The Girl from Junchow

by Kate Furnivall

  “Liev,” she whispered. “Liev.”

  On the bed sprawled the big man. His barrel chest was naked and exposed, except for a bandage that looked as though a large crimson dinner plate had been placed on top of it. A vivid strident red. Every inch of his skin was covered in blood, sweat, or bruises, while his one black eye had sunk into an equally blackened socket. But his mouth, though split and scabbed, was twisted into a lopsided attempt at a grin.

  “Lydia,” he bellowed.

  She flew across the room. Smears of blood rubbed off on her as she leaned over and kissed his hairy cheek, wrapping her arms around his bull neck.

  “You’re not dead,” she said. It was an accusation.

  “Nyet. I thought about it. But changed my mind.”

  “I’m glad.” She was beaming at him, her hands gripping chunks of his beard. “I thought you were dead, you big idiot.”

  Alexei wondered if she’d act toward himself with quite that desperate energy if he came back from the dead one day. He doubted it.

  “They threw you out, did they?” she laughed. “Didn’t want your smelly carcass in their prison.”

  The Cossack grunted.

  She patted the bandage on his granite chest. “Making a bit of a fuss over nothing as usual, aren’t you?”

  He grunted again, and from somewhere under the bandage rose a bubbling sound. It might have been a laugh.

  “Shut up,” Elena snapped. “Don’t talk, Popkov.”

  She was standing in the same spot still, staring at Lydia with barely controlled anger. In one hand Elena held a white enamel basin piled high with scarlet swabs of cotton and stained bandages. In the other, which was turned palm upward, lay a blood-streaked rifle bullet.

  “Did you take it out of him?” Alexei asked.

  “Someone had to.”

  “Anesthetic?”

  She glanced at the empty vodka bottle on the floor and gave it a kick that sent it spinning under the bed.

  “Elena,” Lydia said, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do it for you, girl.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be back here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because without the Cossack, there is nothing here for you to come back for.”

  “There’s you. And Edik with his dog.” Her tone was bemused.

  “Like I said. Nothing for you to come back for.”

  “Elena,” Lydia said solemnly, “I thought you and I were friends.”

  “Then you thought wrong.”

  The woman dumped the bullet on Liev’s chest, where it sat like a miniature gravestone on top of the bandage. A heavy stillness settled in the metal-tasting air.

  “Lydia,” Alexei said quickly, “come with me. We’ll buy medicines for him.” He wanted her out of this room.

  She didn’t move. Her huge eyes were lost in shadows, but her gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the Russian woman.

  “Why did I think wrong, Elena?”

  The woman’s expression softened. But that made it worse, as if she saw no hope for the young girl in front of her.

  “Because,” Elena said, “you damage everything you touch.”

  Fifty

  LYDIA RANG THE DOORBELLTHIS TIME. SHE closed her eyes while she waited. To shut herself off from this moment as if it could belong to someone else. She had rattled halfway across Moscow in the trams as the bleached and pungent city air at last grew dark and a moon as yellow as a melon skimmed up into the evening sky.

  She’d watched a lamplighter pedal down the street whistling, with his long wooden pole over his shoulder, stop under a streetlamp, and without dismounting turn its gas jet on with the tip of his pole. She wished she was him. She’d seen how the conductor on the tram, a woman with tired eyes, had handed out tickets with due attention to each passenger. Lydia had wanted to be her. Or the girl with the baby with the birthmark. Or the couple in the street with their arms looped together.

  Anybody but herself.

  The door opened. “Ah, Lydia. How charming of you to call.”

  “Good evening, Dmitri.”

  “I can’t say I wasn’t expecting you. You see how much faith I have in your word.”

  He was wearing a silk maroon robe over black trousers and a smile so courteous that for one thin sliver of time she let it give her hope. He threw back the door and she walked into the hallway. Music was drifting out from one of the rooms and she recognized it at once. Her mother used to play the piece, one of Chopin’s nocturnes.

  “You’re looking tired, Lydia, distinctly pale. Let me take your coat and pour you a glass of wine. You’ll feel better.” He held out his hands to help her off with her coat.

  She didn’t move. Just stood there in his warm apartment with her hat and coat firmly in place. She tried to find him behind his smile, but he was too well hidden.

  “Dmitri, don’t do this.”

  His gray eyes widened. “My dearest Lydia, you surprise me. We made a deal.”

  “I know.”

  “Your Cossack is back home?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not even dead.”

  “No.”

  “So”—he spread his hands as if confused—“what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t want to do this.”

  He gave her a slow sad look and gently removed her hat, so that her flaming hair tumbled over her shoulders.

  “I really don’t think,” he said softly, “that what you want is relevant. We agreed. A bargain is a bargain. I have fulfilled my half of it and now it’s time for your part.” His voice was sounding different, as though his mouth were dry and his tongue heavy.

  “Dmitri, please. You are a decent man and we can still be friends despite—”

  “Friends! I don’t want to be friends!”

  Anger flared for a second and he bared his teeth at her. And then it was gone, the attentive smile smothering it. That was when she knew nothing would change his mind and that was when she started to hate him. She glanced behind her at the door.

  His hand closed over her wrist. “No, my little Lydia, nyet.” He spoke soothingly, the way he would to a nervous colt. “Don’t think of leaving. And don’t glare at me like that. Such contempt.” He laughed, and the sound of it made her skin crawl. “If you try to leave, my dear, I shall have Comrade Popkov rearrested.” His eyes grew brittle as glass. “Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now that we understand each other, let me take your coat.”

  She didn’t move, but he carefully unbuttoned it for her and started to slide it from her stiff shoulders.

  “Dmitri,” she said without looking at him, “what is to stop you threatening to arrest Popkov in the future every time you want me to come over here?”

  He beamed at her, delighted. “Ah, now I see we really do understand each other.”

  “Answer me. What is to stop you?”

  “Nothing. Neechevo. Absolutely nothing.”

  THE ROOM WITH THE MUSIC TURNED OUT TO BE HIS STUDY. IT was an intimate room despite the hard lines of the desk and the shelves of leather-bound books. Well chosen for seduction, it seemed to Lydia. Soft lighting, a gramophone playing, the rich colors of an Afghan rug on the floor, a pot of coffee and a bottle of burgundy on a small delicate table next to a chaise longue. It was the chaise longue that her eyes fixed on, with its elegant curves and dense green velvet. Silk cushions of amber and russet, as inviting as a forest floor in springtime.

  “Wine?” he offered.

  “No.”

  “Do sit down.”

  She remained standing.

  He removed the gramophone needle from the record, poured out two glasses of wine, and paused for a moment with one in each hand while he inspected her, head cocked to one side. He seemed to like what he saw. She wanted to slap the smile off his face. The room was overhot. Or was it her? The aroma of coffee seemed to clog up her lungs and she felt suddenly sick. I can
handle him, she’d boasted to Elena. How naïve could she be? She’d stupidly believed she could flutter her eyelids and toss her hair at this man, extract what she wanted from him, and escape without having to pay the price. That man eats girls like you for breakfast, Elena had warned. She should have listened to her.

  Yet without Dmitri’s help Popkov would still be in prison, or worse, dead by now. Dmitri had waited with the patience of a spider until she blundered into his web, and she had no right to feel surprised when the sticky threads tightened around her.

  “Here, this will calm you down.” He proffered a glass.

  “Do I need calming?”

  Again he inspected her. “I rather think you do.”

  She took the wine and drank it down in one go. He approached, standing close enough for her to smell the pomade on his hair, and the lines of his face seemed to harden as he bent his head and kissed her lips. She could taste whisky on him. So he’d started without her. She let his lips linger on hers but made no response.

  “Lydia,” he murmured, “so cold? So stony?” He ran a hand up her throat and into her hair, then dropped it down to her breast. “Loosen up, my sweet angel.”

  She stepped back from him, replaced her glass on the table, and turned to face him. They had laughed together, danced together; surely he wouldn’t force her. “Dmitri, release me from this bargain? I’m begging you.” She dropped to her knees in front of him. “Please.”

  He smiled slowly, and for a moment she thought he was going to agree, but he unbuttoned his fly and reached for her head.

  “You disgust me, comrade,” she said coldly, and rose to her feet. “So let’s get it over with.”

  With no hesitation she undid her blouse buttons, stepped out of her skirt, and removed her underwear. In the time it took for Dmitri to realize she was doing his job for him, Lydia stood stark naked in the study.

  His gaze roamed over her body. Her face burned but her eyes remained fixed on his, as if by willpower alone she could force him back from the brink and make this enough. This display for him. She couldn’t believe now that she’d been blind enough to find him attractive. He yanked down his trousers and kicked them away, moving closer to her. He touched the smooth milky skin of her stomach, her thigh, the fiery curls in between. He was breathing hard.

  “Why me, Dmitri? You could have a thousand others who are willing, so why me?”

  He started to move slowly around her, trailing his fingers over her buttocks, along her spine, feeling the bone of her hip, the silky cushion of her breast.

  “Because you are a rare creature, Lydia Ivanova.”

  “There are many more beautiful. Including your own wife.”

  Still he circled her, again and again as if he were spinning his web. “The world is full of ordinary people, Lydia. You are not one of them.”

  She drew a breath and said softly, “Then don’t crush me. Let me go.”

  In answer he reached for her, his hands rough on her shoulders, gripping her hard. “Don’t be foolish,” he whispered as his lips came down fiercely on hers.

  She didn’t fight him. But she remained rigid and unyielding until he abruptly tired of the game, threw off his robe so that he was totally naked, and pushed her impatiently onto the chaise longue. He was strong and held her down, but as he pressed himself on top of her she squirmed her hips away. With no warning he pulled back and slapped her face.

  “No, Dmitri, don’t—”

  He slapped her again, harder. She tasted blood on her teeth.

  “Fuck you,” she yelled.

  The hand was coming again. “Don’t you—”

  The study door crashed open. Dmitri didn’t even look around. “Get out, Antonina,” he growled, and smacked Lydia in the mouth.

  “Let her go,” Antonina said.

  Lydia couldn’t see her because Dmitri’s body was blocking everything from her view, but she could see his eyes clearly. They were no longer gray and controlled.

  “Piss off, Antonina,” he shouted. “I’m busy.”

  Abruptly Lydia felt his whole body give a sudden jerk as though her flailing knee had caught his groin. Only when he slumped down on her with a groan, clutching the back of his head, did it occur to her that his wife had hit him with something. His full weight was crushing her. She could barely breathe, so she grabbed a fistful of his red hair and yanked up his head, freeing her airway. His eyes were black with rage and she could feel the heat of it scorch her face. A fine thread of red was trickling from his ear down to her lips, and she spat it back at him. Over his shoulder she could now make out Antonina, wide-eyed as a deer, a huge studded Bible clutched in her hands.

  “You stupid fucking bitch,” Dmitri roared at her, and dragged himself off the chaise longue, one hand still gripping his head.

  Antonina backed off fast.

  Lydia leapt to her feet and seized his arm from behind. He turned, swinging a fist at her, but she was too quick and he missed.

  “Dmitri, don’t—”

  “Shut your mouth.”

  “Leave your wife alone.”

  But he lunged for Antonina once more, and this time his fist connected with the side of her head. The crack of it was loud in the room, and she went sprawling backward onto the desk. Her fingers released the Bible and her mouth hung open in a scream that produced no sound.

  “I’m going to teach you, you stupid faithless bitch.”

  He hit her again full in the face, just as Lydia slammed her fist into his kidneys. He grunted with pain, cursing, but seized Antonina’s slender neck, squeezing it brutally between his strong hands. Lydia hooked an arm around his throat to twist him off his wife, but she was too late. In panic Antonina lifted a dagger-shaped paper knife from beside her head and rammed it with all her strength into her husband. It slid neatly up to the hilt between his ribs.

  A high-pitched whistle issued from his throat before he keeled over sideways, one hand clawing at the silver cross that was sticking out of his chest. He slumped to the floor. Antonina leapt to her feet, her face a mask of blood, and stared down in horror at her husband’s inert figure. Her fingernails started to claw fiercely at her arm.

  LYDIA WORKED FAST. FIRST SHE FELT FOR A PULSE BUT KNEW before she even pressed her fingers to Dmitri’s neck that she’d find none. She had seen dead eyes before. She sat Antonina down with a cloth for her face in one hand and a wineglass full of brandy in the other. She removed the knife from Dmitri’s ribs, washed it thoroughly, and replaced it on the desk, then rolled his body up in the Afghan rug before the blood spread farther. Only then did she think to put her clothes back on.

  She took a seat beside Antonina on the chaise longue and wrapped her arms around the trembling woman, holding her tight, rocking her, murmuring soft sounds of comfort. She kept pouring brandy into Antonina’s glass until finally it took its toll and the tremors ceased, the limbs and the dark hair hung loose. The woman’s head lolled on Lydia’s shoulder and silent tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll go to prison,” she whispered.

  “Maybe not.”

  “Yes, I will. The Soviet police will condemn me.”

  “Is that what you intend to do? Go to the police?”

  “Oh Lydia, I’ve just killed my husband. What else am I supposed to do?”

  Lydia stroked the damp hair away from her face. “There is an alternative.”

  The wretched dark eyes, sunk deep in their sockets, turned to her, and Lydia thought about what Elena had said. This woman was damaged enough. And now this.

  “Tell me, Lydia. What do you mean?”

  “We can go to the police right now and describe what happened, and after months of prison cells and questioning and a trial if you’re lucky, you would end up a prisoner doing hard labor in a coal mine in Siberia somewhere.” She wiped away Antonina’s tears with her sleeve. “It wouldn’t be pleasant.”

  “Or what?” the woman s
obbed.

  “Or.” Lydia hesitated. “We can bury him. And get on with our lives.”

  Antonina looked aghast. “Where? In one of the parks? Alexander Gardens maybe? You’re crazy.”

  “No. Think about it. Dmitri is dead.” She felt a brief wave of nausea and disbelief. Dmitri Malofeyev dead. The words frightened her. “Nothing we can do will bring your husband back. If you go to prison it won’t help him where he is now. And I am witness to the fact that it was self-defense. I saw him trying to kill you.”

  Antonina lifted her head and stared at Lydia, her eyes purple smudges in her bruised face. “You’re serious?”

  Lydia nodded.

  “Oh, you’re crazy. Haven’t you learned yet? This is Soviet Russia. There’s no escape. We’re all caught in the Communist net, for good or for bad. I’ve committed a serious crime and will have to . . .”

  “Don’t give up. Not yet.”

  With a sad twist of her lips, Antonina touched Lydia’s hand. “That’s why he wanted you so much. For that light inside you. He knew you were just using him but he couldn’t stay away.”

  Lydia shuddered. She looked at the rolled-up rug and mourned for the loss of the man Dmitri Malofeyev might have been.

  “Antonina,” she said, “do you own a car?”

  CHANG AN LO KNEW SHE WAS THERE THE MOMENT HE STEPPED into the room even though she had not lit the lamp. In the darkness he could sense her. No sound, no movement, just the feel of her there. Of her mind, of her thoughts, of herself.

  “Lydia,” he breathed.

  Without lighting the lamp he crossed the bare boards. She was standing in a corner of the room with a stillness and a patience that told him she’d been there for a long time, and he cursed that he’d been delayed by an official dinner that had seemed endless. He had not told her yet that the delegation’s time here was soon to end. She curled her arms around his neck and he inhaled the familiar scent of her, knew again that sense of completeness that she created within him whenever he touched his fox girl. He held her, but not so close as to crush the thoughts that hovered around her like fireflies in the dark. He gave them space to fly.