The Concubine's Secret

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘1908?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what it said. The stones spelled out Nyet and 1908.’ Lydia frowned and turned to Elena. ‘I don’t understand what it means. What happened in 1908?’

  On the train back to Felanka she had cudgelled her brain into trying to work out the significance of the number. 1908. But however meticulously she trawled through her knowledge of Russian history, nothing came to mind that made the slightest bit of sense.

  ‘1908?’ Elena asked again. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t 1905? That’s when the first revolution started in St Petersburg with the Bloody Sunday massacre. Maybe it’s telling you he’s in St Petersburg.’

  ‘No, it was definitely an eight, not a five. I’m sure of it. 1908.’

  They were walking back from the station and had stopped at a roadside stall which sold hot pirozhki to passers-by. Lydia was holding her hands out to the heat of the brazier, eyeing Popkov’s broad uncommunicative back as he waited for the little pies to be fried. Since leaving the station he hadn’t spoken to her. She stamped her feet on the hard compacted snow, frustrated by his silence and by the cryptic message from the camp. She rubbed her gloves together hard to bring blood to her fingers and turned to Elena. ‘The Tunguska event happened in 1908, didn’t it, the comet that exploded over Siberia?’

  ‘Da, but I don’t see a connection.’

  ‘Neither do I, except that it flattened millions of trees, just like the prisoners are doing.’ She looked at the older woman hopefully. ‘I thought you might think of something.’

  Elena shook her head regretfully. ‘Yet it must be obvious or they wouldn’t have left you that message. Can you think of any connection to yourself?’

  ‘No, it’s four years before I was born.’

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘They weren’t married then, but they both lived in St Petersburg. Do you think it’s referring to something that happened in St Petersburg that year?’

  ‘Like what?’

  They stared at each other blankly and shook their heads.

  Popkov took a bite out of one of the pirozhki and breathed hot air at the two women as he thrust a pie at each of them.

  ‘It’s not a date,’ he growled and turned to the pie seller for more.

  ‘What?’ Lydia demanded.

  ‘You heard.’

  She prodded his back. ‘What do you mean, it’s not a date?’

  He shovelled another pie into his mouth. How could he do that without burning his tongue?

  ‘How do you know it’s not a date?’

  Popkov lumbered round to face her and she could still feel his anger at her, bristling on his clothes and lurking in his thick shaggy beard. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, to promise she wouldn’t stray again. But she couldn’t do it.

  ‘Tell me, Liev,’ she said softly, ‘if 1908 isn’t a date, what is it?’

  He glared at her and plucked at his eyepatch with a greasy finger. ‘When the prison guards are drunk, they blurt out things. I’ve heard from several of them about the places so secret the authorities don’t give them names, just numbers. 1908 is one of them. I’ve heard it mentioned.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘It’s a secret prison.’

  ‘A secret prison?’ The bones in Lydia’s face seemed to freeze.

  ‘Da. I have no idea where, except that it’s somewhere in Moscow.’

  Lydia seized the front of his coat and hugged it to her. ‘Then that’s where we’ll go. To Moscow.’

  18

  The silence. The stillness. The sameness. They rob you. Steal your sense of self.

  In a set of bright basement rooms deep under the streets of Moscow, a tall man leaned over a clutch of technical drawings spread out over the surface of his desk and for a moment wondered whether he was dead or alive. Sometimes he couldn’t tell.

  Week by week, the days scarcely varied. The electric light was never switched off and the concept of darkness became a luxury he craved. He worked whenever he chose, whenever he could concentrate his mind, unaware of time or routine. Right now, was it day or night? He had no idea. He released the pair of callipers from his hand and let them clatter on to the wooden surface of the desk, just to hear a noise of some kind other than the hum of the hot water pipes that trailed along the walls.

  He rested his chin on his hand. What were other people doing? Eating? Singing? Best of all, talking? He allowed his mind to create a world up there above his head, a city where snow fell on to golden church domes in a thick lacy curtain. Where sounds were muffled and there was the swish of greased runners, and hopeful young street urchins touted firewood for sale, hauling it along the gutters on sledges.

  Moscow was alive above him. Living and laughing. He could smell the dough in the ovens and taste the sour cream on his tongue . . . but only in his dreams. In his waking hours there was nothing but silence, stillness and sameness.

  ‘So you have a daughter.’

  Jens Friis made no response. He was sharpening a pencil when the guard rattled his keys, unlocked the heavy metal door and entered the workroom with a grimace on his face. It was the fat one, Poliakov. He wasn’t so bad. Better than some of the other bastards. And this one liked to talk, even if it was just to poke and prod the prisoners out of their carefully constructed shells. Jens didn’t mind that. He’d developed a knack of letting the taunts slide past, and responding with comments that sometimes succeeded in enticing the warder into conversation.

  But this. So you have a daughter. This was different.

  He sat back in his seat, a padded comfortable armchair in which he did most of his thinking, and showed no hint of surprise.

  ‘What do you mean, Poliakov?’

  ‘Your daughter.’

  ‘You’ve got it wrong. I have no family. They were lost in the terrors of 1917.’

  The warder leaned against the doorframe, his belly straining at the buttons of his shirt, his round brown eyes full of amusement. That was a bad sign.

  ‘No daughter?’

  ‘Nyet,’ Jens repeated.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ But his heart stopped.

  Poliakov pulled out a cigarette, lit it with a match which he dropped on the floor, and took a long drag before letting loose a conspiratorial smile. ‘Now what’s the point of lying to me, Friis? I thought I was your friend.’

  At least here they were called by their names. In the camp it had been just impersonal numbers. Jens dismissed the guard’s words as another attempt to provoke him, so he refused to rise to the bait.

  ‘Any chance of a smoke?’ he asked instead.

  ‘I tell you, Friis, you’re going to love listening to this. Your daughter has turned up at your last camp, it seems. Don’t look so shocked. She’s searching for you in the wrong place, thousands of miles away from here. Isn’t that funny?’ He chuckled at first, but when he saw the expression on his prisoner’s face he burst out laughing. ‘What chance does a stupid kid have of tracing you here?’

  What chance?

  Jens wanted to strangle him, to squeeze that thick lardy neck. He stood up abruptly and as he did so a flash of fiery curls roared into his brain. A dainty heart-shaped face. A mischievous smile that could pulverise his heart. Lydia? Is it you? My Lydia?

  Could it really be her?

  Sweat broke out on his skin. Was his daughter alive? After all these years that he’d believed her dead. And his wife?

  Oh dear God, let my beautiful Valentina be alive. Let my little Lydia be . . . He choked.

  For twelve long barren years he’d lived without them, without even the memory of the two people he had loved most in the world. Because to think of them, of their smiles and their clear voices, would destroy him. So for twelve lonely years he’d lived without love and without hope. Only now when Poliakov said so slyly, She’s searching for you, did images of the moment he lost them come crashing back.

  He pictured once more the icy wasteland of Siberia, white and monotonous. The gre
y frozen slats of the cattle wagons packed with fear and fury, as the train with its cargo of fleeing White Russians growled its way across Russia in search of freedom. Valentina’s breath on his cheek, the weight of their child asleep in his arms. Then came the rifles, the men on horseback with hate in their eyes, the cries as the women and children were snatched from the train by the Bolsheviks. In flashes he recalled again the pitiless gaze of the Red Army commander as the men were herded away to be shot. Valentina’s eyes huge with an agony of despair. Lydia’s thin piercing scream. The terror spread around them as solid as the frozen snow under their feet.

  He jerked his mind away from that moment, the way he would jerk his hand away from red-hot metal.

  ‘Valentina?’ he whispered.

  ‘Who the fuck is Valentina?’ Poliakov snapped.

  Jens suddenly hated this guard, loathed and detested him for enticing hope back into his life. Hope was dead. Long ago he had slain it, a many-headed monster that made life in the prisons unbearable. But now it had risen from the dead to torment him again. The pencil in his hand snapped.

  19

  ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘When did she leave?’ Alexei asked.

  ‘A while ago.’

  ‘A week? A month? Longer?’

  The concierge shook her head unhelpfully. She was a sturdy comrade who took her job seriously. ‘I don’t keep track of everyone’s movements, you know.’

  I bet you do, comrade. I bet that’s exactly what you do.

  But she wasn’t going to share the information with him. He couldn’t blame her. He looked a mess, his filthy clothes and unshaven appearance didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

  ‘I’m her brother.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I was delayed elsewhere. I thought she’d still be here in Felanka.’

  ‘Well, she’s not.’

  ‘Did she leave anything? A note perhaps?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  Alexei rested his elbows on her desk and leaned so far forward it occurred to him she might think he was trying to kiss her. He smiled but it wasn’t friendly. ‘I believe she did,’ he said evenly.

  The woman thought about that. ‘I’ll check.’

  She backed away, rummaged in a drawer and, after a show of considerable effort, produced an envelope. Scrawled across it in large looping letters was his name, Alexei Serov. He realised he’d never seen his sister’s handwriting before in all the time they’d been travelling together. It surprised him. It was bold - but that much he would have guessed. What he hadn’t expected was the softness within it, the uncertain ends to the words and a carefulness in the forming of the capital S. Oh Lydia. Where the hell are you? Why didn’t you wait?

  His fear was that she’d gone to the camp and been arrested.

  ‘And the man we were with? The big—’

  ‘I remember him.’ For the first time she smiled and it made her almost pretty. ‘He’s gone too. They went together.’

  Her memory was improving, so he decided to try again. ‘I left a bag in my room. Is it—’

  ‘Any possessions remaining in the room are kept for three days and then sold to cover any unpaid rent.’

  ‘But I’m sure my sister would have paid anything owing.’

  The woman shrugged carelessly. She was growing bored.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said politely and smiled at her. ‘Spasibo.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Could you make sure my bag is not also hidden away somewhere and forgotten?’ He said it pleasantly enough, but one look at his eyes made her hesitate and she started to shake her head. She moved over to a dark cubicle behind her, disappeared for no more than one minute and returned empty-handed.

  ‘Nyet,’ she said. ‘Nichevo. Nothing.’

  ‘Thank you, comrade. For your . . . help.’

  My dear Alexei,

  I’m writing in the hope that you may return here to Felanka. I want you to find this letter. I waited for you, Alexei. Three whole weeks - with no word. But you didn’t come back. Where are you? I swing between being frantic with worry one moment and angry with you for deserting me the next. Don’t you care if you hurt me?

  To practical matters:

  1. I enclose some money. In case you are in any trouble.

  2. Your bag is missing from your room. So I must assume you planned your leaving. Popkov has haunted the bars to hear any word of you but no one is saying anything. Maybe they know nothing.

  3. Now for the big one. I am going to Moscow. With Popkov and Elena. I’m not sure about Elena, why she is sticking so close, but she and my beloved bear seem to have taken a liking to each other.

  4. Why Moscow? Papa is there. Think about it, Alexei. Papa in Moscow, not in a coal mine. I could cry with joy. I was given a number - 1908. I thought it was a date. It’s not. Popkov tells me it is the number of a secret prison in Moscow. Thank God for Popkov.

  We leave by train today. I wish you were with us. Take good care of yourself, my only brother. If you find this letter and decide to come to Moscow, meet me at noon outside the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer. I’ll try to be waiting there each day.

  From your sister with love - and fury,

  Lydia

  There was no money in the letter. Of course there wasn’t. Concierges were expert at steaming open sealed correspondence. It was a fact as well known in Soviet Russia as the colour of the snow after the wind blows in from the factories on the edge of town - everyone was aware of it, took it for granted. Except Lydia, it seemed.

  The money was gone and he had no way of proving it was ever there. But that was the least of his concerns. He sat alone on an iron bench in the deserted park with its elaborate wrought-iron lamp posts, and finished off the last of the vodka. He wanted the liquid to burn away the hard lump that had lodged somewhere just below his throat.

  My beloved bear.

  Thank God for Popkov.

  That’s what she’d said.

  To hell with the dumb Cossack. That bastard must be so pleased with himself. Just because he’d been a servant on her grandfather’s estate and had now shifted that dog-like devotion to Lydia herself, it didn’t give him any right to take over now, whisking her off to Moscow on some wild and dangerous goose chase. Of course Jens Friis wasn’t there. It was just a terrible waste of their time and resources. And the plague of it was - should he remain here in Felanka, waiting for their inevitable return? Or chase after them and drag them back?

  Don’t you care if you hurt me?

  I care, my little sister. I care.

  It was the hair that did it for him. The way it hung in a dense glossy swathe around her shoulders, a handful of dark waves pinned up into an elaborate coiffure on top of her head. Alexei recognised it immediately, though for a moment he had no recall of who the woman was.

  Mid-afternoon and the day was grey. Iron-grey, he told himself with a wry smile, suitable for an iron town. He was making his way down Felanka’s main street, avoiding the grander buildings and the snow heaped in the gutters, heading straight for the more rundown areas where the street traders would have their cheaper wares on display. He was weary. Sore and hungry. He hadn’t eaten for two days, trying to preserve the few roubles that lay secreted in his pocket.

  That was when he saw the woman’s hair, and the long silver fur coat that swung as she moved. She was standing at the edge of the kerb, attempting to cross the busy road at one of the spots where the gutter had been cleared of snow to allow pedestrians passage. As she flicked her head from side to side, watching out for the traffic in both directions, their eyes met for one fleeting second.

  His brain was sluggish. Infections and fever had taken their toll, so his reactions were slow. If he’d had something to eat, something to give him the strength to clear his mind, maybe what followed might have worked out differently. The woman stared, then abandoned the kerb and walked briskly towards him across the frozen pavement, so purposeful in her stride he knew she wanted something.r />
  ‘Well, you’re certainly a mess, aren’t you?’

  This was not exactly the greeting he’d expected. She didn’t smile, just looked him up and down the way she would a homemade dress on a hanger, and that was when he remembered who the dark hair belonged to. The camp Commandant’s wife.

  ‘Dobriy den, good afternoon,’ Alexei responded. ‘I’m surprised you recognise me.’ He rubbed a hand over his rough beard. ‘But you,’ he said gallantly, ‘are unforgettable.’

  She gave him a look. ‘Don’t lie. At first you had no recall of who I was.’

  ‘You’re quick,’ he smiled, meaning it as a compliment. ‘I apologise. I’ve been unwell.’

  ‘That’s obvious.’

  ‘But you are looking even more elegant than ever.’

  ‘I’ve just had my hair done. Like it?’ She patted the pinned loops and her carmine lips curved, inviting praise.

  ‘It looks delightful.’ He gestured vaguely up the street. ‘Especially here. You add colour.’ He studied her carefully groomed face with its narrow bones and deep-set eyes that seemed to hide in shadows. ‘You bring style to the streets of Felanka.’

  She laughed but it was a practised effort that fooled neither of them. Alexei guessed she was about five years older than he was, probably in her early thirties, but there was something fragile about her that was at odds with her glossy smile and confident walk. He slid a hand into his pocket and prodded the pathetic huddle of roubles.

  ‘Comrade,’ he smiled, ‘let me have the pleasure of buying you a drink.’

  ‘I’m looking for the girl you were with in Selyansk.’

  ‘She’s gone,’ Alexei said.

  ‘So it seems.’