The Concubine's Secret

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘They say it’s the Land of Opportunity,’ she said, her voice growing animated. ‘Wide open spaces. There’s room for everyone. We could start a whole new life together without all the old rules. In America we would be free.’

  He reached up and tapped the side of her forehead. ‘This is the only place a person can be free. In the mind.’

  She smiled. ‘According to you, my love, everything is in the mind.’

  ‘And this? Is this in my mind?’

  He pulled her head down to his and kissed her soft mouth, because her lips had said enough. But with her eyes shining silver, she astonished him by murmuring, ‘Chang An Lo, it seems to me it is you who are running from the future. Away from what is real. I am the one preparing us.’

  ‘Preparing us for what?’

  ‘For whatever is to come.’

  ‘Preparing us how?’

  The gleam of her wide eyes flared bright and seemed to arc deep into him. ‘By loving you,’ she whispered.

  My precious Daughter,

  How can I tell you what it meant to me to receive your note? It was as if I’d been living in a black and rancid hole in the ground for the last twelve years and had suddenly come up for air. It filled me with joy.

  Even my companions here questioned my unaccustomed good temper! I fear I have become cold and difficult, turned in on my miserable self and my endless thoughts, but that is the way I have learned to survive. Not letting the outside world take bites out of me. Everything in me was focused on self, because without self there is no hope of survival in the brutal, barbaric Soviet zoo out there in the Siberian wilderness. It was how I held myself together. Stripped of humanity. Just the hard core of self. I am not nice to know.

  Now you are here. My daughter. Lydia, you are blood of my blood. You are all that was best in me, while I retain the worst. In you I can laugh and sing and love and be the person I yearn to be once more but know I no longer can. You are my life, Lydia. Live it well.

  I grieve deeply for the loss of your mother. It is terrible that we have both left you, unguarded and alone. Forgive us, my daughter. Give my fondest thoughts and gratitude to Alexei and that old reprobate, Popkov.

  I love you.

  Your joyful Papa.

  Lydia stood by the window, gazing out but seeing nothing, her back to Popkov, Elena and the boy. For a long time she made no sound and would not relinquish her hold on the sheet of paper in her hand, any more than she would relinquish her hold on life. They made her tea which she didn’t drink, and draped a coat over her shoulders as the sun escaped behind the roofs and the courtyard below was plunged into black shadow.

  That was when she turned to Popkov and handed him the letter.

  ‘Liev,’ she said, ‘we have to get him out.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Alexei, please.’

  ‘No, Lydia, no more letters.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I’ve already warned you. The risk is too great. It will alert the authorities and end up packing Jens Friis off to one of the mines as punishment. Can’t you see? You’re making things worse for him, not better. Is that what you want?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then you have to stop at once.’

  They were in Maksim Voshchinsky’s living room. Lydia hated having this argument in the first place, but to have it in front of the thief made her sick. Nevertheless she had no choice. Until he succeeded in finding a room of his own, Alexei had abandoned her empty bed in the room with Popkov and Elena, and was sleeping in Maksim’s apartment. But by the look of him he hadn’t slept at all well. Damn him. She couldn’t help hoping it was an excess of brandy and late night cards and too many cigarettes, rather than anything more sinister. The thought of her brother crawling through windows and stuffing someone else’s clocks and candlesticks into sacks sent the soles of her feet into spasms of fear. She didn’t trust this Maksim. Any more than he trusted her.

  ‘Alexei,’ she said with a patience that astonished even herself, ‘I am grateful that you and Maksim are working out a—’

  ‘No need for you to be grateful, my dear,’ Maksim said with a smile so smooth and empty she wanted to knock it off his face.

  ‘Of course I’m grateful to you, pakhan. Alexei is my dear brother, so—’

  ‘Brothers and sisters don’t exist in the vory v zakone,’ Maksim pointed out. He leaned towards her in his chair, gathering the soft folds of his liver-coloured dressing gown around his fleshy body, and he let her see into his eyes. Let her peer at the sharpened daggers in there. He wanted her to know. To make no mistake. She blinked but didn’t look away.

  ‘Lydia, my dear,’ he said in a tone as pleasant as though he were about to offer her more tea, ‘go away. Alexei and I are busy.’

  She remained seated. ‘I’d like to hear, if I may, the plans you have for—’

  ‘When we are ready, you will know.’

  She didn’t argue but neither did she believe him.

  ‘The truck?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Alexei,’ Maksim addressed his new vor, ‘is this necessary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  At least that was something. She smiled at her brother but he gave nothing in return. She wanted to seize his hand and drag him out of here.

  Maksim applied his empty smile with a sigh that rumpled his moustache and wobbled his chins. ‘We’ve tracked the truck.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘To a location well outside Moscow.’

  ‘I’d like to see it.’

  ‘Nyet.’

  ‘I assume it’s well guarded.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I need to see it, Maksim. Please.’

  ‘Nyet.’

  She thought fast. It was that or scratch the bastard’s empty eyes out.

  ‘My brother will not want me to make a nuisance of myself, any more than you do. He knows how difficult I can be. After this,’ she smiled sweetly, ‘I shall not bother either of you any more.’

  His small eyes didn’t even flicker. ‘Agreed.’

  It all happened so quickly. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Now go,’ the thief said politely.

  ‘May I have the letter back?’ she asked Alexei and held out her hand. She was frightened he would destroy it if she left it with him. He’d been so annoyed. Even now she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t tear it up in front of her just to make his point.

  ‘No more letters,’ he reiterated as he passed it to her.

  Lydia took it and tried to hide her relief. She nodded stiffly to Alexei, rose to her feet and moved over to the door. She made herself smile at Maksim before leaving.

  ‘Thank you, pakhan. Spasibo. I look forward to hearing from you soon.’

  A cool stare was the only response. Alexei had the courtesy to join her at the door but his manner was still withdrawn. She knew what the real problem was, where the hurt and the anger came from. I love you, their father had written to her in the letter. But only scrawled Give my fondest thoughts and gratitude to Alexei. A world of difference. She didn’t want that gap to open up at their feet. She might tumble into the void.

  She said quietly, ‘Walk with me to the corner of the street, Alexei.’

  In his coat Alexei looked more like his old self. She was pleased to see it was the one with the tear in the collar, the one against which she’d slept on the train with her head rolling around on its itchy shoulder. At least Maksim Voshchinsky had not replaced that. Not yet. Outside the street was almost deserted, instead of the usual bustle and rush of workers, and the chill air smelled of burned rubber. It settled like stinging black bees in the nostrils.

  Alexei frowned. ‘Damn it, another factory burned down. Poor bloody fools. That means jobs gone. No jobs means no food and this winter is far from over yet. It’s the second fire this month. Industrial fires happen all the time because of lack of safety regulations. Just carelessness. The workers smoke cigarettes where they shouldn’t, hanging round chemicals and gas cylinders. No on
e stops them.’

  ‘What about the unions? Don’t they enforce rules?’

  ‘They try but no one takes a blind bit of notice. It’s the old working habits. They die hard.’

  ‘Unlike old family habits, it seems.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means that you seem to have forgotten we’re brother and sister.’

  ‘That’s absurd.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Please, Alexei, don’t forget about Jens too.’

  He seized her arm, drew her across the road to a baker’s shop and made her look at the queue outside. A line of women with gaunt faces and old men with eyes hard as iron. He headed to the front of the queue and into the shop. Through the window Lydia watched the woman behind the counter smile at him, a cautious twitch of the mouth, remove a grey paper bag from a back shelf and present it to Alexei. There was no exchange of kopecks.

  Alexei rejoined Lydia on the pavement. With a solemn face he removed two pirozhki from the bag and presented her with one.

  ‘That,’ he said, ‘is why your implications are absurd.’ She could hear the quiver of anger in his words.

  ‘The advantages of a vor?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He was breathing hard. Lydia wanted to throw the pirozhok on the ground and tread on it. She was the first to look away.

  ‘Alexei, there are disadvantages as well as advantages. Don’t forget that.’

  To her surprise Alexei laughed. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close, steering her past the dismal queue. She slipped the pirozhok into the hand of a pockmarked child hiding in its mother’s skirts and concentrated on enjoying the unexpected warmth of her brother’s attention.

  ‘Now what is it,’ he asked as he marched her to the corner of the street, ‘that you wanted to say to me in private?’

  ‘Don’t trust Maksim.’

  He stopped. Faced her. The anger there once more at the back of his eyes.

  ‘Be careful,’ she added. ‘I don’t want you to be . . .’

  The word wouldn’t come.

  ‘You don’t want me to be what?’ he demanded.

  ‘To be . . . damaged.’

  She didn’t look at him. The silence that ballooned between them was pricked by the sound of a cart rumbling past. Alexei kissed Lydia’s cheek, a quick touch of his lips to her cold skin and then away, as though ashamed of the gesture. When she looked up he was off striding back down the street, arms swinging as if they would drive him even faster away from her.

  Without turning round he shouted, ‘No more letters, Lydia.’

  Damn you, Alexei Serov. Damn you to hell.

  Elena was in a bad mood when Popkov came home with a nasty gash on his cheek and one leg of his trousers slashed up to the knee. A bruise the colour of split damsons had hatched along the length of his shin. He slunk into the room, making low rumbling noises, and collapsed face down on his bed, inert.

  Lydia leapt past the dividing curtain and perched on the edge of the quilt, gently patting his back.

  ‘Liev,’ she murmured, ‘are you all right?’

  No answer. Just the rumbling sound seeping out of him. Elena rose from where she was sewing in the chair and came over to examine him. A quick firm finger to the pulse below his ear and a slap on the back of his head.

  ‘He’s drunk,’ she grumbled. ‘Drunk and bested in a fight. Stupid fool. If he’s going to fight a gang of dolts, I’ve told him again and again to make sure it’s a number he can flatten.’ She slapped him again, on his buttocks this time, and returned her bulk to the chair where she scowled at the needle in her hand and jabbed it into the fabric as though it were somebody’s eyes.

  Lydia waited for peace to settle, then fetched a bowl of cold water and bathed Liev’s cheek as best she could without moving him. The white enamel bowl turned pink. Did he need stitches? She wasn’t sure. The gash was deep. It reminded her of when she’d sewn up Chang’s foot by the river in Junchow, and suddenly the ache for him that was always there hit so sharply that her hand shook and she spilled crimson liquid over Liev’s broad back.

  ‘You trying to drown me, girl?’

  The water flowed down to his neck and under his ear.

  ‘Yes, but I’m not doing a very good job of it.’

  ‘Men bigger than you have failed.’

  ‘Don’t talk. It makes it bleed worse.’

  ‘Shit!’ he grumbled as the pain sharpened.

  Lydia held a cloth pressed hard to his cheek and sat beside him as time trickled past in silence. The rumbling had drifted off somewhere until it was no more than a cat’s purr, but his breathing was laboured. When abruptly all noise ceased, Lydia leaned close, heart thumping, listening hard. She prodded him in the ribs. Nothing happened. She jabbed an elbow into the ridge of his neck and only breathed herself when he jerked back to life. He slammed a hand out at her in a reflex action that nearly knocked her head off and the rumbling started up again at a lower volume.

  ‘Feel like talking?’ she whispered, afraid he’d die in his sleep.

  ‘Hah!’

  ‘I bet the others are in worse shape. The ones who did this to you.’

  ‘Hah!’

  ‘What was the fight about?’

  ‘The bastard motherfuckers.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘They were waiting outside.’

  ‘Outside where?’

  ‘Outside that place of yours.’

  Her heart stopped. She leaned down and whispered in his ear, ‘The one in Raikov Ulitsa?’

  ‘Da.’

  Suddenly she was cold, her teeth chattering.

  ‘How did they know? Chang and I are so careful. We double back again and again, so no one can follow.’

  ‘Hah!’

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘Chetiri. Four.’

  ‘But now they’ll inform on us and—’

  ‘Nyet.’ He twisted his head round and the black eyepatch was wrenched upward, revealing the deformed empty socket. ‘Nyet, little Lydia, they’re dead.’ A crooked grimace stretched his cheek and set the blood oozing once more. ‘So smile,’ he growled, ‘because you and me, Lydia, we’re alive.’

  She rested her cheek on his, the stink of him warm and familiar, the feel of his shoulder like a sun-baked rock next to hers.

  ‘The trouble with you, Liev Popkov, is that you’re just too nice to people. Try being tougher next time.’

  He chuckled, his ribcage rattling like iron bars. ‘I need a drink.’

  Lydia sat up. ‘I’m going out to buy you the biggest bloody bottle of vodka in the whole of Moscow.’

  He grinned at her. One of his teeth was missing.

  ‘Elena,’ Lydia said, ‘get over here, please. Keep him warm. Watch him while I’m gone.’

  The woman put down her needle and gave Lydia a long look. In that single moment Lydia felt Elena take a step back from her, as clearly as if she’d picked up the scissors on her lap and snipped at the thread that held them together. Their friendship had suddenly come unravelled in some way and yet Lydia could-n’t be angry. She knew it was her own fault. She trailed danger around with her the way other girls trailed ribbons. She watched sadly as the woman left her chair and clambered fully dressed on to the bed, where she wrapped herself around the big man, one arm tight around his neck, almost throttling him. Within seconds he was snoring.

  As Lydia pulled on her coat, Elena tucked her face into his greasy black hair and muttered, ‘One of these days, Lydia Ivanova, you’ll be the death of him.’

  47

  Edik was out stalking. Lydia spotted his prey immediately, a man carrying parcels. He had just emerged from a tobacconist store where smoking pipes of all shapes and sizes were displayed in the window, and he was far too preoccupied with relighting the fat cigar he was rolling between his equally fat lips to notice the skinny bag of bones tagging along behind him.

  Lydia touched the bo
y’s shoulder. ‘Bite me and I’ll keep Misty’s chunk of kolbasa sausage for myself.’

  Edik stopped and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Piss off, I’m working. ’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

  He regarded her with suspicion, recalling the time she’d made him replace his spoils in the pocket he’d stolen it from. With a shrug he darted forward, tucking in behind two women busy discussing the merits of their hats. Lydia admired the way he glided up to people and hovered briefly at their elbows, close enough so that he looked to others as though he might be with them, but not close enough to cause alarm. Lone youths were always suspect.

  ‘Mind if I tag along?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ll get me spotted.’

  ‘No, I won’t. I’ll give you cover.’

  He thought for two seconds, saw the sense of it and let her come alongside.

  ‘I have a job for you,’ she murmured under her breath.

  ‘Another letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No.’

  The speed of the no rattled her. ‘I thought—’

  ‘No. No more letters.’

  ‘Is this about wanting more money? Because—’

  His blue eyes skimmed her face scornfully. ‘Of course not. I just can’t do it any more.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t. That’s all.’

  ‘Frightened of the prison?’

  He didn’t even deign to answer that one. They had worked their way nearer to the man with the cigar and the parcels, and Edik was up on his toes, hands loose at his sides, ready.

  ‘I’ll get you a good snatch,’ Lydia promised, ‘if you’ll deliver one more letter.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Watch me.’

  Lydia moved in close. She swung to one side of the man, the boy to the other. As if hurrying past the unsuspecting mark, she banged her hip on his bundle of parcels, winced, stumbled and clutched at him for support. Instantly the man was all solicitude. She smiled her most charming smile, thanked him and moved on rapidly. By the time Edik caught up with her in the next side street, he was laughing.