He thanked the pilot of the Krokodil, a handshake was enough. Sofia observed them with a thoughtful expression but passed no comment, just kissed the pilot’s cheek, which made him blush to the roots of his gingery hair.
Mikhail was glad of the walk into town as it gave them time to discuss what lay ahead. It was evening when they reached the centre of Novgorki, but in July the days were long and the nights no more than a darker shade of white. The main road was called Lenin Street, as was usual, and held a crush of shabby concrete buildings. All the same monotonous shade of grey, they stood alongside squat wooden shops that had a greater air of permanence than the concrete. Rain-filled potholes littered the road – even at this hour it was busy with trucks and cars making the most of daylight hours.
‘What now?’ Sofia was looking round warily.
‘A bed and a meal.’
Groups of men stood around on street corners, cigarettes hanging from their lips and bottles in their pockets. Mikhail approached one man with a thick Stalin moustache who leered at Sofia but directed them politely enough to a workers’ dormitory, a bleak building where they showed their identity papers and paid a few roubles in advance. They were allotted a couple of camp beds and soiled quilts, in separate communal sleeping areas.
‘It’s better than nothing,’ Mikhail pointed out.
Sofia raised a doubtful eyebrow at him.
‘Have you noticed,’ she asked when they walked back out on to the street, ‘how few women are here?’
‘That’s why we have to take extra care of you.’
They walked up the main street, aware of eyes watching them.
‘More of Stalin’s economic boom times,’ Sofia muttered under her breath, with an ironic nod towards the empty shop windows.
Even at this hour many of the shops were still open and they chose a prosperous-looking hardware shop for their purpose. It smelled of pine resin and dust inside, where a short man with a broad northern face and well padded cheeks greeted them from behind the counter. His eyes crawled over Sofia.
‘Good evening,’ Mikhail said and let his gaze roam the shop. ‘Busy, I see.’
The place was empty of other customers but did at least have a few goods on display. A sack of nails and screws, a box of hinges, some kerosene cans and paint brushes – but no paint, of course. Lengths of matting and a range of second-hand tools lay in a jumble around the walls, while zinc pans hung from the roof beams, low enough to crack a careless skull wandering beneath them. But behind the shopkeeper’s head were shelves holding a row of cardboard boxes, unlabelled, and Mikhail suspected they contained the better stuff for the better customers. He picked up a roll of canvas and tossed it on to the counter. Beside him Sofia stood silent.
‘Is that all?’ the shopkeeper asked, scratching his armpit with relish.
‘No.’
‘What else?’
‘I have something to sell.’
The storeman’s eyes brightened and slid to Sofia.
‘Not me,’ she said fiercely.
The man shrugged. ‘It happens sometimes.’
Mikhail placed a fist on the counter between them. ‘Who in this town might want to buy an object of value?’
‘What kind of object?’
‘One that is worth real money, not…’ he gazed disdainfully round the shop, ‘not Novgorki kopecks.’
The man squinted at Mikhail, his tobacco-stained teeth chewing on his lower lip. ‘Very well,’ he said, pointing to a curtained doorway at the back of the shop. ‘You, comrade, come with me. You,’ he pointed at Sofia, ‘wait here.’
Before the storekeeper could draw breath Mikhail had leapt over the counter and pinned him against his boxes, a hand crushing his throat. He could feel the man’s windpipe fighting for air.
‘Don’t mistake me, comrade,’ Mikhail hissed in his face. ‘I am not one of your peasant fools. I do not walk blindly into your backroom to be ambushed and robbed while my woman is stolen. Understand me?’
‘Da.’ The man’s voice was a gasp, his eyes popping in his head.
Mikhail removed his hand and let him breathe. The rasping scrape of it sounded loud in the silence of the musty store.
‘Now,’ Mikhail said, keeping the man jammed against his shelves, ‘tomorrow morning I will return here at eight o’clock for no more than five minutes. If you know a buyer for a jewel worth more than you’ll earn in ten lifetimes, bring him here. Got that?’
The man blinked his understanding.
‘Do zavtra. Till tomorrow,’ Mikhail snapped, picking up the roll of canvas. He gripped Sofia by her upper arm and strode out of the shop.
‘So you’re not just a handsome face after all,’ Sofia said.
She was teasing him, he knew that, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
‘I had to do it, Sofia. It was the only way of showing that man I’m serious. This is a hard town, my love, danger is what they breathe out here. Don’t look so reproachful.’
‘He might have pulled a gun on you.’
Mikhail patted the loaded pistol hidden under her slender waistband, the one he’d stolen from the officer behind the Gaz truck. ‘Then you’d have shot him,’ he said and kissed her nose.
She shivered nevertheless. He wrapped an arm around her to keep her warm, as neither of them were dressed for a cool northern evening, but she pulled away.
‘Don’t,’ she said angrily. ‘Don’t take risks.’
He burst out laughing and felt her fist smack into his chest. He caught it in his hand and pulled her tight to him. ‘This is all one huge risk, my sweet love, so what’s an extra little one or two along the way?’
‘Don’t die,’ she whispered.
‘I intend to live till I’m a hundred, as long as you promise to live to a hundred with me.’
‘To darn your socks and cook your meals?’ she teased.
‘No, my precious, to warm my bed and let me kiss your sweet neck.’
She nestled her lips in the hollow of his throat. ‘I’ll warm your bed and let you kiss my neck,’ she crooned, ‘if you darn my socks and cook my meals for a hundred years.’
‘Agreed,’ he laughed.
56
‘No, Mikhail, we do this together. We agreed.’
They were standing in the street and heavy rain was lashing down, soaking them to the skin and turning the road into a muddy torrent. A stray yellow hound crouched shivering in the gutter, its mournful eyes following their every move.
Mikhail pushed open the door to the hardware store and Sofia positioned herself silently just inside the entrance, leaning against the timber wall where she casually laid one hand on the gun at her waistband. Her eyes followed Mikhail as he approached the stranger who was waiting next to the counter with folded arms. The man was built like a series of boxes balanced on top of each other: square hat, square head, square shoulders, a sharp square suit. His face displayed the broken veins of a drinker and the shrewd eyes of a man in authority – a man who knows how to use it. The shopkeeper hovered in the background, as brown and dusty as his boxes.
‘So, comrade, what have you brought for me to see?’ the square man said without preliminaries. ‘It had better not be shit. No gavno.’
Mikhail took his time, eyeing the stranger up and down in a manner that was meant to insult, and which brought Sofia’s heart to her throat. He didn’t speak, just took a small piece of green material from his back pocket and opened it on his palm. The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed to half shut like a lizard’s, because even in the dim light of the hardware shop the diamond on the green cloth winked at him. He drew a loud intake of breath.