2024/149: The Betrayal — Helen Dunmore

2024/149: The Betrayal — Helen Dunmore

The blob of sun on the corridor wall wavers. The day shines before him, impossibly ordinary and beautiful. This must be how the dead think of life. All those things they used to take for granted, and can never have again. [p. 13]

Sequel to The Siege, The Betrayal begins ten years later, in late 1952. Anna is a nursery teacher, Andrei is a doctor, Kolya is a sullen and uncommunicative teenager who annoys the neighbours with his piano-playing. Andrei is asked by a colleague to give an opinion on a sick child, Gorya: "My ‘initial findings’," says the colleague, "are that this patient is the son of — an extremely influential person." No wonder he wants to pass the case to somebody else.( Read more... )