A Memory of Lies Johnnie Gallop 114,000 words
[email protected] 07930 531231 This is a work of fiction but inspired by real events. Footnotes are not essential to the story and are included for additional interest. Johnnie Gallop 2018 Ври, да помни. A liar should be a man of good memory. Inspired by true events this is the story of a single family’s path for survival through the moral maze of war-torn Europe and emerging Africa. A vast and powerful saga spanning five decades. The voices of Pasha and Tanya Zayky tell of Stalinist terrors, Nazi slavery, and British colonial brutality. The wheel turns full circle when grandson Misha returns to a post-Soviet Russia. Survival demands they embrace each prevailing dogma. Ultimately they don’t just survive, they thrive, but at the cost of stealing the truth from subsequent generations. How many memories are merely lies? Prologue As the world watched the attempted putsch in Moscow in August 1991, when Yeltsin spoke to the people from the turret of a tank, leading directly to the dissolution of the Soviet Union by the end of that year, Michael ‘Misha’ Cheshire decided to make his move. He spoke to his boss in London to demand a transfer to the newly formed Moscow office. Credit Suisse was the first international bank to open in Russia for seventy years and Misha became employee number three. Misha was half Russian and his grandmother, Baba Tanya, had taught him well. His language abilities were strong but beyond that, Tanya had nurtured within him a deep love of the country, at least to the south.