Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

Lydia reached across the gap between the beds and touched the woman’s hand, just a brief brush of skin. ‘You must have been proud of him then.’

‘Yes, I was. But not now. I want to forget him now.’

‘Can parents ever forget their children?’

‘Oh yes. You have to get on with your own life. What are children anyway? Just an encumbrance.’

‘I thought that…’ Lydia stopped. She knocked back the remainder of her drink and asked instead, ‘Does Liev know?’

‘Know what?’

‘About your… occupation?’

The woman smiled and this time it possessed a warmth that made Lydia realise why men might like her.

‘Of course not,’ Elena scoffed.

‘So why tell me?’

‘Why indeed? I must be a fool.’

‘You may be many things but I think a fool is not one of them.’

Elena laughed and sat up, eyeing the array of possessions on the bed. Her inspection made Lydia suddenly aware of how meagre they must look.

‘So what book are you reading?’ Elena asked.

‘The poems of Marina Tsvetaeva. Do you know them?’

‘No.’

‘Would you like to borrow it?’ Lydia picked up the book, which was soft and battered from all the travelling, and offered it to her visitor.

Elena closed her eyes and sighed. ‘I’m too tired.’

It occurred to Lydia that maybe Elena, like many women in Russia, had never learned to read. ‘As you’re tired,’ she said, ‘would you like me to read some of it to you?’

‘ Da ,’ the woman smiled. ‘I would like that. Your Russian is excellent.’

Lydia opened the book and started to read.

Sounds came to her in the room. Of breathing. Of a cat yowling. The ticking of water pipes. The rumble of cartwheels. Sounds that told Lydia she was alive, even if sometimes she wasn’t sure. Silently, so as not to wake the sleeping woman on the next bed, she repacked her travelling bag. Each evening it was the same: the unpacking, the tidying, the repacking, and when it was finished she patted the bag like a sleepy old dog.

‘There. All done,’ she said softly.

Then she lay down on her own bed and curled up tight round the bag, as if its neatness could keep the chaos inside her at bay. She pressed her cheek against its canvas side, inhaled its smell of soot and cigarettes.

Alexei didn’t want her with him. Popkov would be consumed by this woman. Her father might not even remember her. And Chang An Lo was two thousand miles away. She crushed her cheek harder against the rough material, wrapping both arms around the bag so fiercely she could feel the handle dig grooves in her skin. She tightened her grip even more. Her life was in splinters but she was determined to hold it together.

Chang An Lo had not expected to see blood, not here, not now.

Alone with his own thoughts, he had been taking pleasure in the long ride through the jungled mountains of Jinggang. His horse, a small and attentive mare, picked its way with skill along the rough tracks up towards the town of Zhandu. The air was heavy and humid, thick with insects and the sound of whirring wings, the temperature rising with each mile south. He brushed aside the thick undergrowth that stank of decay and rode at a gentle pace that satisfied both his horse and himself. Neither was in any hurry. Underfoot the trail was treacherous, as muddy and slippery as a monkey’s arse, so that time and again a hoof skidded from under them.

‘Calm your spirit, little one,’ he murmured to the horse.

He laid a hand on her muscular neck and clicked his tongue at her. Only once had he needed to dismount and lead her off the track, down into the dense vegetation of a steep hollow shrouded in mist. She had made no sound but stood silently at his side, ears laid back, his grip steady on her mane while a troop of riders passed by. They might be Red Army soldiers but Chang took no chances. This was bandit country.

It was on the dirt road just outside the mountain stronghold of Zhandu that he reined his horse to a halt. A fork-shaped wooden frame had been driven into the ground at the side of the road and a man lashed to it with rawhide thongs. He was naked above the waist and his head hung down, eyes closed as if he had dozed off, bored by the enforced inactivity and the unrelenting glare of the sun. But Chang knew he wasn’t asleep. Flies had settled in a black iridescent crust that moved like a spill of oil over the man’s chest.

How long he’d hung there as a warning to other Red Army deserters before he died was impossible to tell, but the three wounds in his chest where sharp-pointed suo-biao had been thrust in must have put a welcome end to his agonies.

Chang breathed deeply to still the rising tide of anger, and commended the worthless soldier’s spirit to his ancestors. Up here in the mountains the gods were close, almost visible in the mists, their voices echoing in the bamboo forests. When a man’s time came, this was a good place to die. He bowed his head to the dead soldier, picked up the reins and heeled the young mare onward into the town.

The main street of Zhandu was cobbled and busy. Along it rolled a cart laden with boulders among which scuttled lizards, shiny yellow like leaves. As Chang rode past, the stink of the two oxen hauling it drew clouds of flies to their moist muzzles, while the rumble of the wooden wheels sounded like thunder in his ears. He had grown too accustomed to silence.

The small town had been carved out of the mountain’s rock face and its people fought a daily battle with the jungle for possession of the surrounding land. Precious crops of rice and papaya tumbled over terraces in splashes of vivid green, in sharp contrast to the more sombre hues of the jungle that encircled them. Its hot breath scorched their young shoots.

The houses were single storey, constructed of wood and bamboo with grey clay tiles on the roofs, a bustling, jostling jumble of them clustered around the cobbled streets. A clutch of rickshaws trundled past Chang, the pullers sweating under their wide coolie hats and glancing with interest at the stranger on the horse. Chang ignored them. It was always the same when he entered a new town, or tasted a dish that was unfamiliar to him; that sharp tug under his ribs, as if someone were trying to pull out his liver. He knew what it was.

It’s you, my love, my fox girl. You. Your small fist inside me, giving me no peace.

Anything new, he felt the need to show her. To let her see the elements of China she didn’t know. To watch her tawny eyes widen, her fanqui nose wrinkle up in delight at the sight of the wild, sweeping curves of the roof lines, at the carvings of gods leering out from the beams, the fretwork painted a gaudy scarlet and gold. Everything in the south of China was brighter, more elaborate, fiercer than anywhere else, and he longed to see it through her eyes.

Abruptly he sat straighter in the saddle and surprised his horse with a sudden jab of heel. His loose black tunic clung to his back with sweat and he pushed the images of her out of his mind, closed his eyes to her full warm lips. Such desire weakened him. But he could not stop her laughter, like the song of a river, flowing into his head and making his heart float.

Chang dismounted at the stone water trough. He tossed a coin to one of the bristle-haired street urchins to hold the reins and watch over his horse. He doused his head under the water pump, hitched his saddlebag over one shoulder and moved away down the street.

A barber was wielding his razor with grinning delight over the jaw of a customer on a stool outside his shop, and next to him a storyteller’s booth was keeping them both entertained with tales of a rat king. Chang liked this town. The feel of it was… settling. He imagined staying here. His fears that it would be in turmoil were groundless; it was clearly more robust than he’d expected. He walked with a smooth, easy stride, not disturbing the hum of workers and traders that ebbed and flowed around him. He had learned that the way you walk can make you visible or invisible, whichever you chose.