‘Well, she’s right.’ Dmitry sounds weary. ‘Much of the trouble comes from the new Bolshevik Committee of the Vyborg. Their leader is one of mine, in fact. He’s well spoken and good-looking. People flock to him without even understanding the politics he espouses.’
‘Fascinating,’ Tonya says, as she lifts her cup and tries to bury her face in it.
‘How do you pass your time nowadays?’
Tonya has grown concerned, of late, that Dmitry will begin to sense Valentin on her. As if her lover is a soap with which she has scrubbed herself, all over her skin, deeper even. But it seems she needn’t have worried. Her husband doesn’t know her enough to see if she’s changed, and he certainly hasn’t. The chauffeur still takes Dmitry down to the neighbourhoods where the girls have blanched foreheads and rouged cheeks, rag-doll hair, rag-doll limbs.
Or at least they do after he is finished with them.
‘Reading, as always,’ she replies.
‘You’re looking a bit tired, purple beneath the eyes,’ he says. ‘It bothers me. You should use rice powder on them tomorrow.’
‘If you like.’
‘It’s those nightmares, isn’t it? My poor girl.’ Dmitry leans over and runs his hand through her hair, makes yet another comment about how much he likes it like this, loose and unplaited, tumbling freely. Beautiful, he says, like waves. Right now it feels more like rope. Like a hangman’s noose.
At five in the morning, the steps leading down to Valentin’s cellar room are bathed sweetly in light. The famous White Nights have arrived. Though the skies are lovely, beneath them Tonya feels unpleasantly exposed. She knocks in a hurry, her heart pounding against her ribs. They have not agreed in advance to meet today, and it’s possible that Valentin is not home, or even that he is with somebody else. There must be other women in his life, for he has mentioned both in speeches and in passing that people cannot belong to other people. The same as with land or livestock or material goods—
‘Tonya?’ he says, sounding surprised, as he opens the door.
‘Have I woken you?’ she asks.
‘I was working on a speech.’ Valentin is shirtless, holding a cigarette. She sees him through the spiral of smoke, his bare skin, the lean muscle of his torso, which she has never really beheld before, in all their stolen moments together. Only felt with her hands. Her mouth feels dry, but of course this cellar is airless and grotty, even without any smoke.
‘I was just out walking,’ she says, to explain herself. ‘And I thought—’
‘Come in,’ he says. His smile is easy. ‘I can practise on you.’
She follows him inside. The room is tragically small and dark, made smaller still by a partitioning of plywood down the middle. Friends of his often need a place to stay.
To hide from the Okhrana, the Tsar’s secret police.
Not even the White Nights can penetrate underground. But the dimness is comforting, makes it easier to surrender as he pulls her close to kiss her. It is slow and quiet. His hands linger by her waist, by the small of her back, and she feels the tickle of a blush. She has never fully undressed in front of him. They have rarely even come indoors. Valentin touches her idly, her face, her cheeks, her lips, and her skin seethes.
He takes her hand, turns it so her palm faces him, and runs his thumb over her wrist. It is so light, so airy, that she scarcely notices as he rolls her sleeve up further.
‘How did you get these?’ he asks.
‘What?’
‘Your scars.’
She pulls away. ‘I don’t know. I was born with them.’
‘You have the same all over your legs,’ he comments, offhand. ‘At first I thought perhaps a burn, or a childhood disease. But I’ve seen many such scars. These are different.’
‘I told you, I don’t know.’
He wants to ask more, but he won’t. She can tell just by the rawness of his gaze, same as when they see one another on the streets, over the heads of so many strangers. They can speak without speaking. She had never known this to be possible.
‘There’s a reading circle tonight, at a friend’s apartment,’ says Valentin, after a short silence. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’
‘But the risk. If someone recognises me—’
‘They won’t.’
Tonya tries to smile. It’s likely somebody will. It’s her unusual appearance that is to blame. Everyone in Popovka, the villagers, her friends, even her own family, had a nickname for her: Kukolka. It was not spoken with affection. There’s got to be something wrong with a girl who looks like that, something unseen, people would say, behind her back, just loud enough to be heard. Maybe Tonya’s own father believed it too, for Papa was always so eager for her to marry, to be taken away from Otrada.
To be sold.
But people cannot belong to other people.
‘I trust my friends with my life,’ says Valentin, as if he hears her thoughts.
‘Yes,’ she says, shocking herself. ‘I’ll come.’
A handkerchief that Tonya has never seen before is laid out on her mother-in-law’s bedside table. So delicate it is almost ghostly, it is threaded with gold, beaded with pearl, and around the edges is a raised, intricate design of pale blue flowers. Anastasia catches her looking and proffers it with one limp hand. Tonya holds it by a corner, reverently, wistfully.
‘It’s yours if you want it,’ says Anastasia.
Mesmerised, Tonya weaves it through her fingers. It is soft as snakeskin.
‘Are we continuing with Marxism and the National Question today, child?’
Tonya looks up. ‘If you find it dull, Anastasia Sergeyevna, I am happy to—’
‘Not in the least. We read a lot of political material these days, but I am glad that you’ve found something to care about.’ Anastasia smiles with the half of her mouth that still works. ‘The people’s cause is worthy. When I could, you know, I always tried to better the lives of those below me. But you must ease Mitya into it. My son means well. It’s been difficult for him, the tensions with the workers, all the discord.’
Tonya tries to picture Dmitry easing into something. It does not work. He takes things crudely, by force. He does not show it, of course. Or rather, it does not show on him.
‘Tonight, I …’ she begins. ‘There’s an event I would like to attend. An evening of reading.’
Anastasia’s eyes widen, even the bad one. ‘Who is hosting?’
Tonya’s face feels buttery with sweat. ‘Kirov’s wife.’
‘Kirov the Catfish?’
‘She often joins the women’s marches. But if Dmitry were to ask—’
‘I understand.’ Anastasia reaches out, pats Tonya on the cheek. The touch of the old woman’s hand is wispy, like the handkerchief. Anastasia is dissolving. Disappearing. ‘I’ll tell him you are on an errand for me, if he asks. Anything, little one, so that you are happy here.’
Valentin’s friend lives on Zagorodny, not an unfashionable area. The building is new-looking, sleek as a ship and topped by a cupola. Inside, Valentin is waiting for her by the stairwell, slouched against the wall. He lifts his hand in greeting, but she is struck again by the difference in their stations, for even this empty, half-painted entryway is grand compared to the basement room where he lives. What would he think of the foyer of the house on the Fontanka? The marble staircase, the floors lushly carpeted, the mirrored walls? The glass cabinet of porcelains and ceramics? The chandelier of hand-cut crystal, the way it ripples, looks like water from below?
Tonya finds Anastasia’s handkerchief in her reticule and dabs her cheeks with it.
‘Shall we go up?’ he suggests.
There is not very far up to go. Tonya wishes it were further and higher, but Valentin is already knocking on one of the doors. ‘Vika?’ he says, through the closed door. ‘It’s me.’