Where Light Becomes Silence. Tom 2

She added no question, no invitation, no promise to become a different person. She sent it and put the phone face down.

Two short sentences had appeared in the chat. It was too little for the old friendship and enough for a next message — if one were ever needed.

The following evening Ksyusha went back to the promise she had made to her mother.

She opened the chat with Vera and looked for a long time at the last messages. To ask about a conversation with her mother meant once again bringing Vera a task born of someone else’s guilt. But to keep silent after a direct promise was not possible either.

Ksyusha wrote:

“I have told Mum my part of that story. She wants to apologise to you. I have not given her your number. If you ever want to talk to her, tell me. Nothing needs to be decided now.”

Before sending it, she showed it to Dmitry.

“What am I checking?” he asked.

“Whether I have shifted onto Vera the job of calming Mum down.”

He read it.

“The sentence ‘Nothing needs to be decided now’ still tells her how to take the message.”

“Take it out?”

“I would.”

Ksyusha deleted the last line and read it through again.

“Now it is just information and a possibility.”

“Yes.”

She sent it.

The answer came in the morning:

“Thank you for not giving her the number. I do not want to, for now.”

Ksyusha wrote: “All right” — and stopped there.

She rang her mother herself.

“I asked Vera. She does not want to talk now.”

“Did she say so in those words?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps if I wrote something short…”

“Mum, no.”

“I would not justify myself.”

“The question has been asked. The answer has been given.”

There was a pause on the line.

“All right,” her mother said. “Then I shall not.”

The agreement cost her an effort, but she did not ask for the number in secret, did not try to find Vera through acquaintances and did not return to the subject again that day.

Three days later Vera sent a photograph of the university courtyard. In the picture the old fence was being replaced; beyond it stood the building outside which they used to wait for each other after lectures.

Under the photograph it said:

“They got rid of it after all.”

Ksyusha could have answered with a dozen shared memories. She chose one:

“We used to say it would outlive the university.”

Vera replied with a laughing face.

The conversation ended.

This brief exchange confirmed nothing. Vera might write again the next day, or never. But for the first time there was a memory between their messages that demanded neither judgment nor forgiveness.

Chapter Five

Our Sunday

On Friday Ksyusha’s mother rang her at half past seven.

The conversation began with a question about whether she was disturbing her, and before Ksyusha could answer it had moved on to Sunday, a new recipe for a pie, the neighbour upstairs and a box of old photographs found in a cupboard. Ksyusha listened, sitting on the edge of the sofa. From the study came the uneven tapping of keys: Dmitry was finishing the description of a release.

“By two?” she asked. “Mum, I shall talk to Dima first.”

On the line there followed an explanation that the invitation was of course meant for them both, that nothing special would be cooked, although Ksyusha knew perfectly well that it would, and that they could come at any time, but by two would be better all the same.

“I shall answer this evening. Yes, today. I promise.”

She ended the call and did not go to the study. The door was ajar, but an open door did not mean a free person. Ksyusha put a question mark in the calendar beside Sunday and got on with her own things.

At about the same time the sound engineer wrote to Dmitry:

“The studio is free on Sunday. From twelve till four we can finish the edit in peace and check the master on the big monitors. Does that suit?”

Dmitry read the message, opened the calendar and saw an empty line.

It was empty only to an outsider’s eye.

A few weeks earlier they had agreed to keep one Sunday free of separate work promises. Sometimes they went away, sometimes they stayed at home, sometimes each of them got on with their own things in the same flat. The point was not a compulsory programme. The day belonged to them both in advance, and so neither could dispose of it alone.

“I shall answer this evening,” Dmitry wrote.

At eight he came out of the study. Ksyusha was sitting at the table with the calendar open.

“Mum has invited us on Sunday,” she said. “By two.”

“I have been asked to the studio. From twelve till four.”

“Have you said yes?”

“Not yet.”

“Nor have I.”

Dmitry sat down opposite her. Between them lay a Sunday that had not yet been promised to anyone and was already no longer free.

“Do you want to go to your mother’s?” he asked.

“I do. We have not been for a long time. And she has found the photographs. That is evidently an event in itself.”

“Judging by the length of the call, a state occasion.”

“You heard?”

“Only the intonation.”

Ksyusha smiled.

“And do you want to go to the studio?”

“Yes. There the work can be finished in one session. Otherwise we shall have to look for a window again.”

Both wishes were real. So neither could be declared a trifle for the sake of an easy decision.

“We could go to the studio first and then to Mum’s,” Ksyusha said.

Dmitry opened the route. From the studio to her mother’s house was a little over an hour.

“If we finish at four on the dot, we shall get there after five. If we run late, she will spend the whole day waiting and warming up lunch.”

“Even for two o’clock she will start warming it up at twelve.”

“All the more reason.”

“I can go on my own.”

“You can.”

Ksyusha waited for him to go on.

“But?” she asked.

“No ‘but’. You can go on your own.”

“I wanted you to be with me.”

“Then that changes the problem.”

“Why did I have to say it separately? She invited us both.”

“Because your mother’s invitation and your wish are different things. To the first I can answer out of politeness. To the second I answer you.”

Ksyusha looked at the calendar.

“Very well. I want us to go together.”

“I want to go with you too.”

“And the studio?”

“I shall ask about Saturday.”

He picked up his phone but did not write at once.

“Only let us not have a beautiful sacrifice,” Ksyusha said. “If Saturday does not work, we shall decide again. I do not want to find out afterwards that the work was put back a week because of a Sunday lunch.”

“And I do not want you to go alone just because my schedule seems more important.”

“Sometimes it objectively is more important.”

“A particular piece of work — perhaps. My time in general — no.”

Dmitry wrote:

“I can come on Saturday after four. If the studio is taken, we shall keep Sunday and I shall confirm separately.”

The answer came a few minutes later. Saturday suited; they could start at half past four.

“Is that all right for you?” Ksyusha asked.

“Yes. On Saturday I only have some work at home in the morning.”

“Then shall we answer?”

Dmitry confirmed the studio. Ksyusha rang her mother.

“Mum, we shall be there by two.”

She moved the phone away from her ear and looked at Dmitry.

“No, we shall not bring anything. Mum. Mum, I know. All right. Tell me what you need. No, we are not bringing three bags either.”

Dmitry listened with the unruffled expression that appeared on his face whenever a conversation could no longer be steered and could only be lived through.

“What did she say?” he asked after the call.

“That nothing is needed. Then she listed butter, apples and some baking tin she left with us.”

“We have her tin?”

“Apparently we do now.”

He entered the studio on Saturday. Beside Sunday Ksyusha wrote: “Mum, 14:00”.

The rest of the day was left without a programme.

On Saturday morning each of them got on with their own things.

Dmitry prepared the session for checking: he put together the master, an alternative version and several short fragments on which the differences could be heard best. Ksyusha went through her vocal exercises, finished the text of her introduction and sorted out the clothes she meant to try at the next rehearsal at home.

At half past three they had lunch.

“What time will you be back?” Ksyusha asked.

“If there are no surprises — by nine.”

“And if there are?”

“I shall write.”

“All right.”

She was not going to wait by the door, and she did not ask him to guarantee a time he could not control in the studio. All she needed was a clear line of contact so that she could plan her own evening.

The professional studio came free twenty minutes late. The musician before them was listening through an export and twice sent the sound engineer back to the ending of the track. Dmitry did not hurry them. His session began later than planned, but it remained separate working time, not a continuation of the shared day at home.

In the control room he laid out the files in the order they were to be checked.

“Let us start with the two masters,” said the sound engineer. “Then we shall see whether there is time for the experiment.”

“The experiment is not essential. The main thing is to sign off this version.”

The first listen went through without stopping. On the big monitors the difference that at home was noticeable only in headphones became clearer: in one version the bottom of the arrangement sounded denser but took space away from the voice; in the other the vocal stayed freer, though a few beats seemed weaker.

They played the fragments one after another.

“On small speakers the dense version will win,” said the sound engineer.

“And as a whole?”

“As a whole it will tire people sooner.”

Dmitry asked him not to explain any further and listened to both versions again. He chose the second.

“Then let us bring the punch back a little in two places,” he said. “Not the whole low end.”

The change took less than ten minutes. The second check revealed another flaw: in one transition a short sound that had been almost inaudible at home stood out sharply here.

“On a quiet Sunday session we would have found that at once,” the sound engineer remarked.

“We have found it now as well.”

The remark did not defend the decision about the family day. Dmitry simply saw no point in turning the schedule into a conversation about right and wrong sacrifices.

By seven they had a new version ready. It still had to be checked on the second pair of monitors and in headphones. After that they could either finish or open a test project for new equipment that made it possible to control the depth of different groups of sounds separately. It was for the sake of that test that the sound engineer had originally suggested Sunday.

“We have an hour or a little more,” he said. “If we are quick, we can try.”

Dmitry looked at the checklist.

“Export and backup first. If there is time left — we shall try.”

He wrote to Ksyusha: “I shall be late. Probably till half past nine.”

The answer came almost at once: “All right. Then I shall finish my sheets. Write when you leave.”

Ksyusha did not ask whether the delay meant they had been wrong to choose the Sunday visit. Dmitry did not add that he was working longer “because of Mum”. They had agreed the Saturday session together, but inside the studio responsibility for how it went belonged to him.

The export turned up a click. It was not in the project, and it had not been in the previous version. They exported the file again — the click was still there.

The sound engineer checked the edit point.

“Not here.”

They switched off the groups of tracks one by one until they found an effect automation that fired a fraction of a second early during export. They fixed it, exported the file again, listened to the passage, then to the whole track.

The clock showed 20:47.

“We are not testing the new equipment now,” Dmitry said.

“We could at least load the project.”

“Then we shall start and stop halfway.”

“On Sunday we would have had four hours.”

“We would.”

Dmitry saved the list of future checks. The opportunity had not disappeared, but it no longer fitted into this session. He accepted the limit without irritation at the family, the studio or himself.

The finished master was copied to two drives and to the working storage. Dmitry checked that the file sizes matched, and only then closed the project.

He wrote to Ksyusha from the corridor: “Out. All finished.”

She answered: “Waiting at home.”

When Dmitry came back after nine, Ksyusha’s printed introductions lay on the table with her own notes on them. She had not spent the evening waiting on his work, nor had she left her own tasks undone as proof of devotion.

“Did it all work?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“The experiment?”

“No time. We shall reschedule it.”

“A pity?”

“A pity about the time. The master is ready.”

“Then the main thing is done.”

Ksyusha did not say, “But tomorrow we are going to Mum’s.” That would have set one important thing against another and turned a shared choice into an exchange of debts.

“So tomorrow you will not be going back to the tracks in your head?”

“I shall. But I shall not open them.”

“Accepted.”

On Sunday they arrived on time. Her mother opened the door before they rang, as though she had been standing in the hall all along.

“At last. I was beginning to think you had got stuck again. Dima, come in, do not just stand there. Ksyusha, why no scarf? There is a wind. I told you it would turn cold towards evening.”

She hugged her daughter, then Dmitry. She took the bag from him, looked inside and at once discovered that they had bought more apples than she had asked for.

“Why so many?”

“You said to get a kilo,” Ksyusha answered.

“This is clearly more.”

“Dima chose them.”

Her mother looked at him.

“Then they are good ones.”

“I did my best,” Dmitry said seriously.

Ksyusha took off her jacket and asked quietly:

“Why do I never get let off like that?”

“You are my own. More is expected of you.”

The table was already laid with dishes about which her mother had said in advance: “Nothing special.” She sat them down and in the first ten minutes managed to tell them about the repairs to the stairwell, the new cashier at the shop and a woman who had taken the wrong bus but had met a school friend because of it.

Dmitry ate and listened.

Dmitry would put a short question, and the story at once grew new details. He did not try to bring the conversation back to the point, and he did not let it be seen that there were too many details. Ksyusha’s mother talked the way other people lay out family photographs on a table: without separating the main thing from the trifles, because for her it all belonged to one life.

Ksyusha knew that by the end of the visit Dmitry would be tired. He did not like to stay long inside an unbroken stream of someone else’s speech. Yet he never once showed it to her mother. It was thanks to this woman that Ksyusha had come into the world. That alone was enough for Dmitry always to treat her with respect.

“I have talked your ears off, the pair of you,” her mother said at last.

“That is what we came for,” Dmitry answered.

“There, you see,” she said to her daughter. “And you are always hurrying me.”

“I do not hurry you. I sometimes remind you to breathe.”

After lunch her mother brought a cardboard box from the other room. On the lid an inscription in blue felt-tip had faded: “Photos. Do not throw away.”

“Here,” she said. “I found it on the top shelf. I am not sorting this out on my own.”

Ksyusha took off the lid. Inside lay envelopes from photo labs, several albums, school certificates, postcards and a small bag of negatives.

“It is all jumbled together.”

“That is why I did not touch it. I might spoil the order.”

“What order?”

“Mine.”

Dmitry took one envelope and looked at the date.

“The negatives are better digitised separately. The photographs can be scanned at home.”

“Do you have something to do it with?”

“We do.”

“Then take the box.”

Ksyusha at once put the lid back on.

“No. We are not taking it today.”

Her mother took offence — not seriously, but noticeably.

“Why not?”

“Because this is not a bag of photographs. This is several months of work.”

“I am not saying it has to be done in one evening.”

“Tomorrow you will say, ‘Well, how is it going?’”

“I shall not.”

Ksyusha looked at her.

“All right, I shall say it in a week.”

Dmitry ran his palm along the edge of the box.

“Let us choose one album first. We shall see how long the processing takes. Then we shall decide how to take the rest.”

“There. Dima knows how to come to an agreement.”

“Dima has just suggested the same as I did, only more calmly.”

“Then learn from him.”

Ksyusha opened her mouth, but Dmitry was already taking out the top album.

“This one?”

Her mother sat down beside them.

“No, not that one first. Ksyusha is little in it, but the photographs are bad. Take the green one. Though wait, in the green one half the captions are muddled…”

For the next forty minutes they chose one album. Behind every photograph there turned out to be a person, a story or a detail without which her mother refused to let the picture go into the unknown. Dmitry started a note on his phone and wrote down names with dates. Ksyusha laughed at first, then joined in too: some places she remembered, others she had never seen.

In a picture by a river her mother was younger than Ksyusha was now. She stood barefoot on wet sand, holding the hand of a girl of about five.

“That is not me,” Ksyusha said.

“Of course it is not you. That is Lena.”

“Which Lena?”

The answer took another ten minutes.

When they got ready to go home, the green album lay in a separate bag. On the inside of the cover Ksyusha had stuck a sheet with the words: “To be returned. Not to be sorted without Mum.”

“Will you bring it back next Sunday?” her mother asked.

Ksyusha looked at Dmitry. He did not answer for both of them.

“First we shall see how much we can get done,” she said. “Then we shall set a day.”

“Only do not drag it out.”

“Mum.”

“That is it, I am saying nothing.”

She went on talking all the way to the door.

Outside Ksyusha took Dmitry’s arm.

“Tired?”

“A little.”

“Why do you not tell her there is too much information?”

“Because she is your mother.”

“That is exactly why you can tell her straight.”

“It is not a question of whether she would understand. I do not want to re-educate her.”

“And can you tell me?”

“You I can. It was rather hard going.”

Ksyusha pressed against his shoulder for a few steps, then let go.

“Thank you for coming.”

“It was our decision.”

“Thank you all the same.”

In the evening they put the album by the scanner. They did not open it and did not turn the rest of Sunday into one more job. No note saying “family archive done” appeared in the calendar. Only a new line appeared in the following week: “Assess one album.”

One shared day had given rise to an obligation that had not existed that morning. But the obligation had not come into their life at the cost of time taken without asking. They had made room for it themselves.

The next evening they did open the green album after all.

It turned out to hold a hundred and eighty-four photographs. Some were held by old corner mounts, some were glued down for good. Under the pictures there were captions without a year, dates without names and names Ksyusha was seeing for the first time.

Dmitry examined the mountings.

“We take nothing out of the album until we understand how the paper is holding.”

“Can we scan it a double page at a time?”

“We can. Then process each photograph separately.”

“How long?”

“For this album — several evenings. If we do it carefully.”

Ksyusha rang her mother and put her on speaker.

“Mum, there are almost two hundred pictures here.”

“I said the album was big.”

“You said, ‘Take one.’”

“It is one.”

“We shall do a trial ten photographs first. Then we shall decide how to go on.”

“And when does it have to come back?”

Ksyusha looked at Dmitry. He shook his head, suggesting she should not name a date before the assessment.

“We shall tell you after the trial.”

“I just need to know.”

“So do we.”

Her mother wanted to go on but stopped.

“All right. Only do not lose the slip of paper between the pages.”

They found three slips.

After the call Dmitry created folders for the original scans, the working copies and the captions. Ksyusha started a table: page number, name, place, date, questions. In the first hour they processed eight pictures and realised that the main work would be not the scanning but the restoring of context.

In a photograph of a summer table Ksyusha’s mother was young. Beside her stood people Ksyusha did not recognise.

“We shall have to invite Mum here,” she said.

“Or write down every question.”

“She will answer with twenty-minute voice messages.”

“Then better here.”

So the family archive gained not only a place in the calendar but a future way into their home. Not for an indefinite circle of relatives and acquaintances — for her mother, without whom the photographs remained a collection of faces.

At ten in the evening they closed the album. The table had eight rows filled in and twelve questions. Dmitry made a backup, and Ksyusha wrote to her mother that the trial was finished.

The answer came at once:

“I told you there was a lot of interesting stuff in there.”

Close behind it came the first correction to the third photograph.

Chapter Six

A Day Without a Result

Two weeks later their free Sunday was already taken again before breakfast.

This time no outsider laid claim to it. Dmitry had drawn up the list himself.

Check two versions of the master. Sort out the folder of drafts. Prepare questions for the next studio session. Look through the scans of the green album. Answer three letters that could wait until Monday but had better not.

Ksyusha came into the kitchen with her own list on her phone. She had to choose clothes for the performance, learn two short introductions, sort the photographs after scanning and watch a recording of someone else’s chamber evening that the organiser had sent.

They sat down opposite each other and almost at the same moment laid their lists on the table.

“We have a day off,” Ksyusha said.

“That is exactly why it all fitted in.”

“It fits in on weekdays too. Only not within twenty-four hours.”

Dmitry turned his notebook round towards her.

“What is superfluous here?”

“Wrong question.”

“Then what is the right one?”

“Which of these did you promise to other people?”

He looked over the items.

“The master has to be checked by ten on Monday morning. The letters — one before lunch. The rest I promised no one.”

“How long will the master take?”

“An hour. Less, if the differences are clear.”

“Check it now. Send the letter. Then close the list.”

“And yours?”

Ksyusha opened her note.

“The introductions are needed by Friday. The recording is only a recommendation. The photographs are awaited by Mum and by common sense, but we gave no exact date. The clothes can be chosen in half an hour this evening.”

“In half an hour?”

“Do not start.”

“I said nothing.”

“You looked.”

“I have the right to look in my own home.”

Ksyusha put her phone away.

“I shall read the introductions once. The rest I shall leave.”

They did not cancel obligations to other people for the sake of a pretty idea of spontaneity. Dmitry listened to the two masters, chose one and sent his notes. Ksyusha checked the names in the introductions, corrected the stress in a surname and noted down a question for the organiser. By half past ten the necessary things were done.