Harry Bingham - The Lieutenant’s Lover

‘You’re not fine,’ she snapped. ‘Come on. I’ll take you home.’

‘No, really, it’s—’

‘Don’t argue. I’m a nurse.’

Brusquely, almost rudely, she pushed Misha away from his work and out towards the exit. He let himself be pushed. When Tupolev called out to him to stop and explain his early departure, Misha just said, ‘Oh don’t be such a damned idiot!’ and carried on walking. Outside, under the violet night and the first scatter of stars, Tonya felt Misha stiffening and pulling away.

‘What’s the matter? You need to get home and rest. I’ll tell Tupolev, if you like. An official instruction from the hospital.’

‘Oh, I don’t care two kopecks for Tupolev … but I’ll go home by myself, thanks. I don’t need you to walk me.’

‘You’ve got a nasty case of concussion. You shouldn’t be alone.’,

Misha, tall, pale, suddenly angry, turned on her.

‘Alone? No, I expect not. But then again, I’m not sure if I want to be walked home by you. Our last expedition didn’t turn out so well, did it?’

‘Our last expedition? The logs? I think I was rude when you left. I’m sorry. I didn’t know… I didn’t mean…’

Misha brought his face close to Tonya’s. She felt his force, his anger.

‘Comrade Lensky, you can be as rude to me as you like. But I had thought we had gone to buy logs together. I didn’t know you were on a little mission from the secret police.’

‘The police? I don’t know… I didn’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Tonya felt her voice vibrating with emotion. She didn’t really understand why. Only it was desperately important to her that this unusual man did not think badly of her.

‘The police. You don’t understand, eh?’

‘No, really not. Really!’

In a few brief and savage words, Misha explained. His arrival home. His instant arrest. His interrogator’s perfect knowledge of their little shopping trip.

Tonya’s face was wet with tears. ‘No. I know nothing of that. I told no one. I wouldn’t. It was you who bought me those logs. That figurine! I’d never seen anything so beautiful. I wanted it almost more than the firewood. They must have followed you. Maybe my cousin. Maybe Rodyon. Not me. I wouldn’t.’

‘Really? Really not?’ For several seconds, Misha searched Tonya’s face for the truth of what she said. Illuminated and simplified by the moonlight, Tonya’s face was a pale oval, surrounded by a halo of dark hair. Her lips and eyes were imploring. They had a softness about them which they seldom or never seemed to have by daylight. A strand of hair had fallen across her face and had stayed there, wet from her tears. At long last, Misha nodded. He put his hand to her face and moved the strand of hair away from it. ‘All right then. I believe you. I take back what I said. Sorry.’

‘Sorry.’

Tonya breathed the word as if it held no meaning. Misha’s apology didn’t seem to change things. Her face was still turned up to his. She was still crying, not even she knew why. Then quietly, gently, she raised herself on tiptoe and put her face to his. She kissed him, the first real kiss of either her life or his. The kiss was mouth to mouth, but still quite chaste. It was as though she wanted to break a barrier, but still allow herself room to retreat if she had got the situation wrong. But she hadn’t. When she pulled away, slightly frightened at what she had just done, he pulled her back and kissed her again. After a few minutes, they stopped kissing, but stayed arm in arm, suddenly and astonishingly close.

‘If this is concussion,’ said Misha, ‘then I like it.’

She butted his shoulder with her head in mock-rebuke.

‘Do you always thank people like this?’ he continued. ‘I should think it makes a good impression mostly, but some people must be a bit surprised.’

She shoved against him as if to scold him, but he had his arm so tightly wrapped around her body that the two of them moved together, one creature under the moonlight.

‘I wanted to kiss you when we sledged down that hill together and rammed the big snowdrift at the bottom. I wanted to kiss you and kiss you and never stop,’ he said.

‘Me too.’

‘Well, why didn’t you?’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Because I thought you didn’t want me to. You weren’t very friendly, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘Well then… What about you? Why didn’t you let yourself kiss me?’

She tossed her head coquettishly, secure now that she was in his arms. ‘A girl doesn’t have to explain,’ she said.

‘But a good citizen always should, comrade Lensky.’

‘You make a good point, comrade Malevich. But I still won’t say.’

‘In that case, comrade Lensky, I might be obliged to tickle you.’

‘But first, comrade Malevich, you would be obliged to catch me.’

She broke away and ran from him, laughing. He chased her down the muddy street, and caught her. They were both laughing hard and panting hard. He pulled her close and they kissed again, longer and even more passionately than they had the first time.

Tonya did walk Misha home that night, but it took her more than four and a quarter hours to do so. Misha did go to bed that night with his cut head wrapped in bandages and bathed in vinegar, but it took him until dawn to get to sleep. Both Misha in his bed and Tonya in hers knew that their lives would never be the same again.

Four weeks passed the same way.

Misha and Tonya were in love: each was the other’s ‘little paw’, as the Russian phrase had it. Each day after work, Tonya would meet Misha by the road leading down to the rail yard. Mostly, they spent their time together walking. The spring was a warm one and it was a pleasure to be outside after a long and dreary winter. They strolled through the city parks, or along the banks of the Neva. But they were outside for another reason too. There was nowhere else for them to go. Twice Tonya had come to Misha’s rooms on Kuletsky Prospekt. Both times his mother had treated her as she would have treated any member of the servant class. Tonya felt invisible, irrelevant and unwanted. Neither she nor Misha could behave normally in that atmosphere and they burst downstairs and outside as soon as they could.

Things were no better at Tonya’s home. Her father had been sent home from hospital, but his arm was healing slowly and it would be months before he was able to return to work. Deprived of his work, the nasty old man was also deprived of his access to tobacco and vodka. When Tonya and Misha were there together, he missed no opportunity to make a cackling joke, a dirty innuendo. He never thanked Misha for saving his life, nor did he ever once refer to the incident. When Tonya had to go next door to look after her grandmother, Misha had to sit and endure the old man’s silent, malicious scrutiny until Tonya was done and they could leave.

So, in the time that they weren’t at work, or taking care of their respective families, Misha and Tonya walked – outside, covering miles and miles, talking, laughing, kissing and walking. They made love too, not once but many times. There was a spot in the park they returned to again and again. It lay inside a thicket of birch trees, screened off by a dense curtain of juniper and broom. They were hardly alone in wanting privacy, of course, and there were times when they found their spot had already been taken (‘Give us a sodding minute, will you, mates?’ came from inside the thicket), and other times when they sensed a queue forming outside (‘Sorry, comrades, take your time’).

But, despite the limitations on their relationship, their love expanded. They lived in a daze. When they were with each other, nothing else seemed real. When they were apart, they dragged themselves around as though drugged.