‘Give me your hand.’
‘Why?’
‘Just do it.’
She felt the jaws of one of the cuffs close around her wrist. Valentin attached the other cuff to his own wrist. Bella stared down at the two hands, interlinked against the black leather of the seat. Another caricature, even more gross.
‘You think I’m going to jump out?’ she was trying to make light of it.
Valentin didn’t answer. He was looking, this time, at the thin silver chain she wore around her neck. His breath was sour and rank, and she hated his physical closeness. Huge hands. Spade nails. Whorls of black hair.
The moment Kalb got into the passenger seat at the front, they were off. The driver barely slowed for the turn onto the main road that led back to the city centre. Oncoming traffic swerved to avoid them as the driver hit the throttle and accelerated away.
Dense smoke still shrouded the city centre, and there were soldiers everywhere. At the foot of the hill, troops had thrown a barricade across the road with heavily guarded access to only a handful of vehicles. A queue had formed. Papers were being inspected. A soldier stepped forward, his hand extended, ordering them to stop.
Kalb told the driver to ignore him. The soldier was unshouldering his rifle when he caught sight of the SS emblem on the fender. He stepped back, offering the Nazi salute, his face a mask as the Mercedes swept past.
‘In the park, your people are cutting the hoses from the river,’ Kalb gestured at a line of fire engines parked on Khreshchatyk. ‘They don’t make it easy for us.’
Your people? Bella shivered, knowing that this wasn’t the moment to protest her innocence. The script, she knew, had already been written, her part assigned. They believed she was complicit in this murderous conspiracy and the NKVD file was all the proof the men in black would ever need. Thanks to Bezkrovny, and the hasty evacuation of the Big House, they were looking at a gift from God. Kalb had already used that very phrase. Moscow had sent her here. She’d come from the biggest of the Big Houses. She’d linked up with the bombers. She knew exactly what they were up to, maybe not every detail but certainly the sheer scale of the operation. She’d doubtless know names, where to get hold of these people, and now – with a little encouragement – she was going to share that knowledge.
They’d come to a brief halt while a couple of water tankers lumbered past. Wherever Bella looked, there were sudden eruptions of flame, jets of the brightest yellow against the thickening dusk, and she watched half a dozen men hauling a length of hose across the boulevard towards a burning hotel, their bodies bent low against the scalding breath of the firestorm.
‘These places are full of combustibles,’ Kalb was shaking his head. ‘Ammunition, kerosene, grenades, even mortar shells. First you blow the bottom up, then it sets fire to itself. It’s not a hotel at all. It’s a warehouse full of explosives. Clever.’
The driver was nodding in agreement. The water tankers had gone now and he was urging the big limousine across the cobbles when Bella heard the roar of yet another explosion in one of the adjoining streets, and she saw smoke-blackened faces turning and looking upwards with a kind of awe as yet more smoke billowed into the darkening sky.
My people again, she thought. Russians. God help me.
Minutes later, they were outside Larissa’s apartment block. A line of vehicles was already parked at the kerbside. Manacled to Valentin, Bella struggled out of the back of the Mercedes, trying to slow her racing pulse. Dignity, she kept telling herself. Show no fear. For her own sake, and for Larissa’s, she would never grant these bullies an easy victory.
Valentin hurried her up the endless flights of steps, the tightness of the handcuff biting into her flesh. On the landing at the top, an SS guard was standing watch over a pile of possessions. All of them belonged to Larissa. Bella recognised items from the kitchen – a samovar that had belonged to a favourite aunt, two enamel cooking pots, a lovely cut-glass decanter – and on top of the heap of clothes was a fur coat Larissa had fetched out for the coming winter. Bella wanted to pause a moment, take a proper look, but Valentin dragged her on. This is already the house of the dead, she thought, and now they’re attending to the estate.
The door to the apartment was open. Breathless from the climb, Bella knew she was stepping into a nightmare. Even the bulk of Valentin, so close, couldn’t hide the savagery of the violence. Everywhere she looked, Larissa’s life had been torn apart: drawers ripped out and emptied, furniture dismembered, drapes and curtains torn from their fixings, pictures smashed, hand-embroidered cushions disembowelled. A pickaxe was lying beside the remains of the parquet floor and someone had taken a sledgehammer to the grand piano.
She stared at the piano. The gleaming top she’d watched Larissa polish had been stoved in, splintered beyond repair, and the keyboard had ceased to exist. Black and white notes were scattered everywhere, a mad sonata that would never reappear on any score. There had to be a logic in all this, but the violence felt wanton, deliberate, vengeful. Kalb and his men were sending a message. On a larger scale, she thought, this was what the departed Soviets were doing to the city centre.
In the next room, which Larissa used as a study, an SS soldier was still at work with a bayonet, hacking and thrusting at the sofa. Stuffing spilled out of the plumpness of the upholstery and he paused for a moment, digging a hand deep into a corner of the sofa, looking for anything that might have been hidden. He’d taken off his jacket and his shirt was dark with sweat and Bella wondered about the secret pleasures of a night like this.
Kalb dismissed the soldier with a grunt, then led the way to Larissa’s bedroom. Valentin paused at the door and removed the handcuffs. Bella, rubbing sensation back into her wrist, was staring through the open door. Unlike the rest of the apartment, nothing had been touched. On the contrary, someone had gone to some trouble to turn down the counterpane, to adjust the lighting, even to find a modest stand of flowers for the vase on the table beside the bed. The flowers were roses, the deepest red, and Bella, for the first time, had the taste of real fear in her throat. This is theatre, she told herself. And bad things are going to happen.
‘Sit,’ Kalb patted the bed. ‘Please.’
‘Please’ came as a surprise, a sudden twist in the script, far from welcome. Bella sat down. She’d always admired Larissa’s taste in furniture, and one of her favourite pieces was a replica Louis XV giltwood armchair, cleverly made, legs beautifully turned, exquisite proportions. Larissa normally kept it in one corner of the room, away from the morning sunshine. Only days ago, they’d made love in that very chair, Bella sitting, Larissa on her knees, as deft and attentive as ever, but now Kalb had moved the chair much closer to the bed. He sank into it and loosened his collar. Then he produced a single sheet of paper and muttered something to Valentin that Bella didn’t catch.
‘We found this under one of the pillows,’ Kalb had turned back to Bella. ‘We think it might be for you.’
Bella took it. The handwriting was Larissa’s. It was a love letter, penned in Russian, and it began with the phrase Prelest moya Svecha.
‘We have difficulty reading this note. What does it say?’
‘Are you looking for secrets? Is that what you’re after?’
‘Just translate it,’ a thin smile.
Bella shrugged, and bent to the letter. ‘My precious Svecha…’ she began.
‘Svecha?’
‘It’s Russian for candle.’
‘She called you that?’
‘She did.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she was religious. Not always, but sometimes, when she felt the need. She was fascinated by labyrinths. A labyrinth is a puzzle. You walk and walk, very slowly, finding your way, thinking hard, praying hard, looking for the light. The light is the candle.’
‘You, in other words.’
‘Me,’ Bella agreed
‘And you? You do this, too? Walk the labyrinth? Pray hard?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
> ‘Then maybe you should,’ he nodded at the letter. ‘What else does it say?’
Bella didn’t answer. She was looking at Valentin. He was standing in the shadows in the corner of the room, slowly removing his clothes, letting each item drop to the floor. For the first time, Bella realised he hadn’t been wearing a uniform. Naked, he was huge.
This, she quickly realised, was meant to intimidate her. She returned to the letter. Larissa, she realised, was saying goodbye. Her job was becoming impossible. She had no desire to work for the city’s new masters. And now that the partisans were declaring their hand, there would be other difficulties. But she wanted Bella to know that she’d never forget her, that their brief coming together had been one of the labyrinth’s unexpected delights, and that life, God willing, would one day smile upon them both.
‘Sweet. She was in love with you? This woman?’
‘I think she was.’ Kalb’s use of the past tense was disturbing.
‘And you?’
‘She’s taught me a lot. I admire her. She’s brave, and wise, and wherever she is, I hope she’s safe.’
‘You’re telling me you don’t know where she is?’
Bella shook her head, said nothing. Valentin was bending over an apparatus in the corner, making an adjustment on a dial. Whatever it was had never been in this room before.
‘It’s a recording device,’ Kalb said. ‘Every word we say, every noise you make, everything will be recorded. A photograph in sound. Something, perhaps, to treasure. Our friend over there has many children. He even knows the name of some of them. Am I right, Valentin?’
Valentin grunted assent. He was carefully positioning a microphone in the direction of the bed, small, delicate movements for so big a man.
‘Take off your clothes, please.’ Kalb’s hand was extended. He was asking for the letter back.
Bella shook her head. It was hers. She wanted to keep it.
‘What do you need from me?’ she said.
‘We need to find your friend. And we think you know where she is.’
‘You’re wrong. I don’t.’
‘You’re lying. Escape is something you will have discussed. Pillow talk? Am I right? What to do when the Reds start blowing us up? Don’t shake your head. Tell us now, and everything will be so much simpler.’
‘I can’t tell you. Because I don’t know. Larissa never mentioned leaving this apartment. Neither did we ever discuss what’s happening now.’
Kalb studied her for a long moment and Bella sensed that he and patience had never been best friends. The clock was ticking. Someone, somewhere, was expecting a phone call, names, an address, the place of safety to where Larissa had fled. Then would come a volley of knocks on a door, the thunder of boots on a staircase, and the moment when the Reich began to unpick the plot that was blowing Kyiv apart.
‘You flew to London on 29 August. That’s what your file tells us. Is it right?’
‘Yes.’
‘You accompanied an engineer from the Soviet 37th Army, Ilya Glivenko. Correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘And you planned to spend a little time with a friend while he talked explosives at Fort Halstead. Yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘On 11 September, you and Glivenko flew back. He was always coming here. He was rejoining his unit. Instead of returning to Moscow, you came with him. Doesn’t that suggest you were part of all this?’
‘All what?’
‘The explosions? The chaos? How carefully you chose the targets? How successful you’ve been? The top, please. Your top garment.’ Kalb gestured at the thin woollen cardigan Bella was wearing, another loan from Larissa’s wardrobe.
Bella didn’t move. Kalb shook his head, a gesture of regret. Valentin needed no further prompting. He abandoned the recording device and stood over Bella, behind her, invisible. When he reached down to pull off her cardigan, she shook her head, pushed his hands away, did it herself. Kalb wanted the blouse underneath off, too. Again, Bella complied.
‘Your brassiere?’ Another gesture from Kalb, impatient this time.
Bella shook her head. She’d had enough of this pantomime. Kalb was playing with her, visibly extracting pleasure from every tiny moment of anticipation.
‘Your brassiere,’ he said again. ‘Take it off.’
‘No. You want this man to rape me, tell him to go ahead.’
Kalb held her gaze. He looked briefly sulky, the way a child might when he doesn’t get his way. Then the merest suggestion of a nod brought Valentin’s big hands to her brassiere strap. She felt the closure bend and then snap. Naked above the waist she was still staring at Kalb.
‘You want to rape me, too?’ she asked. ‘Or might a girl be disappointed after your donkey has his way?’
In retrospect, it was a foolish thing to say, needlessly provocative, but here and now Bella wanted this man to know that she wasn’t afraid and insulting him gave her just a moment’s pleasure.
‘Hurt her,’ Kalb said quietly. It had the force of an order.
Valentin pulled her backwards until she was lying on the bed. His sheer bulk loomed above her. Then she felt his knees pinioning her arms as he straddled her face, tearing off her skirt, and then ripping the lacy undergarments she’d also borrowed from Larissa.
‘Here—’ Valentin looked briefly up, tossing the torn silk to Kalb, a trophy for his boss. The knickers landed in Kalb’s lap, and he glanced down at them, his mad face contorted with pleasure, and for the first time Bella caught the glint of a silver tooth in his leer. Then Kalb got to his feet, telling Valentin to stop, to take his time, and left the room.
Moments later, he was back with the shopping bag Bella had brought from the market. In the bottom was a stone pot full of goose fat. He dipped his fingers in the pot and then slipped them between Bella’s thighs, working the goose fat deeper and deeper. Bella could see nothing but the heavy bag of Valentin’s testicles. Her world had suddenly shrunk. It smelled of bad drains, of caked shit, of folds and crevices unwashed for weeks, and she closed her eyes, knowing that she had to concentrate on one single image, one single thought, remembering a tip from Moncrieff weeks after he’d survived the attentions of the Gestapo. Think about someone or something you love, he’d told her. It might be a landscape, a favourite view. It might be a glass of malt. God knows, it might even be me. But hold that thought. Close the door and double-bolt it. Nothing else matters. Except the smile on your face.
Heroic, she thought. Heroic and probably wrong. Her eyes still closed, breathing as lightly as she could, tiny sips of the foulest air, she struggled to settle on that one image that might keep the very middle of her intact. Her times with Larissa? No. In bed with Tam? Yes. Kalb had given up with the goose fat. She felt remarkably warm, even readied, which she guessed might be the point. So far, she’d had no control of anything, and as Valentin eased his weight off her face, she knew that this sense of helplessness was about to get a whole lot worse. Except. Except.
Tam, she thought. Tam in Berlin, those first nights they’d slept together in her apartment. Tam in the Glebe House, her chieftain, her laird. Tam and his simple glee at some of the pleasures she’d teased from their times together.
‘Stop!’
It was Kalb. In his excitement, he’d forgotten to start the machine. She heard his footsteps as he edged around the bed, the click as his finger depressed the switch, the tiny whirr as the spools of tape began to revolve. Then he was back in the carefully angled chair, watching, taking advantage of a perfect view. Had his greasy fingers found the buttons of his trousers, she wondered. Might he wake up tomorrow with finger marks on the fly of the carefully pressed black serge? Was he enjoying himself?
She didn’t know, couldn’t possibly tell, but it didn’t matter because Valentin was inside her now, thrusting and thrusting, and as he went deeper the pain made her forget Tam, forget the Glebe House, and reach for something else. Black and white, she thought. Hot nights in the cinema beside the Moscow River. T
he fug of cheap cigarettes. Newsreels ahead of the main feature. Images flickering on the screen, stilling the chatter of a Moscow audience. Tanks, Stukas, truckloads of grim-faced infantry, bombs tumbling earthwards, women running for cover, hugging their children, falling to their knees, begging for mercy. Valentin, so aptly named, was doing to her what the Reich had done to Poland, to Belgium, to France, and now to Russia. No more laughter in Moscow cinemas, she thought. Because the Germans had arrived here, too, doing what they did best. Fuck them, she thought. Fuck them all.
She heard herself screaming, arching her back, reaching up, trying to somehow wriggle free, raking her nails across the sagging planes of her rapist’s face. She was drawing blood, but it didn’t matter. He was beyond reach, implacable, impervious to anything but unfinished business and the brimming pleasure to come. Then, as she watched through her tears, his jaw dropped, and his rhythm slowed, and she was left with nothing but a spreading hotness inside her and the faintest whimper of glee from the armchair as Kalb, too, was done.
The weight of Valentin’s body had collapsed on her. She was fighting for breath, knowing that – for a moment or two – the pain was over. They’d finished with her, she told herself. She was finished. And now, with luck, they’d dispose of whatever remained.
*
Dawn. Birdsong. Life was a cliff face, Moncrieff had decided. Below, surf boiled among the rocks. Above, its outline still dim as the sky began to lighten, was the limitless promise of survival, of getting there, of feeling the springy dampness of turf underfoot, of leaving the cliff edge, and the torrent of rising air, behind.
He tried to open his eyes, to blink, to take a look around. Impossible. But the parching dryness in his mouth, his throat, his lungs, had gone and for that he was deeply grateful.
Birdsong again, rising and falling, like a programme on the wireless with a stranger’s hand on the volume control. A nightingale? A thrush? Something equally tuneful? He couldn’t be sure but at last his eyes opened. Pain? Very little. Discomfort? Plenty. But no seagulls. And therefore, no cliff face.
Kyiv (Spoils of War) Page 16
