Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

Alexei’s heart stopped. That was when he registered the other sound, a dull boom that reverberated inside his head like a roll of thunder. The stench of fumes burned in his nostrils and a part of his mind recognised them – a petrol drum had exploded. But all his eyes saw was the wall, the way it moved. What remained of the side of the hangar, with all its heavy structural timbers and solid planking on fire, blasted away from the building. For one second it seemed to hang in the air, choosing its victims, then came rushing down towards Chang and Popkov.

Alexei stamped on the pedal. The car flung itself forward in one final effort and Chang hurled Lydia and himself inside it as the wall crashed around them. The windscreen exploded. The canvas roof split as a blazing beam tore through it and embedded itself in the empty rear seat. Sparks and flaming debris rained down on the bonnet.

‘Jens!’ Alexei shouted.

Beside him on the passenger seat, clutching Lydia as if he would never release her again in this lifetime, Chang murmured, ‘Popkov.’

Alexei leapt from the NAMI-1 and he found them both. Popkov was half hidden under the car’s axle where the blast had thrown him. The chassis had protected him except for a long gash on the back of his leg. Amid the flames Alexei discovered Jens’ body. His head was half severed, his chest and limbs crushed under a flaming mass of timbers. His hair was smouldering. Another rifle bullet slammed into the side of the car and voices shouted, yet Alexei couldn’t move. He gazed down at his dead father’s mutilated face and couldn’t walk away. Not like this. Don’t let it end like this, Papa. He didn’t even feel the next bullet graze his ear.

It was Popkov who moved him. Physically picked him up, dumped him in the driver’s seat of the car and wrenched out the blazing beam from the rear seat. Seconds later Alexei was speeding towards the entrance gate with his three passengers crammed in the back. When the sentry challenged him, he swore viciously at the soldier and waved Dmitri’s papers under his nose.

‘Get out of my way, you fool. I have to report this incompetence to Colonel Tursenov immediately.’

‘ Da , Colonel, da.’

The gate swung back and the forest opened before them. He drove only until the compound was out of sight and then stamped on the brakes, swivelling round in his seat.

‘How is she?’ he asked.

Chang didn’t reply, but he was crooning softly and it sounded like a death lament. In the corner the big Cossack sat hunched and silent, tears streaming down his blackened face.

‘Don’t die.’

From somewhere far, far above, the words drifted down to her. Like the tiniest flakes of snow that melt to nothing the moment they touch your skin. But these words weren’t soft.

‘Don’t die, my love.’

It’s too late. Can’t you see? I’m already dead.

There was no pain, no thoughts, no desires, no colours, just a nothingness. A hollow void. But if being dead was this, just nothing, what was the point of all the effort of life? And what happened to the future she had planned? Did it still exist? Would it go on unfolding without her? An image of Chang slid into the void inside her, Chang An Lo going on, taking himself a Chinese wife and having bright-eyed Communist children. All without her. Would he weep? Would he remember? The strange thing was that even in death her heart wanted him to be happy.

But happy with her.

‘Come back to me, my fox girl.’ His words floated down to her, yet they were sharp as needles under her skin and wouldn’t let her rest.

No, my precious one, it’s too late. She felt herself tumbling deeper into the hole, head over heels down into the void, its blackness swallowing her, sucking all the brightness out of her, her fingers uncurling and letting go. No pain. Not even the image of Chang any more. Just the emptiness of the void now. It’s over.

‘Come back, Lydia, or I’ll come down there after you and drag you back with my bare hands.’

No, let me rest.

Something was grabbing her, physically shaking her until she felt her teeth rattle.

Teeth? How could she have teeth if she was dead? When you’re dead, you’re just spirit, damn it. Teeth! That meant a tiny part of her was alive. Damn it! With a gigantic effort of will she dug her fingernails into the wall of blackness and felt her body jerk as the falling came to an abrupt halt. It made everything hurt. It would be so much easier to let go.

Chyort! Inch by inch, hand over hand, she started to haul herself up.

The bullet, that’s what she saw first when she opened her eyes. It was sitting on the windowsill, proud of itself in the sunlight, shining as if it had been polished. Second came Elena’s broad face. She was leaning over Lydia, the lines round her eyes rigid, her fingers stained scarlet. Red paint? Why was Elena messing with paint?

‘So you’re awake.’

‘Yes.’ Lydia ’s throat felt as though it had been skinned. The air inside her tasted black and rotten.

‘I’ve just changed your dressing.’ The colourless eyes studied her intently. ‘Sore?’

‘A bit.’

‘You shouldn’t be. Your friend has been dripping God knows what filthy Chinese muck on to your tongue and telling me you’ll feel no pain.’

‘Chang? Where is he?’

Elena’s sombre face broke into a smile. ‘You’ll live.’

‘She’d better.’

‘Chang An Lo?’ Lydia turned her head and found him there at her side, sitting on the bed. His expression was one she’d never seen before.

‘Was I dying?’ she whispered.

He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed her palm and then each finger, and held it to his cheek. ‘No, my Lydia.’ He gave her a smile. It was so full of a heat she could feel on her skin, it melted something cold and frightened within her. ‘You weren’t dying. You are indestructible. You were just testing me.’

His voice filled her head. He bent forward, still holding her hand as if it were part of himself, and rested his forehead in the curve of her neck. He remained like that for a long time, without moving, without speaking. His black hair grew warm under her cheek and she felt the thread that bound them together tighten as it spun a silken strand through their flesh and blood and bone.

‘Chang An Lo,’ she murmured and saw a glossy lock of his hair ripple with her breath, ‘if ever you die, I promise I’ll come and find you.’

The room was too full of people. White hot sparks seemed to flicker in the air, stirring it into constant motion. Lydia was sitting up in bed when all she wanted to do was slide back into that black hole. They had told her about Jens.

She’d screamed ‘ No! ’ Then silenced herself. Crushed the pain into a hard ball.

She pictured him among the ruins of his grand dreams, his proud white head smashed to the ground by his own hand in the ultimate sacrifice. No, Papa . The tears escaped down her cheeks and wouldn’t stop. When she tried to wipe them away she saw her hand for the first time and it was burned an ugly red and covered in slimy ointment.

‘It’s disgusting,’ she murmured as she stared at it.

Someone laughed and she knew it was with relief because a burned hand was so much better than a burned life. But Lydia wasn’t talking about her hand. It was her failure. That was disgusting. Papa, I’m sorry. Forgive me. Black dots fluttered on the edge of her vision and she had the sick feeling they were pieces of the black hole that had followed her, biding their time. She struggled to see straight. There were words she had to say.

‘I want to thank you, all of you,’ she said. ‘For your help.’ Her voice was raspy, scarcely recognisable as her own.