Temerity said nothing.
Edward stared out the window, thinking of the graves of his wife and son, long untended. —I’ve given the Service almost twenty-five years. All my languages, all my work, and now they tiptoe around my desk like I’m soggy ordinance ploughed up in a field and liable to go off. Worse than you with your Don’t excite yourself. I’ll not have it.
— Father, I don’t like that wheeze. Have you been ill?
— I’m fine.
The compartment door squeaked open, and the train guard stepped in, seeking tickets. —Beg your pardon, sir, but as this compartment is reserved, I must ask…
Edward turned his icy gaze from the glass. —Ask what?
Temerity smiled at the guard. —My father is tired. Is the compartment reserved in the name of West? Or perhaps Lord Fenleigh and Lady Temerity West?
— Yes, that’s it. If I might bother your lordship for the tickets.
Edward continued to stare, not, Temerity thought, at the train guard.
— Father, aren’t the tickets in your inner left pocket?
— Hm? I don’t think so, Temmy.
— Could you check? We don’t wish to keep the guard waiting.
Edward patted his inner left pocket, retrieved the tickets. —Ah.
— Thank you, my lord.
— What?
The train guard deepened his tones of courtesy and respect. —Thank you, Lord Fenleigh. I hope you and the Lady Temerity have a pleasant journey.
Temerity hurried to fill the gap left by Edward’s silence. —I’m sure we shall.
The door squeaked shut.
— Father, you—
— Damned odd, that. How did that fellow know the titles? If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, call me West.
— Perhaps a secretary reserved the compartment.
Edward folded the newspaper on a sharp line, and the newsprint squeaked between his gloved fingers. For just a moment, the left side of his face seemed to lag behind the right as he spoke. Then both sides matched. —Did you know Charles Dickens was one of the first in England to install a shower bath? I wonder if it helped him write.
— Father—
— He took long walks all over London, all hours of the day and night. Little wonder he wanted a wash.
Temerity shut her eyes and rubbed her temples. Edward’s conversation would twitch and dance now as he changed the subject, and changed it again, until Temerity surrendered. Yet his manner seemed excessively careful, even brittle, like that of drunk man walking with a slow and forced grace.
Angry, worried, and confused, she said nothing else.
Neither did he.
Higgins, their aged butler and their only remaining servant, met them at the train station and drove them to Kurseong House. Edward asked Higgins about his rheumatism and about the village in general. Temerity pretended she did not notice Higgins wince as he took her light overnight case. To suggest she carry own case, she thought, would only insult him.
Young women from the village, hired for the week, aired the house and changed the dust sheets, in no need of Temerity’s nominal supervision. Temerity stared out at the back lawns from her old bedroom window. Her father was right. This house, this utter folly of a house, built too fast on a fen, felt oppressive with damp.
Edward seemed not just tired but afflicted, even confused. He spoke of nothing more meaningful than the weather.
Sunday evening, Temerity returned to her own London flat; Monday evening she crossed the Channel. She’d left Edward a note on his own stationery. I may be gone for some time. Give Higgins my regards. How to sign it: Temerity? Love, Temerity? Your loving daughter, T? Yours, Temmy?
No: TTW.
The white wall interrupted, its sight reminding her of just where she sat, hidden in an NKVD officer’s Moscow flat.
As sunlight streamed through the glass of tea and out past the filigree of the podstakannik, and Temerity tilted her head to get a better view, she thought of Kurseong House and her desire to leave it. The certainty of her desire felt old and distant, lost. After returning from Roedean, she’d lived year-round at the estate, tended by three servants. Edward visited every weekend, more when he could manage it. As much as she thrived on language study, she longed for some sort of work, something messy and intricate, difficult. Instead, privilege settled on her in layers, each one heavier than the last. Language study at home. Excellent food. Devoted servants. Beautiful grounds. Even tailored trousers, worn on the understanding she must change into a skirt or frock when leaving the house.
The suffocating summer of 1933: Temerity’s debut, with Aunt Min back from India to chaperone. Temerity, tired from party and after party, event after event — that bloody flower show perhaps the most boring of all — and disgusted by the stunts of one or another Mitford sister, wanted only to resume her study of Russian.
One day, she asked her Russian tutor about his melancholy air. Was it true, then, those stories of sadness woven into the Russian Soul?
Count Ilya Yakovich Ostrovsky shook his head. —Miss West, you are more intelligent than that. Now, your Russian compositions. You speak the language well, very well. You’re a perfect mimic for my voice, but if you truly wish to write in Russian, to communicate at all, you must first think in Russian. This composition is English in Cyrillic letters. Again, please.
She would dream in Russian some nights, then dream of her mother’s book of Russian fairy tales with that illustration of Vasilisa the Beautiful. In her dreams, adolescent Temerity told herself not to push the book away, not this time, because if she behaved herself then she might hear her mother’s voice, yes, her mother would be here any moment. She would wake in silence, her face wet.
Day by day, Ilya seemed ever sadder.
Again, please.
Again. Again. Again.
Of all the treasures Ilya had abandoned when escaping St Petersburg in 1917 — he never called the city Petrograd or Leningrad — he said he missed the enamel samovar and tea service the most. He described it one afternoon when Min invited him to join her, Edward, and Temerity for tea. Then he confessed he’d never quite adapted to drinking tea in the British style. —The teapot is tyrannical.
Min lifted the spout free of Ilya’s cup. —Whatever do you mean, Count Ostrovsky?
— You, the hostess, control the tea. So you control the strength. All courtesy then demands I drink my tea as you would please.
Min placed the teapot back on the tray. —My dear count, if the tea is not to your liking…
— The tea is delicious. It is crisp and bright. From one of your own Darjeeling gardens. That is not my point. With the samovar, one makes zavarka, a tea essence, a concentrate, and then a guest may add as much or as little hot water to dilute it, as he pleases.
Edward, annoyed on Min’s behalf, clinked his cup against his saucer and quoted a Bolshevik slogan. —From each according to his ability, to each according to his work?
Min raised her eyebrows. —Really, Edward? Count Ostrovsky, I apologize for my brother.
Temerity gazed at her tutor in this awkward moment and saw him for the first time as a person, a fellow human being, and one shaped by a different culture and a complex past. Posture straight and elegant, he wrapped his long fingers around his hot cup, as if in penance, and gazed into his tea. When he looked up, he caught Temerity studying him. Sunlight streamed through the window and caught the edge of his strong cheekbones and the few blond hairs left in the grey.
Moscow pipes rattled.
God’s sake!
Standing up, giving her head a shake and demanding of herself a little discipline instead of this daydreaming, Temerity strode to the little fold-down table and cleaned it for the third time. Then she returned to the samovar.
Earlier that morning, Efim and Kostya, each irritating the other, had hurried to make tea for her, and their competition spared her the dangerous embarrassment of admitting she had no idea how to work a samovar, let alone puzzle out
the best ratio for zavarka to water. So now she experimented. The first glass she dumped down the sink, expecting it to improve the drainage. The second, which gave up a colour much closer to red than brown, proved drinkable: smoke, wine, leather, flowers.
Ursula Friesen’s voice: You Britishers always want some tea.
Memory trickled again, and Temerity found herself thinking of Roedean and the ram’s head over a door, the way the light played on the tea-coloured glass eyes. She’d noticed this while rehearsing Henry V on a staircase, Temerity cast as self-sacrificial York and wishing instead she could be Henry and deliver his glorious lines. Tell the constable we are but warriors for the working day…
The samovar hissed.
These daydreams, Temerity told herself, have simply got to stop.
This time, Temerity pinched her forearm. Then she straightened her posture, checked locks, sought keys, checked locks again, read Izvestia, cut Izvestia into squares and took them to the bathroom, where the blue tiles shone.
The fat one’s voice as he injected her hand: Now, not a sound.
She stifled a moan and placed the scissors on the table with great care. She knew, she knew perfectly well, she’d imagined the man’s voice, for no one else in this moment occupied the flat. Just her. Locked in.
She slammed cupboard and pantry doors until she found scouring powder and rags, and then set to scrubbing the bathroom tiles clean. Her fingernails softened; her cuticles swelled and stung. Then, praying the futile prayer for sufficient heat and water pressure, she took a shower. She got a good three minutes before the pressure changed and the water cooled, best shower yet. Sighing, she tugged on her clothes: the same skirt and blouse for days now, and no underwear.
I still feel dirty.
She strode to the stenka in the front room, yanked opened a drawer, and took an undershirt and pair of shorts from Kostya’s supply. In the bedroom, she removed her Temerity West passport from the blouse lining and studied it a moment. The same photograph and date of birth as in the Margaret Bush passport: a young woman with curly hair pinned up yet still escaping, and a look in the eyes that a Roedean history mistress had called pure spitfire. It will get you in trouble one day, West, trouble you can’t get out of. Mind yourself.
Mildred Ferngate, Margaret Bush, Nadezhda Ivanovna Solovyova, and still, Temerity West.
She shoved the passport between mattress and bed frame.
Kostya’s underclothes, too large, at least felt clean. She buttoned one of his shirts and then slipped on a pair of his civilian trousers, snug on her hips and gaping on her waist. Amused, she hunted again in the stenka and found a pair of frayed braces, affixed those to the waist of the trousers and adjusted them over her shoulders. It didn’t help. Then she rolled up trouser cuffs and sleeves, rigged a clothesline in the kitchen from two high hooks, and set to washing her clothes in the kitchen sink. No mangle to be found; she must wring the clothes by hand.
Hands aching, clothes hanging to dry, she returned to the front room and stood before the white, white wall.
White. White silk dress for one’s debut. White stationery marked Kurseong House. White vision when Kostya shot wide in the clinic and hit the tin of blood.
She recalled the touch of the Basque boys’ cardboard name tags. Why did I help him? I was another woman in another country. Is that it?
The lock clicked.
Temerity checked her watch. Too early for Kostya or Efim to return.
The door opened. A little cough, as if testing for a response.
Vadym Minenkov?
A louder cough.
The door shut. Leather soles tapped beneath a heavy tread; the male visitor had not bothered to remove his boots.
Bloody hell. —Kostya?
The tread paused, then hastened.
He stood by the kitchen, and Temerity emerged from the front room to meet him.
She gasped.
The fat one with the moustache, the host of the party, and, according to Kostya, a guardian angel: Arkady Dmitrievich Balakirev. Today he wore his uniform, the clothes and their meaning adding menace and bulk. Temerity recalled her father’s voice as he read to her of Mandeville’s crocodiles: And in the night they dwell in the water, and on the day upon the land, in rocks and in caves. And they eat no meat in all the winter, but they lie as in a dream, as do the serpents. These serpents slay men, and they eat them weeping.
Arkady looked up at the blouse and skirt on the clothesline, then down at this petite woman wearing a man’s clothes. Kostya’s clothes. —So, you’re the whore.
— I’m no one’s whore.
Arkady stared at her a moment, eyebrows raised, astonished at not just her defiance but the speed of it. He almost laughed. —Get me something to drink. What’s your name?
Brazen it out. —Solovyova, Nadezhda Ivanovna. Tea?
— If I must.
His quiet voice put Temerity at ease, which in turn made her tense up. She approached the samovar with a confidence she did not feel. Zavarka, she reminded herself, then water.
Arkady settled himself into the armchair in the front room—And how long have you lived here, Nadezhda Ivanovna?
She made her voice nonchalant. —Oh, just a few days.
— Come here.
She got close enough to pass him a glass of very dark tea.
He sniffed it, looked at her in some horror, and placed the glass on the floor. Then he stared at her throat. —Did you cook the mushrooms the way Vadym Pavlovich told you to?
Kostya cooked them. —Yes.
— Do you care for him?
— Vadym Pavlovich?
— Kostya.
— That’s a very forward question, uh…I didn’t catch your name.
— I think you know who I am, but, as I’ll be arrested five minutes after the two of you are, fuck secrets. Here.
Arkady passed her a red leather wallet like Kostya’s. She opened it and looked at the initialed photograph and the ornate form bearing the words Balakirev, Arkady Dmitrievich, Major, NKVD.
She gave it back. Get him talking. —You’re Kostya’s father?
— Is his surname Balakirev? Your papers, please.
She stared him down, no gasp, no plea, not so much as a twitch.
Arkady nodded in admiration. —I see why he’s fallen for you.
Temerity did not drop her gaze, and Arkady read the danger in her eyes: something focused and determined. Disciplined. He’d seen it in women before, in the old Komsomol meetings. He’d avoided those women, called them hard, preferring the naive ones who understood that their duties to the Party included fetching tea, typing correspondence, and servicing the needs of male members.
He stood up and leaned in to kiss her cheek. —What a shame I didn’t get to sample you first. But then you’re so tiny I’d split you in half.
Queasy, she kept still. —What do you want, Arkady Dmitrievich?
He kissed her other cheek. —I know who and what you are, Margaret Bush: the ruin and death of Kostya Nikto. So, I want you to disappear.
She took a step back. —If I am arrested—
— If?
— If I am arrested, I will tell them about that night at your house.
He seized her by the face, pressing her cheeks and wrenching her neck. —No one will believe you. Even if they did, it would mean nothing. But that’s the future. Right here, right now, you need to listen to me.
Wine, onions, fish, and something uric: the fumes on his breath sickened her. Faster than she knew, she broke his hold, kicked his ankle and ruined his balance, seized his arm — and refrained. She did not throw him, instead releasing his arm and darting out of reach. Her eyes sent a new message, one which withered Arkady’s sense of himself as he stumbled upright.
Pity? Oh, there’s venom in the spit of this old dragon yet, my dear. Fucking venom.
Arkady opened his hands and held them out, palms up. —I just want you to listen. Will you listen?
After a moment, she nodded.
His sigh shook.
Words fast, voice low, he might have said something about protecting Kostya as long as he could; Temerity no longer understood him. He might have said something about her beauty as, dry lips gentle, he kissed her on the forehead. Then he frowned as if in sudden pain, sneered the word whore again, spat at her feet, and left.
She got to the armchair and almost fell into it, wrinkling her nose. The scent of him clung. Then, disgusted with herself for crying, she acknowledged what she’d heard, or rather, not heard: a click of a key in the lock.
She peered down the little corridor to the door.
A sliver of light betrayed it: the door pulled over, not shut.
Just get outside, get oriented…
She ran to the bedroom, wrenched the Temerity West passport from beneath the mattress, and tucked it in the right pocket of the trousers. Then she tried on Kostya’s shoes in the closet but tripped on them the second step she took. Glancing down at the trouser cuffs, she reasoned the long pants would hide her bare feet. Filth, cuts, lockjaw? Later.
No cringing. Off we go, then.
She stepped outside the flat.
No one called out. No one seized her arm.
She took note of the number on the door: seven. She glanced up: one more floor. Down: as the stairs seemed to disappear in the dun, she counted five other landings. Up again, and far beyond the landing and any human’s reach, a single light bulb dangled from the seventh floor ceiling.
How in hell does one replace that? A seven-storey ladder?
A draft of fresh air wound round her ankles, and downstairs, far downstairs, something creaked.
Cool wood beneath her bare feet, the steps gritty with tracked dirt, Temerity descended.
One step, two steps.
One floor, two floors.
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