Kate Furnivall - The Concubine's Secret

‘Your wife, Antonina?’ she asked. ‘Is she here? In the apartment? ’

The fingers froze. ‘She’s still in bed.’

‘Even so. Not ideal, is it?’

‘I didn’t think you were an idealist, Lydia. More of a realist, it seemed to me.’ He kissed the top of her head and his other hand encircled her waist, pinning her to the chair.

‘Dmitri,’ she said in a firm voice, ‘let me go.’ She heard his exhalation. ‘But I give you my word. You can pick your time and place – as soon as Liev Popkov is safely home.’

‘Dead or alive?’

‘Dead or alive.’

With reluctance he withdrew his arm, uncoiling it slowly. She rose to her feet. She’d bought a breathing space. ‘Thank you, Dmitri.’

‘Oh damn it, Lydia, will you ever make life easy for me?’ He was still breathing hard.

‘I doubt it.’ She forced a smile of sorts.

‘But I have your word?’

‘Yes, you have my word. Just find me Liev Popkov.’ For a moment she stepped nearer, her face close to his. ‘Find him,’ she said harshly and saw him recoil in surprise.

She moved to the door and swung it open, only to discover Antonina on the other side. She was wearing an oyster-pink negligee, her sharp painted nails held out in front of her like claws. How long she’d been standing there it was impossible to tell.

‘Lydia, my friend, I had no idea you were here,’ she said brightly. ‘Dmitri, you should have told me and I’d have joined you both for coffee.’

Her smile was as brittle as the stem of a wine glass. Lydia knew it would snap if she touched it.

‘Another time, Antonina,’ she said quickly and walked out of the overheated apartment.

Chang found her. How on earth he found her she had no idea. All that mattered was that he was here and she could feel his heart beating as hard as if he’d been running. He steered her through a maze of side streets till they came to a shabby stretch of houses where two strangers would be ignored – no one wanted trouble; they already had enough of their own. Chang lifted her chin and kissed her, and she felt sick with shame. He didn’t ask her what she was doing running the pavements at this early hour of the morning and she wondered if he could smell Dmitri on her.

‘ Lydia, Kuan gave me your message.’

She leaned her face into the collar of his coat.

‘Here is a new key to a new room.’ He pressed a small metal object into her palm and a scrap of paper bearing an address. ‘Be calm,’ he murmured. ‘Tell me what it is that has disturbed you.’

She shook her head, mute. He waited until she was able to speak.

‘It’s Popkov. He’s been shot,’ she whispered. ‘Because of me he might be dead.’ Her lips felt numb. ‘I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead.’

His hand soothed the crumpled line of her spine and the memory of another man’s fingers on her skin stole her breath. She shivered fiercely and when Chang drew back to look at her face, she knew he would sense there was more.

‘I’m worried for Elena,’ she said quickly. ‘She’ll be frantic about Liev.’

He leaned forward again and kissed each of her eyelids in turn.

‘Close your eyes, Lydia. Rest them. There is nothing you can do to help your Cossack friend.’

Her forehead sank on to his collar once more. Her limbs were trembling and she couldn’t stop them. Any more than she could stop hating herself.

My dearest Papa,

To talk to my father is wonderful. I never thought I would hear your voice – even if it is only on paper. As I grew up I spoke to you many times and told you many things, but I was always whispering to the empty darkness. How could it be otherwise? I believed you were dead. But now I grow greedy. I want more of you, Papa. I want to know you and I want you to know me.

So what shall I tell you? That I have your hair, you already know. What else? I lack Mama’s skill at the piano but my fingers are quick in other ways, and my mind is struggling with the concepts of this new system that is sweeping through Russia and China. This Communism. I admire its ideals but I despise its inhumanity. Stalin says you cannot make a revolution with silk gloves, but surely the individual still matters. You matter. I matter.

What else matters in my life? I once owned a white rabbit called Sun Yat-sen. He mattered. I have a friend called Chang An Lo – you spoke to him. He means more to me than my own breath. Liev Popkov is my good friend, more than a friend. And Alexei is the brother I always wanted. So now you know me, Papa. I wear a horrible brown hat and I like sugary apricot dumplings and have discovered Kandinsky paintings.

Tell me about yourself. Tell me what you think. How you spend your days. Describe for me what you are working on. I long to know. I send you my love.

Lydia.

Jens kissed the letter. He kissed each word. He would have kissed Liev Popkov if he could. The big man had delivered it as he died. Jens had retrieved the flake of metal from under the seat, stooping to tie his bootlaces as he was led out to the truck. Oh Popkov, my old friend. Dragged away in a roll of canvas.

Anger scraped like grit in his gut as he paced his cell in the semi-dark, but his rage was as much for himself as for the Cossack.

‘Babitsky,’ he growled to the dead walls, ‘I hope you burn.’

Alexei loved the streets of Moscow. In places whole roads were being demolished, great new thoroughfares emerging. Rows of individual houses and shops were swept away at the stroke of an architect’s pen and vast multi-storey buildings were clawing their way up out of the soil like a new kind of gigantic urban mushroom. On the back seat of the car in the moody grey light of a winter’s afternoon, he was swept past the sprawl of construction sites and knew he was witnessing the world changing. It stirred him. Stalin was throwing everything into redesigning and broadening the Russian streets, but also the Russian mind.

‘Maksim,’ he said to the man swaddled in rugs beside him, ‘one of the vory rules is that we mustn’t collaborate with authority in any way.’

‘Of course not. Those in authority destroy every hope of a freedom of mind. The vory bow the knee to no man outside the brotherhood. That’s why we have stars tattooed on our knees, to remind us.’

‘So if the OGPU secret police turn up at your door at two o’clock in the morning, demanding to know information about one of your members, what then?’

‘I spit on their boots.’

‘And end up in one of the labour camps?’

Maksim laughed. ‘I’ve been there before.’

‘But now you’re older.’

‘Sicker is what you mean.’

‘All right, sicker.’ The older man’s flesh hung grey and doughy from the bones of his face. ‘You should have stayed at home. You’re tired.’

They were riding in an old bone-shaker of a car which didn’t help, but the smooth limousine that Alexei had grown accustomed to using when in Maksim Voshchinsky’s company had remained in its garage today to avoid risking identification. This vehicle was anonymous, it belonged to no one. It was stolen.

‘How far now?’ Maksim Voshchinsky asked.

‘Another few miles,’ Igor offered from the front seat. There were beads of sweat on the back of his neck. He was nervous.

Alexei gave Lydia a nod. ‘This route will take longer. But it’s safer.’

She said nothing. She’d been silent since they set off, hunched into her corner, unresponsive and mute. It annoyed Alexei. He’d had to stand his ground with Maksim to win her this place in the car and a little politeness wouldn’t have gone amiss. Sometimes, like today, he couldn’t work her out. Shouldn’t she be pleased, maybe even impressed – and certainly grateful at the prospect of where he was taking her this afternoon? But no. Silent and sullen. Tawny eyes refusing to meet his. All she did was cling to the side window with a fixed stare, as though memorising the route. Maybe she was. That thought worried him.