The oak door rattled. She leapt to her feet. Someone was trying to enter.
‘Comrade Morozova, are you in there?’ It was the Party man, the weasel man, the informer, Comrade Zakarov.
Quickly she scanned the wall beneath the head of Stalin one last time. A box buried at St Peter’s feet. That’s what she’d been told, but it was so little. Abruptly she dropped to her knees.
‘St Peter,’ she whispered, ‘grant me inspiration. Please, I’m begging. Isn’t that what you want, you and your God? Humility and supplication?’
Nothing came. No shaft of sunlight to point the way. Sofia nodded, as though she’d expected no less, and just then the door shook again, louder this time. ‘Comrade Morozova, I know you’re in there.’
What now?
She had to leave. She made her way up the central aisle and inserted the key in the lock. As she did so, a longing for Mikhail came with such force it took her breath from her.
‘Mikhail,’ she whispered, just to feel his name on her tongue.
He could help her. But would he? If she told him all she knew about Anna and his past and about what was hidden in the church, would he turn her away like a thief? He’d said he would help the right person but was she that right person? Was Anna? He was in a position of authority now and worked for the Soviet State system, he had a son whom he loved. Would he risk it all if she asked?
Would you, Mikhail, would you? You’d be insane to do so.
She straightened her shoulders and turned the key. If she asked for his help, she risked failure. And failure meant death. Not just her own.
30
Davinsky Camp July 1933
The cat crept into the camp out of nowhere. Its arrival occurred at the end of one of the fierce summer storms that were sweeping through the region. The small creature picked its way daintily round the puddles in the yard as if walking on eggshells. It was young and painfully thin, its bedraggled fur a sort of non-colour, neither grey nor brown but somewhere in between. But there was a jauntiness to it that attracted attention in a world where limbs were heavy and movements slow.
The women couldn’t help smiling. A group of them tried to encourage it into a corner but it looked at them with scornful green eyes and slipped effortlessly through their legs. It scampered straight into one of the huts, gazed with interest at the array of bunks and leapt up on to Anna’s. It nudged its bony little head against her arm and plunged its needle claws into her blanket, kneading with a steady rhythm that tore holes in the threadbare material. Anna touched its head, a light tentative brush of her fingertips over the damp fur, and immediately the young cat started to purr.
The loud rackety sound of it did something to Anna. Happiness sprang into her chest like something solid. She could feel it warm and contented in there, soothing the inflamed passages in her lungs. Like the cat, it seemed to have come from nowhere. She scratched a finger under the animal’s furry chin until it stretched out its neck with pleasure and watched her through half-closed eyes, totally content.
‘I’m sorry I have no food to give you, little one.’
Other prisoners were gathering round the bunk board.
‘It’s so pretty,’ one crooned.
‘It needs meat.’
‘Don’t we all!’
‘It’ll be riddled with fucking fleas,’ Tasha warned.
Anna laughed. ‘Fleas, bed bugs, mosquitoes, marsh flies – what’s the difference?’
The young animal suddenly hiccupped and everyone chuckled. Tasha put out a hand to stroke its soft fur. But at that moment one of the guard dogs outside barked and the cat hissed, flattening its ears, its sharp claws raking Tasha’s skin.
‘Fuck the little bastard!’
The cat shot off the bed, its hollow belly low to the floor, and disappeared out of the door in a flash. Several of the women chased after it.
‘I hope they eat the miserable piece of gristle,’ Tasha said, sucking at her hand.
‘Oh Tasha, that’s what this place does to us. I’m sure they will. Eat it, I mean. I just hope the poor little creature has enough sense to head straight for the barbed wire.’
‘Wouldn’t we all like to do that?’
‘Give me your hand. Here, this will help.’ She took Tasha’s hand between her own and pressed hard to stem the blood. The tiny needles had done no more than scrape the surface and the trickle soon stopped.
‘Thanks,’ Tasha said. She went over to the grimy window to watch the chase.
But Anna didn’t hear because she was staring blindly at the wall opposite. The brief sensation of a hand pressed hard against her own had already whisked her back to that day at the Dyuzheyev villa when the dancing had been stopped for ever by a light knock on the door.
‘No.’ Maria had hissed the word. ‘No, Anna.’
Twelve-year-old Anna had come hurtling out of the house, but her governess seized her with a grip that hurt and yanked her back on to the front steps, tight against her skirt. Maria placed one hand on Anna’s shoulder and the other gripped her hand. She was not going to let go.
‘Say nothing,’ she breathed, not taking her gaze from the group spread out on the drive in front of her.
Grey uniforms were everywhere, red flashes on their shoulders. Snow trampled and dirty under their boots. A circle of rifles, glinting in the sun, was aimed at the three figures in the centre of it: Vasily, Svetlana and Grigori. Grigori was splayed awkwardly on the snow in a sleep that Anna knew wasn’t sleep and in a pool of red juice that she knew wasn’t juice. She choked and gasped for air. Svetlana was kneeling beside her husband, a terrible low bone-scraping moan escaping from her lips, her head bowed to touch Grigori’s chest. There was more of the cranberry juice on the front of her beautiful grey dress and on her sleeve. On the fur and on her chin.
Vasily looked strange. He was standing stiff, his limbs rigid as he spoke to the soldier with the peaked cap, the one with a revolver still pointed at Grigori’s motionless body. The words that rushed out of Vasily were hot and angry.
‘You’ll get the same, whelp, if you don’t stop yapping.’ The soldier’s eyes were hard and full of hate. ‘You and your family are filthy class enemies of the people. Your father, Grigori Dyuzheyev, was a parasite, he exploited the workers of our Fatherland, he had no right to any of this and-’
‘No.’ Vasily was struggling for control. ‘My father… treated his servants and tenants well, ask any of them what kind of-’
The soldier spat on the snow, a jet of yellow hate. ‘No one should own a house like this.’ His moustache twitched with anger. ‘You should all be exterminated like rats.’
Anna mewed.
The soldier swung his gun so that it was pointing directly at her. ‘You. Come here.’
Anna took one step forward but that was as far as she could go with Maria still holding her tight.
‘Leave her alone,’ Vasily said quickly. ‘She is only a servant’s brat.’
‘In that dress? What kind of fool do you think I am? No, she’s one of your kind. One of the rats.’
‘Leave her,’ Vasily said again. ‘She’s too young to make choices.’
‘Rats breed,’ the soldier snarled. Without shifting the aim of the gun he turned his head to address a boy of about sixteen standing to attention at his shoulder, his cap low over his forehead. He was wearing ragged boots and his chest was heaving. Anna noticed that despite the chill winter air his young skin was damp with sweat. His uniform was someone else’s cast-off, with sleeves and trousers flapping loose and a telltale hole just over his heart.