The White Russian Read Online Free PDF

although he had forced them all to sit for long enough.
    Ruzsky pulled back the curtain, to allow in a little more natural light. The man had caught none of Dmitri’s charm, but the portrait of Ilya-Ilusha as he had been known to them all-had greater warmth, capturing perfectly his impish grin.
    Ruzsky wondered what his father had done with his own portrait. Even though it had been many years since it had hung alongside the others, its absence still caused him pain. It was as if he did not exist.
    He let the curtain fall, haunted by the resemblance between Ilya and Michael. Or was it just that his own son had almost reached the age at which Ilusha had been taken from them?
    Ruzsky turned around and walked swiftly from the room and through the hallway. He glanced out of the rear window and caught sight of his son in the garden.
    Michael was on his own. He had built a wall of snow and behind it assembled a small mound of snowballs.
    Ruzsky watched as his son came back behind the wall, picked up the first missile, and hurled it toward its target. He missed, so repeated the exercise with the second and then with all the others, ducking down between each throw, as if dodging gunfire.
    When he had finished, Michael mounted an imaginary horse and rode out beyond his rampart.
    He dismounted and began to run through the small garden, with his arms outstretched. He was a plane, or perhaps a bird. He was alone in his world.
    Michael’s isolation reminded Ruzsky of his own in the years after Ilusha’s death.
    He rested his forehead against the window and the glass slowly misted up with the warmth of his breath. How the months had dragged since he’d last set eyes upon his son.
    “Perhaps you should leave him.”
    Ruzsky spun around. His father stood quite still in the hallway, apparently unchanged by these past three years. He was an older and more distinguished version of his eldest son. He was no taller than Ruzsky and not much broader, but he carried about him the gravity of his wealth and position.
    His mustache was completely white now and drooped neatly around the edges of his mouth. His hair was longer than usual, but also a distinctive silver-white. Neatly brushed across his forehead, it was wavy and thick. If only you were as handsome as your father, Irina had once said to him with a sigh.
    Today, Russia ’s assistant minister of finance wore a morning suit, his gold pocket-watch chain looped across the front of a dark waistcoat, highly polished boots catching what little light filtered through the window.
    “I’m sorry?” Ruzsky asked. He felt his face flushing.
    “He’s your son. It’s your choice.”
    “What is?”
    “Whether to see him.”
    Ruzsky faced the window again. Michael had discarded his hat and was standing in the middle of the garden staring at the gray sky. “Why is that a choice?” he asked.
    Irina emerged from the kitchen below and hurried toward their son. She tried to shoo him back inside, but he was reluctant to come. She picked up Michael’s hat and forced it onto his head.
    Irina was not an unattractive woman. Her dark hair had been recently cut and styled to frame her narrow face. She glanced up briefly, but did not appear to see him.
    “Perhaps you should give him more time.”
    “Time for what?”
    “To settle in.”
    Ruzsky had forgotten how much authority his father carried in his voice. “To settle in where?” he asked.
    “You know perfectly well what I mean.”
    Ruzsky watched as Michael finally allowed himself to be led by his mother back into the house. He heard the door being shut below and could dimly make out the sound of their voices in the kitchen.
    “Fatherhood carries responsibilities.”
    Ruzsky turned and, as he did so, caught sight of a wooden train in the corner of the doorway to his father’s study, by the base of a large palm tree. “What do you mean by that?”
    “Sometimes you have to act in the best interests of the child, and not of your own.”
    “And