‘A boy.’ A pause. ‘Born dead.’
Two women crossed themselves discretely, so guards wouldn’t notice.
‘Lucky fucking bastard,’ Tasha snapped. ‘Dead is better than-’
‘Shut up,’ Nina scolded, taking her place with a shrug of her broad shoulders beside Anna in the crocodile line. It used to be Sofia’s place. Whenever Anna stumbled or fell behind, Nina’s strong hand was there. ‘There’s a rumour going round,’ Nina said under her breath.
‘About what?’ Anna asked.
‘That we’re soon to be put to work constructing a stretch of railway.’ She picked off a fat scab on her arm and slipped it into her mouth for something to chew on.
‘The northern railway?’
Nina nodded and the two women exchanged a look.
‘They say,’ Anna murmured as they started marching, ‘that the railtrack has killed forty thousand this year already.’
Yet always more came, an unending river of prisoners carted across the country in cattle wagons. Each new arrival in the hut raised Anna’s hopes but each time she drew a blank.
‘Have you spoken to anyone called Sofia Morozova? In a transit camp? On a train? In a prison cell? ’
‘
Nyet
.’ Always the answer was ‘
Nyet ’.
Anna’s eyes travelled to the dense wall of copper-coloured tree trunks on either side of the road, a raw scar that raked its way through the forest to another godforsaken camp and then another and another. Was Sofia out there? Somewhere? She raised her face to the silvery summer sky. She tried to hear the words again: Anna, wait for me, but they had gone. She felt cold and the pain in her lungs sharpened. She coughed, wiped away the blood with her sleeve.
‘I can’t wait,’ she murmured.
One foot. Then the other. And the first one again, left right, left right, keep them moving. A brief summer storm had passed, leaving the evening sky pale and drained, much like the snaking trail of women beneath it. The pine trees stood like stiff green sentinels along the track as if in league with the guards.
One foot. Then the other. Don’t let them stop.
The ground was soft with pine needles, the path worn into deep ruts by the daily tramp of hundreds of feet as they marched to and from the Work Zone. Only occasionally did the women catch a glimpse of a lone wolf among the shadows or hear the blood-chilling calls of a hunting pack like ghosts in the forest. That was when the guards’ rifles suddenly became a source of comfort rather than a threat.
It was during the hours that Anna spent walking – or shuffling, if she was being honest – that her mind would skid out of control. It slid from her grasp like a dog slips its collar and runs wild. Without Sofia to laugh at her stories, she no longer had the strength to keep her thoughts together and they raced around in places she didn’t always want to follow them to, colliding with each other.
At first, just separate moments started to skip into her mind, warm and vivid, like riding Papa’s high-stepping black horse whose coat shone like polished metal, and crowing with delight as her childish hands wrapped tight in the coarse black mane. Or her governess, Maria, standing in her second-best silk dress, the one that was the colour of red wine, and telling Papa that Anna couldn’t go out riding on his rounds with him today – he was a doctor – because of a sore throat. Papa’s face had fallen and he’d tickled her under her chin, telling her to get well quickly and calling her his sweet angel. He’d kissed her goodbye, his whiskers all prickly and smelling of fat cigars. Anna had once stolen one from the humidor in his study and shredded it to pieces in secret up in the attic to see if she could find whatever it was that made it smell so wonderful, but all she ended up with was a lap full of crinkly brown dust.
‘You’re smiling,’ Nina muttered beside her, pleased.
‘Tell me, Nina, do you ever think about your past?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘So what do you think about?’
Nina’s heavy features spread into a grin. ‘I think about sex. And when I’m too exhausted for that, I think about winning at cards.’
‘Last night I won that grimy piece of mirror off Tasha.’
‘Why on earth do you want a mirror? We all look awful.’
Anna nodded a time or two and watched a bright orange lizard, a
yasheritsa
, dart out of the path of their marching feet and flash up a tree with an angry flick of its tail.
‘I’m thinking of using it to burn the camp down one sunny day,’ she said.
Nina laughed so hard that a guard came over and stuck his rifle in her face.
But the images and memories crowded in on top of each other as Anna concentrated on pushing each foot forward, leaving her with no strength for defences against them. She forgot the dim forest trail and instead, inside the unpredictable labyrinth of her head, she was riding in the back of a luxurious black car.
***
It was a Daimler and it belonged to the Dyuzheyevs, bigger and shinier than Papa’s Oakland and with a glass partition, which didn’t squeak, between them and the chauffeur. Svetlana and Grigori Dyuzheyev were Papa’s dearest friends, wealthy aristocrats who lived in a magnificent villa in Petrograd.
‘Your pearls are beautiful.’
Svetlana Dyuzheyeva, a stylish and elegant woman, was delighted by the compliment. She ran a finger along the triple strand of matched pearls at her creamy throat.
‘Thank you, Anna. They used to belong to my mother and to her mother before that. Here,’ she lifted one of Anna’s fingers, ‘touch them.’
The pearls felt like silk, warm and alive, and smoother than her own skin. She couldn’t imagine how such beauty could come out of something as ugly as an oyster.
‘They’re wonderful,’ she murmured. ‘And one day Vasily will own them.’ She was thinking aloud, already afraid that he’d be stupid and use them to feed his fellow demonstrators. She couldn’t bear the idea of it.
Svetlana grinned mischievously, raised one eyebrow and leaned close to Anna’s ear. ‘Vasily… or his wife,’ she whispered.
To Anna’s horror she felt her cheeks start to burn. She turned away to hide her quiver of excitement and looked out of the other window. Maria, Anna’s governess, was sitting on the jump seat opposite Papa, in her very best dress of green watered silk and wearing her very best smile. Anna loved her governess, especially today because there had been no frowns, no scolding and no schoolwork. Instead Maria had played the piano for them all when Grigori tired of doing so and danced with Papa until even her nose glowed pink.
Afterwards there had been singing and champagne and wafer-thin squares of soft white bread piled high with glistening heaps of osyotr caviar. Now Papa was accompanying Svetlana and Grigori to the theatre, then the chauffeur would drive Anna and Maria home. Anna was perched between her father and Svetlana on the broad leather seat of the car. She had enjoyed the excitement of the day but was disappointed now that Vasily had vanished. He’d whispered to her that he had to meet a friend, but when she demanded, ‘To do what?’ his face had closed down and he’d given no answer.
‘Nikolai,’ Svetlana said, as though aware of Anna’s thoughts, ‘it was very naughty of my Vasily not to escort your daughter home tonight. I hope you’re not offended. He’s a bad boy.’ But she said it with a mother’s indulgent smile.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Papa said. ‘With his snow sleighs and dancing, your Vasily knows exactly how to please my daughter and therefore how to please me.’
He glanced out of the side window as they crawled nose to tail behind a queue of evening theatre traffic along Bolshaya Morskaya, the lights in the shops twinkling invitingly, reflecting off the black silk of the top hats. After a moment he looked back at Svetlana.
‘Where are they tonight?’
She gave an elegant shrug. ‘I don’t know. There’s an eight o’clock curfew.’
‘They’re in Palace Square,’ Maria said quietly. ‘Thousands of them. With placards and banners.’
‘Damned Leninists!’ Grigori growled.
Svetlana sighed. ‘What are they on strike for this time?’
‘They’re demanding bread, madam.’
Svetlana touched the pearls at her throat and made no comment, but the words had caused an abrupt change of mood in the car. Anna had the feeling that her feet were suddenly in ice water.
She hated to see Papa’s face so worried and to cheer him up she said, ‘Vasily says that everything will get better for the workers soon.’ She stuck out her arm to point to one of the shops they were just passing. ‘Vasily says that jewellery shops like that one will close because they are criminals.’
‘Criminals?’ Papa queried.
‘Yes, he says they are criminals to make fifty-two eggs of gold for the Tsarina and the Dowager Empress while the working man doesn’t even-’
‘Ah, I think Carl Fabergé may not agree with my son there,’ Grigori muttered grimly.
‘And Vasily says there are machine guns on rooftops to-’
‘Annochka,’ Svetlana said firmly, ‘you must not listen to everything my son tells you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because… he is like you,’ she wrapped an arm round Anna. ‘He still believes the world can be mended.’
‘Papa,’ Anna said seriously, ‘I believe we should do more to help some of these people Vasily says are without food or warm clothes. You and I have more than we need of both, you must admit. So we should share with them.’
Papa patted her knee in a forgiving sort of way that was extremely annoying. Grigori grunted and Maria smiled. But Svetlana laughed out loud and tightened her arm round Anna’s shoulders, so that the ostrich feathers that trimmed her midnight-blue velvet cloak tickled Anna’s nose, making her sneeze.
‘
Bud zdorova!
’ the adults chorused. ‘Bless you.’
Papa kissed her cheek. ‘Bless you, my dearest child. Bless you today, tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come.’
Anna stared out of the window at the chauffeured cars, nose to tail like polished elephants. ‘Will the Tsar be there tonight, Papa? Will it be very grand?’
Papa took a cigar from his silver case and rolled it between his fingers. ‘Grand is not a big enough word, my angel. Tonight the Alexandrinsky Theatre will drip with Grand Dukes and gold roubles and imperial magnificence just so that people like us can see a silly melodrama about love and death called
Masquerade.’
‘Nikolai,’ Svetlana murmured in faint rebuke.
Silently Papa lit his cigar, watched the first tendril of smoke swirl round the interior of the car, then fixed his gaze on Svetlana and Grigori.
‘My dearest friends,’ he said earnestly, ‘if anything should ever happen to me, will you take care of Anna?’
Anna’s mouth dropped open. Happen? What was going to happen to Papa?
‘Nikolai, my dear, don’t-’
‘Svetlana, please. Now that my brother is dead of diphtheria there is no one else. And in these uncertain times one never knows, so-’
Svetlana reached behind Anna and squeezed Papa’s shoulder. ‘It would be an honour. Rest easy, my friend. We love her dearly and would care for her as our own.’
‘
Spasibo
. Thank you.’ His voice was gruff.
Anna breathed carefully, unable to work out what was going on. She had a horrid fear that she had just been given away and didn’t like the sound of it. But Papa hadn’t finished. He turned to the governess.
‘And you, Maria. If anything should… happen, will you also care for my daughter?’
Anna stared in astonishment at her governess. There were sudden tears in her large brown eyes. She tried to blink them away but the streetlamp trickled its yellow light down her face.
‘I will,
Doktor
Fedorin. I love the child.’
‘Promise me.’
‘
Ya klyanus
. I swear it,
Doktor.’
Papa swallowed hard, then he reached up and removed the pin he always wore in his tie. For no more than a second he gazed at it, at the exquisite pair of diamonds set in gold, then he brushed his lips lightly over them.
Anna watched with wide eyes.
He leaned forward towards the governess on the opposite seat, lifted the lapel of her coat and slid the point of the tie-pin into the soft wool. But on the
underside
of the lapel. When he sat back once more, the tie-pin was no longer visible.
‘Nikolai,’ Svetlana said, so softly it was barely a word, ‘that pin was from Anna’s mother. Her wedding gift to you.’
‘What better protection can I offer?’
Whatever was going on here, Anna was determined to put a stop to it.
‘Papa,
ne boysya
, don’t be afraid. Nothing is going to happen to you. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.’ She gave him a wide grin and patted his strong arm. ‘You can rely on me. And Vasily.’
The streetlamps flicked past the car, painting bright stripes on the darkness. Odeen…
dva
… tri… Anna started to count them, one… two… three… but her eyes grew heavy and the lights too bright, so she let her eyelids drop shut and leaned her head against the warmth of Maria’s shoulder. The familiar smell of lavender and mothballs that drifted from Maria’s shawl was comforting.
The Dyuzheyev chauffeur was driving them home now that Papa, Grigori and Svetlana were gone. The Daimler turned left off Nevsky past the wide steps of St Isaac’s Cathedral and under the lime trees. Anna drifted further into the billowing darkness that marks the edge of sleep. When the car slowed down she barely noticed, but she felt Maria stiffen and heard the shout of alarm from the chauffeur. She opened her eyes and suddenly there were faces all around them, looming out of the black street. Noses jammed against the glass, hands drumming a threat on the metalwork, mouths snarling, teeth bared.
Wolves. They were wolves. Wolves in cloth caps and thick scarves. Wolves howling words she couldn’t understand, but she did know they wanted to tear her limb from limb. The car rocked on its wheels. Beside her Maria screamed, then the big car lurched forward, the engine growling, and the faces were gone. The tall houses whipped past as if in a race. Anna felt her heart on fire in her chest. Maria was breathing hard.