Free The Silent Oligarch: A Novel by Christopher Morgan Jones

thank her but it didn’t feel appropriate. They were quiet for a while.
    “What happened to ballet?” he asked.
    “She does that on Wednesdays. But she loves this now. She practices all the time.”
    “I bet she’s good.”
    Marina smiled and looked down at the dancers. They had lined up, in two rows of ten, and were listening to their teacher, a woman of twenty or so who wore a baggy gray T-shirt and held herself in a way that was somehow set and sprung at the same time. The chattering had stopped and the children watched her closely as she walked back and forth. Vika’s face was grave with concentration.
    “Good morning, everybody.” She had a teacher’s voice, ringing and clear. “Lovely to see you all looking so well. Let’s hope you’re feeling fit.” One or two of the children grinned, but Vika’s expression didn’t change. “I see we’ve got quite a few new faces, which is lovely. Welcome to St. Luke’s Dance. I’m Jennifer. What I think we’ll do is let the new dancers see what they’re going to be able to do. So everyone who was here last year, let’s have a go at our routine from the show. Let’s see what you can remember. We’ll be missing some dancers but just do your part and don’t worry too much.”
    Lock watched Vika walk to the left of the group, bend fluidly down on one knee and crouch in a ball, her hands clasped over her head. Beside her, the other children shaped themselves carefully into their starting positions, some curled up like Vika, some in stars, some arching backward, their arms stretched to the corners of the room. At a nod from the teacher the hall filled with the thump of bass-heavy music. For four bars the dancers were still, almost uncannily so, until with great precision they broke into a syncopated rush of movement, spinning, leaping, kicking, arms and legs making intricate patterns in the air, some keeping better time than others. Each dancer had a style. Vika’s was serious but light, the intent in her eyes at odds with the easy grace of her steps, resembling her mother even in this. She was an inch taller than the others and despite her naturalness more stately, as if something from all those ballet lessons, something of Russia perhaps, would never leave her.
    Lock felt tears starting to rise from his chest; he didn’t know why. He was not a sentimental man. When he was on his own in Moscow he missed Vika, but what he missed most plainly was practical: being with her, talking to her, teaching her things, hearing her laugh. What he realized now was that he had fallen behind in his idea of her. She was a different person now, different for being in London, different for being eight years old, different for dancing in this way that was so new and yet so fully her. Watching her move with the music, at once free and in command, he felt some small hint of terror at the thought that he might never really know her again. But the tears that he held in check were not for himself, and had nothing to do with sadness, or fear.
    He swallowed, consciously, smiled at Marina and looked away. Down below the dance came to an end, Vika sliding to a stop on her knees with her arms and head thrown back. He clapped, and the handful of parents in the gallery followed. Vika got to her feet and smiled up at him.
    “Are you OK?” Marina said.
    He turned to her and smiled again, not wholly convincing himself. “It’s just lovely to see her.”
    “We’re very lucky.”
    “We are.”
    Lock paused. He was faintly aware of needing to air a question he couldn’t frame. “Is she happy? Here in London.”
    “I think so. She loves London.” Marina looked at him closely, a slight frown across her brow. “Is that what you mean?”
    “I don’t know.” He looked down. The teacher was telling the children to form a circle. “I worry about what I’ve done to her.”
    “She doesn’t see it as your fault.”
    “That doesn’t mean it isn’t. She’ll know one day.”
    Marina crossed