Kate Furnivall - Under a Blood Red Sky

‘The boy soldier who shot both Anna’s father and Svetlana Dyuzheyeva.’

No response. Her heart pounded. ‘Vasily, speak to me. She’s alive, Vasily, Anna Fedorina is alive.’

It was like watching an earth-tremor, a quake from somewhere deep below the world’s surface. His broad shoulder blades shifted out of alignment and his muscular neck jerked in spasm but he didn’t turn. He just tightened his folded arms around himself as though holding something inside.

‘Where?’

‘In a labour camp. I was there with her.’

‘Which one?’ Barely a whisper.

‘Davinsky Camp in Siberia.’

‘Why?’

‘For nothing more than being the daughter of Doktor Nikolai Fedorin, who was declared an Enemy of the People.’

No more words. Neither of them could find any. The black shadow of Vasily lay across the wooden floor between them like a corpse.

They drank vodka. They drank till the pain was blunted and they could look at each other. Sofia sat in the chair, upright and tense, while Fomenko fetched a squat stool from the bedroom and folded himself on to it, his lean limbs orderly and controlled once more. She wanted him to shout at her, to bellow and scream and accuse her of false betrayal. She wanted to be made to suffer the way she’d made him suffer.

But he did none of these things. After the initial shock, he snapped back from the edge of whatever abyss had opened up and his strength astounded her. How could he hold so much turmoil within himself, yet seem so calm? His self-control was iron-clad, so strong that he even smiled at her, a dry, sorrowful smile, and ran a steady hand over the head of the dog now stretched out at his feet. Its brown eyes watched his face as attentively as Sofia did.

‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘I am glad Anna has a friend.’

‘Help me, Vasily, to be a true friend to her.’

‘Help you how?’

‘By rescuing her.’

For the first time the firm line of his mouth faltered. ‘I have no authority to order any kind of release in-’

‘Not with orders. I mean together, you and I, we could go up there. You could authorise travel permits and we-’

‘No.’

‘She’s sick.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ he said quietly.

‘Sorry means nothing. She’s going to die. She’s spitting blood and another winter up there will kill her.’

A dull mist seemed to settle behind his eyes, blurring them. ‘Anna,’ he whispered.

‘Help her.’

He shook his head slowly, full of regret.

‘What happened to you?’ she demanded. ‘When did you lose your ability to care for another human being? When your parents were shot, was that it? Did that moment smother every feeling in you for the rest of your life?’

In the gathering gloom he stared at her in silence.

‘You don’t understand, comrade.’

‘Make me, Vasily, make me understand. How can you abandon someone you loved, someone who still loves you and believes in you and needs you? How does that happen?’ She leaned forward, hands clasped. ‘Go on, tell me. Make me understand.’

‘I traced Maria, her governess. I wanted to…’ Suddenly words failed him.

With a groan he rose to his feet, walked over to the vodka on the table and took a swig straight from the bottle.

‘Comrade Morozova, my feelings are my own business, not yours. Now please leave.’

‘No, Vasily, not until you tell me-’

‘Listen to me, comrade, and listen well. Vasily Dyuzheyev is dead and gone. Do not call me by that name ever again. Russia is a stubborn country, its people are hard-headed and determined. To transform this Soviet system into a world economy – which is what Stalin is attempting to do by opening up our immense mineral wealth in the wastelands of Siberia – we must put aside personal loyalties and accept only loyalty to the State. This is the way forward – the only way forward.’

‘The labour camps are inhuman.’

‘Why were you sent there?’

‘Because my uncle was too good at farming and acquired the label kulak . They thought I was “contaminated”.’

‘Do you still not see that the labour camps are essential because they provide a workforce for the roads and railways, for the mines and the timber yards, as well as teaching people that they must-’

‘Stop it, stop it!’

He stopped. They stared hard at each other. The air between them quivered as Sofia released her breath.

‘You’d be proud of her,’ she murmured. ‘So proud of Anna.’

Those simple words did what all her arguments and her pleading had failed to do. They broke his control. This tall powerful man sank to his knees on the hard floor like a tree being felled, all strength gone. He placed his hands over his face and released a low stifled moan. It was harsh and raw, as though something was ripping open. But it gave Sofia hope. She could just make out the murmur of words repeated over and over again. ‘My Anna, my Anna, my Anna…’ The dog stood at his side and licked one of its master’s hands with a gentle whine.

Sofia rose from her chair and went over to him. Tentatively her fingertips stroked his soft cropped hair, and a sweet image of it, longer, with young Anna’s fingers entwined in its depths, arose in her head. He had cut off Vasily’s hair as effectively as he’d cut off his heartbeat. Time alone was what he needed now, time to breathe. So she walked into his tiny kitchen to give him a moment, filled a glass with water, and when she returned she found him sitting in the chair, his limbs loose and awkward. She wrapped his hand round the glass. At first he stared at it, uncomprehending, but when she said, ‘Drink,’ he drank.

Then she squatted down on the floor in front of him and in a quiet voice started to tell him about Anna. What made Anna laugh, what made her cry, how she raised one eyebrow and tipped her head at you when she was teasing, how she worked harder than any of his kolkhozniki, how she could tell a story that kept you spellbound and carried you far away from the damp miserable barrack hut into a bright shining world.

‘She saved my life,’ Sofia added at one point. She didn’t elaborate and he didn’t ask for details.

Gradually Aleksei Fomenko’s head came up and his eyes found their focus once more, his limbs rediscovered their connection and his mind regained control. As Sofia talked, a fragile smile crept on to his face. When finally the talking ceased he took a deep breath, as though to inhale the words she had set free into the air, and nodded.

‘Anna always made me laugh,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She was always funny, always infuriating.’ The smile spread, wide and affectionate. ‘She drove me mad and I adored her.’

‘So help me to rescue her.’

The smile died. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

He stood up, towering over her where she still crouched on the floor and he spoke quietly, the turmoil hidden away, concealed deep inside. His wolfhound leaned against his thigh and he rested a hand unconsciously on its wiry head.

‘You have to understand, comrade,’ he said. ‘Sixteen years ago, to satisfy my own anger and lust for vengeance, I slit a man’s throat. As a result Anna’s father was shot and her life destroyed. That taught me a lesson I will carry to my grave.’

His grey eyes were intent on Sofia’s face. She could feel the force of his need to make her understand.

‘I learned,’ he continued, ‘that the individual need doesn’t matter. The individual is selfish and unpredictable, driven by uncontrolled emotions that bring nothing but destruction. It is only the need of the Whole that counts, the need of the State. So however much I want to rescue Anna from her… misery,’ he closed his eyes for a second as he said the word, ‘I know that if I do so-’