The Concubine's Secret

7

‘Yob tvoyu mat!’ Liev Popkov swore suddenly and pushed his huge fist towards the window. ‘Look at that. It’s the stinking hell-hole.’

Alexei saw Lydia elbow him hard in the ribs to silence him, but it was too late. Every head in the carriage turned to stare at what he’d indicated and a young woman with a baby asleep in her arms started to weep silently. It was the camp. Trovitsk labour camp. It couldn’t be anything else, though from this distance it looked harmless enough, more like four dog kennels rising above the flat winter horizon. Those must be the tips of the watchtowers, but the rest of the camp was lost in a faint blur, secretive and secluded, too far away to make out anything of the communal huts or barbed wire fences.

‘God help the bastards,’ Alexei muttered.

The big woman opposite grimaced. ‘He hasn’t done much of a job of it so far.’

Lydia looked round at them both and frowned. Her tawny eyes were huge. A straggle of hair had crept out from under her hat and lay like a lick of flame on the collar of her coat. ‘The Soviet State is looking after those people,’ she said in a curt voice. ‘It does what is best. For all of us.’

Oh Lydia. But Alexei made a show of nodding agreement. ‘Da, we must never forget what we owe the State.’

‘As if we could,’ the big woman chuckled, and the chuckle grew until it was a loose rollicking laugh that shook her abundant bosom and sounded too loud in the tight confines of the carriage. Alexei eyed her with increasing caution.

At the other end of the carriage a man with a pipe and a bushy Stalin moustache banged his hand flat on his knee. ‘Those prisoners are here for good reason. Don’t let’s forget that, comrade. ’

Alexei let his eyes stray again to the window and a small shock ran through him. The landscape was monotonously flat, a naked terrain that betrayed the scars and stumps where a forest had once stood, but way off to one side, along the edge of a stand of pine trees which had somehow escaped the axe, eight men were bent double, hauling a wagon. It was stacked high with bare tree trunks and the men were yoked to it by chains. Beyond them, so small and colourless they were scarcely visible against the icy wasteland, other figures scuttled like ants across the Work Zone.

‘Yes,’ Alexei murmured, not taking his eyes off them. ‘That’s why they’re here. It’s the raw materials we need.’

‘For industry?’ the woman asked.

He nodded. ‘For Stalin’s great Five Year Plan.’

‘So what is it the prisoners do all the way up here?’

Still he watched them. Saw a man fall. ‘Mining. This region is rich in ore and coal.’

An uncomfortable silence descended, while the passengers pictured the prisoners, black-faced somewhere deep under the train’s wheels, swinging picks at a brutal coal seam, lungs filling up with heavy choking dust.

‘And timber,’ Alexei added softly.

Dear God, let Jens Friis be good with a saw.

‘This place is too tidy for us,’ Liev Popkov growled under his breath. ‘Too clean.’

For once the ox brain was right. The town of Felanka was not what Alexei had been expecting and not what he wanted. They were walking down the main street, Gorky Ulitsa, with Lydia tucked safely between them, taking a careful look at their surroundings. Where were the usual rows of ugly concrete apartment blocks? Most of the towns up here in the north were sprawling, indifferent places that had sprung into being to accommodate the recent enforced migration of Russia’s dissidents into these sparsely populated areas. No one would notice an extra few travellers in one of those. But this was different. This town felt loved.

Elegant buildings lined wide, graceful boulevards and everywhere there was an abundance of scrolled ironwork. Balconies and streetlamps, door and window settings, all curled and twined in an outbreak of wrought iron. Felanka was built on iron ore. It lived and breathed it. Some way off to the west of the town lay the massive brick-built foundry. It loomed like a giant black turtle on the horizon, belching foul-smelling smoke that turned the air into something you could touch. But today the east wind was keeping the smoke at bay and the town was parading its charms under a brittle blue sky.

‘Popkov.’ Alexei nodded towards a shop front they were passing. ‘In here.’

He wanted to get Lydia off the street. She’d been silent since leaving the train, and all through their registration at the hostel where they were shown into rooms that smelled of laundered sheets, she’d looked pale and listless. He wondered if she was sick. Or sick at heart.

He pushed open the door off the street. It was a printer’s shop, with heavy iron presses on the left and a huddle of men in deep discussion around them. The air held the tang of metal and ink. On the right side of the gloomy interior a high counter ran across the window, and this was what Alexei had spotted from outside. Here customers could buy a hot drink and stand while they waited for their print order. An old babushka with sparse grey hair scraped back into a bun sat sharp-eyed at the back of the shop, one hand resting possessively on the claw foot of the samovar beside her.

‘Dobriy den,’ Alexei greeted her politely. ‘Good afternoon.’

‘Dobriy den,’ she nodded, and gave him a toothless twist of her mouth that he assumed was a smile. He bought tea for himself and Popkov, hot chocolate for Lydia. They carried the glasses over to the wooden counter by the window and stood looking out at the street.

‘It’s too tidy,’ Popkov muttered again. ‘For us.’

‘What do you mean?’ Lydia asked. She was again positioned between them – that’s how it always was – but didn’t look at him, just wrapped her gloves around the hot glass in its metal podstakanik and stared at the flurry of trucks trailing past. There was no one else in their section of the shop and the noise from the printing press meant there was no danger of being overheard.

Popkov rummaged his fingers in his thick black beard. He was chewing a wad of tobacco and his teeth were so stained they merged with the black bristles. ‘They don’t need us.’

‘You mean our money?’ she asked.

‘Da.’

She sank back into her silence, sipped her chocolate and blew steam at the window. Alexei could sense the shreds of hope slipping from her grasp. He placed his podstakanik down on the scratched surface with annoyance.

‘People always take money,’ he said firmly. ‘People always take money. Don’t you know that yet?’

Lydia shrugged.

‘Listen, Lydia.’ Alexei leaned an elbow on the counter and concentrated on her face. It looked tired, dark shadows circling her eyes. ‘We’ve come this far. To Trovitsk camp. We’ve even laid eyes on some of the wretched prisoners, poor bastards.’ He saw her flinch, a tiny movement of the muscle beside her eye. That was all. She said nothing. He lowered his voice. ‘We always knew the next part would be difficult.’

‘Difficult?’ Popkov snorted. ‘Fucking dangerous, you mean.’

‘Not impossible though.’ Alexei was irritated and gave a sharp rap with his knuckles on the wood, as if he could knock some sense into their heads. ‘Jens Friis could still be there.’

He saw her tremble. Sometimes he forgot how vulnerable she was, how unguarded. He had to remind himself that he’d had years at a military training establishment in Japan where he’d learned levels of self-control, but she’d had… nothing. He took a mouthful of his chai. It was hot and burned a path down inside him, but couldn’t warm what lay deep in there, cold and untouched. He pushed himself upright, stretched his shoulders and faced the one-eyed Cossack.

‘Popkov, I thought you were a man who liked danger. Drank it in with your mother’s milk, I heard.’

He saw the one black eye flicker and dart quickly across to the girl between them. In that moment Alexei knew that if Popkov possessed any fear of danger – which he seriously doubted – it was not for himself. Alexei detested the man. Could never understand what bound Lydia to this lazy, stupid, drunken Cossack who stank like a bear and farted like a horse. But right now he needed him.

‘So, Popkov, I think it’s time you and I get going. Tonight. With a wad of roubles in our pockets and a vodka bottle to crack over a few heads.’

Alexei’s voice was amiable enough, but the look he gave the big man was cold and challenging. Popkov turned, eyeing him over the top of Lydia’s hat and baring his teeth in what could have been a smile or a snarl.

‘Da.’

It was the way they’d done it before. A few bottles on offer, a few new friends in the back streets of a strange town. It was amazing what you could discover, what secrets tumbled off a loose tongue. Which officials were clean and which were dirty. Which one was fucking his boss’s wife and which one liked to pick up little boys in the dark alleyways. That’s what Popkov had meant when he complained Felanka was too tidy, too clean – but nowhere was too clean. Such places didn’t exist.

‘You see, Lydia, it’s far too soon to-’

But she let out a moan and dropped her head into her hands. Her hat fell to the floor and her hair tumbled like a fiery curtain around her pale face, shutting him out. Alexei glanced at Popkov. The big man was staring at the girl with an expression of such dismay, as if her moan had frightened him far more than any prospect of being arrested for bribery of a Party official. Neither of them had ever seen her like this. Alexei put out a hand, tentatively touched her shoulder.

‘What is it, Lydia?’

Tremors were running through her body. He waited, but she made no sound. At least she wasn’t crying; he hated women who cried. After a full minute he gently squeezed her shoulder. He could feel the shape of her bones, small and fragile, under the padding of her coat, but he continued to squeeze until he knew the pressure must be hurting her. He heard Popkov grunt and emit a rumble from his chest, but still Alexei didn’t release her shoulder.

With a murmur she raised her head and blinked slowly, turning to face him. Her eyes, usually so bright and curious, were dull and flat, a sad muddy brown, but her mouth curved into an affectionate smile.

‘You can stop now,’ she said softly.

He stopped but didn’t remove his hand. He left it there on her shoulder.

‘All right now?’ he asked gently.

‘Just fine.’ She gave him an unconvincing smile and he wanted to shake her.

‘What was that all about? Tell me.’

She reached up and for a brief moment rested a hand, light as a bird, on top of his, but then she gave him one of her damn shrugs and picked up her hot chocolate. ‘Just scaring you,’ she murmured and sipped her drink.

‘You succeeded.’

‘So tonight, Liev, you…’

But Popkov’s attention had moved elsewhere. His gaze was fixed on something in the broad street outside, a stupid cockeyed grin on his face. Alexei scanned the passers-by for whatever it was that was so absorbing the Cossack, but at first saw nothing out of the ordinary. People were striding quickly along the pavement, hurrying to escape the wind, fufaikas buttoned tight to the neck, and a heavy truck trundled down the road making the glass vibrate in the window. As it drove past, Alexei caught sight of a figure standing squarely on the pavement opposite, waving both hands and smiling back at Popkov. It was the big woman from the train. The one with the breasts. What the hell was she doing here? Instantly he swung round to confront the dumb Cossack but Lydia got in there first.

‘Liev,’ she hissed, ‘what are you doing?’

He blinked at her mildly. ‘Waving to-’

‘She’s following us, don’t you realise?’

‘Nyet.’

‘Da.’

‘Nyet.’

‘What does she know?’

‘Nothing. Nichevo.’

‘You told her, didn’t you?’

His scarred brow hunched into a scowl at Lydia’s sharp tone. ‘Told her what?’

‘That we’ve travelled here from China.’

‘So?’

‘Oh Liev, you stupid fool, what else have you told her? She could be an OGPU agent.’

The big man snorted. ‘She’s not a spy, nor an informer.’

Alexei decided to deal with this quickly, before the argument drew too much attention from the huddle of men at the printing bench on the other side of the room. However much he was enjoying seeing these two at each other’s throats for a change, now was not the moment. ‘Ignore the woman, Popkov. Keep well away from her. We can’t take the risk that-’

The Cossack snatched the filthy shapka off his own head and threw it on the counter, knocking over Alexei’s chai. All three ignored the brown pool of hot liquid that trickled over the edge.

‘Don’t you ever give your fucking orders to me, Alexei Serov!’ Popkov shook his head, thick shaggy black curls rising like horns, and growled, ‘I tell you she is not a spy. She thinks you are following her.’ He spat noisily on the floor, an evil black jet that skidded across the boards.

The old babushka at the back screeched a complaint but was silenced by a glare from Popkov’s single eye.

‘Liev!’ Lydia said. But inexplicably, there was suddenly a smile on her face.

Where the hell had that sprung from? There was just no telling with these two what cliff they were going to jump off next. Alexei righted the spilled glass, folded his arms across his chest to hold in his annoyance, and watched how his sister intended to deal with this. Where Popkov was concerned, he had to admit her instincts were good.

‘What’s her name, Liev?’ Lydia asked.

‘Elena Gorshkova.’

‘What is she to you?’

‘A friend.’ A red flush rose above his beard and crept up the sides of his nose.

‘Something more than a friend?’ She scrutinised his face. ‘Where did you first meet her?’

‘In Selyansk.’

‘At the hotel?’

‘Da.’

She paused and drew a long breath, then scooped up his hat off the counter and thrust it against his massive chest. ‘Go,’ she said with a laugh, ‘if that’s what you want.’

Popkov looked at her for a long beat, then shook himself vigorously. For a moment Alexei thought he was going to crush her between his huge arms but instead he lumbered towards the door. Alexei stepped into his path before he could reach it.

‘Popkov, be careful.’

A nod from the big man.

‘Why is she here? In Felanka.’

Popkov grunted something inarticulate, but Alexei couldn’t let it go at that.

‘Do you know why?’ he insisted.

Another grunt, deep in his oily throat.

‘Tell me.’

He expected another grunt but instead the Cossack rummaged a knuckle through his beard once more, narrowed his one good eye and said evenly, ‘Elena Gorshkova is in Felanka to visit her son’s grave.’

Lydia reached out and caught his shoulder. ‘Liev, spit out that bloody tobacco before you speak to her.’

Popkov thumped her hard on the back in what was obviously meant to be a gesture of affection and barged out of the shop. Together and in silence, Alexei and Lydia watched through the window as he crossed the broad boulevard in ten massive strides, after threatening to rip the bumper off a timid saloon car that didn’t want to stop for him. They saw him eject the wad of tobacco into the gutter, wipe his mouth on the shapka and jam it back on top of his shaggy mane, then greet the woman with a delicate bow that surprised them both. The unlikely couple ambled off together as if taking a leisurely stroll in a park, ignoring the bite of the wind and the bustle of the crowd around them.

Lydia sighed, elbows on the counter, chin in her hands. Alexei hated the wistful expression in her eyes. It meant that Chinese Communist of hers, Chang An Lo, was eating into her brain again. He pushed himself away from the counter.

‘Come, Lydia, let’s walk. It’ll do us good.’