“What about Irina’s place?” whispered Helen to Alexey. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind and it might – might be better than a hotel.” She didn’t want to say, I’d feel safer for us to be there, surrounded by people I know and trust, rather than a place full of strangers. But Alexey understood. He squeezed her hand, and spoke to Volkovsky.
“We’ll try and arrange to stay at Professor Bayeva’s tonight.”
“Is that wise? They will want to know why you want to stay there. In a hotel, no one asks questions. And I’m not sure it would be good if they knew the truth of what happened. They will be frightened. This will be of no help to you.”
“We’ll think of something,” said Alexey. “Maybe that the house has to be fumigated against vermin, something like that.”
“And so it does, in a way. Very well. If you think that is the best thing. I will be there in the morning as soon as I can get a car from the airport in Yaroslavl.”
Chapter 35
Helen felt a little guilty about how easily her mother and Irina had accepted her explanation about why they needed to stay overnight. Only a little guilty, though, because in fact they were so transparently pleased to see the young couple, so delighted to have their company, that in the end it had all felt quite natural, and quite right.
The cozy little izba felt much more secure than Alexey’s big, echoey house. And the ordinary chatter they engaged in over dinner, and later, over cups of tea, was soothing and cheerful after the emotions of the day. Therese talked about the places she’d recently visited, Helen talked about fishing in the Volga, Alexey and Irina had a spirited discussion about whether it was Lev Atamanov or Walt Disney who had made the best classic animated films of fairytales (surprisingly, or perhaps not, Irina turned out to be a staunch defender of Disney). By the time they went to bed, Helen was feeling mellow. She and Alexey made love quietly under the bedcovers and she fell asleep in his arms, with the soft night pressing in at the window.
But she woke much later to a terrible feeling of oppression, a terror so great she could hardly breathe. The room was dark, very dark. But there was something there. A thing whose being seemed made of the night. A presence that stood upright on its hind legs and watched her with stony, unblinking eyes.
A bear. A huge bear, watching her with that alien gaze. The more she looked at it, the more she was paralyzed by it. There was a suffocating tightness in her chest, something like a claw gripping at her heart, squeezing … With a huge effort, she managed to moan, “Help – help –”
“Helen, Helen … what’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
Alexey’s voice. Alexey, holding her. What was happening? Her face was wet with tears. Her heart was pounding. She was shivering. But she was not alone, facing a bear, she was in bed with Alexey, the door was closed, there was nothing in the doorway, the room was warm, and silvery moonlight came in through the window. She realized she’d been asleep, and now she was awake.
“I –” She swallowed. “I – I’m sorry I woke you. I just had a horrible nightmare. But I thought – I really thought I was awake.”
“They’re the worst sort,” he said, gently. “Lucid dreams. Do you want to tell me about it, Lenochka?”
Usually, she wouldn’t have wanted to, because recounting a nightmare to someone else seemed to fix it in her mind, to give it a daylight shape that should not be. But this one was different. This was a terrifying visitation and she knew it must be spoken out loud to dissipate its power. So she nodded and said, “I was in this room, and the door was open, and there was a bear, a huge bear – and it’s hard to explain, but I couldn’t look away – and I felt like it was trying to … get into my head – to hypnotize me or something so it could get me – and – that’s all that happened, but it was horrible … horrible. I suppose it was because of the things we looked at on the Internet – but oh, Alexey, it felt so real.”
He did not tell her it was “just a dream”. He held her close against him and murmured, “I know. I know, love. I know.”
“You weren’t there. In my dream. I – I was alone.”
“Oh my poor Lenochka, my poor love. I’m here now,” he said, kissing her, softly.
“Oh, Alexey, don’t ever leave me,” she cried, and he answered, fiercely, “Never ever, and that’s a promise,” and then they were moving together, making love again, passionately, desperately, but silently.
Presently, they fell asleep again. She didn’t have any more dreams, bad or good. When she awoke, it was to find Alexey still fast asleep, one arm outflung from the quilt. She looked at him for a moment, so beautiful, so vital, so warm, so much himself, so much hers, and, her heart turning over with love and thankfulness, she kissed him on the bare shoulder. He stirred but didn’t wake – and getting up quietly, she put on dressing-gown and slippers and went downstairs.
It was 8.30 and her mother was alone in the kitchen. Irina had already gone off to her study to work and Therese told Helen she was waiting for Sergey to come and pick her up. They were driving to Kostroma today. Did Helen and Alexey want to join them?
Helen smiled affectionately at her mother. “Thanks very much – we’d have loved to – but he’s still asleep, Mam, and I don’t want to wake him. And you don’t want to be late setting off either I suppose.”
“No. It’s quite a distance. I might even overnight there.”
“With Sergey?”
“Well, he’s got the car,” her mother said, blandly.
“Mam – how’s it going with him?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on. You know.”
“Good. He’s a very nice man.”
Helen laughed. “Mam! I think you’ve been living too long in England! Very nice! Is that all?”
“That’s plenty to be getting on with,” said her mother, adding quietly, “at my age.”
“Oh, Mam! You’re hardly old.”
“Well, thank you for that, but you know what I mean. At your age, one can afford to fall head over heels. At mine – one has to be more careful.”
“But is it – do you think it might get serious?”
“I don’t know. And I’m not sure I want to know. Let’s just say we enjoy each other’s company very much. And leave it at that.” She looked at her daughter. “But it’s different for you, chérie.”
“Yes,” said Helen, simply. “Alexey is the love of my life.”
Therese Clement smiled. “He’s a wonderful young man. In every way.”
Helen kissed her. “I’m so glad you think that, Mam.”
“Even that cynic Irina agrees he’s special, and that’s saying something.”
Helen laughed. “Yes.”
“Not that she believes in true love, mind you,” went on her mother. “Poor Irina! I only wish she’d found a man who could match that passion of hers. But she never has, and that’s a tragedy.”
Just then, Sergey arrived. He greeted Helen and Therese cheerfully, without a trace of self-consciousness. He said, “You stay here this night, Helen?”
“Yes.” She knew he must have seen Alexey’s motorbike outside, so she said, “And Alexey did too.”
“Ah.” He shot Therese a look. She smiled. He said, “Tell him hello from me. He is good man.”
“Yes,” said Helen, happily. “He is.”
Soon after, they left. It was only after the Lada had turned the corner and disappeared that Helen noticed her mother had forgotten her phone, left behind in the clutter on the dresser. Sergey had a cell phone too but she had no idea of the number, so she couldn’t call and tell them. Oh well! It didn’t matter. She thought about what her mother had said, about her and Sergey, and whether it was true that at her mother’s age it was enough that they just enjoy each other’s company. But Alexey and her …
“Yes, we’re pretty hot together, aren’t we,” he said, behind her.
She jumped. “I can’t believe it! You read my mind again!”
“Lucky guess again,” he said, teasingly. He was
already dressed, his hair bright, his eyes full of enticing mischief, and she felt her knees buckling, though she spoke sternly to him.
“I forbid you to read my mind, Alexey Makarov, unless I give you permission!”
He laughed and gave her a mock salute, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “Yes, ma’am, at your service, ma’am!”
“You’re crazy,” she said, mock-pityingly, and he said, “Yes, I admit it, I’m crazy for you, don’t you know, mademoiselle, and what are you going to do about it?” and with that he was whirling her around the kitchen.
“Well, well,” said Irina, coming in just then, “and good morning to you too! Must have been a good sleep, you guys are sure energetic dancing at this time in the morning!”
“Ah, hi, Irina,” said Helen. “We were just mucking about. Sorry.”
“Why be sorry? Looked like fun. Actually, though, I came to ask you a favor, Alexey. It’s really annoying – but I just this minute got a call from a guy in Rostov about some really important documents I’ve been hanging out for, which are finally available. I really need to get there today, and Sergey of course has gone off with Therese. I know there should be a bus soon from the town center. Could I trouble you for a quick lift to the station?”
“Sure,” he said. “No problem at all. If you don’t mind riding on the bike, that is.”
“Course I don’t mind. I used to have a biker boyfriend when I was young. Loved the bike, if not him.”
“Irina! I never knew that!” said Helen, delighted.
“Hell, honey, you wouldn’t believe all the dark secrets of my misspent youth,” said Irina cheerfully. “Okay, Alexey, you ready to roll?”
“Sure,” said Alexey, and giving Helen a kiss and a “Poka, milaya. See you later, sweetheart,” he was off outside with Irina, and an instant later they were roaring up the street.
Chapter 36
Helen had a shower and got dressed. Just as she finished, she heard her cell phone buzzing. It was a text from Alexey. Bus gone, running Irina to Rostov. Back couple hours. Love you. A xxxxx
Love you too, heaps, she wrote. Drive safe. See you soon. H xxxxx
She looked around her, a little uneasily. So she was alone till he got back. Well, so what? What was there to fear here? Only bad dreams, her memory told her. Only bad dreams that felt totally real. Stop it, girl. Don’t think about it. Keep your mind busy. She washed up the breakfast things and sat down with a book, a collection of Russian short stories, but fell almost immediately on a spooky story by Nikolai Gogol, about a cursed painting that haunted everyone who owned it. Maybe it was the story, maybe it was the remnants of the dream, but soon Helen decided she really didn’t want to be inside.
Laying down the book, she went out into the garden, closing the back door firmly behind her. Oh, it was much better out there, in the sunlit green. The birds sang, the lilac filled the air with scent, things felt normal, and she began to feel ashamed of her fears. Dreams, what were they, really, even the powerful lucid ones? Just ragtag and bobtail leftover bits of thoughts and feelings and memories. They were the last thing she should be afraid of. Real life was more dangerous, but right now it was less dangerous than it had been yesterday, before she’d unmasked Slava. Now he was gone. He wouldn’t be returning. Now they knew Repin was behind the attacks on Trinity too and had solid leads to go on. He’d be stopped. And Nikolai would be here soon, his presence, experience and knowledge a reassuring bulwark against the malice of their enemy.
She came to the study. The door wasn’t locked. So she went in. Irina’s laptop and printer sat on the desk, with a thick stack of printed manuscript paper next to them. By each side of the desk was a filing cabinet, repainted a soft pale blue, and on the floor was a rug of the same color, while a framed photograph of a Russian forest scene hung on one wall.
Helen sat in the chair and picked up the first page of the manuscript, the title page: Gods, Protectors and Enemies: The Bear in Russian Thought and Culture, by Irina Bayeva Simmons. She flicked through the manuscript, till she came to a chapter called “The Homo Ferens project”. Settling down in the chair, she began to read, and was soon completely absorbed in the extraordinary story it had to tell.
The Homo Ferens project
Prologue: Northern Russia, winter 1935
The old hunter was just as he’d been described to them by the villagers: small, tough and wiry, with a large, recent, livid scar that ran across one cheek to thin lips, and a pair of very pale eyes in a weathered face under a shock of long silver hair. Unlike the villagers, those eyes showed no fear in front of the two strangers. In his expression was no eagerness, either. No interest. Nothing at all. And yet their gaze was fixed on the two strangers, and there was something about the old man’s very lack of expression that made the two strangers feel, just for an instant, a tremor of an ancient, outlawed terror.
To believe in such things – to think that a man could really turn into a beast and curse people with evil magic – was a sin in the new Russia, a thought-crime you kept to yourself if you didn’t want to end up before the commissar, accused of superstition and obscurantism. But old terrors are not so easily eradicated by new ones, especially in the villages, and even the most enthusiastic Party informer might hesitate to denounce a man such as the one who stood before them, a benighted relic of a bygone age.
But the two strangers were not villagers, or informers. They were new men, with no belief in any kind of superstition, be it God or miraculous icons or witchcraft or shape-changing beasts or anything that broke the iron laws of materialism. Or so they’d always thought. Until now.
“Where is it?” growled the fairer of the two strangers, who despite being older than the dark one, had a harder, fitter air. He advanced menacingly on the old man, who did not flinch in the slightest, but looked at both of them with the ghost of a smile as the darker man signaled hastily to his companion to keep quiet.
“You are in a hurry, my lords,” said the old man, using the forbidden honorific, blithely ignoring the fact that “comrade” was now the accepted term.
He knew, the old devil, thought the dark-haired stranger, with an inward smile. Knew that he was a walking insult to the State and yet somehow he must imagine that he was protected, because of his reputation, and because we have come to his door as petitioners. The dark stranger could feel the hostility of his companion; knew that to him it was incomprehensible that they were kow-towing to this hideous old relic. But it didn’t matter what he thought or felt; for despite the fact the fair-haired man was older, it was the young, dark stranger who was in charge. It was he who had the only blessing that counted, before which all others, real or imagined, meant nothing at all. And he knew that the old man couldn’t be hurried.
So ignoring a puzzled glare from his companion, he said, very politely using an address he knew the old man would expect, “Dedushka – grandfather – forgive our haste, but we have come a long way and must be back in town before nightfall. Please tell us in your own words how it happened. You were hunting bear, is that correct?”
“Yes, as you see,” said the old man, simply, pointing to his scar. Rolling up a sleeve, he showed them deep scratches on his arms, and on his chest. “She was very nearly the death of me, for that creature had a powerful soul.”
The stranger nodded, taking care not to let his true feelings show on his face. Soul, indeed! What was soul? A thing that did not exist, could not exist. Why did the old fool persist in such nonsense when he must know full well that he simply had great instincts, honed over years into perfection? After all, to survive in the forest, any hunter worth his salt needs to develop skills that to the untrained eye may look magical, like a sixth sense. A silent footfall. An unerring sense of direction. An understanding so complete of the ways and customs of his chosen prey that it is almost as though he is reading their minds. All the villagers had spoken of the hunter’s skill in that. The fact they’d also implied there was something supernatural about it did not mean it was true. The o
ld devil had created his own legend. And the superstitious peasants believed it.
The old man leaned toward him. “Remember this – of all the animals in the forest, the bear is the closest to man. If you do not forget, then you will not go far wrong. If you do, then doom will come on you –” he turned to the other man “– and on you.”
“How dare you threaten us, old –” began the fair-haired man, furiously, but the dark-haired man raised a hand to hush him. He said, quietly, “We will not forget, dedushka.”
An old Russian legend speaks of how the first bear was once a man who, refused hospitality by his fellows, plunged into the forest, vowing revenge on mankind. The stranger knew the legend, and the many stories of men turning into bears and bears into men and of children taken in by she-bears and raised as their own. It was what had brought him here after all, to this stinking cottage deep in the heart of the forest. It was what kept him patient now in the face of the old man’s insolence. Simply killing him and taking his prize, as his companion had wanted to do, would be of no use, if they did not know the story behind it.
“I’d been tracking her for three days,” the old man said, abruptly launching into his hunting narrative. “That isn’t unusual. Only a fool expects to kill quickly, and fools don’t last long as bear-hunters. But this bear, when I got closer, and saw the shape of her soul, I realized she was wary but not for herself. Cubs, I thought at once. And I remembered that last summer a bear-trainer came to the village and let it be known he’d pay good money for a new cub to train, his beast being sickly and weak and likely to die. This was the first she-bear I’d come across in months that had cubs. I didn’t intend to kill her. Just take her cub when she was away from the den.”
Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1) Page 30