‘Well, Gerty, are you still living in that madhouse? You’ve ruined your reputation, you know, no good family will touch you now.’
I paused for a moment, then offered her the small parcel of bread I had brought for her. ‘I’m afraid this is all I had.’
‘I’m no charity case, you know,’ she snapped, but she reached into the bag immediately and began to eat, trying to hide her mouth with her hands. I looked away, moved almost to tears. ‘I’m still teaching, I receive my pupils like this too.’ She suddenly cackled. ‘Imagine that! I sit up in bed and my young men come and sit on the other end! That wouldn’t have done in the old days, would it?’
I laughed too. ‘No, our manners are very simple these days.’
‘Light me a fire, would you? There’s a few sticks of wood in that corner. I manage very well on my own, always have done, but if you’re here…’
Of course she’d been alone before the war too, in the days when I found her so infuriating, with her half-martyred, half-condescending air. She’d been surviving on her inexhaustible willpower even then.
‘Miss Clegg, I’ve come to ask you for your help,’ I said as I tried to get the fire going. ‘I’m searching for a friend of mine who’s disappeared. I wondered if you were still in contact with the Beloborodov family? I think they may know something.’
‘Gracious me, you plan to bother them about it, do you?’ Her voice drifted off. ‘The Beloborodovs are still living in their old home on Vozdvizhenka. They have suffered at the hands of the Bolsheviks, and they’re surrounded by informers, of course, so be careful how you speak to them.’
‘What were the names and patronymics of your employer, Miss Clegg, I can’t remember? And what was his specialisation – was he a scientist, like his cousin?’
‘Elizaveta Igorevna and Yuri Maksimovich. He was trained as an engineer, it was thought that the training would come in useful when he took over the family business – railways, as you remember. Now the poor man is a wreck. He was in prison for several months – it almost killed him.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘How they are surviving now, I cannot imagine,’ went on Miss Clegg. ‘Elizaveta Igorevna was such an impractical woman. She could hardly dress herself, and she had certainly never brushed her own hair. Send them my regards. They don’t visit me any more. No doubt they are too busy, but if they had the time…’
Once the fire was lit I left Miss Clegg, promising to do my best to come and see her soon. I wondered if I would find her alive at my next visit.
Down Vozdvizhenka one had to negotiate great heaps of filthy slush and rubbish. It was getting late, yet I was so close to the Beloborodovs’, I could not resist visiting, even if only for a few minutes. My mind was full of that snowy day in November 1917 when we had taken refuge in their apartment from the sight of a dead man on the street. Now the door swung open on a hallway like a railway station, humming with the activities of the fifteen or so families crammed into the Beloborodovs’ spacious rooms. A large woman in a soldier’s jacket wanted to know my business there.
‘Comrade Beloborodov? What do you want with him?’
I hesitated. ‘It’s his wife I’m looking for,’ I said quietly, hoping she wouldn’t query my accent.
‘His wife, eh?’ she nodded towards the right door. ‘She’s quite the good-time girl these days’ – she winked coarsely – ‘but he doesn’t have much to say.’
‘He’s at home, is he?’
‘Oh yes, he’s always at home. Doesn’t go out at all these days.’
I found Madame Beloborodov, her husband, and three young children living in two small rooms. The children looked fed, and fairly well dressed. She was very thin and her beautiful hair had gone completely white. Superficially, her husband was little changed since before the Revolution, yet there was something odd in the way that he gazed at me so blankly. Before I could say a word, Madame Beloborodov hushed me fiercely, took out a coffee grinder and began to grind beechnuts. The children watched her.
‘Miss Clegg sent me to you, she’d so like it if you had time to visit her. I’m afraid she is almost blind now, and very weak,’ I began. ‘Please, forgive me for coming to see you,’ I murmured hurriedly under cover of the crunching of the grinder. ‘I am trying to find out the whereabouts of our friend, Nikita Slavkin – you remember – he was involved with the sale of the Svyatinsky’s minerals.’
Monsieur Beloborodov did not respond; he was gazing at the dark window panes as though he was hardly aware of what was going on around him, but Madame fixed me with an icy look. I felt myself flush – why should these people help Slavkin? – and gabbled on.
‘He has disappeared, Madame; perhaps you have seen it reported in the papers. Please, forgive me for raising his name with you. I understand that you do not feel any warmth towards him. But we have been led to believe he may be working in a secret laboratory run by the Ispolkom, and perhaps – it’s a long shot, I know – your husband may have been working in the same, or a similar establishment. I wonder, would Monsieur Beloborodov agree to talk to me?’
She almost spat. ‘My husband does not talk about such matters.’
I turned to her husband. ‘Please, I – I am Slavkin’s wife,’ I found myself saying. ‘I beg you to take pity on me…’
She pushed past me and said nothing. Heavily, I turned to leave. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you – it was ridiculous of me to think—’
‘Who told you I was working at a secret laboratory?’
My eyes snapped towards Beloborodov’s. It was his low, amused tone, so at odds with his earlier manner, that was so unexpected. I smiled at him involuntarily. His wife seized the coffee grinder and began to turn furiously.
‘We were shown a list of current research projects and your name was there, as was Slavkin’s. But next to each of your names, instead of an institute or a university department, there was only a line of stars,’ I murmured. ‘Lunacharsky hinted to us that Slavkin was working on some kind of secret research organised by the State, so I thought perhaps you were too.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think that’s right, he is working in a scientific establishment. I, on the other hand, only got as far as the Cheka prison at the Lubyanka. But I did come across your friend there.’
‘At the prison?’ Involuntarily my voice had risen. Madame hushed me sharply.
‘Yes – Nikita Gavrilovich Slavkin, that’s right, isn’t it? He was only there for a night or two, I believe. I never saw him, just heard him talked of. Of course I remembered him.’ He grimaced. ‘Then they took him to some kind of a laboratory. I never heard of anyone else going there.’
I was so shocked to hear he had been in prison, I could hardly get my words out. ‘D-Did they say anything more?’
He leaned forward and whispered in my ear. ‘Lab 37, they called it. Don’t ask me anything more – that’s all I know. Laboratoria 37.’
One of his children began to cry. He glanced at the boy and back at me. Then he shook his head. ‘Well, good luck,’ he said in a normal voice. From outside their door came unashamed scuffling noises and creaking of floorboards. ‘Thank you for telling us about Miss Clegg. We’ll do what we can for her.’
‘Thank you—’
‘Our pleasure,’ snapped Madame Beloborodov, without looking at me.
Distracted, I turned the wrong way out of the courtyard. I was exhausted and chilled, my boots were soaking, and I soon realised I had no idea how to find my way out of this maze of unlit alleyways. I couldn’t make sense of the idea that Slavkin had been held by the Cheka, even if only for a few days. With a rising sense of panic I wandered until I finally came out on the bank of the river. I was near Narkompros, I realised, and had to take a deep breath for a moment to calm myself. When I arrived at his office, Pasha took one look at me, frowned and broke off from the report he was writing.