The Lubetkin Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the lady before slipping a ring on to it, but now I simply grabbed her hand and said, ‘Why don’t you move in with me, Inna?’
    Her lips pursed flirtatiously. ‘You want to make sex wit me, Mister Bertie?’
    I wondered for one ghastly moment whether she really meant it. Although I had not given up hope that someday I would once again become an object of desire, this was not at all what I had in mind.
    ‘No, Inna, no. Truly, nothing could be further from my thoughts. I just want you to make globalki sobachki and slutki for me.’
    ‘Aha! I understand, Mister Bertie.’ She winked. ‘You homosexy no problem for me, okay.’
    ‘No, it’s not that, Inna. I’m not denying that I am homosexual.’
I was not going to be outshone in political correctness by George bloody Clooney. ‘But I’m not confirming it either. Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither. Though by the bloody grin on your face you seem to say so. That’s Shakespeare for you.’ I have long been intrigued by the question of the Immortal Bard’s sexuality, but this did not seem to be the best time to discuss it. ‘All I want is for you to act like my mother. That’s not too difficult, is it?’ Then a sudden prudence seized me: usually motherhood is for life. ‘Just on a trial basis,’ I added.
    She may not have heard that last bit, for she was already crossing herself and declaring, ‘Aha, you poor mama! No one can be like her! God save her soul, she is already wit Lenin and Khrushchev and all Soviet saints in heaven!’
    I felt a prick of apprehension. Maybe all old ladies are not so alike after all. Inna did seem to lurch wildly between conflicting ideologies, whereas Mother had been unshakeable in her beliefs. Then again, did it matter what she believed, so long as she was still cool with the gabolki kasobki and salotki? And would say the right things to Mrs Penny?
    ‘I know, Inna. But if you could just pretend …’
    Inna arched her eyebrows. Dimples puckered her cheeks. The thought of being desired again, even if for the wrong reasons, had brought out the flirt in her.
    ‘If you say so, Mister Bertie.’
    Curious about what I had let myself in for, I asked, ‘Tell me about yourself, Inna. Where are you from? When did you come to England?’
    ‘We come in 1992. Husband got research job. Bacteriophage. Wit Doctor Soothill. Very good man. You know him?’
    ‘I can’t say I do. And you …?’
    ‘In Ukraina I was nurse. But to work in here I got to learn English.’
    Thank heavens for that, then. I said, ‘Mother’s last husband, Lucky Lukashenko, was from Ukraine. From Lviv, right in the west. She probably told you.’
    ‘Hah! Lviv is Galicia, not real Ukraina.’ She spat into her phlegm receptacle. ‘Galicia only 1939 got in Ukraina. Before was wit Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Ruthenia, Avstria. All Catholiki. Real Ukraina Orthodox true faith.’
    She crossed herself. Behind the diamanté glasses, her fire-coal eyes blazed with ardour. I had heard Lucky Lukashenko going on in a similar vein about the non-Ukrainianness of the population of the east who, he claimed, were all transplanted Russians, people of low culture and criminal tendencies. So I already had some inkling of how touchy these Slavs could be.
    ‘I born Moldova, but live Odessa,’ she added.
    ‘Odessa? Really?’
    All of a sudden she took on a more exotic air, redolent of champagne and caviar, of grand bougainvillea-draped villas and leafy boulevards haunted by Pushkin and Eisenstein.
    ‘Ah! Odessa. Most beautiful city in world. Beautiful street. Beautiful monument. Beautiful harbour. Beautiful sea. Beautiful moon. Beautiful people all time laughing, making joke, eating slatki, drinking shampanskoye, falling in love.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘You ever been in love, Mister Bertie? Wit lady, I mean, not wit man?’
    ‘Actually, I was married once.’ Okay, so I was letting the side down by not sticking up for gay love, but frankly her obsession was getting