Kate Furnivall - Under a Blood Red Sky

‘She ran at me, eyes spitting fire. I went down, head over heels in a flurry of arms and legs as she bowled me over and swung her long sinuous neck back ready to strike, huge yellow beak gaping wide. She was about to swallow me whole. I screamed and stuck out my sword. But before she or I could move, I was scooped off the ground and tucked under a strong arm. With a battle cry fit to crack open the world, my rescuer raced in a slither of stones and nettles back to the shoreline. Josephine chased us like a fiend from hell but we tumbled into the boat and pushed out into the lake. My General had saved me, but I was so angry I refused to sit on the bench with him. I wouldn’t even speak.

‘“Oh, come on, Princess, don’t sulk. That was a great adventure.” He splashed me with an oar.

‘“Why, Vasily? Why did you do it?”

‘“Come here, Annochka.” He pulled me on to the bench beside him and kissed the top of my trembling head. “Don’t be cross. I did it to show you that you can do anything, anything in the world if you set your mind to it. You have the heart of a lion.”

‘I snuggled close against him, his white linen shirt turning green from the undergrowth wherever I touched him.

‘“But I was frightened,” I moaned.

‘“We’re all frightened sometimes, my angel. The trick is to roll up your fear into a ball, put it in your pocket and just carry on. Like you did today.”

‘“Next time,” I said loftily, “you can be the pirate and I will run you through with my sword.”

‘He grinned, then abruptly his dove-grey eyes grew dark as slate. He hugged me close. “Annochka, terrible times are coming soon to Russia. Only blood will quench the anger of our people and it will be hard on the likes of your family and mine. You will need every scrap of your courage. All this was to show you that you can do far more than you think you can. I want you to be ready.”

‘“I’m ready,” I whispered.’

And Sofia’s lips had curved into a happy smile.

Anna, how can I not love your Vasily?

Tivil July 1933

Sofia was trapped. Not in the dark like Pyotr, or in some stinking hell-hole like Mikhail, but trapped just the same. Chairman Fomenko ushered her into his office and the moment he shut the door she felt the tension tighten.

‘Please, sit down.’

‘I’ll stand.’

Just the sight of this man sent loathing snaking through her veins. She stood with folded arms, and to her annoyance he gave her a slight smile, amused by her stance. He sat down at his desk, arranging his limbs with neat precision.

‘Cigarette?’ he offered.

‘No.’

From a drawer he pulled out a slender tin of hand-rolled makhorka cigarettes, thin and misshapen, and lit one carefully with a match. Why did he smoke the cheapest foul-smelling tobacco? Surely he didn’t need to. The thought that he probably did so to prove his identification with the ordinary workers in the fields just annoyed her further. Nor did she like the intelligent way he looked at her through the haze of smoke, or the feel of his eyes summing up her clothes, her shoes and the strong curves of the muscles in her legs.

‘Now that you’re here, I think we’ll have our meeting today instead of tomorrow morning, Comrade Morozova.’

Sofia said nothing.

‘Do you like it here in Tivil?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And you enjoy living with the gypsies?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do they strike you as strange at all?’

‘No.’

‘I hear tales about them, about their… antics.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

He flexed his broad shoulders under his brown checked shirt, faded by the sun, and Sofia recognised it as a gesture of frustration, a warning that she should be civil.

‘You don’t look much like a gypsy yourself,’ he pointed out.

‘I am by marriage, not by blood.’

‘Please explain.’

‘My aunt who brought me up was married to Rafik’s brother. She wasn’t a gypsy but her husband was.’

‘What about your own parents?’

‘They died.’

‘I’m sorry. What happened?’

‘They were both railway workers. There was a train crash.’ That was the story she was sticking to. It invited fewer questions.

He nodded in silence. ‘These things happen.’

‘When someone is incompetent.’

‘Incompetence is often a disguise for sabotage.’

Why did he say that? Was he testing her? To see if she would bleat agreement like one of his docile flock? Or perhaps to trap her into insisting that incompetence was the result of tiredness and hunger and fear of taking decisions that might expose you to accusations of wrecking . Was that it?

She said nothing, instead she glanced round the office. So far she’d taken no notice of it, concentrating only on Fomenko himself and trying to decipher every lift of his eyebrow, but now she took her time staring at the red banners and portraits on the white-washed timber walls. They were the usual clutch of beauties: Lenin and Kirov, and in pride of place, of course, Josef Stalin in military tunic and cap. She’d heard he was living a plain, almost austere life in his Kremlin stronghold, but what good was austerity when you had an insatiable thirst for the blood of your people?

She looked away, unfolded her arms and took a step nearer the desk. Its metal top was painted black, chipped from long use, and its surface was smothered in piles of papers, all in separate orderly stacks. At one end sat a wooden tray with something lumpy on it, but she couldn’t see exactly what because a red cloth was draped over it.

‘If you’ve asked all your questions, may I leave now? I would like to finish sweeping out the hall but I need the key.’ She held out her hand.

Fomenko had come marching into the hall when she was peering down at Pyotr in the hole. He’d demanded to know what she was doing there. She had pushed the plank back into place before he noticed it and then explained that she was sweeping out the hall, instead of Pyotr. She held up the broom to prove the point. He had remained suspicious and she knew she hadn’t fooled him, but his manner was scrupulously polite as he removed the key from her and escorted her to his office.

Aleksei Fomenko leaned back in his chair now and made no attempt to take the key from his pocket for her. His eyes narrowed speculatively and his lips parted a fraction to exhale tobacco smoke. Something about his stillness made her uneasy.

‘Sit down,’ he said and pointedly added, ‘please, comrade.’

She thought about it, then sat down.

‘I wish to see your dokumenti.’

She removed her residence permit from her skirt pocket and dropped it on the desk.

‘Your travel permit?’

‘Your Secretary in the outer office inspected all my documentation when he issued this permit of residency.’ She waved at the door. ‘Ask him.’

‘I’m asking you.’

She forced her mouth into the shape of a smile. ‘What more do you need to know?’

The stiff lines of his face softened into an answering smile, then he ran a patient hand over his short hair and took a form from one of the piles. It irritated her that his hands were so broad and capable, as if they were accustomed to achieving what they set themselves to do. The fingers stubbed out his cigarette in a small metal dish that served as an ashtray. He picked up a fountain pen. It was the first thing she’d seen in connection with the Chairman that had even a hint of status about it. It was a beautiful black-cased pen with a fine gold nib. A silence hung in the room for a second and into it the wind outside blew small shards of sound, the jingle of a horse harness, the rumble of a cartwheel, the throaty shriek of a goose.