‘Do they strike you as strange at all?’
‘No.’
‘I hear tales about them, about their… antics.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
He flexed his broad shoulders under his brown checked shirt, faded by the sun, and Sofia recognised it as a gesture of frustration, a warning that she should be civil.
‘You don’t look much like a gypsy yourself,’ he pointed out.
‘I am by marriage, not by blood.’
‘Please explain.’
‘My aunt who brought me up was married to Rafik’s brother. She wasn’t a gypsy but her husband was.’
‘What about your own parents?’
‘They died.’
‘I’m sorry. What happened?’
‘They were both railway workers. There was a train crash.’ That was the story she was sticking to. It invited fewer questions.
He nodded in silence. ‘These things happen.’
‘When someone is incompetent.’
‘Incompetence is often a disguise for sabotage.’
Why did he say that? Was he testing her? To see if she would bleat agreement like one of his docile flock? Or perhaps to trap her into insisting that incompetence was the result of tiredness and hunger and fear of taking decisions that might expose you to accusations of wrecking. Was that it?
She said nothing, instead she glanced round the office. So far she’d taken no notice of it, concentrating only on Fomenko himself and trying to decipher every lift of his eyebrow, but now she took her time staring at the red banners and portraits on the white-washed timber walls. They were the usual clutch of beauties: Lenin and Kirov, and in pride of place, of course, Josef Stalin in military tunic and cap. She’d heard he was living a plain, almost austere life in his Kremlin stronghold, but what good was austerity when you had an insatiable thirst for the blood of your people?
She looked away, unfolded her arms and took a step nearer the desk. Its metal top was painted black, chipped from long use, and its surface was smothered in piles of papers, all in separate orderly stacks. At one end sat a wooden tray with something lumpy on it, but she couldn’t see exactly what because a red cloth was draped over it.
‘If you’ve asked all your questions, may I leave now? I would like to finish sweeping out the hall but I need the key.’ She held out her hand.
Fomenko had come marching into the hall when she was peering down at Pyotr in the hole. He’d demanded to know what she was doing there. She had pushed the plank back into place before he noticed it and then explained that she was sweeping out the hall, instead of Pyotr. She held up the broom to prove the point. He had remained suspicious and she knew she hadn’t fooled him, but his manner was scrupulously polite as he removed the key from her and escorted her to his office.
Aleksei Fomenko leaned back in his chair now and made no attempt to take the key from his pocket for her. His eyes narrowed speculatively and his lips parted a fraction to exhale tobacco smoke. Something about his stillness made her uneasy.
‘Sit down,’ he said and pointedly added, ‘please, comrade.’
She thought about it, then sat down.
‘I wish to see your dokumenti.’
She removed her residence permit from her skirt pocket and dropped it on the desk.
‘Your travel permit?’
‘Your Secretary in the outer office inspected all my documentation when he issued this permit of residency.’ She waved at the door. ‘Ask him.’
‘I’m asking you.’
She forced her mouth into the shape of a smile. ‘What more do you need to know?’
The stiff lines of his face softened into an answering smile, then he ran a patient hand over his short hair and took a form from one of the piles. It irritated her that his hands were so broad and capable, as if they were accustomed to achieving what they set themselves to do. The fingers stubbed out his cigarette in a small metal dish that served as an ashtray. He picked up a fountain pen. It was the first thing she’d seen in connection with the Chairman that had even a hint of status about it. It was a beautiful black-cased pen with a fine gold nib. A silence hung in the room for a second and into it the wind outside blew small shards of sound, the jingle of a horse harness, the rumble of a cartwheel, the throaty shriek of a goose.
‘Your father’s name and place of origin?’
‘Fyodor Morozov from Leningrad.’
‘Your aunt’s name and place of origin?’
‘Katerina Zhdanova from the Lesosibirsk region.’
‘How long did it take you to travel to Tivil?’
‘Four months.’
‘How did you travel?’
‘Walking mostly, sometimes a lift in a cart.’
‘No money for a train ticket?’
‘No.’
He put down his pen. ‘A long journey like that could be dangerous, especially for a young woman alone.’
She thought of the farmer with foul breath and greasy hands who had found her asleep in his barn. By the time she left him unconscious in the straw, his mouth had lost its gold tooth and she had the price of a week’s food.
‘I worked some of the time,’ she said, ‘dug ditches or chopped wood, sorted rotten potatoes and turnips into sacks. People were kind. They gave me food.’
‘Get out of here, you scrawny bitch. We don’t want strangers.’ Stones had rained into the mud at her feet as a warning. Stiff-legged dogs had snarled a threat.
‘Good, I’m glad,’ Fomenko said, but the edges of his grey eyes had darkened and she wondered what was passing behind them. ‘Russian people,’ he continued, ‘have kind hearts.’
‘You have a higher opinion of them than I do.’
He placed his elbows on the desk, watching her closely. ‘They are kind to each other now because, since the Revolution, there is greater justice. They have no reason not to be.’
She thought of Mikhail in his cell and shivered visibly. The movement alerted Fomenko and his face formed into lines she couldn’t read, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration but his mouth unexpectedly gentle. He leaned to one side and, with a swift gesture, flicked the red cloth off the tray at the end of the desk. She was reminded of the efficiency of this man.
‘Are you feeling weak? Is that it? Have you not eaten today?’
Laid out on the pinewood tray was a square of black bread, a slab of creamy cheese, a glass tumbler and a bone-handled knife. Beside them stood a stubby blue pitcher.
‘Here, have some food.’
He tore off a chunk of the bread, smeared the moist cheese on it and offered it to her, but she would rather choke than touch his food.
‘I won’t rob you of your meal,’ she said firmly.
He hesitated, his jaw flexing so that she could see the muscle twitch beneath the skin. With no comment he replaced the bread on the tray.
‘Kvass? ’ he offered.
Kvass was a traditional brew, fermented from bread, yeast and sugar. Sofia had no taste for it but she nodded politely. He poured the brown liquid into the glass and handed it to her across the desk.
‘Spasibo,’ she said. She sat holding it in her hand but didn’t raise it to her lips.
As though he suddenly felt the need to put some distance between them, he rose from his chair and walked over to the window. He stood there with his broad back to her, saying nothing, just gazing at the fields outside, at the kolkhoz he was so committed to driving towards greater productivity. She could see the strength of his determination in the line of his shoulders and the stiffness of his neck. She placed the glass silently on the desk and at the same time whisked his box of matches into her pocket.
‘Is that all?’ she asked.
He coughed, an odd kind of sound that was more of a growl than a cough, and when he turned his face was in shadow, his expression hidden from her.
‘May I have the key to the hall, so I can finish the sweeping?’ she asked.
His whole body grew unnaturally still. ‘Why the hall? What is this preoccupation of yours with our hall?’