The Concubine's Secret

36

Lydia spotted the boy immediately, skulking on the edge of a cluster of residents. The courtyard lay in deep shadow and as she hurried under its archway her eyes took a moment to adjust after the brightness of the street. She had zigzagged her way home across the city, waiting her turn with impatience in the tram queues that snaked through the dying shafts of afternoon sun. The surrounding buildings seemed to lean forward, casting their black shapes possessively over the yard’s cobbles, but she didn’t miss the thin figure of Edik.

What struck her as odd was the sound of music and laughter. It was coming from the heart of the small crowd gathered there, a scratchy plonking sound that made her smile it was so comical. She knew it at once. An organ grinder. The last time she’d seen an organ grinder was as a child in St Petersburg with her hand tucked safely into her father’s, but the memory was hazy and before she could prod it into life, a sudden squawk from what sounded like a parrot caused ripples of laughter in the courtyard. People pressed closer and she saw the boy’s pale hair move in, smooth as buttermilk. A light brush against the man at the back of the crowd, as though eager to get a better view.

Lydia stepped forward, seized a handful of Edik’s filthy jacket sleeve and yanked hard. His feet scrabbled on the ice.

‘Get off my-!’ He swung round, wide-eyed, realised who it was and grinned. ‘Privet. Hello.’

‘Put it back.’

The grin fell off his face.

‘Put it back,’ she said again.

For a moment there was a wordless battle, then his shoulders slumped. He shuffled back to the man and easily replaced whatever it was he’d stolen. The boy refused to look at Lydia but she took hold of his sleeve again and dragged him back to their doorway.

‘That’s better,’ she said.

‘For you?’

‘No, stupid, for you.’

As they climbed the stairs, neither mentioned that his sleeve had torn and was hanging in tatters between her fingers.

‘Here, give her this.’

Lydia handed a piece of kolbasa sausage to the boy and, though he accepted it, he still wouldn’t look at her. He had sidled into their room and found a spot for himself on the floor, his back propped against the wall where even the ecstatic greeting of Misty, who had been left behind there, didn’t bring a smile to his sallow face. He broke off a chunk of sausage and popped it on the dog’s moist little tongue, then one on his own. Elena was seated in the chair, hands busy with needle and thread, a navy garment of some kind spread on her broad lap.

‘Sausage is too good for that animal,’ she grumbled.

Lydia wasn’t sure whether she meant the boy or the dog.

‘And what are you grinning at?’ Elena aimed the question at Lydia.

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you.’

‘Nothing.’

‘The kind of nothing that puts a smile the width of the moon on your face and a purr in that voice of yours?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Come on, girl, you look like a cat that’s landed in a bucket of cream.’

The boy laughed and stared up at Lydia, suddenly interested. Despite herself Lydia felt her cheeks start to burn.

‘Is it your brother?’ Elena pressed her. ‘Did Alexei turn up today?’

‘No.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘I waited at the Cathedral but-’

‘I mean what else happened?’

Lydia looked at the boy. He and the dog were both watching her with bright eyes.

‘Nothing,’ she said and added a convincing shrug. ‘Nothing else, Elena. But today I’m hoping to hear from the Party member I was with at the Metropol reception. His name is Dmitri Malofeyev. I had no idea until I met his wife that he used to be the Commandant at Trovitsk camp where my father was held. It means he knows the right people to ask.’

‘You think he’ll help you?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Why should he?’

‘Because…’ Lydia glanced awkwardly at the boy and back to Elena, ‘I think he likes me.’

Elena tied off her stitch, calmly bit through the thread and asked, ‘What then? When he gives you the information you want. What will you give this important Soviet official in return?’

Silence spread like oil in the room, smooth and thick and cloying. It seeped into Lydia ’s nostrils, making it hard for her to breathe. The only sounds were the little grey dog panting and the churning of the organ outside.

‘Elena,’ she spoke quickly, as if the words would do less harm all squashed together, ‘I have no choice. I can’t just sit here any more. Don’t you see? Liev goes out night after night searching for a slip from someone’s tongue, or a loose piece of grumbling from a cook or a guard who’s had one vodka too many. He’s trying. Chyort, I know he’s trying – to find out the whereabouts of this secret prison, number 1908. He’s asking dangerous questions in bars and taverns throughout Moscow. And it frightens me, Elena. It frightens me so much I-’ She stopped. Took a deep breath and forced the words to slow down. ‘I’m frightened that one night the stupid Cossack will ask the wrong person the wrong question and end up in a labour camp himself.’

Elena sat very still, hands in her lap. She said nothing but her colourless eyes forgot to blink and her mouth grew slack.

‘That fear haunts me, Elena. Every time the big bear goes out. Like now. Where is he? What is he doing? Who is he talking with? What bloody rifle barrel is he staring into?’ She looked down at her fingers knotted together and asked in a whisper, ‘How much should a person risk for love?’

Elena lifted a hand and ran it down her face, over her eyes and mouth until her fleshy chin sat cradled in her palm. The action seemed to bring her back to life and she stabbed the needle into the reel of thread with a shake of her head. ‘It’s his choice. No one is making him do it.’

‘But I want him to stop. Now. It’s too dangerous. But he won’t, I know he won’t.’

‘And this Soviet official, your Dmitri Malofeyev. Is he not dangerous? ’

‘I can handle him.’

Elena burst out laughing, a girlish sound that made the puppy bark. She rose heavily to her feet, shook out the garment she’d been stitching, revealing it to be an old but thick wool coat which she tossed carelessly to the boy.

‘Here, Edik. Shut your ears, wear this and get out of here, you and that fleabag of yours.’ She hesitated for a second and placed her hands on her ample hips, glancing round the room with a sudden tension that made the veins of her neck stand out. ‘I have enough to take care of here, I don’t need more.’

She walked over to the door and as she passed, an unexpected thing happened. She ran a hand down Lydia ’s hair, something she’d never done before. Her touch took Lydia by surprise and was far gentler than she would ever have imagined.

‘Malishka, little one,’ Elena said softly, ‘that man eats girls like you for breakfast.’

Then she took down her coat from the hook behind the door and pulled on her galoshes, ran a comb through her dead-straw hair, wound a scarf around her head and left.

The boy stared at the door as it closed behind her. A sound came from him, a subdued kind of whimper that at first Lydia thought was the dog.

‘She doesn’t like me,’ he said.

Lydia went over and knelt on the hard floor in front of him, stroking the puppy’s fur as if it were a part of the boy. ‘Don’t be foolish. If she didn’t like you, why would she go to all the trouble of finding and patching up a coat for you?’

‘I don’t know.’

She ruffled his milk-white hair and let Misty lick her wrist. Reluctantly the boy dragged his gaze from the door, as though finally accepting that Elena wasn’t coming back for a while, and turned to look at Lydia.

After a moment he said, ‘I still don’t think she likes me.’

‘I think the trouble is that she likes you too much.’

The bones of his face seemed to hunch together, as if that thought was too hard to squeeze in between them. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Edik,’ Lydia said gently, ‘I think you remind her of her dead son.’

The organ grinder had ceased his music and the room felt empty without it. The light was growing smoky, as grey as Misty’s coat. Edik had fallen asleep curled up on the floor with his dog, and though the puppy was awake it lay still, one yellow eye on Lydia. When she stood up and moved over to the window to watch the square patch of sky above the courtyard turn from blue to lilac before it merged with the roofs, the puppy gave a low growl in the back of its throat. Although no more than a skinful of wobbly bones and milk teeth, already it was guarding its master.

That reassured Lydia. She wasn’t sure why she cared so much, but she did.

She wanted to be alone with her thoughts. They were hammering on her skull to be let out. I’ll find a way. That’s what Chang had said as they parted, I’ll find a way, and she believed him. If Chang An Lo promised he would find a way for them to be together – really be together, rather than the few snatched kisses of today – then he would. It was as simple as that.

She shivered, not that she was cold, quite the reverse in fact. The blood in her veins was hot and in a hurry, but her body wouldn’t keep still. It was restless. Her skin felt hungry. It wanted his touch the way it used to long for the balm of ice on a hot summer’s day in Junchow market. It wanted to be beside him. To see his face. To watch his slow smile spread up into his eyes. She’d thought the kisses today would be enough but they weren’t. She was greedy. She wanted more.

She dropped her head against the window pane and sighed. She’d been in a state of waiting for so long, she had forgotten how exhilarating it was to live in the here and now. To have what you want. To want what you have.

‘Chang An Lo,’ she whispered, as if he could hear her.

She touched the glass where her breath had clouded it and wrote his name in the mist. She smiled and studied the flow of letters intently, as if it could magically conjure up Chang himself, her heart banging on her ribs. As she stared at it, her own reflection took shape around it, merging the two, and she shifted focus to examine its features. What did he see when he looked at it? The hair, the eyes, the cheekbones, all seemed the same to her. But was that what he saw? The girl he’d fallen in love with back in China? Or someone else?

And Kuan? There like a spider at his side with every step he took, a living breathing invitation in each hotel room he stayed in. No, not that. Don’t think like that.

Send me the boy. That’s what he’d said. She turned away from the window and noticed it was almost dark in the room.

‘You eat too fast. The pair of you.’

Lydia was seated in the chair. The boy was still on the floor, stuffing bread into his mouth, and beside him the dog had its muzzle in a bowl of kasha, neither coming up for air. She’d heated Edik some soup and warmed the porridge for Misty, then prodded the sleeping boy in the ribs and plonked the bowls in front of them. Edik had gone from deep sleep to eating in less than a blink of an eye. He held the bowl close to his chest, hunched over it, guarding it as he swallowed, and the sight had disturbed Lydia.

‘Edik,’ she asked, ‘what happened to your parents?’

He gulped down two more mouthfuls of soup. ‘Shot.’ He crammed in more bread.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Four years ago.’

‘Why?’

She waited again. Didn’t push.

‘They read a book,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘A book that was banned because it was anti-Soviet.

‘What book?’

‘Can’t remember.’

She left it at that. His hair hung in a pale limp curtain round his face as he started to lick the bowl.

‘Have you lived on the streets ever since?’

‘Da.’

‘That’s tough.’

‘It’s not so bad. Winter is hardest.’

‘Thieving is dangerous.’

He lifted his head for the first time and his muddy blue eyes brightened. ‘I’m good at it. One of the best.’

I’m good at it. She’d said the same words herself not so long ago. Her stomach knotted when she thought of the risks.

‘Where do you sell the stuff you steal?’

‘I don’t.’ He gave her a scornful look as though she were stupid. ‘The vory do.’

‘Who are the vory?’

He rolled his eyes in exaggerated disgust, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and gave it to the dog to lick.

‘There’s this man,’ he explained slowly, as if talking to a simpleton. ‘He runs a gang of us street kids. We steal and hand it over to him. He pays us.’ The boy thought about what he’d just said and scowled. He made as if to spit on the floor but stopped himself just in time. ‘Not much though, the bastard. Just a few measly kopecks. Some of the other vory bastards pay better, but I got to take what I can get.’

Lydia leaned forward. ‘Are there many boys like you on the streets of Moscow?’

‘Yeah. Thousands.’

‘And are they all run in gangs by vory men?’

‘Most of them.’

‘Who are these vory?’

‘Criminals, of course.’ He grinned and ruffled the pup’s ears. ‘Like me.’

‘Edik, what you’re doing is dangerous.’

‘And what you’re doing isn’t?’ He laughed, an open childish laugh that made her smile.

She wanted to go over and wrap an arm round his skinny shoulders, to give this tough young kid the kind of hug his small frame was crying out for, but she didn’t. She had a feeling he would bite her again if she did. She scraped her hair back from her forehead as if she could scrape from her mind the doubts about what she was about to ask.

‘Edik.’

‘Yeah?’

She reached into her pocket, pulled out a ten-rouble note and waved it in the air. His eyes followed the white note hungrily, the way Misty’s followed a biscuit.

‘Here,’ she said, screwing it up into a ball and tossing it to him.

It was in his pocket before she could blink.

He grinned. ‘What now?’

‘I need you to go to the Hotel Triumfal again and watch out for the same Chinese man. He will pass you a note for me.’

‘Is that all? For all this money?’

‘Take care, Edik.’

He jumped to his feet, grabbing his new coat under one arm and his dog under the other. ‘The trouble with you, Lydia,’ this time his smile was shy, but it leapt the gap between them effortlessly, ‘you’re too easy to please.’

She laughed and felt the guilt shift a fraction under her ribs. ‘Don’t-’

A sharp knock on the door silenced her.

It was Dmitri Malofeyev. He was standing in the doorway of the shabby room in his elegantly tailored leather coat, a white silk scarf at his neck. In one hand he carried a large brown paper bag, in the other a bunch of flowers that looked as if they might be lilies. Where the hell he’d got them in the middle of winter she couldn’t imagine.

‘Hello, Lydia.’

‘Comrade Malofeyev, this is a surprise.’

‘May I come in?’

‘Of course.’

But she hesitated. To let this man with his shiny shoes and polished white teeth into her home was like inviting a crocodile into her bed.

She smiled at him, matching him tooth for tooth. ‘Come in.’

He walked in, his male presence filling every corner of the drab room. ‘So this is where you hide.’

Hide? Why did he use that word?

‘It’s where I live, yes. How did you find me?’

‘Not hard.’

‘No, I bet it wasn’t. For a member of the Party elite, nothing comes hard.’ She said it with a smile.

He returned the smile and with a gallant bow presented her with the flowers. As she accepted them she bent her head to inhale their fragrance and realised they were made of silk. Stupidly, she felt cheated.

‘Thank you.’

Her guest looked round the room with interest. His gaze settled on Edik and registered surprise. Whatever he’d gleaned from the concierge’s tittle-tattle a boy and a dog were clearly not part of the picture. He nodded a greeting of sorts, then reached into the paper bag under his arm, pulled out a pack of biscuits and tossed it across the room.

‘Here, young man,’ he said, ‘take this. And get out.’

It was said so politely that it was impossible to judge how serious he was.

The boy didn’t put out a hand to the biscuits. He just let them spin through the air and fall to the floor with a crunch. He didn’t even give Malofeyev the courtesy of looking at him. Instead he focused on Lydia.

‘Do you want me to stay?’ he muttered.

She loved him for it and at that moment he seemed to become part of her family. Like Chang had said, you don’t need the bond of blood.

‘No,’ she answered and gave him a grateful smile. ‘You can go. I believe you have an errand to run.’

Edik put down the dog, shrugged into the coat that was far too big for his slight frame and, without a glance at the visitor, slouched out of the door. The dog snatched up the biscuits between its tiny teeth and trotted after him.

She made him tea. It was the least she could do. On her bed was spread an array of food the likes of which she hadn’t set eyes on since she’d entered Russia. Not even in the shops did they have such riches. Tins of glossy caviar from the Caspian Sea. Almond biscuits and ginger cake. Bars of Swiss chocolate and silvered boxes of glacé fruits from Paris. A leg of smoked ham that made the room smell wonderful, and numerous kinds of fat spicy sausage. She had laid it all out on the bed with care, the way a woman would lay out her gowns and stand back to admire them. When she lifted out from the bottom of the bag a bottle of vodka and a metal case of five fat cigars, she had looked at Malofeyev and raised one eyebrow.

‘You think I’m a secret smoker?’ She laughed, then hesitated and added a little stiffly, ‘Or are these meant for your own use?’

‘No.’ He was sitting on the window sill, legs crossed, swinging one foot and watching her. ‘They’re for you to use. As trade for whatever else you need. Kerosene perhaps.’

‘Ah.’ Lydia placed the cigars between a jar of Greek olives and a packet of roast coffee, patted them affectionately like long-lost children and imagined what a guard might be persuaded to do in exchange for such a gift. ‘Spasibo.’ She smiled, not sure whether it was at him or at the food, and tried not to feel bought. Her feet wouldn’t move from the bed and she was frightened that if she looked away it might all disappear in a puff of smoke.

‘You’re welcome, Lydia.’

She waited for more words but none came.

‘Comrade Malofeyev, what do I owe you for this?’

‘Nothing. Don’t worry,’ he smiled at her, ‘there’s no price tag.’

She picked up the olives, succulent and tangy, and recalled how her mother would have slit her own throat for such a jar.

‘No price tag on the food?’ She made herself replace the olives. ‘Or on the information I asked for?’

‘Not much success there, I’m afraid.’

A small silence tumbled into the ragged gap between them but he didn’t seem to notice it. It made her uncomfortable.

‘You’ve not found where Jens Friis is?’ she asked at last.

‘No.’

Another silence. He swung his leg carelessly and she wanted to seize it and wrap it round his neck.

‘But I thought…’ she started. The words tailed off. What was the point of them?

‘So did I.’

‘Is that why you brought the food? In place of any information?’

Abruptly the leg stilled its movement. ‘ Lydia, I am no longer involved with prisons or labour camps.’

‘Do you remember him at Trovitsk camp? Jens Friis. Tall and red-haired.’

‘Of course not. There were hundreds of prisoners there and I had little to do with them myself. I was just there to ensure the work norms were fulfilled and the timber shipped south. I didn’t sit and hold a prisoner’s hand and tell him bedtime stories, if that’s what you mean.’

She stared at him.

He didn’t smile, just looked back at her, a patient expression on his face. It goaded her further.

‘But I told you,’ she said. ‘I gave you the exact number of the prison that he’s supposed to be held in – number 1908. Surely you can find out from your contacts where it is in Moscow.’ She shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. ‘Even if you can’t find out whether he’s in there.’

‘ Lydia, my dear girl, I would if I could, I promise you. But you must understand, some secrets are secret even from me.’ His forehead was furrowed and she wasn’t sure whether it was concern or annoyance. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you more.’ As an afterthought he added, ‘I wish I could.’

Lydia stooped and picked up the large brown paper bag on the floor. One by one she started to place the food items back inside it. Malofeyev made no comment.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said quietly, her back to him.

She left the cigars till last, then positioned them neatly on top. They made her think of Alexei and how he would have enjoyed them. She turned to face Malofeyev.

‘Dmitri, why are you doing this? Helping me, I mean. Bringing me such lavish gifts when you barely know me and certainly owe me nothing. You know as well as I do that just one of those cans of caviar would buy you any girl of your choice here in Moscow.’ She studied his face. Saw it soften and heard a sigh start to escape before it was cut off.

‘Ah Lydia, I’m not here to buy you.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Then why are you here?’

He observed her thoughtfully. ‘Because one day I want you to look at me just the way you looked at your Chinese friend at the Metropol the other evening.’

Something hot flared in Lydia ’s chest. ‘We danced, that’s all. Rather badly.’

‘No. That wasn’t all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know exactly what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t. Anyway, Dmitri, you seem to be forgetting that you have a beautiful wife at home.’

‘Ah yes, my Antonina. But you’re wrong, Lydia, not for one second do I ever forget my beautiful wife.’ There was a sadness, grey and soft as a shadow in his voice. ‘In fact it was she who suggested that, as I couldn’t help you in any other way, I should come over with these gifts.’

‘How convenient.’

He smiled politely.

Lydia tried to ignore the elegance that hung on him as effortlessly as his leather coat, and the fiery red hair that triggered all sorts of memories of her father. They ran like ripples under her skin. For some reason she couldn’t understand, when she was in the presence of this man her life in China seemed oddly opaque and far away. That annoyed her more than she cared to admit.

‘Comrade,’ she said with an abrupt change of tone, ‘thank you for your generosity but I cannot accept these gifts.’ Yet her hand was treacherous. It hovered there, touching the bulges of the brown paper bag with the same caress it used to fondle Misty’s ears. She snatched it away.

‘I’m trying to help you, Lydia. Remember that.’

‘In which case tell me, Dmitri, please, which street prison 1908 is in.’

‘Oh Lydia, I would if I knew.’

‘Maybe you don’t want to know.’

‘Maybe.’

If she was going to find her father she needed Malofeyev, needed his knowledge and contacts and familiarity with the prison system. It unnerved her to think that someone a rung above him on the Soviet ladder was stamping on his fingers.

‘Who knows you’re here?’ she asked.

He didn’t answer the question but picked up the tea that was growing cold on the sill beside him, sipped it with a quiet delicacy as if lost in his thoughts and replaced it. Only then did he focus on Lydia and immediately she could see a change in him. His gaze was fixed and fierce and reminded her that he’d very recently been the Commandant of a prison camp.

‘ Lydia, listen to me. Soviet Russia is still just a child. It is growing and learning. Every day we are drawing closer to our goal: a just and well-balanced society where equality is so taken for granted that we will be astonished at what our fathers and grandfathers were stupid enough to put up with.’

She didn’t react, didn’t look away. The pulse in her wrist was racing and the dying light from the window behind him seemed to be setting fire to his hair.

‘And the prison camps?’ she asked. ‘Is that how you teach this growing child of Soviet Russia to behave?’

He nodded.

‘Through fear?’ she demanded. ‘Through informers?’

‘Yes.’ He rose from the sill, a slow casual movement that nevertheless made Lydia watchful. He’d grown taller and suddenly darker as he stepped away from the window. ‘The people of Russia have to be taught to rethink themselves.’

He came closer.

Her heart thumped. ‘Jens Friis is not even a Soviet citizen,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s Danish. What good can teaching him to rethink possibly achieve?’

‘As an example to others. It demonstrates that no one is safe if they indulge in anti-Soviet activities. No one, Lydia. Not one single person is more important than the Soviet State. Not me.’ He paused, his words suddenly soft. ‘And not you.’

She tried to slow her breathing but couldn’t. Abruptly he seized both her wrists and shook her hard. Wordlessly she fought to break free but his fingers held her with ease so she ceased her struggles.

‘Let me go,’ she hissed.

‘You see, Lydia,’ he said calmly, ‘how fear changes people. Look at yourself now, wide-eyed with fear, a little lion cub eager to claw my throat out. But when I release you, you will have learned something. You will have learned to fear what I might do – to you, to your friends, to Jens Friis, even to that damn Chinese lover of yours – and it will hold you in check. That’s how Stalin’s penal system works.’

He smiled, an uneven twist of his mouth that offered no threat, just a warning. She stared straight into his grey eyes. With a cautious nod of his head, he uncurled his fingers. She didn’t move. With no hesitation he leaned forward and kissed her mouth, hard and hungry. His hand touched her breast. She took a step backward, away from him, and he didn’t stop her.

‘Fear,’ he said, ‘is something you have to learn how to use. Remember that, Lydia.’ He gave her a playful tilt of his head, the easy charm back in place. ‘I meant you no harm. I just wanted you to know.’

She was too angry to speak. But her eyes never left his.

‘You can slap my face if it would make you feel any better,’ he offered with a light laugh.

She turned her face rigidly to one side, no longer able to look at him. Without another word he walked out, shutting the door quietly behind him. She started to shake. Anger raged inside her, hot and painful, burning her throat. She hurried to the window and watched the tall figure of Dmitri Malofeyev stride through the gloom of the courtyard, his back towards her and one hand raised in farewell. Without even turning round, he’d known she’d be there, watching.

As he disappeared under the archway she sank her forehead against the glass, trying to freeze out the thoughts in her head. But not the anger. She needed that. Because it was not anger at Dmitri Malofeyev, it was at herself. She groaned long and loud and thumped her forehead against the pane as if she could force the images away. The feel of his lips. The spicy scent of his cologne. The hot flutter of his breath on her face. His fingers gentle on her breast.

Where did it come from, this treacherous pleasure she’d felt? She hated him. But worse, she hated herself.

The bathroom was cold, so cold Lydia could see her breath. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling like a dull yellow eye and a finger of damp was creeping down one wall, blistering the paint, as if something was living under it. It wasn’t Lydia ’s evening for a bath, the use of which was on a strict rota, so she stood on her towel to keep her feet warm and stripped off her clothes.

Her skirt. Her cardigan. Her blouse. Her undergarments. She dropped them in a haphazard pile on the floor and stood naked in front of the washbasin. Her eyes meticulously avoided the small square of mirror above it because she couldn’t bear to see up close what betrayal looked like. What colour it was. What shape it took. What holes it chiselled in a person’s face. She ran the cold water and started to wash herself.

At the end of ten minutes her skin was sore and she was shivering, but her hands finally stilled. She’d realised it wasn’t the dirt on the outside that mattered, it was the dirt on the inside and she didn’t know how to get at it.