The Concubine's Secret

45

They walked side by side. Together but not touching. Heads ducked against the wind. Chang was tense, Lydia could sense it in the way he placed each foot on the ground, like a cat taking care on ice, and in the hand hovering close to his thigh where she knew a knife was strapped. Yet when she glanced across at his face it looked calm, his eyes focused.

The street they were in was grey. Grey walls, fat grey drainpipes tipped with slivers of grey ice, grey air gusting towards them. Grey balconies clinging by a hair to the cracked walls.

‘It isn’t wise, Lydia,’ Chang had warned her.

‘Please, my love.’

‘You would tweak the dragon’s tail yet again.’

‘The dragon is snoring like a New Year drunk in his lair. He won’t even know I’m there.’ But when she’d seen the shadows gather in his eyes, she said simply, ‘I need this, Chang An Lo. I need to look for myself.’

He had nodded. ‘Then you shall.’

The prison was two blocks ahead. They walked in silence, aware of the dogs alert on chains as they approached, of the guards in grey coats, of the rifles on their backs. Chang and Lydia kept to the far side of the road, tucked in close to the buildings. It was obvious this had once been an avenue of gracious villas and shady trees but nothing remained of them now. Blocks of government offices now lined the pavement, and only the moss-covered stumps at the kerb sheltered the ghosts of what once had been.

Lydia forced herself not to stare. She walked quickly, though her feet begged to stop. Out here on the street it was different from when she was caged in the comfort of Maksim Voshchinsky’s car. Here it was raw. The pain sharper. The walls higher, the gates grimmer. But here she could listen for Jens Friis. For the ticking of his mind. His breath, his sigh, his voice.

His voice. She hadn’t asked Chang to tell her about the sound of his voice. How could she have overlooked something so intimate?

Papa, can you hear me? Can you feel me here?

She allowed herself one look, a slight turn of the eyes, one rapid glance, that’s all. Then she ducked her head again and hurried on past. But a part of her remained there on the grey pavement among the ice and the tree stumps, watching and waiting.

Chang was braiding strands of her hair, weaving them in and out of fine silk ribbons. He could sense the rhythmic movement soothing her, helping to still the vibrations his fingertips could feel through the fragile bones of her skull. He breathed out deeply and saw a lock of her hair rise, flutter and settle once more.

‘ Lydia, what is it that you want from Jens Friis? Want so badly you take risks that could swamp us all?’

‘He’s my father,’ she said.

He wove another ribbon into the flames. ‘But what are you doing here in Russia? Running towards Jens? Or away from China?’

‘What do you mean, away from China? Why should I want to run away from China?’

‘Because your mother died there.’

She said nothing. Her hands lay unmoving at her sides and he wondered at what cost.

‘Your mother died there, violently, and I went off to fight the Kuomintang, leaving you there. You were treated cruelly by my Chinese enemies.’ He kissed the back of her neck. ‘You had every reason to run away. But your father disappeared from your life when you were just five years old, so you scarcely know him. What is it that makes you cling so hard?’

‘He’s my father,’ she said again. Her voice came out as a whisper.

He stroked her naked shoulders, fine elegant shapes.

‘I let my mother die,’ she said. ‘I can’t let my father die too.’

‘Your mother’s death was no fault of yours. It was the work of the gods, a random moment when an act of revenge went wrong. You were not responsible in any way.’

‘I know.’

‘And your father is not dying.’

‘Nor is he living.’

‘You can’t know that.’

‘What? Is that place we passed today somewhere worth living? It’s more like a tomb.’

‘So what are you planning to do?’

‘To contact him. Somehow. At first, that’s all.’

‘And then?’

But she had gone from him, deep within herself where he couldn’t reach her. His fingers continued to braid her hair and into his mind came an image of her standing on a small beach in China, staring out at sunlit water, every inch straining to rush forward with the current towards her future. What had happened to her? He lowered his head until it was almost touching the neat triangle of her shoulder blade and inhaled the scent of her skin. She smelled the same, that intoxicating mix of delicate jasmine and the musk of a wild animal. But where had his fox girl gone? Gently he wound his arms around her, drawing her back against his bare chest, the heat of her body surprising him.

‘Chang,’ she said, and her sadness came at him like a slap, ‘what are we going to do, you and I?’

‘My love, you cannot avoid the future by chasing after the past.’

She swivelled round within the circle of his arms, so that her tawny eyes were fixed on his. ‘Is that what you think this is about?’

‘I think that you are frightened of what the future might hold for you, for us, so you are trying to build a future out of the past.’

‘So Jens Friis is my past?’

‘Yes.’

Slowly she shook her head, the ends of the ribbons whispering against his cheek. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand at all.’

Her words hurt, chipped a small hole in his chest. He lifted his hands and cradled her face between them.

‘I understand that we are together. That is enough.’ He smiled at her. ‘Look at what you are wearing in your hair. Look at the ribbons.’

It took a moment. But the smile came. ‘Red ribbons,’ she said.

‘Red is for happiness.’

It was raining and dark. Flurries of ice like needle points stabbed at the neck. Jens pulled his cap lower over his face and his collar higher to cover his ears. Exercise at six-thirty on a dark miserable morning brought out the worst in people. They grumbled at each other, at the guards, at the weather, but most of all at Colonel Tursenov.

‘Sadistic shit.’

‘Still with his arse tucked up in bed.’

‘Enjoying his breakfast ham and eggs. Warm white rolls and hot chocolate.’

‘Hope it chokes the miserable bastard.’

It was Tursenov who insisted on half an hour of exercise for his prisoners, trudging round and round the courtyard every morning before the working day started and again at the end of the day, before the evening meal was handed out. Rain, wind or snow, it made no difference. Floodlights, dogs and armed guards watched over them as they shuffled in a wide circle behind a chain-link metal fence, single file, four paces behind each other. In silence.

Today was unpleasant. But there had been worse days, much worse, when marching out to work in the Siberian timber forests. Hours of stumbling through snow and white-outs to reach the Work Zone. So Jens was not tempted to complain or voice hostility, but he did worry about Olga out here in the rain. He glanced across at her wet huddled figure further along the circle. She was moving as though her shoes were packed full of the lead she used to dig from the mine. Legs thin as pins. And she was coughing. The sound of her rasping breath made him nervous. He’d seen too many die, too many coughs tear lungs to shreds and shudder to an end in a death rattle. If only she would eat more.

Was Lydia eating?

The thought slipped into his head. Time and again it happened. When he was pushing a spoonful of good hot stew into his mouth he would freeze for a second and ask himself, was she pushing scraps of dry black bread into hers? Curled up under warm blankets at night, he imagined her cold and shivering. When it rained on him, like now, was she wet too? And did she dream of him the way he dreamed of her?

He ached to know more. The Chinese had said nothing of his wife, Valentina. His beloved Valentina. Did she also escape from the Bolsheviks? Please God let her be still alive, somewhere safe and warm where she could grow fat and lazy if she pleased. Or was she here in Moscow with Lydia? In this cold and wet courtyard his mind filled with the shimmer of dark velvety hair he had loved to brush for her each evening before bed, and a face so beautiful no man could turn his eyes away. Are you here, Valentina? Have you come home to Russia? He couldn’t imagine anyone so vibrant and colourful existing in this drab new world of the Soviets.

A sound like hell cracking open broke up his thoughts. It was the noise of the metal gates. Instantly Jens was attentive.

Be alert for communication.

That’s what the note had said. But the heavy grating sound of the hinges was followed by nothing more than the usual baker’s horse and cart rolling into the yard. It arrived every morning around this hour packed with trays of bread and rolls, but carefully separated from the prisoners by the metal fence that marched down the centre of the courtyard and divided off the exercise compound. No one took much notice of the cart, not even the guards. Only the dogs on their leashes were interested, sniffing the scent of freshly baked dough on the air, tongues drooling.

Be alert.

Jens pushed his feet over the rain-slicked cobbles, fighting the urge to stop, but under his cap he threw a sideways glance at the old horse, swaybacked and somnolent. At the boy standing by its head, holding the nag’s rein. He felt a little click behind his eyes. Like a shutter sliding up. Letting in light. The boy was new.

The baker was the same as usual. No change there, in his white apron and floury canvas coat. From the back of the covered cart he shouldered a wide tray of bread loaves, draped with sheets of greaseproof paper against the rain. In his deep bass voice he greeted the prisoners through the wire fence with his customary ‘Dobroye utro’ and disappeared through a side doorway into the building. The boy started to whistle, a bright cheery sound. What was it, that tune? Jens kept moving but his eyes remained with the boy in the navy coat that was too big for his skinny frame. A dark hat with a brim hid most of his face, so that all Jens could make out under the glare of the floodlights were the hollow cheeks, and the lips pursed as he whistled.

Jens whistled back.

‘Silence!’ The order came from one of the guards.

Jens ceased whistling. When he glanced back at the baker’s cart, the boy was hauling a large tray of bread rolls from the back and hoisted it up to carry on his head, flattening his hat, hands spread wide to reach the sides. Jens was at the point of the circle just approaching the chain fence and he slowed.

‘Get going,’ the man behind grumbled.

The boy was fast. Before the baker emerged he tottered unsteadily over the wet uneven cobbles, stumbled suddenly, caught himself, twisted to save the tray and let his legs go flying from under him. As he hit the ground hard he seemed to fling the tray in the direction of the fence. Dozens of white bread rolls cannoned towards the prisoners. Locusts could not have been quicker. Fingers shot through the gaps and the rolls vanished.

‘You bastards, fucking thieves, give me back my rolls!’ the boy yelled. He kicked out at the metal separating them, making it rattle, and the men inside grinned back at him. Even the guards laughed at his antics.

‘I’ll report you all,’ he shouted, ‘I’ll get you shot!’ The furious young boy hurled his hat at the fence, where it slithered down into a puddle. His pale hair was plastered to his thin face by the rain, and what looked like tears started to run down his face.

‘I’ll lose my job,’ he sobbed.

‘Here, boy.’ Jens approached the fence. ‘You can take mine.’ He pushed the roll he’d picked up back through the wire and the boy seized it eagerly.

‘Spasibo.’

‘Watch out, here comes your boss.’

The boy glanced fearfully over his shoulder, then rapidly back at Jens. ‘Spasibo,’ he said again. ‘You can eat this instead.’ From his pocket he yanked a thick slice of black bread. ‘It’s my breakfast.’ He folded it up and posted it through the fence into Jens’ hand.

‘Just a fucking minute,’ one of the guards called out, lifting his rifle to his shoulder. ‘No fucking gifts!’ But Jens bit into the bread with relish.

‘You don’t begrudge me a mouthful of khleb, do you? I think your Colonel Tursenov might have something to say about that.’

‘What the hell is going on here?’ The baker was lumbering over through the shadows. ‘Get over here, you stupid piece of dog shit. Where are my rolls?’

The boy scuttled around and bundled those that had lain out of the prisoners’ reach back on to the tray, but even in the dark they looked wet and gritty. The baker snatched the tray away and lashed out at the boy with his fist, sending him flying back on his heels, his head slamming on to the cobbles. He curled in a ball, hid his face in his hands and let out a long wretched wail, his shoulders shaking.

‘Leave the kid alone,’ Jens shouted.

‘Fuck off, prisoner. It’s none of your business. The bloody little fool has cost me trade.’ The baker strode back to his cart to remove another tray.

A guard stepped forward. ‘Get moving, you lot. The entertainment is over.’

Ill at ease because of what their greed had caused, the prisoners sank back into the monotony of the exercise circle. Jens was the last to move from the fence.

‘Boy,’ he called. ‘You all right?’

‘Me? Yeah.’ One bright eye winked at Jens from behind his fingers.

‘See that seat over there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘If you’re feeling dizzy, sit there for a minute.’ Jens’ gaze fixed hard on the boy. ‘That’s where we sit sometimes when we’re waiting for the truck to arrive.’

A slow sly grin greeted him.

‘Get over here,’ the baker’s voice ripped through the silence of the early morning air, ‘and carry those trays properly, you useless dog turd.’

The boy bounced to his feet, grabbed his hat and scampered to work without a backward glance.

Dearest Papa.

Jens could read no further. His eyes filled with tears. Dearest Papa. So many years since he’d heard those words. He lay down on his bed and pictured his daughter, her bright hair ablaze in the sunlight of a St Petersburg garden.

He tried again.

Dearest Papa, a short note squashed in a slice of bread. No way to say hello after twelve long years. So I’ll write about what matters most. I’ve missed you and never stopped thinking of you. Mama always said I reminded her of you each time she looked at me. I’m sorry, Papa, but I have to tell you that Mama died last year in an accident in China…

The piece of paper shook in his hand, the words blurred. No, Valentina, no. Why didn’t you wait for me? However many lies I told myself, I always believed I would see you again one day despite… Rage tore through his chest, ripping tubes and airways so that he couldn’t breathe. Rage at the system that had imprisoned him for no reason, at the desolate wasted years, at whoever caused the accident that robbed him of his wife.

He rested his forehead on the note as if it could pass its words into his mind. For a long while he remained like that. Images crowding in, images he’d not dared let loose before for fear they might shatter the fragile scaffolding that held up his world. The overhead light in a prisoner’s cell was never switched off even at night, to make surveillance simpler, so when an hour had passed and then another, he rose from the bed, splashed his burning cheeks with water from the bowl in the corner and tried once more.

Dearest Papa, a short note squashed in a slice of bread. No way to say hello after twelve long years. So I’ll write about what matters most. I’ve missed you and never stopped thinking of you. Mama always said I reminded her of you each time she looked at me. I’m sorry, Papa, but I have to tell you that Mama died last year in an accident in China. She left me a letter which said you were alive. I left China and traced you to Trovitsk camp and now Moscow. Alexei Serov and Liev Popkov are with me. I know that to communicate like this is dangerous and I fear for you. But if you can write something – somehow – the boy will be back tomorrow. Ever your loving daughter, Lydia.

Jens read it again. And again and again. He paced his cell, absorbing her words, studying the bold slant of her script until he knew each comma and each letter by heart. Then he tore it into confetti and fed it to his tongue.

‘Have you told Alexei?’ Popkov asked.

Lydia shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Hah!’

It was warm as summertime in the bakery, the heat from the ovens misting the window so that Lydia had to struggle to see out. She shifted impatiently from foot to foot, watching the road for the cart, nerves brittle as ice. Behind her Liev was lounging against a wall, a loaf of thick black bread tucked under his arm, casually tearing off great chunks and stuffing them into his mouth. Chyort! How could he eat? Her own stomach churned.

At last the lazy sound of a horse’s hooves carried through the dark street and seconds later the boy burst into the shop, a wide grin and a livid bruise spread across his face. She seized his bony shoulders and hugged him so hard he squealed and wriggled free. Even Popkov cuffed the mop of milky hair in a gesture of relief.

Lydia walked over to the counter where the baker was waiting and placed Antonina’s gold bracelet down on it.

‘You did well,’ she said.

‘What price a father, Alexei?’ Lydia asked.

They were walking side by side down Granovsky Street near the university, the way they had once strolled the streets of Felanka together not so many months ago. But nothing was as simple between them as it had seemed then. Alexei was insisting on finding a room of his own in Moscow and, though the rain had eased, they were moving fast as if they could outpace the dark shadows they threw behind them.

‘What do you mean?’ Alexei asked.

‘I mean are you so ready to buy yourself a new father? One who provides false identity papers as soon as you ask and in return tells you what you can and can’t do. Is that the kind of father you want?’

Alexei didn’t slow his pace but he turned his head to look at her for a moment. ‘This isn’t about fathers, is it?’ he said quietly. ‘It’s about sisters.’

Lydia lowered her eyes. She refused to say yes.

‘You must understand, Lydia, that Maksim Voshchinsky is my way of reaching Jens. It’s not a question of changing fathers. Or,’ he paused and the wind snatched at his coat, flapping it around his legs, ‘or sisters.’

‘But you like this Maksim.’

‘Yes, I like him. He’s clever, he’s complicated.’ He shrugged as he walked. ‘And he’s amusing.’

‘He doesn’t like me.’

‘What does that matter? I like you.’

She looked straight at him. ‘That’s all right then.’