“Spasibo,” he murmured. Throat as dry as ash.
He focused on the fair-haired man sitting on the edge of the bed and received an impression of a handsome face, neat features clean-shaven but with a hesitancy in his blue eyes. Eyelashes too long for a man but large masculine teeth, full lips more than ready to laugh. In his forties, perhaps a little younger.
“Spasibo,” Alexei said again, and this time he made it more robust.
“You’re welcome, friend. Ready for coffee?”
Alexei nodded, regretted it, and waited for the room to reassemble. The man moved away to a stove in the corner and lifted a coffeepot that was stewing there. It was at that exact moment that it dawned on Alexei’s sluggish mind that this new world of his was rocking. The movement wasn’t just inside his head. A gentle sway, but definitely rocking.
“We’re on a boat,” he said.
“Correct. The Red Maiden.”
“Yours?”
“She certainly is.”
The word she was spoken with affection. The man patted the wall with his palm, the way Alexei would a horse, and poured coffee into two metal cups. He was wearing a thick fisherman’s jersey that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a while, and for the first time Alexei realized he was clothed in a similar one himself, as well as rough socks and trousers he’d never seen before. He watched warily as his host returned to sit on the side of the bed and wrapped Alexei’s hand around the cup.
“Here, drink, tovarishch. It’ll put iron in your veins.”
To Alexei’s shock, his arm felt like a dead weight when he tried to lift the cup. His hand shuddered and spilled some liquid on his sweater, but eventually it reached his lips. The coffee was black and strong and seemed to kick a hole in the fog in his brain as it scalded his tongue, but it tasted good. Where the hell did a fisherman get his hands on coffee like this in Stalin’s Russia where the shop shelves were covered in nothing but dust? He felt his senses returning one by one and breathed cautiously.
“Your name, comrade?” he asked.
“Konstantin Duretin. Yours?”
“Alexei Serov.”
“Well, Comrade Serov, what were you doing swimming in the river with the fishes in the middle of winter?”
“Fishes?” Alexei frowned. Images battered his brain. A game of chess, a long-stemmed pipe. The curve of a road to a bridge.
Dear God, the bridge. Men coming at him from all directions. With a jolt of memory he slid a hand down to his side and felt the bulk of bandages there.
The blue eyes were still smiling at him, but more thoughtful now. “I did the best I could for you. As good as dead, you were. I found your carcass clinging to a scrap of wood in the middle of the river like a drowning kitten. Lost all but a cupful of blood, I’d guess, and near frozen to death.”
“Spasibo, Konstantin. I owe you . . .”
“Hush, rest now. I’ll cook us some fish and we can get some food into you at last. You’ve not eaten for weeks.”
“Weeks?”
“Da.” He stood up.
“Weeks?”
“Da. I managed to get some water into you and a little soup but nothing more.”
“Weeks?” The word had stuck in Alexei’s mind.
“Yes, nearly three weeks it’s been. You’ve had a fever. Thought I’d lost you more than once.” He thumped a hand on the table. “But you must be made of good strong oak like my Red Maiden here.” He laughed.
The noise of it set up a vibration in Alexei’s head, and he closed his eyes to stop his brains spilling out.
THE SMELL OF GRILLED FISH PERMEATED THE DUSTY CABIN, ousting even the stink of the kerosene. They ate slowly and in companionable silence, the job of maneuvering a fork to his mouth taking all of Alexei’s concentration. Konstantin left him to it but when they had finished and coffee was once more in his hands, Alexei rested back and scrutinized his host.
“Why did you take care of me?”
“What was I supposed to do? Chuck you back in the river like a poisoned fish?”
Alexei smiled. The muscles of his cheek felt stiff, made of cardboard. “Some would have. Under Stalin’s system of informers, people have become afraid of strangers.”
Konstantin returned the smile. “I was glad of the company.”
“Where are we now?”
“Downriver.”
“South of Felanka, you mean?”
“Da.”
“How long have we been traveling?”
“Ever since I picked you up.”
“Three weeks. Chyort!”
“Wrong direction for you?”
“Yes. I have to return to Felanka.”
Konstantin looked away and there was a moment of awkwardness that made Alexei feel ungrateful. To cover it, the boatman reached into a drawer under the tabletop and pulled out a small knife and a piece of wood, then proceeded to whittle away at it, his blond eyebrows knit in concentration.
“What’s in Felanka that is so important?”
“Some business I have to attend to.”
His gaze lifted to Alexei. “Girl business, you mean?”
“Not that kind of girl business. It’s my sister. She’s in Felanka.”
“Ah, my friend, then there’s no rush. A sister can wait.”
Can you, Lydia? Can you wait?
LYDIA WAS FORCED TO WAIT. DESPITE HER CONSTANT DAILY hammering on the stationmaster’s hatch, it was two weeks before she was allocated a seat on a return train to Felanka. What surprised her was how easily she filled the days. She expected herself to be pacing the sidewalks with impatience, frantic and fretting, but no, it wasn’t like that. She sat quietly. On a station platform, in a park, in a hotel room.
She taught herself stillness.
When finally the train heaved itself into the station, the compartment was full but this time with more women than men. Conversations concentrated on the lack of goods in the shops despite rationing and the length of the bread lines. Before boarding, Lydia had seen a chain of prisoners loaded at the last minute into the baggage van, but so carefully guarded that she had no chance to get anywhere near them. Their heads were already shaven against lice. That came as a shock. The idea of Papa without his flowing fiery locks. The image just wouldn’t stay inside her head. She became aware of a young girl next to her, small and slight. She was traveling alone, much the same age as Lydia herself, but her fragility made her seem younger. Lydia took out a cone of sunflower seeds that Elena had thrust into her bag and offered it.
“Hungry?” she asked the girl.
“Da.” She took a handful. Her face was thin and nervous. “Spasibo.”
“Traveling far?”
“To Moscow.”
“That’s a long journey. But it must be exciting for you.”
“Yes, you see, I won a prize. I was the fastest maker of copper pots in my factory. So I am to receive a medal.”
Lydia blinked. “That happens?”
“Oh yes, of course. Workers are always rewarded for dedication. Sometimes even by Stalin himself.” Her young eyes gleamed with anticipation. “It’s to be awarded in a big ceremony in the Hall of Heroes.”
“Congratulations. You and your family must be very proud.”
“We are . . . but I’m told Moscow is dangerous.”
Lydia looked at her with interest. Didn’t the girl know that in Stalin’s Russia, everywhere was dangerous?
“In what way do you mean?” she asked.
The girl leaned closer, eyes wide. “The city is riddled with criminals.”
Lydia laughed; she couldn’t help it. “Every city is riddled with criminals, no matter where you go. It’s always the same.” She noticed that a man in workman’s clothes farther along the bench seat was openly listening to her. She added quickly, “But I know Comrade Lenin has taught us all to share what we have, even our apartments. Crime is no longer necessary. Not like it was under the bourgeois system of exploitation.”
She almost smiled. Her brother w
ould be proud of her. You see, Alexei, I’m learning. Really I am.
The girl said nothing, just chewed on the seeds, then glanced sideways at Lydia from behind her thin blond hair. “They are well known,” she murmured. “With tattoos. A criminal fraternity. The vory v zakone, they’re called.” She lowered her voice to a faint whisper. “That’s why I’m nervous of going to Moscow.”
A criminal fraternity? Tattoos?
No. Not again. Not China all over again. Lydia’s pulse thudded in her throat. Thank God she wasn’t heading for Moscow.
“I’m sure you’ll be well cared for.” She smiled reassuringly and patted the girl’s arm. “Someone as special as you will be kept safe.”
The look of relief on the thin face was worth the lie.
THE RAIN HAD STOPPED AND THE LANDSCAPE STRETCHED AWAY into the mist, dismal and damp. Everything looked different. How would she know when the train was close to the Work Zone? There was nothing here that marked out one featureless place from another, and now that the clouds had descended so low it was impossible to see where the forest had been leveled. This mist had swallowed all signs, a gray thief that had stolen her hopes.
Lydia was standing at the carriage window, fingers wiping away the moisture of her breath on the glass. The Work Zone had to be here, somewhere here, she was sure. She peered out intently, searching for even a hint of the matchstick watchtowers, but all she saw was a dead blanket of low cloud that, as the train raced past, curled and swayed like a drunk unsteady on his feet. The red handkerchiefs, the bright scarlet birds? Would they be visible? But no. Nothing broke the colorless monotony. She rested her forehead against the glass, felt the vibrations rattle through her brain.
She closed her eyes, remembering Chang’s words: You must focus, my love, draw the parts together into a whole. Then you will be strong.
Focus.
She opened her eyes, forgot the mist and the forest, and focused on the stretch of rocky ground nearest the track. For the next twenty-five minutes she didn’t let her gaze stray but kept it riveted on the few meters of terrain that bordered the rail as the engine thundered through the damp air. Slowly she felt her mind change. It grew lighter. The weight of other thoughts and fears slid away until all that existed was the rock and the earth speeding past. They threaded dark lines through her mind.
Then it was there. The sign.
She blinked and it was gone. But she’d seen it and didn’t need to see it again. Rocks had been placed in a pattern, an arrangement of stone that spelled out a word and a number. The word was Nyet. The number was 1908.
Nyet. 1908.
Lydia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She had no idea what it meant.
Seventeen
ALEXEI WOKE IN TOTAL DARKNESS. THE TIMBERS creaked around him and he could hear the slap of the waves on the bow.
“Konstantin!”
He heard movement in the cabin.
“What is it, my friend? Wait while I strike a match.”
A flame flared and a lamp hissed. In the sudden gleam of yellow light Alexei focused on the jumble of blankets on the floor on the other side of the table and realized it was Konstantin’s own bed he had usurped. The boatman was naked, his long back well muscled, blond curls on his thighs. He turned and studied Alexei, unabashed by his own nakedness, his blue eyes still heavy with sleep.
“What is it, Alexei? A nightmare?”
“No. Where is my money belt, Konstantin?”
The long eyelashes blinked. “Money belt? What money belt?”
“I was wearing one when . . .”
“My friend, I am no thief.”
“I’m not accusing you.”
“That’s what it sounds like to me.” He spread his broad hands as if to show there was nothing hiding in them. “When I dragged you out of the water, you were in a mess. Bleeding over everything, your clothes cut and torn, but there was definitely no money belt.” He chuckled softly. “Do you think I wouldn’t have noticed?”
Alexei collapsed back on the pillow and closed his eyes. “I apologize, Konstantin. Please go back to sleep.”
Immediately the light went out. Alexei heard his companion’s bare feet pad across the boards, felt a hand touch his hair in the darkness and slide gently down to brush the skin of his neck.
“How old are you, Alexei?” Konstantin’s voice was a whisper.
“Twenty-six.”
“So young. And so . . . untouchable.”
A silence, black and sticky as pitch, dropped into the gap between the two men. Alexei rolled onto his side, turning his back on the boatman, so that the hand fell away. “Good night, comrade. Dobroi nochi, tovarishch.”
Quietly the footsteps padded away.
EVERYTHING WAS GONE. THE MONEY, THE JEWELS, ALL THAT HE had secreted away from prying eyes. How they must have laughed at his naïveté.
Alexei felt bile rise in his throat because he knew it wasn’t his naïveté that had caused this. It was his own blind arrogance. He’d known what to expect, what Mikhail Vushnev was likely to try on that freezing cold night on the bridge. But he had been so confident that he could handle whatever a dumb camp apparatchik thought up and still extract the information he needed.
How wrong could he be? How unforgivable was the mistake?
He forced his eyes closed. But the images remained there under his eyelids, etched sharper than acid into his brain. Everything of real value was gone. Everything.
A STRING OF BEADS OF SUNLIGHT THREADED THEIR WAY through a line of holes in the curtain that hung across the small cabin porthole. Bright tears of regret. That’s what they looked like to Alexei when he opened his eyes and saw them spilling over his blanket and onto the table. The sun had scarcely climbed above the eastern horizon, the dawn light still drifting lazily down the surface of the river, in no hurry to get anywhere.
But I am. In a hurry to get back to Felanka.
Alexei threw off the blankets and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His head threatened to split wide open when he pushed himself to his feet and nausea hit. Stale fevered breath escaped from his lungs in a rush. He swore. Swaying dangerously, he fought to catch his breath and that was when he saw Konstantin watching him in silence from his nest of blankets on the floor.
“You’re weak as a kitten,” the boatman said. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Time to leave.”
“Nyet.” It came out as a soft moan. “Not yet. You are not well enough.”
“I have to go.”
Alexei straightened up. The boards were cold under his feet and he looked around the cabin for his boots. They were by a bucket in a corner and they had been polished. He shuffled over to them, picked them up, and put them on. The effort left him trembling. Konstantin said nothing.
“My clothes?” Alexei asked.
“I told you, they were torn to rags, so I threw them away. You can keep my old ones that you’re wearing and your coat is in that cupboard.”
Alexei retrieved it. The heavy material had one long cut down the front that had been meticulously mended.
“How can I thank you?”
Konstantin wrapped himself tightly in his blankets. “There’s bread and some cold pork in the—”
“No. But thank you. You’ve done more than enough for me already.”
“I have no money to offer you.”
“A knife is all I need.”
A brief nod of the head toward a cupboard. Alexei chose the sharpest and thinnest blade, then approached his rescuer and held out his hand in farewell.
“Thank you, Konstantin. Spasibo. You have been a true friend.” He felt an urge to do more, to bend down and embrace this man, to hold him close the way he would his own father, to utter more words than just spasibo. “I am more grateful than I can say for what . . .”
“Not grateful enough, it seems.” The blue eyes closed. “Just go.”
Alexei bent down, squeezed his shoulder, and left.
POPKOV SWORE AT HER. I
T CAME AS A SHOCK TO LYDIA.
He started cursing the moment she stepped off the train in Felanka. She hurried down the icy platform toward him, but he just stood there without moving, swearing at her in his booming voice. He loomed big and bulky, a bear on its hind legs, so black-eyed and dangerous that other passengers on the station platform swerved to avoid him. His hat was missing, so that his greasy curls launched out at angry angles, and his black eye patch lay askew where he’d been picking at it.
How many times had he waited here for her?
How many trains had he met?
How many hours had he wasted in the snow and the rain?
“Liev!” she called out and started to run, her coat catching at her legs.
The Cossack bunched up his massive eyebrows and scowled harder at her, looking ready to kill something, and as she drew near she heard his hot words clearly in the chill air.
“Fuck you, suka! Where have you been? Why the devil did you leave without me? Why? You stupid little chit, you could be lying in fucking shit in a gutter somewhere by now or—”
“Hush,” she murmured and stood still in front of him. “Hush.” She looked up into his face with a wide affectionate smile.
His black eye glittered at her. “Damn you,” he said.
“I know.”
“Go to hell.”
“I probably will.”
“You stupid little fool.” His big paw landed on her shoulder, crushing it.
He’d never sworn at her before. Never. That’s how bad it was for him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and her words were almost lost in the great sigh of the steam engine as it belched out smoke.
She stood close to him. Slid her arms around his chest as far as they would go and laid her cheek on his stinking coat. The bristles of his beard prickled her forehead as he kissed the top of her head. His huge arms wrapped around her, grinding her slender frame against his ribs till she couldn’t breathe. She could hear him swallow, over and over again.
The Girl from Junchow Page 15
