The Concubine's Secret (37 page)

Her skirt. Her cardigan. Her blouse. Her undergarments. She dropped them in a haphazard pile on the floor and stood naked in front of the washbasin. Her eyes meticulously avoided the small square of mirror above it because she couldn’t bear to see up close what betrayal looked like. What colour it was. What shape it took. What holes it chiselled in a person’s face. She ran the cold water and started to wash herself.

At the end of ten minutes her skin was sore and she was shivering, but her hands finally stilled. She’d realised it wasn’t the dirt on the outside that mattered, it was the dirt on the inside and she didn’t know how to get at it.

The bathroom was warm. The Hotel Triumfal looked after its privileged guests well, and Chang An Lo heard Biao’s intake of breath when he walked in and set eyes on the gold taps with their chrome and marble fittings. Biao’s own accommodation in the hotel was somewhat humbler, down on the second floor, a small room above a noisy bar. Chang shut the door behind them and turned on both taps in the washbasin and then in the bath. Water flooded out in a rush, spurting around the shining porcelain, gurgling down the plugholes, filling the small space with swirling and splashing, the water pipes juddering.

‘Now, my friend, let us talk,’ Chang said in an undertone.

‘Is it safe?’

‘Half the time I think the listeners are asleep.’

Biao still looked wary. His long arms moved restlessly at his side like bamboo leaves in the wind, his dark eyes roaming the tiled walls. Chang was thankful that he’d brought this young companion with him to Russia – and not just because it removed him from the battlefields of China and allowed his father to sleep at night. Biao was the shield at his back. He needed him.

‘Don’t disturb your thoughts with concern about the listeners, my brother,’ Chang said. He brought his lips close to Biao’s ear. ‘In this waterfall they are deaf anyway. But when Kuan said words that were ill-chosen yesterday, neither she nor I were questioned about them. I am certain the bearded ones find our Mandarin sounds as hard and unruly on the ear as we find their Russian ones.’

Biao nodded.

Chang spoke quickly. ‘There is a way out through the bathroom window, across the roofs. I need you to go out into Moscow unobserved. You must go now, before it is time for the dinner they have planned for us tonight.’

Biao nodded again, black eyes bright. ‘The bearded ones have wits as slow as a worm. It will be no problem.’

‘Thank you, my friend. Xie xie.’

For a moment they listened to the water.

‘Is this for the
fanqui
girl?’ Biao asked at last. ‘The one you danced with?’

Chang was surprised that Biao would question him, but he nodded. His young companion rearranged his face, sucking in the walls of his cheeks.

‘Comrade Chang,’ he muttered, ‘I offer my humble opinion that it is not wise to take such risks for a foreign devil, a fanqui. She is clearly not worth-’

Chang stiffened, a lengthening of his muscles, no more. But it was enough.

Biao lowered his head. ‘Forgive my worthless tongue. It does not know when to be silent.’

‘It was always so,’ Chang laughed. ‘You have not changed.’

‘Of course it is my pleasure to perform whatever task will be of assistance to the friend of my heart.’

‘Thank you, Hu Biao.’

‘It’s just that I…’ He stopped, his head still bowed, so that the tendons at the back of his strong neck were pulled taut.

‘What is it?’ Chang asked.

‘My tongue has no ears to listen or to learn.’

‘Finish what you wish to say.’

Hu Biao lifted his eyes and with their upturned lashes and hooded lids they reminded Chang sharply of Biao’s father, Hu Tai-wai, the man to whom he owed so much; the man who was his father in all but name. He felt a rush of affection for his young companion.

‘Spit out the words, Biao, or I shall be tempted to push my fist down your throat and drag them out myself, the way your mother pulls pups from a bitch.’

He laughed and saw Biao take a breath, followed by a faint shiver of relief, and for the first time it occurred to Chang that his childhood friend viewed him with fear as much as with love. That saddened him. Had the war turned him into someone he no longer recognised? Had he left the best of himself on the killing fields of China?

‘Biao, let me listen to your words of advice.’

‘The gods have taken good care of you, Chang An Lo. Don’t tempt them to forsake you because you have swapped their attention for that of a long-nosed foreign devil.’

‘I have promised them much already. I have sworn it in the proud name of my ancestors.’

‘No, my comrade. The gods are fickle. Stay with your own kind. Come back to China and marry my sister Si-qi. You know how much she loves you.’

Chang smiled. ‘The beautiful Si-qi already has my worthless heart and that of many others too. I will always love her sweet face and her wise mind.’

‘Then marry her.’

‘I can’t.’

‘It’s what my father and mother would wish with their dying breaths.’

‘Ah Biao, that is cruel. You know I can refuse them nothing.’

For a long time the two men looked into each other’s eyes with only the sound of the running water between them. It was Hu Biao who finally looked away.

‘What is it you need, Chang An Lo?’

‘I need a room.’

Edik returned late in the evening looking pleased with himself, puffing out his bony chest, and Lydia gave him a hug before he could object. He handed over the note in a hurry, as though he had somewhere else to be, then he and the pup disappeared.

The note contained an address and a street map. The map was drawn by hand and she imagined Chang sitting in his hotel room, carefully sketching the lines for her so that she’d make no mistake. There was no
Dearest Lydia
and no signature on it. Nothing that could be traced to them.

Just four brief words at the bottom. You are my life.

Lydia waited until she heard the snores of Liev and Elena, thickened by Malofeyev’s bottle of vodka, and only then did she slide out of bed.

The room was black, the window blacker. Outside the night sky had disappeared, no moon, no stars, just an emptiness that looked as if it had swallowed the city. Quickly Lydia pulled a bundle from under her bed and dressed herself in several layers of Elena’s jumpers and skirts, one squeezed on top of the other, until she was fat and bulky. Only then was she satisfied.

She couldn’t fit into her own coat any more but didn’t want to take Elena’s as it might be recognised by prying eyes. So instead she took her own blanket and folded it around herself like a long shawl pulled up over her hair and cheeks. On top of it she tied a scarf, knotted under her chin. Now she would be unrecognisable in the dark. It made her feel, just for the moment, free from herself. Holding her breath she opened the door and slipped out of the room. No one would know her.

Not even Chang An Lo.

She scuttled along the street, head down against the wind. Most houses were shrouded in darkness, so she could concentrate on where she was going rather than on her fear of being stopped and questioned. It was an uneven dirt road with a cemetery on one side; rows of wooden buildings propping each other up on the other. A strong odour of damp earth, pigs and woodsmoke made it smell like a Chinese village, and she tried to smile at the memory but couldn’t. Her palms were moist and clammy inside her gloves, despite the cold, and the skin at the nape of her neck prickled as though spiders were trapped under the blanket. Her pace slowed and stuttered to a halt. What was the matter with her?

Why so nervous? Why the reluctant feet?

She closed her eyes. The heavy night air weighed down on her, yet as she stood there, breathing fast, she felt the truth rise to the surface. She was frightened. Frightened they would be polite to each other.

How long she stood like that she didn’t know. The sound of footsteps in the street roused her and for one moment she thought Chang An Lo had come to find her. But then she saw the torch bobbing a yellow path over the snow. No, not Chang An Lo, he wouldn’t use a torch. She was just about to cross the road to avoid the newcomer when the beam of light swung up into her face, blinding her. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes and heard running feet, then suddenly she was slammed against a wall, her head rebounding off something hard. Hands tore off her blanket and scrabbled roughly at her clothes. Only the numerous layers of Elena’s bulky garments saved her from her attacker’s intruding fingers. She lashed out at his head with her fist and heard him yelp. His skull hurt her knuckles.

‘Get off me,’ she screamed.

‘Shut up,
suka
, bitch.’

‘Go to hell, you bastard.’ She kicked out hard and found his shinbone.

A hand struck her across her mouth, flat and hard. She tasted blood. A mouth stinking of beer closed on hers. She kicked out again but couldn’t breathe. His arm was pressed down on her windpipe, the weight of his body pinning her to the wall. She tried to scream. Felt her brain screech to a halt.

And suddenly it was over. With no sound her attacker released her as if he’d had enough of the fight and sat down on a pile of snow. He seemed exhausted. She dragged air into her starved throat.

‘Bastard!’ she gasped, and thumped his back where he sat.

Slowly, almost thoughtfully, he toppled over on to his face and lay sprawled across the snow beside the torch, his neck at an odd angle. Only then did she see the other figure, a face of hollows and shadows, a ghost risen from the churchyard opposite.

‘Chang An Lo,’ she breathed.

‘Come.’

He gripped her wrist and led her away from the broken figure on the ground, striding ahead along the dark road so that she had to hurry to keep up. She glanced behind her but the body hadn’t moved. The night seemed to gather into something thick and solid. When they reached a panelled door in the street, he withdrew a key and inserted it into the lock. The door opened with a whine from its hinge and then they were inside. The hallway was in total blackness but she could hear his breathing. She was sure he could hear hers, laboured and uneven.

He moved with no hesitation as though he could see in the darkness, and drew her with him up a flight of stairs to a door on the first landing. He opened it, guided her into the room and closed it behind them.

‘Wait here,’ he whispered.

He disappeared and a moment later a match flared. His face leapt out of the night. He was lighting a gas lamp that hung from the ceiling, adjusting the slender chains that regulated the flow. She heard it hiss into life and an amber glow nudged into the room. She released her breath. The place was small with a bed, an armchair and a bedside table. Surprisingly a crucifix hung on the wall. But this space was all they needed.

He came to her, stood in front of her, his eyes dark and alive. Yet she knew him too well. In the uneasy set of his jaw and in the soft line of his mouth she could see the reflection of her own uncertainty. She took a breath and moved forward till her arms were entwined around his neck and his hands were on her back, holding her, caressing her, finding the reality of her under all the layers.

‘My own love,’ she murmured and lifted her mouth to his.

As his lips found hers, hard and possessive, she felt the fragile barriers between them shift. Heard the crack as they broke into a thousand pieces and she knew there would be no politeness.

The blindfold was removed from Alexei’s eyes. He blinked fiercely as his vision adjusted to the sudden light and he examined his surroundings. It was an underground wine store. The stone walls were lined with racks of bottles in all shapes and sizes, the air so dusty it caught in his throat.

‘Who is this?’

‘Why have you brought him to us, Igor?’

The questions came from the group of about twenty young men gathered in the room, each with his shirt open to the waist. Tattoos covered their naked chests, distinctive blue messages to the outside world, and above them were lean faces and sharp suspicious eyes. None of them smiled a welcome. Shit, this looked like a bad mistake.

‘Good evening, comrades,’ he said amiably. He nodded a greeting and tried to steer his gaze away from the tattoos, which wasn’t easy. ‘My name is Alexei Serov.’

He placed the sack he was carrying on the floor in front of them, where dust and cobwebs coated the black tiles. One of the men with a whispery voice and his hair oiled either side of a neat parting, stepped forward and untwisted the neck of the sack. He lifted out its contents. Immediately the tension in the air eased.

It had been an easy steal. Yet it had disgusted Alexei. Revolted him. But it was what Maksim Voshchinsky demanded, a show of his fidelity, a demonstration of his courage. A gift for the vory. He’d said yes immediately and gave himself no time to change his mind. That same evening he went out on the streets of Moscow to prove he was worthy of their trust, that he was as much a thief as they were and had no fear of State authority. He’d spent two hours roaming the back roads, searching out an opportunity with the same precision he had used to reconnoitre military manoeuvres. When the chance came, he took it without hesitation.

He’d moved out of the darkness of a narrow lane into a rectangle of light thrown from an open door, slipping silently into a stranger’s hallway. That’s all it took to turn him into a thief, to make that jump that crossed the boundaries of decent conduct and plunged him into the wrong side of the world. His hands had reached out as though they had been performing such acts for years and removed the carved clock from the wall, as well as a small pewter vase from a table. In and out of the house in less than a minute. Less time than it took to slit your own throat.