‘No.’ Her voice was very quiet. ‘You shouldn’t.’ She was not smiling. Her sharp, intelligent face was drawn taut with something that for a moment he mistook for anger.
‘I – had to see you.’ Stupid, empty words. Hands spread helplessly before him he stepped forward, into the circle of light.
She moved as he did, was around the table and into his arms almost before he had taken that first step. If anything her grip was fiercer than his, her mouth wilder and more demanding. He wrapped long arms about her, folding her tightly to him, feeling the moulding of her body to his; knowing its surrender and its needs. They murmured to each other; silly, meaningless words that bore no relationship whatsoever to the fierce greed of their bodies. They coupled there, standing up, awkward, with her skirts about her waist and his trousers kicked about his feet; whose hands had unfastened which hook, which button, tugged at which tape or belt, neither could have said. They laughed then in real amusement, each pulling the other towards the comparative comfort of the couch, tumbling onto its sagging length, laughing again aloud at its protests, wrapping arms and legs about each other as if in this tangle of limbs they could find safety for their love.
But, of course, they could not.
Later, naked and lying together, they were quiet.
Valentina lifted a tousled brown head. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘A concoction of Lev’s?’
‘Vodka. The real thing. Though yes,’ she hesitated, lifted a bare shoulder, ‘Lev brings it.’
‘Good for Lev. You’re sure he didn’t make it himself?’
‘I’m sure.’ She climbed over him, fought off his hands with a grin, stood tall and naked in the lamp light. ‘Not that he couldn’t. Lev can do most things.’
‘Is that right?’
‘That’s right.’ The words were calm. She moved about the room collecting glasses and a bottle, came back to the couch, settled down upon the floor beside him.
‘So.’ He could not quite keep the edge from his voice. ‘Just who is Lev?’
She paused in the pouring of the drinks. Lifted her eyes to his. ‘A friend,’ she said, simply. ‘An old friend and a good one.’
‘A very good one?’
Her eyes were unwavering. ‘A very good friend indeed. How’s your wife?’
For a startled moment he was silent. Then, in response to her grin he laughed. ‘Well. But not as versatile as is your Lev.’
‘I wouldn’t expect her to be.’ She was collected, containing her laughter. ‘Not many people are.’ She toasted him, eyes sparkling wickedly. ‘Drink up. You won’t get better than this out of the Tsar’s own cellars.’
He allowed his own eyes to widen. ‘That’s where it comes from?’
‘That’s where it comes from.’
He did not know whether to believe her or not. He sipped the liquor. It was fiery and aromatic and exploded halfway down his throat like a bomb.
‘That’s not the way you’re supposed to drink it,’ she said. Naked, she was sitting back on her heels watching him with eyes that made no attempt to hide their hunger, their pleasure at the sight of him. ‘Even I know that.’
He leaned onto his elbow, clinked his glass with hers. ‘Go on, then. Show me.’
She laughed, a small explosion of sound. ‘I can’t! I’d choke to death!’
‘What kind of a man are you?’ Easily he tilted his head, tossed the vodka down in one draught. Threw himself back, arms spread, in mock ecstasy.
Before he could move she was over him, the short, swinging hair brushing her cheeks and his, her long-fingered, rough hands pinioning his arms. Very, very slowly she lowered her mouth to his. Kissed him, lightly. Ran her tongue swiftly along his lower lip. The tips of her breasts brushed his body. ‘Would you like another?’ she asked, politely.
‘Yes. Please.’
‘Now? Or later?’
‘Later,’ he said.
Her mouth tasted sweetly of vodka; they laughed at first, and wrestled like children. But it ended – as between them, sooner or later, it was bound to end – in tears.
‘Don’t!’ he said, kissing her, rubbing his own cheek against hers. ‘Don’t cry. Please.’
‘I’m not.’
‘It’s raining, then.’
‘Yes.’ She pushed him from her. ‘It’s raining. The Tsar would like to know if you’d like another glass of his vodka?’
He thought for a moment, head cocked. ‘Please convey my respects to His Imperial Majesty and inform him there’s nothing I’d like better.’
She turned a tear-drenched, innocent smile upon him, bright as a rainbow. ‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing I could manage at this particular moment.’
They wrapped themselves in blankets and applied themselves to the vodka. ‘I hope you don’t want to eat,’ she said. ‘I’ve nothing here, I’m afraid.’
He eyed her, speculatively. Grinned suddenly, teasing. ‘I could turn cannibal.’
She shuddered, shook her head in quick repulsion. ‘Don’t!’
Too late he remembered the stories; the starving villages, the flesh-sellers who moved through the forests. The endless cycle of famine, the awful recourse to human flesh. He put his arms about her. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right. It’s just – one of those things that –’ she hesitated, drew the blanket tighter about her body ‘– that repulses me. So very much.’
‘Yes. I know.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘No-one should have to suffer so,’ she said, her voice very low. ‘No-one!’
He’d never really thought of it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, they shouldn’t.’
She leaned her head against him. ‘I always think – what would I do? A starving child. A dying husband. The chance to feed them –’ She shuddered again. ‘Nothing changes, does it?
There’s no hope. It’s only luck. The worst of lotteries. Where you’re born. Who you’re born to. You in your pretty palace –’
He made a small, derisive sound.
‘– me to my enlightened, earnest –’ she hesitated for a moment, laughed ‘– grindingly boring family.’ It was the closest she had ever come, through all their meetings, to self-revelation. He lifted his head, looking at her, interested. She laid a hand upon his face and pushed him back. ‘It isn’t fair. It has to change.’
‘And you think you can change it?’
‘Yes.’ The word was sharp and unequivocal. She sipped her vodka, thoughtfully, held it in her mouth, savouring the warmth. Caught his eye upon her. Leaned forward, blanket slipping, to share it. ‘Yes,’ she said, a little later, as if there had been no interruption. ‘Sasha, surely you can see you can’t treat ninety per cent of the population like animals? All right – they aren’t, strictly, serfs any more. They aren’t actually owned like animals, as they used to be. But where’s the difference, truly? They have no say in their own affairs. They’re exploited to the gain of others. They have no hope and no future, neither for themselves nor for their children. They’re flogged and chained and murdered if they protest. They’re dying now like flies in a war that is none of their making –’
She stopped. Sasha, almost brushing her aside, had sat up, abruptly, the blanket falling from his pale shoulders. The long curve of his back looked oddly fragile. He reached for the bottle, poured himself a generous measure, tossed it back. ‘Isn’t everyone?’
She was too painfully attuned to him to miss the note in his voice. ‘Yes.’ She laid a hand and then a cheek upon his cool shoulder. ‘Yes. Of course. I know. I’m not belittling that. I’m sorry.’
‘You know?’ He closed his eyes for a long, agonized moment. ‘You know?’ he repeated, more softly, almost to himself.
In silence for a long moment she stayed, her head resting upon his tense shoulder. Then, ‘No,’ she said, softly, ‘of course I don’t know. Tell me.’ She waited. ‘Can you?’
It took a long and terrible time. They both cried, sometimes together, sometimes alone. He
would not hear her urgent reassurances. ‘I’m a coward, Valentina. A craven. I can’t stand it. I don’t know what to do.’
She was holding him, stemming his tears with her fingers, with the palm of her hand. There was nothing she could say, and both of them knew it. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you. I love you.’
‘I ran away. I betrayed their trust. I’ll do it again. I know it.’
‘Perhaps –’ She stopped, helpless.
‘No.’
‘You don’t believe in what you’re doing,’ she said, staunchly.
He turned a quiet face to her. The burden had been eased, at least a little. ‘No. I don’t. But then, I don’t know what I do believe in. And if I did, I’d never have the courage to fight for it. I’m not like you.’
‘Nonsense. You stopped the Cossack horse. You saved my life.’
‘On impulse. Think yourself lucky I hadn’t time to think.’ His lips twitched, wryly. Then, in the dimming light, his face convulsed. ‘Suffering Jesus,’ he said, his voice suddenly dying as if in panic in his throat, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to go back.’
She held him, and they made love again, and then slept at last, sprawled and tangled uncomfortably together upon the creaking couch.
She woke him, whispering. ‘Sasha? Sasha!’
He moaned, shook his head, burrowed beneath the blanket.
‘Sasha! Wake up! It’s four o’clock!’
He mumbled something totally incomprehensible.
‘Sasha!’ She pushed him away from her, struggled to a sitting position. ‘Wake up, do! You have to go home! It’s four o’clock!’
He pushed himself upright, shaking his tousled head. ‘What?’
‘It’s four o’clock,’ she said patiently. ‘Presumably at some time or another you have to go home. Wouldn’t it be better to arrive before daylight? And I’m a working girl, you know. I can’t lie abed like the gentry.’ She laughed a little, but her heart was not in it.
He sat in silence, his head in his hands.
‘You have to go, my love,’ she said.
He dressed, hastily and awkwardly, by the light of a candle stub. She watched him in silence.
‘I can come again?’ he asked, urgently.
She shook her head. Looked at her spread hand, that was hardened and grained with dirt. ‘I won’t be here.’
He was beside her in a second, hands fierce on her shoulders. ‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’
‘I promised Lev. You heard. They think I’m in – some kind of danger. I’ve agreed to move. Tomorrow. To a – to a secret address.’
He looked at her, bewildered. ‘Secret from me?’
She said nothing.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, very quietly. Then, with more emphasis, ‘Valentina? What are you doing that’s so dangerous that you have to hide?’
It was a long time before she lifted her eyes to his. ‘It isn’t your business,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’m sorry, Sasha. But it’s true. It’s best you don’t know.’
‘You don’t trust me?’
She spread helpless hands. She was not too far from exhaustion.
‘I have only three more days. Before I –’ He took a small, sharp breath ‘– before I go back. You won’t let me see you in that time?’
Her expressive face showed every emotion. ‘How can I not?’ she asked, at last, through the tears that slipped tiredly down her face.
‘Where will you be?’
‘Don’t write it down,’ she said. ‘At least don’t do that. I’ll tell you. Memorize it. And don’t come tomorrow – oh, my love, it isn’t that I don’t want you to –’ he had made a quick, almost despairing gesture ‘– but believe me, I can’t. Thursday. Come Thursday. Come early, if you can. I’ll cook a meal. We’ll have the evening, and as much of the night as you can manage.’
‘Tell me the address,’ he said. ‘Tell me how to come to you.’
* * *
Margarita was asleep in the wide bed when he got home. Wearily, fully dressed, he settled onto the couch. When dawn came up he still lay there, open-eyed and sleepless.
‘Sasha?’
He turned his head. Margarita stood in the shadows by the door. Her voice was perfectly calm. Any trace of tears or distress was gone. ‘Come to bed, please. Petra will be here within the hour. We don’t want her to find you sleeping there, do we?’ She turned and left him.
He struggled to his feet, went into the bedroom. She turned her back as he began to undress. ‘Margarita,’ he said.
She shook her head, sharply. ‘No, Sasha. Don’t say anything. There’s no need. I don’t want to talk about what happened last night. In fact I absolutely won’t talk about it. I trust to your honour that you will never behave in such a manner again. Beyond that, there’s nothing to say. Now, I think perhaps you should get some sleep. We’re due at Aunt Zhenia’s for lunch at twelve.’
He endured the day. He endured Zhenia’s well-meant and solicitous but exhausting attentions, endured Varya’s pale, plump, demanding presence, endured Mischa’s back-slapping bonhomie.
‘A bad business, my boy, a bad business indeed. But you know what they say – it’s an ill wind that blows no good at all – there’s money to be made, there’s no denying that, good money to be made.’
And in his mind he found himself reciting, like a charm, the address Valentina had given him.
‘Poor Natalia – she’s taken it very badly, you know –’
He nodded. Said nothing. Across the room Margarita’s bright eyes watched him.
‘– gone completely to pieces. Strange, she always seemed such a capable girl – the kind to stand up against the worst –’
‘Dima had the worst,’ he found himself saying, his voice suddenly loud. ‘No matter what you think. No matter what you say. Dima had the worst.’
Flustered, Zhenia reached for a tray of cakes. ‘Why yes, of course. We realize that, Sasha my dear. Of course we do. Please, do have another of these – we were so very lucky to get the sugar.’
Sasha shook his head. ‘Thank you. No.’
‘I’ll have another of those, Zhenia dear.’ Varya’s small hand snatched the tray that her sister had been about to put back onto the table. ‘Though I must say I’ve tasted better. What a trial this war is.’ She appealed to her son-in-law, sulky-faced. ‘Nothing tastes the same as it used, does it? Absolutely nothing.’
They escaped at last. Walked in silence through the drab streets back to the apartment. There was a chill in the wind that came off the river. ‘The Melaknikovs sent a message,’ Margarita said, as they climbed the stairs to the front door. ‘They have a table at the P’tit Chat tonight. They asked us to join them.’
He said nothing.
‘I said yes.’ Every line of her body was tense. Her mouth was set in an unhappy line.
He shrugged. ‘All right.’
She glanced at him. ‘You haven’t any other plans?’ She pulled a small, bitter face. ‘I shouldn’t like to disrupt them if you have.’
He turned to face her. ‘Tomorrow,’ he found himself saying. ‘I have other plans for tomorrow. A friend from before the war – I met him last night – he lost a leg at Tannenberg.’
She stared at him, through level, narrowed eyes.
He forced himself on. Why, oh why was he lying? To protect himself ? To protect Valentina? Even in some strange way to protect Margarita herself ? Or was it simply a habit into which he had fallen and from which he could not extricate himself ? He did not know. ‘We got drunk together. We thought we might do it again tomorrow.’
‘How nice for you.’ Her voice was very cold.
He helped her from her cloak, handed it to the silent Petra who had appeared from the kitchen.
She turned a cool shoulder. ‘Your suit needs brushing before you put it on,’ she said. ‘I left it on the floor for rather a long time last night.’
* * *
He fled to Valentina the following night; he had been able to t
hink of nothing and no-one else all day. Even the thought of his imminent return to the Front was swamped by his need to see her. For the first time he wished the hours away, even though he knew that each fleeting minute took him closer to the nightmare that awaited him in Riga.
Margarita made no comment, no protest. She was sitting upon a low chair, skirts spread gracefully about her, the toy theatre upon a table in front of her, apparently absorbed in some project entirely her own. To his surprise she even lifted a cool, careless cheek to be kissed as he left, her eyes still upon the bright little scene before her. ‘Do be careful, Sasha dear. Don’t get too drunk.’
‘I won’t.’ In his urgency there was no place for shame. He kissed her, picked up his jacket, ran swiftly down the stairs to the front door.
He did not see, as he stepped into the street, the urchin who emerged from the shadows behind him, a very shadow himself – Sasha’s shadow – who, with Margarita’s roubles in his pockets and more promised, followed unobtrusively in his every footstep.
* * *
Some days later, as Sasha’s train sped south carrying him back to the fields of death, an uncomfortable meeting took place in a small and dingy office in the Ministry of the Interior.
‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’
The small, shabbily-dressed man who stood before the desk of Pavel Petrovich Donovalov moved uneasily from foot to foot. ‘Just gone, Pavel Petrovich. The bitch has disappeared.’
Lenka’s husband steepled his fingers. His desk was very tidy; he was obsessive about it. Papers were stacked in militarily precise piles, trays were set exactly at right angles to the edges of the desk, pencils and pens were ranged as if on parade. He lifted his eyes.
The other man, flinching a little, looked away. ‘I’m sorry, Pavel Petrovich. I didn’t realize it was that important. There are so many jobs on the go at the moment.’ His voice was as aggrieved as he dared to make it.
‘And every one of them –’ Donovalov’s voice was chill as he interrupted ‘– every single one of them is important. You fool, Kutya!’
‘Yes, Pavel Petrovich.’
Strange Are the Ways Page 42
