Kate Furnivall: The Russian Concubine

What else?

She brought in a deep brass dish and placed it on the sideboard. Then she filled it with sketchy drawings on a sheet of paper of a house, a grand piano, a passport, a car, clothes, and flowers, lit a match, and dropped it in. A whoosh of flames carried them up to her mother, and she fed the flames with cigarettes, one by one. The smell was awful. When it was all over and the smoke had cleared, Lydia sprayed the whole shrine with her mother’s perfume, squeezing the little rubber puffer over and over until the bottle was empty.

It was then that Alfred rose from the chair where he had been watching in silence and very gently, as though not wishing to disturb his wife, laid his wedding ring beside the picture of Valentina’s laughing face.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t Lydia, the little Russian dyevochka who doesn’t know her own language.’

‘Countess Serova, vashye visochyestvo, mozhno mnye pogovoryit Alexeiyem? I would like to speak to Alexei.’

‘Ah, so you are at last learning. Good. But no, you may not come in, as it is much too early for visitors.’

‘This is important.’

‘Come back later.’

‘I must see him now.’

‘Don’t be impudent, girl. We haven’t yet breakfasted.’

‘Listen to me. My father is alive.’

‘Go. Yidi! Go away immediately, child.’

‘ Nyet .’

‘No. The answer is still no. How many times must I say it?’

‘Alexei, I’m asking you again. As your sister.’

‘That is unfair, Lydia.’

‘Since when has life been fair?’

They were striding through Victoria Park, heads lowered against the wind that had come howling down overnight from the wastes of Siberia and was tearing through the trees with a harsh whine. No snow yet, but Lydia could feel its teeth already. They had the place to themselves.

‘This is too much.’

‘No, Alexei, it’s not. It’s a shock. But you should respect your mother the countess for admitting the truth, even though it pained her to do so.’

‘Pained?’

‘All right, forget pained. It was like eating barbed wire for her. But she did it. She has courage.’

‘A Danish bastard is what I am. Nyezakonniy sin.’ He lengthened his stride and veered off the path, ignoring the Keep Off the Grass signs and heading for the fountain.

Lydia gave him time. His pride was in shreds, and she’d learned from Chang the importance of a man’s pride. She continued slowly along the gravel path, following its more serpentine route to the ornamental pond with the koi carp and the dragon fountain. Today the water lay still, ice already beginning to form with frayed fingers around the edges. Alexei was standing against the low railing, watching the silver and gold forms flitting like ghosts beneath the water. In his stillness and his long black coat he looked like a statue himself.

‘The son of Jens Friis,’ she said quietly. ‘Not a Danish bastard. ’

‘And who exactly was this father of ours?’ Still he watched the fish.

‘He was an engineer. A brilliant one. An inspired creator of new schemes. Tsar Nicholas and the tsarina adored him and used his plans for modernising St Petersburg’s water system.’ She paused. ‘He played the violin too. But not well.’

He turned and stared at her. ‘You remember him?’

‘Only just. I remember the sound of his laugh when he threw me up into the air and the feel of his big hands when he caught me. Hands that I knew would never drop me.’ She closed her eyes to hug the memories closer. ‘And his smile. It was my world.’

‘I am sorry to hear about your mother.’

It caught her off guard, and for a second she thought she was going to vomit down his front yet again. She flashed open her eyes and frowned at him. ‘Let’s stick to our father.’

He nodded, and there was something in those eyes of his that triggered a long-dormant memory of another pair of very serious green eyes looking into hers and a deep voice soft in her ear, telling her she must make no sound but hold on tight to his hand. She moved off around the railing, circling the whole pond, a hand trailing on the looped guardrail until she came again to where Alexei was standing, still rigid, hands in his pockets. She’d given him enough time. More than enough. The minutes were skidding by.

‘Alexei.’

He faced her. She looked into his steady eyes and tried to learn what kind of man he was, this arrogant brother of hers.

‘Help me.’

‘Lydia, you don’t know what you’re asking.’

‘I do.’

‘If I help you, I will lose my job, do you realise that? And the Kuomintang do not take kindly to traitors.’

‘Why do you do it? Why work for them?’

‘Because I hate the Communists and everything they stand for. They reduce everyone to the lowest level, they tear down all that is beautiful and creative in mankind and cripple the mind of the individual. Look at the devastation in Russia now. So, no, I have no wish to save the life of a Communist, even if he is a friend of yours. I do all in my power to help Chiang Kai-shek rid this breathtaking country of their curse and build a good strong government. And I shall continue to do so.’

‘You are so wrong, Alexei.’

He shrugged. ‘I think we must agree to differ on that point.’

His voice was once again crisp, no nonsense. He had good powers of recovery. She knew she had lost him. A cold numbness swirled inside her chest. Breathing grew hard. Her mind reached out to Chang An Lo, but all she could feel was a fragile heartbeat. The rest was as black as Liev Popkov’s beard. With a sudden urgency she reached up and gripped Alexei’s shoulder, swung him around to face her. Her hands seized his. Her fingers dug into his bones.

‘Alexei Serov Friis,’ she said fiercely, ‘I am your sister, Lydia Ivanova Friis. You cannot deny me this.’

All day long Lydia waited in the shed. She wrapped herself in her quilt. Alfred had gone off to his newspaper office and in her mind she admired the way he kept himself functioning as if life had not cracked open to a burning hell-pit under his feet. But at the same time a part of her heart wanted him to scream. To rage. To rant through the streets in sackcloth and ashes, to show the world that life without Valentina was unbearable. But no. He was English. Englishmen didn’t believe in sackcloth and ashes. A dark suit. A black armband. That sufficed.

Lydia had chosen to wear one of her mother’s white dresses. It was plain with a long row of jet buttons down the front and a large white lace collar. It looked all wrong on her, she knew, but she didn’t care. It soothed a small part of the ache.

As she sat in the shed she made herself study the dried bloodstains on the wooden walls and floor, and thought about scrubbing them but decided against it. It would be like washing away Sun Yat-sen, and she wasn’t willing to do that. But she did lay out the same blankets as before on the floor and sat down in the middle of them, gazing up at the skylight above her head. Though the hours crawled by and nothing happened, except the day grew darker, she kept calling his name softly.

‘Chang An Lo, Chang An Lo, Chang An Lo.’

If she stopped, something inside her knew he’d die. It was that simple.

The hairs on her arms began to prickle and she knew he was near. Above her the skylight was black as a grave while beside her a single candle burned with a flame that flickered and leaped, sending shadows careening around the walls.

She told herself it was the wind outside stealing through the shed’s cracks and under the door. She wanted to believe it. But she could hear their breathing. The spirits.

Gathering.

He was there. In the doorway. His black hair tousled by the wind, an air of wildness about him, a grubby green blanket thrown over his shoulders in place of a coat. His eyes wanting her.