‘Jens?’
‘The building he’s in is strong. Impregnable I would say. Three storeys high with an extensive basement. A walled courtyard at the front with massive reinforced iron gates.’
‘And Jens?’
‘He looks like you.’
The tears ran silent and warm on to her skin. ‘You spoke to him?’
‘Yes. But not in private. I wasn’t able to talk of you.’
She shut her eyes. Imagined her father.
‘He was lined up with the other chiefs working on the project. As you said,’ his thumb traced along her wet eyelashes, ‘he is one of the best in engineering.’
She opened her eyes. ‘How did he seem?’
‘The way you described him. A tall man, strong features, and – this will please you – still a proud man. The years have not destroyed that. His Viking spirit has survived.’
‘Oh Chang, thank you.’
He said no more for a while, letting his words settle in her mind. Slowly she stopped the tears. The tremors shuddered through her bones one last time, then subsided. Only the pain in her chest remained and that she could live with.
‘Papa,’ she whispered, the word so soft it barely stirred the air. She heard her father’s laugh. Remembered again feeling his whiskers tickle her ribs. She sat up and studied Chang’s careful expression.
‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Nothing of importance.’
‘The truth, my love. I want the truth.’
‘Ah Lydia, be patient. Give yourself time.’
‘I don’t have patience. I don’t have time. Tell me the rest.’
Chang moved off the bed.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
He stood with his back to the window, facing her squarely. ‘The man I saw today is still your father, Lydia. He has the same fire in his eyes, the same lift of the chin and,’ she heard him hesitate and wondered what was coming, ‘the identical way of challenging you with just a look.’
She put her hands in her naked lap and made them stay there.
‘But Lydia, a man with that kind of determination and pride is bound to suffer hardest in the labour camps. They would try to break him. He would represent a threat to the system.’
She nodded.
‘His hair is white, though he’s only in his early forties. Pure white. Like the snows of Siberia.’
She nodded again. Her teeth clenched on her tongue.
‘His nose is crooked. Where it has been broken more than once. Several of his teeth are missing.’
The pain in her chest sharpened.
‘His hands are badly scarred. After more than ten years in the Siberian timber forests, he is lucky to have hands at all. But they must work well even so, or he would not have been selected for the project here in Moscow.’
She said nothing, but tucked her knees tight under her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins, binding herself together. He allowed her to think. Let the images build in her mind.
‘Is there more?’ she asked finally.
‘Isn’t that enough?’
She attempted a smile. ‘More than enough.’
There must have been something in her voice, something she was unaware of, because Chang returned to the bed, sat down on the rumpled cover and put his arms around her. Gently he rocked her. He kissed the top of her head and rocked her.
‘He knows you’re here.’
‘It’s the next street, Alexei.’
Maksim Voshchinsky gestured to the right and the car slowed to take the corner. A horse-drawn wagon lumbered past and somewhere a horn hooted with impatience. It was mid-afternoon and the roads were busy, the pavements crowded, the sky grey and lifeless. But in the long black saloon nerves were taut. Three of them were along the back seat, Alexei in the middle, Maksim on his right, Lydia on his left. In front Igor was skewed sideways, his eyes constantly darting towards Lydia, uneasy and disdainful. Females were not part of the vory pack, except to tend and support their men when needed, so both Maksim and Igor treated her as an unwelcome intruder. Nevertheless she had insisted on coming.
‘I’m the person who gave you the location of the prison,’ she pointed out flatly. ‘So I have a right to see it too.’
‘Nyet,’ Maksim had laughed with a dismissive wave of his hand. Like brushing aside a fly. ‘You wait here.’
‘No, I’m coming.’ She’d opened the car door and climbed inside.
‘Alexei, do something about your sister!’
‘Let her come.’
‘Remember what I told you, Alexei. A vor has no family except the vory v zakone.’
‘I remember, pakhan. But let her come.’
So now she was hunched beside him on the green leather seat, her face glued to the side window, watching as intently as a cat watches a butterfly. Her fingers tapped the glass in rapid disjointed movements.
It took an hour. They drove past the prison four times but spread out at fifteen-minute intervals, so as not to arouse suspicion. After the shock of the first time Alexei found it easier, the thought of his father inside there. He knew what to expect. Massive grey walls. Barbed wire on top. Metal doors large enough to swallow a truck. Bars on the windows. On the street armed guards with dogs. All protecting the three-storey building behind.
Not good.
‘Are you certain, Lydia? That this is where Jens is being held?’
She nodded. Ever since the car had started to whisk them north and out towards the grander houses, with the horseshoe of factories and warehouses that had sprung up around them, his sister had barely spoken. Maksim leaned back in the seat and lit a cigar, satisfied that the girl was overawed. Alexei was not so sure.
The driver was unknown to him, someone who drove in silence and acknowledged instructions with a subdued ‘Da, pakhan.’ The back of his neck was blue where the tip of a tattooed sword blade emerged from his collar and ran up into his hairline. After the fourth pass in front of the prison they took no more chances and turned the car south.
‘So?’ Alexei asked Maksim. ‘What about the truck which we’re told takes the prisoners out to their project centre?’
‘Don’t worry, my son. The place will be watched by our people now. We will trace it wherever it goes.’ He thumped a fist down on Alexei’s knee. ‘Trust me. The OGPU bastard secret police will be like a dog with a bone, unaware of the fleas jumping on their backs. You shall soon know.’
‘Spasibo, father.’
Beside him Lydia stirred. Her eyes stared at her brother’s face. He gazed straight ahead through the windscreen, cutting her out. As they travelled back towards the city, skirting Izmailovski Park, the streets grew broader and a forest of concrete monster apartment blocks for communal living shot up around them.
‘We could do more.’
‘What do you mean, little girl?’ Maksim gave Lydia a patronising smile.
Alexei could see how much it annoyed her but she kept herself in check.
‘I mean we should try to get someone inside the prison.’ The men all looked at her with disgust.
‘You’ve seen it,’ Alexei pointed out patiently. ‘It’s too well guarded.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Please, Lydia, don’t-’
‘Other people must go in and out,’ she continued reasonably. ‘Coalmen, butchers, bakers, secretaries, vets, window cleaners, cooks-’
‘All right, that’s enough.’
‘Couldn’t we pass a note to Jens through one of the civilian workers?’
Maksim wound down the window as though to clear the air of her words, and tossed out the remains of his cigar along with them.
‘Shut her up, Alexei. What she says is impossible.’