Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

The street they were in was grey. Grey walls, fat grey drainpipes tipped with slivers of grey ice, grey air gusting towards them. Grey balconies clinging by a hair to the cracked walls.

‘It isn’t wise, Lydia,’ Chang had warned her.

‘Please, my love.’

‘You would tweak the dragon’s tail yet again.’

‘The dragon is snoring like a New Year drunk in his lair. He won’t even know I’m there.’ But when she’d seen the shadows gather in his eyes, she said simply, ‘I need this, Chang An Lo. I need to look for myself.’

He had nodded. ‘Then you shall.’

The prison was two blocks ahead. They walked in silence, aware of the dogs alert on chains as they approached, of the guards in grey coats, of the rifles on their backs. Chang and Lydia kept to the far side of the road, tucked in close to the buildings. It was obvious this had once been an avenue of gracious villas and shady trees but nothing remained of them now. Blocks of government offices now lined the pavement, and only the moss-covered stumps at the kerb sheltered the ghosts of what once had been.

Lydia forced herself not to stare. She walked quickly, though her feet begged to stop. Out here on the street it was different from when she was caged in the comfort of Maksim Voshchinsky’s car. Here it was raw. The pain sharper. The walls higher, the gates grimmer. But here she could listen for Jens Friis. For the ticking of his mind. His breath, his sigh, his voice.

His voice. She hadn’t asked Chang to tell her about the sound of his voice. How could she have overlooked something so intimate?

Papa, can you hear me? Can you feel me here?

She allowed herself one look, a slight turn of the eyes, one rapid glance, that’s all. Then she ducked her head again and hurried on past. But a part of her remained there on the grey pavement among the ice and the tree stumps, watching and waiting.

Chang was braiding strands of her hair, weaving them in and out of fine silk ribbons. He could sense the rhythmic movement soothing her, helping to still the vibrations his fingertips could feel through the fragile bones of her skull. He breathed out deeply and saw a lock of her hair rise, flutter and settle once more.

‘ Lydia, what is it that you want from Jens Friis? Want so badly you take risks that could swamp us all?’

‘He’s my father,’ she said.

He wove another ribbon into the flames. ‘But what are you doing here in Russia? Running towards Jens? Or away from China?’

‘What do you mean, away from China? Why should I want to run away from China?’

‘Because your mother died there.’

She said nothing. Her hands lay unmoving at her sides and he wondered at what cost.

‘Your mother died there, violently, and I went off to fight the Kuomintang, leaving you there. You were treated cruelly by my Chinese enemies.’ He kissed the back of her neck. ‘You had every reason to run away. But your father disappeared from your life when you were just five years old, so you scarcely know him. What is it that makes you cling so hard?’

‘He’s my father,’ she said again. Her voice came out as a whisper.

He stroked her naked shoulders, fine elegant shapes.

‘I let my mother die,’ she said. ‘I can’t let my father die too.’

‘Your mother’s death was no fault of yours. It was the work of the gods, a random moment when an act of revenge went wrong. You were not responsible in any way.’

‘I know.’

‘And your father is not dying.’

‘Nor is he living.’

‘You can’t know that.’

‘What? Is that place we passed today somewhere worth living? It’s more like a tomb.’

‘So what are you planning to do?’

‘To contact him. Somehow. At first, that’s all.’

‘And then?’

But she had gone from him, deep within herself where he couldn’t reach her. His fingers continued to braid her hair and into his mind came an image of her standing on a small beach in China, staring out at sunlit water, every inch straining to rush forward with the current towards her future. What had happened to her? He lowered his head until it was almost touching the neat triangle of her shoulder blade and inhaled the scent of her skin. She smelled the same, that intoxicating mix of delicate jasmine and the musk of a wild animal. But where had his fox girl gone? Gently he wound his arms around her, drawing her back against his bare chest, the heat of her body surprising him.

‘Chang,’ she said, and her sadness came at him like a slap, ‘what are we going to do, you and I?’

‘My love, you cannot avoid the future by chasing after the past.’

She swivelled round within the circle of his arms, so that her tawny eyes were fixed on his. ‘Is that what you think this is about?’

‘I think that you are frightened of what the future might hold for you, for us, so you are trying to build a future out of the past.’

‘So Jens Friis is my past?’

‘Yes.’

Slowly she shook her head, the ends of the ribbons whispering against his cheek. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand at all.’

Her words hurt, chipped a small hole in his chest. He lifted his hands and cradled her face between them.

‘I understand that we are together. That is enough.’ He smiled at her. ‘Look at what you are wearing in your hair. Look at the ribbons.’

It took a moment. But the smile came. ‘Red ribbons,’ she said.

‘Red is for happiness.’

It was raining and dark. Flurries of ice like needle points stabbed at the neck. Jens pulled his cap lower over his face and his collar higher to cover his ears. Exercise at six-thirty on a dark miserable morning brought out the worst in people. They grumbled at each other, at the guards, at the weather, but most of all at Colonel Tursenov.

‘Sadistic shit.’

‘Still with his arse tucked up in bed.’

‘Enjoying his breakfast ham and eggs. Warm white rolls and hot chocolate.’

‘Hope it chokes the miserable bastard.’

It was Tursenov who insisted on half an hour of exercise for his prisoners, trudging round and round the courtyard every morning before the working day started and again at the end of the day, before the evening meal was handed out. Rain, wind or snow, it made no difference. Floodlights, dogs and armed guards watched over them as they shuffled in a wide circle behind a chain-link metal fence, single file, four paces behind each other. In silence.

Today was unpleasant. But there had been worse days, much worse, when marching out to work in the Siberian timber forests. Hours of stumbling through snow and white-outs to reach the Work Zone. So Jens was not tempted to complain or voice hostility, but he did worry about Olga out here in the rain. He glanced across at her wet huddled figure further along the circle. She was moving as though her shoes were packed full of the lead she used to dig from the mine. Legs thin as pins. And she was coughing. The sound of her rasping breath made him nervous. He’d seen too many die, too many coughs tear lungs to shreds and shudder to an end in a death rattle. If only she would eat more.

Was Lydia eating?

The thought slipped into his head. Time and again it happened. When he was pushing a spoonful of good hot stew into his mouth he would freeze for a second and ask himself, was she pushing scraps of dry black bread into hers? Curled up under warm blankets at night, he imagined her cold and shivering. When it rained on him, like now, was she wet too? And did she dream of him the way he dreamed of her?

He ached to know more. The Chinese had said nothing of his wife, Valentina. His beloved Valentina. Did she also escape from the Bolsheviks? Please God let her be still alive, somewhere safe and warm where she could grow fat and lazy if she pleased. Or was she here in Moscow with Lydia? In this cold and wet courtyard his mind filled with the shimmer of dark velvety hair he had loved to brush for her each evening before bed, and a face so beautiful no man could turn his eyes away. Are you here, Valentina? Have you come home to Russia? He couldn’t imagine anyone so vibrant and colourful existing in this drab new world of the Soviets.