He smiles at me gently. “No, Dasha, that’s not why she did it. She did it for money. Lots of it. Your mother went to Igor and asked him for the equivalent in today’s terms of around one hundred thousand dollars, give or take. Told him she had information he needed. She also did it because she needed to get away. She was in debt with some rather unsavory characters. Igor paid her the cash and sent you both to London. He also knew Jasper, vaguely, through the fact that Jasper liked to bring promising young girls over from Russia to Europe to dance. Not the sort of dancing you do, though, Dasha. I’m sure you understand what I mean.”
Jasper helped traffic girls? No. He might be many things, but not that?
“Jasper made his money and then got out of the game. He wanted to be respectable. Legit. And Igor told him about this dancer. A girl he would want to put on the best stages in the world, not the tawdriest. A girl who allegedly made grown men cry when she danced. Your mother, Igor, and Jasper planned your life from the very moment you landed in London. None of it was coincidence. You were his passport to respectability, but he kept some of his old connections via his lawyer.”
“Is he a danger to me now?” I ask.
Ilya shrugs. “I cannot say. From the point of view of whether he’s still got connections in our world, I would say no. He’s spent far too long trying to get away from it. Is he a bad person who would do anything to get what he wanted? Then yes, you might still be in danger.”
He takes my hand in his. “I don’t know Bohdan well, but I know K thinks highly of him, and so does Andrius. For Andrius to have let Bohdan be a part of this venture they are forming, he must trust him. See good in him. I know what he did was wrong, but he did it with good intentions, of that I am sure. Did your mother ever do anything with good intentions? I think probably not, and yet you forgive her time and time again.”
Then he stands, pats my shoulder, and leaves the room.
Over the next few days as I get ready to leave for the tour, Ilya’s words keep coming back to me. I miss Bohdan all the time. The thing is, though, every time I picture him, I see him watching me as I lay in garbage, and the most intense sticky shame coats my tongue. How do I move on from that?
The night before we fly to the first destination, I get a letter. It’s airmail from Greece.
He wrote to me.
In this day and age of emails and texts, it seems impossibly romantic to hold an airmail letter in my hands.
I open it and start reading.
Dasha,
I hope this letter finds you well. I hear from our friend Ilya that you’re about to embark on a final tour. You will be amazing, Dasha. Your dancing is the most inspirational and beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You move like liquid, heartbreak, joy, pain, and freedom, all contained in this amazing network of flesh and bone that makes you special.
When I saw you on the floor in that garbage, I was furious. Furious that Jasper could take something as precious as you. Something as rare and beautiful and wonderful as you and do that to you. That’s not how I think of you, though. I think of you as a dancer. As a daughter who loves her mother enough to forgive her time and time again. I think of you as an intelligent, fiercely talented woman who brought my friends to tears under the stars in Corfu.
I think of you as the girl who lit up the dark Russian nights for me.
I think of you on that stage in Paris, where you moved with a grace I’ve never seen before.
You have nothing to be ashamed of, Dasha. I don’t profess to know exactly what you feel, but I think maybe I understand some of it. You hate that I saw you like that, but you have to know that’s not how I think of you. You know my past, what my father did, and what he let his friends do. Does that change how you view me? I hope not.
You’re not an object of pity to me, Dasha. You’re an object of admiration. You are the girl I wrote this for.
I miss you.
I want you.
I love you.
Bohdan. X
I crumple the paper in my hand, holding it to my heart as I sob, bent over. I miss, want, and love him too.
Behind his letter is a small booklet, and I take it out and look at it. My heart misses a beat or two. It’s one of the story booklets he made for me as kids, like the one I still have. It’s short and sweet, with frankly terrible drawings in it, but I don’t care. It makes me cry more, and I know this will also become a precious, treasured item, along with the other booklet I kept all these years, and this letter.
The next day, as we head to the airport, I get the driver Ilya loaned us to stop the car. I hop out by the postbox and slot the thick letter in. It’s a reply to Bohdan, and it has the book I kept all this time in there. The one I treasured, which he will get to see once more for the first time in many years.
My mother isn’t with me. I told her at the last minute I wanted to go alone on this tour. She wasn’t as upset as I thought she’d be. She has friends here who oooh and aaah over her plans to buy a big house in the city. I’m glad she won’t be with me. I don’t want her there. I’m not sure I’ll want her there ever again. Not after what Ilya told me.
I haven’t confronted her. There is no point. My mother won’t admit her faults, and she’ll duck and dive and do anything to dismiss responsibility for all she’s done.
When the plane takes off, I feel light. Free. Of her. Of the baggage of the past.
The tour is a huge success, and every night I receive standing ovations, flowers, praise, and headlines in the papers of whichever city I am in.
By the time I get to Paris, I’m a nervous wreck. Lilliana is with me backstage before every show. On the last night, she comes to me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “Is it because this is the last night that you’re so terrified, Dasha?”
It shows, does it?
I shake my head. “No. I invited a special guest to be here tonight. Sent him a ticket, and I’m not sure if he’ll come.”
“Ah, I see. If you’re talking about who I think you are, I bet he will.”
The music starts, and I blow out a deep breath. I’m about to go out onto that stage, and someone very important to me may or may not be in the audience below.
I walk with Lilliana along the corridor, down the stairs, and to the backstage area. Once I’m at the side of the stage, I feel as if I’m going to be sick. God, if he doesn’t come, I’ll be a wreck, and if he does, I’ll be a wreck. Either way, tonight is going to be a hard performance to get through.
The music swells to a dramatic crescendo, and that’s my cue to get on stage. I hug Lilliana and then walk out. As the curtain rises, I stare out into the front row of seats, and my heart sinks. There in front of me, a beacon of lost hope, is an empty seat.
I pushed him away. Our whole history has been me running away from him, and I did it again. It seems this was one time too far.
Why did he write me, though, if he had no intention of being with me? Maybe it was a trick? Or perhaps he’s changed his mind since then?
You can do this, I tell myself. Put it all into the dance. The Dying Swan should be a breeze the way I’m feeling inside. I strike my pose, and to the side I hear rustling in the wings. I turn, expecting to see Lilliana still watching me, but instead my heart stops.
Right there, almost close enough to touch, is the man I’ve been waiting to see every single performance.