Under A Blood Red Sky Part 30

He yanked open the door, took hold of Sofia's hand and escorted her out into the fresh evening air.

'Do they believe you?' Sofia asked in an amused voice once they were on the platform. 'That I'm here as an observer of the delegation?'

Mikhail laughed easily. 'Who cares? You're here, that's all that matters. And they're so used to the system being riddled with informers that there's no reason for them to doubt your role. It's simple really. Alanya Sirova informs on Boriskin, Boriskin informs on me, but who is there to inform on Alanya?' He grinned at her. 'You, of course. It makes sense.'

She grinned. 'Ingenious.'

He carved a path through the jostling crowd to where pa.s.sengers were replenishing their tea kettles with kipyatok kipyatok, boiling water from the station samovar. He filled a tea flask and poured a drink for them into a kruzhka kruzhka, an enamelled metal mug that all travellers carried. They took it over to a quieter spot near the station railing. As far as the eye could see a wide flat plain spread in every direction, dotted with the hunched figures of kolkhoz kolkhoz workers and a few straggling cattle seeking shade in the long evening shadows. The land shimmered in a lazy golden haze as if it had all the time in the world. workers and a few straggling cattle seeking shade in the long evening shadows. The land shimmered in a lazy golden haze as if it had all the time in the world.

'Have I told you that you look lovely today?' Mikhail let his eyes feast on Sofia openly at last, as he watched her sip the tea.

'You did mention something similar earlier this morning,' she laughed. 'Thank you for the dress.'

'If I tell you I chose it because it matches your eyes, will you scoff at me?'

'Definitely.'

'OK, the truth is that I grabbed the first garment off the top of the pile in the factory storeroom.'

She looked at him, her blue eyes the exact shade of the cornflowers on the dress. He could see she didn't believe a word of it.

'That's more like it,' she smiled. Something about the mischievous sideways glance she gave him made the hour he'd spent yesterday, searching out a style and size of dress and jacket that would be perfect for her, worth every second. When he'd handed over the leather satchel to her last night, she had grown soft in the moonlight, seeming to melt inside. It was obvious she was unaccustomed to receiving gifts.

'Tell me about this conference I'm supposed to be reporting on,' she said.

'No, that's far too dreary. Let's talk instead about escaping from our chaperones in Leningrad and taking a stroll along the banks of the Neva and through the Field of Mars with you looking like a breath of summer, and we'll stop for a beer and-'

'Mikhail!' She was frowning at him. 'Tell me about the conference. I need to be prepared. It's . . .' she glanced back at the train, at the dirty windows and the pair of spectacles staring out from behind them. 'It's how I stay safe.'

Mikhail felt a sharp surge of anger scald his throat. He was able to laugh off any threats to his own safety, but not to hers. The fact that Sofia felt in danger from these people he employed made him want to sack them on the spot.

'Very well,' he said seriously. 'There are some points you will be expected to remember. First of all, you must express admiration for the much vaunted "liquidation of unemployment". The expansion of industry has provided jobs for all. This achievement will be mentioned over and over again.'

'But Mikhail,' her eyes abruptly lost their summer blue, 'I've seen the unemployed people begging in the streets and queuing hopelessly at the factory gates.'

'Now that, my dear Sofia, is the kind of comment that will get you tossed into prison for anti-Soviet incitement before you can blink an eye.'

She stared at him and nodded. 'Tell me more.'

'No mention of h.o.a.rding of coins because the paper rouble is worth nothing. Or of the rampant inflation. Or the wholesale shortage of food and goods because the Kremlin, in its wisdom, is disposing of Russia's wheat, fish, eggs, b.u.t.ter, petroleum, woodpulp - shall I go on? - to foreign markets at absurdly low prices to gain hard currency or . . .'

She reached up, pretending to brush a s.m.u.t of engine soot from his cheek, and let her finger soothe the heat from his skin.

'Enough,' she murmured.

He silenced his tongue.

'Your speech to the Committee,' she said softly, 'avoids these issues, I a.s.sume.'

'Oh yes,' he growled, 'I can lie with the best of them.'

'Good. I was just checking.'

'Remember, Sofia, they look for scapegoats when things go wrong. They attacked Bukharin and even Rykov, though he was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. Just sit there with your pen and pad, take notes, look serious and say nothing.'

She nodded, her blonde hair bobbing skittishly in the last of the sunlight. 'Now tell me,' she said, totally flooring him with that sideways smile of hers. 'What are the arrangements for sleeping tonight?'

He pulled a face and gave a savage snort. 'Not good, I'm afraid.'

Mikhail stubbed out a cigarette and lit another. It burned a hole in the darkness of the flat wilderness around him. He was leaning against the wall of the hotel where they were spending the night, though hotel hotel was really too grand a word for it. A wooden building packed with rooms like matches in a box, all crushed against each other. The occupants were carefully supervised and accounted for to OGPU. was really too grand a word for it. A wooden building packed with rooms like matches in a box, all crushed against each other. The occupants were carefully supervised and accounted for to OGPU.

He'd been a fool to bring her on this trip, to risk her safety, but to leave her behind in Tivil would have been like leaving behind part of himself. And she'd wanted to come, she'd made that clear with a kiss. He inhaled deeply, recalling the sweet softness of her lips on his in the stables. The night was dark now. Clouds had edged their way down from the north, and he wondered if Sofia were asleep in her bed. Or wide awake, listening to the snores of Alanya Sirova in the bed beside her, and thinking of . . . what? What do you think of, Sofia? What do you think of, Sofia?

Mikhail couldn't sleep, so he'd come outdoors in the hope that the night wind would flush the unwanted memories from his mind. It was always the same when he travelled to Leningrad. It was like travelling back in time, back to his boyhood in St Petersburg. The train that carried him westward and then north towards the Gulf of Finland seemed to unravel his life with each turn of its wheels, as though pulling at the delicate thread he'd used to st.i.tch the years together. The experience was so vivid that it startled him. The whoosh of steam from the engine and the echoing sob of its whistle through ancient forests stirred up images from the past and set them tumbling through his mind.

He didn't want to eat. And he couldn't sleep. The important conference lay ahead of him, but his thoughts were elsewhere, just when he needed to be sharp. Two more days of this journey to Leningrad, pistons thundering beneath him as loud as in his head, pointless delays when the train would be shunted into sidings for idle hours at a time. Two more days to drag his senses back to the present.

Which meant only two more days of her soft arm at his side and blue cornflowers spilling on to his knee. But what then?

34.

How do they do it?

Sofia gazed around at the sea of faces, at the concentration on them. Did they really care so much or was it all an act?

The great dome above the hall was supported by ma.s.sive pale marble pillars. Beneath it rows and rows of packed seats curved in a wide sweeping arc. Sofia tried to concentrate on the speeches, but it was impossible. However eagerly she made herself start listening to each new delegate up on the rostrum, boredom invariably seeped in, as lists of production figures and target levels were recited for each raion. raion. The only rousing moments came when Party slogans were hammered out with fists on the lectern and a thousand voices roared back from the floor as one. The only rousing moments came when Party slogans were hammered out with fists on the lectern and a thousand voices roared back from the floor as one.

The pillars. Her eyes were drawn to them, instead of to the pad on her lap. Bone-white pillars. Tall and graceful, like pine trees stripped of bark. She couldn't keep her eyes off them. Each one made her think of Anna, still out there in the forest, her blade slicing through the flesh of a tree. Don't stop, dear Anna. Breathe, my friend, breathe Don't stop, dear Anna. Breathe, my friend, breathe. She swallowed the rage that rose in her throat at the injustice of it, but she must have made some noise because in the next seat Alanya Sirova turned and studied her.

'Are you all right?' Alanya asked.

'I'm fine.'

Still Alanya stared at her. 'You haven't written down anything for the last half an hour.' She nodded at Sofia's blank page.

Sofia turned her head to look into the suspicious brown eyes. The two women's communication had so far been stilted, despite sharing a bedroom at night and being seated next to each other for the last six hours in the conference hall. Sofia could feel Alanya's curiosity like something palpable crouched between them, and was amused by her sudden show of concern.

'Comrade Sirova,' she said in a muted tone, giving it just the right touch of condescension, 'I am listening. This delegate on the platform,' she gestured to the bearded man in the shabby brown suit speaking so pa.s.sionately in favour of engineering expansion, 'is telling us something that is crucial to our understanding of how the Levitsky factory can be moved forward, step by step, until it is able to surpa.s.s even our Great Leader's targets of technological development and progression. It is essential to think things through first and write afterwards.' She narrowed her gaze. 'Do you understand me?'

'Yes, comrade, yes, I do.' The sleek brown head nodded eagerly.

'And,' Sofia continued, 'I advise you to bear that in mind - if you want to progress further than a lowly secretary. I'm sure you have the ability to do so.'

Alanya's ambitious eyes gleamed behind the thick lenses of her spectacles and her sallow cheeks took on a pinkish tinge. 'Spasibo, comrade. I promise I will in future.'

Sofia allowed herself a faint smile. That was Comrade Sirova dealt with. She turned back to the pillars, to the pine trees.

It was out among the pine trees one hot mosquito-ridden afternoon that Sofia had learned from Anna about her visit to Maria, the woman who had been her governess. Maria who, during all those years when Anna was living with a distant cousin in a village hundreds of miles away near Kazan, had never come for her. Never once wrote. Never got in touch. Nothing. As though Anna had ceased to exist. Anna had waited and waited, had pinched her own skin to make sure she was still real, always believing that one day Maria would come. Her lonely young heart clung to Maria's words: 'I promise I'll come for you.'

But she didn't come.

Now in the damp forests of a Siberian Work Zone, Anna shook her head sadly. 'I was foolish. I wouldn't let it go. So when the woman who had taken me in suddenly died - she was trampled by a bull when I was twenty-one - I spent a time grieving for the stern old vixen. Then I took the small amount of money she left me in her will, bought myself a train ticket and travel permit and went in search of Maria. It took me months to get a seat on a train, but finally I travelled back to Leningrad.'

Sofia was honing Anna's axe, squatting down among the wood-chippings with a flat stone in front of her, keeping down below the eyeline of the guards. Anna was leaning back against a tree trunk, each breath wheezing as she spoke.

'Don't talk, Anna. Rest your poor lungs.'

'No, you must know this. For when you go.'

She didn't say where, just go. go. It wasn't something they talked about, but they both knew it would be soon. It wasn't something they talked about, but they both knew it would be soon.

'Very well, tell me,' Sofia said, one eye on the nearest guard. His back was turned to them for the time being.

Anna sighed with satisfaction. 'I found the house.'

She stopped as if that were enough, and when Sofia looked up she saw Anna's eyes had closed, her thin chest struggling. Her lips were turning blue. Quickly Sofia drew from her pocket her last small sc.r.a.p of black bread, crushed with the pulp of pine seeds from the forest floor.

'Here, chew on this.' She pushed it between her friend's lips.

Anna took it and chewed, until eventually she dragged a shallow breath into her lungs and then another. Slowly the rhythm returned.

'I found the house in Liteiny district,' Anna whispered, 'the one where Maria's brother, Sergei Myskov, and his wife, Irina, lived. It was only round the corner from the tap factory.' She paused, resting a moment, her sunken blue eyes on Sofia's face. 'I remembered the iron staircase and the kolodets kolodets, a courtyard with a well at its centre. And there was a lion's head carved above the archway. It frightened me when I was young.'

'You two!' The guard had caught sight of them. 'Get back to work.'

'Da,' Sofia called out, 'right away.' She started to move, as if to do as ordered, and the guard turned away.

'Anna, there's no time now and you're not-'

But Anna seized Sofia's wrist. Her grip was still strong. 'Listen to me. It's important. You must remember this, Sofia. It will help you.'

Sofia lifted her hand to wipe the sweat from her friend's gaunt face, but Anna swept it aside impatiently. The flash in her blue eyes reminded Sofia of the old Anna.

'I'm fine,' Anna hissed. 'Just listen.'

Sofia laid aside the axe and crouched beside her, attentive.

'By the time I found the apartment building it was raining. I was wet through but I barely noticed, I was so excited at the prospect of seeing Maria again after nine years. When I knocked, the door to the apartment on the first floor was opened by a youth with wavy brown hair and ears that stuck out like a baby elephant's. I recognised him at once.

'"Sasha?" I gasped. It was Sasha, Irina's son. He was about eleven then. "I'm a friend of your Aunt Maria."

'"Tiotya Maria doesn't have friends." Maria doesn't have friends."

'What did he mean? Why didn't Maria have friends?

'"Where does she live now, Sasha?"

'"Here."

'"Here?" This was too easy. "May I come in and see her?"

'He stepped back and called over his shoulder, "Tiotya Maria, a visitor for you." Maria, a visitor for you."

'"Who is it, Sasha?"

'It was Maria's voice. I rushed into the room and a pale-faced woman with white hair was sitting in a chair by the window. It was a much older Maria, but still my dearest governess.

'"Maria," I breathed, "it's me."

'A tremor ran through the silent figure, then tears started to slide down her cheeks.

'"My Anna," she sobbed, and the fingers of one hand clawed at the air to draw me to her chair.

'I clasped my arms around her neck, while she touched my wet hair and murmured soft words against my cold skin.

'"Why didn't you come?" I whispered the words. "I waited for you."

'Maria placed a shaky hand over her eyes. "I couldn't."

'"Why didn't you write?"

'"Aunt Maria had a stroke." It was Sasha's voice. I had forgotten he was even still in the room. "It happened when she was tortured."

'My thoughts beat panicked wings in my head. White hair? Maria could not be more than forty. Why white hair? Her eyes were still beautiful, still luminous brown, but over them hung a veil, gossamer-fine, and behind it lay a world of bafflement and confusion. And she hadn't risen to her feet to greet me. It all made agonising sense.

'"Oh Maria, my poor dearest Maria. Why didn't you ask your brother Sergei to write to me? I'd have come . . ."

'Maria's eyebrows gathered in a lopsided frown and she murmured, "Hush." She glanced quickly in Sasha's direction and then back again to my face. "It's not important."

'"Of course it's important. I would have taken care of-"