Dmitri Shalakov was killed in the summer of 1915, during the disaster of what became known as the Great Retreat, as the Tsar’s battered armies were pushed inexorably from the line of the Eastern Front deep into the heartland of Russia. Dima’s family never discovered the manner of his death, nor where the human remains of the young man whose second son was born six weeks after his death had been buried, if indeed they had been buried at all. Perhaps, for their peace of mind, it was just as well; there was no easy death to be had on those battlefields. Most of those that fell in that debacle received scant ceremonial. Dima’s was simply one small tragedy in the midst of a much greater one; few of the hard-pressed, often inexperienced field officers caught up in the bloody shambles of the Retreat were able to observe the niceties; shell-shocked and exhausted, they had little time or energy left for the living, let alone for the dead.
The year was a catastrophe for Russian arms. Casualties were measured in millions, and at least another million were captured by or surrendered to the enemy. Poland was abandoned. Steadily, amidst shaming scenes of slaughter, extortion and brutality inflicted upon the civilian and refugee populations by the frightened and ill-disciplined retreating soldiers, the Russian armies were pushed back, forced to a stand at last once again upon the sacred soil of Russia herself. The cavalry, the best-armed and best-led pride of the Tsarist forces, found themselves worse than useless in the grim business of trench warfare and against the iron might of modern arms. There was simply no part for them to play; but with their aristocratic connections, their assumption of superiority and their insistence upon priority they clogged up the military machine and stretched the already sketchy and ill-organized supply services to breaking point. And all to no effect. In this war no personal valour, no courageous charge, no gallant self-sacrifice could make up for a lack of field artillery, a shortage of shells and of rifles – in many cases infantrymen going into battle had to rely on the rifles and ammunition of their fallen comrades. Facing a modern, well-equipped and well-trained army the Russians had no properly efficient transport system, no aerial support, no well-organized modern communications system. Sabres and swords had become outdated overnight, and those that trusted to them died in their thousands, or fled in confusion. As an incompetent and factionalized Russian High Command squabbled, intrigued, and sent out a stream of contradictory orders a swathe of misery and death was cut through Eastern Europe; vast areas of Russian territory were abandoned to the enemy; the Germans were stopped at the very gates of Riga, and Petrograd herself was threatened. Desertions assumed massive proportions; regiments on occasion surrendered as a unit, officers and men together. Under such circumstances the death of one nameless, faceless conscript could easily pass with no impact upon anything or anyone but his own family.
As the Germans advanced and as the Russian armies were forced back, step by step towards Riga and finally towards Petrograd, the city was flooded with refugees. Men, women and children, dispossessed, desperate, often starving or sickly, were herded together in filthy wooden barracks or filled to overflowing the already overcrowded slums of the city. As summer turned to autumn and the ever-present spectre of the Russian winter hovered threateningly upon the horizon there was talk of starvation and of epidemic. Spirits were low and tempers high; discontent was rife. Where was the Little Father, the Tsar? What of his sacred duty to protect his suffering people? Most knew, with a bleak nod and a cautious sideways glance, the answer to those questions; the Tsar was ruled by the hated Empress, who was ruled in her turn by the debauched and degenerate Rasputin – and whilst that state of affairs persisted the people, threatened with starvation and oppression, their sons dying by the million for a cause they did not understand, could expect no help, no protection.
And in the teeming breeding-grounds of the Vyborg and other working-class districts of the capital, the agents of sedition did their whispered, perilous work, establishing committees, organizing forbidden meetings, fomenting strikes and unrest. Whilst the Generals fought each other with every bit as much energy and rather more efficiency than they fought the enemy, whilst the Tsar vacillated, caught in his weakness between his strong-willed wife, his ministers and his conscience, in the city slums the seeds of hatred, fear and anger were assiduously and skilfully cultivated in a soil all too receptive and fertile.
Sasha arrived in Petrograd on leave – his second in the course of the war so far – on a brisk, clear, early-autumn day that went some way to disguising the dourness and squalor of the once-lovely city. He was tired, hungry and depressed. Quite apart from the constant stress of fear that was his permanent companion and to which he had become almost accustomed, the journey – despite a pass personally signed by the General and a purse well-filled – had been a nightmare. He felt filthy. The train that had lumbered so painfully slowly across the vast and dusty plains to the city had been packed with wounded; every inch of space in compartment, in corridor, in goods van or baggage-rack had been taken up by armless, legless, eyeless men. Bandages and blood; suppurating wounds. Patient nurses, overworked doctors, and the stubble-darkened, pallid faces of the wounded, resigned and stoic; he had turned his face from them all, refusing to look, refusing to feel, refusing above all his own guilt, deeply but insecurely buried. But he could not ignore the smell; it was in his nostrils now, clung to his clothes and to his skin. He thought of the apartment behind the Liteini; small, quiet, calm. He thought of warm and fragrant water, of Margarita’s quick, light-hearted smile, her soft skin and perfumed hair, of one short week’s peace and release from fear, and quickened his steps.
Margarita had visitors; two of them. One was a young captain of the Semenov Regiment of the Tsar’s Own Guards, whom Sasha knew very slightly, the other, from his uniform, an ensign in one of the Cossack regiments whom he had never seen before.
He stood by the open door, fighting exhaustion, disappointment and the too-quick, dangerous stirrings of anger. Margarita presided straight-backed, composed and bewitchingly pretty, over the samovar that bubbled upon the table. The two men sat upon overstuffed armchairs, shining boots crossed at the ankles, tea glasses small in large, well-manicured hands, the relaxed and comfortable atmosphere clearly bespeaking a familiarity with their surroundings that did nothing for Sasha’s already chancy temper. They were handsomely turned out, uniforms pristinely clean and smart, brass and leather gleaming. Their hats and gloves lay neatly side by side upon the small table beneath the window. The two fresh faces turned at Sasha’s entrance, and both men scrambled to their feet, a certain embarrassment in the hasty movement as it dawned upon them who this unexpected arrival must be. Margarita, on the other hand, smiled calmly and charmingly and made no move whatsoever, as if the unheralded homecoming of a husband whom she had not seen for the best part of six months was a matter that could not be allowed to ruffle the small ceremonies of her tea party. ‘Sasha,’ she said, a shade too brightly, ‘good heavens! How unexpected! How nice.’ She tilted her chin, fluffy fair hair gilded by the light of the sunlit window behind her. Her voice was light, and gave absolutely no hint of the turmoil that the sudden entrance of this lean, unsmiling man that was her husband had brought. She proffered a smooth cheek, waited for him to cross the room, bend and kiss her. ‘’Lexis, be a dear and fetch another glass, would you? Sasha – you’ll take tea? ’Lexis brings it every week, or we’d be drinking ground acorns by now! I do find this beastly war a trial!’ She cocked her head, smiling, apparently blandly unaware of his displeasure, or of the awkward atmosphere his sudden coming had produced. ‘Sasha, my darling, whatever have you been doing to yourself ? You look as if you’ve slept for a week in your clothes –’
‘As a matter of fact I haven’t slept at all in the past forty-eight hours.’
She patted the hand that rested upon her shoulder. ‘Poor Sasha,’ she said, lightly and with no discernible trace of sympathy. ‘Now – let me introduce you – you remember Alexis Konstantinovich, don’t you? And this handsome young man is the Count Devanovov – Mikhail to his friends.’ She smiled brilliantly up into the young man’s face.
‘I think,’ the young Count mumbled, eyes flicking to Sasha’s unimpressed face and away, ‘that with your permission, Margarita Victorovna, we should perhaps take our leave.’ With his silent companion he gathered gloves and cap. Then he lifted his head and looked directly into Sasha’s face. His eyes were troubled; he could not, Sasha estimated, have been more than eighteen years old. ‘You’ve come from the Front?’
Sasha shook his head. ‘From Stavka.’ In a small, nervy gesture he rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. His skin still smelled disgustingly of the hospital train. ‘Which is most certainly,’ he added dourly, ‘as dangerous and exhausting as any battlefield since General Alexeyev took over.’
The boy smiled, a small, nervous twitch of a smile. ‘He’s an uncle of mine. I know what you mean. He used to terrify me. Still would, I suspect.’
‘A new broom,’ Sasha said, ‘sweeping clean.’ He did not want to think about it, let alone talk about it. Not now. In fact right now he discovered he wanted nothing so much as to take these two handsome, neatly-shaven, well-fed young men and to pitch them down the stairs, neck, crop and shining buttons.
‘I think – perhaps it was necessary? The reorganization?’ the boy said, hesitantly.
‘I think perhaps it was.’ Sasha walked firmly to the door, held it open invitingly. ‘I’m sorry. Another time perhaps? It’s been a very long journey.’
Margarita watched, silent, her expression unreadable.
‘Of course, of course!’ Stumblingly they took their leave, bending over Margarita’s hand – the man Alexis for just a second too long in Sasha’s opinion – and left.
‘Well.’ Sasha turned, leaning against the door, his hand still on the knob. ‘I’m glad to see my pretty wife isn’t pining away in my absence –’
‘Well, darling, of course I’m not! What would you expect?’ With a graceful movement she stood and came to him, leaning lightly against him, her hair brushing his cheek, her lips as light as thistledown upon his. Before he could hold her she was gone. ‘Goodness, Sasha, how you smell! Petra? Petra!’
The door to the kitchen opened and a small, frightened, nondescript face peered in.
Margarita flicked her fingers. ‘Clear the glasses, please. And then draw a bath for the master. Supper will be for two.’
The girl mumbled something, cast a fearful glance first at her mistress and then at the strange, travel-stained man who stood in the other doorway, before scurrying like a frightened mouse to the table.
Sasha waited until the door closed behind her. His eyes were riveted to Margarita. The soft curves of youth were gone from her face; she held herself now with the confidence of a lovely woman who knows the power she wields. Her bright, curly hair was piled in that carefully artless way that still suited her so. Long earrings dangled from her ears, swinging against her slender neck, about which she had tied a narrow length of velvet ribbon, from which a tiny golden heart depended; a trinket which he did not recognize. She was wearing a gown he had not seen before, of heavy rose satin trimmed with rich ivory lace, high at the neck, very close-fitting about her breasts and her slender waist. But not for him. The thought brought hurt and anger in about equal measure. Disturbed and unhappy, nerves strung almost to breaking point, he watched her as she moved about the room, and suddenly the truly unstudied, feminine grace of her movements, the flare of her hips beneath the rich, swagged material caused an unexpected surge of a primitive physical arousal that caught him unawares and set his heart pounding. This woman was his. It was her duty to give herself, his right to take her. It took a singular effort of will to remain standing where he was, to force from his mind the thought of stripping the armour of that shining dress from her body, of overpowering her, hurting her, compelling her to copulate with him there and then, with no ceremony, upon the floor of this room that suddenly seemed to belong to strangers. To overmaster her. Would that bring an easing of the pain? For one short space of time to bury himself, his terrors, his dishonour in that vulnerable, soft, female flesh? To vanquish her weakness with his strength?
She turned, unruffled, unaware. ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? I should not have been so –’ she lifted long fingers, let them subside gracefully ‘– unprepared.’
‘I couldn’t. The reorganization, you know? I’ve been posted. The opportunity for leave simply came up and I took it. I’d have been here long before any message.’ His words were stilted; the sudden surge of lust had left the warmth of shame in his cheeks. He had not moved from the open doorway, where he leaned against the doorjamb, watching her. ‘Letters are taking weeks. I only just got your last one. About your brother. I’m sorry. How’s Natalia taken it?’
Margarita made a small, impatient gesture. ‘Oddly. She’s absolutely obsessed with the wretched –’ she stopped herself ‘– with the new baby. You know she had another little boy? Oh, no, of course not. He was born a few weeks ago. She called him Dmitri, of course. A little morbid, don’t you think?’
He shrugged, tiredly, again rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘It would seem natural, under the circumstances.’
‘Would it? Oh – perhaps so.’ She dismissed the subject of her brother’s death and her sister-in-law’s agony with a brisk flick of her hand.
Sasha leaned, hands in pockets, watching her, still. ‘And the rest of the family? Your mother? What’s happening to the business? I assume that someone’s running the shop?’
She lifted her shoulders. ‘Everyone’s fine. Well, we don’t see a lot of Lenka –’ She hesitated, wondering whether to mention the fact that she had in fact seen rather more of her brother-in-law than of her sister, decided against it. ‘Mama is still – well – you know. Difficult. Actually –’ she smiled, brightly ‘– she’s getting rather fat.’
‘Fat?’ Sasha was surprised.
‘Mm.’ Margarita rearranged an ornament upon the mantelpiece, turned. ‘She’s eating rather a lot. Chocolates and things. When she can get them, that is.’
Sasha pushed himself upright. ‘And the shop?’
‘Oh, Volodya’s running that.’ She shook her head a little. ‘Oh, of course, I forgot, I don’t think you ever knew him. Vladimir Pavelovich Yamakov. A violin maker, a protege of Uncle Andrei’s. He’s been invalided out of the army – a leg wound.’ She laughed a little. ‘Strange to have him back. He was rather sweet on Anna, actually. We all thought –’ She stopped. ‘Goodness, how long ago it all seems.’ Her voice was very light.
‘I don’t think I ever met him.’
‘No. Probably not.’ She was moving inconsequentially about the room, twitching this, touching that, not looking at him. ‘Will you take tea before you bathe?’ He might have returned from a day’s shooting. ‘Oh, wretched girl! I keep telling her –’ The magnificent toy theatre he had bought her after the miscarriage stood still in pride of place upon the sideboard. Margarita, face absorbed, bent her head to it, rearranging the figures.
Watching her, the warmth of desire, of need, still heated his tired body. He came up behind her, his arms about her before she was aware of him. ‘In a moment,’ he whispered. ‘In a moment, my love – tea – baths – food – the world – all in a moment. But – now -’ His mouth was on her face, her ear, her smooth, cool neck, his hand rough on her breast. ‘Oh, God, you can’t know how I’ve –’
‘Sasha!’ She sounded truly shocked, and her struggles were not counterfeit. Outraged, she beat at him with her small fists. ‘Sasha, stop it! Petra – she’s in the kitchen!’
‘And there she’ll stay if she has any sense.’ He tightened his grip, bending her body to his, his mouth on hers, warm and urgent.
She stiffened in his arms, her mouth twisted under his. She tore her head loose from the grip of his hand. ‘Stop it! Stop it, I say! Sasha, please! Don’t be – don’t be so disgusting!’
Painfully aroused, all anger gone, he was aching for her now – ready to beg her – for her softness, her loving, her heartfelt surrender, that might, somehow, ease the tensions and the fears. He released her and stepped back.
Breathing heavily, face flushed unbecomingly, she smoothed her skirt, not looking at him. ‘I think – perhaps a bath first, wouldn’t you agree?’ she asked, her voice almost normal. ‘And then we’ll have supper, and you can tell me all that’s happened.’ She was busying herself about the room again, moving cushions back to where they had been before, flicking nonexisting dust from shining surfaces.
‘Margarita,’ he said.
She turned. Looked at him. Saw, as she had seen before, a disturbing stranger. The dark, still-handsome face was no longer young. It had thinned and hardened, it was difficult to hold with any serenity the gaze of the haunted eyes. She shook her head a little, dumb with fright; and her fear showed in her wide eyes. There had been changes enough in the world about her in these past terrifying months without this. With all her self-centred little heart she wished him away from here, far away, back into the world of make-believe, where he was her handsome knight, bravely and steadfastly defying danger, her shield from afar, undemanding. This dishevelled, distressed, urgent, aggressively male flesh-and-blood man was more than she could take with no warning, no chance to prepare. ‘Later,’ she said, almost choking on the word. ‘Later, Sasha, I promise. But not now – please – not now.’
They made love in darkness and almost in silence, Margarita frantic that Petra, asleep on her pallet in the kitchen, should not hear them. Afterwards, Sasha lay for a long time, naked and still beside her, looking into the darkness, trying not to think of her mouth closed against his, of the rigid rejection implicit in every tense line of her smooth body as he had caressed and entered her, of her turned head, of the sense of total isolation that had overcome him at the moment of climax. Of her turned back afterwards, the relief in her long drawn breath. He’d had more loving, more warmth, from the camp-following whores who’d tested his coins with their teeth before grinning and lifting their skirts. The tears that brimmed and finally ran down his cheeks were cold.
In the distance, faint and menacing, he fancied he heard gunfire.
He turned on his side, shivering, the blankets pulled to his ears.
And allowed into his thoughts, as he did at his most desperate moments, his salvation, his Valentina; courageous, down-to-earth, laughing and warm. Valentina and her poetry, her fiercely argumentative nature; the passion of her loving. Valentina; thin as a boy, far from beautiful, intransigently independent. His love.
She lay not much more than a mile from him. Who lay with her tonight? Did she ever think of the young man who had saved her from the Cossack horsemen? Had she forgotten him?
No. Oh, no. Of that he was certain. As sure as the coming of death, as sure as his hope of heaven, Valentina would not have forgotten him.
Margarita lay rigid, her back to him, feigning sleep.
The leave was not a success. They visited friends and family. They promenaded in the parks and beside the river. He took her for tea at the Europa, and to a performance of the Imperial Ballet at the Narodni Dom. He spent money that would have fed them for a month on a meal at the Villa Rhode, on the Islands, where they were entertained by Tzigane musicians and dancers, the leader of whom, to her great pleasure, took an especial shine to Margarita, serenading her soulfully as she sipped the house’s second best and strictly illegal champagne. But they did not – could not – talk; and their lovemaking was always the same; hurried, silent, unsatisfactory and always under cover of darkness, an activity that Margarita endured rather than enjoyed, and never, ever, instigated. Neither did she ask a single question about his life, his experiences, or his fears. And in return he volunteered nothing, not even the information that the new posting was back to active service, that this was the reason for his unexpected leave, the last favour his General had been able to afford him. Effort was being made at last to reform the aristocratic ‘officers’ club’ of the Stavka; there were no more easy billets. Sasha was being sent to Riga, where the Russian forces were still stubbornly holding out. He sweated at night, thinking of it. But he did not tell Margarita.
It was on the fourth day that they quarrelled.
Sasha had been morose and nervy all day. Four precious days were gone; there were only four left – four days and four nights before he faced the terror again. Four days of empty conversation, of empty lovemaking, of an empty mind and heart. He could not stand the thought.
They were supposed to be going to supper, with friends, at a small restaurant still rumoured to have a cellar full of fine French wines and a proprietor who was ready, for a price, to flout the war-time law prohibiting the sale of alcohol and allow his customers to sample them. Margarita sat at her small dressing table, taming with practised fingers the curling mass of her hair and piling it gracefully onto her head. She had not for a moment contemplated the more practical and less time-consuming shorter hairstyles that were becoming the vogue. She was still dressed in the filmy robe, belted at the waist, that she wore before she dressed. The rose-coloured satin was laid across the bed. Happy as always to be going out, always an adventure, always an opportunity to see and to be seen, she applied herself to her task, her face attractively flushed, her eyes shining with excitement. Sasha stood in the shadows, watching her, a glass of vodka, his second and now only half full, in his hand.
‘You’re more beautiful than ever,’ he said.
She raised her eyes to look at him in the candlelit mirror. Her flush of pleasure was entirely natural, her happiness at the compliment entirely unstudied. ‘Thank you.’ She had grown used to his changed looks, his rather quieter demeanour. She had in fact to her own surprise come to realize, in face of the covert glances of other women, that in some strange way he had become more, not less, attractive. The slightly shabby uniform that at first had offended her had, she had been startled to see, been treated as a badge of honour by others. She smiled at him, with genuine, if shallow, warmth. If he could just contrive to be a little less – intense – a little less physical – the blush grew, hotly, in her face. She reached for her swan’s-down powderpuff, was so intent upon her reflection that she did not notice his approach until he was behind her, tall in the shadows for all his slightness of build, strong hands clamped uncomfortably hard upon her shoulders. She shifted a little, shaking herself free. Smiled uncertainly into the deeply shadowed face. Her stomach shifted, churning uncomfortably. She knew that look. Surely – oh surely! – he would not make his horrible demands on her now? She was bathed and clean, perfumed, her hair arranged to pretty perfection. In God’s name, why must he spoil it? What did he want of her? It was Petra’s night off. They were alone in the apartment. She had so desperately hoped he would not take advantage of that, at the very least not until later.
He laid his hand against her cheek, felt the softness of her skin against the flat, calloused palm. ‘Rita,’ he said, softly. ‘Darling. Why don’t we stay here tonight?’
She smiled, brightly, into the mirror, a muscle in her jaw jumping. ‘Don’t be silly, Sasha dear. We’ve made arrangements. The others –’
‘Won’t miss us.’ He leaned closer, eyes bright and probing. She hated the excitement she could see in them, feel in the urgent warmth of his body, so close to hers. ‘I could go to the little cafe down the road, bring something back. You wouldn’t need to dress – you’re so beautiful just as you are – we’ll eat here, just the two of us. We’ll talk –’
‘Well, goodness –’ uneasily she moved, leaning closer to the mirror, away from him, ostentatiously rearranging a curl ‘– we can talk at the restaurant, can’t we? And what, for heaven’s sake, have we been doing all day? Sasha, please, don’t do that – you’re disarranging my hair –’
‘For God’s sake!’ He straightened, violently, the vodka slopping from his glass.
‘Sasha, do be careful!’ In her panic and in her effort to control it her voice came out as cold as the first night of ice upon the river. She might have been talking to an ill-behaved child. ‘You’ve splashed vodka on my robe –’
His hand, the fiercely strong hand of a horseman, and one who could curb the most recalcitrant of mounts, was suddenly, agonizingly, about her right wrist. She felt the bones give painfully under the pressure. Instinctively, difficult though it was, she knew not to struggle. She held herself still, her body arched rigidly against him. ‘Did I now?’ His voice was very quiet. His grip did not relax. ‘Well. Should I suck it dry? Perhaps that at least is something I should get for my money? And my name?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Her voice, despite her effort at control, was a breath of pain. Yet still, with an understanding that was primeval in its depth, she did not struggle.
‘Of course you don’t.’ Slowly he was forcing her body backwards against him, her back arched against his raised knee. With the hand that still held the glass, quite gently despite the brutal grip of his other hand, he bared her breasts. The candlelight flickered on the smooth skin, the darkened, raised nipples. The vodka glass was poised and steady. His face was expressionless. With a hand still savagely gentle he rubbed the glass against the bared teats, ran it, cold and hard, down the open front of the robe to rest on her belly. She sobbed, once, turned her head from him and was still. ‘In Vladivostok I went to a brothel,’ he said, reflectively, ‘where for good coin you could drink your liquor from any receptacle you wished – the more imaginative the better – it was a most entertaining evening.’ The glass tilted. The clear liquid splashed upon her breasts. He bent his head, licked the stuff from her skin, sucked it as it dripped from the taut nipples.
She lay against him, ice-cold and rigid, aware of nothing but disgust and shock and a humiliation so deep it could never be forgiven.
He lifted his head.
There was a long moment of still silence.
He let her go, very suddenly, throwing her from him, turning away from her.
Shivering she sat up, pulling her robe around her, hunching her shoulders against him.
In the lamplit shadows of the room he was moving, with the sharp and violent movements of anger. It took a few shocked minutes before she was recovered enough to understand. ‘What – what are you doing?’
He had thrown off his evening suit, tossed it in a heap upon the floor, had pulled on a pair of old corduroy trousers and was dragging his battered English shooting jacket from its hook in the wardrobe. ‘I’m going out.’
She turned, aghast. ‘You can’t! We’ve made arrangements!’
‘Unmake them.’ Stone-faced, he was ramming his arms into the jacket, shrugging it onto his shoulders.
She stood up. In her whole life she had never felt such an overwhelming fury. ‘Stop this! This minute! Do you hear me? Take those stupid clothes off! We are dining with the Melaknikovs. They are expecting us. I will not have you –’
‘You won’t have me. Full stop.’ He rummaged in the pocket of his suit, transferred a handful of notes and coin. ‘So why should you care what I do or where I go?’ He turned to the door.
She barred his way like a fury. ‘You can’t! You can’t!’
‘Stop me,’ he said, very calmly and with an intonation that, for all her anger, made her step sharply back from him.
In the quiet that followed her eyes, fierce upon his, suddenly sharpened. ‘You’re going to her, aren’t you?’ It was a statement rather than a question.
He did not answer.
‘Aren’t you?’
There was no need, no point, in questioning the pronoun. ‘It’s none of your business,’ he said.
‘I think it is.’
‘I don’t give a bugger’s arse what you think.’ It was quite deliberate, as brutal as his grip upon her arm that had raised welts that already were turning blue.
Still she barred the way. ‘You’re disgusting. You’re – you’re drunk – filthy!’
‘All the more reason to be rid of me, I’d have thought.’
‘You’re mad.’
He sighed, ostentatiously, waiting.
She was in tears now, her face distorted. ‘Sasha, why can’t you be nice to me? Why can’t we be like we used to be? Why can’t you just – just love me without constantly touching – pawing –’
He shrugged. ‘Because I’m disgusting. And filthy. Because I’m a man, for Christ’s sake. Margarita, are you going to let me out of that door or do I have to use the window?’ The sudden calm was unnatural.
‘You’re not going to that woman. I won’t let you.’
‘Oh?’
‘You’re not leaving me, Sasha. You can’t! Remember what happened last time! Remember what I went through!’
He pushed past her and out through the door. As he ran down the stairs her voice pursued him. ‘I’ll make you pay for this, Sasha! I’ll make you pay!’
Blinded by anger, driven by need, he hardly remembered the journey across the city.
He walked very fast down towards the river, swung aboard a clanking yellow tram, stood swaying amongst the silent, poorly dressed passengers as it crossed the bridge, rattled through drab streets, past looming factories and depressing tenements. One thought and one thought only filled his mind; let her be there. Please, God, just let her be there. Let me find her. Just once more. And let her be as I remember her.
Alone in the apartment behind the Liteini Prospekt Margarita cried herself in a passion of fury to exhaustion, beating her fists upon the pillows that were crumpled and drenched with tears.
When the storm had eased she turned to lay on her back, small sobs still catching in her throat, staring into the lamplit shadows.
He was hateful! Hateful!
She brooded upon revenge. How most could she hurt him, as he had hurt her? Should she leave? Desert him, as he deserved? Wouldn’t he be frantic with worry if he came back to an empty apartment, not knowing where she was, what had happened to her? Wouldn’t he be sorry, then?
She could not admit, even to herself, that she did not know, could not predict how this new, changed Sasha would react.
There was, too, another consideration. Suddenly in control of herself she found herself thinking, long and hard. They’d had news that Sasha’s mother had been poorly. Margarita had sent suitably caring messages, had ensured that the two women closeted at Drovenskoye understood that it was impossible for her to travel in such dangerous times and then had spent long and happy hours constructing daydreams about the future. She had conjured into her mind the house, the servants, the estate; had as determinedly shut from her memory the recollection of shabbiness, of penny-pinching, of neglect. She had lovingly reconstructed her dream of becoming a great lady. The Lady of Drovenskoye, gracious and beautiful. Loved – worshipped – by all. No-one was going to take that from her. She sat up now, drew her knees to her breast, her arms wrapped about them, one hand nursing her bruised and painful wrist, eyes narrowed. No. She wouldn’t leave Sasha. She’d never leave him. But she’d bring him to heel, see if she didn’t! He could not have changed so very much. She’d handled him before, and she’d do it again. And God help him if he tried to fight her. There were things he could give her that no-one else could; and who would grace better his home and his life? Sasha was hers, her prince, her salvation. Of course I’m sure. I made him up. I invented him.
It was the beastly war, of course. He was overwrought. Not himself. He’d come back to her. Certainly he would.
In the meantime – just in case – she must think, constructively and clearly. She needed weapons, any that might come to hand; and once she found them, if necessary she would use them.
It took Sasha a full hour to find the apartment block in which Valentina lived; he had reckoned without the dreary sameness of the roads, the corners, the buildings of this depressing and overcrowded part of the city. Even when he stood at last in the gloomy corridor outside what he hoped was her door he was not entirely sure of himself. He had been certain, downstairs, that he had recognized the grimy lobby, the broken, filthy tiles of the floor; now his confidence deserted him. He hesitated for a long moment, then lifted his hand and rapped sharply with his knuckles upon the battered door.
Nothing happened.
He rapped again, loudly, urgently, willing her to be there.
There was no movement, no sign of life.
He swore, intensely and viciously, a searing stream of blasphemy that was all he could think of to keep the tears from his eyes. In fury he punched at the door, hurting his knuckles, turned, leaning against it, head tilted backwards.
‘Not there. She’s not there.’
He jumped. The door opposite had opened a crack. A gaunt old woman peered with black, button eyes from the shadows. ‘Not there,’ she said again, and the door began to close.
Sasha was across the corridor in a flash, his foot slamming against the closing door. ‘But – wait – she does live here? This is Valentina’s room?’ He had not realized until now that he had never discovered her full name. ‘Valentina!’ he said again, urgently, ‘she lives here?’
The old woman grunted. It could have meant anything.
Sasha exerted his strength against the door. Grumbling, the woman gave way. Her dirty face was vindictive and distrustful.
Sasha scrabbled in his pocket, brought out a coin. ‘Valentina? She lives in that room?’
The beady eyes were fixed upon the coin. ‘Yes. On and off.’
‘Do you know where she is now?’
Narrow, shawled shoulders lifted in a shrug. A dirty, shaking hand reached for the coin.
Sasha held on to it for a moment. ‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’
Another shrug. ‘Sooner or later, I daresay.’ The coin was spirited from his fingers and disappeared into the ragged skirt. He stepped back. The door closed.
He stood for a moment, looking at it, face sombre. Then he turned back to Valentina’s door, leaned against the wall beside it, slid down upon his haunches and set himself to wait.
He was dozing when he heard the voices; two of them, one a man’s, sharp and concise, and the other the voice, light and clear, that he had heard so often in his head in these past mad months.
‘All right, all right! If you all insist. Though, honestly, Lev, I –’ Valentina stopped.
Sasha stood, very carefully, painfully slowly and with no great grace. His right leg was dead as a doornail and he was chilled to the bone. He said nothing.
Valentina stood at the top of the stairs, her hand on the chipped banister, struck to stillness and silence by the sight of him. She was staring, wary and afraid, as if he were some sprite sprung from the air to startle her. Her companion, a shabby young man with a lean, intense face, looked from one to the other, faintly enquiring, faintly suspicious, wholly displeased.
Valentina turned to him. ‘Er – Lev – if – if you don’t mind?’ Her voice had cracked a little oddly. She cleared her throat.
He raised deliberately uncomprehending brows.
‘It seems – I have a visitor.’ Valentina gestured.
There was a flicker in the young man’s dark face, a shadow of anger that as swiftly disappeared. ‘You were to deliver something to me,’ he said, his voice flat.
‘I – yes – of course – just come in. I’ll get them.’ She led the way to the door. She did not look at Sasha. Her companion did, long and hard. Sasha glared back belligerently. At this moment the devil himself could have challenged his right to be here, and Sasha would have fought him; and it showed in his eyes.
The young man, Lev, hunched his shoulders, barged in front of Sasha, following Valentina into the room where she was bending over the table lighting a small oil lamp. Sasha followed, moved into the shadows, stood quiet and watching. He had not said a word.
Valentina pulled open a drawer. ‘Here.’ She pulled out a sheaf of leaflets and thrust them at the other man. ‘That’s all that’s left, I’m afraid. Vasha’s got some more, I think, if you need them. But be careful.’
‘You’re telling me to be careful?’ Caught with her in the warm circle of lamp light the young man emphasized the pronouns very slightly, and smiled, easy and mocking. Valentina’s own answering smile flashed like a gleam of sunlight in the shadowed room. The small moment of intimacy set Sasha’s teeth on edge. He forced his hands, which had bunched into fists at his side, to relax; found a moment to reflect that lately his reactions were too swift, too violent. He pushed from him the sudden recollection of Margarita’s rigid, frightened face.
‘You’ll do as we suggested then?’ The young man was insistent.
Valentina nodded, the smile still lingering. ‘Yes.’
‘You promise?’ His relief was obvious.
‘I promise.’
‘When? When will you come?’
She hesitated only for a moment. Her dark glance flicked to Sasha and away. ‘Tomorrow. If you really think it’s necessary.’
‘I do. We all do.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘Then all right, I’ll come. I promise,’ Valentina said, gently.
‘Right.’ The young man hunched his shoulders, shoved his hands into his pockets, sent a sudden glowering glance at Sasha.
Valentina stepped across to him and kissed his cheek, lightly. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Lev. I promise.’
He growled something and turned. She escorted him to the door. Sasha heard the murmur of conversation, Lev’s voice still sharp and unhappy, Valentina’s reassuring. There was a moment’s silence that could only have been a kiss, then the door shut and Valentina moved once more back into the pool of light cast by the lamp.
She leaned her two hands upon the battered table that stood between them and watched him, levelly, for a very long time.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last, suddenly uncertain, ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
‘No.’ Her voice was very quiet. ‘You shouldn’t.’ She was not smiling. Her sharp, intelligent face was drawn taut with something that for a moment he mistook for anger.
‘I – had to see you.’ Stupid, empty words. Hands spread helplessly before him he stepped forward, into the circle of light.
She moved as he did, was around the table and into his arms almost before he had taken that first step. If anything her grip was fiercer than his, her mouth wilder and more demanding. He wrapped long arms about her, folding her tightly to him, feeling the moulding of her body to his; knowing its surrender and its needs. They murmured to each other; silly, meaningless words that bore no relationship whatsoever to the fierce greed of their bodies. They coupled there, standing up, awkward, with her skirts about her waist and his trousers kicked about his feet; whose hands had unfastened which hook, which button, tugged at which tape or belt, neither could have said. They laughed then in real amusement, each pulling the other towards the comparative comfort of the couch, tumbling onto its sagging length, laughing again aloud at its protests, wrapping arms and legs about each other as if in this tangle of limbs they could find safety for their love.
But, of course, they could not.
Later, naked and lying together, they were quiet.
Valentina lifted a tousled brown head. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘A concoction of Lev’s?’
‘Vodka. The real thing. Though yes,’ she hesitated, lifted a bare shoulder, ‘Lev brings it.’
‘Good for Lev. You’re sure he didn’t make it himself?’
‘I’m sure.’ She climbed over him, fought off his hands with a grin, stood tall and naked in the lamp light. ‘Not that he couldn’t. Lev can do most things.’
‘Is that right?’
‘That’s right.’ The words were calm. She moved about the room collecting glasses and a bottle, came back to the couch, settled down upon the floor beside him.
‘So.’ He could not quite keep the edge from his voice. ‘Just who is Lev?’
She paused in the pouring of the drinks. Lifted her eyes to his. ‘A friend,’ she said, simply. ‘An old friend and a good one.’
‘A very good one?’
Her eyes were unwavering. ‘A very good friend indeed. How’s your wife?’
For a startled moment he was silent. Then, in response to her grin he laughed. ‘Well. But not as versatile as is your Lev.’
‘I wouldn’t expect her to be.’ She was collected, containing her laughter. ‘Not many people are.’ She toasted him, eyes sparkling wickedly. ‘Drink up. You won’t get better than this out of the Tsar’s own cellars.’
He allowed his own eyes to widen. ‘That’s where it comes from?’
‘That’s where it comes from.’
He did not know whether to believe her or not. He sipped the liquor. It was fiery and aromatic and exploded halfway down his throat like a bomb.
‘That’s not the way you’re supposed to drink it,’ she said. Naked, she was sitting back on her heels watching him with eyes that made no attempt to hide their hunger, their pleasure at the sight of him. ‘Even I know that.’
He leaned onto his elbow, clinked his glass with hers. ‘Go on, then. Show me.’
She laughed, a small explosion of sound. ‘I can’t! I’d choke to death!’
‘What kind of a man are you?’ Easily he tilted his head, tossed the vodka down in one draught. Threw himself back, arms spread, in mock ecstasy.
Before he could move she was over him, the short, swinging hair brushing her cheeks and his, her long-fingered, rough hands pinioning his arms. Very, very slowly she lowered her mouth to his. Kissed him, lightly. Ran her tongue swiftly along his lower lip. The tips of her breasts brushed his body. ‘Would you like another?’ she asked, politely.
‘Yes. Please.’
‘Now? Or later?’
‘Later,’ he said.
Her mouth tasted sweetly of vodka; they laughed at first, and wrestled like children. But it ended – as between them, sooner or later, it was bound to end – in tears.
‘Don’t!’ he said, kissing her, rubbing his own cheek against hers. ‘Don’t cry. Please.’
‘I’m not.’
‘It’s raining, then.’
‘Yes.’ She pushed him from her. ‘It’s raining. The Tsar would like to know if you’d like another glass of his vodka?’
He thought for a moment, head cocked. ‘Please convey my respects to His Imperial Majesty and inform him there’s nothing I’d like better.’
She turned a tear-drenched, innocent smile upon him, bright as a rainbow. ‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing I could manage at this particular moment.’
They wrapped themselves in blankets and applied themselves to the vodka. ‘I hope you don’t want to eat,’ she said. ‘I’ve nothing here, I’m afraid.’
He eyed her, speculatively. Grinned suddenly, teasing. ‘I could turn cannibal.’
She shuddered, shook her head in quick repulsion. ‘Don’t!’
Too late he remembered the stories; the starving villages, the flesh-sellers who moved through the forests. The endless cycle of famine, the awful recourse to human flesh. He put his arms about her. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right. It’s just – one of those things that –’ she hesitated, drew the blanket tighter about her body ‘– that repulses me. So very much.’
‘Yes. I know.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘No-one should have to suffer so,’ she said, her voice very low. ‘No-one!’
He’d never really thought of it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, they shouldn’t.’
She leaned her head against him. ‘I always think – what would I do? A starving child. A dying husband. The chance to feed them –’ She shuddered again. ‘Nothing changes, does it?
There’s no hope. It’s only luck. The worst of lotteries. Where you’re born. Who you’re born to. You in your pretty palace –’
He made a small, derisive sound.
‘– me to my enlightened, earnest –’ she hesitated for a moment, laughed ‘– grindingly boring family.’ It was the closest she had ever come, through all their meetings, to self-revelation. He lifted his head, looking at her, interested. She laid a hand upon his face and pushed him back. ‘It isn’t fair. It has to change.’
‘And you think you can change it?’
‘Yes.’ The word was sharp and unequivocal. She sipped her vodka, thoughtfully, held it in her mouth, savouring the warmth. Caught his eye upon her. Leaned forward, blanket slipping, to share it. ‘Yes,’ she said, a little later, as if there had been no interruption. ‘Sasha, surely you can see you can’t treat ninety per cent of the population like animals? All right – they aren’t, strictly, serfs any more. They aren’t actually owned like animals, as they used to be. But where’s the difference, truly? They have no say in their own affairs. They’re exploited to the gain of others. They have no hope and no future, neither for themselves nor for their children. They’re flogged and chained and murdered if they protest. They’re dying now like flies in a war that is none of their making –’
She stopped. Sasha, almost brushing her aside, had sat up, abruptly, the blanket falling from his pale shoulders. The long curve of his back looked oddly fragile. He reached for the bottle, poured himself a generous measure, tossed it back. ‘Isn’t everyone?’
She was too painfully attuned to him to miss the note in his voice. ‘Yes.’ She laid a hand and then a cheek upon his cool shoulder. ‘Yes. Of course. I know. I’m not belittling that. I’m sorry.’
‘You know?’ He closed his eyes for a long, agonized moment. ‘You know?’ he repeated, more softly, almost to himself.
In silence for a long moment she stayed, her head resting upon his tense shoulder. Then, ‘No,’ she said, softly, ‘of course I don’t know. Tell me.’ She waited. ‘Can you?’
It took a long and terrible time. They both cried, sometimes together, sometimes alone. He would not hear her urgent reassurances. ‘I’m a coward, Valentina. A craven. I can’t stand it. I don’t know what to do.’
She was holding him, stemming his tears with her fingers, with the palm of her hand. There was nothing she could say, and both of them knew it. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you. I love you.’
‘I ran away. I betrayed their trust. I’ll do it again. I know it.’
‘Perhaps –’ She stopped, helpless.
‘No.’
‘You don’t believe in what you’re doing,’ she said, staunchly.
He turned a quiet face to her. The burden had been eased, at least a little. ‘No. I don’t. But then, I don’t know what I do believe in. And if I did, I’d never have the courage to fight for it. I’m not like you.’
‘Nonsense. You stopped the Cossack horse. You saved my life.’
‘On impulse. Think yourself lucky I hadn’t time to think.’ His lips twitched, wryly. Then, in the dimming light, his face convulsed. ‘Suffering Jesus,’ he said, his voice suddenly dying as if in panic in his throat, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to go back.’
She held him, and they made love again, and then slept at last, sprawled and tangled uncomfortably together upon the creaking couch.
She woke him, whispering. ‘Sasha? Sasha!’
He moaned, shook his head, burrowed beneath the blanket.
‘Sasha! Wake up! It’s four o’clock!’
He mumbled something totally incomprehensible.
‘Sasha!’ She pushed him away from her, struggled to a sitting position. ‘Wake up, do! You have to go home! It’s four o’clock!’
He pushed himself upright, shaking his tousled head. ‘What?’
‘It’s four o’clock,’ she said patiently. ‘Presumably at some time or another you have to go home. Wouldn’t it be better to arrive before daylight? And I’m a working girl, you know. I can’t lie abed like the gentry.’ She laughed a little, but her heart was not in it.
He sat in silence, his head in his hands.
‘You have to go, my love,’ she said.
He dressed, hastily and awkwardly, by the light of a candle stub. She watched him in silence.
‘I can come again?’ he asked, urgently.
She shook her head. Looked at her spread hand, that was hardened and grained with dirt. ‘I won’t be here.’
He was beside her in a second, hands fierce on her shoulders. ‘What do you mean? What do you mean?’
‘I promised Lev. You heard. They think I’m in – some kind of danger. I’ve agreed to move. Tomorrow. To a – to a secret address.’
He looked at her, bewildered. ‘Secret from me?’
She said nothing.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, very quietly. Then, with more emphasis, ‘Valentina? What are you doing that’s so dangerous that you have to hide?’
It was a long time before she lifted her eyes to his. ‘It isn’t your business,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’m sorry, Sasha. But it’s true. It’s best you don’t know.’
‘You don’t trust me?’
She spread helpless hands. She was not too far from exhaustion.
‘I have only three more days. Before I –’ He took a small, sharp breath ‘– before I go back. You won’t let me see you in that time?’
Her expressive face showed every emotion. ‘How can I not?’ she asked, at last, through the tears that slipped tiredly down her face.
‘Where will you be?’
‘Don’t write it down,’ she said. ‘At least don’t do that. I’ll tell you. Memorize it. And don’t come tomorrow – oh, my love, it isn’t that I don’t want you to –’ he had made a quick, almost despairing gesture ‘– but believe me, I can’t. Thursday. Come Thursday. Come early, if you can. I’ll cook a meal. We’ll have the evening, and as much of the night as you can manage.’
‘Tell me the address,’ he said. ‘Tell me how to come to you.’
Margarita was asleep in the wide bed when he got home. Wearily, fully dressed, he settled onto the couch. When dawn came up he still lay there, open-eyed and sleepless.
‘Sasha?’
He turned his head. Margarita stood in the shadows by the door. Her voice was perfectly calm. Any trace of tears or distress was gone. ‘Come to bed, please. Petra will be here within the hour. We don’t want her to find you sleeping there, do we?’ She turned and left him.
He struggled to his feet, went into the bedroom. She turned her back as he began to undress. ‘Margarita,’ he said.
She shook her head, sharply. ‘No, Sasha. Don’t say anything. There’s no need. I don’t want to talk about what happened last night. In fact I absolutely won’t talk about it. I trust to your honour that you will never behave in such a manner again. Beyond that, there’s nothing to say. Now, I think perhaps you should get some sleep. We’re due at Aunt Zhenia’s for lunch at twelve.’
He endured the day. He endured Zhenia’s well-meant and solicitous but exhausting attentions, endured Varya’s pale, plump, demanding presence, endured Mischa’s back-slapping bonhomie.
‘A bad business, my boy, a bad business indeed. But you know what they say – it’s an ill wind that blows no good at all – there’s money to be made, there’s no denying that, good money to be made.’
And in his mind he found himself reciting, like a charm, the address Valentina had given him.
‘Poor Natalia – she’s taken it very badly, you know –’
He nodded. Said nothing. Across the room Margarita’s bright eyes watched him.
‘– gone completely to pieces. Strange, she always seemed such a capable girl – the kind to stand up against the worst –’
‘Dima had the worst,’ he found himself saying, his voice suddenly loud. ‘No matter what you think. No matter what you say. Dima had the worst.’
Flustered, Zhenia reached for a tray of cakes. ‘Why yes, of course. We realize that, Sasha my dear. Of course we do. Please, do have another of these – we were so very lucky to get the sugar.’
Sasha shook his head. ‘Thank you. No.’
‘I’ll have another of those, Zhenia dear.’ Varya’s small hand snatched the tray that her sister had been about to put back onto the table. ‘Though I must say I’ve tasted better. What a trial this war is.’ She appealed to her son-in-law, sulky-faced. ‘Nothing tastes the same as it used, does it? Absolutely nothing.’
They escaped at last. Walked in silence through the drab streets back to the apartment. There was a chill in the wind that came off the river. ‘The Melaknikovs sent a message,’ Margarita said, as they climbed the stairs to the front door. ‘They have a table at the P’tit Chat tonight. They asked us to join them.’
He said nothing.
‘I said yes.’ Every line of her body was tense. Her mouth was set in an unhappy line.
He shrugged. ‘All right.’
She glanced at him. ‘You haven’t any other plans?’ She pulled a small, bitter face. ‘I shouldn’t like to disrupt them if you have.’
He turned to face her. ‘Tomorrow,’ he found himself saying. ‘I have other plans for tomorrow. A friend from before the war – I met him last night – he lost a leg at Tannenberg.’
She stared at him, through level, narrowed eyes.
He forced himself on. Why, oh why was he lying? To protect himself ? To protect Valentina? Even in some strange way to protect Margarita herself ? Or was it simply a habit into which he had fallen and from which he could not extricate himself ? He did not know. ‘We got drunk together. We thought we might do it again tomorrow.’
‘How nice for you.’ Her voice was very cold.
He helped her from her cloak, handed it to the silent Petra who had appeared from the kitchen.
She turned a cool shoulder. ‘Your suit needs brushing before you put it on,’ she said. ‘I left it on the floor for rather a long time last night.’
He fled to Valentina the following night; he had been able to think of nothing and no-one else all day. Even the thought of his imminent return to the Front was swamped by his need to see her. For the first time he wished the hours away, even though he knew that each fleeting minute took him closer to the nightmare that awaited him in Riga.
Margarita made no comment, no protest. She was sitting upon a low chair, skirts spread gracefully about her, the toy theatre upon a table in front of her, apparently absorbed in some project entirely her own. To his surprise she even lifted a cool, careless cheek to be kissed as he left, her eyes still upon the bright little scene before her. ‘Do be careful, Sasha dear. Don’t get too drunk.’
‘I won’t.’ In his urgency there was no place for shame. He kissed her, picked up his jacket, ran swiftly down the stairs to the front door.
He did not see, as he stepped into the street, the urchin who emerged from the shadows behind him, a very shadow himself – Sasha’s shadow – who, with Margarita’s roubles in his pockets and more promised, followed unobtrusively in his every footstep.
Some days later, as Sasha’s train sped south carrying him back to the fields of death, an uncomfortable meeting took place in a small and dingy office in the Ministry of the Interior.
‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’
The small, shabbily-dressed man who stood before the desk of Pavel Petrovich Donovalov moved uneasily from foot to foot. ‘Just gone, Pavel Petrovich. The bitch has disappeared.’
Lenka’s husband steepled his fingers. His desk was very tidy; he was obsessive about it. Papers were stacked in militarily precise piles, trays were set exactly at right angles to the edges of the desk, pencils and pens were ranged as if on parade. He lifted his eyes.
The other man, flinching a little, looked away. ‘I’m sorry, Pavel Petrovich. I didn’t realize it was that important. There are so many jobs on the go at the moment.’ His voice was as aggrieved as he dared to make it.
‘And every one of them –’ Donovalov’s voice was chill as he interrupted ‘– every single one of them is important. You fool, Kutya!’
‘Yes, Pavel Petrovich.’
‘Damned subversives!’ Donovalov’s voice was low. He banged the desk with the heel of his hand. The man Kutya jumped, blinking. ‘With their bloody committees, their troublemaking. Trouble? I’ll give them trouble! We’re at war, Kutya.’ His voice was still quiet. Kutya sweated under the malevolence of the other man’s eyes. ‘These are traitors. Death is what they deserve. Death is what will come to them. But not if bloody incompetents like you bungle every sodding job you’re given!’ The words were not loud, yet the blistering rancour of them brought a sheen of sweat to the small man’s face.
‘Yes, Pavel Petrovich. I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? You’re sorry? You lose our only lead to the Barjov Group – a lead we’ve been nursing for months, no, years – to a group that now, only now, is coming out into the open with its filthy subversions – and you’re – sorry?’
‘Yes, Pavel Petrovich.’ The words were barely audible.
There was a long silence. Donovalov’s level eyes did not blink as he surveyed the other man. Then, ‘Get out,’ he said, disgustedly. ‘Send Salkov in.’
‘Yes, Pavel Petrovich.’ Shaking with relief and sick with hatred the small man scurried to the door. There he stopped. ‘Oh – one thing, Pavel Petrovich?’
Donovalov raised weary eyes from the piece of paper he had picked up. ‘What is it? You need the lavatory?’
‘No, Pavel Petrovich. It’s just – I forgot to say – the man turned up. You know? The one you were interested in. Tall, dark, a scar on his face –’
Donovalov had stilled absolutely. His eyes sharpened. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh yes, I’m sure. I saw him myself. It was the day before –’ he swallowed ‘– the day before the bitch went to ground.’
It was so long before the man at the desk reacted that Kutya, shrugging a little, left the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
‘Was it indeed?’ Donovalov asked the silence, thoughtfully. ‘Was it – indeed?’