Oh dear God, let my beautiful Valentina be alive. Let my little Lydia be… He choked.
For twelve long barren years he’d lived without them, without even the memory of the two people he had loved most in the world. Because to think of them, of their smiles and their clear voices, would destroy him. So for twelve lonely years he’d lived without love and without hope. Only now when Poliakov said so slyly, She’s searching for you, did images of the moment he lost them come crashing back.
He pictured once more the icy wasteland of Siberia, white and monotonous. The grey frozen slats of the cattle wagons packed with fear and fury, as the train with its cargo of fleeing White Russians growled its way across Russia in search of freedom. Valentina’s breath on his cheek, the weight of their child asleep in his arms. Then came the rifles, the men on horseback with hate in their eyes, the cries as the women and children were snatched from the train by the Bolsheviks. In flashes he recalled again the pitiless gaze of the Red Army commander as the men were herded away to be shot. Valentina’s eyes huge with an agony of despair. Lydia’s thin piercing scream. The terror spread around them as solid as the frozen snow under their feet.
He jerked his mind away from that moment, the way he would jerk his hand away from red-hot metal.
‘Valentina?’ he whispered.
‘Who the fuck is Valentina?’ Poliakov snapped.
Jens suddenly hated this guard, loathed and detested him for enticing hope back into his life. Hope was dead. Long ago he had slain it, a many-headed monster that made life in the prisons unbearable. But now it had risen from the dead to torment him again. The pencil in his hand snapped.
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.