The Concubine's Secret

28

When Lydia emerged from the restaurant, she didn’t even notice that it was raining. The fat drainpipes which ran down the front of Moscow’s buildings, stopping a metre above the level of the pavement as if someone had run out of metal before finishing the job, were spewing water in ferocious fountains over the feet of passing pedestrians. At night the water would freeze. That’s when the pavements turned to sheet ice, and Lydia had learned to tread carefully. An umbrella suddenly materialised above her head, black and shiny, held firmly in a steady hand. Only then did she register the rain.

‘Spasibo, Dmitri.’ She smiled up at him. ‘And thank you for my lunch.’

‘It was a pleasure. I enjoyed the company.’

They stood close in the enforced intimacy of the umbrella’s canopy, so close they could smell each other’s wet coats. For a moment their eyes locked and Lydia didn’t know what to say next. He seemed totally at ease, unconcerned by either the rain or the silence between them, still that intense look in his eyes as if he could see things she couldn’t.

‘Well, my office next, I suggest.’

She was cautious. ‘Will your contact ring back?’

‘He’d better.’ He laughed and twirled the umbrella.

‘He knows someone in the Chinese Communist Party?’

‘That’s his job.’

‘Very well then. I’ll come to your office if I may.’

‘I’d be honoured, comrade.’

He was laughing at her. Yet she didn’t mind, even though he was wearing an astrakhan hat that obscured his red hair, making it harder for her to trust him. The hair colour was a kind of bond between them in some strange way.

‘And the other man I asked you about?’ she reminded him.

‘Ah, that’s a different matter altogether. Much harder. You must understand, such information is not… available. Even to people like myself,’ he added.

‘Of course. Will you enquire though? Please?’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t elaborate.

‘Thank you.’

At that moment his black car drew up at the kerb. The door was opened and she scuttled into the back, out of the rain. Malofeyev leaned in and she noticed his face was faintly flushed. ‘One moment,’ he said, ‘I want to buy a paper.’

She watched him approach a newspaper kiosk set up beside a shoeshine boy touting for business. Malofeyev said a few quick words and returned to the car with a copy of Rabochaya Moskva, Moscow’s own newspaper, tucked under his arm. He jumped on to the seat next to her, shaking himself like a wet dog, and tossed the umbrella on the floor.

‘It’s cold in here,’ he said, lifting a fur rug from beside him and draping it over her knees, and his own, as the car pulled into the stream of traffic. ‘Better?’

‘Spasibo.’ She tucked her hands into its warm folds.

Malofeyev leaned towards the driver, who sat silently in cap and uniform. ‘My office, comrade.’

Then he stretched back comfortably against the leather seat and gave Lydia another quick inspection, as if he thought she might have changed in some way.

‘Do you like Moscow?’

His question caught her unawares. She felt her heart beat faster. She continued to stare out at the tall pastel-painted buildings of Tverskaya Street as tempting displays of food in the windows of Eliseevsky Gastronom slid past, while in the small side streets, where children played on sledges, the shops were bleak and empty. Elegant apartments rubbed shoulders with rundown communalka. It was a city of separate villages where the elite were pampered and the poor went hungry, where ration cards were designed for the proletariat while men like Malofeyev dined in splendour in smart restaurants and grand hotels.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I like Moscow very much.’

‘I’m glad. One day Moscow will be more advanced than any other city. The doma kommuny, the huge communal blocks of rooms, will teach people how to live their lives collectively, and Moscow will become the symbol for future socialist societies.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, it is, I promise you. So tell me why you like this city.’

‘I love its energy. It’s unpredictable. I like its new monumental buildings and,’ – she smiled as the car swept past a Chinese laundry with a picture of a shirt on its signboard and two Chinese women with broad faces and smooth skin chattering to each other on the front step – ‘I like its trams.’

He laughed and shook open the newspaper. She liked the way he gave it his full concentration. It meant she could be alone with her own thoughts while he read the Rabochaya, so she almost missed it: his sudden intake of breath. Cut off abruptly. Without appearing to hurry, she turned her head to look at him and saw that his attention was focused on an inside page.

‘What is it?’

He appeared not to have heard.

‘Something important?’ she asked.

He raised his grey eyes and the way he looked at her made her blood pulse beneath her skin. ‘Important to you, yes.’

She withdrew a hand from under the fur rug, rested her fingers on her chin to hold it still. ‘Tell me,’ she said quietly.

‘It seems your timing is impeccable.’

She waited.

‘It says here,’ he rustled the paper, ‘that a delegation from China has arrived in Moscow.’

She could hear her own heart stop. He held out the paper for her to inspect the front page.

‘See,’ he said, ‘there’s a photograph. There’s to be a reception for them this evening. In the Hotel Metropol. Take a look to see if you recognise any…’

She reached for it and blinked hard. Six blurred figures in a grainy photograph. Her eyes scanned each face hungrily but the one she was searching for wasn’t there. Her heart started up again, sluggish and painful. At first she thought that all the figures in the photograph were men, each one dressed in a heavy cap and bulky padded coat, but as she studied them in detail she realised that two were female.

‘Do you recognise any of them?’ Dmitri asked.

She started to shake her head but stopped. ‘Possibly. The one on the end.’

‘The girl?’

‘Da.’ High cheekbones, determined dark eyes, cropped hair. She was sure it was the Chinese girl she’d seen with Chang An Lo last year in Junchow. ‘I think I saw her at a funeral once.’

‘Does she also know this Chinese Communist you are trying to contact?’

‘Yes.’

Something in her voice must have alerted him because his mouth grew solemn, his eyes gentle. ‘Too well, perhaps?’

Lydia could find no response. Too well, perhaps.

‘Let me see.’ He took the paper from her hand and studied the names printed under the photograph. ‘Tang Kuan. Is that her?’

‘Yes.’

‘She would know where he is?’

‘She might.’

There was another pause. A horse-drawn wagon piled high with barrels lumbered dangerously across their path and the car had to brake harshly.

‘Don’t look so distraught,’ Dmitri said.

‘I’d like to ask her myself tonight.’

‘Where?’

‘At the Metropol.’

‘No, Lydia.’

‘Don’t let’s go through this again, Liev. Dmitri Malofeyev has invited me.’

‘No.’

‘It’s my only way of finding out where Chang is.’

‘No.’

‘I don’t want to argue with you, Liev.’

‘No.’

‘Just saying no over and over isn’t going to convince me.’

‘No. Or I’ll break your skinny neck.’

‘Now that’s a much more persuasive argument.’ Lydia stomped off to the communal kitchen. She heated up a pot of potato and onion soup which she’d made the day before, and returned tight-lipped to their room. Elena was looking out the window and Liev was slumped in the chair, knocking back vodka straight from the bottle. She put the bowl of soup on his lap.

‘I’m coming with you,’ Popkov announced.

‘No, of course you can’t.’

‘I’m coming.’

‘No, don’t-’

Lydia was going to say No, don’t be absurd. Look at you. But she stopped herself in time. It was the expression trapped in his black eye that silenced her. It was dull with fear and she knew it wasn’t for himself.

‘No, Liev,’ she said gently, ‘you can’t. Malofeyev is only obtaining an invitation for himself and me. Anyway you would be too… conspicuous. You’d draw attention to us.’

Popkov grunted and turned his back on her in the chair. End of conversation. She wasn’t sure who had won.

‘What will you wear?’ Elena asked to break the silence. Lydia was grateful to her.

‘My green skirt and white blouse, I suppose.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s the best I have, so it’ll have to do.’

‘But the women will be all dressed up in evening gowns and-’

‘It doesn’t matter, Elena. I’m only going there for one reason. To speak to Kuan.’

‘You’ll look out of place.’

Lydia stared wretchedly at Liev’s uncommunicative back. ‘Wherever I go I seem to be out of place,’ she muttered.

The broad back hunched and his shoulder blades shifted under his coat like tectonic plates.

‘I have a silk scarf you can borrow,’ Elena offered.

‘Spasibo.’

‘And this.’

Lydia glanced across at her. She was standing by the dividing curtain, one hand holding on to it, her bosom heaving slightly as though breathing had for some reason suddenly become an effort. Her other hand was stretched out towards Lydia and on its upturned palm lay a bundle of white ten-rouble notes.

‘Enough for a smart new skirt,’ she said, her tone offhand. ‘Or at least a blouse from somewhere decent. You can use my zabornaya knizhka, my ration card.’

Lydia’s gaze fixed on the money. She wanted to snatch it, stuff it into her bodybelt. Chyort, it was tempting. Forget skirts or blouses, just concentrate on adding it to the escape fund. She swallowed awkwardly and out of the corner of her eye she could see Liev move round and stare too. Not at the roubles. At Elena’s face. Her cheeks had coloured to a vivid pink but her mouth was pulled in a pale, defiant line.

‘Spasibo,’ Lydia said again. ‘Elena, you are too kind to me. I am grateful.’

Elena jerked her head, as if rearranging the thoughts inside it.

‘But,’ Lydia continued, ‘I can’t accept it. I’ll go to the party in my own skirt and blouse. They’ll have to do.’

Elena stepped forward and slammed the money down on the table with a force that vibrated the floor.

‘It’s not dirty,’ she snapped, snatching her coat from a hook on the wall. ‘And neither am I.’ She pulled open the door and yanked it closed behind her. Her footsteps sounded loud as she hurried down the corridor, but inside the room the air felt thick and unbreathable.

‘Go after her, Liev,’ Lydia whispered, her voice tight. ‘Tell her that’s not what I meant.’

They compromised.

Lydia agreed to allow Liev to accompany her as far as the hotel steps. She had declined Malofeyev’s offer of a car to pick her up because she wanted to keep secret where she lived. It was dark outside and sleeting fitfully when they set off, and the Hotel Metropol was some distance away near the Kremlin.

They travelled across the city by tram. Lydia adored the trams. Muscovites took them for granted but to Lydia they were exotic and quaint. She would have happily ridden up and down in one all day watching the people, finding out in their faces what it meant to be Russian.

She and Liev hopped on through the rear door and paid the conductress fourteen kopecks each for the fare. Three spools of differently priced tickets hung from the woman’s neck, bouncing on her ample bosom, and as she shouted out, ‘Move on down. Move on down!’ Lydia saw her give Popkov an unabashed wink. What is it about this greasy old bear that gets women so heated up? Everyone shuffled towards the front of the tram. It was cold on board and Lydia stayed close to Liev, tucked in against his bulk, shivering. She was nervous.

It seemed to take for ever, the rattling and the bumping, but finally she jumped down from the tram and that was when she felt a nudge on her hip. The pavement was still crowded with workers hurrying home from their offices and factories, the yellow lamplight twisting their faces into tired unfamiliar masks in the darkness. Most people would not have noticed the nudge, just one of many brushes with other pedestrians, but Lydia knew exactly what it was. Her hand shot out and clamped over a bony wrist. She swung round and found Elena’s silk scarf dangling from a pair of grubby fingers.

‘You dirty thief!’ she hissed.

She snatched the scarf and thrust it back into her pocket, but did not release her grasp on the culprit’s wrist. It was a boy.

The thief swore at her. ‘Fuck you.’

She blinked. Milk-white hair and bright blue eyes. A thin bony face with a mouth older than his years. It was the boy from inside the cardboard box. She saw recognition dawn in him as he glared at her.

‘Let me go,’ he muttered.

She was just thinking about unclamping her fingers when the boy’s head darted down. Pain shot through the back of her hand and she gasped. He’d bitten her. The filthy little gutter-snipe had sunk his rats’ teeth into her, slicing through her thin glove and into her skin. Yet when she snatched her hand away, he didn’t run. Lydia stepped back in surprise. He was suddenly dangling in the air, feet off the ground, struggling and swearing, kicking like a mule. Popkov was scowling as he held the urchin by the scruff at the end of an outstretched arm.

‘Nyet,’ the Cossack growled and shook the boy so hard his eyes rolled up in his head.

‘Stop it, Liev,’ she said.

Popkov gave the boy another vicious shake. This time his prisoner hung limp and for one sickening moment Lydia thought he was dead, but then a car’s headlights swept across his face. His eyes were wide open, frightened and furious.

‘Let the kid go, Liev. Put him down.’ She peeled off her torn glove and sucked at the scarlet trickle oozing from the back of her hand. ‘I’ll probably catch rabies.’

But Popkov wasn’t ready to listen. He searched the boy’s pockets, pulled out a pair of ladies’ gloves, a handful of coins and two cigarette lighters. One was inlaid with enamel and gold. He tucked the stolen haul into his own pocket, chuckling, then tore free the canvas bag that was slung across the thief’s thin chest. Immediately the boy surged back to life. He thudded his fists into his captor’s ribs so that Popkov gave a deep huff of irritation and cuffed the boy across the head. That silenced him.

The Cossack tossed the bag to Lydia and before she even caught it, she knew what would be inside. Gently she eased open the drawstring at the top and gazed down at two moist brown eyes, enormous with fright. A pink muzzle whimpered.

‘Put the boy down,’ Lydia ordered.

Popkov dumped the kid on the pavement, but still the boy didn’t run. Just stared at the sack in Lydia’s arms.

‘Here,’ she said and held it out to him. ‘Take Misty.’

He took it and hugged it close to his chest, arms wrapped protectively around the canvas bundle. Lydia reached into Popkov’s deep pocket and pulled out the enamelled lighter, which she admired for a moment before reluctantly flipping it over to the boy.

‘Now fuck off,’ she said with a smile.

He didn’t smile back. Just gave Popkov a glare of pure hatred, then raced away down a side alleyway.

‘Gutter rats need exterminating,’ the Cossack growled.

‘He’s just a kid scrounging a living.’

Lydia tucked her arm through Popkov’s and steered him towards the bright lights of the Hotel Metropol. Its grand facade stood opposite the Bolshoi Theatre, festive and inviting, but they were only a stone’s throw from the Kremlin, a fortress whose walls loomed red as though stained with blood. Even in the darkness Lydia shuddered.

‘The trouble with you, Liev,’ she said sternly, ‘is that you like to fight all the time.’

‘The trouble with you, Lydia,’ he growled back, ‘is that you have too many ideas in your head.’

‘Doesn’t everyone?’

He frowned at her. ‘Some more than others.’