The Concubine's Secret

24

‘Wait here,’ Lydia said.

‘Don’t worry, girl, you wouldn’t get me in there if you paid me.’

Elena folded her arms comfortably over the bulk of her bosom and positioned herself to one side of the large double doors like an incongruous sentry in a headscarf. She faced out on to the busy road and her eyes became stubborn slits in her broad face. Lydia wasn’t yet good at reading this woman’s expressions but she had the feeling Elena preferred to keep it that way. Today she noticed Elena looked tired, the lines sinking into ragged crevices around her eyes, but she was careful not to mention it – or the new navy coat Elena was wearing.

The brass plaque on the wall stated in discreet lettering: COMMUNIST PARTY LIAISON OFFICE.

‘I’ll be quick,’ Lydia promised.

‘The words quick and Communist Party aren’t even on speaking terms,’ Elena muttered, stamping her feet to keep warm.

Lydia darted up the steps.

‘Papers?’

A uniformed middle-aged man with receding fair hair and kindly eyes stood just inside the door. He stepped in front of Lydia, shoes squeaking on the marble floor, and held out an expectant hand.

‘Dobroye utro, comrade,’ she said and tipped him a smile.

‘Back again?’

‘Da.’

‘You must like it here.’

‘Not as much as you,’ she joked and was pleased when he laughed. It made her feel safer.

She handed over her precious residence permit and identity document and immediately started chatting. ‘It’s not so cold today,’ she said, waving a hand at the window where the mist outside hung like a grey, secretive curtain. He started to examine her papers. This was the moment when her heart skipped. Forgot to beat. It was always the same. ‘Do you think it’s going to snow later?’ she asked.

He glanced up and smiled at her. ‘Why? No umbrella today?’

She yanked off her hat and saw him watch her hair tumble to her shoulders. ‘I was in too much of a hurry to get here,’ she laughed.

‘How many times is it you’ve come here now?’

‘Not enough yet, it seems.’

He handed back her documents without further scrutiny. ‘Well, I look forward to tomorrow then,’ he chuckled.

She touched her throat with a slow soft stroke, a gesture she’d seen her mother use when in the company of men. His eyes followed the movement.

‘I’ll be here,’ she said.

‘So will I.’

They both laughed. She didn’t think he’d even bother to look at her papers next time.

The man at the desk was not so easily entertained.

‘You again,’ he said. He didn’t hide his irritation.

‘Yes, comrade. Me again.’

‘Comrade Ivanova, I told you yesterday – and all the other days – that I have no way of contacting this person.’

‘But this is the International Liaison Office. That’s what you do. Liaise. So you must liaise with Communist Parties across the world.’

‘That is true.’

‘So why not with-?’

‘I’ve told you already that it’s not possible. Stop wasting my time, comrade.’

He was one of those men who fiddle a lot, always twitching and straightening and tapping with his fingertips. It was the turn of his moustache today. He combed its luxurious growth with the long nail of his little finger and she wondered if he grew both the facial hair and the nail especially to satisfy this inner need. What was it he had to feel so nervous about? Maybe his own papers were no more convincing than hers. She tried a smile, sent it winging across the icy gap between them, but it fluttered and died. She’d tried it before and found this apparatchik totally smile-proof.

‘Is something amusing you?’ he demanded sharply.

‘No, comrade.’

‘Then I suggest you go home.’ He plucked up a pen and started tapping the end of it on his desk.

Lydia’s cheeks flushed. She should leave, she was getting nowhere. She looked round at the vast domed entrance hall with its acres of marble flooring, designed to intimidate. Fat marble pillars were draped with blood-red flags and slogans that read TOGETHER WE SHALL FIGHT. TOGETHER WE SHALL WIN THE VICTORY.

Fight. Win. Victory. Communism seemed immersed in a constant, exhausting battle. Even within itself. Footsteps clicked back and forth across the polished floor as clerks and neatly dressed secretaries scurried like worker ants to and from their offices, arms heaped with brown faceless files, and Lydia felt horribly out of place.

She gripped the front edge of the desk to keep her feet exactly where they were. She didn’t trust them not to turn and run.

‘Pozhalusta, please,’ she urged politely.

He sighed, twitched at his tie and raised bored eyes to hers.

‘His name is Chang An Lo,’ she said. ‘He is a member of the Chinese Communist Party, an important member of-’

‘So you said.’

‘I want you to contact the Chinese Communist Party’s Headquarters in Shanghai and leave a message for him.’

‘That’s not my job.’

‘Then whose job is it?’

‘Not mine.’

‘Please, it’s important. I must contact him and-’

A blast of cold air swirled in from the street, nipping at bare skin with icy pincers. The man behind the desk shed his air of indifference and jumped to his feet faster than a buck rabbit, startling Lydia. She turned and stared.

A man in his mid-thirties was just tossing his leather overcoat to the attendant at the door and they were both laughing at something he’d said. Then he strode across the marble floor, his heels echoing with life in the empty dead air, his beautifully tailored suit rippling elegantly as he moved. The thing about him that struck Lydia immediately was his hair. It was thick, springy and neatly trimmed, but it was an even more fiery shade than her own. As he approached the desk she looked away. One glance at the intense grey eyes with their coppery lashes told her this was a man who would not be easily fooled by her tales. Or by her papers.

Without obvious hurry, she started to back away.

‘Comrade Chairman Malofeyev,’ the man at the desk said with a respectful nod of his head and a tug at the sleeves of his own ill-fitting jacket. He was standing to stiff attention, chin in the air, clearly an ex-military man, and his face had lost every trace of its earlier bored disdain. In its place emerged an obsequiousness that took Lydia by surprise and made her rethink leaving. For this one brief moment, he was vulnerable.

‘Dobroye utro, Boris.’ The man in the immaculate suit spoke in an easy, affable tone. ‘Good morning.’ But his gaze wandered over Lydia as he asked, ‘Is the Commissioner free yet?’

‘No, sir. He asked me to apologise. He has been summoned to the Kremlin.’

The newcomer raised one eyebrow. ‘Has he indeed?’

‘Da. He asked me to reschedule a meeting tomorrow for you, Comrade Chairman.’

A flicker of something that might have been annoyance passed across Chairman Malofeyev’s face. It was a distinctive face, too long to be handsome, but it possessed an energy that made it noticeable and there was unmistakable humour in the tilt of the mouth. Lydia felt uneasy under the scrutiny of the cool grey eyes, so that when he waved a hand indifferently and said, ‘What’s the point? He may not even still be here tomorrow,’ she had no idea for a moment who he was talking about. Then it dawned. The Commissioner, the faceless apparatchik summoned so abruptly to the Kremlin.

‘I wish to put in a request also,’ she said rapidly, ‘for a meeting with the Commissioner tomorrow.’

Both men stared at her in surprise. She felt as though she’d grown two heads.

Boris narrowed his eyes and tapped his pen ferociously. ‘What is your business with the Commissioner?’ he demanded.

‘I told you, I want to-’

‘The Commissioner does not deal with requests such as yours.’ He glanced at Malofeyev, a furtive sideways dance of the eyes that showed Lydia he was nervous.

‘But if you’re not willing to make the enquiries I’ve asked for,’ she said, ‘I have to apply elsewhere.’

Instantly a form appeared on the desk. ‘Name?’ he demanded.

This was for show. She was convinced that as soon as the smart suit was gone the form would be in the rubbish bin before she could say spasibo.

‘What is it you want?’ Comrade Malofeyev asked with interest. ‘What makes a pretty young girl like you so earnest?’

She looked round at him and it wasn’t hard to find a smile for this man with his easy charm, who was obviously in some position of authority and who was the first one to show even a glimmer of interest in her problem.

‘It’s not important,’ the deskman said quickly.

‘It’s important to me,’ she said.

‘What is?’

‘Comrade Malofeyev,’ Boris intervened, ‘this girl has been pestering this office for weeks, wasting my time, over some petty concern she has about-’

‘It’s not a petty concern,’ Lydia said quietly, her eyes on Malofeyev’s face. ‘It’s important.’

‘Ignore her, Comrade Chairman, she’s not worth-’

Malofeyev silenced the deskman with an abrupt gesture of his hand.

‘Comrade Malofeyev,’ Lydia said, twirling her hat between her cold fingers, ‘I am a good Soviet citizen and I have an important message to pass on to a member of the Chinese Communist Party. I am trying to reach him through this International Liaison Office but-’

‘Him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now why am I not surprised by that?’

She felt her cheeks burn as he gave her a slow, speculative smile. Abruptly he turned back to the deskman.

‘Telephone,’ he said and held out a hand.

The man reached behind to where a heavy black telephone hung on the wall. He detached the mouthpiece, reluctance making his movements slow, and Malofeyev walked round to it, requested a number from the operator, spoke briskly for a moment, then hung up.

‘It seems my contact is out to lunch.’ He flipped open the gold watchcase that nestled in the pocket of his trim waistcoat and raised one eyebrow. ‘A little early perhaps, not yet noon, but,’ he looked at Lydia, ‘I have left a message for him to ring my office this afternoon. So don’t worry, good Soviet citizen, we shall find your Chinese Communist Party member for you if he’s findable.’

For the first time in all her achingly slow dealings with the impenetrable wall of Russian bureaucracy, here was a man who saw the possible, not the impossible. He made things happen. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and squeeze the breath out of him with gratitude.

‘Thank you.’

But something of what she was feeling must have shown on her face, because he took her elbow in the palm of his hand and steered her effortlessly back across the marble expanse towards the main door.

‘Luncheon now, I think. Then back to my office this afternoon to continue the hunt.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

He laughed, a rich warm sound like one of China’s bronze bells. It struck her ears with the same clear ring because it held no fear. In Soviet Russia that was a rare and precious thing.

‘My good Soviet citizen,’ he said with a mocking smile, ‘a lovely scarecrow like you must be always hungry. Of course you need lunch.’

Lydia allowed herself to be guided through the doors and on to the street, trying to work out whether she’d just been insulted. It didn’t matter. The one thing she was sure of was that she wasn’t going to let this man out of her sight. It meant missing her noon vigil at the Cathedral but in her heart she knew Alexei wouldn’t be there, any more than he was yesterday or the day before or all the days before that. At the kerb a chauffeur-driven car was waiting, long, black and purring, and as she climbed into its leather interior she glanced over her shoulder to where Elena was still standing stiffly on the pavement. Her eyes were angry.