The Concubine's Secret

by Kate Furnivall

  14

  Six days. No word from Alexei for six long days.

  It was obvious her brother had abandoned her. Lydia felt utterly bereft. She prowled the streets of Felanka in search of his tall upright frame with its neat brown hair and long arrogant stride, but there was no sign of him. As each day passed, her fears hardened. Lydia became certain that he’d gone out to the prison camp after he’d discovered some information the evening he trawled the bars. He was acting on it without her.

  I work better without you.

  That’s what he’d said. He’d made it clear when he stood in her doorway, irritated by her request to join him, so he’d sneaked off to the prison camp, probably in some truck whose driver he’d bribed. He would find their father and somehow whisk him out of Russia before she’d even contacted him, and Jens Friis would think she didn’t care and would go riding on horseback with Alexei in the woods again, while she . . .

  She put a hand over her mouth to stop the words. She needed to find Jens before he disappeared, urgently needed to ask him things. Papa, wait for me, please. I haven’t abandoned you.

  ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I’ll be all right, Elena.’

  ‘Huh!’

  ‘I can take care of myself.’

  Elena responded with a scowl. ‘You’re good at pretending you can, you mean. But not as good as you think you are.’

  Lydia blew out a puff of impatience, her breath coiling a long lazy loop in the cold bright air. They were at Felanka railway station, squeezed on to a platform that was thick with uniforms as soldiers in transit awaited a train with a degree of patience that left Lydia baffled. Her own limbs were restless, her heart beating with an urgency that kept her on the move, up and down from one end of the platform to the other, squirming a path through the crush of bodies. The place had been transformed into male territory, with deep voices and loud masculine laughter stamping ownership on the cold ground. It even smelled different.

  Soldiers were sprawled out or seated on their army packs when Lydia passed them, their eyes at a level with her hips. They stared hard. Some even put out a hand and fingered her ankle, or tipped a head back to brush against her skirt as if by accident. But it was no accident that Elena trudged behind her, whacking her umbrella down on the head of anyone who touched Lydia. It made Lydia smile. Even her own mother wouldn’t have done that. It took nerve.

  ‘You certainly know how to handle men,’ Lydia said.

  ‘I’ll need to know how to handle Liev when he finds out you’ve gone off on a train on your own.’

  ‘I queued three days for this ticket.’

  ‘Tell him that yourself.’

  ‘I never see him now except when he’s asleep.’

  ‘That’s because he’s out day and night searching for news of your blasted brother.’

  ‘I know.’

  Lydia could imagine him trawling the bars, drinking and fighting in the lonely back streets in order to glean a whisper of what had happened to Alexei. Oh Popkov, you don’t even like the man.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised, ‘before he even notices I’m gone.’

  This time Lydia was prepared. She knew what to expect. Her breath misted the train’s window and she dragged her coat sleeve down it to rid the glass of moisture. She wanted nothing - nichevo - to come between herself and what lay out there.

  Dense waves of pine forest rolled past, the dark branches edged with fingers of snow that sparkled in a million ripples of sunlight, deceiving any casual observer into believing the air outside was warm. But Lydia knew better. There were many things she was learning to know better.

  The train compartment was full and she was the only female. You knew that’s how it would be. So don’t moan, don’t whine. Nevertheless it was claustrophobic. There were two rows of seats facing each other, and above their heads the luggage nets were weighed down with bulging army packs which looked far too heavy for the flimsy mesh. Most of the occupants were soldiers, wrapped in their greatcoats that smelled of tobacco, all too cumbersome for the small space. Their boots were too big and their jokes too loud. Only two of the men were not in uniform, but one was asleep and had pulled his flat cap down over his face, seemingly deaf to the noise. The other, seated directly opposite Lydia next to the window, was wearing a smart pinstriped suit and a stylish fedora. He checked his fob watch at regular intervals but Lydia had a feeling it was more to display its jewelled face than to discover the hour. The fifth time he lifted it from its home in his waistcoat pocket, looping its heavy gold chain around his thumb as he inspected it, Lydia could resist no longer. She leaned forward.

  ‘Excuse me, may I see it?’

  ‘Of course, young comrade.’

  Both of them knew it wasn’t the time she was interested in. He shifted forward in his seat and his gloved hand cradled the watch in the small space between them. Quietly, thoughtfully, she studied its engraved dial, raised a hand and ran a finger along the curve of its gold case.

  ‘Ochen krasivye. It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Spasibo.’

  In the dingy carriage the watch gleamed like a splash of sunlight and other eyes observed it with interest. The man was a fool to flash it around. It wouldn’t take much. She could stand up when the train was entering her station, stumble against him as it jerked to a halt and have the watch neatly in her pocket as she slipped on to the platform. Easy as taking coins from a blind beggar.

  She sat back and closed her eyes, an unexpected warmth seeping into her blood, so intense she could feel her cheeks start to burn. Where was it coming from? She thought about it carefully and decided it was the watch. Not this passenger’s watch but another one, even finer, years ago. The memory of the weight of it in her hand tumbled into her mind, a memory she didn’t even know she possessed, and she found herself smiling without knowing why. And then the memory opened, blurred around the edges but still there.

  Papa in his heavy travelling cape, the collar turned up round his ears, the lining of dark green silk swirling like pond water as he paced the room. What room? She tugged at the memory and at first nothing came, but then she had the impression of a high ceiling, heavy furniture and books. That’s it. Books climbing all the way up the walls. Papa’s library. Papa with his watch in his hand, green eyes impatient, fiery curls creeping over the cape’s collar; every part of him eager to be on the move. Even now all these years later she could feel that swirl of energy and the ache in her own small chest.

  ‘Don’t go, Papa,’ she’d begged, fighting tears, pushing them away, cramming them back where they came from.

  Immediately he was at her side, kneeling, arms around her. She’d breathed in quickly to keep the scent of his wood-smoke cape safely inside her.

  ‘I’ll be back soon, malishka,’ he crooned and soothed her unruly hair, the mirror image of his own. ‘Just a couple of weeks.’ All the lines of his face melted into a wide smile for her and he kissed her forehead. ‘It’s work,’ he said. ‘I have to go to Paris. But if your mother doesn’t come downstairs soon, I’ll have to go to the station without you.’

  ‘No!’ she’d wailed. Waving goodbye to Papa was a ritual.

  ‘Listen,’ he said to comfort her, and held his watch to her ear.

  The tick, she could suddenly remember the sound of the gentle tick. Its voice was a soft whisper that enchanted her, so that her eyes grew wide and her heart-shaped face became absolutely still as she concentrated.

  ‘It talks,’ she breathed.

  ‘Here, feel it.’

  He placed it in her hand, filling the whole of her palm, and she was astonished at the weight of it.

  ‘It’s gold,’ he explained.

  She studied it carefully, the intricate engraving, the filigree work as fine as one of her hairs, and when he turned it over and opened the back she was entranced by the movement of the tiny cogs. This was where it hid its voice.

  ‘I thought you had a train to catch, Jens.’

  It was her mother’s
voice, teasing him, holding a hand out as if her skin could not bear to be without his touch for a moment longer. Her dark hair danced loosely around her shoulders, just the way he liked it. Papa stood up straight and tall, and Lydia watched it happen. Just as it always did. Papa would come home grumpy or impatient or weary and then he’d lay eyes on Mama and it set something alight inside him. It burned away the grumpiness and the impatience and the weariness.

  Her mother gently removed the watch from her grasp and gave it back to Papa, murmuring, ‘She’s too young to play with it.’ But Papa gave Lydia a secret smile and winked at her. And then everything was a rush and a bustle and they were at the station, full of sounds and smells, shouts and mountains of luggage. And tears. Lydia realised that this was where adults came to cry. Papa hugged them, kissed them and climbed on to the train, calling out last words from the open window as it hauled itself down the track in a giant bellow of steam. Something red. She pulled at the memory but it was hazy, yet she was sure she could recall something red. And then it came to her. A red handkerchief fluttered from his hand, up and down, until it became no more than a tiny spot. Like a tiny speck of blood.

  Mama was crying, dabbing at her tears, but Lydia refused to. In Papa’s pocket the cogs were still turning. The cogs of time, little teeth clinging to each other and moving the hands of the watch. The cogs would bring him back to her. She clenched her tiny fists and listened to their voices ticking inside her head.

  The Work Zone was still there.

  It hadn’t moved.

  That had been her fear. That they’d have gone. Packed up their saws and their axes and their timber wagons, and transferred to another part of the forest far away from the railway line. She shivered but it wasn’t from the cold in the rail carriage, it was with relief. She felt the golden hairs rise on her arms and she leaned her forehead against the icy pane of glass as if it brought her closer to him. Outside the landscape was flat as the glass and frosted with patches of snow. Large swathes had been completely stripped of trees, so that rocky stretches were now visible, shifting the colour of the terrain from a thousand shades of green and russet brown to an unrelenting battleship grey.

  Had that happened to Papa too? That shift to Soviet grey? She rested the fingertips of one hand on the window, averting her eyes from the monochrome uniforms that surrounded her.

  Papa, I’m here. The cogs have brought me to you. The wheels are turning.

  Lydia rose to her feet and yanked on the leather strap so hard the train window slid all the way down with a clunk. The rush of freezing air wrenched her breath away and an outburst of moans and complaints scrambled around her.

  ‘Shut that window!’

  ‘It’s fucking freezing.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind, girl? My bollocks are falling off!’

  She scarcely heard the outcry. Every scrap of her attention was focused on the terrain as the tips of the watchtowers slid into view far in the distance, tiny grey matchsticks against a crisp blue sky. At first she could make out no figures labouring on the edge of the forest. Her heart slumped in her chest, but as the train billowed its way along the track it swept past a huge stack of pine trunks which lay on the ground like dead people’s limbs. Lydia had assumed the timber was floated downriver somewhere, the way she’d seen it done in China, but no. Not here anyway. This small mountain of tree trunks was clearly intended to be loaded on to flatbed wagons and hauled into the timber yards by rail.

  Lumbering along the flat terrain at a painfully slow pace, still distant but heading in the direction of the dead limbs, a wagon was approaching loaded with another consignment. Lydia struggled to count the number of miniature figures yoked to the transporter, but it was too far away. She blinked and counted again. There had to be at least twenty. Her eyes fixed on them and wouldn’t let go.

  ‘Comrade.’ It was the man in the suit, her watch-companion. This time his voice was curt. ‘Close that window, pozhalusta.’

  Still she didn’t hear. He touched her elbow to gain her attention and made as if to rise to perform the job himself, but before he could do so Lydia pulled from her shoulder pack two small scarlet bundles. Each one consisted of a headscarf tied in a knot and inside lay something of weight.

  ‘Look here . . .’ The suit was losing patience.

  She’d seen a working party of prisoners up ahead, just four of them, no more than a few hundred metres away from the track. They were digging with spades, shifting rocks it seemed, maybe clearing a path for the wagon. Lydia snatched off the red scarf that was around her neck, leaned out of the window as far as she could and waved the vivid smear of material at them. Back and forth, back and forth, to gain their attention.

  Pozhalusta, she breathed, please look up.

  Smuts from the engine smacked into her face. The figures were coming closer. Not one of them looked up from his shovel. Don’t they want to see human faces at the train windows? Is the sight of freedom too painful to contemplate? One hundred metres. It was as close as she was going to get. She drew back her arm and hurled one of the scarlet bundles out of the window. As it arced through the trembling air like a bright red bird, she watched the men closely and emptied her lungs in one long banshee shriek. Not one of them looked her way.

  Don’t they hear? Or don’t they care?

  The red bird landed on the edge of a rock, rebounded and fluttered to rest on an open stretch of ground, where it fell against the stump of a tree and nestled among the dead roots. No, no, no. Lydia’s mouth gasped open and her tongue was stung by ash from the engine.

  ‘Stop that, comrade.’ This time it was the man who’d been asleep under the cap. He was awake now all right, alert and angry. ‘What you’re doing is against the law. Stop that right now or—’

  ‘Or what?’ A young loose-limbed soldier, who up till now had been sitting quietly next to Lydia and whom she had given barely a glance, unfolded himself from his seat and stood behind her. ‘Or what?’ he repeated.

  A chuckle rippled around the other soldiers and one warned, ‘Don’t cross him, comrade. He’s our boxing champ.’

  Lydia raised the second bundle ready to throw.

  ‘Allow me?’

  The soldier was holding out his big-knuckled hand, palm up, and waited with a polite smile on his face. Lydia noticed his nose had been recently broken and the bruise had spread to a muddy yellow. She hesitated for no more than one turn of the wheels, then entrusted the little parcel to him and edged back into her seat to allow him room. He grinned at her, tossed his army cap on to his seat, pushed his broad shoulders through the window as far as they would go and took careful aim. He launched the red bundle with a grunt of effort.

  It sailed through the air as if it didn’t know how to stop. Lydia’s eyes didn’t leave it, her hopes all tied up inside the knotted scarf. It flew up and over the rocks until it finally hung in the air and curved gracefully down to earth. It didn’t even bounce, just landed flat right in the middle of an expanse of gleaming white snow. Lydia could have kissed the soldier.

  ‘Spasibo,’ she offered instead. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  She gave him a grateful smile. He blushed and sat down. Cheers rose from a few of his comrades and one crowed like a cockerel. The man in the flat cap scowled but had enough sense to say no more, while the suit stood up and yanked the window shut, ignoring the boisterous laughter with a degree of dignity.

  It was done.

  Lydia’s heart was beating fast. As the wheels turned and the prisoners were left far behind in the freezing wind, she let her thoughts race over the words crouched inside the scarlet bundles: I am the daughter of Jens Friis. If he is here, tell him I’ve come. I need a sign.

  Inside each one lay five shiny silver coins.

  15

  Chang An Lo moved through the darkness like the breath of a shadow. Unseen, unheard. The air was moist in his lungs, while the call of frogs vibrated the night the way a concubine’s fingers vibrate the strings of a guqin.


  The village of Zhumatong was alive with light and noise, spilling from the windows, out through the doors and into the streets. The Red Army had descended like flies. Soldiers lurched from one house to another, trying to remember where their billets were, a bottle in one hand, a girl on the other. The village councillors bowed politely, hands stiff together in front of them, but steered the crumpled uniforms into the drinking house and the gambling room, where they could be fleeced of the few yuan in their pockets.

  Chang remained patiently under the black overhang of a rear wall and listened to the soldiers leaving a building decorated with delicate fretwork, lanterns swaying from the eaves. Their voices were thick with maotai and complained loudly at the speed with which they were back on the street without the mahjong tiles falling even once their way. One soldier with hair cropped brutally short and long spindly legs detached himself from a group and picked his way into a side street, where he opened his trousers and urinated against a wall with a contented sigh.

  Chang allowed him to finish before he approached silently from behind and slipped an arm round his throat, a hand placed firmly over his mouth. The soldier grew rigid and tried to turn.

  ‘Quiet, Hu Biao, or you are in danger of snapping your worthless neck.’ Chang spoke the words softly in the young man’s ear, letting them sneak out under the night’s breeze. He released his grip.

  The soldier spun round. ‘Chang An Lo, you scared the shit out of me.’

  Chang tipped his head in a light-hearted bow. ‘Stop bellowing like a stuck pig, Biao. That’s why I put a hand over that ever-open mouth of yours, to silence it.’