Instantly she was on him. Snatched his arms away, so that he was looking up into her fierce blue eyes as she leaned over him.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she snapped, ‘whether he’s innocent or guilty. Can’t you see that? What matters is that he’s your father. He loves you. You owe him, this man who took you in as his own son when you were tainted by the kulak label of your miller father.’ She dug her fingers into his arms. ‘You owe him everything. That’s what matters – love and loyalty.’

Abruptly she released him. Pyotr felt as if he’d been run over.

‘Not,’ she added softly, ‘a power-frenzied devil with a moustache and a withered arm who gets his thrills by signing death warrants in the Kremlin.’

Pyotr sobbed. The thoughts in his head were crashing into each other. Then suddenly she was close again, her breath brushing his cheek.

‘Help me, Pyotr. Help me get Mikhail out of that stinking prison.’

The village was coming into sight when she spoke again.

‘Pyotr, tell me about Lilya Dimentieva.’

‘What about her?’

‘She and your father are… friends.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good friends?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is she like?’

‘She’s all right.’

‘And the child, Misha?’

‘What about him?’

‘Is he… your father’s?’

‘No, of course not, don’t be stupid. Misha’s father was killed in an accident when he was clearing trees off the high field last summer.’

‘Oh.’

‘Papa helps Lilya out when she needs it, like when Misha broke her window. And she cooks us meals sometimes.’

‘I see.’

‘She’s easy to like.’

He watched the colour rise into her cheeks, slowly at first and then faster, darker. She looked away, and Pyotr was sorry. He hadn’t meant to hurt her.

40

Sofia left Pyotr outside the kolkhoz office. She hurried past the pond where two boys were making a lot of noise trying to capture a duck, and up to Rafik’s izba. She burst into the cottage, calling his name.

‘Rafik?’

No answer, the place was empty. Where was he? She had questions to ask and time was trickling through her fingers too fast.

‘Comrade Morozova.’

Sofia spun round. Outside on the step stood Elizaveta Lishnikova, the schoolteacher, and in her hand she carried a book. Her grey hair was pinned up tidily in a pleat at the back of her head and her grey narrow-waisted dress was as immaculate as ever, but there was something about her that made Sofia’s heart miss a beat. It was in the crispness of her manner, in the shine of her eyes, a bright expectation. She knew something that Sofia did not.

‘Comrade Lishnikova, I intended to come and speak to you today.’

‘Well, I’ve saved you the trouble.’ The woman held out the book. ‘Here, I’ve brought you a gift.’

Sofia accepted it, surprised. It was a good quality copy of Dostoyevksy’s The Idiot.

‘Thank you, comrade.’

‘I expect you’ve read it.’

‘Yes I have, but I will enjoy reading it again.’ She thumbed through the soft pages thoughtfully. ‘Spasibo. But why should you bring me a gift?’

The long face with its fine bones seemed to shift slightly. ‘I thought you might need it. Something to calm you before tonight.’

‘Tonight? What’s happening tonight?’

‘Ah,’ Elizaveta hesitated, then smiled politely. ‘I see, you don’t know yet. Excuse my mistake.’ She turned to leave.

‘Comrade,’ Sofia said sharply, ‘I was coming to thank you for the offer of a job at the school.’

The teacher raised her elegant eyebrows expectantly.

‘I would like to accept,’ Sofia continued.

‘Indeed? That would be a help to me but Rafik tells me you will soon be gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘From Tivil.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Ah, comrade, you must ask Rafik himself. But let me tell you this, that man knows more than you and I put together.’ She laughed, a clear low-pitched sound that belonged to a younger woman. She started to move away.

‘Tell me,’ Sofia called out after her, ‘what happened to your previous assistant teacher?’

Elizaveta Lishnikova froze for no more than a second, but Sofia spotted it.

‘He left,’ the older woman said.

‘Suddenly?’

‘Yes.’ Sofia thought she was going to finish it there, but she continued stiffly, ‘He spoke out of turn one day and a pupil reported him.’ She shrugged. ‘It happens.’

‘Was it Yuri? The pupil who reported him?’ Mikhail had told her on the train about Pyotr’s friend.

Elizaveta said nothing but she sighed, and a layer of her brightness faded. Without another word, she walked away.

Sofia tried to make sense of it. The schoolteacher’s message had unnerved her. Tonight? What did she mean? Why did her mind need to be calmed? What was going to happen tonight?

Suddenly she was frightened. She felt the fear cold and hard in a tight ball just under her heart and she rubbed a hand there to release it.

Anna, oh Anna. I’m not strong enough. I can’t do this.

She sat down in Rafik’s maroon chair, dropped her head in her hands. All the misery and suffering of the last four months when she’d battled halfway across Russia, footstep by footstep, crushed her so that she could barely breathe. She remained like that for a long time, till her fingers grew stiff in her hair, and the whole time she thought hard. About Mikhail. About Anna. About what she was about to lose. And at last, when the pain became manageable once more, she rose and walked over to Rafik’s carved wooden chest against the wall, the one he had drawn her shoes from, the one she’d never opened. The lid was carved with serpents. She lifted it.

She didn’t know what she’d expected but it certainly wasn’t what stared up at her.

Two bright black eyes and fur whiter than snow, sparkling like ice. She touched it. It was the complete pelt of an Arctic fox, beautifully tanned to such perfect suppleness it was hard to believe the animal wasn’t still alive. She stroked the soft fur and gently lifted it out. Underneath lay a folded pile of white sheets, and beside all this whiteness a bundle in the corner sang out. It was a bright red piece of material.

She snatched it up, almost expecting to find blood on her hands from the scarlet fibres, and could feel something weighty inside. Cautiously she unwrapped it. A single pebble tumbled on to her lap and she felt disappointed. She’d expected something… more revealing, but she picked it up and examined it anyway. The pebble was bone-white with silvery veins running through it, but otherwise quite ordinary. What on earth did Rafik use it for? It was absurd but the more she stared at the stone, the less she wanted to relinquish it back to the chest. It felt oddly comforting in the palm of her hand, so that she lifted it to her cheek, running its milky surface along her skin.

Her mind grew calm and she breathed more easily. Whatever was going on here, the fear and weakness of a few moments ago had drained away. It was strange. Maybe Rafik had handled this stone so often that he’d left a small piece of himself in its silvery veins. Was it Rafik’s strong spirit that was steadying her, or was it something rising to the surface from within herself? She was uncertain.

With a shake of her head she bundled the pebble inside the red cloth again and returned it to its position in the chest. She needed to find Rafik but, as she stepped out of the house, she heard the sound of hooves and glanced up to see Chairman Fomenko astride a long-boned black horse heading down towards the kolkhoz office. He reined the animal to a halt in front of her.

‘Good day, Comrade Morozova.’

Sofia gave him a cold hard stare. This man was the young boy soldier who had killed Anna’s father in cold blood sixteen years ago and also shot Svetlana, Mikhail’s mother. She wondered for the thousandth time whether Mikhail was aware of the truth and whether she should tell him.