted on calling the bathroom. There was no bath, just a pink toilet with a white plastic seat and a matching pink sink with a white plastic toothbrush holder. The kettle didn’t fit into the sink, so Yeva used a cup to transfer water from the tap.
While the water heated, she took the lid off the tin of loose tea and poured the leaves into a cereal bowl. With the point of a knife, she loosened a piece of cardboard from the base of the tin. Yeva pulled out a tight bundle of money, which she pressed flat on the table and proceeded to count. She put a ten-euro note inside the case of her phone and left ten on the chair beside the bed, for Olena. The remainder, sixty-five euros, she put at the bottom of the tin, then carefully replaced the false bottom and poured the tea leaves back in. That sixty-five euros was all they had.
Next, she took the brown paper bag and distributed its contents: two toilet rolls to the lid of the cistern, a tube of toothpaste to the pink sink, and a bottle of shampoo to the shelf above the table. She wondered if she should ask for a blanket. The nights were getting cooler. Three nights spent sleeping on a train platform in Lviv in March had left Yeva with a dread of being cold, but she needed to weigh up the risk of piquing the curiosity of the do-gooders at the Halte. If the authorities became aware of them, she and Olena would probably wind up in some sort of care home. And worse, they could be separated.
She snapped the sheet, tucking it tightly under the mattress, just as her father had taught her, and straightened the duvet. She had to have two-hundred euros by Sunday night to keep this place. Pulling up her sleeve, she looked at the watch that was far too big for her wrist. She wondered how much she might get for it. It was pretty old and worn, but it was a good Swiss brand. It must be worth something.
The kettle began to gurgle and spew steam. The off switch was broken, which probably explained why Olena had found it sitting on top of a rubbish bin at the market. Yeva kneeled down to take the plug out and made a pot of tea. The little porcelain teapot belonged to their grandmother. It was white, with cheery red roses and gold leaves painted on its rounded belly. There had been a screaming match over it, that last night in Mariupol, Yeva yelling that she didn’t have space for teapots, and Baba Olga wailing that Yeva would be glad to have a piece of home with her. Yeva would rather have had Baba than the stupid teapot. She had pleaded with her to come, to look after her and Olena, but the stubborn old woman refused to budge. She would leave her home when her son left, she said, not a day sooner.
Yeva had pleaded with her father, then, not to put them on a train with the Kravets, neighbours they hardly knew, to let them stay with Baba. Sasha Bortnik had sat down beside his daughter, pressed the fingers of both hands to his temples. He’d closed his eyes, and she’d thought he was about to relent.
‘Vizmy chaynyk,Yeva,’ he said. Take the teapot.
* * *
Yeva checked her phone again. No messages. Nothing from her father. Nothing from Baba.
The street door slammed shut, and she heard the sound of light footsteps running up the stairs. She opened the door wide, to flood the staircase with light, and stood with her back to it, counting. Six seconds later, her sister appeared, panting, on the landing.
‘Tse buv olimpiys’kyi rekord!’ Yeva took the shopping bag from Olena’s hand and gave her a congratulatory slap on the back. The bag was heavy. ‘Shcho ty kupyv?’
Asking her sister what she’d bought was a pretence. Olena had learned that some of the stall holders at the market put aside trays of wilted vegetables at the end of the day and, more often than not, completely ignored a small girl if she quietly helped herself. In fact, Olena’s shopping trips had become so successful that Yeva had come to suspect the market traders were deliberately leaving food in her sister’s path.
‘Ya kupyla kapustu ta yabluka,’ said Olena. Yeva bit her lip as Olena carried on the make-believe of having bought the cabbage and apples. ‘Takozh ya kupyla syurprz,’ she continued, taking back the shopping bag and lifting it onto the table. ‘Zakryi ochi.’
Yeva didn’t relish surprises, or being told to close her eyes, but she obeyed. She could hear rustling paper, and the clatter of a plate on the table, the striking of a match.
‘Z Dnem Narodzhennya,Yeva!’ Happy birthday.
It was her birthday, and her sister had acquired a cake, complete with piped chocolate swirls and walnuts on top. All day, Yeva had been trying to ignore the date on her phone screen, running from memories of last year’s balloons and birthday wishes. Now, all the thoughts caught up with her, and her heart pounded. They couldn’t afford celebrations. Had Olena really bought the cake?
‘Ty spravdi yoho kupyla?’
