‘Chang An Lo,’ Kuan said in her usual quiet way, but Chang could hear the unease in her voice, ‘I am concerned.’
‘Concerned for China?’
‘No, concerned for you, my comrade.’
‘There is no need for concern.’
‘I think maybe there is.’
In her thick padded blue coat, with her short black hair framing a wide-boned face, she could have been a rice grower’s daughter from any stretch of rural China, one of millions like her condemned to a life of servitude on a tenant plot of land or in the family home. But her eyes told a different story. They were thoughtful and intelligent. She possessed a university degree in law and a mind that could recognise problems and decide how to deal with them effectively. Chang had no intention of being one of those problems.
‘Kuan,’ he said, ‘do not let yourself be distracted from what we have come here to achieve. Focus your attention. Our leader, Mao Tse Tung, needs us to be sharp. We have come to Moscow to learn.’
‘You are right, of course.’ She brushed the rain from her face. ‘It is what we are all concentrating on. Each of us in the delegation writes a report late into the night.’ She looked at him speculatively. ‘But I am not certain that you are as dedicated as usual to the affairs of Communism. As if your thoughts are elsewhere.’
The soles of Chang’s feet felt as though he’d just slipped on ice. ‘That is not the case, comrade. I have been focusing on how we can take greater advantage of the opportunities here and I think it is time we put in a request to inspect something different. Something more… challenging.’
He smiled at her, observing the suspicion slip away from her mouth as her eyes widened with anticipation.
‘What do you have in mind, Comrade Chang?’
He walked forward through the rain and she moved quickly to his side. People are like the fish in the Peiho River, he reminded himself. All you need to do is dangle the right bait.
‘Show me your tattoo.’
‘It’s of no interest, Lydia.’
‘It is to me.’
She was determined to see what they’d done to him, so that she’d know. Know what she owed him. He was seated on the edge of her bed, smarter now, cleaner in his new white shirt and smelling of an unfamiliar cologne. But more like the old Alexei she remembered, legs crossed at the ankles in a pose of indifference. It was a relief to see him back in his old skin, but at the same time he was different. Something had changed. She could sense it in his eyes and in the softer angle of his neck, and she didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. She watched as he started to unbutton his shirt. Behind her Popkov and Elena stood stiff and silent. She could feel their disapproval as sharply as she could feel the hole in her shoe. Alexei’s fingers worked fast and she could detect no hint of the shame she was certain he must feel.
‘There,’ he said and flung back his shirt.
She felt sick. It was larger than she’d expected. A cathedral covering the whole expanse of his skin. It seemed to crush the bones of his chest, its one elegant onion dome tattooed just under where his collar bones met.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.
Lydia heard a grunt behind her but ignored it.
Alexei raised one eyebrow at her. ‘Its beauty or lack of it is not the point.’
‘So what is the point?’
‘I’m marked as one of their own. For life.’
‘Oh Alexei, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
She gave him a smile. ‘You won’t be able to go swimming so often, that’s all.’
‘I never did like getting wet and cold anyway.’ He smiled back at her and it made her want to cry.
‘So now you’re one of the vory, what will they do for you?’
‘I have yet to find out.’
He started to button up his shirt. He didn’t hurry. For the first time it occurred to her to wonder whether belonging to this brotherhood meant more to him than she realised.
‘I have a new father,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘One who will help me.’
The shock of it caught her across her throat. She coughed and stared down at her hands because they seemed to be strangling each other, but she needed badly to talk about something else. Anything else.
‘Antonina wants to speak to you,’ she said.
Instantly his head came up, the green eyes alert and interested. ‘You’ve seen her?’
‘Yes. I’ll take you to her tomorrow.’
‘Thank you.’
That was all. They’d both said enough. Lydia walked over to the peg on the door and pulled on her coat.
‘Sleep well, brother,’ she murmured, opened the door and walked out on to the dim landing.
Before she reached the black courtyard outside, a burly shadow merged with her own, so that it turned into a two-headed monster on the prowl through the night. It was Liev Popkov. They didn’t speak. He loped beside her and she lengthened her stride to his as they disappeared into the dark streets of Moscow. Only when he’d seen her safely to her destination would he return to the warmth of Elena and his own bed.
The crucifix still hung on the wall and the room had filled with shadows, but it didn’t matter to Lydia. Nothing mattered. Not now. Chang had lit the gas lamp.
‘So that I can look at you,’ he’d said.
When she’d entered the room he’d taken her face gently between his hands, his fingers feeling the bones under her skin as if they could tell him something. His eyes studied hers intently for a long moment, then he had kissed her forehead and folded her into his arms.
That was when suddenly nothing else mattered.
She lay with her cheek on his naked chest, her limbs spread lazily over his, and let her fingers trail over his skin. With intense pleasure she smoothed out the slick sheen of sweat that made it glow in the yellow light as if it had been oiled. Each time she touched one of the ridged scars on his chest she lifted her head and brushed it with her lips, tasting his saltiness. Those old scars, like the ones where his little fingers had once been, she could bear. They were surface damage. But what lay under his fine precious skin? What new damage had been inflicted while he was away from her, scars she couldn’t see?
She pressed her ear even closer to his chest to listen for what lay underneath, but caught only the steady drumbeat of his heart and the soft sigh of air entering and leaving the secret cavities within him. His hand was buried in the tangle of her hair, moving among its strands, fingering them, burrowing deeper.
Their first love-making had been intense, hungry for each other as starved creatures are for food, but this time they allowed themselves a slower pace as if they could start to believe they were not going to be snatched apart again at any moment. Their bodies began to relax. To trust. They found each other’s rhythm with ease and Lydia experienced again that familiar ache for him which no amount of feeling him hard inside her, becoming a physical part of her, ever banished completely.
She stroked the long taut muscle of his thigh, saw it twitch with pleasure. ‘Tell me,’ she said softly, ‘what it is that is hurting so much inside you.’
‘Now I am here with you, all pain has vanished.’ He was smiling, she could hear it in his voice even though she couldn’t see his face.
‘You lie well, my love.’
With his hand still entwined in her hair, he raised her head a fraction and turned it so that her chin was balanced on his ribs and he could see her face. His black almond-shaped eyes were smiling at her.
‘It’s the truth, Lydia. The rest of the world does not exist when we are together. What’s out there,’ he glanced at the black window and for a second the smile slipped, ‘with all its hardships, it ceases to be.’ He smoothed a lock of fiery hair back from her forehead and put a fingertip to her mouth. She parted her lips and he touched her teeth. ‘But it’s waiting for us.’