Kate Furnivall - Under a Blood Red Sky

At first, just separate moments started to skip into her mind, warm and vivid, like riding Papa’s high-stepping black horse whose coat shone like polished metal, and crowing with delight as her childish hands wrapped tight in the coarse black mane. Or her governess, Maria, standing in her second-best silk dress, the one that was the colour of red wine, and telling Papa that Anna couldn’t go out riding on his rounds with him today – he was a doctor – because of a sore throat. Papa’s face had fallen and he’d tickled her under her chin, telling her to get well quickly and calling her his sweet angel. He’d kissed her goodbye, his whiskers all prickly and smelling of fat cigars. Anna had once stolen one from the humidor in his study and shredded it to pieces in secret up in the attic to see if she could find whatever it was that made it smell so wonderful, but all she ended up with was a lap full of crinkly brown dust.

‘You’re smiling,’ Nina muttered beside her, pleased.

‘Tell me, Nina, do you ever think about your past?’

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘So what do you think about?’

Nina’s heavy features spread into a grin. ‘I think about sex. And when I’m too exhausted for that, I think about winning at cards.’

‘Last night I won that grimy piece of mirror off Tasha.’

‘Why on earth do you want a mirror? We all look awful.’

Anna nodded a time or two and watched a bright orange lizard, a yasheritsa , dart out of the path of their marching feet and flash up a tree with an angry flick of its tail.

‘I’m thinking of using it to burn the camp down one sunny day,’ she said.

Nina laughed so hard that a guard came over and stuck his rifle in her face.

But the images and memories crowded in on top of each other as Anna concentrated on pushing each foot forward, leaving her with no strength for defences against them. She forgot the dim forest trail and instead, inside the unpredictable labyrinth of her head, she was riding in the back of a luxurious black car.

It was a Daimler and it belonged to the Dyuzheyevs, bigger and shinier than Papa’s Oakland and with a glass partition, which didn’t squeak, between them and the chauffeur. Svetlana and Grigori Dyuzheyev were Papa’s dearest friends, wealthy aristocrats who lived in a magnificent villa in Petrograd.

‘Your pearls are beautiful.’

Svetlana Dyuzheyeva, a stylish and elegant woman, was delighted by the compliment. She ran a finger along the triple strand of matched pearls at her creamy throat.

‘Thank you, Anna. They used to belong to my mother and to her mother before that. Here,’ she lifted one of Anna’s fingers, ‘touch them.’

The pearls felt like silk, warm and alive, and smoother than her own skin. She couldn’t imagine how such beauty could come out of something as ugly as an oyster.

‘They’re wonderful,’ she murmured. ‘And one day Vasily will own them.’ She was thinking aloud, already afraid that he’d be stupid and use them to feed his fellow demonstrators. She couldn’t bear the idea of it.

Svetlana grinned mischievously, raised one eyebrow and leaned close to Anna’s ear. ‘Vasily… or his wife,’ she whispered.

To Anna’s horror she felt her cheeks start to burn. She turned away to hide her quiver of excitement and looked out of the other window. Maria, Anna’s governess, was sitting on the jump seat opposite Papa, in her very best dress of green watered silk and wearing her very best smile. Anna loved her governess, especially today because there had been no frowns, no scolding and no schoolwork. Instead Maria had played the piano for them all when Grigori tired of doing so and danced with Papa until even her nose glowed pink.

Afterwards there had been singing and champagne and wafer-thin squares of soft white bread piled high with glistening heaps of osyotr caviar. Now Papa was accompanying Svetlana and Grigori to the theatre, then the chauffeur would drive Anna and Maria home. Anna was perched between her father and Svetlana on the broad leather seat of the car. She had enjoyed the excitement of the day but was disappointed now that Vasily had vanished. He’d whispered to her that he had to meet a friend, but when she demanded, ‘To do what?’ his face had closed down and he’d given no answer.

‘Nikolai,’ Svetlana said, as though aware of Anna’s thoughts, ‘it was very naughty of my Vasily not to escort your daughter home tonight. I hope you’re not offended. He’s a bad boy.’ But she said it with a mother’s indulgent smile.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Papa said. ‘With his snow sleighs and dancing, your Vasily knows exactly how to please my daughter and therefore how to please me.’

He glanced out of the side window as they crawled nose to tail behind a queue of evening theatre traffic along Bolshaya Morskaya, the lights in the shops twinkling invitingly, reflecting off the black silk of the top hats. After a moment he looked back at Svetlana.

‘Where are they tonight?’

She gave an elegant shrug. ‘I don’t know. There’s an eight o’clock curfew.’

‘They’re in Palace Square,’ Maria said quietly. ‘Thousands of them. With placards and banners.’

‘Damned Leninists!’ Grigori growled.

Svetlana sighed. ‘What are they on strike for this time?’

‘They’re demanding bread, madam.’

Svetlana touched the pearls at her throat and made no comment, but the words had caused an abrupt change of mood in the car. Anna had the feeling that her feet were suddenly in ice water.

She hated to see Papa’s face so worried and to cheer him up she said, ‘Vasily says that everything will get better for the workers soon.’ She stuck out her arm to point to one of the shops they were just passing. ‘Vasily says that jewellery shops like that one will close because they are criminals.’

‘Criminals?’ Papa queried.

‘Yes, he says they are criminals to make fifty-two eggs of gold for the Tsarina and the Dowager Empress while the working man doesn’t even-’

‘Ah, I think Carl Fabergé may not agree with my son there,’ Grigori muttered grimly.

‘And Vasily says there are machine guns on rooftops to-’

‘Annochka,’ Svetlana said firmly, ‘you must not listen to everything my son tells you.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because… he is like you,’ she wrapped an arm round Anna. ‘He still believes the world can be mended.’

‘Papa,’ Anna said seriously, ‘I believe we should do more to help some of these people Vasily says are without food or warm clothes. You and I have more than we need of both, you must admit. So we should share with them.’

Papa patted her knee in a forgiving sort of way that was extremely annoying. Grigori grunted and Maria smiled. But Svetlana laughed out loud and tightened her arm round Anna’s shoulders, so that the ostrich feathers that trimmed her midnight-blue velvet cloak tickled Anna’s nose, making her sneeze.

‘ Bud zdorova! ’ the adults chorused. ‘Bless you.’

Papa kissed her cheek. ‘Bless you, my dearest child. Bless you today, tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come.’

Anna stared out of the window at the chauffeured cars, nose to tail like polished elephants. ‘Will the Tsar be there tonight, Papa? Will it be very grand?’

Papa took a cigar from his silver case and rolled it between his fingers. ‘Grand is not a big enough word, my angel. Tonight the Alexandrinsky Theatre will drip with Grand Dukes and gold roubles and imperial magnificence just so that people like us can see a silly melodrama about love and death called Masquerade.’

‘Nikolai,’ Svetlana murmured in faint rebuke.

Silently Papa lit his cigar, watched the first tendril of smoke swirl round the interior of the car, then fixed his gaze on Svetlana and Grigori.