‘What the hell is going on here?’ The baker was lumbering over through the shadows. ‘Get over here, you stupid piece of dog shit. Where are my rolls?’
The boy scuttled around and bundled those that had lain out of the prisoners’ reach back on to the tray, but even in the dark they looked wet and gritty. The baker snatched the tray away and lashed out at the boy with his fist, sending him flying back on his heels, his head slamming on to the cobbles. He curled in a ball, hid his face in his hands and let out a long wretched wail, his shoulders shaking.
‘Leave the kid alone,’ Jens shouted.
‘Fuck off, prisoner. It’s none of your business. The bloody little fool has cost me trade.’ The baker strode back to his cart to remove another tray.
A guard stepped forward. ‘Get moving, you lot. The entertainment is over.’
Ill at ease because of what their greed had caused, the prisoners sank back into the monotony of the exercise circle. Jens was the last to move from the fence.
‘Boy,’ he called. ‘You all right?’
‘Me? Yeah.’ One bright eye winked at Jens from behind his fingers.
‘See that seat over there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘If you’re feeling dizzy, sit there for a minute.’ Jens’ gaze fixed hard on the boy. ‘That’s where we sit sometimes when we’re waiting for the truck to arrive.’
A slow sly grin greeted him.
‘Get over here,’ the baker’s voice ripped through the silence of the early morning air, ‘and carry those trays properly, you useless dog turd.’
The boy bounced to his feet, grabbed his hat and scampered to work without a backward glance.
Dearest Papa.
Jens could read no further. His eyes filled with tears. Dearest Papa. So many years since he’d heard those words. He lay down on his bed and pictured his daughter, her bright hair ablaze in the sunlight of a St Petersburg garden.
He tried again.
Dearest Papa, a short note squashed in a slice of bread. No way to say hello after twelve long years. So I’ll write about what matters most. I’ve missed you and never stopped thinking of you. Mama always said I reminded her of you each time she looked at me. I’m sorry, Papa, but I have to tell you that Mama died last year in an accident in China…
The piece of paper shook in his hand, the words blurred. No, Valentina, no. Why didn’t you wait for me? However many lies I told myself, I always believed I would see you again one day despite… Rage tore through his chest, ripping tubes and airways so that he couldn’t breathe. Rage at the system that had imprisoned him for no reason, at the desolate wasted years, at whoever caused the accident that robbed him of his wife.
He rested his forehead on the note as if it could pass its words into his mind. For a long while he remained like that. Images crowding in, images he’d not dared let loose before for fear they might shatter the fragile scaffolding that held up his world. The overhead light in a prisoner’s cell was never switched off even at night, to make surveillance simpler, so when an hour had passed and then another, he rose from the bed, splashed his burning cheeks with water from the bowl in the corner and tried once more.
Dearest Papa, a short note squashed in a slice of bread. No way to say hello after twelve long years. So I’ll write about what matters most. I’ve missed you and never stopped thinking of you. Mama always said I reminded her of you each time she looked at me. I’m sorry, Papa, but I have to tell you that Mama died last year in an accident in China. She left me a letter which said you were alive. I left China and traced you to Trovitsk camp and now Moscow. Alexei Serov and Liev Popkov are with me. I know that to communicate like this is dangerous and I fear for you. But if you can write something – somehow – the boy will be back tomorrow. Ever your loving daughter, Lydia.
Jens read it again. And again and again. He paced his cell, absorbing her words, studying the bold slant of her script until he knew each comma and each letter by heart. Then he tore it into confetti and fed it to his tongue.
‘Have you told Alexei?’ Popkov asked.
Lydia shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Hah!’
It was warm as summertime in the bakery, the heat from the ovens misting the window so that Lydia had to struggle to see out. She shifted impatiently from foot to foot, watching the road for the cart, nerves brittle as ice. Behind her Liev was lounging against a wall, a loaf of thick black bread tucked under his arm, casually tearing off great chunks and stuffing them into his mouth. Chyort! How could he eat? Her own stomach churned.
At last the lazy sound of a horse’s hooves carried through the dark street and seconds later the boy burst into the shop, a wide grin and a livid bruise spread across his face. She seized his bony shoulders and hugged him so hard he squealed and wriggled free. Even Popkov cuffed the mop of milky hair in a gesture of relief.
Lydia walked over to the counter where the baker was waiting and placed Antonina’s gold bracelet down on it.
‘You did well,’ she said.
‘What price a father, Alexei?’ Lydia asked.
They were walking side by side down Granovsky Street near the university, the way they had once strolled the streets of Felanka together not so many months ago. But nothing was as simple between them as it had seemed then. Alexei was insisting on finding a room of his own in Moscow and, though the rain had eased, they were moving fast as if they could outpace the dark shadows they threw behind them.
‘What do you mean?’ Alexei asked.
‘I mean are you so ready to buy yourself a new father? One who provides false identity papers as soon as you ask and in return tells you what you can and can’t do. Is that the kind of father you want?’
Alexei didn’t slow his pace but he turned his head to look at her for a moment. ‘This isn’t about fathers, is it?’ he said quietly. ‘It’s about sisters.’
Lydia lowered her eyes. She refused to say yes.
‘You must understand, Lydia, that Maksim Voshchinsky is my way of reaching Jens. It’s not a question of changing fathers. Or,’ he paused and the wind snatched at his coat, flapping it around his legs, ‘or sisters.’
‘But you like this Maksim.’
‘Yes, I like him. He’s clever, he’s complicated.’ He shrugged as he walked. ‘And he’s amusing.’
‘He doesn’t like me.’
‘What does that matter? I like you.’
She looked straight at him. ‘That’s all right then.’
46
The moon had risen and fought its way out from behind the clouds that had sat stubbornly over the city all day. It drenched the small silent room in a silvery light that made it hard for Lydia to hold on to what was real and what was shadow. She sat very still.
Chang An Lo lay on his side, breathing softly, his head on her lap, the weight of his cheek warm on her naked thigh. His eyes were closed and Lydia was studying his face with the same intensity she used to study a snowflake as a child. As if by looking hard enough and long enough she could learn to unravel what it was that held such miraculous beauty, and so know how to put it back together again when it melted.
She studied his features minutely. The fine bone under his eyebrow that swept up in such an expressive arch when he was amused, the thick fringe of black lashes. The long smooth eyelids. Were there images, she wondered, etched behind their surface? In the translucent gleam of the moon the flesh of his lips looked metallic. Was that what his gods did? Forge him for themselves? And for China? Were they gathering unseen around her head even now, laughing at her presumption?
She listened carefully. No sound, no whispers, no sneers hidden behind hands. No invisible presences floating through the cracks in the window or crawling in thin trails under the door. The night was godless. Just Chang’s breath, soft as the moonlight itself. How long could she keep him isolated? Steal him like this from his gods and his companions, and slide him right from under the nose of danger? She knew it couldn’t last for ever. Her fear for him was like a knot inside her, tightening each day, and her fear frightened her.