The Concubine's Secret

19

‘She’s not here.’

‘When did she leave?’ Alexei asked.

‘A while ago.’

‘A week? A month? Longer?’

The concierge shook her head unhelpfully. She was a sturdy comrade who took her job seriously. ‘I don’t keep track of everyone’s movements, you know.’

I bet you do, comrade. I bet that’s exactly what you do.

But she wasn’t going to share the information with him. He couldn’t blame her. He looked a mess, his filthy clothes and unshaven appearance didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

‘I’m her brother.’

‘So?’

‘I was delayed elsewhere. I thought she’d still be here in Felanka.’

‘Well, she’s not.’

‘Did she leave anything? A note perhaps?’

‘Nyet.’

Alexei rested his elbows on her desk and leaned so far forward it occurred to him she might think he was trying to kiss her. He smiled but it wasn’t friendly. ‘I believe she did,’ he said evenly.

The woman thought about that. ‘I’ll check.’

She backed away, rummaged in a drawer and, after a show of considerable effort, produced an envelope. Scrawled across it in large looping letters was his name, Alexei Serov. He realised he’d never seen his sister’s handwriting before in all the time they’d been travelling together. It surprised him. It was bold – but that much he would have guessed. What he hadn’t expected was the softness within it, the uncertain ends to the words and a carefulness in the forming of the capital S. Oh Lydia. Where the hell are you? Why didn’t you wait?

His fear was that she’d gone to the camp and been arrested.

‘And the man we were with? The big-’

‘I remember him.’ For the first time she smiled and it made her almost pretty. ‘He’s gone too. They went together.’

Her memory was improving, so he decided to try again. ‘I left a bag in my room. Is it-’

‘Any possessions remaining in the room are kept for three days and then sold to cover any unpaid rent.’

‘But I’m sure my sister would have paid anything owing.’

The woman shrugged carelessly. She was growing bored.

‘Thank you,’ he said politely and smiled at her. ‘Spasibo.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Could you make sure my bag is not also hidden away somewhere and forgotten?’ He said it pleasantly enough, but one look at his eyes made her hesitate and she started to shake her head. She moved over to a dark cubicle behind her, disappeared for no more than one minute and returned empty-handed.

‘Nyet,’ she said. ‘Nichevo. Nothing.’

‘Thank you, comrade. For your… help.’

My dear Alexei,

I’m writing in the hope that you may return here to Felanka. I want you to find this letter. I waited for you, Alexei. Three whole weeks – with no word. But you didn’t come back. Where are you? I swing between being frantic with worry one moment and angry with you for deserting me the next. Don’t you care if you hurt me?

To practical matters:

1. I enclose some money. In case you are in any trouble.

2. Your bag is missing from your room. So I must assume you planned your leaving. Popkov has haunted the bars to hear any word of you but no one is saying anything. Maybe they know nothing.

3. Now for the big one. I am going to Moscow. With Popkov and Elena. I’m not sure about Elena, why she is sticking so close, but she and my beloved bear seem to have taken a liking to each other.

4. Why Moscow? Papa is there. Think about it, Alexei. Papa in Moscow, not in a coal mine. I could cry with joy. I was given a number – 1908. I thought it was a date. It’s not. Popkov tells me it is the number of a secret prison in Moscow. Thank God for Popkov.

We leave by train today. I wish you were with us. Take good care of yourself, my only brother. If you find this letter and decide to come to Moscow, meet me at noon outside the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer. I’ll try to be waiting there each day.

From your sister with love – and fury,

Lydia

There was no money in the letter. Of course there wasn’t. Concierges were expert at steaming open sealed correspondence. It was a fact as well known in Soviet Russia as the colour of the snow after the wind blows in from the factories on the edge of town – everyone was aware of it, took it for granted. Except Lydia, it seemed.

The money was gone and he had no way of proving it was ever there. But that was the least of his concerns. He sat alone on an iron bench in the deserted park with its elaborate wrought-iron lamp posts, and finished off the last of the vodka. He wanted the liquid to burn away the hard lump that had lodged somewhere just below his throat.

My beloved bear.

Thank God for Popkov.

That’s what she’d said.

To hell with the dumb Cossack. That bastard must be so pleased with himself. Just because he’d been a servant on her grandfather’s estate and had now shifted that dog-like devotion to Lydia herself, it didn’t give him any right to take over now, whisking her off to Moscow on some wild and dangerous goose chase. Of course Jens Friis wasn’t there. It was just a terrible waste of their time and resources. And the plague of it was – should he remain here in Felanka, waiting for their inevitable return? Or chase after them and drag them back?

Don’t you care if you hurt me?

I care, my little sister. I care.

It was the hair that did it for him. The way it hung in a dense glossy swathe around her shoulders, a handful of dark waves pinned up into an elaborate coiffure on top of her head. Alexei recognised it immediately, though for a moment he had no recall of who the woman was.

Mid-afternoon and the day was grey. Iron-grey, he told himself with a wry smile, suitable for an iron town. He was making his way down Felanka’s main street, avoiding the grander buildings and the snow heaped in the gutters, heading straight for the more rundown areas where the street traders would have their cheaper wares on display. He was weary. Sore and hungry. He hadn’t eaten for two days, trying to preserve the few roubles that lay secreted in his pocket.

That was when he saw the woman’s hair, and the long silver fur coat that swung as she moved. She was standing at the edge of the kerb, attempting to cross the busy road at one of the spots where the gutter had been cleared of snow to allow pedestrians passage. As she flicked her head from side to side, watching out for the traffic in both directions, their eyes met for one fleeting second.

His brain was sluggish. Infections and fever had taken their toll, so his reactions were slow. If he’d had something to eat, something to give him the strength to clear his mind, maybe what followed might have worked out differently. The woman stared, then abandoned the kerb and walked briskly towards him across the frozen pavement, so purposeful in her stride he knew she wanted something.

‘Well, you’re certainly a mess, aren’t you?’

This was not exactly the greeting he’d expected. She didn’t smile, just looked him up and down the way she would a homemade dress on a hanger, and that was when he remembered who the dark hair belonged to. The camp Commandant’s wife.

‘Dobriy den, good afternoon,’ Alexei responded. ‘I’m surprised you recognise me.’ He rubbed a hand over his rough beard. ‘But you,’ he said gallantly, ‘are unforgettable.’

She gave him a look. ‘Don’t lie. At first you had no recall of who I was.’

‘You’re quick,’ he smiled, meaning it as a compliment. ‘I apologise. I’ve been unwell.’

‘That’s obvious.’

‘But you are looking even more elegant than ever.’

‘I’ve just had my hair done. Like it?’ She patted the pinned loops and her carmine lips curved, inviting praise.

‘It looks delightful.’ He gestured vaguely up the street. ‘Especially here. You add colour.’ He studied her carefully groomed face with its narrow bones and deep-set eyes that seemed to hide in shadows. ‘You bring style to the streets of Felanka.’

She laughed but it was a practised effort that fooled neither of them. Alexei guessed she was about five years older than he was, probably in her early thirties, but there was something fragile about her that was at odds with her glossy smile and confident walk. He slid a hand into his pocket and prodded the pathetic huddle of roubles.

‘Comrade,’ he smiled, ‘let me have the pleasure of buying you a drink.’

‘I’m looking for the girl you were with in Selyansk.’

‘She’s gone,’ Alexei said.

‘So it seems.’

‘Why the interest in her?’

‘She asked me for something. This is the third time I’ve tried to trace her but she appears to have,’ she twiddled her fingers in the air as if tracing a puff of smoke, ‘vanished.’

‘I’m her brother. You can tell me and I’ll pass it on when we-’

‘So she’s not your lover?’

‘Nyet.’

The question irritated him. As did the place they were in, the Leninsky Hotel. It was lavish beyond his expectations and certainly beyond his means. It wasn’t exactly designed for the use of the working proletariat either. A spacious hotel lounge with high corniced ceilings and comfortable silk brocade sofas that would not have been out of place in the Leningrad of his youth. Gold-framed mirrors lined the walls, reflecting light into every corner, and Alexei was shocked to catch sight of his own appearance. He looked terrible, even worse than he’d feared. The hotel manager would not have even let him up the front steps had it not been for Antonina at his side.

‘Don’t fuss, Vladimir,’ she had beamed, dismissing the startled manager with a wave of her hand. ‘Bring us tea… and two brandies,’ she ordered and breezed into the salon.

Alexei was acutely aware of his filthy homespun clothes and his unkempt appearance. He inspected his black fingernails with disgust. Why had she brought him here? He looked around. In one corner a lone pipe smoker was bent over a stack of manilla folders and down one side of the room a handful of well-dressed women were sipping chai and staring with open curiosity at Alexei. Antonina waved to them but nothing more. At the far end beside a small dance floor an elderly man with an impressive walrus moustache was playing a grand piano, utterly wrapped up in his own world, producing sad unfamiliar tunes that drifted through the air with a melancholy that suited Alexei’s mood.

‘Relax.’ She sipped her brandy, eyes serious.

‘Do you bring men here often?’

She frowned. ‘Of course not. Don’t be insulting. But I have an account here for when I’m in town. I would remind you that my husband is an important figure in these parts.’ She gave him a slow smile and indicated her brandy glass. ‘So don’t worry about these. Would you like me to order you a cigar with it?’

‘No. But thank you.’

They were sitting opposite each other, a low mahogany coffee table between them, and he enjoyed observing her. It was a long time since he’d been alone with a woman. Lydia didn’t count. She was his sister and anyway, just a girl. He found himself wanting to reach out and touch the silkiness of this woman’s dress, slate-blue and close-fitting at the hips. It revealed very little, with its long sleeves and high neckline, and would have looked demure if it had not been so artfully cut to emphasise the slenderness of her body and the full curves of her breasts. The only thing he didn’t like was that she kept her gloves on, beautiful pearl-grey doe-skin, because he liked to see hands. They told a lot about a person.

He leaned forward and raised his brandy to her. ‘To fortunate meetings,’ he smiled.

‘I’ll drink to that.’

He tasted the golden liquid, remembering other brandies on elegant terraces and in other civilised smoking rooms. Now look at him. In second-hand clothes. He snorted with a sudden sense of its absurdity.

‘What are you laughing at?’ she asked.

‘At the strangeness of life. You never know what – or who – is coming next.’

She smiled and for the first time her eyes became less guarded. ‘Isn’t that what puts the spice into it?’

‘No, not for me. I prefer to be prepared, and for that you need information.’

‘Ah! I see. You want something from me.’

He sat back and gave a low laugh. ‘Just like you want something from me.’

She didn’t react, except to sharpen her deep-set gaze.

Abruptly Alexei emptied his glass and stood up. ‘Come,’ he said, holding out his hand, ‘dance with me.’

Her eyes widened with surprise and flicked to his filthy clothes.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t contaminate you.’

They both knew that the word contaminate was a Soviet word. Subversives contaminate the proletariat. Dissidents contaminate their families and friends. For one moment he thought she would refuse but he was mistaken. She was clearly a person who liked a challenge. With a brief glance in the direction of the other women in the salon, she rose to her feet and accepted his hand. Her gloved fingers were warm in his as he led her on to the dance floor and took her into his arms. The pianist looked up, surprised, and immediately struck up a waltz.

Alexei didn’t hold her too close, but close enough. He could inhale her musky perfume and see the way she had tried to cover the dark shadows under her eyes with make-up.

‘You smell,’ she said, smiling.

‘I apologise,’ he laughed.

‘That’s all right. I like it actually. You-’

‘Hush,’ he murmured and drew her a fraction closer, his hand light on her back, aware of the delicate curve of each rib under his fingers. ‘Just dance.’