Maidenhair

Book excerpt: Day after day the Russian asylum-seekers sit across from the interpreter and Peter - the Swiss officers who guard the gates to paradise - and tell of the atrocities they've suffered, or that they've invented, or heard from someone else. These stories of escape, war, and violence intermingle with the interpreter's own reading: a history of an ancient Persian war; letters sent to his son Nebuchadnezzasaurus,' ruler of a distant, imaginary childhood empire; and the diaries of a Russian singer who lived through Russia's wars and revolutions.'