‘Edik,’ she asked, ‘what happened to your parents?’
He gulped down two more mouthfuls of soup. ‘Shot.’ He crammed in more bread.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Four years ago.’
‘Why?’
She waited again. Didn’t push.
‘They read a book,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘A book that was banned because it was anti-Soviet.
‘What book?’
‘Can’t remember.’
She left it at that. His hair hung in a pale limp curtain round his face as he started to lick the bowl.
‘Have you lived on the streets ever since?’
‘Da.’
‘That’s tough.’
‘It’s not so bad. Winter is hardest.’
‘Thieving is dangerous.’
He lifted his head for the first time and his muddy blue eyes brightened. ‘I’m good at it. One of the best.’
I’m good at it. She’d said the same words herself not so long ago. Her stomach knotted when she thought of the risks.
‘Where do you sell the stuff you steal?’
‘I don’t.’ He gave her a scornful look as though she were stupid. ‘The vory do.’
‘Who are the vory?’
He rolled his eyes in exaggerated disgust, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and gave it to the dog to lick.
‘There’s this man,’ he explained slowly, as if talking to a simpleton. ‘He runs a gang of us street kids. We steal and hand it over to him. He pays us.’ The boy thought about what he’d just said and scowled. He made as if to spit on the floor but stopped himself just in time. ‘Not much though, the bastard. Just a few measly kopecks. Some of the other vory bastards pay better, but I got to take what I can get.’
Lydia leaned forward. ‘Are there many boys like you on the streets of Moscow?’
‘Yeah. Thousands.’
‘And are they all run in gangs by vory men?’
‘Most of them.’
‘Who are these vory?’
‘Criminals, of course.’ He grinned and ruffled the pup’s ears. ‘Like me.’
‘Edik, what you’re doing is dangerous.’
‘And what you’re doing isn’t?’ He laughed, an open childish laugh that made her smile.
She wanted to go over and wrap an arm round his skinny shoulders, to give this tough young kid the kind of hug his small frame was crying out for, but she didn’t. She had a feeling he would bite her again if she did. She scraped her hair back from her forehead as if she could scrape from her mind the doubts about what she was about to ask.
‘Edik.’
‘Yeah?’
She reached into her pocket, pulled out a ten-rouble note and waved it in the air. His eyes followed the white note hungrily, the way Misty’s followed a biscuit.
‘Here,’ she said, screwing it up into a ball and tossing it to him.
It was in his pocket before she could blink.
He grinned. ‘What now?’
‘I need you to go to the Hotel Triumfal again and watch out for the same Chinese man. He will pass you a note for me.’
‘Is that all? For all this money?’
‘Take care, Edik.’
He jumped to his feet, grabbing his new coat under one arm and his dog under the other. ‘The trouble with you, Lydia,’ this time his smile was shy, but it leapt the gap between them effortlessly, ‘you’re too easy to please.’
She laughed and felt the guilt shift a fraction under her ribs. ‘Don’t-’
A sharp knock on the door silenced her.
It was Dmitri Malofeyev. He was standing in the doorway of the shabby room in his elegantly tailored leather coat, a white silk scarf at his neck. In one hand he carried a large brown paper bag, in the other a bunch of flowers that looked as if they might be lilies. Where the hell he’d got them in the middle of winter she couldn’t imagine.
‘Hello, Lydia.’
‘Comrade Malofeyev, this is a surprise.’
‘May I come in?’
‘Of course.’
But she hesitated. To let this man with his shiny shoes and polished white teeth into her home was like inviting a crocodile into her bed.
She smiled at him, matching him tooth for tooth. ‘Come in.’
He walked in, his male presence filling every corner of the drab room. ‘So this is where you hide.’
Hide? Why did he use that word?
‘It’s where I live, yes. How did you find me?’
‘Not hard.’
‘No, I bet it wasn’t. For a member of the Party elite, nothing comes hard.’ She said it with a smile.
He returned the smile and with a gallant bow presented her with the flowers. As she accepted them she bent her head to inhale their fragrance and realised they were made of silk. Stupidly, she felt cheated.
‘Thank you.’
Her guest looked round the room with interest. His gaze settled on Edik and registered surprise. Whatever he’d gleaned from the concierge’s tittle-tattle a boy and a dog were clearly not part of the picture. He nodded a greeting of sorts, then reached into the paper bag under his arm, pulled out a pack of biscuits and tossed it across the room.
‘Here, young man,’ he said, ‘take this. And get out.’
It was said so politely that it was impossible to judge how serious he was.
The boy didn’t put out a hand to the biscuits. He just let them spin through the air and fall to the floor with a crunch. He didn’t even give Malofeyev the courtesy of looking at him. Instead he focused on Lydia.
‘Do you want me to stay?’ he muttered.
She loved him for it and at that moment he seemed to become part of her family. Like Chang had said, you don’t need the bond of blood.
‘No,’ she answered and gave him a grateful smile. ‘You can go. I believe you have an errand to run.’
Edik put down the dog, shrugged into the coat that was far too big for his slight frame and, without a glance at the visitor, slouched out of the door. The dog snatched up the biscuits between its tiny teeth and trotted after him.
She made him tea. It was the least she could do. On her bed was spread an array of food the likes of which she hadn’t set eyes on since she’d entered Russia. Not even in the shops did they have such riches. Tins of glossy caviar from the Caspian Sea. Almond biscuits and ginger cake. Bars of Swiss chocolate and silvered boxes of glacé fruits from Paris. A leg of smoked ham that made the room smell wonderful, and numerous kinds of fat spicy sausage. She had laid it all out on the bed with care, the way a woman would lay out her gowns and stand back to admire them. When she lifted out from the bottom of the bag a bottle of vodka and a metal case of five fat cigars, she had looked at Malofeyev and raised one eyebrow.
‘You think I’m a secret smoker?’ She laughed, then hesitated and added a little stiffly, ‘Or are these meant for your own use?’
‘No.’ He was sitting on the window sill, legs crossed, swinging one foot and watching her. ‘They’re for you to use. As trade for whatever else you need. Kerosene perhaps.’
‘Ah.’ Lydia placed the cigars between a jar of Greek olives and a packet of roast coffee, patted them affectionately like long-lost children and imagined what a guard might be persuaded to do in exchange for such a gift. ‘Spasibo.’ She smiled, not sure whether it was at him or at the food, and tried not to feel bought. Her feet wouldn’t move from the bed and she was frightened that if she looked away it might all disappear in a puff of smoke.
‘You’re welcome, Lydia.’
She waited for more words but none came.
‘Comrade Malofeyev, what do I owe you for this?’
‘Nothing. Don’t worry,’ he smiled at her, ‘there’s no price tag.’