The Concubine's Secret Read online

  He gave a small stiff bow of his head. ‘My apologies.’

  ‘Piss on your apologies, comrade,’ she snapped. ‘Just let me get some sleep.’

  Alexei glanced across at Popkov and nearly burst out laughing. The big bearded ox was standing there with his mouth gaping wide open, his one good eye focused without the slightest embarrassment on the pale half-moons on display. Little grunting noises escaped from his throat.

  The woman was having none of it. Her dark eyebrows shot up and she darted forward, jabbing the Cossack in the stomach with a thick finger, not once but three times. Instantly Popkov recoiled, lurched back against the opposite wall as though prodded with a rifle butt, and Alexei took the opportunity to stride off down the corridor without another word. He needed some peace. Some quiet. Needed to think. Dear merciful God, protect me from the insanity of these peasants.

  3

  ‘Breathe, my love, breathe.’

  The voice was Chang An Lo’s, and it echoed as strong and clear in Lydia’s head as Junchow’s temple bell.

  ‘Don’t snatch at bites of air like a dog snatches at crumbs. You must learn to breathe with exactly the same concentration with which you learned to walk.’

  She smiled, alone in her room, dumped the coins on the bed and rose to her feet, so that she could straighten her spine and lift her ribs out of their slump. She inhaled slowly, like pulling on a long reel of fishing line the way he’d taught her, so deep and so smooth that her skin prickled as the inrush of oxygen brought it to life.

  ‘Like just the thought of you, Chang An Lo, brings me to life.’

  She’d had no idea it would be like this. This bad. Being parted from him, not knowing where he was or even whether he was still alive. No word of any kind. Five months and eleven days it had been. Of this. This agony. She’d known it would be hard but not that it would be this . . . unbearable. That she’d forget how to think, to breathe, to be. How could she still be Lydia Ivanova when all that was best in her was with him back there in China?

  Chang had saved her life. It happened in the colourful old town of Junchow on the wide open plains of northern China. In an alleyway she’d got herself caught between an old man latched like a leech on to her wrist and a painted lady, both intent on kidnapping her, but Chang had come flying like a black-haired dragon through the air. And after that, she’d belonged to him utterly. It was as simple as that. Despite the anger and tears of those around them who fought to break them up, they had fallen in love. But now he was away from her and in the kind of danger she couldn’t bear to think about.

  Oh my love, take care. Take great care. For my sake.

  He was a Communist revolutionary fighting in Mao Tse Tung’s rebel Red Army in China, and time and again when she lay awake in the dark hours before dawn she brooded over whether she should be there at his side. Instead of traipsing across Russia, searching for a father she hadn’t seen since she was five years old. But she and Chang had agreed. It wasn’t possible. She would be as much a danger to him as one of Chiang Kai-shek’s bullets. If she were in China with him, she would always be his weak spot, distracting him, the pressure point his enemies could use.

  No, my love; even though it was like watching blood flow from my own artery, I had to let you go.

  Her fingers brushed the rose-coloured talisman he’d given her and she recalled the last time he came to her, standing tall and strong in the doorway of the old shed. His black hair tousled by the wind, an air of wildness about him, a grubby green blanket thrown over his shoulders in place of a coat. His eyes wanting her.

  I must leave you here, the light of my soul, he’d said. Leave you safe.

  Safe? She started to prowl back and forth across the narrow space. What was the point of being safe, if it meant being without the one person who made her blood sing? Was that why she kept taking the risks that Alexei so hated? Poor Alexei, she knew she drove him mad at times. Her half-brother had been brought up as part of a privileged elite, first in the scented salons of Russia and then in China. He was used to order and discipline. Not this uncertainty, not this chaos. And it didn’t help that he and the Cossack loathed each other, while she was caught in the middle between them. It was Liev Popkov who had brought the news from Russia to Junchow, to her mother, Valentina; news that the husband she thought had died in 1917 during their escape as White Russians from the fury of the Bolsheviks was, in fact, alive in a prison camp.

  How he had discovered this she never found out, but Lydia believed him implicitly. He’d helped her in China when she’d been searching for Chang An Lo in the dangerous docklands of Junchow. Popkov had protected her fiercely, throwing her money back at her when she’d offered it for his services as a bodyguard. It was only later when she learned that he - and his father before him - had been devoted servants to her grandfather in St Petersburg in the days of the Tsar that she understood. She felt a rush of affection for the big Cossack. His devotion touched her. Deeply. She trusted him, and that was something she valued above all else, it was so rare. Trust.

  Can I trust Alexei?

  Lydia shivered and moved over to the narrow window in her room where she stared out for a long time at the vast winter sky, watching the stars glitter in the darkness and lights shimmer in houses as the small town of Selyansk settled down for the night. Once again she felt the landscape of Russia slide into her heart, calming her and chiming with some image already deep inside her. She loved this country, loved its magnificent tortured soul. Just to have her feet stamping on Russian soil after the long absence in China satisfied some intense need that she hadn’t even realised was there.

  Did Alexei feel it too? That need? She wasn’t sure. He was hard to read. But she was getting better at it, and even though he believed he kept his thoughts hidden behind that veil of indifference - using that rigid self-discipline of his that she both envied and loathed - she was learning to spot a faint rise of an eyebrow. Or a tightening of a cheek muscle. Or a fractional twitch of the lips when amused.

  Oh yes, Alexei, you’re not as inscrutable as you would like. I hunt around inside you, sniffing out the secrets you try to hide. We may have the same father but our mothers were very different. Nor am I as blind as you think. You hated it when I kissed your cheek tonight, didn’t you? You couldn’t get out of this room fast enough. As if I’d bitten you. Don’t you want me as a sister? Is that it? Am I not what you would have wished for? Have I spilled too much of our aristocratic blood from my veins and filled them instead with the instincts of a wild alley cat, as my mother used to claim?

  Though Lydia and Alexei had been living in the same town in China for many years, they had moved in very different circles and their paths had never crossed. It was only when her mother’s new fiancé had introduced her to the sophisticated glamour and bright lights of the elite society in Junchow that Lydia had met Alexei. In a French restaurant, she recalled. And she’d thought him arrogant and cold.

  Yet he’d been generous with his help when she needed it, and after her mother’s death only a few months ago she’d learned the truth in a letter Valentina had left for her. That Alexei’s mother might be the wealthy Countess Serova, but his father was Jens Friis, the Danish engineer. The affair happened in St Petersburg long before he married Valentina, but Alexei had been as shocked as Lydia herself by the discovery that they were related. She knew it had shaken his world as much as it had shaken hers. Both had been an only child until that point, dealing with the loneliness in their own different ways, but now . . . She conjured up the image of his straight back, his neat brown hair and controlled smile . . . Now she had a brother. One who was as committed to finding their father as she was.

  A sudden ache in her throat caught her unawares at the thought of her father locked in one of Stalin’s brutal prison camps. She rested her forehead against the icy pane and the shock of the cold glass jerked her mind away from places it didn’t want to go. She focused on tomorrow. The station. Another long day for her between Alexei and Popkov.
It was wrong what she’d done in the bar, using whispers about Alexei to bait the Cossack.

  ‘See him up there, Popkov? Watching you.’

  Her words blew hot on the black hairs in his ears.

  ‘He wants you to lose. He’s laughing, Popkov, sneering . . . Da, you’re winning now . . . He’s gone. Couldn’t bear to watch you win.’

  But she couldn’t have let him lose. He’d have just set about getting himself drunk out of his skull for a week, refusing to travel, refusing even to speak. It had happened before. Only grunts would come out of his mouth and only vodka would go in.

  She turned abruptly to the bed where the remaining coins lay in two equal heaps. One pile she tipped inside one of her mittens, burying it deep in her pack the way a fox stores food for the winter. The other she folded up in the green cloth, ready for Popkov in the morning. The morning. Another dawn to get through. She never felt lonelier than when she woke up to find Chang An Lo wasn’t there in bed beside her, but maybe tomorrow they would at last get out of this tired little town. She tapped a finger impatiently on the black window pane as if to wake up whatever forces were out there, and uttered the words she had whispered every single night for the last five months.

  ‘Jens Friis, I am coming for you.’

  And, as always, Chang An Lo’s warning whispered into her ear. ‘You will step into the dragon’s jaws.’

  The railway station of Selyansk wasn’t in the centre of the town, but perched on the western edge as an afterthought. The ticket office and nicotine-stained waiting room were built of good straight pine, though the brown paint was peeling away in strips. The winter air was brittle and a chill wind stiffened Lydia’s cheeks as she walked on to the crowded platform, her eyes darting from face to face, alert for new travellers. The family huddles were familiar now, cocooned in their padded fufaikas, gazing along the lines of the silvery rails as if will power alone could summon up a train with its smoky breath.

  She spotted the strangers immediately. Six men and one woman. Her pulse gave an uneasy kick but she allowed herself no more than an indifferent glance as she walked past. Nevertheless she took in every detail.

  What were they doing here in Selyansk station?

  Three of the men looked innocent enough, one a lone labourer in rough homespun trousers and rubber boots, while two others had the air of government apparatchiks dressed in well-cut overcoats. They looked sleek and contented and spoke in loud voices instead of the usual whispers. Lydia was sick to the pit of her stomach of words hidden behind hands, and eyes that clung to the floor so that there was no danger of thoughts spilling out for anyone to see. Or report on. She smiled at the men and their laughter.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ It was Alexei.

  He was at the end of the platform, leaning against an empty oil drum and smoking one of his foul black cheroots. She was glad he had discarded the expensive winter overcoat he’d arrived with in Russia and replaced it with a coarse black woollen one. It swung round his ankles and had a small tear in the collar as if someone had yanked it too hard in a fight. Yet even in plain workman’s clothes he still managed to look elegant and somehow untouchable - dangerous even, she sometimes thought. There was a controlled coldness in his eyes that warned others against approaching too close. Well, she was his sister. She’d come as close as she damn well pleased.

  ‘Good morning, brother. Dobroye utro,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Let’s hope we’ll get out of this rat hole today,’ she added and swung her canvas bag on top of the oil drum.

  His mouth curved into an obliging smile. ‘Good morning, sestra, sister. Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Like an overfed cat. And you?’

  ‘Very well, spasibo, thank you.’

  Both knew they were lying but it didn’t matter. It was their morning routine. She looked around her.

  ‘Where’s Popkov? I thought he’d be here by now.’

  Alexei shook his head. He was wearing an old shapka with earflaps, and its softness emphasised the sharpness of his facial bones. Lydia abruptly realised he had grown thinner. She stared at the hollows that had appeared under his cheekbones and felt an unease press on her chest. Were they so short of money already?

  He gave her a close-lipped smile. ‘Popkov has gone off in search of food for the journey.’

  The Cossack was their scavenger when supplies were scarce. Lydia wanted to help him - she was quick with her fingers - but Alexei wouldn’t permit it. They’d argued but he was adamant.

  ‘This country is not like China, Lydia. If you steal here, even just a handful of bread or a couple of eggs, you will be sent to a prison labour camp and die there.’

  ‘Only if you’re caught.’

  ‘No. It’s too dangerous.’

  She’d conceded with a shrug, unwilling to admit that his warning had frightened her. She knew what it was to be locked up.

  ‘Any word on the arrival of a train?’ she asked.

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘Maybe today. That’s what the station master always bleats.’

  ‘So this time it could be true.’

  She nodded and let her glance roam casually over the straggly trees on the far side of the track, their skeletons etched in ice. Then, as if in no hurry, she turned again to her fellow travellers. Casually. It took an effort, but she kept her expression neutral as she sought out once more the rest of the newcomers. Two men, one woman. The two men wore uniforms she didn’t recognise and both possessed an air of authority that made her wary of eye contact, but she noticed them glance her way. A couple of paces to one side of them stood the woman.

  ‘Don’t stare.’ Alexei’s voice was gentle.

  ‘I’m not staring.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Of course I’m not. I’m just admiring her fur coat.’

  ‘Admire something else.’

  Lydia dragged her eyes from the woman’s long dark hair, from the way it curled softly on her collar and swayed like a delicate glossy wing across her cheek as she moved her head. Exactly like Valentina’s used to. Bile, bitter-tasting, rose in Lydia’s throat.

  ‘From the back the resemblance to her is striking,’ Alexei murmured, his breath billowing white in the chill air.

  ‘Resemblance to whom?’

  Alexei gave Lydia a long unblinking stare, then dropped the subject. He took a drag on his cheroot and slid a glance in the direction of the two uniformed men.

  ‘They know the train is coming or they wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘No question. It’ll come today.’

  ‘I hope Popkov hurries up. I don’t want him left behind.’

  Even as she said it, she sensed it was a mistake. Alexei gave her a look but made no comment. She knew there was nothing he’d like better than for Liev Popkov to be left behind in Selyansk. He cast another glance over in the woman’s direction. ‘I wonder who she is,’ he said under his breath. ‘She sticks out like a sore thumb in a place like this.’

  Lydia allowed herself another look, a lingering stare this time, at the woman’s silvery fur coat that seemed to shine in the dull wintry light. She noted the stylish matching hat perched at an angle, the pale grey boots as soft as kittens’ paws and the flash of a creamy cashmere scarf at the throat. The woman looked as if she’d strolled off Leningrad’s Nevsky Prospekt and found herself in a farmyard by mistake.

  ‘Her name is Antonina,’ Lydia said quietly.

  Alexei looked at Lydia with surprise. ‘How in hell’s name do you know that?’

  ‘I learn things.’

  ‘And how exactly did you learn that?’

  ‘She told me herself.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The night before last. In the hotel bathroom.’

  Alexei stubbed out his cheroot under his boot and took a deep breath. Lydia could see he was thinking hard, working out the odds of his sister having blundered. She touched his sleeve with her fingers.

  ‘It’s all right, brother. I did
no harm. I was careful, I told her nothing.’

  ‘So what else did you learn about this woman?’

  Lydia let her gaze be drawn back to the ripple of dark hair and the arrogant lift of the chin.

  ‘She’s the Commandant’s wife.’

  Alexei studied the woman. The camp Commandant’s wife. Now that was interesting. No wonder the uniforms hovered so close.

  He experienced a sudden unreasonable rush of hope. He knew it was totally unwarranted, ridiculous even, but he was powerless to crush it. Last summer in China he’d jumped on a train with Lydia without a backward glance, and together they’d headed hundreds of bone-shaking miles north across the border to Vladivostok to find a father neither of them had seen or heard of for over twelve years. Alexei had done it for a whole handful of different reasons but expectation of success was certainly not one of them.

  In his heart he was certain their search for Jens Friis was doomed to failure, but he never uttered a word of this to Lydia. The Soviet State was too massive and too resolute a fist to prise open and anyway their father was surely dead by now. Few could survive in those terrible camps where conditions were so harsh. The slave work in mines or on railways or canals or roads in freezing Siberian temperatures was brutal. Worse than brutal. Life out there was too thin, a brittle thread too easily snapped. The death rate was unimaginable.

  Nevertheless, Alexei had come. Why?

  Night after night on their long journey into Russia, he’d lain awake in bed in the early hours of the morning in some flea-bitten hostel or other, smoking cigarette after cigarette. He’d been forced to listen to the snores and loose farts of the other men in the Soviet communal dormitories while he considered and discarded one plan after another. In reality he knew planning was pointless. They had no way of knowing what lay ahead, so what purpose did it serve?