The Russian Concubine Part 68

'I'll send you a wire, Alfred, I promise. As soon as I can.'

'Do that, my girl. You know I'll worry.'

She looked at his face and couldn't understand how it had grown so dear to her. He had lost a few pounds and his brown eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into his head than . . . before. How had she once thought them pompous? She leaned forward and hugged him.

'Sure you have enough money?' he asked.

'If I had any more golden guineas sewn into my clothes and glued inside the soles of my shoes, the train would need an extra engine to cart me over the mountains.'

He laughed. 'Well, you've got my solicitor's address in London, so you can always reach me and I can wire you money for a steamer ticket to England. I won't stay much longer. Not now. Not here in China.'

She held on to his hand for a moment, trying to find the right words and failing. In the end she said with a smile, 'Be happy in England. She'd want you to be.'

'I know.' His lips tightened. He nodded. Patted her arm. 'Keep yourself safe, my dear girl. G.o.d be with you.'

'I have my bear with me.'

She glanced into the carriage. Liev Popkov was seated there. His great fist was stroking his beard and somehow managed to make even that simple gesture threatening rather than thoughtful. Her own small leather suitcase rested beside him on the bench seat, safe as the Bank of England. Probably safer. Even Alfred laughed when he saw two men back quickly out of the compartment when they encountered Liev's single black eye and outstretched legs, as if a buffalo had snorted in their faces.

The train guard started slamming doors. The smell of hot metal stung Lydia's nostrils as another belch of steam sent black s.m.u.t swirling up the platform. The engine heaved itself into life. Whistles shrieked. This was it. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but at the same time something was tearing apart in there and she couldn't quite hold it together. She jumped up on the carriage step, and it was then that she saw the tall figure with the silk scarf, short brown hair, and lazy stride ambling along the platform, as if he had all the time in the world. He strolled up to her carriage and doffed his smart new fur cap to her.

'Alexei.' She grinned at him. 'I thought you weren't coming.'

'Changed my mind. Not keen on this place anymore, a bit too chilly for me.' He glanced over his shoulder toward the station entrance and though he kept it casual, she could spot the unease in his green eyes.

'Too hot, I think you mean. Come on, Papa will be glad to see you,' she said and stepped to one side.

Alexei gave her a look that she couldn't read, but it didn't matter. Her brother was here. He shook hands with Alfred, who muttered, 'Good man, look after her,' and then Alexei leaped easily into the carriage beside her.

'We have company, I see,' he drawled and stared suspiciously at the big greasy Russian.

Lydia laughed. This could get interesting. It was going to be a long journey.

The clouds overhead were moody and silver-edged as she took her seat. She leaned her head against the juddering window, drew in a deep breath, and released it slowly as Chang An Lo had taught her, watching the pane of gla.s.s mist up and obscure what was out there. What lay ahead terrified her. And thrilled her. She knew she could survive it. She'd said so many times. That was the one thing she was good at. Surviving. Hadn't she proved it? Well, now she was going to help her father survive.

She wiped a hand over the window. Cleared a swathe of gla.s.s.

Because now she knew that you didn't survive on your own. Everyone who touched your life sent a ripple effect through you, and all the ripples interconnected. She could sense them inside her, surging and flowing, doubling back and overlapping, all the way back to the beginning. And at the centre of them all was Chang An Lo. She wrapped her hand tight around the quartz dragon pendant. He and she would survive this and would be together again when all the turmoil was over, of that she was sure. She stared intently up at the low ridge of hills ahead where rumour had it that the Communists camped out, as if she could keep him safe by sheer force of will alone. She sent out a ripple of her own.

The train growled to a start.

Read on for an extract from Kate Furnivall's breathtaking novel, Under a Blood Red Sky Under a Blood Red Sky, published by Sphere in November 2008.

For more information on Kate Furnivall visit her website at www.katefurnivall.com

1.

Davinsky Labour Camp, Siberia February 1933

The Zone. That's what the compound was called.

A double barrier of dense barbed wire encircled it, backed by a high fence and watchtowers that never slept. In Sofia Morozova's mind it merged with all the other hated lice-ridden camps she'd been in. Transit camps were the worst. They ate up your soul, then spat you out into cattle trucks to move you on to the next one. Etap Etap, it was called, this shifting of prisoners from one camp to another until no friends, no possessions and no self remained. You became nothing. That's what they wanted.

Work is an Act of Honour, Courage and Heroism. Those words were emblazoned in iron letters a metre high over the gates of Davinsky prison labour camp. Every time Sofia was marched in and out to work in the depths of the taiga forest she read Stalin's words above her head. Twice a day for the ten years that were her sentence. That would add up to over seven thousand times - that is, if she lived that long, which was unlikely. Would she come to believe that hard labour was an 'Act of Heroism' after reading those words seven thousand times? Would she care any more whether she believed it or not?

As she trudged out into the snow in the five o'clock darkness of an Arctic morning with six hundred other prisoners, two abreast in a long silent shuffling crocodile, she spat as she pa.s.sed under Stalin's words. The spittle froze before it hit the ground.

'There's going to be a white-out,' Sofia said.

She had an uncanny knack for smelling out the weather half a day before it arrived. It wasn't something she'd been aware of in the days when she lived near Petrograd, but there the skies were nowhere near as high, nor so alarmingly empty. Out here, where the forests swallowed you whole, it came easily to her. She turned to the young woman sitting at her side.

'Go on, Anna, you'd better go over and tell the guards to get the ropes out.'

'A good excuse for me to warm my hands on their fire, anyway.' Anna smiled. She was a fragile figure, always quick to find a smile, but the shadows under her blue eyes had grown so dark they looked bruised, as though she'd been in a fight.

Sofia was more worried about her friend than she was willing to admit, even to herself. Just watching Anna stamping her feet to keep the blood flowing made her anxious.

'Make sure the brainless b.a.s.t.a.r.ds take note of it,' grimaced Nina, a wide-hipped Ukrainian who knew how to swing a sledgehammer better than any of them. 'I don't want our brigade to lose any of you in the white-out. We need every single pair of hands if we're ever going to get this blasted road built.'

When visibility dropped to absolute zero in blizzard conditions, the prisoners were roped together on the long trek back to camp. Not to stop them escaping, but to prevent them blundering out of line and freezing to death in the snow.

'f.u.c.k the ropes,' snorted Tasha, the woman on the other side of Sofia. Tasha tucked her greasy dark hair back under her headscarf. She had small narrow features and a prim mouth that was surprisingly adept at swearing. 'If they've got any b.l.o.o.d.y sense, we'll finish early today and get back to the stinking huts ahead of it.'

'That would be better for you, Anna,' Sofia nodded. 'A shorter day. You could rest.'

'Don't worry about me.'

'But I do worry.'

'No, I'm doing well today. I'll soon be catching up with your work rate, Nina. You'd better watch out.'

Anna gave a mischievous smile to the three other women and they laughed outright, but Sofia noticed that her friend didn't miss the quick glance that pa.s.sed between them. Anna struggled against another spasm of coughing and sipped her midday chai chai to soothe her raw throat. Not that the drink deserved to be called tea. It was a bitter brew made from pine needles and moss that was said to fight scurvy. Whether that was true or just a rumour spread around to make them drink the brown muck was uncertain, but it fooled the stomach into thinking it was being fed and that was all they cared about. to soothe her raw throat. Not that the drink deserved to be called tea. It was a bitter brew made from pine needles and moss that was said to fight scurvy. Whether that was true or just a rumour spread around to make them drink the brown muck was uncertain, but it fooled the stomach into thinking it was being fed and that was all they cared about.

The four women were seated on a felled pine tree, huddled together for warmth, kicking bald patches in the snow with their lapti lapti, boots shaped from soft birch bark. They were making the most of their half-hour midday break from perpetual labour. Sofia tipped her head back to ease the ache in her shoulders and stared up at the blank white sky - today lying like a lid over them, shutting them in, pressing them down, stealing their freedom away. She felt a familiar ball of anger burn in her chest. This was no life. Not even fit for an animal. But anger was not the answer, because all it did was drain the few pathetic sc.r.a.ps of energy she possessed from her veins. She knew that. She'd struggled to rid herself of it but it wouldn't go away. It trailed in her footsteps like a sick dog.

All around, as far as the eye could see and the mind could imagine, stretched dense forests of pine trees, great seas of them that swept in endless waves across the whole of northern Russia, packed tight under snow - and through it all they were attempting to carve a road. It was like trying to dig a coal mine with a teaspoon. Dear G.o.d, but road-building was wretched. Brutal at the best of times, but with inadequate tools and temperatures of twenty or even thirty degrees below freezing it became a living nightmare. Your shovels cracked, your hands turned black, your breath froze in your lungs.

'Davay! Hurry! Back to work!' Hurry! Back to work!'

The guards crowded round the brazier and shouted orders, but they didn't leave their circle of precious warmth. Along the length of the arrow-straight scar that sliced through the trees to make s.p.a.ce for the new road, hunched bodies pulled their padded coats and ragged gloves over any patch of exposed skin. A collective sigh of resignation rose like smoke in the air as the brigades of women took up their hammers and spades once more.

Anna was the first on her feet, eager to prove she could meet the required norm, the work quota for each day. 'Come on, you lazy . . .' she muttered to herself.

But she didn't finish the sentence. She swayed, her blue eyes glazed, and she would have fallen if she hadn't been clutching her shovel. Sofia reached her first and held her safe, the frail body starting to shake as coughs raked her lungs. She jammed a rag over Anna's mouth.

'She won't last,' Tasha whispered. 'Her f.u.c.king lungs are-'

'Ssh.' Sofia frowned at her.

Nina patted Anna's shoulder and said nothing. Sofia walked Anna back to her patch of the road, helped her scramble up on to its raised surface and gently placed the shovel in her hand. Not once had Anna come even close to meeting the norm in the last month and that meant less food each day in her ration. Sofia shifted a few shovels of rock for her.

'Thanks,' Anna said and wiped her mouth. 'Get on with your own work.' She managed a convincing smile. 'We'll be home early today. Before the white-out hits.'

Sofia stared at her with amazement. Home. Home. How could she bear to call that place home? How could she bear to call that place home?

'I'll be fine now,' Anna a.s.sured her.

You're not fine, Sofia wanted to shout, and you're not going to be fine and you're not going to be fine.

Instead she gazed hard into her friend's sunken eyes and what she saw there made her chest tighten. Oh, Anna. A frail wisp of a thing, just twenty-eight years old. Too soon to die, much too soon. And that moment, on an ice-bound patch of rock in an empty Siberian wilderness, was when Sofia made the decision. I swear to G.o.d, Anna, I'll get you out of here. If it kills me. I swear to G.o.d, Anna, I'll get you out of here. If it kills me.

2.

The white-out came just as Sofia said it would. But this time the guards paid heed to her warning, and before it hit they roped together the grey crocodile of ragged figures and set off on the long mindless trudge back to camp.

The track threaded its way through unremitting taiga forest, so dark it was like night, the slender columns of pine trees standing like Stalin's sentinels overseeing the march. The breath of hundreds of women created a strange, disturbing sound in the silence, while their feet shuffled and stumbled over snow-caked ruts.

Sofia hated the forest. It was odd because she had spent most of her life on a farm and was used to rural living, whereas Anna, who loved the forest and declared it magical, had been brought up in cities. But maybe that was why. Sofia knew too well what a forest was capable of, she could feel it breathing down her neck like a huge unwelcome presence, so that when sudden soft sounds escaped from the trees as layers of snow slid from the branches to the forest floor, it made her shiver. It was as though the forest were sighing.

The wind picked up, stealing the last remnants of heat from their bodies. As the prisoners made their way through the trees, Sofia and Anna ducked their faces out of the icy blast, pulling their scarves tighter round their heads. They pushed one exhausted foot in front of the other and huddled their bodies close to each other. This was an attempt to share their remaining wisps of warmth, but it was also something else, something more important to both of them. More important even than heat.

They talked to each other. Not just the usual moans about aching backs or broken spades or which brigade was falling behind on its norm, but real words that wove real pictures. The harsh scenes that made up the daily, brutal existence of Davinsky Camp were difficult to escape, even in your head they clamoured at you. Their grip on the mind, as well as on the body, was so intractable that no other thoughts could squeeze their way in.

Early on, Sofia had worked out that in a labour camp you exist from minute to minute, from mouthful to mouthful. You divide every piece of time into tiny portions and you tell yourself you can survive just this small portion. That's how you get through a day. No past, no future, just this moment. Sofia had been certain that it was the only way to survive here, a slow and painful starvation of the soul.

But Anna had other ideas. She had broken all Sofia's self-imposed rules and made each day bearable. With words. Each morning on the two-hour trek out to the Work Zone and each evening on the weary trudge back to the camp, they put their heads close and created pictures, each word a colourful st.i.tch in the tapestry, until the delicately crafted scenes were all their eyes could see. The guards, the rifles, the dank forest and the unrelenting savagery of the place faded, like dreams fade, so that they were left with no more than faint s.n.a.t.c.hes of something dimly remembered.

Anna was best at it. She could make the words dance. She would tell her stories and then laugh with pure pleasure. And the sound of it was so rare and so unfettered that other heads would turn and whimper with envy. The stories were all about Anna's childhood in Petrograd before the Revolution, and day by day, month by month, year by year, Sofia felt the words and the stories build up inside her own bones. They packed tight and dense in there where the marrow was long gone, and kept her limbs firm and solid as she swung an axe or dug a ditch.

But now things had changed. As the snow began to fall and whiten the shoulders of the prisoners in front, Sofia turned away from them and faced Anna. It had taken her a long time to get used to the howling of a Siberian wind but now she could switch it off in her ears, along with the growls of the guard dogs and the sobs of the girl behind.

'Anna,' she urged, holding on to the rope that bound them together, 'tell me about Vasily again.'

Anna smiled, she couldn't help it. Just the mention of the name Vasily turned a light on inside her, however wet or tired or sick she was. Vasily Dyuzheyev - he was Anna's childhood friend in Petrograd, two years older but her companion in every waking thought and in many of her night-time dreams. He was the son of Svetlana and Grigori Dyuzheyev, aristocratic friends of Anna's father, and right now Sofia needed to know everything about him. Everything. Everything. And not just for pleasure this time - though she didn't like to admit, even to herself, how much pleasure Anna's talking of Vasily gave her - for now it was serious. And not just for pleasure this time - though she didn't like to admit, even to herself, how much pleasure Anna's talking of Vasily gave her - for now it was serious.

Sofia had made the decision to get Anna out of this h.e.l.l-hole before it was too late. Her only hope of succeeding was with help, and Vasily was the only one she could turn to. But would he help? And could she find him?

A quiet and thoughtful smile had crept on to Anna's face. Her scarf was wrapped round her head and the lower part of her face, so that only her eyes showed, narrowed against the wind. But the smile was there, deep inside them, as she started to talk.

'The day was as colourless as today. It was winter and the new year of 1917 had just begun. All around me the white sky and the white ground merged to become one crisp sh.e.l.l, frozen in a silent world. There was no wind, only the sound of a swan stamping on the ice of the lake with its big flat feet. Vasily and I had come out for a walk together, just the two of us, wrapped up well against the cold. Our fur boots crunched satisfyingly in the snow as we ran across the lawn to keep warm.

'"Vasily, I can see the dome of St Isaac's Cathedral from here. It looks like a big shiny s...o...b..ll!" I shouted from high up in the sycamore tree. I'd always loved to climb trees and this was a particularly tempting one, down by the lake on his father's estate.

'"I'll build you a snow sleigh fit for a Snow Queen," he promised.

'You should have seen him, Sofia. His eyes bright and sparkling like the icicle-fingers that trailed from the tree's branches, he watched me climb high up among its huge naked limbs that spread out over the lawn like a skeleton. He didn't once say, "Be careful" or "It's not ladylike", like my governess Maria would have.

'"You'll keep dry up there," he laughed, "and it'll stop you leaping over the sleigh with your big feet before it's finished."

'I threw a s...o...b..ll at him, then took pleasure in studying the way he carefully carved runners out of the deep snow, starting to create the body of a sleigh with long, sweeping sides. At first I sang "Gaida Troika" to him, swinging my feet in rhythm, but eventually I couldn't hold back the question that was burning a hole in my tongue.

'"Will you tell me what you've been doing, Vasily? You're hardly ever here any more. I . . . hear things."

'"What kind of things?"

'"The servants are saying it's getting dangerous on the streets."

'"You should always listen to the servants, Annochka," he laughed. "They know everything."

'But I wasn't going to be put off so easily. "Tell me, Vasily."

'He looked up at me, his gaze suddenly solemn, his soft brown hair falling off his face so that the bones of his forehead and his cheeks stood out sharply. It occurred to me that he was thinner, and my stomach swooped when I realised why. He was giving away his food.

'"Do you really want to know?"

'"Yes, I'm twelve now, old enough to hear what's going on. Tell me, Vasily. Please."

'He nodded pensively, and then proceeded to tell me about the crowds that had gathered noisily in the Winter Palace Square the previous day and how a shot had been fired. The cavalry had come charging in on their horses and flashed their sabres to keep order.

'"But it won't be long, Anna. It's like a firework. The taper is lit. It's just a question of when it will explode."

'"Explosions cause damage." I was frightened for him.