She picked up the olives, succulent and tangy, and recalled how her mother would have slit her own throat for such a jar.
‘No price tag on the food?’ She made herself replace the olives. ‘Or on the information I asked for?’
‘Not much success there, I’m afraid.’
A small silence tumbled into the ragged gap between them but he didn’t seem to notice it. It made her uncomfortable.
‘You’ve not found where Jens Friis is?’ she asked at last.
‘No.’
Another silence. He swung his leg carelessly and she wanted to seize it and wrap it round his neck.
‘But I thought…’ she started. The words tailed off. What was the point of them?
‘So did I.’
‘Is that why you brought the food? In place of any information?’
Abruptly the leg stilled its movement. ‘ Lydia, I am no longer involved with prisons or labour camps.’
‘Do you remember him at Trovitsk camp? Jens Friis. Tall and red-haired.’
‘Of course not. There were hundreds of prisoners there and I had little to do with them myself. I was just there to ensure the work norms were fulfilled and the timber shipped south. I didn’t sit and hold a prisoner’s hand and tell him bedtime stories, if that’s what you mean.’
She stared at him.
He didn’t smile, just looked back at her, a patient expression on his face. It goaded her further.
‘But I told you,’ she said. ‘I gave you the exact number of the prison that he’s supposed to be held in – number 1908. Surely you can find out from your contacts where it is in Moscow.’ She shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. ‘Even if you can’t find out whether he’s in there.’
‘ Lydia, my dear girl, I would if I could, I promise you. But you must understand, some secrets are secret even from me.’ His forehead was furrowed and she wasn’t sure whether it was concern or annoyance. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you more.’ As an afterthought he added, ‘I wish I could.’
Lydia stooped and picked up the large brown paper bag on the floor. One by one she started to place the food items back inside it. Malofeyev made no comment.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said quietly, her back to him.
She left the cigars till last, then positioned them neatly on top. They made her think of Alexei and how he would have enjoyed them. She turned to face Malofeyev.
‘Dmitri, why are you doing this? Helping me, I mean. Bringing me such lavish gifts when you barely know me and certainly owe me nothing. You know as well as I do that just one of those cans of caviar would buy you any girl of your choice here in Moscow.’ She studied his face. Saw it soften and heard a sigh start to escape before it was cut off.
‘Ah Lydia, I’m not here to buy you.’
‘Aren’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Then why are you here?’
He observed her thoughtfully. ‘Because one day I want you to look at me just the way you looked at your Chinese friend at the Metropol the other evening.’
Something hot flared in Lydia ’s chest. ‘We danced, that’s all. Rather badly.’
‘No. That wasn’t all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know exactly what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t. Anyway, Dmitri, you seem to be forgetting that you have a beautiful wife at home.’
‘Ah yes, my Antonina. But you’re wrong, Lydia, not for one second do I ever forget my beautiful wife.’ There was a sadness, grey and soft as a shadow in his voice. ‘In fact it was she who suggested that, as I couldn’t help you in any other way, I should come over with these gifts.’
‘How convenient.’
He smiled politely.
Lydia tried to ignore the elegance that hung on him as effortlessly as his leather coat, and the fiery red hair that triggered all sorts of memories of her father. They ran like ripples under her skin. For some reason she couldn’t understand, when she was in the presence of this man her life in China seemed oddly opaque and far away. That annoyed her more than she cared to admit.
‘Comrade,’ she said with an abrupt change of tone, ‘thank you for your generosity but I cannot accept these gifts.’ Yet her hand was treacherous. It hovered there, touching the bulges of the brown paper bag with the same caress it used to fondle Misty’s ears. She snatched it away.
‘I’m trying to help you, Lydia. Remember that.’
‘In which case tell me, Dmitri, please, which street prison 1908 is in.’
‘Oh Lydia, I would if I knew.’
‘Maybe you don’t want to know.’
‘Maybe.’
If she was going to find her father she needed Malofeyev, needed his knowledge and contacts and familiarity with the prison system. It unnerved her to think that someone a rung above him on the Soviet ladder was stamping on his fingers.
‘Who knows you’re here?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer the question but picked up the tea that was growing cold on the sill beside him, sipped it with a quiet delicacy as if lost in his thoughts and replaced it. Only then did he focus on Lydia and immediately she could see a change in him. His gaze was fixed and fierce and reminded her that he’d very recently been the Commandant of a prison camp.
‘ Lydia, listen to me. Soviet Russia is still just a child. It is growing and learning. Every day we are drawing closer to our goaclass="underline" a just and well-balanced society where equality is so taken for granted that we will be astonished at what our fathers and grandfathers were stupid enough to put up with.’
She didn’t react, didn’t look away. The pulse in her wrist was racing and the dying light from the window behind him seemed to be setting fire to his hair.
‘And the prison camps?’ she asked. ‘Is that how you teach this growing child of Soviet Russia to behave?’
He nodded.
‘Through fear?’ she demanded. ‘Through informers?’
‘Yes.’ He rose from the sill, a slow casual movement that nevertheless made Lydia watchful. He’d grown taller and suddenly darker as he stepped away from the window. ‘The people of Russia have to be taught to rethink themselves.’
He came closer.
Her heart thumped. ‘Jens Friis is not even a Soviet citizen,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s Danish. What good can teaching him to rethink possibly achieve?’
‘As an example to others. It demonstrates that no one is safe if they indulge in anti-Soviet activities. No one, Lydia. Not one single person is more important than the Soviet State. Not me.’ He paused, his words suddenly soft. ‘And not you.’
She tried to slow her breathing but couldn’t. Abruptly he seized both her wrists and shook her hard. Wordlessly she fought to break free but his fingers held her with ease so she ceased her struggles.
‘Let me go,’ she hissed.
‘You see, Lydia,’ he said calmly, ‘how fear changes people. Look at yourself now, wide-eyed with fear, a little lion cub eager to claw my throat out. But when I release you, you will have learned something. You will have learned to fear what I might do – to you, to your friends, to Jens Friis, even to that damn Chinese lover of yours – and it will hold you in check. That’s how Stalin’s penal system works.’
He smiled, an uneven twist of his mouth that offered no threat, just a warning. She stared straight into his grey eyes. With a cautious nod of his head, he uncurled his fingers. She didn’t move. With no hesitation he leaned forward and kissed her mouth, hard and hungry. His hand touched her breast. She took a step backward, away from him, and he didn’t stop her.
‘Fear,’ he said, ‘is something you have to learn how to use. Remember that, Lydia.’ He gave her a playful tilt of his head, the easy charm back in place. ‘I meant you no harm. I just wanted you to know.’
She was too angry to speak. But her eyes never left his.
‘You can slap my face if it would make you feel any better,’ he offered with a light laugh.
She turned her face rigidly to one side, no longer able to look at him. Without another word he walked out, shutting the door quietly behind him. She started to shake. Anger raged inside her, hot and painful, burning her throat. She hurried to the window and watched the tall figure of Dmitri Malofeyev stride through the gloom of the courtyard, his back towards her and one hand raised in farewell. Without even turning round, he’d known she’d be there, watching.