By Annemarie Neary
Featured Art by Rachel Hall

They had barely finished the introductions when he asked about the war. The endgame, the likely victor, things no Ukrainian cared to discuss with strangers.  

‘I wish I knew,’ she said. Usually that was enough. 

‘But what do you think?’ 

She managed to keep her tone level. ‘I try not to think. But I’ll do a good job here regardless.’  

She didn’t like his smile any more than she liked his question. But she did want the job. A friend who was still in Kyiv had spotted the ad online. These things are almost never advertised, so Olena emailed right away with her CV.  

While Sandro’s reply was non-committal, he proposed a meeting. So, she blagged a day off work from the nursing home, came haring over from Fusina. 

It was July, and they were sitting in a suffocating room under artificial light. There was an air conditioning unit on the back wall and the blinds were down. The temperature outside was 33, the humidity through the roof, and she saw now that the manila portfolio she’d brought with her had sweaty finger-marks.  

‘Your Italian, it’s pretty good,’ he said.  

Her Italian was just OK.  

He slid on a pair of half-moons and began examining her CV. Surely, he’d read all that already. Surely, he’d formed a view. She felt sick at the prospect of him reading it in front of her, though most of what it said on there was true. There was such a gulf between the life it seemed to predict and the one she was actually living.  

But he was the person to learn from, no doubt about that. If you feed artisan, mask, Venice into any search engine, Sandro Loredan will top the list. Fourth generation mask-maker. Supplier to film and theatre. Entrepreneur, innovator, master of the strategic collab.  

‘So . . .’ he looked up, ‘I like your CV very much. But before we turn to the portfolio . . . I must be frank. We do have Russian clients. Important source of business, Russians. In the bespoke ranges especially. Very profitable. Just something to bear in mind.’ 

Her throat felt tight, but she nodded. Russians were everywhere.  

‘It’s not a sales role, of course. But it’s best that you know how our business works.’ 

‘You make. They like. You sell. I get it.’ 

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad that’s been resolved.’  

In some respects, it had been easier when she first arrived, when everyone she met was outraged on her behalf, even as they offered things that nobody would ever want, like chipped mugs or worn-out gloves. Nowadays, most people avoided the war altogether. Which was fine, because she really didn’t want to talk about the war. She wanted to shake it off. She felt differently about home, of course. She didn’t want to shake that off, but she was happy not to talk about it either, because talking made her choke.  

He was writing something now, inscribing it carefully in the margin of her CV.  

‘Not so bad, to be in Venice.’  

‘Kyiv is beautiful, too,’ she said.  

He glanced up. ‘But hardly Venice.’ 

And yet, she couldn’t believe the number of trashy shops up near the station. No end of cheap rubbish—glass animals and glittery masks. 

‘I understand Kyiv has come away quite lightly,’ he said, ‘all things considered.’ 

‘Oh, they’ll probably destroy it in the end, if they don’t get what they want.’  She blurted that out, then felt the poison in it start to weaken her. That’s what happens when you take the bait. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘You’ve probably seen. I’ve got a particular interest in masks.’  

He placed his palm on the unopened portfolio. ‘No doubt. But you would need to understand Venetian masks. Our methods, history.’ He explained that in Venice, a mask had always been an enabling device, not just a costume. The white Bauta was worn by both men and women to erase gender and class; the black Moretta permitted women a certain licence but ensured they stayed mute. 

 ‘We have masks, too.’ she said, since he had not yet asked the obvious question: why on earth does a Ukrainian want to make Venetian masks?’ 

‘Papier-mâché?’ 

‘Yes, but we also use other materials like animal skin. During the Soviet period, my grandmother even used gas masks. She cut out the glass eyes.’  

She had the impression that the ghoulishness of that appealed to him. ‘Maybe with the war that will happen again,’ he said. 

‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘But maybe.’ 

‘This is a peasant tradition?’ 

‘I suppose, if that’s the way you want to put it. Many are made for the feast of Saint Melania.’ 

He laughed, which seemed odd, until she realized the only Melania he’d probably ever heard of was Mrs. Trump. Oh well, she could not help that.  

‘In my grandmother’s village in Bukovyna, they believe that spirits visit on that day. Bears or devils. By putting on the masks, the villagers appease these creatures, so they don’t ever come again. So, I guess I have my own tradition.’ 

She’d forgotten to be humble, and she could see that he didn’t like that. He flicked the folder open with a single finger, as if he might catch something, and she began arming herself for rejection.  

If she left now, she might make the three o’clock train back to Fusina, where her friends would be waiting at the apartment. There were four of them sharing just the one room. Two of them were working, and they supported the other two. It would even out in the end. They all had bad days, but Daniela was the only one who cried.  

The drawings, spread out over the table, felt even more exposing than the CV. They seemed fragile under his gaze, no longer anchored into time and place. He flicked through most of them but lingered over some sketches of masks she’d made for a production that Dasha had directed in their final year. It was a short play by a long-dead Irish poet using Noh-style masks. Unusually for a student production, they’d been reviewed in the national press. The masks were exhibited later in a city-centre gallery. Olena wondered why he didn’t comment; he seemed to find them interesting. It was not her fault that he had Russian clients. 

Sandro gathered the sketches, closed the portfolio and slapped it gently. ‘I’m afraid you will have a lot to learn.’ 

That future tense sounded moderately hopeful. ‘I promise I’ll be useful,’ she said.  

‘Oh, come now. If you really wanted to be useful, you would stay where you are. You may not be useful here, but you will be put to use. Can you render emotion, though?’ He slid a sheet of heavy foolscap from a pile by his elbow. ‘That’s the question. Draw happy.’ 

She could hardly remember a time when she was happy. But she scratched away until she found her grandmother’s face. The Sunday plum-pastry face.  

He scarcely looked at that one. ‘Now sad.’ 

Sadness draws itself. Her mother at the window of the apartment watching drones streak the night sky.  

‘Now draw yourself—here, now, in Venice.’  

She sketched a narrow street, her face a mask of stone above a lintel. 

 He granted her a small smile for that one. ‘I’ll take you on. Till after Carnival.’  

‘And the pay?’ 

Her heart dropped. It was even less than she was earning in the nursing home. Where would she live? How would she afford to travel from Fusina?  

But he had anticipated that. ‘There is a room above the shop. You may stay there, if you wish.’ 

She said she would think about it. His attitude changed then, and she saw how much he wanted her. She found that gratifying, though the low pay still rankled.  

‘I will teach you all I know. After that, it will be up to you. But permit me to offer a word of advice. Bitterness is disabling. It will blight your imagination. And no one is interested in your trauma.’  

The cruelty of that was breath-taking. Was she bitter? Probably. She was certainly angry. But he was wrong about her imagination. That was burning bright.  

***

The same day Olena moved to Venice, the boys back home pushed into Kursk. It was the only bright news there’d been in months. Ridiculous to regard that heave as in any way connected to her own new start, but that is how it felt.  

The room upstairs was basic, a camp bed and a couple of battered lockers. It smelled as if soaked in historic pestilence. The only toilet was downstairs in the workshop, and one night she met a rat on the second landing. She bought herself a she-wee after that, retreated behind her door after nine. She scarcely saw Venice at all.  

When it came to work, however, Sandro was as good as his word. Each morning, he sat beside her at the bench in his plaster-stained apron and made her watch how he performed even the most routine task.  

‘I know you think you know this, but I want you to learn it my way.’ 

She loved to watch him sculpt new faces out of clay, pour on Bologna plaster to create the mould. He taught her how to even out the cartalana, drumming in the glue with his fingertips then smoothing out the bubbles. Be bolder with the lancet when you make the eyes. Use more dilution for the second coat.  

Three months on, she felt he’d taught her everything he knew, or at least everything he could bear to part with. After that, he was increasingly unavailable. He still turned up for the Saturday Masterclasses he held for reverential wives and Chinese fashion-victims. But the calm he’d seemed to derive from teaching her had gone. He was prone to flaring up, and Olena suspected there was a habit of some sort. Perhaps cocaine, perhaps something else. Marta, who ran the office, said it was just the time of year. He couldn’t face the fading light.  

Alongside Olena and the two silent guys from Mestre who’d laboured under Sandro for years, the workshop relied on a roster of elderly hangers-on who turned up now and then to lend a hand. There was a man with satsuma-coloured hair and operatic eyebrows who sighed with pleasure as he slathered Vaseline inside the moulds as preparation for the cartapesta. A woman who came on Wednesdays with her tiny but domineering dog was next to useless, but Marta hadn’t got the heart to send her away.  

At times it seemed to Olena that everyone in Venice was old. She did know there were student bars, but she had neither the time nor money to frequent them. On the occasional Sundays when the girls came over from Fusina, they would sit together by the tethered gondolas, drinking supermarket Prosecco and eating slices of limp pizza. It was the beginning of December. Fog and cold stone. Vanishing alleyways blurred with strings of fairy lights.  

***

It was almost Christmas when Marta transferred the call to Olena in the workshop. The voice was interesting—cigar-ish, with an air of polite command. Giorgio Furlanetti. He was looking for the boss.  

‘I can’t seem to get him on his mobile. I need to speak to him about an event we’re hosting during Carnival for some mutual clients. Just say the pirates—he’ll know who I mean. We’ll handle the costumes, of course, but we’re going to need some very special masks. Around fourteen, I think. Theme to be discussed.’ 

When Sandro finally appeared in the early afternoon, he was wearing dark glasses, which was never a good sign.  He looked smaller, tighter, as if he’d shrunk in the wash. 

‘Anything happening?’  

‘Giorgio Furlanetti. He said you’d know the name.’ 

He took off the dark glasses, rubbed at his eyes. ‘How long have you been here, Olena? Giorgio owns Tessitura Furlanetti. They’re one of the last great Venetian producers of soprarizzo velvet. Please, do try to keep up.’ 

He left to return the call, and when he came back the ‘very special celebration’ had begun to take shape. Musicians to be brought in from Florence. Food by Venice’s only double Michelin chef. Event to be held on the night before Il Ballo del Doge.  

‘Which, in case you haven’t heard, is the party of the season. These fellows, and their wives, mistresses, whatever. They’ll all be there. Giorgio has decided to host a little dinner of his own. Boys only. To discuss matters of mutual interest, given the current difficulties. But now they’ve requested a pageant beforehand. From Giorgio’s perspective it’s a Furlanetti showcase. But I know these people. They’ll use it to their advantage. It’s just what they do.’ 

‘These people?’   

‘Oh, a little Russian soft power, that’s all. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ 

‘Soft is new.’ 

‘Not really. The grimier the name, the better they like their velvet.’  

‘And the masks?’ 

‘That will be your job. Tomorrow, ten o’clock. Palazzo Furlanetti. It’s in Santa Croce, in the 1300s. Marta will give you the exact address. You’ll be meeting Sofia, the eldest daughter. Sensible girl, curates the archive. Take notes.’ 

She was about to ask why he wasn’t going himself. But he looked so very tired. She wondered then if he was sick, if maybe he’d been sick all along. 

‘I’ve told them you’re Russian, by the way.’  

The word landed on her chest like a barrel. She felt a rush of panic. ‘Why would you do that?’  

 ‘You speak the language, don’t you? It sends a reassuring message. We can offer someone who understands the Russian . . . Well, culture, I suppose.’ 

‘You do know—’ 

 ‘Oils the wheels, that’s all. You won’t be meeting them.’  

She went outside, walked in circles round the campo, tramped out her fury. But she was sick to death of victimhood. And later she concluded that perhaps it didn’t matter much. She knew who she was.  

***

Sofia Furlanetti was compact, neat. She took up no more space than was strictly necessary. 

‘Olena. Please. Come inside. I apologize for the racket—the girls are on the looms—but we can sit in my office.’ 

She led Olena through an area displaying little jewel-coloured silk handbags and jacquard scarves. A shop, but not a shop. ‘I used to so enjoy my visits to St Petersburg,’ she said, pulling back a chair. ‘All very sad.’ Her voice tailed off.  

Olena froze. What was sad? The loss of business? The destruction of a country? She forced herself to stay calm. No one is interested in your trauma.  

Sofia was already speaking into a fixed line on her desk. ‘Maria? Could we have some coffee?’ She turned to Olena. ‘Cappuccino? If we’re lucky, Maria will have made her specials this morning.’ She leaned back into the speaker. ‘Biscotti, Maria? Oh, you are wonderful.’  

Everything seemed so old-fashioned. Even Sofia, who was thirty-five at most, looked like somebody’s great-aunt in the middle of the last century. Oyster-coloured cashmere, pale pink fingernails, tailored skirt. 

‘Would you find it more comfortable if we spoke— 

‘No, no. Italian is fine.’  

‘Then let’s get started. First, though, let me give you a taste of our amazing collection. We’ll have our coffee in the sales suite.’  

She slid open a drawer, took out a little spray and spritzed her hands. They passed through the workshop, where certain looms seemed to have been abandoned in mid-weave. There were haphazard shelves of yarns and silks, random piles of punched cards. They crossed a more ordered room, up a small run of steps, down another and into a reception area. A large window gave onto the Grand Canal, where a churning vaporetto was hoving towards its dock. 

‘My sales pitch,’ Sofia smiled, nodding out at the water. ‘I always seat them looking out at that. We sell to overseas institutions mainly. I need to muster all the heritage I can. The potential market is very small. Survival is an art form.’ 

Olena understand that as a coded way of saying that Furlanetti supped with the devil. And so did Sandro. And now, apparently, so did she.  

Sofia gestured to the banks of museum-style cabinets, the drawers upon drawers of samples. ‘It takes a whole day to make just 30 centimetres of hand-loomed velvet. So, we keep every scrap. Even in the past, when a design went out of fashion, it was donated for another purpose, to the church perhaps. Nothing was wasted, which is why we still have so much.’ She slid out a drawer. ‘Do you see the green selvedge on this cloth?’ 

Olena’s eye was caught by the postcard displayed alongside it. A Renaissance portrait of a boy. ‘Like on that jacket he’s wearing.’  

‘Indeed. That cinquecento sitter is displaying the green selvedge as a status symbol. Look at me, he is saying. I can afford Furlanetti cloth. You might even recognise the pattern. One of our Renaissance revivals. It was used by Dolce & Gabbana some years back. And this one went to Dior. The quantities are tiny, but the reach is good.’ She pointed to a board pasted with images from various publications.  

‘This cloth is mostly used for furnishings?’ 

‘Of course. This one, for instance, is fire-retardant. They used it in the refurbishment of the Fenice. And that one, we call our Midas cloth.’ Sofia laughed again. She laughed easily, it seemed.  

Woven into a cloth of gold was the double-headed imperial eagle. It looked both crass and stomach-churningly expensive. 

 ‘Quite the calling-card. We made the curtain for what is probably the most famous theatre in Russia. Perhaps you’ve been there? So nice to be chosen ahead of our very dear friends at Rubelli and Bevilacqua.’ She made a funny little face, flicked back a hank of glossy hair.  

Enough now, Olena thought. ‘And our own project?’  

‘Vices-and-virtues was one thought. Ideal for fourteen guests. Or European capitals — Paris, Rome, Berlin . . .’ 

‘Where are we invading next, you mean?’ 

Sofia blinked several times, then gave a brisk nod.   

‘I was joking,’ Olena said.  

‘With respect. Not something to say when the client is in town.’ 

***

A week later, Olena was about to attend her second meeting with Sofia when Maria called her into the tiny office at the back of the workshop. Maria’s fingers kneaded at the seam of her jeans as she delivered the news. Sandro was taking extended leave. 

‘He will not be back for some time. Certainly not before Carnival . . .’ her voice trailed off.  

‘Is he ill?’ Olena said, already sure. 

Maria nodded hastily, as if she didn’t trust herself with the truth.  

The handing-over of the Furlanetti job made more sense now. Olena was still thinking about that as she was being escorted into Sofia’s sales room later the same day. She was surprised to see a man seated on the client sofa facing on to the canal. Coffee was being served in a 1960s pot, its Scandinavian austerity the antithesis of anything Furlanetti would ever dream of producing.  

‘And here she is,’ Sofia said. ‘Olena, let me introduce our esteemed client.’  

She offered no name, so Olena offered nothing either. She was struck dumb, in any case. When she forced out a half-smile, everything hurt.  

‘I’m happy to say we’ve found our theme.’ Sofia said. ‘The Greatest Russians,’ she gestured at the man on the sofa. ‘Congratulations, signore. What a wonderful idea.’   

‘So,’ the client said, addressing Olena. ‘Moscow, Petersburg?’ 

She nodded. Either/or. He wouldn’t care.  

‘Excellent,’ he said, and looked away.  

Sofia was working a strand of hair around her finger. She blinked, very quickly, several times. ‘So, to recap,’ she ran her finger down the list. ‘We have Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, Nevsky, Stolypin, Catherine the Great, Stalin, Lenin, Putin of course, Mendeleev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Rachmaninov, Gagarin, and Peter the Great. Fourteen. Correct?’ 

‘Actually, we are two down. A tragic loss.’ 

‘Good, fine.’ Sofia looked nervous now. ‘I’m sorry to hear.’ 

‘It happens,’ the client said. ‘We move on.’ 

Sofia nodded. ‘And the list. Who should I cut?’ 

‘I will take soundings,’ he said. 

‘You’re sure about Stalin?’ Sofia said, a little cautiously. 

‘If you had consulted the many surveys of Russian public opinion, you would already know that Stalin always tops the list.’ 

‘Ah,’ Sofia flushed. ‘Not Putin?’ 

‘Not quite.’  

Just give him time, Olena thought.  

‘Besides,’ the client said, ‘One of us is a steel magnate. You can guess which mask he wants to wear.’  

The following day, Olena got a summons from Sandro. She was to come to his apartment in Dorsodoro, just around the corner from the Peggy Guggenheim. Teak and brass entrance hall. Small cage lift. She was surprised when a woman answered the door. She had never seen Sandro with a woman. And then she realised the woman was a nurse.  

Sandro was lying nestled in cushions on a small, uncomfortable-looking sofa, his slippered feet resting on an ottoman. He looked dreadful.  

‘Tell me everything,’ he said. 

‘Greatest Russians. We might be sanctioned but we still have clout, I think that’s the message.’ 

When she handed him the list, Sandro took a sip from a plastic beaker, the kind that toddlers use.   

‘Stalin? How many people was it again?’ 

‘Oh, ten million? Maybe more.’ 

He nodded, took a sharp in-breath. ‘I didn’t plan to put you in this situation, Olena.’ He winced, took another sip from the beaker. ‘Although artistically, of course, the project is ideal for you. The stretch required. The psychological challenge.’ 

She was about to shoot something back at him for once, but he raised his hand.  

‘I don’t need Furlanetti, so you know. I don’t need any of them. Do this or don’t do it. I give you carte blanche.’ 

She understood then that he was dying. That everyone died in the end. That chances came rarely, if they came at all. That timidity was just a waste of time.  

‘Remember,’ he said, propping himself on one elbow, ‘In Venice, the mask is not a lie. The mask is what allows you to tell the truth.’ 

***

That night, she couldn’t settle. The ceiling felt uncomfortably low; and it was cold, so cold. But she must have slept, because she woke inside an icy dream.  

Mirror, mirror on the wall.  

Who is the Greatest of them all.  

‘Imposter girl,’ the client said. ‘Which Russian would you choose?’ 

The name was on her tongue, but she could only mouth the shape of it. Sofia was blinking again, her shutter speed accelerating into overdrive as the silence fattened and the client yo-yoed in and out of view.  

‘Come on, girl,’ the client said. ‘Speak up.’ 

When she dared to say the name out loud, he acted like he couldn’t believe his ears. And then he threw back his head and laughed. How he laughed. ‘That fucking clown?’ He was still laughing when Olena woke, tearful and exposed, in that little room that smelled of death.  

Shaken, she went online to check for strikes on Kyiv. But there’d been no new casualties overnight. As soon as was decent, she called her mother. They spoke about making bread, and how important it was to just keep going. When she came off the phone, Marta had brought cornetti. How Olena longed for something sweet.  

Giorgio had insisted on the first parade as a showcase for the current Furlanetti collection, so Olena had decided on the moretta mask for that, a uniform black disc. Eyeholes, but no opening for the mouth. Just a button to bite on to keep the mask in place. She called Sofia to request her inkiest blackest velvet. Let’s mute them, she thought.  

‘But the moretta is a woman’s mask.’ 

‘It’s just the least distracting option.’ 

‘Good, fine.’ 

‘How’s it going otherwise?’ 

‘Well, since you ask,’ Sofia paused. ‘We’re struggling to attract much interest from the press. The sentiment . . . well, it’s difficult. The client has arranged a Russia Today live stream, though, so that’s good.’ 

‘Wow, so great,’ said Olena, whose disdain for RT knew no bounds.   

‘We’ll have cocktails, canapes. And then my father will give a little speech. First parade in moretta—new collection, as discussed. Second parade in your masks. Greatest Russians, velvets specially selected. I do like the drawings, by the way. Tchaikovsky, he’s such a darling.’ 

‘I’m surprised he made it through.’ 

‘They cut Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in the end. Too many words.’ 

***

The following morning, Olena woke to the sound of knocking on her bedroom door, low but persistent. It was Maria, who had never before ventured upstairs. When she heard the news of Sandro’s death, Olena cried. She hadn’t cried since leaving Kyiv. But now, she couldn’t seem to stop.  

That grey time between Christmas and Carnival was like the end-of-days. Empty campi. Relentless rain and mist. In early January, Daniela returned to Lviv to be with her sister, whose fiancé had been killed in the East. The other girls left soon afterwards for Rome. When they asked her to come with them, she told them she couldn’t leave, not yet. They pressed her on what could be so vital. But what could she say? 

With Sandro gone, it was tough, lonely work. Conjure a likeness. Draw it, sculpt it. Create the mask, and then perfect it. All that, twelve times. To create Putin or Stalin felt like wilful enslavement; she didn’t really understand her own compulsion to see the project through. The one thing that made it bearable was Mask 13. Mask 13 had its own corner, where it spent the daytimes covered. In the evenings, Olena adjusted it endlessly, sharpening up the bone structure, minimising the eye-slits, perfecting those blue, blue eyes. She found it possible to work on the official project when she also had this. And, at first, that was all it was. A kind of exorcism. But day after day it made her stronger. It became a repository for all her defiant optimism. The night it was finished, she tried it on. When she looked in the mirror and saw love and courage gazing back at her, she was galvanised. She knew then what must be done.  

The week before the event, Sofia widened the net to include some of the influencers who’d flooded into Venice for Il Ballo del Doge. When a rush of late acceptances arrived from traditional journalists, she was pleasantly surprised. She had no idea about the anonymous tip-off. That the masked attendees would include sanctioned oligarchs and Kremlin insiders. That there was a story here. Illegal trading by a venerable heritage brand. Russian assets ripe for seizure. The iron fist inside the velvet glove.  

***

On the night of the banquet, Palazzo Furlanetti was a flurry of activity. Downstairs, the looms had been tidied, their hundreds of bobbins and criss-crossing threads transformed into abstract installations by Sofia’s favourite lighting designer. Upstairs, he had hung the long, dark portego with Furlanetti classics in a symphony of shadow and beam. And they came. Press and influencers gaggling separately by a long table laid with platters of elaborate cicchetti while white-jacketed waiting staff flitted around like moths.  

When it was time for the pageant, Giorgio took to the podium. He spoke about the important guests they were hosting at a difficult time for Russia and the world. About supplying velvet to the tsars. About the famous theatre. Beauty trumped everything, he said. Eternal Venice. Eternal Russia. It was boring, self-satisfied stuff. While the press prowled the back of the room, the influencers amused themselves with selfies: a slice of velvet, a slash of canal water, the bubbles in a Bisol Grand Cru.  

Sofia’s velvets were magnificent, rich and iridescent: rosettes, lions, griffins, laurel wreaths, tumbles of garden flowers. But by the time the Greatest Russians appeared, it was obvious that one parade was more than enough. The sanitised, sentimental bios. The detailed history of each velvet. The people they’d never heard of. The RT crew filmed it all dutifully, but Olena could sense the incipient rebellion of an audience bored to death.  

Olena wasn’t bored, though. She was sick with fear. 

‘And now, wearing Majesty, created in 1797 for our final Doge, allow me to present the twelfth and final of tonight’s Greatest Russians. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.’ 

At last, a name that everyone could put a face to. Olena watched the heads turn. For Putin, she’d ventured as close to a skull as she dared.  But somehow the filtered light fell kindly; she had not yet been brave enough, and the RT crew kept filming. Giorgio got to his feet, ready for the wrap. Except it wasn’t over. Not yet.  

Wearing Mask 13, Olena reached the podium before Giorgio. She’d worried that the mask might mean nothing to this audience, that he might already have been forgotten. But the look of horror on Sofia’s face put paid to that. There was a moment when no one else seemed to register it. Perhaps she should have rehearsed a gesture, slogan, something. Her ears filled with her own heart. And then a name rolled through the gathering like a cresting wave.  

‘Navalny!’ someone shouted, and the wave broke. ‘Look, there. It’s Navalny.’ 

The press snapped to attention. This was more like it. High on proximity to something daring, they rushed towards the podium. And then a chant went up.  

‘Na-val-ny, Na-val-ny.’  

Nevsky and Gagarin were rounding on Giorgio, who looked like he might have a heart attack. Most of the Greatest Russians had already torn off their masks. They were closing in on Olena. But so were the press. All she could see now through Mask 13’s narrow slits was a wall of camera-phones. 

‘Na-val-ny, Na-val-ny.’ The chant was everywhere. ‘Na-val-ny!’ 

Behind the mask, Olena was tearful, fragile. Her legs would scarcely hold her up. But she no longer felt alone. There was something else in that room now, something indestructible, the ghost at the feast.  

---

Annemarie Neary is the author of three published novels. Her prize-winning short stories have appeared in many publications in the US, UK and Ireland. She was born in Ireland, lives in London, and is obsessed with Venice, the focus of a recently completed short story collection.