'Spasibo, my friend,' he said softly and Sofia was jealous of the deep affection in his voice. Without looking round he asked, as though it were unimportant, 'Did you get my letter?'

'What letter?'

'I gave a letter to Zenia to deliver to you. I knew I wouldn't be back until late tonight because I had to finish writing a report. Didn't you receive it, the letter?' He swung round and gazed intently at her face.

'No. I came here straight from working in the fields.'

'Oh, Sofia!'

She didn't know what he meant by that. A bat dipped close to their heads as though listening in on their conversation, before swooping up over the grey outline of the stable roof and disappearing into the darkness. The freedom of its movement suddenly galled Sofia. She felt a spike of anger at Mikhail, who seemed to possess that same freedom, able to travel anywhere, but considered it too inconsequential to mention.

That was when she said, 'Why didn't you tell me?'

Now he was looking at her as if expecting a response, but a response to what? She had the feeling she was missing something here, something big. Mikhail opened his mouth to speak, but just then the horse stamped its foot impatiently and instead he gathered the reins in his hand.

'Come on, my midnight wanderer.'

Sofia didn't know if he was talking to her or the horse, but was content when together they left the yard and walked into the sweet-scented stable where she lit an oil lamp. Mikhail unsaddled Zvezda and started brushing him down with long soothing strokes. Sofia filled the water bucket and hay net. They worked in companionable silence, except for Mikhail's low murmurs to the horse, and Sofia enjoyed the ordinariness of working alongside him; it gave her a sense of satisfaction she hadn't expected. When eventually he blew out the lamp, they retraced their steps into the yard. She was taken by surprise when he stopped by the trough where she had been sitting earlier.

'You must be cold after waiting so long.'

He took up his jacket and draped it over her thin blouse, his hands lingering on her shoulders. She could smell the scent of him wrapped around her body and it released some of the tension from her skin.

'Tell me what was in the letter, Mikhail.'

'I'm not sure that you'll want to hear this.'

'Try me.'

'It's about tomorrow.'

Her stomach tightened. 'You're going to Leningrad.' Her voice sounded flat.

'Yes, I am.'

'Weren't you going to say goodbye? Or is that what the letter was for?'

'If you haven't yet read my letter, how did you know I was leaving?'

'Pyotr told me.'

'Ah yes, Pyotr. The boy is unhappy at being left behind in Tivil.'

She stared at him aghast. His face lay in deep shadow.

'You're abandoning your son?'

There was an odd little pause, a kind of blink in time, then Mikhail placed a hand on her arm and shook it hard. The movement shocked her, as did his rough laugh.

'So you think me a deserter,' he said.

She had offended him.

'Yes.'

'The boy will survive.'

'I'm sure he will.'

But will I?

'The delegations meet for only a few days.'

'Delegations?'

'Yes. It's the summons to report to the Committee of Soviet Production and Distribution. An annual ch.o.r.e that . . .' He stopped, removed his hand from her arm and stepped back. One half of his face slid into the moonlight and she could see that his cheek muscle was taut. 'You thought I was going away for ever,' he said quietly. 'Didn't you?'

She nodded.

'You thought I was going off permanently to the bright city to enjoy myself without my son and without saying goodbye . . . to you.'

Sofia ducked her chin to her chest miserably and nodded again. Then the fact that Mikhail was coming back to Tivil in just a few days sank in and got the better of her. She looked up at him with a wide grin.

'It wasn't your going away that I minded. It was that I wouldn't get to ride on Zvezda any more. I'd have to walk all the way to Dagorsk.'

He threw back his head and laughed, and the unfettered joy of it made her blood pulse. A sudden gust of wind played with his hair as if it would laugh with him. Sofia wanted to touch the long line of his throat with her fingers to feel the vibration inside it.

'Come,' he said.

He drew her arm through his, heading out of the courtyard and down the slope towards the silent village. Walking with him at night felt secretive and involving, as though the darkness belonged just to them. She breathed deeply, the rich damp odour of the black earth bringing a sense of belonging into the empty corners of her mind. Her fingers rested on his forearm.

'Shall I tell you a story?' he asked.

'If it's a funny one. I'm in the mood to laugh.'

'I think this one will amuse you.'

She lengthened her stride to his. On either side, cabbages looked like s.h.a.ggy grey chickens roosting for the night.

'Tell me,' she said.

'Well, you recall the steep flight of stairs up to my office at the factory?'

'Yes.'

He chuckled and she found herself smiling in antic.i.p.ation.

'My a.s.sistant, Sukov - remember the cheeky b.a.s.t.a.r.d who brought us our tea this morning? - he fell down them today. All the way from top to bottom and broke his leg in two places.'

Sofia halted and stared at his delighted smile. 'What is remotely funny about that?'

Mikhail's smile widened, but his eyes were dark and serious. 'He was coming to Leningrad with me in the morning. Now it means there's a train seat and a travel ticket going spare.'

The river gleamed like polished steel in the moonlight. Sofia waded into it, naked. Even the touch of the chill water on her skin couldn't cool the heat in her blood.

One week with Mikhail. She was to have one whole week. Just the two of them. It was more than she'd ever dared hope for, much more. Just the thought of it set her heart drumming in her chest and she gazed up at the dazzling array of stars above, as if they'd been put there tonight just for her. She laughed out loud. The happiness wouldn't stay inside, it just bubbled out into the silent night. She splashed a spray of water up towards the stars and laughed again when she heard a plop in the water where some night creature took fright at her antics.

Sleep had been impossible. She could no more close her eyes than she could close her heart, so she had come down to the river, alone and unseen, and washed away the dust of the fields from her limbs.

Anna, are you looking at this same moon? These same stars? Waiting for me. Oh Anna, I'm coming, I promise. Hold on. I'll know. By the end of this week together I'll know if I can ask him to help. Your Vasily. She hesitated, then spoke the words aloud this time so that her ears would have to hear them.

'Your Vasily. Don't hate me, Anna. It's for you. I swear it's for you.' Vasily. Don't hate me, Anna. It's for you. I swear it's for you.'

She plunged under the surface of the water, a cold black world where it was impossible to tell which way was up and which way was down.

A shadow, among many shadows. The night was full of them: the swaying of branches in the breeze, white drifts of mist rising to swallow the paths, a fox or a vole scampering on its nocturnal run. But still she saw the shadow.

She was dressed and standing on the river bank when the narrow track across the river changed fleetingly from silver to black, then again further along. Instantly she was alert and retreated into the overhanging curtain of a willow tree. From there she watched the shadow and quickly made out that it was a man, and that he was walking away from her. The moonlight painted the back of his head and sketched his long limbs, and for one breathless moment Sofia thought it was Mikhail come to seek her out. But then a wisp of light caught the long back of the ghost-dog at the shadow's side and she realised it was Aleksei Fomenko with his hound.

Fomenko? What was the Chairman doing prowling the night? From behind the feathery veil of willow leaves she observed them, the way they strode along the wooded track without hesitation. Both man and animal knew the way.

The way to where?

There was just enough breeze to rustle the night. It shuffled the leaves and sighed among the branches, just enough to hide the brush of her skirt on a thorn or the crack of a twig underfoot as she followed them.

The dog worried her. The animal's ears were sharp, but it seemed intent only on what lay ahead. Sofia stayed a good distance behind them, concentrating hard on the small sounds of their movement to guide her through the forest. They were tracking up over the ridge and her mind raced for an answer to explain Fomenko's surprising night-time wanderings.

A lover? In the next valley?

It was possible. She'd heard no mention of any woman in his life. The idea of this self-controlled man losing himself to such an extent appealed to her, his desires getting the better of his quotas. That thought made her smile and quicken her pace. Around her the forest grew darker, the trees denser, denying the moon anything more than a trickle of its pale light through the thick canopy of foliage. The path beneath her feet became steeper as they pa.s.sed from valley to valley and then higher into the mountains, and still the man and dog pushed on. Sofia's pulse began to quicken. Thoughts flickered in her head. Moths fluttered against her face.

The dog whined as its claws scrabbled up a gulley. The sound of it was so familiar it made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She became convinced she knew where they were heading.

The hut.

It was strange to be in the clearing again. So much had changed for her in the last few days, yet here everything seemed the same. The hut still leaned like an old man and the boughs of the fallen tree still lay white as dead bones in the moonlight, but Sofia didn't venture among them. Instead she sheltered in the undergrowth, tight against a tree trunk, and watched a flame flare into life in the small window of the hut after Fomenko had entered with the dog.

Was he meeting someone?

That time when she hid down by the stream and came back to find the two men in the hut and the horse outside, she was sure now that it had been Fomenko and that the dog had been Hope. But this time there was no other man. This time he was on his own, alone and secretive. Secrets always meant weakness. Know your enemy. Know his weakness. She listened to the sounds of the night, eyes fixed on the yellow rectangle of the window, but a sudden snort right behind her made her leap from her position. Her blood raced. She swung round but could make out nothing among the black shapes of the forest.

A person? A moose? Even a bear?

d.a.m.n it, she wasn't waiting to be clawed to death. Ducking low, she crept out into the clearing, aware that she was now visible to watchful eyes. She moved silently to the window and with caution peered in at one corner, but she needn't have worried. Aleksei Fomenko was kneeling on the dusty floor, totally engrossed. His long back in the familiar work shirt was angled towards her, but she could just see that he was bent over a hole in the flooring. A hole? She hadn't noticed one when she slept here. It was explained by the sight of two wooden planks lying to one side, the floorboards, and next to them a candle, its flame casting uncertain light round the room. Sofia eased further along the window frame and over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of what was holding his attention so seriously. A khaki-green square object. It took her a moment to recognise it for what it was A two-way radio, all dials and pointers and k.n.o.bs. A sudden burst of static took her by surprise and she ducked down below the sill, her breath raw in her throat. A secret radio. Why did the Chairman need a secret radio?

As she crouched low to the earth, her mind struggled to find an explanation. Was it to connect him directly to OGPU, to give him a direct line to the secret police where he could betray the secrets of his kolkhozniki kolkhozniki in private? But what was wrong with the office telephone? Did this radio bypa.s.s the normal channels and take him straight to the man at the top? She shook her head. No, she told herself, don't get carried away. Probably just a secret lover crooning sweet-talk in his ear. She decided to risk another glimpse and slid up slowly till her eyes were again on a level with the cobwebbed gla.s.s. This time she took in more of what was in front of her: the stillness of Fomenko's powerful shoulders, the earphones on his head, the mouthpiece he was murmuring into, the notebook open at his side and covered with lines of dense writing. in private? But what was wrong with the office telephone? Did this radio bypa.s.s the normal channels and take him straight to the man at the top? She shook her head. No, she told herself, don't get carried away. Probably just a secret lover crooning sweet-talk in his ear. She decided to risk another glimpse and slid up slowly till her eyes were again on a level with the cobwebbed gla.s.s. This time she took in more of what was in front of her: the stillness of Fomenko's powerful shoulders, the earphones on his head, the mouthpiece he was murmuring into, the notebook open at his side and covered with lines of dense writing.

Why on earth would he need notes for a lover?

With a small sense of shock she became aware of the dog. It was stretched out on the floor, licking dirt from one paw with long sweeps of its tongue, but abruptly it stopped. Its head lifted, eyes and ears alert. It gazed at the closed door and, making no sound, it raised its lips to show its teeth in a silent snarl. Sofia didn't know what its quick ears had picked up but she wasn't going to hang around to find out. She pushed herself away from the hut and raced away back down the track to Tivil.

32.

Davinsky Camp July 1933

After the business with the cat, Anna lay awake, propped upright against the damp wood of the hut wall to ease her breathing. Beside her on the bed board lay a squat, nervy woman, who spent every waking hour angry and resentful to the point where she could barely sleep at night. She lay on her side staring wide-eyed at the degraded world inside the hut, hating it with a pa.s.sion that was killing her.

Anna didn't want to be like that. She didn't want to hate until that was all that was left inside her. She'd seen it again and again, the way prisoners died from hate, and she tried to spit its insidious bitter taste from her mouth, but sometimes it was hard. Especially without Sofia to make her laugh. She missed Sofia.

Ever since the cat she had missed Sofia even more. Sofia would have known how to rid her head of the images that swarmed inside it. It was that stupid cat's fault, scratching Tasha's hand like that. Because now that Anna had let that terrible day back into her head, it settled there, gnawing at her and refusing to go away. Even as she hacked away at the branches all day in the forest, trying to block her mind with thoughts of the futile arrogance of the guards or the fragrance of the pine sap, the memory sank its powerful teeth into her and kept dragging her back to Petrograd and that cold winter of 1917.

She had became a shadow after her father died in the snow, no longer a person, just a twelve-year-old shadow inside a cramped and stuffy apartment that belonged to Maria's brother, Sergei, and his wife, Irina. Her skin turned grey, she rarely spoke and only picked at the barest crumbs of food. But she learned to call Maria Mama Mama and she wore a plain brown peasant dress without complaint and ate black bread instead of white. At night she shared Maria's narrow cot and spent the hours of darkness lying obediently on the sour-smelling mattress. She never seemed to close her eyes. They had changed from their bright cornflower blue to a dull muddy colour that matched the winter gloom of the River Neva. Yet still she wouldn't cry. and she wore a plain brown peasant dress without complaint and ate black bread instead of white. At night she shared Maria's narrow cot and spent the hours of darkness lying obediently on the sour-smelling mattress. She never seemed to close her eyes. They had changed from their bright cornflower blue to a dull muddy colour that matched the winter gloom of the River Neva. Yet still she wouldn't cry.

'It's not natural,' Irina said in a low voice. 'Her father has just died. Why doesn't she cry?'

'Give her time,' Maria murmured to her sister-in-law as she ran a hand over the silky blonde head. 'She's still too shocked.'

'A shock is what that girl needs,' Irina said and mimed a quick little slap with her hand. 'It's like having a corpse in the house.' She shivered dramatically. 'The child gives Sergei and me the creeps, she does. How you can sleep with her in your bed, I don't know.'

'Irina, please. She's silent but she's not deaf.'

'No, you're not deaf are you, Anna? Just wilful. Well, child, it's time to snap out of it and give your poor Maria a chance to get on with her own life. She's starting a new job tomorrow and can't spend time fretting about you.'