Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

‘Good evening, comrades,’ he said amiably. He nodded a greeting and tried to steer his gaze away from the tattoos, which wasn’t easy. ‘My name is Alexei Serov.’

He placed the sack he was carrying on the floor in front of them, where dust and cobwebs coated the black tiles. One of the men with a whispery voice and his hair oiled either side of a neat parting, stepped forward and untwisted the neck of the sack. He lifted out its contents. Immediately the tension in the air eased.

It had been an easy steal. Yet it had disgusted Alexei. Revolted him. But it was what Maksim Voshchinsky demanded, a show of his fidelity, a demonstration of his courage. A gift for the vory. He’d said yes immediately and gave himself no time to change his mind. That same evening he went out on the streets of Moscow to prove he was worthy of their trust, that he was as much a thief as they were and had no fear of State authority. He’d spent two hours roaming the back roads, searching out an opportunity with the same precision he had used to reconnoitre military manoeuvres. When the chance came, he took it without hesitation.

He’d moved out of the darkness of a narrow lane into a rectangle of light thrown from an open door, slipping silently into a stranger’s hallway. That’s all it took to turn him into a thief, to make that jump that crossed the boundaries of decent conduct and plunged him into the wrong side of the world. His hands had reached out as though they had been performing such acts for years and removed the carved clock from the wall, as well as a small pewter vase from a table. In and out of the house in less than a minute. Less time than it took to slit your own throat.

The man who lived in the house saw nothing. He was outside in the dark street roping pieces of furniture to a cart, a horse dozing between the shafts, and he had no idea he’d just been robbed. Why someone would be shifting furniture at this hour of the night Alexei chose not to enquire, but it served his purpose well. The eagerness with which he wrapped his spoils under his coat appalled him.

He wasn’t seen. Except by the short, dogged figure of Igor, who hovered somewhere hidden by the darkness. He had seen. He knew.

‘It’s a good clock,’ the man with the oiled hair announced, holding it up for the gathering to inspect.

It was a beautiful timepiece, old and beloved, judging by the patina of polish on its case, and Alexei felt guilt, raw and spiteful, take a great bite out of him.

‘It’s for the vory v zakone , the brotherhood of the thieves-in-law, ’ Alexei stated. ‘I offer it to this kodla for your obshchak , your communal fund.’

They nodded, pleased.

‘Was there a witness?’ one asked.

‘I bear witness,’ Igor said. He stood up in front of everybody, his eyes challenging any dissenters. ‘He stole like a professional.’

‘Good.’

‘But has he been in prison?’

‘Or in one of the labour camps? Has he been in Kolyma?’

‘Or worked the Belomorsko-Baltiiskii Canal?’

‘Who else speaks for him?’

Alexei spoke for himself. ‘Brotherhood of vory v zakone, I am a vor , a thief, like you, and I am here because Maksim Voshchinsky ordered me to be brought to this place tonight. He is sick and in bed but it is his word that speaks for me.’

‘There must be two who speak.’

‘I, Igor, speak for him. My word stands side by side with that of Maksim, our pakhan.’

So this was it. Dear God, he had become a vor. He still had much to prove before they fully accepted him as one of their own, but with Maksim behind him, he’d pushed open the door. He’d learned from his talk with Maksim that cells of vory criminals exactly like this one ranged throughout the length and breadth of Russia, especially in the prisons, all with the same strict code of allegiance and system of punishments. Some called them the Russian mafia, but in reality they were very different from that Italian organisation: they were not supposed to have a boss, the status of each member was meant to be equal and family connections were rejected. The brotherhood was the only family that mattered. Decisions were made and disputes settled by the skhodka , the vory court that was as all-powerful as it was ruthless. But the pakhan was nevertheless in a senior position and his word counted. Maksim was the pakhan.

Alexei prayed to God that Maksim’s name, even on his sickbed, was enough. Oddly, he felt no fear. He knew he should. He’d lied to them about having been in prison and their punishments were harsh. But these men reminded him too much of the young recruits he’d commanded in the army training camps in Japan, except that here they had banded into a criminal fraternity rather than a military one. They drew courage from each other as eagerly as the owner of this storeroom drew wine from the bottles. It flowed red and intoxicating. But as he studied their faces and their disfigured chests, he had a sense that these were damaged men. Both inside and out.

‘So where are the older men of the vory brotherhood?’ he’d asked Maksim.

‘In prison, of course. In the labour camps. That’s what the obshchak fund is for.’

‘Do you use it to get them out?’

‘Sometimes. But more often to supply our brothers with food or clothes and with roubles for bribes. You see, Alexei, a prison is a vor ’s natural home, it’s where he rules. Most of our brotherhood lie behind bars because each prison sentence is a badge of pride and is marked by a new tattoo.’

‘That’s incomprehensible.’

Maksim had smiled, his eyes secretive. ‘To you maybe. Not to me.’

Alexei wondered what the hell was going on here. What was this man’s history and what crimes had he committed? As if Maksim could read his younger friend’s doubts, he rolled on to his side in the wide bed and carefully undid the buttons of his pyjama jacket. He peeled it back to reveal his chest. It was broad and powerful, ribs like a bull’s, with hairless tired skin.

Alexei had drawn in a breath. ‘Impressive.’

In the centre of Maksim’s chest was a lavish blue tattoo of a large and elaborate crucifix.

‘You see this?’ The older man had prodded a stern finger at the decoration that curved above it, hanging between his collar bones. ‘You see this crown? That’s to indicate I am the pakhan . The boss of our vory cell. Without me, they’d be nothing. What I say goes.’

He yanked up his other sleeve and Alexei leaned closer, fascinated. From shoulder to wrist, tattoos crowded over every scrap of skin. An onion-domed cathedral and gentle-faced Madonna were caught disturbingly in a tangle of barbed wire and a row of prison bars. On his biceps a death skull grinned and on his elbow a spider’s web had ensnared an eagle by its wings.

Maksim watched Alexei, saw the fire rising within him. ‘Each one has a meaning,’ he said in a soft seductive whisper. ‘Look at my tattoos and you look at my life. God placed a mark on the world’s first murderer before sending him into exile. The mark of Cain.’ He pulled down his sleeve and covered up his chest. ‘It branded its bearer as a criminal and a social outcast. Tell me, is that what you are, Alexei Serov? An outcast?’

The pain was not bad. But bad enough. The tattooist turned out to be a bald man with a smooth hairless face and a teardrop tattooed at the outer corner of one eye. He was an artist who enjoyed his job, smiling to himself as he prepared to work on Alexei’s chest, humming the same snatch of Beethoven’s Fifth over and over again.

Alexei lit a cigarette and hoped to God he wouldn’t get blood poisoning.

‘It happens sometimes,’ the tattooist grinned. ‘Some even die.’