Kate Furnivall - Under a Blood Red Sky

‘My dearest friends,’ he said earnestly, ‘if anything should ever happen to me, will you take care of Anna?’

Anna’s mouth dropped open. Happen? What was going to happen to Papa?

‘Nikolai, my dear, don’t-’

‘Svetlana, please. Now that my brother is dead of diphtheria there is no one else. And in these uncertain times one never knows, so-’

Svetlana reached behind Anna and squeezed Papa’s shoulder. ‘It would be an honour. Rest easy, my friend. We love her dearly and would care for her as our own.’

‘ Spasibo . Thank you.’ His voice was gruff.

Anna breathed carefully, unable to work out what was going on. She had a horrid fear that she had just been given away and didn’t like the sound of it. But Papa hadn’t finished. He turned to the governess.

‘And you, Maria. If anything should… happen, will you also care for my daughter?’

Anna stared in astonishment at her governess. There were sudden tears in her large brown eyes. She tried to blink them away but the streetlamp trickled its yellow light down her face.

‘I will, Doktor Fedorin. I love the child.’

‘Promise me.’

‘ Ya klyanus . I swear it, Doktor.’

Papa swallowed hard, then he reached up and removed the pin he always wore in his tie. For no more than a second he gazed at it, at the exquisite pair of diamonds set in gold, then he brushed his lips lightly over them.

Anna watched with wide eyes.

He leaned forward towards the governess on the opposite seat, lifted the lapel of her coat and slid the point of the tie-pin into the soft wool. But on the underside of the lapel. When he sat back once more, the tie-pin was no longer visible.

‘Nikolai,’ Svetlana said, so softly it was barely a word, ‘that pin was from Anna’s mother. Her wedding gift to you.’

‘What better protection can I offer?’

Whatever was going on here, Anna was determined to put a stop to it.

‘Papa, ne boysya , don’t be afraid. Nothing is going to happen to you. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.’ She gave him a wide grin and patted his strong arm. ‘You can rely on me. And Vasily.’

The streetlamps flicked past the car, painting bright stripes on the darkness. Odeen… dva … tri… Anna started to count them, one… two… three… but her eyes grew heavy and the lights too bright, so she let her eyelids drop shut and leaned her head against the warmth of Maria’s shoulder. The familiar smell of lavender and mothballs that drifted from Maria’s shawl was comforting.

The Dyuzheyev chauffeur was driving them home now that Papa, Grigori and Svetlana were gone. The Daimler turned left off Nevsky past the wide steps of St Isaac’s Cathedral and under the lime trees. Anna drifted further into the billowing darkness that marks the edge of sleep. When the car slowed down she barely noticed, but she felt Maria stiffen and heard the shout of alarm from the chauffeur. She opened her eyes and suddenly there were faces all around them, looming out of the black street. Noses jammed against the glass, hands drumming a threat on the metalwork, mouths snarling, teeth bared.

Wolves. They were wolves. Wolves in cloth caps and thick scarves. Wolves howling words she couldn’t understand, but she did know they wanted to tear her limb from limb. The car rocked on its wheels. Beside her Maria screamed, then the big car lurched forward, the engine growling, and the faces were gone. The tall houses whipped past as if in a race. Anna felt her heart on fire in her chest. Maria was breathing hard.

Anna took her governess’s trembling hand in her own and crooned the way she used to do to her kitten when it was frightened by Grigori’s Borzoi hound, ‘You’re safe now, you’re safe now.’

But Maria’s eyes were huge in her plump round face, her lips still quivering. She pulled Anna close to her and whispered, ‘Try to sleep again.’

Obediently Anna shut her eyes and breathed evenly, imitating sleep breaths. She was only pretending. Her bones felt stiff, the skin on her cheeks hard. She wouldn’t tell what she’d seen, not to Maria, not to Papa. And certainly not to Svetlana or Grigori. She’d keep the secret safe, but very cautiously, bit by bit, she let the faces of the wolves loose inside her head. She shivered and made herself examine them, one by one, till she found it, the face she was looking for. Yes, he was there, behind the one pressed against the window on Maria’s side of the car, a face she knew, a face she loved. Vasily.

He was wearing the thick red scarf she’d given him for Christmas and a grey jacket she’d never seen before, but it looked old and shabby like the ones around him. It was definitely Vasily, but he had grown wolf teeth and wolf eyes.

Thin tears made tracks down her cheeks.

Tivil July 1933

Sofia woke with a jerk. The world was dark. A ferocious banging on the front door of the izba yanked her out of a nightmare she was glad to leave, but before she could even begin to think straight, her body reacted instinctively. It leapt out of the makeshift bed at the back of the stove in one fast fluid movement and raced across the living room, flattening against the wall behind the door.

Her knife. Where was her knife?

‘Rafik! Open up, damn you,’ a man shouted outside. Its owner delivered a hefty kick that rattled the wooden planks on their hinges and made Sofia’s heart jump.

The door to Rafik’s bedroom opened abruptly and a candle advanced across the room. Above the flickering flame the gypsy’s face shifted in and out of the shadows as though still a part of Sofia’s dream, but his movements were solid and steady enough. His black eyes took in her position of ambush and he spoke softly.

‘It’s all right, it’s Mikhail Pashin, not the Blue Caps come to seize you. He is the direktor who runs the Levitsky factory in Dagorsk where Zenia works.’

Mikhail. He had come to her.

‘Gypsy!’ Another rap at the door. ‘For God’s sake, you’re wanted.’

Sofia held her breath and reached out to lift the latch but, as she did so, Rafik’s hand seized her wrist.

‘You’re safe here,’ he said evenly.

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, so don’t let your mind drown in your fear.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘Good.’

Rafik released her wrist and opened the door to a blast of cold air that made the candle gutter and spit.

‘What is it?’ Rafik called out.

‘It’s the bay mare,’ the voice outside replied. It was impatient.

‘Foaling so early?’

‘She’s having a wretched time of it. Priest Logvinov is frightened we might lose her.’

Rafik’s expression showed a spasm of pain, as if the thought of losing a horse wounded him physically. Sofia took the candle holder from his fingers to steady it.

‘Wait in here, Pilot,’ the gypsy said and disappeared back into the darkness of his room.

Mikhail Pashin stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him, firmly shutting out the wind and the night. In the sudden silence that followed, Sofia saw in the wavering light a pair of intelligent eyes, grey and private. Two lines ran from his nose to the corners of his mouth in deep furrows, though he was no more than thirty. They told of things kept unsaid. But in Russia now, who did not have words hidden behind their lips?

‘I apologise for disturbing your sleep,’ he said.

He treated her to a courteous bow of his head. She was aware that he was studying her with interest and she became conscious that she was wearing only a nightdress. It was one that Rafik had given her, made of fine white cotton. She lifted the candle higher to see more clearly what it was about Mikhail Pashin that brought such energy into the house, and she noticed the way his long limbs kept flexing as though eager to be on the move. On his feet were black shoes, highly polished, and he was wearing a charcoal suit with crisp white shirt and black tie, all oddly incongruous in this rough and informal setting. He seemed indifferent to it until he noticed her curious stare, then he reached up, loosened his tie and gave a slight shrug.