Kate Furnivall - Under a Blood Red Sky

‘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.

Dagorsk July 1933

The cell door slammed shut behind Mikhail. The stench hit him like a blow to the face. How many men in here? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? In the semi-darkness he couldn’t tell, but there was no air to breathe, no place to sit.

It was night, but a grubby blue light glimmered faintly behind a metal grille on the ceiling, like a malevolent watchful eye over the prisoners. This was a different world he’d entered. His first instinct had been to lash out at his captors and now he bore the rewards of that. A split lip, a rib that grated at each breath, a kneecap booted out of place.

Fool, he’d been a bloody fool not to control his temper. But the soldiers took no notice when he pointed out that they were making a terrible mistake and that he’d done nothing to warrant arrest. Then the sight of Pyotr being slapped like a puppy for clinging to his father had brought his walls of control tumbling down. He fought to remember now, snatching at images that kept fading from his grasp.

Most clearly he could summon up Pyotr’s frightened young face and Sofia’s urgent mouth arguing with the officer, her eyes blazing. Hazier was Rafik, silent and remote, and Zenia at the table with her head in her hands, hiding behind her mane of black hair. And then there was the memory of Sofia begging. It drifted in and out. But oddly it wasn’t the soldiers she was pleading with, it was Rafik, imploring him for something, down on her knees and begging. Then Pyotr’s panicked shout…

Pyotr. Dear God, who will take care of my son?

As he stood upright by the door, his back away from its foul surface, he shut his eyes. In the silence he heard a drip-drip-drip, the cell walls running with damp, and then a sudden movement. A huddled figure trampled over sleeping forms and there were cries of ‘bastard’ and ‘shithead’, but most didn’t move, locked in their own despair and private nightmares. The figure reached the overflowing slop-bucket only just in time. The stench worsened.

Earlier the prison guards had taken pleasure in their work as they’d ripped out his bootlaces and tossed aside his belt. Stripped him naked. He knew its purpose was to humiliate and belittle, to humble his arrogant subversive soul so that the interrogator’s job would be that much easier when it came to the time for questions. In return he had given nothing but stone-hard hatred. They’d thrown his clothes back at him and marched him, hands clasped behind his back, down long grey corridors to this underground overcrowded cell. Into this different world.