‘With you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Out here?’
‘Yes.’
His face looked as if she’d just asked him to jump into the honey wagon. ‘I think not. You are too young.’
She was stung. ‘Or is it that you are too old?’ she retorted and started to dance on her own again as if oblivious to his presence.
Round and round in dizzying circles, but it annoyed her that Alexei Serov didn’t have the courtesy to leave. She kept her eyes half closed and would not look at him, blanking him out and letting Chang take her into his arms instead, as she floated on the faint breeze and her body swayed and twirled from one end of the terrace to the other. The rhythm of the music seemed to beat inside her blood. Her breath came fast and she could feel her skin so alive it seemed to be aware of every touch of the night dew and each shiver of a moth’s wings as it fluttered toward the circle of light.
‘Ya tebya iskala, Alexei.’
Lydia stopped, her mind still spinning. A young woman was standing beside Alexei Serov, holding a glass of red wine in each hand and speaking words Lydia could not understand. Her straight blond hair was shaped into a neat corn-coloured cap and she wore a modern dress that stopped just below the knee like Lydia’s own, but this young woman’s was beaded all over in vivid blues, a Paris dress, a fashion-house dress. It emphasised the blue of her eyes, which right now were focused with surprise on Lydia. The moment was over. Lydia treated the pair to what was meant to be a gracious nod of the head and walked past them with chin high. They were murmuring to each other in Russian but as Lydia re-entered the ballroom, she heard Alexei Serov slip deliberately into English.
‘That girl is just like her father. He had a temper too. I once saw him throw his violin on the fire because he could not get the note he wanted from it.’
Lydia’s ears were burning. But she kept walking.
Chang An Lo watched her. From the damp darkness of a sprawling weeping willow tree. Watched her on the terrace the way he would a long-tailed swallow, swooping and diving through the sky for the pure joy of it. The air around her seemed to vibrate and her hair set the night on fire. He could feel its heat and hear the crackle of its flames.
He breathed lightly and felt a sharp unmistakable flicker of anger rise up in him. The dance and the music were strange to his senses, but Lydia Ivanova’s actions were clear. She was moving the way a young female cat moves in front of a likely male when she’s ready to mate, swaying and seductive, seeking out his advances, rubbing and purring and twitching her flanks.
The man was acting uninterested, his body soft and boneless in the strip of yellow light from the window, but he didn’t leave. His eyes hooked into the dancing girl in such a way that it made Chang want to skewer him on the tip of a fishing spear and watch him writhe. It was not only the Black Snakes that slithered toward her. The boneless man’s hands forgot to smoke the cheroot between his fingers, but his half-closed eyes did not forget to watch each graceful dip and rise of her hips. He stayed there.
Like the shadow stayed. The one by the steps up to the terrace, the one merging with the bulk of a water butt, deeper black against black. The one whose breath would end. A gleam from a window glinted on the metal of a shuriken in a poised hand.
Chang drew his knife. He watched over her.
25
‘Mama, is it true my father played the violin?’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘At the soirée. Is it true?’
‘Yes, it’s true.’
‘Why did you never tell me?’
‘Because he played it so badly.’
‘Did he once throw a violin into a fire in anger?’
Valentina laughed softly to herself. ‘Ah yes, more than once.’
‘So he had a temper?’
‘Da. Yes.’
‘Am I like him?’
Valentina turned back to painting her nails. Her glossy new bob swung over her cheek, hiding her expression from Lydia’s sharp gaze. ‘Every time I look at you, I see his face.’
‘Get out of bed.’
‘No.’
‘Darling, you drive me crazy. You’ve been lying in bed all week.’
‘So?’
‘I don’t understand you. Usually you’re in such a rush to be out and doing things but now… Oh dochenka, you make me spit, you really do. Just because the school term is finished and you’ve got yourself a mountain of books there, it doesn’t mean you can read the rest of your life away.’
‘Why not? I like reading.’
‘Don’t be so wretched. What is that big fat book anyway?’
‘War and Peace.’
‘Oh gospodi! For God’s sake, make it Shakespeare or Dickens or even that imperialist pig Kipling, but please not Tolstoy. Not Russian.’
‘I like Russian.’
‘Don’t be silly, you know nothing Russian.’
‘Exactly. Time I did, don’t you think?’
‘No, I do not. It’s time you got out of bed and went over to Polly’s to eat some of her lily-white mother’s plum pie that you always sing the praises of. Go out. Do something.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘You must.’
‘Why do you want me out of here? Because you want to jump into bed with Antoine?’
‘Lydia!’
‘Or is it Alfred now?’
‘Lydia, you are a rude and impertinent child. I just want you to be normal, that’s all.’
‘What is normal, Mama?’
‘Anyway, I’ve finished with Antoine.’
‘Poor Antoine.’
‘Poof, he deserved no better.’
‘And Alfred? What have you decided the Englishman deserves?’
‘Alfred is a very kind man with a generous heart, and I would remind you that God says the meek shall inherit the earth.’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in God.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it. Now come on, tell me why you lie here in this stifling pit and won’t go out anymore.’
‘Because I don’t want to.’
‘You’re odd, Lydia Ivanova. Do you know that? Any girl who lies in bed day after day with a white rabbit on her chest and reading about war is odd.’
‘Better odd than dead.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh darling, you make me spit.’
She knew. The moment they invited her to come with them to the restaurant, she knew why. She washed her hair, put on her apricot dress and satin shoes, as instructed. The restaurant was not La Licorne this time. It was Italian and had little private booths with leather-padded banquettes and low lighting from candles overflowing the necks of stubby wine bottles wrapped in raffia. Lydia pushed the strips of something called linguini around her plate and waited for Alfred and Valentina to get to the point.
Alfred was smiling a lot, so much she thought his cheeks must ache. As if he’d swallowed a smile machine.
He poured her a glass of wine and said cheerfully, ‘This is jolly, isn’t it, Lydia?’
‘Mmm.’ She wouldn’t meet her mother’s eye.
‘I hear you’re still studying hard even though school is over for the summer. That’s excellent, my dear. What is it you are concentrating on?’
‘Russia and Russian.’
She saw a slight flicker of surprise at the back of his eyes, but his smile didn’t waver. ‘How interesting for you. After all, it is your heritage, isn’t it? But Josef Stalin is doing brutal things to his people now in the name of freedom, distorting the very meaning of that word, so the world you are reading about in your books no longer exists in Soviet Russia, my dear. It’s barbarous what’s going on there. The kulak farmers and peasants are starving to death under this new Communist regime.’
‘Like they did under the tsar, you mean?’
A faint groan escaped from Valentina.
‘Come now, Lydia,’ Alfred said with quiet determination, ‘let’s not get into that discussion this evening. Tonight is a time for celebration. ’ He glanced almost shyly in Valentina’s direction. ‘Your mother and I have some news that we hope will make you very happy.’