The Concubine's Secret

55

‘Don’t die.’

From somewhere far, far above, the words drifted down to her. Like the tiniest flakes of snow that melt to nothing the moment they touch your skin. But these words weren’t soft.

‘Don’t die, my love.’

It’s too late. Can’t you see? I’m already dead.

There was no pain, no thoughts, no desires, no colours, just a nothingness. A hollow void. But if being dead was this, just nothing, what was the point of all the effort of life? And what happened to the future she had planned? Did it still exist? Would it go on unfolding without her? An image of Chang slid into the void inside her, Chang An Lo going on, taking himself a Chinese wife and having bright-eyed Communist children. All without her. Would he weep? Would he remember? The strange thing was that even in death her heart wanted him to be happy.

But happy with her.

‘Come back to me, my fox girl.’ His words floated down to her, yet they were sharp as needles under her skin and wouldn’t let her rest.

No, my precious one, it’s too late. She felt herself tumbling deeper into the hole, head over heels down into the void, its blackness swallowing her, sucking all the brightness out of her, her fingers uncurling and letting go. No pain. Not even the image of Chang any more. Just the emptiness of the void now. It’s over.

‘Come back, Lydia, or I’ll come down there after you and drag you back with my bare hands.’

No, let me rest.

Something was grabbing her, physically shaking her until she felt her teeth rattle.

Teeth? How could she have teeth if she was dead? When you’re dead, you’re just spirit, damn it. Teeth! That meant a tiny part of her was alive. Damn it! With a gigantic effort of will she dug her fingernails into the wall of blackness and felt her body jerk as the falling came to an abrupt halt. It made everything hurt. It would be so much easier to let go.

Chyort! Inch by inch, hand over hand, she started to haul herself up.

The bullet, that’s what she saw first when she opened her eyes. It was sitting on the windowsill, proud of itself in the sunlight, shining as if it had been polished. Second came Elena’s broad face. She was leaning over Lydia, the lines round her eyes rigid, her fingers stained scarlet. Red paint? Why was Elena messing with paint?

‘So you’re awake.’

‘Yes.’ Lydia ’s throat felt as though it had been skinned. The air inside her tasted black and rotten.

‘I’ve just changed your dressing.’ The colourless eyes studied her intently. ‘Sore?’

‘A bit.’

‘You shouldn’t be. Your friend has been dripping God knows what filthy Chinese muck on to your tongue and telling me you’ll feel no pain.’

‘Chang? Where is he?’

Elena’s sombre face broke into a smile. ‘You’ll live.’

‘She’d better.’

‘Chang An Lo?’ Lydia turned her head and found him there at her side, sitting on the bed. His expression was one she’d never seen before.

‘Was I dying?’ she whispered.

He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed her palm and then each finger, and held it to his cheek. ‘No, my Lydia.’ He gave her a smile. It was so full of a heat she could feel on her skin, it melted something cold and frightened within her. ‘You weren’t dying. You are indestructible. You were just testing me.’

His voice filled her head. He bent forward, still holding her hand as if it were part of himself, and rested his forehead in the curve of her neck. He remained like that for a long time, without moving, without speaking. His black hair grew warm under her cheek and she felt the thread that bound them together tighten as it spun a silken strand through their flesh and blood and bone.

‘Chang An Lo,’ she murmured and saw a glossy lock of his hair ripple with her breath, ‘if ever you die, I promise I’ll come and find you.’

The room was too full of people. White hot sparks seemed to flicker in the air, stirring it into constant motion. Lydia was sitting up in bed when all she wanted to do was slide back into that black hole. They had told her about Jens.

She’d screamed ‘No!’ Then silenced herself. Crushed the pain into a hard ball.

She pictured him among the ruins of his grand dreams, his proud white head smashed to the ground by his own hand in the ultimate sacrifice. No, Papa. The tears escaped down her cheeks and wouldn’t stop. When she tried to wipe them away she saw her hand for the first time and it was burned an ugly red and covered in slimy ointment.

‘It’s disgusting,’ she murmured as she stared at it.

Someone laughed and she knew it was with relief because a burned hand was so much better than a burned life. But Lydia wasn’t talking about her hand. It was her failure. That was disgusting. Papa, I’m sorry. Forgive me. Black dots fluttered on the edge of her vision and she had the sick feeling they were pieces of the black hole that had followed her, biding their time. She struggled to see straight. There were words she had to say.

‘I want to thank you, all of you,’ she said. ‘For your help.’ Her voice was raspy, scarcely recognisable as her own.

‘We almost did it.’ It was Alexei.

‘Jens was grateful,’ she whispered. ‘He told me so.’ Jens’ words surfaced from the black pool of memory, and Lydia knew in that instant that Alexei wasn’t – and never had been – her brother.

Popkov was looking wretched, playing cards with Edik on the other bed while Misty lay on the pillow and chewed one of Popkov’s stinking socks.

‘You found each other,’ the Cossack growled. ‘At the end you and Jens were together.’ He threw down his hand of cards in defeat and shrugged his huge shoulders. ‘That’s what matters.’ He shuffled the cards.

Lydia nodded. Couldn’t speak.

Alexei stopped at the end of her bed. ‘He’s right, Lydia. To have you there would have meant everything to him.’

‘And to me,’ she murmured. ‘But I was too late to stop him. He chose to destroy what he’d started, at whatever cost, to save other prisoners.’

Alexei shifted uneasily and she could feel his frustration and the depth of his need. She had to give him something. ‘Alexei, he loved you,’ she said simply. ‘Jens told me. When he was on my back, he was worried for you.’

Alexei’s green eyes, so like her father’s, stared directly at her and she could see he didn’t know whether to believe her or not. But she was too exhausted to fight him and closed her eyes.

‘I want to speak to Elena,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Alone.’

There was an awkward silence. But when she opened her eyes again the air in the room had settled like dust, empty except for the imprint of Chang’s lips on her forehead and the big woman seated on the end of her bed.

Chang was uneasy in the courtyard. It was too public, too visible. Anyone behind the windows would report the presence of a stranger, particularly a Chinese stranger. He was meant to be viewing a bicycle factory, but had sent Edik with a message to Biao to tell the Russians he was unwell. It was the truth. He was sick. His heart was so sick he could vomit it up on to the courtyard cobblestones beneath his feet.

‘Chang,’ Alexei said, ‘I’m glad to have this moment to speak with you.’

Till now they hadn’t spoken. He turned and inspected Alexei. Lydia ’s brother was a tall man in his long coat, proud like his father but as complex as his sister. There was no doubt that he was a man of courage and decision, for Chang had seen both in abundance at the fire amidst all the terror and confusion. Yet at the same time… he could sense in him the kind of sorrow that could take several lifetimes to heal.

‘Each of us,’ Chang said quietly, ‘has our own history.’

Alexei frowned. ‘I’m not here to discuss history.’

‘So what shall we discuss instead?’

‘ Lydia, of course. What else would you and I have to speak about?’

Chang smiled and felt the snow soft on his face. ‘We could speak about life. About death. Or about the future.’ He placed his hands together and bowed formally over them. ‘I wish to thank you, Alexei Serov, for saving my life at the fire. I am in your debt.’

‘No debt. No debt at all. You saved my sister’s life. That is enough.’

Chang inclined his head in the faintest of bows. That is enough. The words were true. If Lydia had not been on Chang’s back, this Russian would have left him to burn. They both knew that.

A young woman hurried out of the building into the courtyard, a bucket in each hand, and glanced at the two strangers with open curiosity as she crossed towards the water pump. The only sound was the laughter of Lydia ’s stray pale-haired boy on the other side of the yard with the Cossack. Chang and Alexei listened for a moment to the laughter, both willing it to last longer in the cold, echoing air.

‘About Lydia,’ Alexei said suddenly.

Chang waited, watching the boy. He could sense the brother deliberating as to how to start.

‘It won’t work, the two of you,’ Alexei said flatly. ‘It’s impossible to make it work, the barriers are too high. If you care for my sister at all, you’ll give her up and leave Russia. Let her stay with her own people. For God’s sake, can’t you see? You and she are oil and water, you cannot mix.’ His voice was growing softer, lower, more intense. ‘If you love her, Chang An Lo, really love her, let her have her own life. With you her future will always be as an outsider, wherever she is.’

Slowly Chang turned his head and fixed his gaze on the dark green eyes. Again the boy’s laughter crossed the courtyard but this time neither of them heard it.

‘You understand me?’

‘What Lydia and I decide to do is none of your business,’ Chang said coldly.

‘She’s my sister, damn it, that makes it my business.’ Anger flared and Chang knew it had been there all along, lying in wait. ‘You took Lydia over the wall. For God’s sake, why did you take her with you to search for Jens in the hangar? You almost killed my sister. How can I ever trust you? Do you expect me just to forget and forgive such a-’

‘No.’ Chang felt the pain twist deep in his gut, sharper than a heated knife. ‘No, I don’t. No more than I can forgive myself.’

‘Well?’ Elena asked, resting her arms on top of her bosom. Her eyes had shrunk to wary points.

‘You know what I’m going to say.’

‘How could I possibly know what goes on in that crazy head of yours?’

Lydia smiled. Everything hurt and she badly wanted to sleep, but she had to say this. ‘First I want to thank you, Elena.’

‘For what?’

‘For taking the bullet out of me.’

The woman shrugged. ‘I’ve had plenty of practice.’

‘Thanks anyway.’ She hesitated.

‘What else?’

Lydia took a shallow breath. ‘I want to know why you betrayed me.’

‘What?’

‘Both times that Alexei and I went into the forest the soldiers knew we were coming. They sent in stalkers to track us and would have caught us if Chang hadn’t been watching our backs. The second time there was an extra car to guard the truck convoy.’

Elena sat very still. ‘You are mistaken, comrade.’

‘The only people who knew what we were doing were the vory and Chang, Popkov and myself. And you.’

‘Any one of those thieves would sell you to the secret police as soon as slit his grandmother’s throat.’

‘No, you’re wrong. They do as Maksim tells them and he is besotted with my brother, so would let them do nothing to harm him. The others I’d trust with my life.’ She leaned forward. ‘So that leaves you.’

‘No.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Elena.’ The gaps between her words grew longer. ‘We both know it was you.’

‘If I said yes,’ Elena muttered, ‘what difference would it make?’

‘It might to Liev.’

Elena gave her a long, hard look. ‘Haven’t you hurt him enough? Leave him in peace now.’

‘Is that why you did it? To rid him of me?’

Elena sighed. ‘Girl, when I first met you I thought you and I could be friends, but in the end I saw clearly that you weren’t good for Liev. How can he have his own life when he is always living yours?’

‘I didn’t ask him to.’

‘No, you didn’t have to. It’s in his blood, bred to belong to someone like in the old Russian serf system. Like his father before him. As devoted to you as Misty is to Edik, and if you needed him to perform tricks for you, he wouldn’t think twice before doing them.’ She exhaled slowly, but there was a sorrowful note in her voice when she said, ‘I had to get rid of you, Lydia. For Liev’s sake.’

Lydia swallowed the bile that had risen to her mouth. ‘You could have just asked me to go,’ she said quietly.

‘He’d never have let you.’

Lydia nodded. Guilt, smooth and slippery, oiled her throat.

‘So you betrayed me to protect your Cossack. Does he know?’

Colour rose to Elena’s plump cheeks and she gripped both hands together on top of her head, flattening her shapeless hair. ‘No,’ she muttered. ‘Are you going to tell him?’

‘No.’

The woman nodded, shrugged her heavy shoulders and walked over to the window where she stood looking out. In a thick voice she added, ‘What you did for your father was wonderful.’

Lydia let her face drop into her hands. ‘He still died. I could-n’t save him.’

‘Maybe. But he knew what you did for him.’

‘I couldn’t save my mother either,’ she whispered through her fingers.

‘I know. You aren’t any better than I am at keeping your loved ones safe.’ She added, ‘Come over here.’

Lydia eased herself carefully off the thin mattress and joined Elena at the window. She was surprised to find it was snowing outside, not heavily, just a feathery dusting of flakes that drifted through the air and made the world look gentle. They stood in silence, side by side, watching the men in the courtyard below. Chang and Alexei were standing stiffly together, talking quietly, and she wondered what they were discussing. The fire? The weather? The latest church to be blown up on Stalin’s orders? Maybe her? They had their backs to the window so she couldn’t see their faces, but her eyes lingered on the firm line of Chang’s shoulders and on the tension in his long limbs. A young woman from one of the apartments was breaking ice from the courtyard water pump and stopped for a moment, a smile on her face, to watch the antics of Misty.

Popkov had tied a length of string around the dog’s neck and was teaching her to walk at Edik’s heel. Lydia hadn’t realised before how good he was with dogs, but neither had she realised how tired he looked. She felt a rush of tenderness for the big man who had brought her father so close to freedom, only to have him snatched away at the final moment. Oh Liev, my friend, I’m sorry if I asked too much. Even from here I can see it has taken something out of you.

A slow sigh escaped from the woman at her side, misting the glass and blurring the picture of the boy and his dog.

‘He’s asked me to go to live in the Ukraine with him.’

Lydia ’s eyes darted to Elena’s face. ‘The Ukraine?’

‘Somewhere near Kiev. It’s where he grew up as a boy.’

‘Was Liev ever a boy?’

Elena smiled for a fleeting moment. ‘It’s hard to imagine.’

‘Are you going?’

Elena watched Popkov, the way he leaned over the tiny puppy and spoke gently to it. ‘He’s worried about you.’

‘He needn’t be.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you love him?’

‘Hah! By the time you reach my age and have known more men than hot dinners, love is no longer what you think it is, Lydia.’

‘But do you love him?’ Lydia persisted.

There was a pause and Lydia wiped the window with her hand. The Ukraine. Oh Liev, half a world away.

‘Yes,’ Elena admitted at last. ‘I suppose I love the dumb oaf.’

They both smiled.

‘Then go to the Ukraine. I won’t breathe a word about…’ She let it trail off.

‘And you? Where will you go?’

The question tightened Lydia ’s throat so sharply she started coughing, tasting smoke in her mouth.

‘You’ll tear your stitches. Get back to bed.’

Elena helped her stumble back to the mattress but Lydia grasped the fleshy arm that supported her and wouldn’t let it go. She pulled the woman close. ‘Elena,’ she said fiercely, ‘if you hurt him I’ll come and I’ll find you, and I’ll rip your heart out.’

Their eyes held, the tawny ones fixed on the pale ones, and Elena nodded. She didn’t smile this time.

‘You have my permission to do so,’ she said.

Lydia released her grip but saw something in the woman’s expression, some anxiety that made her ask, ‘What is it, Elena?’

There was no response. Lydia ’s pulse thumped. The broad face was shuttered now.

‘Tell me, Elena.’

‘Oh fuck, why am I telling you this? You’ve got to get out of here, girl. Sick or not.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re coming for you today.’

‘Who?’

But she didn’t need to ask. Already she was throwing off the quilt, swinging her legs to the floor, mind and pulse racing.

‘Who?’ Elena echoed. ‘Those bastards from OGPU, of course. The secret police.’