: William Owen Roberts
: Petrograd
: Parthian Books
: 9781910409961
: 1
: CHF 3.10
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 250
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
It's the summer of 1916 and the Alexandrov family prepare to embark on their annual holiday, accompanied by an army of staff primed to cater to their needs. Teenage, precocious Alyosha Alexandrov has never known anything but a life of privilege. He spends his days avoiding study and pursuing pretty young maids. But Russia is poised on the brink of epochal political upheaval and within a year Alyosha is separated from family, security, and the innocence of youth. Set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, spanning the turbulent years from 1916 to 1924, Petrograd is a vast, ambitious novel from an award-winning writer. The first in a trilogy, and winner of the Wales Book of the Year Award (Welsh Language), it tells the compelling, convincing story of the Alexandrov family as they each struggle to adapt to the ravages of war and revolution.

Wiliam Owen Roberts is a Welsh language novelist and writer of plays for radio, television and theatre. He was born in Bangor, Gwynedd, and studied Welsh Literature and Theatre Studies at the University of Wales from 1978 to 1981. His first novel Bingo! was published in 1985, followed by Y Pla (1987), which won the Welsh Arts Council Prize for Literature in 1988, Pestilence appeared in Welsh in 1991 and has since been translated into multiple languages including English, Dutch and German. Petrograd (2008), set during the Russian Revolution, was reprinted within eight weeks and went on to win the Wales Book of the Year in 2009, as well as ITV Wales Readers Choice Award 2009. Wil's latest novel, a sequel to Petrograd called Paris, was published in 2013. The third novel in the trilogy will be published in 2016.

4

He was sleeping so deeply he thought he was still dreaming when the noise of a car’s horn woke him. Then he heard it again, closer this time, and the noise of the engine spluttering and coughing as it approached the house. He squinted over and saw Oxana and another maid running out of the dacha, having already taken off their aprons, to greet their master. The motor-car came to a stop, as the brake was pulled up stoutly.

Alyosha swung his feet over the hammock, stood up and brushed himself down. He was wearing a light cotton suit, a wide-brimmed straw hat and his new smart white shoes that were always made for him every year, especially for the holidays. He made his way over to the wrought iron gate, and saw through the bars that Ivan Kirilich, the chauffeur, had put his hat on for the occasion. Fyodor Mikhailovich stepped out into the sun in his braces and bowler hat, his dark jacket over one arm and two newspapers, theRyetchand theNovoye Vremyaunder the other.

Alyosha felt a little ashamed of his father. His whole appearance seemed so awkward and inappropriate in such fierce heat. He used to be a handsome man with a thick head of hair and a luxuriant black moustache, but he had begun to put on weight and become jowly, and he puffed and panted a lot more than he used to when he took any exercise. His eyes too were always red-rimmed these days, and were a little painful to look at.

His father nodded at him.

‘’Lyosha, how are you? Where’s your mother?’

She called his name, and Fyodor Mikhailovich turned to see her standing on the steps. He beat his hat lightly against the balustrade to rid it of some of the dust of the journey, then stepped towards her. Still two steps above him, Inessa bent from the waist and offered her cheek to her husband’s parched lips.

‘How are things?’

‘As well as expected.’

Inessa insisted on wearing a wide-brimmed hat at all times to protect her skin from the sun, so she was still snowy-white. As everybody else had caught the sun, this made her look as though she came from a strange tribe. Fyodor blew his lips and smoothed down his moustache with his finger and thumb.

‘It’s been hotter,’ she informed him.

‘How are the mosquitoes this year?’

‘Not too troublesome.’

‘Do you have difficulty sleeping?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Let’s hope I don’t either.’

They seemed to have run out of things to say; there was a moment of silence.

‘So everything’s going well then?’

‘So far.’

He bared his teeth and smiled at her. Inessa turned and entered the dacha and Fyodor followed in her footsteps, like some local tradesman come to deliver the weekly order. Alyosha dawdled some distance behind them.

His mother accompanied his father to his bedroom, the clatter of their shoes on the parquet drowning out their voices.

Alyosha could never remember a time when they had slept together. Their bedrooms were separate worlds, their own private domains. So it was back in Petrograd; so it was also on holiday in the Crimea.

He never saw his mother enter his father’s bedroom, though on many occasions he heard his father shuffling over to his mother’s room: a shadow moving soundlessly across the strip of light under his door as he passed; a light rap and a whispered ‘Inessa?’. Sometimes the shadow would move back and forth for a little while before he heard the door open. Other times there would be silence…

The next day Fyodor Alexandrov went with his family