Aleksei Fomenko leaned back in his chair now and made no attempt to take the key from his pocket for her. His eyes narrowed speculatively and his lips parted a fraction to exhale tobacco smoke. Something about his stillness made her uneasy.

‘Sit down,’ he said and pointedly added, ‘please, comrade.’

She thought about it, then sat down.

‘I wish to see your dokumenti.’

She removed her residence permit from her skirt pocket and dropped it on the desk.

‘Your travel permit?’

‘Your Secretary in the outer office inspected all my documentation when he issued this permit of residency.’ She waved at the door. ‘Ask him.’

‘I’m asking you.’

She forced her mouth into the shape of a smile. ‘What more do you need to know?’

The stiff lines of his face softened into an answering smile, then he ran a patient hand over his short hair and took a form from one of the piles. It irritated her that his hands were so broad and capable, as if they were accustomed to achieving what they set themselves to do. The fingers stubbed out his cigarette in a small metal dish that served as an ashtray. He picked up a fountain pen. It was the first thing she’d seen in connection with the Chairman that had even a hint of status about it. It was a beautiful black-cased pen with a fine gold nib. A silence hung in the room for a second and into it the wind outside blew small shards of sound, the jingle of a horse harness, the rumble of a cartwheel, the throaty shriek of a goose.

‘Your father’s name and place of origin?’

‘Fyodor Morozov from Leningrad.’

‘Your aunt’s name and place of origin?’

‘Katerina Zhdanova from the Lesosibirsk region.’

‘How long did it take you to travel to Tivil?’

‘Four months.’

‘How did you travel?’

‘Walking mostly, sometimes a lift in a cart.’

‘No money for a train ticket?’

‘No.’

He put down his pen. ‘A long journey like that could be dangerous, especially for a young woman alone.’

She thought of the farmer with foul breath and greasy hands who had found her asleep in his barn. By the time she left him unconscious in the straw, his mouth had lost its gold tooth and she had the price of a week’s food.

‘I worked some of the time,’ she said, ‘dug ditches or chopped wood, sorted rotten potatoes and turnips into sacks. People were kind. They gave me food.’

‘Get out of here, you scrawny bitch. We don’t want strangers.’ Stones had rained into the mud at her feet as a warning. Stiff-legged dogs had snarled a threat.

‘Good, I’m glad,’ Fomenko said, but the edges of his grey eyes had darkened and she wondered what was passing behind them. ‘Russian people,’ he continued, ‘have kind hearts.’

‘You have a higher opinion of them than I do.’

He placed his elbows on the desk, watching her closely. ‘They are kind to each other now because, since the Revolution, there is greater justice. They have no reason not to be.’

She thought of Mikhail in his cell and shivered visibly. The movement alerted Fomenko and his face formed into lines she couldn’t read, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration but his mouth unexpectedly gentle. He leaned to one side and, with a swift gesture, flicked the red cloth off the tray at the end of the desk. She was reminded of the efficiency of this man.

‘Are you feeling weak? Is that it? Have you not eaten today?’

Laid out on the pinewood tray was a square of black bread, a slab of creamy cheese, a glass tumbler and a bone-handled knife. Beside them stood a stubby blue pitcher.

‘Here, have some food.’

He tore off a chunk of the bread, smeared the moist cheese on it and offered it to her, but she would rather choke than touch his food.

‘I won’t rob you of your meal,’ she said firmly.

He hesitated, his jaw flexing so that she could see the muscle twitch beneath the skin. With no comment he replaced the bread on the tray.

‘Kvass? ’ he offered.

Kvass was a traditional brew, fermented from bread, yeast and sugar. Sofia had no taste for it but she nodded politely. He poured the brown liquid into the glass and handed it to her across the desk.

‘Spasibo,’ she said. She sat holding it in her hand but didn’t raise it to her lips.

As though he suddenly felt the need to put some distance between them, he rose from his chair and walked over to the window. He stood there with his broad back to her, saying nothing, just gazing at the fields outside, at the kolkhoz he was so committed to driving towards greater productivity. She could see the strength of his determination in the line of his shoulders and the stiffness of his neck. She placed the glass silently on the desk and at the same time whisked his box of matches into her pocket.

‘Is that all?’ she asked.

He coughed, an odd kind of sound that was more of a growl than a cough, and when he turned his face was in shadow, his expression hidden from her.

‘May I have the key to the hall, so I can finish the sweeping?’ she asked.

His whole body grew unnaturally still. ‘Why the hall? What is this preoccupation of yours with our hall?’

She stood. ‘I am offering to help because Pyotr is upset by the arrest of his father, that’s all. No preoccupation with anything.’

‘Let me give you some advice, comrade. Stay clear of the boy. He will have to denounce Mikhail Pashin at our next kolkhoz meeting.’

‘No, Chairman, that is asking too-’

‘Asking only what is right. Our Young Pioneers know their duty. In the meantime stay away from him or you could be in trouble yourself.’

‘It’s not an infectious disease he has. His father is being interrogated. ’

‘Comrade Morozova,’ the Chairman’s voice was insistent, ‘we in the Red Arrow kolkhoz will not tolerate a saboteur in whom the motives of greed and self-seeking are rampant. The Revolution has shown us a better way.’

‘He’s just a boy of eleven years old, that’s all. What kind of threat to the State, or to me for that matter, can he possibly be when-’

‘I wasn’t referring to Pyotr Pashin when I mentioned saboteurs.’

‘Then who?’

‘You.’

A silence descended that seemed to last for ever. Sweat prickled on Sofia’s back and she inhaled deeply.

‘Comrade Chairman, you are a powerful man here in Tivil.’ She saw his surprise at the abrupt change of subject. ‘And maybe in Dagorsk too.’

He was studying her carefully.

‘Mikhail Pashin has been arrested-’

‘I am aware of that,’ he interrupted.

‘Arrested wrongfully,’ she continued. ‘He had nothing to do with the sacks of grain that went missing.’

‘That is for the interrogators to establish.’

‘But if a person in authority, a powerful man like yourself, reported to these interrogators that their prisoner was a loyal Communist who at the time of the theft was drinking inside his home with an OGPU officer and was clearly innocent of any… sabotage, then they would release him. They would believe your word.’

His face changed. It lost the tautness that usually held it together and curved into a wide genuine smile. ‘Comrade,’ he said with a soft laugh, ‘I am concerned. I think hunger has addled your brain.’

‘No, Chairman, I think not. No more than listening to a radio in the forest has addled yours.’

It was as though she’d slapped him. He rocked slightly on his heels. A dull flush rose to his cheeks while one fist clenched and unclenched at his side. For a brief second she thought he was about to seize hold of her, but he didn’t. Instead, with stiff courtesy, he walked over to the door and opened it.

‘Don’t let me keep you from sweeping the hall,’ he said in a soft voice and held out the key.

Sofia’s fingers closed over it, and as they did so she could feel the heat in his flesh. She walked out without a word.