The Red Scarf

by Kate Furnivall

  It was as if she could see the thoughts form in his head.

  “My beloved,” she crooned, and she pressed him back onto the pillow.

  She trailed her tongue up his cheek, then down the other. Its pliant warmth seemed to envelop him, soft and enticing, as it flicked across his forehead and along the line of his nose, a touch on his lips and a nudge on his teeth and down to his chin. He knew what she was doing, and his heart melted. She was cleansing him.

  Her breath was coming fast as she lowered her head to his chest, and he gasped when her tongue flicked out once more as slowly, sensuously, in unbearable circles she started to lick the beatings and the humiliations out of his body. He buried his hands in her hair that rippled like moonlight, squeezing it tight in his fists, and he let out a howl that tore everything out of him but his feelings for this woman.

  “I love you, Sofia.”

  “My Mikhail.”

  Their words were hoarse with need, and her skin exuded a musk that swept through his blood, as her skin became his skin. Her blood became his blood. When he lay above the length of her shining pearl body he held himself back, lovingly brushed a tangle of hair from her face, and looked close into her huge wild eyes.

  “Sofia, sweetest heart,” he murmured, “Sofia, is this . . . ?”

  Her lips opened in spasm and her face turned away from his. “Is this my first time?” she moaned.

  “If it is, I—”

  “No, Mikhail. Don’t worry, this isn’t my first time.”

  The bitterness in her voice was harsh. Gently he turned her face back to him and kissed her lips, soothing, murmuring, whispering to her until they relaxed under his, entwined his tongue with hers and felt her naked hips rise against him.

  “We’ll make this the first time, my love,” he breathed into her mouth. “For both of us.”

  THIS is as it should be.”

  Sofia whispered the words to the darkness. No brutal fumbling behind a shed in the rain, no careless ripping open of her flesh as though she were dead meat. This is as it should be, a glorious outburst of joy that transformed her body into something wonderful and vibrant, something she barely recognized. She brushed her lips on Mikhail’s wrist, tasting his skin once more.

  “This is as it should be,” she whispered.

  She sighed, unable to make herself leave him. The kerosene lamp in the living room had burned out, so that the night’s darkness was complete, denser now as dawn approached, and she knew she had to move. But instead she nestled closer in the crook of Mikhail’s arm, rubbing her skin against his, feeling the warmth of him as he slept wrapped around her. She loved the weight of his body against hers. She listened to the rhythm of his breathing and wished sweet dreams into whatever life he was leading behind his flickering eyelids.

  Her mind shut down to all else. Everything that was not love ceased to exist, and even though she knew for certain there would be a heavy price to pay, right now the price seemed nothing. Nothing. She slid a hand possessively down the length of his thigh and heard his breathing pick up as if she had slid into his dream. Her fingers sought out the bruised swelling on the side of his leg that throbbed hot as a reminder of where he had been and what had been done to him. It was all she needed. Anger drove her from his bed where love could not.

  She dressed quickly and quietly, then drank the shot of vodka she had abandoned on the table last night. But before she left the house to step out into the early morning darkness, she returned soundlessly to Mikhail’s bedside and bent over his sleeping form. So lightly it was barely a kiss, she brushed her lips against his forehead and even in the dark knew his mouth had curled into a smile as he slept.

  She longed to keep him like this, hers forever, hers alone, to love and to cherish. To live a whole life together till they were old and gray and could look back on these days with laughter and say that magical phrase Do you remember when . . . ? Why not? She could. He loved her, he’d said so. Her heart tightened painfully in her chest. She could. It would be so easy to say nothing and start a new life here and now with Mikhail.

  Oh Anna, I can’t.

  Slowly she straightened up, her bones heavy and cumbersome, lifeless things that were no use to her without his touch on them, without his kisses on them, without his arms crushing them. She stepped back from the bed and tears filled her eyes. She turned away and from her pocket drew the key Pyotr had made for her.

  Today everything would change.

  PYOTR heard movement in the house. It woke him but he buried his face in his pillow, refusing to wake up. What was happening to him and to his world? It felt as if the foundations were cracking under his feet, and it terrified him. He tried to drive himself back into the comfort of his dream, but it was no good; the dream was out of reach. Like Papa.

  The noise of a saucepan banging on the stove in the kitchen reached his ears, and his heart gave a little skip behind his ribs. Sofia was still here. That cheered him and he jumped out of bed. She’d know what he should do, she’d help him . . . but Sofia was a fugitive. She’d actually confessed to him that she’d escaped from prison, so by helping her, he was making himself an enemy of the people.

  That thought made him feel dizzy.

  Is that how Comrade Stalin felt last year when his wife, Nadezhda Allilueva, shot herself inside the Kremlin? Sick and uncertain? Where did love weigh in the balance against the words of the Great Leader? He kicked a shoe across his tiny room in an outburst of anger. Most of all it frightened him to think what might be happening to Papa, and in a rush to escape his thoughts he hurried out of his room.

  The figure at the table rose slowly from the chair, the movement awkward and ungainly, not like his father at all. Not quick and confident like Papa. Yet they were Papa’s strong shoulders and Papa’s voice calling his name.

  “Pyotr.”

  Pyotr threw himself into his father’s open arms, and together they tumbled back into the chair, where Pyotr clung tight and hid his face in his father’s shirt. He was crying like a girl and didn’t want Papa to see.

  “Pyotr, my son.”

  Something in his voice made Pyotr look up. Papa’s cheeks were wet with tears.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  AN unanticipated pleasure, my dear. I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

  Deputy Stirkhov exhaled a gray snake of smoke that coiled around the room as he waved Sofia into a chair in his gleaming chrome office. A vodka bottle sat on his desk without its lid. It was half-empty, but the glass beside it was full.

  Sofia slid onto the leather seat in front of the desk. “You underestimate me,” she smiled.

  “You have information for me?”

  “Of course. It’s what you paid me for. Didn’t I promise it?”

  A satisfied smile split his smooth moon face in half. “Not everyone does what they promise in this world.”

  “I do. If you think otherwise, you don’t know me.”

  “I intend to get to know you much better,” he said smoothly, reaching into his desk drawer. He drew out another shot glass, filled it, and pushed it across the desk to her. It had Lapland reindeer etched on its surface.

  “Thank you,” she said, but she didn’t pick it up.

  She felt his gaze on her blouse. It was one of Zenia’s, of homespun cloth, a dusky rose pink with embroidered woodland flowers on the collar and cuffs.

  “I am informed that a member of your village is in prison right now.” He seemed to be talking to her breasts.

  “If you mean Comrade Pashin, he has been released.”

  His eyes shot up to hers. “Indeed? When?”

  “Today.”

  “That’s a shame; I was sure they’d hold on to our wayward factory director. Dagorsk is better off without the likes of him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a troublemaker. Oh yes, I grant that he knows his stuff as an engineer and has shaken up those lazy imbeciles who work in his factory, but he’s one of those arrogant bastards who think they kno
w better than the Party line.” He leaned forward on his elbows and pointed a manicured finger at her. “That one is not a man of the people like he pretends. He’s hiding something, I’m certain. I tell you, I can feel it in my piss every time I see him. Just wait”—he threw the vodka down his throat and stubbed out his cigarette, still jabbing at it long after the stub was out—“he’ll trip himself up one day, and I’ll be there to catch him.”

  Sofia scooped up her drink from the desk. For a moment it seemed as though she was going to throw it in his face, but instead she raised her glass to the portrait of Stalin and drank it straight down. She made a soft noise in the back of her throat that was almost a hiss, and then she smiled at Stirkhov.

  “How perceptive you are, Comrade Deputy.”

  “And how very beautiful you are, Comrade Morozova.”

  She let her eyelashes flicker and put a hand to her throat, as though to still the sudden race of her heart. “I’m glad we understand each other,” she smiled. “Now we can do business.”

  “So what’s this information you’ve brought me from Tivil? A kolkhoznik has been late to work, has he? Or did one of your hamfisted peasants get into a drunken brawl and now is being denounced for singing obscene words to the tune of the Internationale?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Someone in Tivil is hoarding, and I mean large amounts of potatoes, rutabagas, and grain.”

  It was like throwing a grenade. Comrade Stirkhov’s mouth hung open.

  “Now I’ll grab Tivil by the throat,” he growled, “and shake it till it begs for mercy. Who is this enemy of the people?”

  SOFIA raced back to Tivil. The morning sky was a vivid splash of blue, and a handful of crows hung on the breeze barely dipping their wings. The street was noisy when she reached the village, because two women and a gaggle of girls were trying to wash a goat under the water pump and the animal was putting up a struggle. Its bristly white coat was caked in mud from the pond, and the children were shrieking with laughter each time it butted their skinny chests. Sofia paused, observing the scene, memorizing it, savoring the ordinariness of it. From now on, nothing would be ordinary.

  She headed over to the school where summer camp was still in full progress. The yard was bustling with shining white Young Pioneer shirts and shining bright eyes, young bodies all racing around and performing perfect cartwheels. Yes, she thought, Zenia was right. These are the future of Tivil, and it astonished Sofia to realize how much she cared. This village had in some strange way nestled tight against her heart.

  “Have you come to read to us?”

  It was Anastasia, swinging on the fence with bare feet, a tendril of her hair threaded between her lips.

  “No, not today, Anastasia. Another time, I promise. I need to speak to your head teacher, so will you do me a favor and tell her I’m here?”

  At that moment she spotted Pyotr’s unruly mop of brown hair. He was over in the shade of a clump of alder trees and was obviously demonstrating to a circle of younger boys how to build a cantilever bridge with logs and planks. It looked like an elaborate construction to Sofia’s untutored eye, and when a child leaped onto the central span and bounced up and down on it, she held her breath. But it didn’t collapse, and she felt an absurd rush of pride in him. Anastasia’s eager eyes followed Sofia’s to Pyotr, and her small chest heaved in a silent sigh. Then she skipped off to the stretch of parched grass where Elizaveta Lishnikova was timing races with a large stopwatch.

  For one vivid second, Sofia wanted the world to stop. Right here and now. With children at play and Mikhail safe in his bed, the sun shining and herself standing in the village street as if she belonged there. Just stop. Here and now in this small moment of happiness. But she drew in a deep shuddering breath and moved on to the next moment and the next after that. Because there was her promise to Anna.

  And if Anna was already dead? If all this was for nothing? What then?

  WHAT happened last night?”

  Elizaveta gazed sternly at Sofia. "You were there,” she said. "You have eyes in your head. You saw what happened yourself.”

  They were standing in the teacher’s elegantly furnished living room. Pictures lined the walls, old photographs of men in extravagant uniforms and formidable women in large dresses, with medals and jewelry hand-tinted to shine out. Sofia wanted to spend time examining them, seeking out Elizaveta Lishnikova’s strong features in their faces, but such curiosity would not be welcomed. Instead she asked the question again.

  “What happened last night? You are a rational person. I don’t believe you would take part in a ceremony that was . . . unhealthy.”

  “Is that what you think it was? Unhealthy?”

  “No.” Sofia shook her head. “No, I don’t. But I’ve seen the damage it does to Rafik and the way it makes him ill.”

  Elizaveta frowned and ran a finger along the arch of one eyebrow, smoothing out the thoughts behind it. “Sit down,” she said.

  Sofia chose a seat on a fragile chaise longue, and to her surprise Elizaveta came and sat beside her, her back erect and her hands folded quietly on her lap. The pose made Sofia think immediately of the aristocratic women in the photographs.

  “Comrade Lishnikova, I want to understand more about what it is the gypsies do.” Sofia looked into the proud brown eyes. “Please. Help me.”

  The eyes didn’t change, but the mouth opened a fraction and gave an involuntary smile. “I don’t know you, young woman, and this is a dangerous society we are living in, riddled with informers eager to earn a cheap rouble by making up lies about—”

  “I’m not an informer.”

  “You’ve been seen entering Deputy Stirkhov’s office.”

  “Word travels fast.”

  “This is Soviet Russia, so what do you expect? But tell me, if not to inform, why were you there?” The older woman lifted her chin and peered down her long nose through half-closed eyes.

  “To protect Tivil.”

  “I think you mean, to protect Comrade Pashin.”

  “Both.”

  Elizaveta nodded, and the firm lines of her face softened. “Love is not the best guide, my dear. It makes you do things that . . .” She shrugged eloquently.

  Sofia laughed. “. . . That are not always wise?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll take that risk.”

  “Rafik has taken a risk trusting you, a stranger.” She held up a hand impatiently. “No, don’t tell me you’re his niece because I don’t believe it. But . . .” She paused and studied Sofia’s face. “Rafik has abilities that are beyond our understanding, and I trust his instinct.”

  “Thank you.”

  “So I will tell you what I think happened last night, if you wish.”

  Sofia leaned closer. “Please.”

  “You have to understand that Rafik has an extraordinary mind. Whether the skills he possesses are self-taught or inherited from his gypsy ancestry, who’s to say?”

  “Is it hypnotism?”

  “It’s more than that, I believe. He has a power of mind that can transcend the thoughts of others and manipulate them, but it’s at a cost to himself. He once told me it causes hemorrhages inside his skull.”

  Sofia shivered. Outside, the sound of children’s laughter belonged to a different world.

  “So you help him, is that it?” Sofia said quietly. “You and the blacksmith and Zenia, to lessen the damage he does to himself.”

  “Yes.”

  “So why choose me?”

  “I don’t know. You must ask Rafik that question. Each night he spins what he calls a thread of protection around the village, pacing out a circle. He says if he could pace around the whole of Russia, he would.”

  Sofia smiled. “He’s a good man, but has he really helped Tivil?”

  “Good God, yes. We’re still alive, aren’t we? Other villages all around us have been decimated by famine and sucked dry by troops enforcing quotas, until some
times no children at all have survived. Listen to ours.” The shouts of the Young Pioneers at play made them both smile. “Tivil is still standing,” Elizaveta said proudly.

  “With your help.”

  “I have no idea whether the input of someone like myself, a dethroned tsarist, or of that godless reprobate, Pokrovsky, provides any help or not in those ceremonies. But . . .” She paused and rubbed two fingertips against her temples. “Sometimes I feel things. In here.” Her long fingers traced circles on her transparent skin. “When I’m with Rafik, I do believe.” She shook her head and her voice grew stronger, more certain. “I hope that helps.”

  “So you believe the strange ceremony last night with all five of us might have created enough power of . . . some mysterious kind . . . to cause Mikhail’s release?”

  “It might. Oh, call it a miracle or call it a freak coincidence if you prefer, but the point is that Comrade Pashin was released.”

  She rose to her feet, and Sofia understood that the conversation was over.

  “One last thing,” Sofia said quickly. “Tell me, please . . .” She hesitated as a roll-top desk in the corner caught her eye. It was made of exquisite satinwood, and the top wasn’t quite closed. Just visible were a square inkpad, an ink stamp, and what looked like a large magnifying glass. “Tell me whether you know anything about a hut in the forest that—”

  “There are many huts up there that hunters use,” Elizaveta interrupted brusquely. She walked over to the desk and pushed it shut. “I know nothing about huts. Ask the blacksmith, he’s the one who’s often roaming around up there—when he’s out hunting, I mean.”