‘I am a friend.’
‘You are no friend to me.’ He put down the glass, leaned against the edge of the table and shook his head, his arms folded across his broad chest. ‘So why the pearls?’
‘I used half of them to bribe an official to set you free. These,’ she cradled the pale beads in the palm of her hand where they chittered softly against each other, ‘are promised to him now you are home again.’
He stood staring at the pearls. She thought she could see a spark of recognition in his eyes, of the necklace and its distinctive gold clasp, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was something else. He was hard to decipher.
‘Who are you?’ he asked again in a low voice.
‘I told you, I am a friend.’
Abruptly he walked to the front door and held it open. Outside, the wolfhound lazed in the sun. ‘Get out before I throw you out.’ He didn’t shout. Just quiet words.
Sofia rose and moved closer. She noticed a rip in the collar of his shirt, a rust-coloured smear on one cuff that looked like dried blood. He was in need of a shave. Her heart went out to him, this man she’d both loved and hated.
‘Vasily, I am a friend of Anna Fedorina.’
She saw the shock hit him. A shudder. Then so still, not even his pupils moved.
‘You are mistaken, comrade.’
‘Are you telling me that you are not Vasily Dyuzheyev, only son of Svetlana and Grigori Dyuzheyev of Petrograd? Killer of the Bolshevik soldier who murdered your father, protector of Anna Fedorina who hid under a chaise longue, builder of snow sleighs and agitator for the Bolsheviks. That Vasily. Is that not you?’
He turned away from her, his back as straight as one of his field furrows. For a long time neither spoke.
‘Who sent you here?’ he asked at last without looking at her. ‘Are you an agent for OGPU, here to entrap me? I believe it was you who placed the sacks under my bed. I could see the hate in your eyes when the soldiers came for me.’ He breathed deeply. ‘Tell me why.’
‘I thought you were someone else. I am not with OGPU, have no fear of that, but I did make a terrible mistake and for that I do apologise. I was wrong.’
Still he gazed out at the soft evening clouds, at a skein of geese that arrowed across them. ‘Who did you think I was?’
‘The boy soldier who shot both Anna’s father and Svetlana Dyuzheyeva.’
No response. Her heart pounded. ‘Vasily, speak to me. She’s alive, Vasily, Anna Fedorina is alive.’
It was like watching an earth-tremor, a quake from somewhere deep below the world’s surface. His broad shoulder blades shifted out of alignment and his muscular neck jerked in spasm but he didn’t turn. He just tightened his folded arms around himself as though holding something inside.
‘Where?’
‘In a labour camp. I was there with her.’
‘Which one?’ Barely a whisper.
‘Davinsky Camp in Siberia.’
‘Why?’
‘For nothing more than being the daughter of Doktor Nikolai Fedorin, who was declared an Enemy of the People.’
No more words. Neither of them could find any. The black shadow of Vasily lay across the wooden floor between them like a corpse.
They drank vodka. They drank till the pain was blunted and they could look at each other. Sofia sat in the chair, upright and tense, while Fomenko fetched a squat stool from the bedroom and folded himself on to it, his lean limbs orderly and controlled once more. She wanted him to shout at her, to bellow and scream and accuse her of false betrayal. She wanted to be made to suffer the way she’d made him suffer.
But he did none of these things. After the initial shock, he snapped back from the edge of whatever abyss had opened up and his strength astounded her. How could he hold so much turmoil within himself, yet seem so calm? His self-control was iron-clad, so strong that he even smiled at her, a dry, sorrowful smile, and ran a steady hand over the head of the dog now stretched out at his feet. Its brown eyes watched his face as attentively as Sofia did.
‘Comrade,’ he said, ‘I am glad Anna has a friend.’
‘Help me, Vasily, to be a true friend to her.’
‘Help you how?’
‘By rescuing her.’
For the first time the firm line of his mouth faltered. ‘I have no authority to order any kind of release in-’
‘Not with orders. I mean together, you and I, we could go up there. You could authorise travel permits and we-’
‘No.’
‘She’s sick.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said quietly.
‘Sorry means nothing. She’s going to die. She’s spitting blood and another winter up there will kill her.’
A dull mist seemed to settle behind his eyes, blurring them. ‘Anna,’ he whispered.
‘Help her.’
He shook his head slowly, full of regret.
‘What happened to you?’ she demanded. ‘When did you lose your ability to care for another human being? When your parents were shot, was that it? Did that moment smother every feeling in you for the rest of your life?’
In the gathering gloom he stared at her in silence.
‘You don’t understand, comrade.’
‘Make me, Vasily, make me understand. How can you abandon someone you loved, someone who still loves you and believes in you and needs you? How does that happen?’ She leaned forward, hands clasped. ‘Go on, tell me. Make me understand.’
‘I traced Maria, her governess. I wanted to…’ Suddenly words failed him.
With a groan he rose to his feet, walked over to the vodka on the table and took a swig straight from the bottle.
‘Comrade Morozova, my feelings are my own business, not yours. Now please leave.’
‘No, Vasily, not until you tell me-’
‘Listen to me, comrade, and listen well. Vasily Dyuzheyev is dead and gone. Do not call me by that name ever again. Russia is a stubborn country, its people are hard-headed and determined. To transform this Soviet system into a world economy – which is what Stalin is attempting to do by opening up our immense mineral wealth in the wastelands of Siberia – we must put aside personal loyalties and accept only loyalty to the State. This is the way forward – the only way forward.’
‘The labour camps are inhuman.’
‘Why were you sent there?’
‘Because my uncle was too good at farming and acquired the label kulak. They thought I was “contaminated”.’
‘Do you still not see that the labour camps are essential because they provide a workforce for the roads and railways, for the mines and the timber yards, as well as teaching people that they must-’
‘Stop it, stop it!’
He stopped. They stared hard at each other. The air between them quivered as Sofia released her breath.
‘You’d be proud of her,’ she murmured. ‘So proud of Anna.’
Those simple words did what all her arguments and her pleading had failed to do. They broke his control. This tall powerful man sank to his knees on the hard floor like a tree being felled, all strength gone. He placed his hands over his face and released a low stifled moan. It was harsh and raw, as though something was ripping open. But it gave Sofia hope. She could just make out the murmur of words repeated over and over again. ‘My Anna, my Anna, my Anna…’ The dog stood at his side and licked one of its master’s hands with a gentle whine.
Sofia rose from her chair and went over to him. Tentatively her fingertips stroked his soft cropped hair, and a sweet image of it, longer, with young Anna’s fingers entwined in its depths, arose in her head. He had cut off Vasily’s hair as effectively as he’d cut off his heartbeat. Time alone was what he needed now, time to breathe. So she walked into his tiny kitchen to give him a moment, filled a glass with water, and when she returned she found him sitting in the chair, his limbs loose and awkward. She wrapped his hand round the glass. At first he stared at it, uncomprehending, but when she said, ‘Drink,’ he drank.