‘If the people of this country do not help each other,’ he said fiercely, ‘soon there will be no Russia. No people. They will all be in labour camps, as prisoners or prison guards. It makes no difference which. A whole nation condemned to a slow death. The only ones left will be the sleek Politburo in Moscow, because power makes pride grow in the human heart like fat in a pig. I curse their rotten godforsaken souls. May they starve as we have starved. May they lose their wives and their children as we lose ours. May they choke on their own committees and kominterns. Let the Devil take the lot of them.’

Sofia sat down on one of the chairs. She looked up into those intense eyes and the world became a smaller place, as though just the two of them in this room existed. There was something extraordinary about this man. She had survived this far because she’d learned that trust was as fragile as a moth’s wings and you didn’t give it lightly. But she gave him a smile instead.

He laughed, a warm, fluid sound, and held out his hand. ‘My name is Rafik Ilyan. But they call me the gypsy. You and I, we can help each other.’

‘My name is Sofia,’ she said.

12

‘Have you seen her?’

Elizaveta Lishnikova narrowed her gaze against the sun as she glanced up through the village towards the gypsy’s izba.

‘Nyet. No,’ Pokrovsky replied as he hammered the last nail into a well-oiled hoof and snipped off its metal tip with pincers.

The liver-coated filly kept turning her head, pulling at the halter to inspect what he was doing back there, but otherwise she’d surprised him for once and behaved herself. Her wide nostrils released a long chesty sigh as though thankful the ordeal was over.

‘No,’ Pokrovsky said again. ‘The gypsy claims she’s his niece by marriage.’

‘Do you believe him?’

‘No.’

The blacksmith had been busy in the yard at the side of the smithy when the schoolteacher strode in with her usual forthright manner. He always enjoyed her visits, even though she did demand answers from him as if he were one of her scrawny pupils. The day was hot and humid and he’d been content at his work, but now he was suddenly aware of the sweat on his shaven head and the stink of horses on his leather apron. She always had that effect on him, making him feel big and clumsy instead of broad and powerful.

Elizaveta was wearing a long black dress nipped in tight at her tiny waist, and everything about her was dainty and ladylike, the little white lace collar at her neck and the way her delicate handkerchief just peeped out from her sleeve, too shy to venture further. Pokrovsky sneaked a glance at her elegant fingernails as she tucked a tortoiseshell hairpin back into her grey hair, then compared them with his own which were hard and black and caked in grease.

‘Neither do I believe him,’ she said.

‘So why is she here?’ He picked up a long file.

‘Why do you think?’

His eyes met hers. She always made him do the thinking for himself, as if she didn’t already know the answers. He ran the file back and forth over the filly’s rear hoof, tidying the edges, and said the words he was sure were already in her mind.

‘She’s an informer, here to spy on us.’

‘But why would Rafik, who loves our village so strongly, take in someone like that?’

‘Because…’ He paused, ran one of his big hands along the fine muscles of the horse’s leg and released his hold on her hoof. She bounced up on her toes and nearly kicked over his stool. Pokrovsky stood up straight and rubbed his hands on a dirty rag at his waist. ‘Elizaveta, I’m only a simple blacksmith, you’re the one with the brains.’

She laughed at that, a girlish laugh, and poked her furled parasol into his ribs. ‘Simple you are not!’

With a deep chuckle he led her further into the smithy where he poured her a glass of vodka without asking, and another for himself. He knocked back his drink in one but she sipped hers as if it were tea.

‘She stole my axe,’ he told her. ‘Zenia returned it to me.’

Her brown eyes widened. ‘Why would this stranger do a thing like that, I wonder.’

‘She wanted to chop wood?’ He raised one burly eyebrow.

‘Very funny,’ Elizaveta said dismissively. ‘The question is whether Stirkhov has sent her here to watch us.’

‘Rafik would never take in one of that bastard Stirkhov’s spies.’

‘He would if he wanted to keep an eye on her.’

‘You think that’s it?’

‘It could be.’ She finished her drink with a dainty flourish and let her eyes roam round the tools and forge. She gave a little satisfied nod of her head. Without turning to look at him she said, ‘There’s another package due in tonight, my friend.’

Pokrovsky poured himself another glass. ‘I’ll be there. You can rely on that.’ He drank it down.

‘Someone is coming. A woman.’

Sofia said the words calmly but she felt a jolt of alarm at the sight of a female figure heading towards the gypsy’s house through the last traces of dusk. The habit of fear was hard to break. She was seated on the bleached wooden doorstep, her cheek resting on her hand, her gaze fixed firmly on the village. She was watching the cows being led in from the fields, weary and heavy-footed, and the group of men heading for the meeting in the old church.

The evening had not been easy in the gypsy izba. Conversation was impossible. How could you talk in these bewildering circumstances without asking questions? But if you asked questions someone was forced to give answers and that meant lies. And who wanted lies?

‘Who is it?’ Rafik asked.

Zenia left her seat at the table where she was shredding a pile of dusky leaves, came over to where Sofia was sitting and squinted into the gloom that had settled like dust on the street.

‘It’s Lilya Dimentieva.’

‘Does she have the child with her?’ Rafik asked.

‘Yes.’

Sofia tensed as the woman and child came close, but she needn’t have worried because Lilya Dimentieva showed no more interest in her than she did in the carving of birds on the door lintel above her head. She was a woman in her twenties, small and slender with an impatient face and long brown hair bound up carelessly in a scarf. Her navy dress was neat and tidy, unlike Sofia’s ragged skirt and blouse, but the little boy whose hand clutched tightly to hers was a different matter. He was barefoot and in need of a wash.

‘Zenia, I want-’

‘Hush, Lilya,’ the gypsy girl said sharply. ‘Come inside.’ She gestured to the stranger sitting silent on the step. ‘This is my cousin and she’ll look after Misha. Won’t you, Sofia?’

‘Happily.’ Sofia stretched out a hand to the small boy.

His mother disentangled him from her skirts with a quick, ‘Misha, wait here,’ and disappeared inside the house with Zenia. Sofia and the boy studied each other solemnly. He was no more than three or four, dressed in what looked like a cast-off army shirt cut down into a tunic that was far too big for him.

‘Would you like to share my seat?’ she asked, patting the warm step beside her.

He hesitated, fingering a shaggy blond curl.

She edged over to make room. ‘Shall I tell you a story?’

‘Is it about soldiers?’

‘No, it’s about a fox and a crow. I think you’ll like it.’

He put out a tentative hand. She took it, soft and dusty, inside her own and drew him to share her doorstep where he plopped down like a kitten, but he still kept a small safe gap of evening air between his own body and hers. Already he’d learned to be cautious.

‘I don’t like this house,’ he whispered, his pupils huge in the semi-dark. ‘It’s full of… black.’ He blurted out the last word and then, as if he’d said something wicked, he clapped a hand over his mouth.

Sofia gave a soft laugh and the boy instantly pressed his other hand tight over her lips. She could taste onions on his fingers. Gently she removed his hand.