He made a strange sound. ‘It’s not that.’ He lifted his chin. ‘You will have to go back.’
At first I thought I had misheard him. It was a simple mix-up. My uncle would be upset, but my father could talk him around, surely. My absence was nothing that could not be fixed by a telephone call and then we would perhaps take our dinner together at Papa’s residence, Olga fussing about, overseeing each course as Papa and I shared a look of secret exasperation. And then he would excuse himself, dabbing his lips with his napkin and take himself off to his study to finish some work while I slipped into my new bedroom and stared at the lights twinkling over Tartu, a place so foreign and yet, with Mama’s heritage and her stories and the language she had so carefully taught me, so strangely and achingly familiar.
‘You poor child,’ he said. ‘You have no idea who you are. Do you?’
And then the meaning of what he had said hit me.
I took a step backwards.
My father opened his mouth as if he had more to say, more commands to impart. But then he sighed, and the telephone wire twisted around his arm as he picked up the mouthpiece. A moment passed. ‘Comrade Stalin?’
I heard the muffled reply. His eyes darted towards mine.
‘Comrade Stalin . . . your daughter is here. Lydochka. She’s safe.’ A pause. ‘She brought the woman with her. No, I don’t know how they slipped away.’ His tone sharpened. ‘Isn’t that the role of her bodyguard, to know where she is at all times?’ He bent to listen to the response, wincing. ‘I’m sorry, Comrade. Of course. I apologise. Yes . . . I suppose. That seems best. I’ll tell her. Don’t worry.’ He turned slowly in a half-circle to pin me with his gaze. ‘I’ll tell her,’ he said again, his voice softer now. Complacent. ‘I understand.’
The telephone clicked as he replaced it on the cradle. Then he came slowly back to the middle of the room and took me by the shoulders. I wanted to turn my head, to shake off everything I had heard. The meaning of his words could not reach me if I let them sit on my skin, like oil on feathers. Your daughter Lydochka. If I could simply ignore them . . .
‘Lydia.’ I had never before realised that Papa’s eyes were green. They were as green as the rippling grasses in the fields outside Uncle’s dacha in Zubolovo. They were different to mine. They were not the shifting hues of the sea, changeable, moody, at once peacock blue then grey and stormy.
‘How?’ I said. ‘My mother . . . She would never . . .’
His mouth puckered. ‘Your mother had no choice in the matter.’ His words made me stagger, but his strong hands held me upright. ‘What your father wants, he takes. And I think perhaps at the start, she cared for him . . .’
My legs were weightless as he guided me towards a chair, the timber seat sliding beneath me. Bright light filtered in from the window beside me, melting the room’s sharp edges. The man I had believed my father, who had given me his name – Captain Volkov – was talking, pacing back and forth as if conducting a meeting. I tried to concentrate on his words but they slipped from me.
‘. . . already pregnant at sixteen when I married her,’ I heard him say. ‘When she died, I was sent away and told never to contact you again.’
Had I known? I cast my mind back, a wash of memories flooding in while I snatched at them. My mind snagged on an image of myself as a child being jostled on my uncle’s knee at the house in Zubolovo while my mother lay with a book propped on her knees, watching on from a shaded place beneath the canopy of a linden tree. Uncle’s hand was warm on my back, holding me steady, keeping me from falling. Ripe peaches lay half-eaten at our feet. In the hazy afternoon sunlight, the lake glimmered like blue silk. Uncle patted my hair and then said something – I couldn’t decipher it but I knew it was about me, something favourable, a compliment ground out around the cigar clutched between his teeth. My mother laughed. She pushed herself up; her book thudded to the ground. Her shadow fell over me; her fingernails brushed against my skin as she stroked my hair away from my face.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was uncharacteristically proud; all hint of vulnerability gone. She paused midstroke, her fingers digging into my scalp. ‘Yes,’ she continued, straightening her spine so that we were both, Uncle and me, cast in her shade. ‘Yes, Josef. You are right. It is just like yours. It is exactly the same.’
The memory receded, pulled away as if the tide had dragged it out. In its place, I saw my mother the week before her death, darkness encircling her eyes. She was not sleeping well, I heard Olga say to Zoya. She woke each night, disturbed by terrors nobody could explain. I had hidden myself behind the curtain as I listened to their whispered discussion, knowing I should reveal myself but unwilling to admit I was eavesdropping. I heard Olga say that Mama was homesick; she wanted to go home and take me with her. She had begged and begged but he would not allow it. Later that day, Mama had taken me out into Red Square to watch the autumn leaves flutter down from the bare boughs like birds coming home to roost. She had squeezed my hand and told me I should always keep what was in my heart a secret. It was the only place that was safe.
At the time, I had thought the ‘he’ to whom she referred was my father, and I thought it odd. Papochka was not a cruel man. If my mother had begged him, surely he would acquiesce to her request. But now an idea grew clearer in my mind. I recalled the times, more recently, when Olga would pass on gossip about girls of my age who had had affairs with married officers and diplomats and found themselves pregnant. If they were lucky, they became mistresses, their children taken care of; if they were unfortunate, nothing was ever heard of them again.
What if mother had been one of these women? What if it was not Captain Volkov she had been referring to – what if it was someone else, someone whose control extended to everything: family, friends, colleagues, former lovers, the State?
‘You wrote to me,’ I said suddenly, remembering with a jolt the letters I had hidden between the pages of my schoolbooks. My hands were shaking. I fisted them together.
‘I felt sorry for you.’ Captain Volkov paused in his pacing. ‘Abandoned at eleven by your mother and a man who would never claim you as his own? Who would not. I see now that it was a mistake. My mistake. I regret it bitterly. I encouraged you. I should have . . . left you alone. I only did more damage. It was not my intention. Your mother would be angry, if she knew.’
I did not want to hear any more. I put my hands to my ears, and the room spun and spun, a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours, jagged sunshine and fragments of shade. I heard my own voice speaking, although I was so detached now it was like hearing a stranger. ‘Why did she kill herself?’
He shrugged sadly. ‘Shame. Grief. Loneliness. Perhaps she thought he would give you to me, once she was gone. She was wrong. Instead, he has claimed you . . . unofficially.’ His words bit painfully into my skin. ‘She escaped him, you see. In a manner of speaking. But you . . .’ He shook his head. ‘You’re always there to remind him of what he lost.’
‘Why did you agree to marry her?’ I asked.
‘That was not my decision to make.’ The sudden coldness in his voice made the hairs bristle on my arms. ‘I was following orders. Your father already has a family, if you recall. It was a practical arrangement; I was promoted to Security Chief, your mother was allowed to stay with you and enjoy a life of comfort. I would visit every few months and play my part. Nobody was the wiser, except that nursemaid she hired to baby you.’
Nursemaid. I stared at him, disbelieving. Olga knew? She had known?
‘I gave you my name and a happier childhood than you would have known. It should have been enough. I never imagined you would seek me out.’ He frowned suddenly. ‘I did like your mother. She was a beautiful woman. Estonian, as I think you know. Your father met her at a Party meeting before your grandparents died. But he was already married by then with children of his own. A public scandal would have exposed him to ridicule.’ He pursed his lips and then turned away and bent down to pick up some fallen pieces of parchment, slipping them back into th
e file on the desk. He tidied them with his long fingers, squaring them until they were perfectly aligned.
I sat watching him, helpless, alone. ‘What will happen to me?’
‘You will stay at my townhouse until arrangements can be made to send you back,’ he said. ‘You have come at quite an inconvenient time. Russia is on the brink of war with the Germans. Olga will have to stay with you. Your father wants you to write him a letter. An apology. Perhaps you can do that while you’re waiting. I will ensure it is posted.’ He had picked up the telephone again. ‘I will organise a car to take you to my lodgings,’ he said. He was calm, businesslike. There was nothing of the man I remembered. Nothing of the man in the letters, the man who had written Your loving Papochka.
‘Did my mother love him?’ I asked.
He paused, the receiver halfway to his mouth. ‘Of course she did,’ he said, a flicker of warning crossing his features. ‘Who doesn’t? He is always right. I would advise you to consider wording your apology carefully. Your future may depend on it.’
I dragged in a shaky breath. Everything I had thought about myself was a lie. The man I had believed in and trusted to protect me was merely a false front, an invention of my own imagining, helped along with a little bit of misplaced information from Olga. Her round face sprang into my mind. She had lied to me. But why? I knew she loved me. She had loved Mamochka, too. It could not all have been pretence. The demands she had made of the staff in the House on the Embankment to ensure we were given enough food and that our rooms were always spotless. The lengths she had gone to to hide my mother’s secrets, standing guard at the door while Mama taught me her language and shared her stories of Estonia. The many times I had left her half-dozing on the lounge in our living room, determined to make sure Mamochka arrived home safely from her parties, no matter how late the hour. She had loved Mama and when Mama abandoned her, she had kept her greatest secret safe.
Me.
In spite of everything, Olga was the only person who looked out for me. If she had lied, there must be a reason. I would have to trust her. I had no one else left.
I heard him speak abruptly into the receiver, the short, sharp sounds of an order. Then he moved around the desk, his footsteps creaking on the floorboards. When he reached for my arm, I yanked it from his grasp. Captain Volkov said nothing, merely ushered me to the door.
‘Go downstairs, now,’ he commanded. ‘The car will be waiting. Tomorrow you’ll go back to Moscow and be your father’s daughter.’
Without another word, he pushed me out onto the landing and slammed the door closed.
*
In the hallway, I stood staring at the walnut panelling with the sign attached that bore half my name. Volkov. Lydia Volkova. That name was a lie.
I reached out and touched the brass. It was warm. My fingers left a smudge over the letters that I did not bother to wipe clean. A gust of air blew along the corridor, carrying a whiff of tobacco smoke from the rooms either side of Captain Volkov’s office. I could hear typewriters whirring, men’s low voices. A row of windows ran alongside the corridor, overlooking the courtyard behind the office block. I walked over and stared down between the bars that cast bands across the carpet runner. The courtyard was fenced, crowned with coils of wire. So different from the street façade, with its bland windows and columns, its arched door.
What other secrets was this building hiding?
From somewhere to my left, a scream pierced the air, shocking me out of my thoughts. It came again, louder but less shrill now. It was primal, a sound of unearthly pain. I ran back towards the stairwell Lieutenant Lubov had led me up earlier, my feet thudding on the concrete.
The screaming ceased. Just like that, it was gone. But the sound of it continued to echo, trapped in my head. Blindly, my feet found the bottom of the stairwell and I stumbled out into the reception hall.
‘There you are, Lida!’
Olga hurried towards me, a worried look on her face. I hesitated, resisting the urge to shout at her, to demand to know why she had lied to me all my life. But the shock was too much. I fell into her arms.
‘There now.’ Olga’s arms were around me. ‘There, Lydochka. What’s wrong?’
I shook my head. I wanted to sob and bury my head against her shoulder. To confess everything my ‘father’ had told me. But I could only hug her as tightly as possible. ‘Did you hear it?’ I said, instead. ‘Somebody was screaming.’
The reception hall seemed cold after the warm brightness of the corridor upstairs. I shivered in my thin blouse. There was a police officer standing guard near the front doors and Lieutenant Lubov lounged against the wall beside him, engaged in conversation. It was as if they hadn’t heard the screams at all.
With her arm still about me, Olga shuffled towards them. ‘Lieutenant!’
He turned towards her, his grin fading.
‘Yes, comrade?’
‘Lydia tells me she heard screaming.’
The Lieutenant glanced at his companion and then back at Olga. ‘Nothing for you to worry about. There are holding cells upstairs. Sometimes informants are taken there.’
‘To be tortured?’ My voice choked. I had heard of such places, of course, but the sound of that gutteral screaming sent a tremor of horror up my spine. Was that how Joachim had sounded as they questioned him? Had he screamed and begged for mercy? Or had he agreed to whatever false crime they had accused him of, haunted by the cries of those in the holding cells around him? The thought made me want to retch. I couldn’t tolerate standing in a place where such horrific events were even now occurring. The very air seemed tainted and sour with fear. I placed my hand flat on my stomach, pressing hard.
‘An unfortunate part of the judicial process, I’m afraid.’ Lieutenant Lubov strode across to our waiting luggage and handed me my suitcase. ‘Some people won’t give up their information easily.’
‘But who are they?’ I asked through dry lips. I knew. Deep down, I knew.
Lieutenant Lubov shrugged. ‘What does it matter? Some are farmers, intent on withholding their land, unwilling to allow the state to collectivise. Others help bandits like the ones you saw this morning, giving them shelter or food.’ At my sickened expression, Lieutenant Lubov raised his eyebrows. ‘They are always offered a choice. Most of them are happy to comply. Sometimes they need a little encouragement, though, to be convinced.’ He nodded at me. ‘I have arranged a car to take you both to Captain Volkov’s townhouse. It is waiting out the front.’
‘Oh.’ Olga’s creased face drooped a little. ‘I had hoped to speak with your papa, Lida. It’s been so long since I saw him. He is well, I hope?’
I bit my lip, feeling the sweat gather beneath my arms, unable to meet her gaze.
‘He is well,’ I mumbled. ‘He wants us to return to Moscow, though.’
‘So soon?’ Olga said. She fussed with her hands. ‘But why? We’ve only just arrived.’
Her confusion was painful to see. I needed to tell her I knew the truth but I could not do it with Lieutenant Lubov hanging about. I would have to wait until we reached the townhouse, where we could speak in private.
She watched me, waiting for my reply. I tried to answer her but the words stuck in my throat, tiny crumbs of truth I could not swallow.
Lieutenant Lubov moved quickly between us. ‘Captain Volkov is well but, sadly, very busy. Your arrival has coincided with a very delicate operation and although he probably wishes he could be a better host, I imagine he will not be able to give you the full force of his attention until it’s concluded. I’m sure he will send for you then.’
Olga pursed her lips in disappointment but she could not argue. ‘That’s kind,’ she said. ‘It’s been many years since we spoke, the Partorg and I. Too long.’ Pacified, she allowed Lieutenant Lubov to usher us into the street.
Outside, a cool breeze danced with the Soviet flags attached to poles on the façade above us. A car waited beside the kerb, black and glossy, its engine purring. Olga began to berate th
e driver for not helping with her suitcase. Pink-cheeked, the young man hurried out to assist her.
Lieutenant Lubov moved to the other side of the car to swing the door open for me. ‘That’s twice today I’ve rescued you, Lydia Volkova. Once at Tiksoja and just now, with your friend.’ His gaze lingered on my face as I eased myself into the car’s interior, breathing in the scent of carbolic soap mingled with the sharp fumes of alcohol. A familiar smell, the same as all the cars in Stalin’s fleet. A reminder that everything, even the truth, could be scrubbed clean.
I rolled the window down as far as it would go so that air rushed into the car.
Lieutenant Lubov lingered near the door. I wanted him to go, but like a wraith he continued to hover. I turned my head away, hoping he would leave. Instead, he stood beside the window, his shadow falling across my face.
‘Your father seemed surprised to see you,’ he said.
I looked down at my skirt. It was stained with dust. ‘I fear the note we sent did not reach him. There was a misunderstanding.’
‘Ah.’ He shifted slightly.
I shielded my hand against my face to block out the sunshine slanting in the window. ‘Is there something you wanted, Lieutenant?’
He muttered beneath his breath and then leaned in suddenly, so close I could smell the cloying pine scent of his aftershave. ‘You should be careful not to go out tonight. Don’t try to leave the complex.’
A gust of wind blew up the street and the flags snapped in their holders. Golden sickle. Glittering star. Moscow’s symbols of triumph.
I thought of Stalin, my father Stalin, waiting for me to return. My cheek tingled, as if anticipating the strike of his hand. I had questions – so many questions – I wanted to ask him about my mother. But I knew he would not answer them. He was a monster. He had sent Joachim into exile. He had authorised the torture and execution of so many people, including members of his own family, while surrounding himself with men like Captain Volkov; people who were too afraid for their own lives to tell him no. Had my mother been afraid? Was that why she’d killed herself? Had she suspected he would one day turn on her; that her only way of protecting me would be to leave me with Olga?
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