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"I can't help thinking: why that had to happen
to her? Wonderful human being gone without a trace… Sveta is a
special friend to quite a handful of people. She is a centerpiece
of her family and a magnet to her friends. Great conversation
companion, she enjoys museums, exhibitions, loves theater and
movies. Great company to go out with, whatever it is - dining or
skiing, dancing or melting in a sauna. Good friend to friends,
caring wife and soul mate to Sasha, wonderful mother to Polina and
Veronica, attentive daughter to Anatoly Georgievich and Lilia
Grigorievna. It is easy to get on with her - always sincere, not
opinionated, not a snob. Well organized and neat. She has class in
everything about her: the way she talks, the way she dresses, they
way she lives. She is energetic and always on the move. She has
such a thirst for living fully! I can't help but feeling the void
in my life. And I'm petrified to think about the void her family
will encounter, if she will not return. We must bring our Sveta
back to her family!" |
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"I am sitting at my desk in Lyon, in France,
looking at the photo of me and Sveta Bizova. It was taken on her
8th birthday, May 11th, 1966. We are dressed up, Sveta as a Snow
White, me - as Cinderella. Our heads touching, we are smiling to
the camera. Already then Sveta looked confident, her brown eyes
shined, her tiny mole, so familiar to me, on her right cheek. This
is a charming photograph of two sweet, innocent girls totally
unaware of what the future holds for them.
We've known each other
from the first day at school on 1st September 1965. Childhood
friendships are based on nothing else but intuitive attraction,
and ours was just such an alliance. We spotted each other in the
courtyard of Leningrad school No.232 on Plekhanov Street, and have
been friends ever since.
I still have very vivid,
though impressionistic visions of our early days at school: the
handsome grey granite building, the grand staircase with a bust of
Lenin at the top, the huge wall mural of the 22nd Samara-Ulyanovsk
cavalry division, our classroom manned by our first teacher Liliya
Petrovna and our springtime dance gala at the school concert hall.
Sveta was stunning: she had an amazing hairdo and was dancing with
her partner in front of me in a white dress decorated, as all
girls' dresses, with a tiny bouquet of violets.
I remember our walks in
the Yusupov park with one of Sveta's two grannies (babushka
Tatiana Ivanovna was stricter, Babulya - softer), us being
spy-catchers, granny usually acting as a police dog. At puberty we
talked about boys and sex, experimented with drink and together
went to parties - all until, after school, our paths parted.
Sveta met and married
Sasha, and together they immigrated and eventually installed
themselves in New York; whereas I, soon after leaving University,
found myself in London.
Many years later, at my
office at the BBC, I received a phone call. Sveta was in London,
at the BBC reception. When I came down to see her, I was struck by
how little she'd changed - same blond hair, same confident gaze of
her expressive brown eyes, the tiny mole comfortably sitting on
her right cheek. When I was signing her in to get into the BBC
building, I named her as Bizova. "I've been Aronov for the last 20
years!" - she told me. I was astounded by the gravity of time!
Our meeting was
delightful and marked the renewal of friendship. We talked as if
there was no 20-year interruption. We saw each other a lot since
then, both in London, New York and on skiing holidays. Last year I
moved from London to Lyon in France, and the Aronovs came to
visit. Half way from Avignon to Lyon they phoned to say that they
had to drive all the way back to Avignon - nearly 200 km - because
they'd left behind Verochka's suitcase! I was amused, it could
have easily happened to me! I love a touch of absent mindedness
which makes life entertaining - if you handle it with a sense of
humour.
These were two sweet and
happy days for all of us. We went to see the Roman amphitheatre,
and Sasha, who likes antiquity and old stones, ran around scaring
our 8-year old daughters who screamed with joy. On the eve of
their departure we had lunch in Viex Lyon, risking the Aronovs
missing the plane - but they've managed to get to the airport on
time, having missed only one exit on the motorway.
What makes people close
to each other is hard to pin down, and our friendship with Sveta
has been based on many complex and inexplicable components. But
the initial intuitive childhood attraction has, over the years,
been confirmed by similarities of life choices: immigration to a
Western democracy, long-term marriage to a childhood sweetheart,
daughters (Sveta's youngest and my oldest) the same age.
I love Svetlana, and
remember her smell, her voice, her laughter and her attractive
face very clearly: her vivid brown eyes, slightly protruded lips,
her bright cheeks, and the mole on one of them..." |
