Maidenhair

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.