Chapter 93

That same night, we took our plane back to Russia. I had hardly had time to spend with my mother or her with the children, but I kept noticing that she seemed in a much better mood—lively and smiling. She was even much more affectionate with me and more talkative than on the trip to England.

When I asked her what had happened to her, she smiled and whispered to me, in English:

“You look better, my son. That shadow that darkened your eyes has faded a little, and I don’t perceive your resistance as strongly as before.” She paused while she caressed Mirko’s hair tenderly. My son had fallen asleep, stretched out in the seat of the Learjet and with his head on his grandmother’s legs. “It’s not completely gone, but I feel like a part of your soul is cleaner. Aren’t you sorry, Nikolai? Even your smell has changed.”

I had Sasha, also asleep, in my arms and wrapped in her favorite blanket.

“I don’t see what you mean,” I added, in the same language.

“You’ll under