Under a Blood Red Sky

61

Tivil January 1934

‘A horse is coming.’

Pyotr stamped his valenki in the snow. ‘I can’t see any horses,’ he complained, screwing up his eyes to peer into the white fog that lay like a sheet over the valley.

‘They’re coming,’ Rafik repeated.

‘Is it Papa?’

Rafik frowned, his black eyebrows twitching under his shapka. ‘It’s him – and he’s not alone.’

‘How do you know, Rafik?’ Pyotr asked.

But Rafik didn’t answer. He and Zenia were standing with hands linked, muttering strange words that made no sense to Pyotr. To the boy it seemed that the words turned into something solid in the cold damp air, rising like his breath to merge with the fog over Tivil. He didn’t like the feeling. He began to throw snowballs to warm himself up.

They’d been waiting there an hour and his fingers had frozen, but that didn’t worry him. What worried him much more was that his hopes had frozen. He could feel them caught in a hard icy lump inside his chest. He’d been curled up at home in front of the warm pechka, the stove, when Zenia had come bounding in, cheeks glowing, bundled him up into his shuba coat and dragged him out into the snow. Over recent months he’d never quite grown used to the gypsy girl’s sudden bursts of energy. Often he wondered if it had anything to do with all the strange herbs she ate.

‘Pyotr, come on, he’s waiting for us.’

‘Who?’ He trotted alongside her, pulling on his varezhki, woollen mittens, his boots crunching through the snow.

‘Rafik.’

‘Zenia, wait a minute.’ Pyotr was baffled. ‘What does he want with me?’

‘Hurry up.’

‘I am hurrying.’

‘Your father is coming home.’

Pyotr sobbed, a strange animal sound he’d never heard before. Around him Tivil looked the same, the roofs edged with blue icicles, the woodpiles stacked high, the picket fences hibernating under their coating of snow. Still the same dull old village, but suddenly it had changed. Now everything shone bright and dazzling to welcome Papa home.

His excitement had cooled. The wind and the snow and the sound of ice cracking on the river had stolen its heat. They’d been waiting on the road into the village for so long now, but nobody had come and he’d started to believe they were wrong. Though Rafik had given him a smile of welcome when he’d first arrived, now the gypsies paid him little heed. They talked in intense low voices in a tight huddle, excluding him.

‘When’s Papa coming?’ he asked again.

‘Soon.’

Soon had come and gone.

But now Rafik said urgently, ‘A horse is coming.’

Pyotr was the first to hear the whinny of the horse. He straightened up and stared out past Zenia, wrapped in her thick coat and headscarf, into the shifting banks of fog where the road should be. It was like floating into another world, unfamiliar and unpredictable.

‘Pyotr.’

The word drifted, swirling and swaying towards him through the air.

‘Papa!’ Pyotr yelled, ‘Papa!’

Out of the wall of white loomed a tall figure in a filthy coat. At his side hobbled a small grey horse.

‘Papa,’ Pyotr tried to shout again, but this time the word choked in his throat.

He flew into the outstretched arms, burrowed his face into the icy jacket and listened to his father’s heart. It was real. Beating fast. The cloth of the jacket smelled strange and the beard on his face felt prickly, but it was his Papa. The big strong familiar hands gripped him hard, held him so close Pyotr couldn’t speak.

‘What’s going on here?’ his father demanded over his head.

‘We’ve been expecting you,’ the gypsy responded.

Mikhail gently disentangled himself from his son and held out a hand to Rafik. The gypsy grasped it with a fervour that took Pyotr by surprise.

‘Thank you, Mikhail,’ Rafik murmured. Not even the chill moan of the wind could conceal the joy in his voice.

Then for the first time Pyotr noticed the person behind his father.

‘Sofia!’ he gasped.

‘Hello, Pyotr.’ She smiled at him. Her face was painfully thin. ‘You look well,’ she said.

In her voice he could hear no trace of anger at what he’d done, just a warmth that defied the cold around them.

‘Did you miss us?’ she asked.

‘I missed your jokes.’

She laughed. His father ruffled his hair under the fur hat, but his look was serious. ‘Pyotr, we’ve brought Sofia’s friend back with us.’

He gestured at a dark shape lying on the horse. It was strapped on the animal’s back, skin as grey as the horse’s coat, but the figure moved and struggled to sit up. At once Pyotr saw it was a young woman.

‘We have to get her out of the cold,’ Papa said quickly.

Sofia moved close to the horse’s side. ‘Hold on, Anna, just a few minutes more. We’re here now, here in Tivil, and soon you’ll be…’

The young woman’s eyes were glazed and Pyotr wasn’t sure she was even hearing Sofia’s words. She attempted to nod but failed, and slumped forward once more on the horse’s neck. Sofia draped an arm round her thin shoulders.

‘Quickly, bistro.’

Rafik and Zenia led the way, heads ducked against the swirling snowflakes that stung their eyes. Pyotr and Mikhail started to follow as fast as they could, with Mikhail leading the little grey mare. Sofia walked at its side, holding the sick young woman on its back. Pyotr could hear his father’s laboured breathing, so he seized the reins from his hand and tucked himself under Papa’s arm, bearing some of his weight. The horse dragged at every forward pace and Pyotr was suddenly frightened for it. Please, don’t let it collapse right here in the snow.

The sky was darkening. Pyotr could sense the village huddle deep in its valley, shutting out the world beyond. Something stirred inside him, something strong and possessive, and he tightened his grip on his father. The snow underfoot was loose and slippery but, instead of stopping at his own house, the little procession continued right past it.

‘Where are we going, Papa?’

His father didn’t speak, not until they stood outside the izba that belonged to the Chairman. It hunched under its coat of snow, shutters closed and smoke billowing from its chimney.

‘Aleksei Fomenko!’ Mikhail bellowed against the wind. He didn’t bother knocking on the black door. ‘Aleksei Fomenko! Get out here!’

The door slammed open and the tall figure of the Chairman strode out into the snow, dressed in no more than his shirtsleeves, the wolfhound a shadow behind him.

‘Comrade Pashin, so you’ve decided to return. I didn’t expect to see…’

His eyes skimmed over Mikhail and Pyotr, past the gypsies, and came to an abrupt halt on Sofia. His jaw seemed to jerk as if he’d been hit. Then his gaze shifted to the wretched horse. No one spoke. Fomenko was the first to move. He ran over to the horse and, working fast but with great care, he untied the straps.

‘Anna?’ he whispered.

She raised her head. For a moment her eyes were blank and glazed, but snowflakes settled on her lashes, forcing her to blink.

‘Anna,’ he said again.

Gradually life trickled back into her eyes. She pushed herself to sit up and stared at the man by her side, as though uncertain whether her mind was confusing her.

‘Vasily, are you real? Or another ghost of the storm?’

He took her mittened hand in his and pressed it to his cold cheek. ‘I’m real enough, as real as the sleigh I built for you and as real as the songs you sang for me. I still hear them when the wind blows through the valley.’

‘Vasily,’ she sobbed.

She struggled to climb off the horse but Fomenko lifted her from the saddle as gently as if he were handling a kitten, cradling her in his arms away from the driving snow. Her head lay on his chest and he kissed her dull, lifeless hair. He turned to face Sofia and Mikhail.

‘I’ll care for her,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy the best medicines and make her well again.’

‘Why?’ Sofia asked. ‘Why now and not before?’

Fomenko looked down at the pale woman in his arms and his whole face softened. He spoke so quietly that the wind almost snatched his words away.

‘Because she’s here.’

Pyotr saw that Sofia’s cheeks were wet. He didn’t know if it was snow or tears.

Fomenko turned away from the watching group. At a steady pace so as not to jar her fragile bones, the dog walking ahead of him over the snow, he carried Anna into his house in Tivil.

The air was warm. That was the first thing Anna absorbed. Her bones had lost the agonising ache that had pulled at them for so long and seemed to be melting from inside, they felt so soft and heavy. She opened her eyes.

She’d forgotten what it was like to feel like this, so comfortable, so cosseted, a downy pillow under her head, a clean-smelling sheet pulled up to her neck. No brittle ice like jagged glass in her lungs. She tried breathing, a swift swallow of the warm air.

Bearable.

Her gaze explored the room, sliding with slow consideration over the curtains, the chair, the carpet, the shirts hanging on hooks, all full of colour. Colour. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it. In the camp everything had been grey. A small sigh of pleasure escaped her, a faint sound, but it was enough. Instantly a whining started up outside the bedroom door and brought her back to reality.

Whose house was she in? Mikhail’s? Or… No. She shook her head. No, it wasn’t Mikhail’s. Only dimly did she recall being carried in a pair of strong arms, but she knew exactly whose bed she was lying in and whose dog was whining at the door.

The latch lifted quietly. Anna’s heart stopped as her eyes sought out the figure standing in the shadows. He was tall, holding himself stiffly, and in a flash of anxiety she wondered whether the stiffness was in his mind or his body. His shirt fitted close across his wide chest, and his hair was cropped hard to his head.

Vasily. It was Vasily, with the Dyuzheyev forehead, the long aristocratic nose – and the eyes, she remembered those grey swirling eyes. But the once generous mouth was now held tight in a firm line. At his heel stood a large rough-coated wolfhound; Anna recalled Sofia telling her its name.

‘Hope,’ she breathed. It was easier than saying Vasily.

The dog loped towards her, its claws clipping the wooden floor, and nuzzled her hand. The simple display of affection seemed to persuade Vasily at last to walk into the room, but there was something deliberately formal in his step and he came no nearer than the end of the bed.

He spoke first. ‘How are you feeling?’

His voice was controlled, and deeper than it used to be, but she could still hear the young Vasily in it. A shiver of pleasure shot through her.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Are you cold? Do you need another quilt?’

‘No. I’m warm, thank you.’

Another awkward silence.

‘Are you hungry?’

She smiled. ‘Ravenous.’

He nodded and, though he didn’t move away, his eyes did. They looked at the dog’s shaggy head now resting on the quilt, at the round wooden knobs at each corner of the bed, at the white-painted wall, at the window and a gust of snowflakes sweeping across the yard outside. Anywhere but at her.

‘You look well, Vasily,’ she said softly.

He studied his own strong hands, but didn’t comment.

This time she let the silence hang. She didn’t know what was happening and her mind felt too weak to struggle with it. Was he angry at her for coming here? For risking his position as Chairman of the kolkhoz? Who could blame him? She didn’t want him to be angry, of course she didn’t, but at the same time, in some strange way, it didn’t matter if he was. This was what mattered. Being here. Seeing the way his grey eyes had sparked as he stepped into the room.

She studied the long lean lines of his body, the familiar set of his head on the broad shoulders. The only thing she missed was his hair, the way it used to fall in a soft brown tumble across his high forehead and make him look… what? She smiled. Look lovable. These shorn hard spikes of hair belonged to a different Vasily.

He saw the smile. Even though he wasn’t looking at her, still he was aware of the smile and she saw him move closer. She felt choked by the wave of love that engulfed her. So much was unsaid. And she felt no need to say it. Just looking at him was enough.

Abruptly, when she least expected it, he turned and disappeared from the room. She had no idea whether he was gone five minutes or five hours, but when she again opened her eyes he was sitting in a chair beside her bed, so close she could see the shadows that lined his eyes and a tiny web of lines etched at the tight corners of his mouth.

‘Here, time to eat.’

In his hands lay a bowl of soup. Steam rose from it and brushed his chin, and she couldn’t take her eyes from that strong square line underpinning his face.

‘Eat,’ he said again.

She tried to sit up and failed, so struggled instead to lift her head higher on the pillow. She was shocked to find herself so weak. Everything ached. Even that little movement of her head set off more coughing, and when she’d finished gasping for breath he wiped a damp cloth across her lips, studied the red smear on it with a frown and put the cloth aside. He looked at her intently.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fine,’ she whispered.

For a brief moment a faint ironic smile tilted one side of his mouth.

‘Fine,’ he repeated, ‘just fine.’

He lifted a spoon from the bowl and raised it to her lips. Willingly she parted them and felt the thick aromatic liquid flow down into her starved stomach.

‘It’s wonderful,’ she murmured.

‘Only a few mouthfuls now. More later.’

‘But I’m-’

‘No. Your body can’t take much yet, Anna.’

Anna.

It was the first time he’d spoken her name. She badly wanted him to say it again.

‘Thank you… Vasily.’

‘My name is no longer Vasily. I am called Aleksei Fomenko now. It’s important that you call me that. I’m putting it about in the village that you are…’

But he stopped, unable to finish. His eyes were fixed on her face and she could see a thousand thoughts and questions racing through their grey depths, but none that she could decipher. She was all of a sudden acutely conscious of what she must look like to him, a skeletal jumble of bones in a nightdress, her skin as lifeless as ash and weeping sores on…

Nightdress?

Who took her out of her filthy rags? Who clothed her in this pure white nightgown? Instantly she was sure it was Vasily himself. He’d undressed her and bathed her and seen the sickening state of her, and the thought surfaced with a hot surge of shame. He seemed to read her thoughts and put down the bowl, reached out a hand and rested the tips of his fingers on her bare throat.

‘Anna,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I can feel your heart racing. You…’ His breath caught. For a long moment there was only the wind rattling the window pane and Vasily’s finger brushing her throat, ‘You are even more beautiful than I remembered.’

‘Vasily!’

As his name burst out of her mouth she saw something break inside him. And suddenly his arms were around her and he was sitting on the bed holding her to his chest, rocking her, crushing her tight against his own body, as though he could press her deep in his bones.

‘Anna,’ he whispered over and over, ‘Anna, my Anna.’ He kissed her hot forehead and caressed her filthy lank hair. ‘Forgive me.’

‘For what?’

‘For not coming.’

She brushed the line of his jaw with her lips. ‘You’re here now.’

‘I made a promise,’ Vasily explained.

‘To whom?’

‘To Lenin.’ He shook his head. ‘To the bronze statue of him in Leningrad. After I came back from the Civil War,’ a tremor shook his voice, ‘and couldn’t find you – though I scoured the city endlessly for news of you – I swore I would become the perfect Soviet citizen, dedicating my life to Lenin’s ideals, if-’

She lifted a finger to his lips. ‘Hush, Vasily, there’s no need to explain.’

‘Yes there is. I want you to understand. I dedicated my life to Communism. I even spilled some of my blood and wrote the promise in red to seal the bargain, in return for-’

‘For what?’

‘In return for Lenin’s spirit keeping you safe.’

Anna gasped.

‘I kept my word,’ he murmured into her hair, ‘all these years. When I did help people escape from the authorities, it was because they were the intellectual building blocks who would be needed to strengthen Russia.’ He drew a deep breath and repeated fiercely, ‘I kept my word.’

‘Even when Sofia came and begged.’

‘Yes, even then.’

‘To make sure my heart kept beating?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Vasily.’

They clung to each other, motionless, his arms cradling her. Neither spoke for a long while.

Anna slept. She had no sense of time. Just moments that slotted one by one into her feverish mind. At intervals she woke and Vasily was there, always there, feeding her spoonfuls of soup and finely shredded red meat, or dosing her with foul-tasting medicines. He talked to her by the hour and she listened.

‘Wake up.’

Anna had dozed off again into a world of nightmares, but opened her eyes swiftly the instant she heard Sofia’s voice.

‘Wake up,’ Sofia said again. ‘Every time I come to see you, you’re fast asleep.’

She was perched on the side of the bed, wearing a wool dress the colour of dark lavender, and there was a wide smile on her beautiful face.

‘I can’t believe how much better you look already,’ Sofia announced. ‘And you’ve only been here a week. How’s the coughing?’

Anna pulled a face. ‘Give me time. I know you planned for us to move somewhere safer but…’

Sofia took her friend’s hand in hers and gently chafed it. ‘You have all the time in the world now.’

‘Thanks to you.’

‘And to Mikhail. I couldn’t have done it without him.’

‘Yes. And to your Mikhail. Thank you both.’

Their eyes met, two different blues, and something passed between them; a knowledge of what Sofia had done but also an agreement never to talk of it again. Words were too small to voice what lay deep inside them both.

Instead Anna asked, ‘Has Mikhail spoken to Vas-, I mean Aleksei, about the killings… that day at the Dyuzheyevs’ villa?’

‘Yes. They’ll never be friends. But now they’re prepared not to be enemies. It’s a first step.’

‘That’s wonderful.’

Sofia nodded and smiled. ‘Give me a hug, you skinny lazy-bones. ’

Anna struggled to sit up and immediately a spasm of coughing racked her chest. Sofia held her close until the shuddering subsided, and Anna could smell the clean soapy fragrance of her blonde hair and the freshness of her skin. When the spasm was finally over she insisted on sitting up.

‘Wash my hair, Sofia.’

‘It’ll exhaust you.’

‘Please, Sofia. For me.’

‘For him, you mean,’ Sofia said with a ripple of laughter that set her eyes alight.

‘Yes,’ Anna whispered as she entwined her arms round the young woman on her bed. ‘For Vasily.’