The Russian Concubine

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped, breath like fire in her chest. ‘I’m sorry but I . . . ’

  ‘Hey there, little lady, what’s got you all rattled? Ease up now.’

  He was American. A sailor. U.S. Navy. She recognised the uniform. His hands soothed her as he would a fretful mare, stroking her back and patting her shoulder.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘A man. He killed my . . . my . . . my companion. For nothing. Stabbed him. He wanted my . . . ’

  ‘Calm down, you’re safe with me, honey.’

  ‘ . . . wanted my coat.’

  ‘Fucking bandits. Come on, we’ll find a cop and get this mess sorted out. Don’t you fret yourself.’ He started walking her up the street. ‘Who was this companion of yours? I sure hope it was a guy because I’d hate to think of a pretty lady . . .’

  ‘It was a man. A Chinese.’

  ‘What! A goddamn Chink. Well, we’d better take a rethink here.’

  He stopped walking and, with his arm firmly round her waist, elbowed his way past a goat that was dangling by its feet from a pole and bleating pathetically. He pulled her into an arched doorway where they could talk more easily.

  ‘You’ve had a fright, miss. But look, if it’s just a stinking Chink we’re talking about, you’d do better to let the local Chink cops sort this one out.’ He smiled, his blue eyes reassuring, his teeth white and well-cared for, his soft Southern accent as smooth as syrup.

  Abruptly she tried to break away from his grip on her waist.

  ‘Let go of me, please,’ she said curtly. ‘If you won’t help me, then I’ll find a policeman myself.’

  His mouth crushed down on hers.

  Shock and revulsion rocked her. She fought wildly to free herself, dragged her nails down his cheek, but with a curse he pinned her arms behind her back, pressed her tight against the wall where the bricks crushed her wrists, and started to pull and yank at her skirt. She kicked and struggled. Writhed away from his hands. But it was like fighting against one of America’s battleships. His fingers were thrusting under the elastic of her underwear, his tongue invading her mouth like a slug.

  She bit hard. Tasted blood.

  ‘Bitch,’ he growled and hit her.

  ‘Bastard,’ she hissed through the hand clamped over her mouth.

  He laughed and snapped the elastic.

  ‘Stop right there.’ A male voice spoke coldly in the American’s ear.

  All Lydia could see was the tip of a gun barrel pressed against his temple. The click of the hammer being cocked sounded like a cannon in the sudden silence in the doorway. She seized her chance. Lashed out, kicked hard, caught the American’s shin a vicious crack. He grunted and backed off.

  ‘Kneel down,’ the voice ordered.

  The sailor knew better than to argue with a gun. He knelt. Lydia slipped out onto the busy road, ready to take to her heels again, indifferent to her rescuer. Chivalry seemed to come with a high price these days.

  ‘Lydia Ivanova.’

  She halted. Stared at the man in the heavy green jacket, his face creased with concern. It was familiar. Her mind groped through the rush of blood to her head and the animal urge to flee.

  ‘Alexei Serov,’ she said at last in astonishment.

  ‘At least you recognise me this time.’

  Relief came in a warm thick wave. ‘May I?’ She held out her hand for the revolver.

  ‘You’re not going to shoot anyone.’

  ‘No, I promise.’

  He released the hammer safely and allowed her to take the gun from his grip. She crunched the heavy metal butt of it down on the American’s skull, then returned it to Alexei Serov.

  ‘Thank you.’ She gave him a wide smile.

  He looked at her oddly. His eyes scanned her face, her hair, her clothes. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you home.’ He offered her his arm with extreme politeness. ‘Hold on to me.’

  But she backed away. ‘No. No, thank you. I’ll just walk beside you.’ Even she could hear that her voice was not normal.

  ‘You’re very shaken, Miss Ivanova. I don’t think you’ll manage it on your own.’

  ‘I will.’

  He stared at her again, nodded.

  ‘But there’s been a murder,’ she told him rapidly and pointed back down the street, though she knew it was hopeless.

  ‘There are murders every day in Junchow,’ Alexei Serov said with a brusque shrug. ‘Don’t concern yourself.’

  He set off with a long stride and signalled three men waiting quietly behind him to follow. Only then did Lydia notice them. They were Kuomintang soldiers.

  He saw her right to her door.

  ‘Is your mother home?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she lied.

  She needed to be alone, needed silence. Chang An Lo had been so close, barely a whisper away, but now . . .

  Yet Alexei Serov ignored her protests and escorted her all the way up to the attic, ducking his head to avoid the slope of the roof over the last few stairs. Normally she would have died before taking anyone into their room. Even Polly. But today she didn’t care. He sat her down on the sofa and made her cups of tea, one after another, dark and sweet. He talked to her occasionally but not much, and when he sat down in the old chair opposite, she noticed the chipped cup in his hand. Slowly, like climbing up from some deep slimy tunnel underground, her mind was starting to focus again. His gaze was roaming around the room and when he saw her watching him, he smiled.

  ‘The colours are wonderful,’ he said and gestured to the magenta cushions and the haphazard swathes of material. ‘It’s nice.’

  Nice? How could anybody in their right mind call this miserable hole nice?

  She sipped her tea. Studied this man who had invaded her home. He was leaning back in the chair, fully at ease, not like Alfred who always felt edgy up here. She had the strange feeling that Alexei Serov would be at ease wherever he was. Or was it all an act? She couldn’t tell. His short brown hair was clean and springy, not brilliantined like most, and his eyes were the shade of green that made her think of the moss on the flat rock at Lizard Creek. He was long and languid all over, his face, his mouth, his body, the way he crossed his legs. Except for his hands. They were broad and muscular and looked as if he had borrowed them from someone else.

  ‘Feeling better?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He gave a low laugh as if he doubted her words but said, ‘Good. Then I shall leave you.’

  She tried to stand but found she was wrapped in her eiderdown. When had he put that there?

  He leaned forward, observing her closely. ‘It is dangerous for a woman to go down to the docks. On her own, it is suicidal.’

  ‘I wasn’t on my own. I was with a . . . companion. A Chinese companion, but he was . . .’ The word wouldn’t come.

  ‘Murdered?’

  She nodded jerkily. ‘Stabbed.’ Her hands started to tremble and she hid them under the quilt. ‘I have to report it to the police.’

  ‘Do you know his name? His address?’

  ‘Tan Wah. That’s all I know of him.’

  ‘I would leave it there, Lydia Ivanova.’ He spoke firmly. ‘The Chinese police will not want to know about it, I assure you. Unless he was rich, of course. That would change their outlook.’

  Tan Wah’s skeletal face, yellow as the loess dust that blew in on the wind, floated before her. ‘No, he wasn’t rich. But he deserves justice.’

  ‘Do you know the man who stabbed him? Or where to find this murderer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then forget it. He’s just one of many dying on the streets of Junchow.’

  ‘That is harsh.’

  ‘These are harsh times.’

  She knew he was right, but everything in her cried out against it. ‘It was for my coat. He wanted my coat. Tan Wah is dead for just a stupid hateful bloody coat . . .’

  She threw off the eiderdown and leaped to her feet, tearing at the buttons of her Christmas
coat, shaking the foul thing off her shoulders and hurling it to the floor. Alexei Serov rose, picked up the blue coat and very deliberately draped it over the chair he had been sitting in. Then he walked over to the small sink beside the stove and returned with an enamel bowl of water and a washcloth.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Wash your face.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your face.’ He put the wet cloth in her hand. ‘I must go now, but only if you’re sure you’re . . .’

  Lydia gasped. She had moved over to the mirror on the wall by the door and looked at herself. It was a shock. No wonder he had stared at her oddly. Her skin was paper white except for a fine smattering of blood spray all over her face and neck like dark brown freckles. One cheek was swollen where the American had slapped her, and there was a long scratch just in front of her left ear, most likely from the dash through the undergrowth in the woods. But worse was her hair. One whole side of it was stiff with dried blood. Tan Wah’s blood.

  She didn’t look at her eyes. She was frightened what she might see there.

  Quickly she wiped the cloth over her face, then hurried over to the sink and stuck her head under the tap. The water was ice cold but immediately she felt better. Cleaner. Inside. When she stood up she expected Alexei Serov to be gone, but he was standing behind her holding a towel. She rubbed her hair and her skin with it, fiercely, as if she could rub the images from her mind, but when she dragged a brush through her hair so roughly it snapped the handle, she made herself stop. Took a breath. Forced a laugh. It wasn’t much of a laugh.

  ‘Thank you, Alexei Serov. You have been kind.’

  For the first time he seemed awkward and ill-suited to the room as he clicked his heels and dipped his head in a formal bow. ‘I am pleased to assist.’ He marched over to the door and opened it. ‘I wish you a rapid recovery from your ordeal today.’

  ‘Tell me one thing.’

  He waited. His green eyes grew wary.

  ‘Why do you have Kuomintang soldiers at your beck and call?’

  ‘I work with them.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I am a military adviser. Trained in Japan.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then good-bye, Lydia Ivanova.’

  ‘Spasibo do svidania, Alexei Serov. Thank you and good-bye.’

  He nodded and left.

  Before his footsteps had faded on the stairs there was a sharp exclamation on the lower landing. It was her mother’s voice. After a brief torrent of Russian that Lydia couldn’t catch, Valentina burst into the attic room.

  ‘Lydia, I don’t ever want to see that Russian here again, do you hear me? Never. I forbid it. Are you listening? Damn, it’s cold in this wretched room. I absolutely will not have that hateful family anywhere near . . . Lydia, I am talking to you.’

  But Lydia had taken her eiderdown and curled up inside it on her bed. She closed her eyes and shut out the world.

  Chang An Lo. I am sorry.

  It was the middle of the night. Lydia was staring up into the darkness. A pain in her temples was thudding in rhythm with her heartbeat. She had worked it out. For Chang to send Tan Wah to Lizard Creek, he must be ill. Or wounded. It was the only explanation. Otherwise he would have come himself. She was sure of it. Sure as she was of her own life. And now because of her, Tan Wah was dead, which meant she had put Chang in greater danger. Without Tan Wah, Chang An Lo might die. Her throat ached with unshed tears.

  ‘Lydia?’

  ‘Yes, Mama?’

  ‘Tell me, dochenka, do you think I am a bad mother?’

  The attic room was as dark as death except for a thin slice of moonlight that drew a silver line down the centre of the curtain that formed Lydia’s bedroom wall. Her mother had drunk steadily all evening and had been muttering to herself in her own bed for some time, never a good sign.

  ‘What is bad, Mama?’

  ‘Don’t be foolish. You know perfectly well what bad means.’

  Lydia made the effort to talk. This would be their last night together in this room. ‘You have never cooked me plum pie. Nor sewn up holes in my clothes. Or bothered whether I brushed my teeth. Does that make you bad?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Of course not. So there’s your answer.’

  A wind rattled the window. To Lydia it sounded like Chang’s fingers on the pane. The noise of a distant car engine grew louder, then faded.

  ‘Tell me what I have done right, dochenka.’

  Lydia chose her words with care. ‘You kept me. Though you could have abandoned me at any time in St Mary’s Children’s Mission. You’d have been free. To do whatever you wanted.’

  Silence.

  ‘And you’ve given me music, all my life there’s been music. Oh Mama, you’ve given me kisses. And colourful scarves. And shown me how to use the tongue in my head, even if I’ve driven you crazy with it. Yes, you did,’ she insisted. ‘You taught me to think for myself and, best of all, you let me make my own mistakes.’

  A cloud passed over the moon and the sliver of light died in the room.

  Valentina still said nothing.

  ‘Mama, now it’s your turn. Tell me what I have done right.’ There was the sound of a deep intake of breath from the other end of the room and a low moan. It took a whole minute before Valentina spoke.

  ‘Just your being alive is right. It is everything.’

  Her mother’s words seemed to burn up the darkness and set fire to something inside Lydia’s head. She shut her eyes.

  ‘Now go to sleep, dochenka. We have a big day tomorrow.’

  But an hour later Valentina’s voice came again whispering through the darkness. ‘Be happy for me, darling.’

  ‘Happiness is hard.’

  ‘I know.’

  Lydia pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes to scrub away the pictures of Chang, alone and sick, behind her eyelids. Happiness she could get by without. But she was determined to hold on to hope.

  32

  Achingly beautiful.

  That’s how Theo thought Junchow looked this morning. It had snowed overnight and now the town dazzled. Its drab grey roofs had been transformed into sparkling white slopes with curling eaves like sledges, eager to slip and slide away. Even the solid British mansions were no more than fragile icing. The light from the sky was a strange muted pink that made everything glitter, including the school courtyard below, where the perfect imprint of the paw marks of a night creature trailed through the snow from one end to the other.

  ‘You go now, Tiyo, or you be late.’

  Reluctantly he abandoned the window. Li Mei was standing behind him in a virginal white gown. A snowflake. He took her in his arms and kissed her soft lips but released her when he saw liquid trickle down her cheek. She was melting. He took the top hat she was holding in her hands. It was seal grey and appeared ridiculous to him. He was wearing a morning coat with absurd tails and a stiff white collar. Li Mei touched his cheek, smelled the flower in his lapel, and straightened the hat on his head.

  ‘You look very fine, Tiyo, my love.’

  ‘A very fine idiot,’ he laughed.

  She laughed with him.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  ‘No, my love.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It would not be fitting.’

  ‘Bugger fitting.’

  ‘No, I do other things today.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘I go speak with my father.’

  ‘With Feng Tu Hong? Damn that devil. You swore you wished never to see him again.’

  She lowered her head, her black hair swaying in a rippling curtain between them. ‘I know. I break my oath. I pray the gods will forgive me.’

  ‘Don’t go to him, sweet one. Please. He might hurt you and I couldn’t bear that.’

  ‘Or I might hurt him,’ she said, lifting her almond-shaped eyes to his. Achingly beautiful.

  Theo tried to concentrate.
The wedding service was thankfully short. That was the advantage of a civil ceremony over one of those elaborately drawn-out church weddings, full of fluff and flummery that Theo loathed. This was better. Brief and to the point. Shame for Alfred though. He was quite put out by not being allowed to exchange vows in a church before God, but if he insisted on marrying a woman who had been married before, what did he expect? The Church of England was a bit of a stickler about these niceties.

  The bride was sparkling. That was Theo’s problem. He was sitting in the front row of seats behind the groom, only dimly aware of the other guests around him, of hats and perfumes and neatly tied cravats. It was the bride’s cream bolero that was bothering him. It was covered with tiny seed pearls that shimmered and shifted each time she breathed, seizing the light and swirling it around Theo’s head, making it difficult for him to think clearly. He focused on the back of her dress instead, on her slender hips under the ivory-coloured chiffon, on the soft curves and the sweet rise of her buttocks. Abruptly he wished he were at home with Li Mei. In the bath. His tongue trailing up her buttery thigh.

  He shook his head. Blinked hard. Emptied his brain of such thoughts. These days it was impossible to know where his mind would wander off next, and that worried him. He removed his grey gloves and chafed his hands together, oblivious to the noise, but a woman behind him tapped his shoulder pointedly, so he ceased. There were no more than about thirty people present, mainly colleagues of Alfred’s from the Daily Herald, and Theo recognised one or two chaps from the club as well, but there was a large-bosomed elderly woman in taffeta, very Russian, whom he didn’t know and a bright but stringy couple with clouds of white hair who smiled a lot. Vaguely he recalled Alfred mentioning that they were retired missionaries who’d lived in the same house as Valentina.

  ‘Do you, Alfred Frederick Parker, take this woman . . . ?’

  No, they’d got it all wrong. It was this woman who was taking Alfred. It was obvious to everyone but the poor blighter himself. This woman and her daughter. Theo brushed a hand over his burning eyes. Where was the daughter?