The Concubine's Secret

42

The noise. The heat. The slam of sheet metal, the grinding of machinery. The bang and rattle of the overhead hoist chains. It all crashed into Chang’s mind. Like the gods stamping their feet in anger, blasting their fiery breath into his skull till it was scorched to a cinder.

How could any man work in this?

The gaping mouth of the blast furnace blistered the skin and turned workers’ faces into the scarlet sweating masks of fiends, as white-hot sheets of metal were manoeuvred into position. Tongs and drills and steam hammers beat out a deafening roar inside the steel factory, an infernal sound that Chang knew was needed all over China if his country was ever to progress. Stalin was turning Russia into a powerful force in the world. This surge of industrial development was what China cried out for; mechanisation was the future. But was Mao Tse Tung the leader to enforce it? He was still at war and still absorbed in his own private pleasures. So it meant China must wait, and if there was one thing the people of China excelled at, it was patience. Their day would come. But until then, they knew how to wait. It was their strength.

The delegation moved on through the factory behind their Russian guide. Chang could see his compatriots were overawed by the scale of its metal production. As they were meant to be. They stood in a group and watched a man operate a hole punch, a massive steam-driven fist that slammed down and knocked out a wide circle in sheet after sheet of steel. What its purpose might be, Chang had no idea, and the sound of it was too deafening to allow him to ask. The Russian worker, aware of being watched, kept his eyes lowered submissively and his hands in constant motion. Over and over the same movement, the same pull of a lever, turn of a winch, rattle of a sheet of steel on rollers, then bang and on to the next.

The delegation moved on but Chang remained. Watching and waiting for the moment the man would look up. Because Chang knew he would, eventually he would be unable to resist. Then Chang would see what a Russian worker was made of. It was the same in China, the peasant mentality, hiding all behind submissive down-turned eyes. It angered Chang, their refusal to lift the head and stand out in a crowd. It was one of the things he’d loved from the start about Lydia, that willingness to look the world straight in the eye. He smiled at the image in his head and touched a finger to his throat, laying it on the exact spot where her lips had touched.

That was the moment the metal worker chose to raise his eyes. It looked to Chang a very Russian face with its broad cheekbones, long nose, jaw hidden in a fringe of beard. But the eyes told him everything he needed to know. Pale grey and exhausted, the steam-hammer pounding its reflection in them from dawn to dusk. These were not the eyes of the contented proletariat they had been led to believe worked in these factories.

For a second their gaze fixed on each other and gradually Chang felt the heat. Not from the furnace this time, but coming from the worker himself. It was the kind of heat that was pinpoint sharp. Like a blade that has rested in flames. Chang recognised it at once. It was hate.

‘Kuan.’

She stopped and waited for him. Chang moved closer as they crossed the factory yard. The snow had turned to rain but it was the kind of rain that was like ice picks in the face. They were due to be taken to a meeting now and he would have no other moment for his words to curl in private into her ear. She didn’t ask what he wanted but inspected him, eyes black and bright. He could see the fire in them despite the gloom.

‘The factory was impressive,’ he said.

‘Did you see the number of people employed there?’

‘Yes. Communism in action. It works. Here in Stalin’s Russia we see how Lenin’s ideas function as a practical reality. They are forging a successful future for this country. It is what China weeps for, that same strong hand.’

‘A father’s firm hand.’

‘But one that will caress as well as rebuke. One that will give as well as take.’

‘Chang An Lo,’ Kuan said in her usual quiet way, but Chang could hear the unease in her voice, ‘I am concerned.’

‘Concerned for China?’

‘No, concerned for you, my comrade.’

‘There is no need for concern.’

‘I think maybe there is.’

In her thick padded blue coat, with her short black hair framing a wide-boned face, she could have been a rice grower’s daughter from any stretch of rural China, one of millions like her condemned to a life of servitude on a tenant plot of land or in the family home. But her eyes told a different story. They were thoughtful and intelligent. She possessed a university degree in law and a mind that could recognise problems and decide how to deal with them effectively. Chang had no intention of being one of those problems.

‘Kuan,’ he said, ‘do not let yourself be distracted from what we have come here to achieve. Focus your attention. Our leader, Mao Tse Tung, needs us to be sharp. We have come to Moscow to learn.’

‘You are right, of course.’ She brushed the rain from her face. ‘It is what we are all concentrating on. Each of us in the delegation writes a report late into the night.’ She looked at him speculatively. ‘But I am not certain that you are as dedicated as usual to the affairs of Communism. As if your thoughts are elsewhere.’

The soles of Chang’s feet felt as though he’d just slipped on ice. ‘That is not the case, comrade. I have been focusing on how we can take greater advantage of the opportunities here and I think it is time we put in a request to inspect something different. Something more… challenging.’

He smiled at her, observing the suspicion slip away from her mouth as her eyes widened with anticipation.

‘What do you have in mind, Comrade Chang?’

He walked forward through the rain and she moved quickly to his side. People are like the fish in the Peiho River, he reminded himself. All you need to do is dangle the right bait.

‘Show me your tattoo.’

‘It’s of no interest, Lydia.’

‘It is to me.’

She was determined to see what they’d done to him, so that she’d know. Know what she owed him. He was seated on the edge of her bed, smarter now, cleaner in his new white shirt and smelling of an unfamiliar cologne. But more like the old Alexei she remembered, legs crossed at the ankles in a pose of indifference. It was a relief to see him back in his old skin, but at the same time he was different. Something had changed. She could sense it in his eyes and in the softer angle of his neck, and she didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. She watched as he started to unbutton his shirt. Behind her Popkov and Elena stood stiff and silent. She could feel their disapproval as sharply as she could feel the hole in her shoe. Alexei’s fingers worked fast and she could detect no hint of the shame she was certain he must feel.

‘There,’ he said and flung back his shirt.

She felt sick. It was larger than she’d expected. A cathedral covering the whole expanse of his skin. It seemed to crush the bones of his chest, its one elegant onion dome tattooed just under where his collar bones met.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

Lydia heard a grunt behind her but ignored it.

Alexei raised one eyebrow at her. ‘Its beauty or lack of it is not the point.’

‘So what is the point?’

‘I’m marked as one of their own. For life.’

‘Oh Alexei, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

She gave him a smile. ‘You won’t be able to go swimming so often, that’s all.’

‘I never did like getting wet and cold anyway.’ He smiled back at her and it made her want to cry.

‘So now you’re one of the vory, what will they do for you?’

‘I have yet to find out.’

He started to button up his shirt. He didn’t hurry. For the first time it occurred to her to wonder whether belonging to this brotherhood meant more to him than she realised.

‘I have a new father,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘One who will help me.’

The shock of it caught her across her throat. She coughed and stared down at her hands because they seemed to be strangling each other, but she needed badly to talk about something else. Anything else.

‘Antonina wants to speak to you,’ she said.

Instantly his head came up, the green eyes alert and interested. ‘You’ve seen her?’

‘Yes. I’ll take you to her tomorrow.’

‘Thank you.’

That was all. They’d both said enough. Lydia walked over to the peg on the door and pulled on her coat.

‘Sleep well, brother,’ she murmured, opened the door and walked out on to the dim landing.

Before she reached the black courtyard outside, a burly shadow merged with her own, so that it turned into a two-headed monster on the prowl through the night. It was Liev Popkov. They didn’t speak. He loped beside her and she lengthened her stride to his as they disappeared into the dark streets of Moscow. Only when he’d seen her safely to her destination would he return to the warmth of Elena and his own bed.

The crucifix still hung on the wall and the room had filled with shadows, but it didn’t matter to Lydia. Nothing mattered. Not now. Chang had lit the gas lamp.

‘So that I can look at you,’ he’d said.

When she’d entered the room he’d taken her face gently between his hands, his fingers feeling the bones under her skin as if they could tell him something. His eyes studied hers intently for a long moment, then he had kissed her forehead and folded her into his arms.

That was when suddenly nothing else mattered.

She lay with her cheek on his naked chest, her limbs spread lazily over his, and let her fingers trail over his skin. With intense pleasure she smoothed out the slick sheen of sweat that made it glow in the yellow light as if it had been oiled. Each time she touched one of the ridged scars on his chest she lifted her head and brushed it with her lips, tasting his saltiness. Those old scars, like the ones where his little fingers had once been, she could bear. They were surface damage. But what lay under his fine precious skin? What new damage had been inflicted while he was away from her, scars she couldn’t see?

She pressed her ear even closer to his chest to listen for what lay underneath, but caught only the steady drumbeat of his heart and the soft sigh of air entering and leaving the secret cavities within him. His hand was buried in the tangle of her hair, moving among its strands, fingering them, burrowing deeper.

Their first love-making had been intense, hungry for each other as starved creatures are for food, but this time they allowed themselves a slower pace as if they could start to believe they were not going to be snatched apart again at any moment. Their bodies began to relax. To trust. They found each other’s rhythm with ease and Lydia experienced again that familiar ache for him which no amount of feeling him hard inside her, becoming a physical part of her, ever banished completely.

She stroked the long taut muscle of his thigh, saw it twitch with pleasure. ‘Tell me,’ she said softly, ‘what it is that is hurting so much inside you.’

‘Now I am here with you, all pain has vanished.’ He was smiling, she could hear it in his voice even though she couldn’t see his face.

‘You lie well, my love.’

With his hand still entwined in her hair, he raised her head a fraction and turned it so that her chin was balanced on his ribs and he could see her face. His black almond-shaped eyes were smiling at her.

‘It’s the truth, Lydia. The rest of the world does not exist when we are together. What’s out there,’ he glanced at the black window and for a second the smile slipped, ‘with all its hardships, it ceases to be.’ He smoothed a lock of fiery hair back from her forehead and put a fingertip to her mouth. She parted her lips and he touched her teeth. ‘But it’s waiting for us.’

His other hand strayed to her breast, stroking it with a slow aching caress. Abruptly she rolled herself on top of him, laying her own body along the length of him. Their bones and their flesh moulded together, her ankles slotted between his, her thighs on his, her stomach flat against his, her ribs joined to his. She could feel the heat at his groin and needed to merge it with her own. She rested her elbows on either side of his head and stared down into his solemn gaze.

‘Tell me about China,’ she ordered.

The flicker was slight. A tiny black shutter somewhere deep in the darkness behind his eyes. But enough. She knew now she’d been right. She kissed his beautiful straight nose.

‘Tell me,’ she said in a gentler tone, ‘what has happened in China that causes you such grief.’

His smile came slowly. It started with a faint curve in one corner of his lips and she watched it rise through the muscles of his cheeks to his eyes.

‘You know me too well, my Lydia.’

‘Don’t hide from me.’

‘I’m not hiding. Just careful of you.’ His hand lifted and settled on the small of her back as if it had a will and a desire of its own. ‘You have enough to think of here in Moscow. Enough… complications.’

‘So tell me now.’ She bounced her chin on his. ‘Or I’ll lie here all night and all day until you do.’

He laughed. ‘That’s an excellent reason,’ he said, ‘for not telling you anything.’

‘I’m waiting.’

He breathed quietly and she matched the rhythm of her own breath to his. The silence in the small room lay like a blanket around them, warm and intimate. His nostrils flared and she knew he would tell her.

‘Mao Tse Tung is still battling it out, at war with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Kuomintang forces.’ He spoke quietly but the very softness of his words made Lydia nervous. ‘I believe that Mao and our Communist Red Army will win. One day they will take control. Maybe not soon, but eventually the people of China will realise that their only chance of a future of freedom is through Communism. It is the only way forward for a country like China. We’ve seen it here in Russia, we’ve viewed the advances that will come.’

‘But what about…?’ She stopped.

‘About what?’

‘About the mistakes?’ She waved an impatient hand in the direction of the window and whispered, ‘What about the fear out there?’

Chang wrapped both arms around her naked back and pulled her tight against his chest. ‘It is the leader who is wrong, Lydia, not the Communist system. Stalin is the wrong leader for Russia.’

‘And Mao Tse Tung?’

‘I have fought for him. Endangered my life for him. And risked the lives of my friends and colleagues.’

‘I thought you worked in their Head Office in Shanghai. Decoding encrypted messages, that’s what you told me.’

He gave her an apologetic smile. ‘I do. Some of the time.’

She let it pass. Endangered my life, he’d said.

His fingers stroked her spine, soothing her. ‘But like Stalin,’ he continued, ‘Mao is the wrong leader. He is a corrupt man and will cripple China if he gets his hands on her.’

She let her mouth rest on the hollow of his throat, aware of his pulse.

‘Chang An Lo, if that is so, you must stop fighting for him.’

He tightened his grip on her till she could barely breathe. ‘I know,’ he said bleakly. ‘But where does that leave China? And where does that leave me?’