The Concubine's Secret (4 page)

A sudden ache in her throat caught her unawares at the thought of her father locked in one of Stalin’s brutal prison camps. She rested her forehead against the icy pane and the shock of the cold glass jerked her mind away from places it didn’t want to go. She focused on tomorrow. The station. Another long day for her between Alexei and Popkov. It was wrong what she’d done in the bar, using whispers about Alexei to bait the Cossack.

‘See him up there, Popkov? Watching you.’

Her words blew hot on the black hairs in his ears.

‘He wants you to lose. He’s laughing, Popkov, sneering…
Da
, you’re winning now… He’s gone. Couldn’t bear to watch you win.’

But she couldn’t have let him lose. He’d have just set about getting himself drunk out of his skull for a week, refusing to travel, refusing even to speak. It had happened before. Only grunts would come out of his mouth and only vodka would go in.

She turned abruptly to the bed where the remaining coins lay in two equal heaps. One pile she tipped inside one of her mittens, burying it deep in her pack the way a fox stores food for the winter. The other she folded up in the green cloth, ready for Popkov in the morning. The morning. Another dawn to get through. She never felt lonelier than when she woke up to find Chang An Lo wasn’t there in bed beside her, but maybe tomorrow they would at last get out of this tired little town. She tapped a finger impatiently on the black window pane as if to wake up whatever forces were out there, and uttered the words she had whispered every single night for the last five months.

‘Jens Friis, I am coming for you.’

And, as always, Chang An Lo’s warning whispered into her ear.
‘You will step into the dragon’s jaws.’

The railway station of Selyansk wasn’t in the centre of the town, but perched on the western edge as an afterthought. The ticket office and nicotine-stained waiting room were built of good straight pine, though the brown paint was peeling away in strips. The winter air was brittle and a chill wind stiffened Lydia’s cheeks as she walked on to the crowded platform, her eyes darting from face to face, alert for new travellers. The family huddles were familiar now, cocooned in their padded
fufaikas
, gazing along the lines of the silvery rails as if will power alone could summon up a train with its smoky breath.

She spotted the strangers immediately. Six men and one woman. Her pulse gave an uneasy kick but she allowed herself no more than an indifferent glance as she walked past. Nevertheless she took in every detail.

What were they doing here in Selyansk station?

Three of the men looked innocent enough, one a lone labourer in rough homespun trousers and rubber boots, while two others had the air of government apparatchiks dressed in well-cut overcoats. They looked sleek and contented and spoke in loud voices instead of the usual whispers. Lydia was sick to the pit of her stomach of words hidden behind hands, and eyes that clung to the floor so that there was no danger of thoughts spilling out for anyone to see. Or report on. She smiled at the men and their laughter.

‘What’s so funny?’ It was Alexei.

He was at the end of the platform, leaning against an empty oil drum and smoking one of his foul black cheroots. She was glad he had discarded the expensive winter overcoat he’d arrived with in Russia and replaced it with a coarse black woollen one. It swung round his ankles and had a small tear in the collar as if someone had yanked it too hard in a fight. Yet even in plain workman’s clothes he still managed to look elegant and somehow untouchable – dangerous even, she sometimes thought. There was a controlled coldness in his eyes that warned others against approaching too close. Well, she was his sister. She’d come as close as she damn well pleased.

‘Good morning, brother. Dobroye utro,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Let’s hope we’ll get out of this rat hole today,’ she added and swung her canvas bag on top of the oil drum.

His mouth curved into an obliging smile. ‘Good morning,
sestra, sister. Did you sleep well?’

‘Like an overfed cat. And you?’

‘Very well,
spasibo
, thank you.’

Both knew they were lying but it didn’t matter. It was their morning routine. She looked around her.

‘Where’s Popkov? I thought he’d be here by now.’

Alexei shook his head. He was wearing an old shapka with earflaps, and its softness emphasised the sharpness of his facial bones. Lydia abruptly realised he had grown thinner. She stared at the hollows that had appeared under his cheekbones and felt an unease press on her chest. Were they so short of money already?

He gave her a close-lipped smile. ‘Popkov has gone off in search of food for the journey.’

The Cossack was their scavenger when supplies were scarce. Lydia wanted to help him – she was quick with her fingers – but Alexei wouldn’t permit it. They’d argued but he was adamant.

‘This country is not like China, Lydia. If you steal here, even just a handful of bread or a couple of eggs, you will be sent to a prison labour camp and die there.’

‘Only if you’re caught.’

‘No. It’s too dangerous.’

She’d conceded with a shrug, unwilling to admit that his warning had frightened her. She knew what it was to be locked up.

‘Any word on the arrival of a train?’ she asked.

‘The usual.’

‘
Maybe today
. That’s what the station master always bleats.’

‘So this time it could be true.’

She nodded and let her glance roam casually over the straggly trees on the far side of the track, their skeletons etched in ice. Then, as if in no hurry, she turned again to her fellow travellers. Casually. It took an effort, but she kept her expression neutral as she sought out once more the rest of the newcomers. Two men, one woman. The two men wore uniforms she didn’t recognise and both possessed an air of authority that made her wary of eye contact, but she noticed them glance her way. A couple of paces to one side of them stood the woman.

‘Don’t stare.’ Alexei’s voice was gentle.

‘I’m not staring.’

‘You are.’

‘Of course I’m not. I’m just admiring her fur coat.’

‘Admire something else.’

Lydia dragged her eyes from the woman’s long dark hair, from the way it curled softly on her collar and swayed like a delicate glossy wing across her cheek as she moved her head. Exactly like Valentina’s used to. Bile, bitter-tasting, rose in Lydia’s throat.

‘From the back the resemblance to her is striking,’ Alexei murmured, his breath billowing white in the chill air.

‘Resemblance to whom?’

Alexei gave Lydia a long unblinking stare, then dropped the subject. He took a drag on his cheroot and slid a glance in the direction of the two uniformed men.

‘They know the train is coming or they wouldn’t be here.’

‘You think so?’

‘No question. It’ll come today.’

‘I hope Popkov hurries up. I don’t want him left behind.’

Even as she said it, she sensed it was a mistake. Alexei gave her a look but made no comment. She knew there was nothing he’d like better than for Liev Popkov to be left behind in Selyansk. He cast another glance over in the woman’s direction. ‘I wonder who she is,’ he said under his breath. ‘She sticks out like a sore thumb in a place like this.’

Lydia allowed herself another look, a lingering stare this time, at the woman’s silvery fur coat that seemed to shine in the dull wintry light. She noted the stylish matching hat perched at an angle, the pale grey boots as soft as kittens’ paws and the flash of a creamy cashmere scarf at the throat. The woman looked as if she’d strolled off Leningrad’s Nevsky Prospekt and found herself in a farmyard by mistake.

‘Her name is Antonina,’ Lydia said quietly.

Alexei looked at Lydia with surprise. ‘How in hell’s name do you know that?’

‘I learn things.’

‘And how exactly did you learn that?’

‘She told me herself.’

‘When?’

‘The night before last. In the hotel bathroom.’

Alexei stubbed out his cheroot under his boot and took a deep breath. Lydia could see he was thinking hard, working out the odds of his sister having blundered. She touched his sleeve with her fingers.

‘It’s all right, brother. I did no harm. I was careful, I told her nothing.’

‘So what else did you learn about this woman?’

Lydia let her gaze be drawn back to the ripple of dark hair and the arrogant lift of the chin.

‘She’s the Commandant’s wife.’

Alexei studied the woman. The camp Commandant’s wife. Now that was interesting. No wonder the uniforms hovered so close.

He experienced a sudden unreasonable rush of hope. He knew it was totally unwarranted, ridiculous even, but he was powerless to crush it. Last summer in China he’d jumped on a train with Lydia without a backward glance, and together they’d headed hundreds of bone-shaking miles north across the border to Vladivostok to find a father neither of them had seen or heard of for over twelve years. Alexei had done it for a whole handful of different reasons but expectation of success was certainly not one of them.

In his heart he was certain their search for Jens Friis was doomed to failure, but he never uttered a word of this to Lydia. The Soviet State was too massive and too resolute a fist to prise open and anyway their father was surely dead by now. Few could survive in those terrible camps where conditions were so harsh. The slave work in mines or on railways or canals or roads in freezing Siberian temperatures was brutal. Worse than brutal. Life out there was too thin, a brittle thread too easily snapped. The death rate was unimaginable.

Nevertheless, Alexei had come. Why?

Night after night on their long journey into Russia, he’d lain awake in bed in the early hours of the morning in some flea-bitten hostel or other, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He’d been forced to listen to the snores and loose farts of the other men in the Soviet communal dormitories while he considered and discarded one plan after another. In reality he knew planning was pointless. They had no way of knowing what lay ahead, so what purpose did it serve?

None. Absolutely none. But he was military trained and could no more stop his thoughts making precise preparations than he could prevent this sudden burst of hope at the sight of the Commandant’s wife. He looked across at his sister on the station platform. She was totally unaware of how she drew eyes to herself, envious eyes. Not for her drab brown coat or her straight young back. Not even for her flame-coloured hair which she’d tucked under her woollen hat as he’d instructed, but which crawled back out in rebellious tendrils as soon as she wasn’t paying attention.

No. Not for any of those did the eyes follow her. It was because there was an irrepressible air about her, an energy that they all envied, all craved. There was something unbroken, untamed in the way she swung her head or darted her eyes. They envied her that. However much he clothed her in drooping coats and stuck ugly hats on her head, he couldn’t hide it. He lit himself another cheroot and saw Lydia turn her head, give him a soft, almost shy smile.

He knew why he’d come. He’d come for her.

‘We’re close now.’

Alexei’s words caught Lydia by surprise. They were about to climb on to the train. Just when it seemed they’d be stranded for yet another interminable day, the train had announced itself with a belch of smoke. The crush of passengers surged around them on the platform but the big Cossack grinned, holding them back from the steps to make space for Lydia. Alexei offered a hand to help her up the steps, and that was when he said, ‘We’re close now.’

‘It’s taken us long enough.’ She felt a rush of affection as she gripped his hand.

‘It’s just a matter of narrowing the distance, day by day.’

‘I know, and we’re getting better at it, Alexei. We’re close now and we’ll stay that way.’

He hesitated, but he returned the pressure of her fingers. Only then did it occur to Lydia that she might have misunderstood. Alexei might not have been talking about them – about her and himself. He could have been referring to the fact that they were getting closer to the camp. Suddenly she felt mortified at her blunder.

‘Lydia.’ Alexei leapt up on the step behind her and touched her shoulder. ‘I’m glad I came.’

She turned and looked at him. ‘I’m glad you did, too,’ she said.

Lydia tucked the rug tightly around her knees and sank deeper into her seat between Alexei and Popkov. The train compartment was full but most of her fellow travellers were dozing. One old man over by the door was snuffling into his moustache.

‘What part of Russia do you hail from, girl?’

It was the passenger in the seat opposite who had spoken, the woman who had been snoring in the next room at the hotel. She was plump and middle-aged, with a flowered scarf around her head, making her cheeks puff out like a hamster’s.

Lydia felt pleased by the question. It made all the aching hours of hard work worth the effort. For months now she’d spoken nothing but Russian and was even finding herself thinking in Russian now. The words seemed to fit inside her mouth as if finally they belonged there. From the moment they left China, Alexei and Popkov adamantly refused to speak anything but Russian to her.

She’d groaned and moaned and whined, but Alexei wouldn’t budge. It was fine for him. He’d lived in St Petersburg until he was twelve years old and had the advantage that, even in China after the Bolshevik Revolution, his mother, Countess Serova, had insisted on speaking her native tongue within the home. So no problems for him. The words flowed from him like black Russian oil, and even though he spoke English as elegantly as any English county squire, he refused to let even one word of it pass his lips.

Lydia had cursed him. In English. In Russian. Even in Chinese.