Under a Blood Red Sky

36

Pyotr put on a clean white shirt, dusted off his shoes and combed his hair. He thought about what he was about to do. It frightened him a little. He licked his teeth to moisten them. In the kitchen he cut himself a slice of black bread but his stomach was too churned up to eat, so instead he drank a glass of water and left the house.

Each person must be reborn. Each person must be taught to rethink.

That’s what it said in the Communist pamphlet he kept under his pillow. That’s what Yuri had explained to him in detail today at Young Pioneers.

Everyone will have a new heart.

Yes, Pyotr understood that. Unless you erased the old and the bad, how could there be room for the new and the good? Which was why he was going to speak to Chairman Aleksei Fomenko. She’d be grateful in the end, the fugitive woman, he was sure she would. When she had her new heart.

Pyotr knocked on the black door that belonged to Chairman Fomenko, making a spider scuttle sideways across the wooden panel. When he received no answer he knocked again, but still no response. He stood on the doorstep so long his shirt grew sticky. The sun slid behind the mountain ridge and shadows crept up the street towards him as workers started leaving the fields.

‘Hey, Pyotr, what you doing?’

It was Yuri, his face flushed from running.

‘I’m waiting for the Chairman.’

‘What for?’

‘I’ve something to tell him.’

Yuri kicked a stone with his toe. ‘Must be important.’

‘It is.’

Yuri’s eyes brightened with interest. ‘What’s it about?’

Pyotr almost told him. It was on the tip of his tongue, the words that would betray Sofia. He wanted so much to spit them out of his mouth. She’s dangerous, but a strange quivering feeling in the depth of his stomach held him back. He knew that everything Yuri had said this morning about needing people to rethink was right. It made sense, of course it did. He wanted to do what was right but, now that it came to doing it, he wasn’t so sure. Once out there, the words would gain a kind of life of their own and he could never take them back. If he told Yuri, Yuri would tell the Chairman, the Chairman would tell the OGPU police and they would march in and arrest her and then… His mind couldn’t go further.

‘Well?’ Yuri urged. ‘What is it-’

At that moment Anastasia came hurtling down the dusty street and skidded to a halt in front of them. Trickles of sweat were carving tracks through the dirt on her thin face. She often helped her father with hoe or sickle in the fields and it was obvious that’s where she’d just come from. Her fingernails were filthy.

‘What are you doing here, Pyotr?’ She grinned at him. ‘Not in trouble, are you?’

‘Of course not,’ Pyotr objected.

‘He’s got secret information to tell the Chairman,’ Yuri said grandly.

‘Really?’ The girl’s eyes widened. ‘What is it?’

Pyotr felt himself cornered. ‘It’s about a girl in this village,’ he said in a rush. ‘About her anti-Soviet activity.’

To his astonishment, tears leapt into Anastasia’s eyes and she started to edge fearfully away from him.

‘I must go home now,’ she blurted out and ran off down the road, her hair flying out behind her, dust kicking up behind her heels. Quite clearly Pyotr could see the bulges under her faded yellow blouse, at the back where it was tucked into her shorts. The four bulges jiggled as she ran.

‘Yuri,’ he said to distract his friend’s attention from noticing them, ‘I’m not waiting any longer.’

Anastasia had stolen potatoes. Only two weeks ago a woman in a village the other side of Dagorsk was sentenced to five years in one of the labour camps for stealing half a pud of grain from her kolkhoz. Suddenly dismay spilled into his mind. If he told Chairman Fomenko about Sofia, wasn’t it his duty to tell about Anastasia too? He looked up and saw his father striding up the street towards him.

‘What are you up to, boys?’

‘Nothing much.’

‘You’re standing on the Chairman’s doorstep for nothing much?’

But instead of being annoyed Papa was laughing and his face was free from the usual shadows it wore after a day’s work. Ever since he’d come back from the conference yesterday, he’d been in a good mood. It must have gone really well in Leningrad.

‘Good evening, Comrade Pashin. Dobriy vecher,’ Yuri said politely. ‘Have you heard if there’s any news yet about the sacks of grain that went missing?’

That was typical of Yuri, always digging around for information. But Papa wasn’t pleased and his face lost its smile.

‘I know nothing at all about that. Come, Pyotr,’ Papa said firmly, taking hold of his son’s arm. ‘We’re going to Rafik’s house.’

They walked up the road in an awkward silence.

‘Why do you dislike him, Papa?’

‘Dislike who?’

‘Yuri.’

‘Because I don’t want the young fool turning you into him.’

‘No, Papa. I think for myself.’

His father halted in the middle of the street and turned to him. ‘I know you do, Pyotr. I’ve seen the way you make your choices after working out what’s right and what’s not.’ He smiled. ‘I admire that.’

Pyotr felt a kick of pride. And it must have shown in his face because Papa seized him in his arms, holding him tight against his chest as though his own heart could pump its blood into his son’s veins.

It was the first time Pyotr had ever been inside the gypsy’s izba. It smelled funny and half the forest appeared to be dangling from the roof beams. He hung back near the door, unwilling to go too deep.

‘Dobriy vecher,’ Papa said to Rafik. ‘Good evening.’

‘Dobriy vecher, Pilot. And good evening to you too, Pyotr.’

The gypsy was swallowed up by a huge maroon armchair. He was grinning at Pyotr, his eyes crinkled up at the edges. ‘How’s the colt up at the stable?’

‘He bit Priest Logvinov today.’

Rafik laughed. ‘He has spirit, that one. Like you.’

Pyotr gave a quick nod. The fugitive woman was seated opposite Zenia at the table and the gypsy girl had laid out a row of playing cards, the rest of the pack still in her hand. Her black eyes smiled a welcome. Pyotr studied the cards with interest. They were like no others he’d ever seen. Instead of the usual numbers on them they had pictures, and not just boring old kings and queens. There was a hangman and an angel with wings spread wide. Pyotr slid a step closer.

‘I’m pleased to see you’re feeling better, Rafik,’ Papa said.

‘Much better.’

‘Good.’

Then his father turned to the two women at the table and gave them a small old-fashioned bow, which surprised Pyotr. What was going on?

‘Good evening, Sofia.’

She swivelled in her chair, stretching out one of the long golden legs that Pyotr remembered from the forest. He had avoided looking at her face so far, but now he risked it. Immediately he wished he hadn’t, because he couldn’t look away. Her eyes were shining, deep blue and swirling with light the way he imagined the sea to be. Her lips opened a fraction when she looked up at Papa, just as Anastasia’s did at school when she looked at Yuri’s slice of bread and honey. As if she wanted to eat him. And Papa was doing the same. Pyotr felt a flutter of panic in his stomach. Look away, look away.

‘I have a surprise for you all.’ His father turned to him. ‘For you too, Pyotr.’

‘What is it, Papa?’

‘The Krokodil is coming to Dagorsk next week.’

All sense of danger and fugitives vanished right out of Pyotr’s head and he gave a shout of delight that filled the room. ‘Can we go and see it, Papa? Which day? How long will it be here? Can we take Yuri too and-’

His father chuckled. ‘Slow down, boy. Yes, of course we’ll go and see it.’ He turned back to the others in the room and said with that formal little bow again, ‘You’re all invited.’

‘I’ll come,’ Zenia said at once and dealt another card. A golden chalice.

Rafik shook his head and ran a hand roughly through his thick black hair. ‘I don’t ever leave Tivil, but the rest of you go and enjoy yourselves.’

‘What is the Krokodil?’ Sofia asked.

‘It’s an aeroplane,’ Pyotr explained excitedly. ‘One that’s painted to look like a crocodile.’

Mikhail nodded and sketched its outline in the air. ‘It’s one of the squadron of Tupolev PS-9s – they’re part of Stalin’s propaganda drive. It flies round the country to demonstrate Soviet progress to the people. The idea is to give film shows and hand out leaflets and things like that. One of the Politburo’s better ideas we think, don’t we, Pyotr?’

‘Yes,’ Pyotr grinned.

‘Pilot.’ It was the gypsy.

Something in the way he said it made everyone turn to look at Rafik. He’d left the chair and was standing rigidly in the centre of the room. His hands were pressed to his temples as though holding in something that was trying to get out. His black eyes looked sick.

‘Pilot!’ This time it was a shout. ‘Get out of here, now, quickly! Run!’

Instantly Zenia was at his side.

‘Tell us, Rafik.’

‘They’re coming for him, to seize him. Run, Mikhail!’

Sofia leapt to her feet.

‘Papa?’ Pyotr cried out.

‘Go, Mikhail,’ Sofia urged. ‘Go.’

But his father didn’t move. ‘What the hell do you mean, Rafik? Who on earth is coming for me?’

The door burst open with a crash. Uniforms streamed into the room.