Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

But this. So you have a daughter. This was different.

He sat back in his seat, a padded comfortable armchair in which he did most of his thinking, and showed no hint of surprise.

‘What do you mean, Poliakov?’

‘Your daughter.’

‘You’ve got it wrong. I have no family. They were lost in the terrors of 1917.’

The warder leaned against the doorframe, his belly straining at the buttons of his shirt, his round brown eyes full of amusement. That was a bad sign.

‘No daughter?’

‘ Nyet ,’ Jens repeated.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ But his heart stopped.

Poliakov pulled out a cigarette, lit it with a match which he dropped on the floor, and took a long drag before letting loose a conspiratorial smile. ‘Now what’s the point of lying to me, Friis? I thought I was your friend.’

At least here they were called by their names. In the camp it had been just impersonal numbers. Jens dismissed the guard’s words as another attempt to provoke him, so he refused to rise to the bait.

‘Any chance of a smoke?’ he asked instead.

‘I tell you, Friis, you’re going to love listening to this. Your daughter has turned up at your last camp, it seems. Don’t look so shocked. She’s searching for you in the wrong place, thousands of miles away from here. Isn’t that funny?’ He chuckled at first, but when he saw the expression on his prisoner’s face he burst out laughing. ‘What chance does a stupid kid have of tracing you here?’

What chance?

Jens wanted to strangle him, to squeeze that thick lardy neck. He stood up abruptly and as he did so a flash of fiery curls roared into his brain. A dainty heart-shaped face. A mischievous smile that could pulverise his heart. Lydia? Is it you? My Lydia?

Could it really be her?

Sweat broke out on his skin. Was his daughter alive? After all these years that he’d believed her dead. And his wife?

Oh dear God, let my beautiful Valentina be alive. Let my little Lydia be… He choked.

For twelve long barren years he’d lived without them, without even the memory of the two people he had loved most in the world. Because to think of them, of their smiles and their clear voices, would destroy him. So for twelve lonely years he’d lived without love and without hope. Only now when Poliakov said so slyly, She’s searching for you , did images of the moment he lost them come crashing back.

He pictured once more the icy wasteland of Siberia, white and monotonous. The grey frozen slats of the cattle wagons packed with fear and fury, as the train with its cargo of fleeing White Russians growled its way across Russia in search of freedom. Valentina’s breath on his cheek, the weight of their child asleep in his arms. Then came the rifles, the men on horseback with hate in their eyes, the cries as the women and children were snatched from the train by the Bolsheviks. In flashes he recalled again the pitiless gaze of the Red Army commander as the men were herded away to be shot. Valentina’s eyes huge with an agony of despair. Lydia’s thin piercing scream. The terror spread around them as solid as the frozen snow under their feet.

He jerked his mind away from that moment, the way he would jerk his hand away from red-hot metal.

‘Valentina?’ he whispered.

‘Who the fuck is Valentina?’ Poliakov snapped.

Jens suddenly hated this guard, loathed and detested him for enticing hope back into his life. Hope was dead. Long ago he had slain it, a many-headed monster that made life in the prisons unbearable. But now it had risen from the dead to torment him again. The pencil in his hand snapped.

‘She’s not here.’

‘When did she leave?’ Alexei asked.

‘A while ago.’

‘A week? A month? Longer?’

The concierge shook her head unhelpfully. She was a sturdy comrade who took her job seriously. ‘I don’t keep track of everyone’s movements, you know.’

I bet you do, comrade. I bet that’s exactly what you do.

But she wasn’t going to share the information with him. He couldn’t blame her. He looked a mess, his filthy clothes and unshaven appearance didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

‘I’m her brother.’

‘So?’

‘I was delayed elsewhere. I thought she’d still be here in Felanka.’

‘Well, she’s not.’

‘Did she leave anything? A note perhaps?’

‘ Nyet.’

Alexei rested his elbows on her desk and leaned so far forward it occurred to him she might think he was trying to kiss her. He smiled but it wasn’t friendly. ‘I believe she did,’ he said evenly.

The woman thought about that. ‘I’ll check.’

She backed away, rummaged in a drawer and, after a show of considerable effort, produced an envelope. Scrawled across it in large looping letters was his name, Alexei Serov. He realised he’d never seen his sister’s handwriting before in all the time they’d been travelling together. It surprised him. It was bold – but that much he would have guessed. What he hadn’t expected was the softness within it, the uncertain ends to the words and a carefulness in the forming of the capital S. Oh Lydia. Where the hell are you? Why didn’t you wait?

His fear was that she’d gone to the camp and been arrested.

‘And the man we were with? The big-’

‘I remember him.’ For the first time she smiled and it made her almost pretty. ‘He’s gone too. They went together.’

Her memory was improving, so he decided to try again. ‘I left a bag in my room. Is it-’

‘Any possessions remaining in the room are kept for three days and then sold to cover any unpaid rent.’

‘But I’m sure my sister would have paid anything owing.’

The woman shrugged carelessly. She was growing bored.

‘Thank you,’ he said politely and smiled at her. ‘ Spasibo.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Could you make sure my bag is not also hidden away somewhere and forgotten?’ He said it pleasantly enough, but one look at his eyes made her hesitate and she started to shake her head. She moved over to a dark cubicle behind her, disappeared for no more than one minute and returned empty-handed.

‘ Nyet ,’ she said. ‘Nichevo. Nothing.’

‘Thank you, comrade. For your… help.’

My dear Alexei,

I’m writing in the hope that you may return here to Felanka. I want you to find this letter. I waited for you, Alexei. Three whole weeks – with no word. But you didn’t come back. Where are you? I swing between being frantic with worry one moment and angry with you for deserting me the next. Don’t you care if you hurt me?

To practical matters:

1. I enclose some money. In case you are in any trouble.

2. Your bag is missing from your room. So I must assume you planned your leaving. Popkov has haunted the bars to hear any word of you but no one is saying anything. Maybe they know nothing.

3. Now for the big one. I am going to Moscow. With Popkov and Elena. I’m not sure about Elena, why she is sticking so close, but she and my beloved bear seem to have taken a liking to each other.

4. Why Moscow? Papa is there. Think about it, Alexei. Papa in Moscow, not in a coal mine. I could cry with joy. I was given a number – 1908. I thought it was a date. It’s not. Popkov tells me it is the number of a secret prison in Moscow. Thank God for Popkov.

We leave by train today. I wish you were with us. Take good care of yourself, my only brother. If you find this letter and decide to come to Moscow, meet me at noon outside the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer. I’ll try to be waiting there each day.

From your sister with love – and fury,

Lydia

There was no money in the letter. Of course there wasn’t. Concierges were expert at steaming open sealed correspondence. It was a fact as well known in Soviet Russia as the colour of the snow after the wind blows in from the factories on the edge of town – everyone was aware of it, took it for granted. Except Lydia, it seemed.