‘Well, I do believe it’s young Lydia Ivanova,’ Antonina said. ‘The girl from the train.’

The words came out with a slight mocking edge but she extended a hand with what looked like genuine warmth. Lydia shook it, aware of the long white evening glove that covered the woman’s arm all the way to above her elbow.


‘Dmitri, darling, would you be an angel and fetch me a drink? And a glass of something for our young friend here. She looks as though she needs it.’

‘It would be my pleasure, Antonina,’ her husband said, taking her hand and kissing the back of the glove. Lydia was aware that something passed between them but she couldn’t make out what.

His tall figure disappeared into the crowd and Antonina drew Lydia aside, settling herself at one of the tables and slotting a cigarette into an ivory cigarette holder. Instantly a passing waiter lit it for her and she delayed speaking until he had moved away.

‘So,’ she said. Her deep-set eyes had shed their amusement. ‘My husband has been entertaining you, I see.’

‘No. He’s helping me.’

‘Oh?’

‘To find someone.’

‘Ah, that’s right. Your long lost half-brother, I assume.’

‘Alexei?’

‘Yes.’ Antonina registered Lydia’s expression of surprise. ‘Isn’t that who you mean?’

‘How do you know Alexei?’

‘I met him in Felanka. After you’d left. He was looking for you.’

In Felanka. After you’d left. Looking for you. Lydia clasped her hands together on her lap to stop them banging in fury on the table. All these weeks she’d believed Alexei had deserted her. When all the time the truth was that she’d walked out on him. She could hear a noise, an odd rasping sound, and it took a moment for her to realise it was her own breathing.

‘Are you all right?’ Antonina was leaning across the table, one white-gloved hand stretched out, but she cast a wary glance round the room. ‘Take care.’ She waited quietly while Lydia struggled for control. ‘Can I help?’

‘I… didn’t know.’

‘That he came back for you?’

Lydia ducked her head, her hair falling across her face. She tugged at a lock of it. ‘How was he?’ she whispered.

‘Alexei?’ Antonina took a long drag on the ivory holder and let smoke coil from her nose like a waking dragon. ‘Not in good shape, I’m afraid.’

‘Why?’

‘He’d been beaten up.’ She hesitated and something caught in her throat when she added, ‘Stabbed.’

Lydia refused to cry. ‘Was he badly hurt?’

‘The wound was healing, so don’t worry. But it must have been bad at first.’ Again that catch in her voice.

‘Did he receive my letter?’

‘What letter? I’m sorry, I know nothing about a letter.’

Lydia stared down at her own hands in her lap and shook her head.

‘Listen to me, Lydia.’ Antonina spoke fast, checking that no one was near. ‘I went to Felanka to find you, but you’d disappeared. I had the information you wanted. I told Alexei that Jens Friis had been transferred to Moscow. But,’ she flicked ash thoughtfully into a silver ashtray, ‘you obviously already know that and that’s why you’re here, I presume. You must have discovered he’s been moved out of Trovitsk camp.’

Lydia nodded.

‘Clever of you,’ Antonina murmured.

‘Where is Alexei now?’

‘I don’t know. I wish to God I did.’

It was the way she said it, rather than the words themselves. As if they hurt her. Enough to draw Lydia ’s attention from her own despair and focus it on her companion. She looked lovely. Cool and elegant with bare, fragile shoulders and a single strand of pearls around her long pale neck. Her face looked calm, serene as a doll’s, and it seemed to Lydia that this woman had learned to construct a hard shell between herself and the world that her husband was so convinced would one day be the Mecca of mankind’s happiness. Her eyes were cool and secretive but only her full carmine mouth gave her away. One small corner of it trembled beyond her control when she mentioned Lydia’s brother.

Lydia lifted her hand and hesitantly placed it on the white-gloved one where it lay on the table. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said in a low voice.

‘Nothing much. We met in Felanka… we talked. Then he left.’

‘To come to Moscow?’

‘That’s what he said. Something about having to go to the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer.’

‘I know Alexei. If that’s what he said, he will get here even if he has to drag himself by his fingernails.’

‘Really?’

One word. That’s all. But the unguarded eagerness in it told Lydia everything. So that was it, her brother and Antonina. It made her own loneliness even sharper, but she nodded and squeezed the hand under hers. ‘He’ll come. I know he’ll come.’

‘You’ll tell me when-’

‘Yes, of course.’

Lydia was aware of Dmitri’s tall figure approaching their table. So this was the man who for the last few years had controlled the brutal camp where her father was imprisoned. How could she bring herself to speak to him? How could she bear even to look at him?

‘Here you are, my darling,’ Dmitri said as he placed a glass of red wine in front of his wife. ‘And for you, young Lydia, a glass of champagne.’

‘Champagne,’ she said stiffly.

‘Yes. To celebrate.’

‘What am I celebrating?’

He studied her face for a moment and his expression struck her as sad, as if he knew he’d lost something. ‘The Chinese delegation has arrived.’

Lydia rose to her feet, her legs suddenly clumsy. She looked around the crowded room and made it seem as if it meant nothing to her. ‘Where are they?’

‘Some of them are over there with General Vasiliev. The others are…’

Antonina’s eyes widened as she focused on something over Lydia’s right shoulder. Lydia’s mouth went dry.

‘Behind you,’ Dmitri finished.

Lydia spun round, expecting Kuan. Her breathing stopped. Her heart split open. All the happiness stored inside it flooded through her veins. She was looking straight into the beautiful dark eyes of Chang An Lo.


There are times, Lydia knew, when life gives you more than you ask for. Oh yes, this was one. She wanted to shout a thousand spasibos to all his gods, to make it echo from the glass roof. Their abundant generosity took her breath away. She’d asked for Kuan tonight, but instead she was given Chang An Lo.

He was real. Not a figment this time. Her eyes feasted greedily on him. His lithe figure was tall and supple as a bamboo tree, his black hair longer than she’d seen it before but just as thick and energetic. And yes, he possessed that same stillness at his core that pulled at her heart. But his eyes… the eyes she’d kissed and bathed and even brushed with her own lashes, dark and intent and able to see right inside her soul… those black eyes had changed. They were more guarded and aloof. Withdrawn into himself.

He stood in front of her in a tunic and black trousers and she wanted to touch him so badly her hands were shaking. She forced them together in front of her and performed a polite bow of greeting.

‘It is good to see you again, Chang An Lo.’

Good to see you. How did she find such restrained words on her tongue? How did she speak at all when her heart was thundering in her throat? And that was when he presented Kuan to the gathering and Lydia felt something crack inside her. Kuan, dressed in a similar black tunic and trousers, possessed solemn brown eyes, hair cropped to jaw level and a determined, capable mouth that made Lydia wary. But worse – far, far worse – she possessed a piece of Chang An Lo. Her arm rested against his as if their flesh was fused.

30

Chang An Lo thanked the gods. He wanted to drop to his knees and touch his forehead to the floor nine times in gratitude to them for granting him the impossible. His fox girl was safe. Alive and safe.

Yet as he observed the two people standing either side of her, the man with the fox hair and the woman with the wounded eyes, he had a sense that they were gnawing at her, wanting a piece of her. It was in the way their glances kept skimming her, reluctant to leave her, a hunger in their eyes that she seemed unaware of.

He bowed respectfully in Chinese custom to Lydia, but shook hands with the man and the woman in the expected manner. For the first time he understood why Westerners chose to shake hands on meeting instead of the cleaner and more civilised habit of bowing to each other. A handshake reveals the secrets of a man’s heart whether he wishes it or not. This man with the fox pelt and the wolf’s eyes had a handshake that was firm, too firm. He was trying to prove something to himself. And to warn Chang off, even though his smile of welcome was so genuine Chang couldn’t spot where the fake began and the real one ended. This Russian, this Comrade Malofeyev, knew well how to control his smiles – but not his handshakes.

The woman was a different matter. Her hand rested so briefly in Chang’s it barely touched his skin, as meaningless as the casual look of detachment she gave him. She saw a Chinese, nothing more. But as his fingers brushed against her gloved ones, he could feel the tremor in them. Was it revulsion… or pain? He couldn’t tell. She hid it too well.

‘I am honoured to be in this great city,’ Chang said, ‘and my delegation humbly anticipates learning much from our Soviet comrades.’

He didn’t look again at Lydia. Wouldn’t let himself. Didn’t trust himself. Instead he introduced his two companions.

‘This is Hu Biao, my assistant.’

Hu Biao bowed low. ‘I am honoured.’

‘And this is Tang Kuan, my invaluable liaison officer.’

He heard Lydia’s breath. Faint as the beat of a butterfly’s wing but so tied to his own he could not mistake it.

Kuan neither bowed nor shook hands. She nodded her head in greeting and said in the perfect Russian he had taught her, ‘It is a privilege to be here in Moscow. It gives us all hope to see the impressive strides Communism has made in our comrades’ great country.’