Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

‘Yes . ’ He rose from the sill, a slow casual movement that nevertheless made Lydia watchful. He’d grown taller and suddenly darker as he stepped away from the window. ‘The people of Russia have to be taught to rethink themselves.’

He came closer.

Her heart thumped. ‘Jens Friis is not even a Soviet citizen,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s Danish. What good can teaching him to rethink possibly achieve?’

‘As an example to others. It demonstrates that no one is safe if they indulge in anti-Soviet activities. No one, Lydia. Not one single person is more important than the Soviet State. Not me.’ He paused, his words suddenly soft. ‘And not you.’

She tried to slow her breathing but couldn’t. Abruptly he seized both her wrists and shook her hard. Wordlessly she fought to break free but his fingers held her with ease so she ceased her struggles.

‘Let me go,’ she hissed.

‘You see, Lydia,’ he said calmly, ‘how fear changes people. Look at yourself now, wide-eyed with fear, a little lion cub eager to claw my throat out. But when I release you, you will have learned something. You will have learned to fear what I might do – to you, to your friends, to Jens Friis, even to that damn Chinese lover of yours – and it will hold you in check. That’s how Stalin’s penal system works.’

He smiled, an uneven twist of his mouth that offered no threat, just a warning. She stared straight into his grey eyes. With a cautious nod of his head, he uncurled his fingers. She didn’t move. With no hesitation he leaned forward and kissed her mouth, hard and hungry. His hand touched her breast. She took a step backward, away from him, and he didn’t stop her.

‘Fear,’ he said, ‘is something you have to learn how to use. Remember that, Lydia.’ He gave her a playful tilt of his head, the easy charm back in place. ‘I meant you no harm. I just wanted you to know.’

She was too angry to speak. But her eyes never left his.

‘You can slap my face if it would make you feel any better,’ he offered with a light laugh.

She turned her face rigidly to one side, no longer able to look at him. Without another word he walked out, shutting the door quietly behind him. She started to shake. Anger raged inside her, hot and painful, burning her throat. She hurried to the window and watched the tall figure of Dmitri Malofeyev stride through the gloom of the courtyard, his back towards her and one hand raised in farewell. Without even turning round, he’d known she’d be there, watching.

As he disappeared under the archway she sank her forehead against the glass, trying to freeze out the thoughts in her head. But not the anger. She needed that. Because it was not anger at Dmitri Malofeyev, it was at herself. She groaned long and loud and thumped her forehead against the pane as if she could force the images away. The feel of his lips. The spicy scent of his cologne. The hot flutter of his breath on her face. His fingers gentle on her breast.

Where did it come from, this treacherous pleasure she’d felt? She hated him. But worse, she hated herself.

The bathroom was cold, so cold Lydia could see her breath. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling like a dull yellow eye and a finger of damp was creeping down one wall, blistering the paint, as if something was living under it. It wasn’t Lydia ’s evening for a bath, the use of which was on a strict rota, so she stood on her towel to keep her feet warm and stripped off her clothes.

Her skirt. Her cardigan. Her blouse. Her undergarments. She dropped them in a haphazard pile on the floor and stood naked in front of the washbasin. Her eyes meticulously avoided the small square of mirror above it because she couldn’t bear to see up close what betrayal looked like. What colour it was. What shape it took. What holes it chiselled in a person’s face. She ran the cold water and started to wash herself.

At the end of ten minutes her skin was sore and she was shivering, but her hands finally stilled. She’d realised it wasn’t the dirt on the outside that mattered, it was the dirt on the inside and she didn’t know how to get at it.

The bathroom was warm. The Hotel Triumfal looked after its privileged guests well, and Chang An Lo heard Biao’s intake of breath when he walked in and set eyes on the gold taps with their chrome and marble fittings. Biao’s own accommodation in the hotel was somewhat humbler, down on the second floor, a small room above a noisy bar. Chang shut the door behind them and turned on both taps in the washbasin and then in the bath. Water flooded out in a rush, spurting around the shining porcelain, gurgling down the plugholes, filling the small space with swirling and splashing, the water pipes juddering.

‘Now, my friend, let us talk,’ Chang said in an undertone.

‘Is it safe?’

‘Half the time I think the listeners are asleep.’

Biao still looked wary. His long arms moved restlessly at his side like bamboo leaves in the wind, his dark eyes roaming the tiled walls. Chang was thankful that he’d brought this young companion with him to Russia – and not just because it removed him from the battlefields of China and allowed his father to sleep at night. Biao was the shield at his back. He needed him.

‘Don’t disturb your thoughts with concern about the listeners, my brother,’ Chang said. He brought his lips close to Biao’s ear. ‘In this waterfall they are deaf anyway. But when Kuan said words that were ill-chosen yesterday, neither she nor I were questioned about them. I am certain the bearded ones find our Mandarin sounds as hard and unruly on the ear as we find their Russian ones.’

Biao nodded.

Chang spoke quickly. ‘There is a way out through the bathroom window, across the roofs. I need you to go out into Moscow unobserved. You must go now, before it is time for the dinner they have planned for us tonight.’

Biao nodded again, black eyes bright. ‘The bearded ones have wits as slow as a worm. It will be no problem.’

‘Thank you, my friend. Xie xie.’

For a moment they listened to the water.

‘Is this for the fanqui girl?’ Biao asked at last. ‘The one you danced with?’

Chang was surprised that Biao would question him, but he nodded. His young companion rearranged his face, sucking in the walls of his cheeks.

‘Comrade Chang,’ he muttered, ‘I offer my humble opinion that it is not wise to take such risks for a foreign devil, a fanqui. She is clearly not worth-’

Chang stiffened, a lengthening of his muscles, no more. But it was enough.

Biao lowered his head. ‘Forgive my worthless tongue. It does not know when to be silent.’

‘It was always so,’ Chang laughed. ‘You have not changed.’

‘Of course it is my pleasure to perform whatever task will be of assistance to the friend of my heart.’

‘Thank you, Hu Biao.’

‘It’s just that I…’ He stopped, his head still bowed, so that the tendons at the back of his strong neck were pulled taut.

‘What is it?’ Chang asked.

‘My tongue has no ears to listen or to learn.’

‘Finish what you wish to say.’

Hu Biao lifted his eyes and with their upturned lashes and hooded lids they reminded Chang sharply of Biao’s father, Hu Tai-wai, the man to whom he owed so much; the man who was his father in all but name. He felt a rush of affection for his young companion.

‘Spit out the words, Biao, or I shall be tempted to push my fist down your throat and drag them out myself, the way your mother pulls pups from a bitch.’

He laughed and saw Biao take a breath, followed by a faint shiver of relief, and for the first time it occurred to Chang that his childhood friend viewed him with fear as much as with love. That saddened him. Had the war turned him into someone he no longer recognised? Had he left the best of himself on the killing fields of China?