The Concubine's Secret (28 page)

‘
Spasibo
,’ Lydia said again. ‘Elena, you are too kind to me. I am grateful.’

Elena jerked her head, as if rearranging the thoughts inside it.

‘But,’ Lydia continued, ‘I can’t accept it. I’ll go to the party in my own skirt and blouse. They’ll have to do.’

Elena stepped forward and slammed the money down on the table with a force that vibrated the floor.

‘It’s not dirty,’ she snapped, snatching her coat from a hook on the wall. ‘And neither am I.’ She pulled open the door and yanked it closed behind her. Her footsteps sounded loud as she hurried down the corridor, but inside the room the air felt thick and unbreathable.

‘Go after her, Liev,’ Lydia whispered, her voice tight. ‘Tell her that’s not what I meant.’

They compromised.

Lydia agreed to allow Liev to accompany her as far as the hotel steps. She had declined Malofeyev’s offer of a car to pick her up because she wanted to keep secret where she lived. It was dark outside and sleeting fitfully when they set off, and the Hotel Metropol was some distance away near the Kremlin.

They travelled across the city by tram. Lydia adored the trams. Muscovites took them for granted but to Lydia they were exotic and quaint. She would have happily ridden up and down in one all day watching the people, finding out in their faces what it meant to be Russian.

She and Liev hopped on through the rear door and paid the conductress fourteen kopecks each for the fare. Three spools of differently priced tickets hung from the woman’s neck, bouncing on her ample bosom, and as she shouted out, ‘Move on down. Move on down!’ Lydia saw her give Popkov an unabashed wink. What is it about this greasy old bear that gets women so heated up? Everyone shuffled towards the front of the tram. It was cold on board and Lydia stayed close to Liev, tucked in against his bulk, shivering. She was nervous.

It seemed to take for ever, the rattling and the bumping, but finally she jumped down from the tram and that was when she felt a nudge on her hip. The pavement was still crowded with workers hurrying home from their offices and factories, the yellow lamplight twisting their faces into tired unfamiliar masks in the darkness. Most people would not have noticed the nudge, just one of many brushes with other pedestrians, but Lydia knew exactly what it was. Her hand shot out and clamped over a bony wrist. She swung round and found Elena’s silk scarf dangling from a pair of grubby fingers.

‘You dirty thief!’ she hissed.

She snatched the scarf and thrust it back into her pocket, but did not release her grasp on the culprit’s wrist. It was a boy.

The thief swore at her. ‘Fuck you.’

She blinked. Milk-white hair and bright blue eyes. A thin bony face with a mouth older than his years. It was the boy from inside the cardboard box. She saw recognition dawn in him as he glared at her.

‘Let me go,’ he muttered.

She was just thinking about unclamping her fingers when the boy’s head darted down. Pain shot through the back of her hand and she gasped. He’d bitten her. The filthy little gutter-snipe had sunk his rats’ teeth into her, slicing through her thin glove and into her skin. Yet when she snatched her hand away, he didn’t run. Lydia stepped back in surprise. He was suddenly dangling in the air, feet off the ground, struggling and swearing, kicking like a mule. Popkov was scowling as he held the urchin by the scruff at the end of an outstretched arm.

‘
Nyet
,’ the Cossack growled and shook the boy so hard his eyes rolled up in his head.

‘Stop it, Liev,’ she said.

Popkov gave the boy another vicious shake. This time his prisoner hung limp and for one sickening moment Lydia thought he was dead, but then a car’s headlights swept across his face. His eyes were wide open, frightened and furious.

‘Let the kid go, Liev. Put him down.’ She peeled off her torn glove and sucked at the scarlet trickle oozing from the back of her hand. ‘I’ll probably catch rabies.’

But Popkov wasn’t ready to listen. He searched the boy’s pockets, pulled out a pair of ladies’ gloves, a handful of coins and two cigarette lighters. One was inlaid with enamel and gold. He tucked the stolen haul into his own pocket, chuckling, then tore free the canvas bag that was slung across the thief’s thin chest. Immediately the boy surged back to life. He thudded his fists into his captor’s ribs so that Popkov gave a deep huff of irritation and cuffed the boy across the head. That silenced him.

The Cossack tossed the bag to Lydia and before she even caught it, she knew what would be inside. Gently she eased open the drawstring at the top and gazed down at two moist brown eyes, enormous with fright. A pink muzzle whimpered.

‘Put the boy down,’ Lydia ordered.

Popkov dumped the kid on the pavement, but still the boy didn’t run. Just stared at the sack in Lydia’s arms.

‘Here,’ she said and held it out to him. ‘Take Misty.’

He took it and hugged it close to his chest, arms wrapped protectively around the canvas bundle. Lydia reached into Popkov’s deep pocket and pulled out the enamelled lighter, which she admired for a moment before reluctantly flipping it over to the boy.

‘Now fuck off,’ she said with a smile.

He didn’t smile back. Just gave Popkov a glare of pure hatred, then raced away down a side alleyway.

‘Gutter rats need exterminating,’ the Cossack growled.

‘He’s just a kid scrounging a living.’

Lydia tucked her arm through Popkov’s and steered him towards the bright lights of the Hotel Metropol. Its grand facade stood opposite the Bolshoi Theatre, festive and inviting, but they were only a stone’s throw from the Kremlin, a fortress whose walls loomed red as though stained with blood. Even in the darkness Lydia shuddered.

‘The trouble with you, Liev,’ she said sternly, ‘is that you like to fight all the time.’

‘The trouble with you, Lydia,’ he growled back, ‘is that you have too many ideas in your head.’

‘Doesn’t everyone?’

He frowned at her. ‘Some more than others.’

Lydia was dancing. It was so long since she’d danced that she’d forgotten how intoxicating it could be. The music swayed through the air, soft and lilting in the grand room as a five-piece orchestra picked up a Strauss waltz and Dmitri Malofeyev spun her across the floor. Above her head a domed roof of intricate glass, stained a rich blue and green, gave Lydia the strange feeling that she was moving under the sea. The other dancers were as bright and fluid as fish, their gowns flitting past in purples and golds and rippling reds, their perfumes wafting like waves around her.

The delegation had been delayed. Dmitri didn’t say why and she hid her impatience, accepting his hand when he invited her to dance. He looked good in his evening jacket and smelled even better. Where his hand touched her back with no more weight than a feather, her skin grew hot under her white blouse. For some time they danced in silence until Lydia felt the need to offer her host some conversation.

‘You dance well, Dmitri.’

‘Thank you, Lydia. And you look lovely.’

‘The footwear isn’t mine.’

He looked down at Elena’s heavy green shoes and raised an amused eyebrow. ‘Exquisite.’

‘At least they fit.’

He laughed.

‘Dmitri, why are you doing this for me? Helping me.’

He slid his gaze off the huddle of army officers, locked deep in conversation over by one of the tall windows, and smiled at her. ‘Why do you think?’ he asked.

‘Out of the goodness of your heart?’

He laughed, that rich sound she liked but didn’t quite trust. ‘Don’t tease,’ he said. For a split second he stopped dancing. ‘I don’t think there’s much goodness in my heart, Lydia. I warn you.’

They stood still as stone for a moment, then he laughed and swept her up in his arms once more so that they became just another of the swirling couples. But Lydia’s stomach was turning, and turning in a way that had nothing to do with the sway of the music. He’s warned me. She couldn’t find a smile to give him, to make light of what he’d said. She turned her face aside and let her gaze drift sightlessly over the dazzling chandeliers.

‘Lydia.’

‘Yes?’

‘You are too easy to read.’

She tossed her head, annoyed. With him. With the Chinese delegation for being late. With the boy for biting her hand. With herself for needing him.

‘You’re still young,’ he said quietly. ‘Your eyes tell everything, however much you disguise it with a smile and a laugh, however enchanting you look.’

She turned directly to him. ‘Don’t be so sure.’

‘Ah, now you have me worried.’

He laughed again and this time she made herself laugh with him. His hand at her back increased its pressure, drawing her a fraction closer as he guided her expertly across the floor.

Kuan, where are you? Come quickly.

‘There are a lot of army people here tonight,’ she commented to distract him.

‘Yes, they are keen to talk to the Chinese delegation about Mao Tse Tung’s Red Army.’

‘A lot of power gathered in one room.’

‘More than you can imagine, Lydia. Be careful. These men would send you off to ten years’ hard labour for no more than smiling at the wrong person.’

‘Would you?’

He spun her past an elegant couple, both attired in raven-black, and nodded politely to them. Lydia could feel his shoulder muscles stiffen under her fingers. A rival on the ladder to the Politburo, perhaps?

‘Would I what?’

‘Send me to a prison camp for smiling at the wrong person?’

His mouth softened and his grey eyes were suddenly sad, changing colour like the sea when a fog rolls in. ‘No, Lydia, I wouldn’t.’

‘But you warned me.’

‘Yes. I did.’

Everything in her wanted to trust him and yet she couldn’t work out why.

‘
Spasibo
,’ she murmured. ‘For your help.’

He tightened his grip on her fingers. ‘Why am I doing it? I’ll tell you why. Because you’re not like them.’ He glanced with scorn at the other dancers. ‘Fear controls them. Jerks their limbs like puppets. In your neat little white blouse and green skirt and your borrowed shoes you’re not like them. There’s something still alive in you, something vibrating its wings. At times when I’m this close to you I can hear it.’

Lydia inhaled and felt a trickle of sweat on her neck. ‘I-’

‘Hello, Dmitri.’

Everything changed. It was as though the man she’d just been dancing with slipped from her grasp and another one took his place. This one was smooth and untouchable, the one with effortless charm and an easy smile, the one she’d first seen in the Liaison Office. For a moment Lydia was disconcerted. The man who was becoming her friend had gone.

‘Lydia,’ he said, ‘let me introduce you… to my dear wife, Antonina.’

Lydia swung round quickly and felt her cheeks flush red. The woman in front of her was dressed in a stylish beaded gown, her dark hair swept up on her head to emphasise her long pale neck. Her brown eyes were glittering with real amusement, so different from when Lydia had seen them in the hotel bathroom in Selyansk or on the station platform in Trovitsk.

‘Well, I do believe it’s young Lydia Ivanova,’ Antonina said. ‘The girl from the train.’

The words came out with a slight mocking edge but she extended a hand with what looked like genuine warmth. Lydia shook it, aware of the long white evening glove that covered the woman’s arm all the way to above her elbow.

‘Dmitri, darling, would you be an angel and fetch me a drink? And a glass of something for our young friend here. She looks as though she needs it.’

‘It would be my pleasure, Antonina,’ her husband said, taking her hand and kissing the back of the glove. Lydia was aware that something passed between them but she couldn’t make out what.

His tall figure disappeared into the crowd and Antonina drew Lydia aside, settling herself at one of the tables and slotting a cigarette into an ivory cigarette holder. Instantly a passing waiter lit it for her and she delayed speaking until he had moved away.

‘So,’ she said. Her deep-set eyes had shed their amusement. ‘My husband has been entertaining you, I see.’

‘No. He’s helping me.’

‘Oh?’

‘To find someone.’

‘Ah, that’s right. Your long lost half-brother, I assume.’

‘Alexei?’

‘Yes.’ Antonina registered Lydia’s expression of surprise. ‘Isn’t that who you mean?’

‘How do you know Alexei?’

‘I met him in Felanka. After you’d left. He was looking for you.’

In Felanka. After you’d left. Looking for you. Lydia clasped her hands together on her lap to stop them banging in fury on the table. All these weeks she’d believed Alexei had deserted her. When all the time the truth was that she’d walked out on him. She could hear a noise, an odd rasping sound, and it took a moment for her to realise it was her own breathing.

‘Are you all right?’ Antonina was leaning across the table, one white-gloved hand stretched out, but she cast a wary glance round the room. ‘Take care.’ She waited quietly while Lydia struggled for control. ‘Can I help?’

‘I… didn’t know.’

‘That he came back for you?’

Lydia ducked her head, her hair falling across her face. She tugged at a lock of it. ‘How was he?’ she whispered.

‘Alexei?’ Antonina took a long drag on the ivory holder and let smoke coil from her nose like a waking dragon. ‘Not in good shape, I’m afraid.’

‘Why?’

‘He’d been beaten up.’ She hesitated and something caught in her throat when she added, ‘Stabbed.’

Lydia refused to cry. ‘Was he badly hurt?’

‘The wound was healing, so don’t worry. But it must have been bad at first.’ Again that catch in her voice.

‘Did he receive my letter?’

‘What letter? I’m sorry, I know nothing about a letter.’