Under A Blood Red Sky Part 18

'I see.'

He said it so coldly she shivered. They rode the rest of the way into town in silence.

The town of Dagorsk seemed to press in on Sofia as she walked its pavements alongside Mikhail. The buildings were tombstone-grey and crowded on top of each other, either old and dilapidated or new and scruffy. There was beauty there in some of the fine old houses but it was hidden under layers of dirt and neglect. Doors and windows remained unpainted because paint was scarcer than white crows these days, and the pavements were broken and treacherous. It used to be a quiet market town tucked away on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, but since Stalin had vowed in 1929 to civilise the backward peasants of Russia and to liquidate as a cla.s.s the kulaks kulaks, the wealthy farmers, Dagorsk had been jolted suddenly into the twentieth century. The austerities of Communism cast a shadow over the town: shop windows were rendered empty black holes and goods had become impossible to obtain.

Factories had sprung up on the edge of the town and were turning the air grey with the soot from their chimneys. The people had changed too. Gone were the easy-going exchanges, the rea.s.surance of a familiar face, as new forbidding apartment blocks and tenements filled up with strangers looking for work. Or, even worse, strangers who had been exiled to this remote region because of crimes committed against the State. Dagorsk was crawling with people avoiding each other's eyes, and with cars and carts avoiding each other's axles, as the web of suspicion and paranoia spread through the streets. Sofia felt uneasy.

'It's always frantic here,' Mikhail said as they walked quickly past a squat onion-domed church that lay in ruins. 'It's why I choose to live out in the peace and quiet of Tivil, though I'm not so sure my son agrees with me. He's still young. I think he'd prefer the energy of Dagorsk.'

'No, I get the feeling he likes the countryside. Especially the forest.'

'Maybe. He certainly enjoys working in Pokrovsky's smithy in his free time.' He sounded pleased. 'And you?'

'I'm not good with crowds.'

'So I noticed.'

He smiled at her and she realised that since leaving the horse in the haulage yard and setting off on foot through the maze of streets, through the press of other people's bodies, she had gravitated nearer and nearer to Mikhail. He had slowed his stride to her pace and brushed against her, aware of her unease. She could feel the weight of his arm beside her, the nearness of his shoulder. Did the smile mean he had forgiven her the lie?

'My spinster aunt didn't like crowds either, she preferred pigs,' Sofia said, because she wanted another of his smiles.

'Pigs?'

'Yes. One gigantic sow in particular, called Koroleva. She used to walk the pig up the mountain twice a year, regular as clockwork. It was to meet up with a farmer and his boar from the next valley who walked up from the other side of the mountain, rain, wind or shine. They'd spend a few days up there away from all the crowds while the pigs enjoyed more than just the pine nuts, and then they came down again until the next time.'

'I bet they produced strong litters after all that walking.'

'Yes, good st.u.r.dy ones. But as a child it took me years to realise that Koroleva wasn't the only one getting serviced on the mountain. Regular as clockwork.'

He threw back his head and laughed. 'You're making it up.'

'No, I'm not.' She flushed slightly.

They stood still for a moment, smiling into each other's eyes. She loved him for his laugh in a world where people had forgotten how to make that sound. He threaded her arm through his and guided her along the twists and turns up to the central square, steering her past the clutching hands of the beggars that pulled at her clothes like thorns. In time they came to a halt at a broad crossroads where the radio loudspeakers were blaring out into the street. It was one of Stalin's speeches read by Yuri Levitan, hour after hour of it. Oblivious to the long queue of silent women outside the bakery, Mikhail turned Sofia to face him, holding her shoulders. His grey eyes were bright with curiosity and his mouth curved in an echo of his earlier laughter.

'Sofia, what exactly are you doing here?'

'I've come to visit the apteka apteka, the chemist on Kirov Street. For Rafik.'

She knew it wasn't what he meant. He meant to know what was she doing in Tivil, but she wasn't ready for that. Not yet. It was too soon to tell him about Anna, too soon to be certain he wouldn't report her as a fugitive from one of the forced labour camps. If he did, all hope of saving Anna would be lost. He watched her intently, then his fingers took hold of her hand, turned it over and placed a fifty rouble note from his pocket on its palm. One by one he wrapped her fingers over the note.

'I must leave you now, Sofia. Go buy yourself some food.' Gently he touched a fingertip to her cheek. 'Put some flesh on your bones.'

His hand was so male. She noticed that about it. She'd been cut off from maleness for so long. His palm was broad and his fingernails short and hard. She took a deep breath. Now was the time to ask.

'Mikhail, will you give me a job?'

'Oh Sofia, I-'

'I'll do anything,' she rushed on. 'Sweep floors, oil machines, type invoices . . . and I can sew too, if-'

A pa.s.sing motorcycle roared up the street, smothering the life out of her words, but not before she had seen despair leap into Mikhail's face.

'I'm sorry, Sofia. There are queues of people at my factory gate every day, nothing but pathetic bundles of rags and rib bones, people who are desperate.'

'I'm desperate, Mikhail.' desperate, Mikhail.'

He frowned. His gaze moved over her body in a way that made her blush. 'You're not starving,' he said quietly.

'No. That's true. Thanks to Rafik I'm not starving. But-'

'And you'll have work on the farm.' He smiled again. 'I hear you're the famous tractor driver who will lighten the load of the harvesters this autumn.'

'Work on the kolkhoz kolkhoz is no use to me,' she said impatiently. 'I'll do all I can for them and it'll put a roof over my head and food in my stomach but it won't provide me with what I need, which is-' She stopped. is no use to me,' she said impatiently. 'I'll do all I can for them and it'll put a roof over my head and food in my stomach but it won't provide me with what I need, which is-' She stopped.

'Money?'

'Yes.'

'I'm sorry, Sofia. I can't.'

'Just one or two days a week?'

'You don't seem to understand,' he said bleakly. 'I can't give work to everyone. I have to choose. Choose between who earns enough money to eat that day and who doesn't.' His eyes grew as dark and flat as the pavement under their feet. 'I'm forced to decide who lives and who dies. It's . . .' he looked away at the road ahead, 'my penance.'

'Please,' she whispered, ashamed to beg. Their eyes held each other. 'It is life or death, Mikhail. If it weren't, I wouldn't ask. I need money.'

He stared at her a moment longer and she could see herself through his eyes. She was filled with disgust at what must look like her greed. She stepped away from him.

'Think about it anyway,' she said with a try at lightness and a smile that cost her dear. 'Thanks for taking me on your horse. And for this.' She held up the note and ducked out into the road, dodging a handcart piled high with old newspapers tied together with wire. Her disappointment was so solid it almost choked her. She'd spoiled everything.

When she reached the other side of the road she turned to wave and saw that Mikhail was still standing exactly where she'd left him on the pavement, staring after her, but he was no longer alone. Beside him stood a slight female figure in a light summer dress. The dress had a patch near the hem but otherwise looked fresh and clean, unlike Sofia's own shabby skirt. With a shock she recognised Lilya Dimentieva, the same woman she'd seen so intimately entwined with Mikhail last night, the one who'd come to the house to whisper with Zenia. The one with the child, Misha. That one.

She was smiling up into his face with tempting brown eyes and, as Sofia watched, Lilya slipped her arm through Mikhail's, rubbing her shoulder against him like a cat. Together they set off down the street.

Sofia was furious. She wanted to snap something brittle between her fingers. Something like Lilya Dimentieva's thin neck. She was furious with Mikhail and knew she had no right to be. He wasn't hers.

She hurried down Ulitsa Gorkova with long unforgiving strides, indifferent now to the crowds milling round her, as though she could outpace her rage at that possessive little movement of Lilya's. But she couldn't. It burned as fiercely as h.e.l.l fire, melting her from the inside.

As Sofia emerged from the gloomy apteka apteka into the bright sunlight on Kirov Street, she clutched Rafik's paper package in her hand and headed down towards the factories hunched together on the river bank. Here the River Tiva had widened out to a busy thoroughfare where long black barges nudged up alongside the warehouses and men were shouting and hurling ropes. Sofia looked at its oily restless surface and wondered how far a small rowboat might travel on it. It was something to consider. into the bright sunlight on Kirov Street, she clutched Rafik's paper package in her hand and headed down towards the factories hunched together on the river bank. Here the River Tiva had widened out to a busy thoroughfare where long black barges nudged up alongside the warehouses and men were shouting and hurling ropes. Sofia looked at its oily restless surface and wondered how far a small rowboat might travel on it. It was something to consider.

She had no trouble finding the Levitsky factory. It was an ugly red-brick building that rose three storeys up from the muddy bank, with derricks jutting out over the river at the rear, and at the front a set of studded pine doors large enough to swallow carts whole. Attached to it at one side was a modern concrete extension with rows of wide windows that must flood the place with sunshine.

Is she in there? With you, Mikhail? Are you at this very moment holding out a gla.s.s of chai chai to her? Or lighting her cigarette, your fingers brushing hers, so that you can lean close and smell her perfume? Even catch a glimpse down the front of her pretty summer frock? to her? Or lighting her cigarette, your fingers brushing hers, so that you can lean close and smell her perfume? Even catch a glimpse down the front of her pretty summer frock?

Sofia's cheeks slowly coloured. She stood outside the factory for over an hour, and at the end of that time she shook herself and walked away, pushing past the bezprizorniki bezprizorniki, the hollow-cheeked street urchins who scavenged on the edge of survival by thrusting whatever they had to sell under the noses of pa.s.sers-by. Today it was Sport Sport cigarettes for ten kopecks each. They smelled foul. cigarettes for ten kopecks each. They smelled foul.

She retraced her steps to Lenin Square, which was dominated by an imposing bronze statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself, his arm upraised in exhortation. Alongside him were the colourful propaganda plakati plakati that declared that declared Smert Kapitalizmu! Death to Capitalism Smert Kapitalizmu! Death to Capitalism and and Workers of the World, Unite! Workers of the World, Unite!

The first person Sofia saw was Zenia. The gypsy girl was standing in the shade under the spreading branches of a lime tree near the newspaper boards with her bare arms draped round the neck of a young man, his hand curled snugly round her waist. He was wearing a uniform with a pale blue cap and epaulettes, the uniform of OGPU, the State Security Police. Quickly Sofia whirled away in the opposite direction, nipped past the open archway of a market hall and ducked round a corner.

'Ah, what have we here? The beautiful tractor driver from Tivil, I do believe.'

It was Comrade Deputy Stirkhov from Raikom Raikom. And he was blocking her path.

24.

Davinsky Camp July 1933

'Sofia is dead.'

'No. You're lying.'

'Anna, you've got to stop this. This stupid waiting.' Tasha glanced up from the cards in her hand. 'You've got to accept the fact that she's not coming back. Not ever. For f.u.c.k's sake, who in their right mind would turn up in this s.h.i.thole unless-'

'Shut up, Tasha,' Anna said, but without rancour. 'Sofia will come.'

They were sitting on Anna's bed board playing poker with shabby homemade cards and, as usual, Nina was winning. The stakes were threads of cotton yanked from their skirts.

'Nina, you'll be opening a clothing factory soon,' Anna laughed and threw down her hand of cards in disgust. 'Who dealt me this rubbish?'

'I did.' It was the new girl, Lara. She was nineteen and tall, with pale skin and pale hair. None of them mentioned it, but she reminded them of Sofia. Somehow filled a gap for them all. 'Anna,' she asked with a quick flick of an ace, 'what makes you believe she'll come back? The temptations out there must be so strong.'

Tasha and Nina exchanged glances but Anna ignored them. 'You don't know her,' she said firmly.

'But Tasha has a point, she can't be in her right mind to risk coming back here.'

'She promised me.'

'But a promise in here,' Lara explained gently, 'is not the same as a promise out there.' She nodded towards the world beyond the barbed-wire fences. 'In the real world people don't gamble for pieces of thread to mend their clothes. And they don't keep insane promises.'

'The trouble with you, Lara, is that you haven't been in here long enough yet.'

'What do you mean?'

'It drives us all a bit insane.'

Sofia is dead.

Tasha's words jammed in Anna's head like needles and she couldn't pull them out. Yet still she refused to believe them and, as the night hours crawled past, she set about breathing life into her memories of Sofia. She was convinced that if she let her friend walk and talk and laugh and cry in her head, it would help to keep her walking and talking and laughing and crying out there in what Lara called the real world.

But at the same time she knew Tasha was right: only someone mad would return to Davinsky Camp out of choice. For the very first time doubt crept down her spine with cold fingers.

What is out there, Sofia? What is holding you?

She'll come. I know she'll come. She is tenacious.

Even as a girl she had possessed that tenacity. Anna recalled a story Sofia had told her one day on the trek to the Work Zone, a story about her childhood.

The sound of the whip was like a branch snapping, over and over. That was what Sofia had said. When she was eleven years old, her father was tied to a tree in the centre of the village and whipped to death in front of her. He was a priest. But in January 1917 he was known to be working with the Bolsheviks and that was as good as a death warrant. The troops of Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor of All the Russias, rode the eight versts from Petrograd, their horses' bridles jangling in the cold still air as they entered the village, and they had unleashed their knotted knouts on him. He didn't scream or curse, just prayed silently into the bark of the tree.

Sofia had waited till after the funeral, then in the early morning mist she plaited her long blonde hair into a thick braid down her back, pulled on her lapti lapti boots and took herself into her father's store shed in the back yard. There she filled a sack with a mixture of their winter-storage vegetables that she'd grown herself: potatoes, swedes and a few handfuls of turnips, and set off on the long road to Petrograd. boots and took herself into her father's store shed in the back yard. There she filled a sack with a mixture of their winter-storage vegetables that she'd grown herself: potatoes, swedes and a few handfuls of turnips, and set off on the long road to Petrograd.

The heavy sack hung down her back like a dead animal. Ice lay on the sides of the road and the clouds above were a dirty white, the smears of sooty fingerprints pressed into them. She walked fast as though she could outpace the grief that snapped at her heels, taking big bites out of her. The world had shifted. She could hear it clicking into a new position both inside and outside her head. At times when she looked at the familiar landmarks along the way - the old water tower, the sawmill, the lopsided weathervane on top of the barn - she barely recognised them.

Her mind felt as brittle as the ice under her feet. She had a great desire to yell at the top of her voice, but instead she thought about her father's limp body stretched out on the kitchen table. She had hugged it close and refused to let go. She cried into his fingers and kissed the cuts on his neck, but when they took his body away from her to put it in a box, she knew she was going to have to build a new life for herself. Her uncle had offered her his own house as a roof over her head but he'd told her it was up to her now to put aside her books - the ones she and her father had loved to read together - and start earning a living. She tightened her grip on the sack.

The city of Petrograd smelled of danger. There was a tension in the air that Sofia breathed in the moment she stepped on to its pavements and it made her blood pump faster, though she couldn't understand why. She had always loved Petrograd - not that she'd been in its busy streets more than a dozen times in her life, but even so - with its tall pastel-painted houses, its elegant shops and the glittering people who drifted in and out of them on the wide boulevard of Nevsky Prospekt. The place pulsed with the constant noise of traffic, an animated jangling of carriages and cars and trams.

Ice edged the gutters and hung like frozen tears from the balconies, as she pushed onward to the street market in Liteiny, but business was bad there today. No one had roubles to spend. So after three hours she scooped up what was left of her sack and headed back to the bustling centre, always taking her bearings from the golden Admiralty spire just like her father had instructed her to do.

The sky was white and glossy, as if it had a store of snow up there, hidden behind gla.s.s. In her quilted coat and her bright yellow hat and mittens that she'd knitted herself, Sofia moved fast to keep out the cold. But that sense of nervousness was strong again, the feeling of a city holding its breath, and she studied the people around her carefully to discover where this strange sensation was coming from. The ones in fur coats and silk scarves hurried along the streets noisily, talking in loud voices, but the ones in the shabby jackets and the cloth caps, she noticed, huddled in tight groups on street corners among the dirty ridges of old snow, their heads close together.

She edged towards one ragged group and watched them with interest. Yes, this was where the tension lay. She could see it billowing off the men along with the smoke from the hand-rolled cigarettes they clutched between their fingers so ardently, like a badge of membership. She swallowed hard, then shifted the sack into a more comfortable position on her shoulder and headed for the huddle of three men. They were tucked in the mouth of an alleyway next to a laundry that spelled out its name in coloured gla.s.s, and she couldn't help noticing that the shoes of all three men had holes in the toes. She moved closer, swinging her sack.