House of the Lost (42 page)

‘What sort of things?’

‘Well, places like this one. Orphan – ornof – children’s homes.’

‘There’s no money to run these places,’ said Zoia defensively. ‘I did the best I could.’

‘Oh, there’s no money for anything any more,’ he said. ‘All a damn shame. Course,’ he downed another glass, ‘Elena pushed Nicolae into things. You know that, I ’spect. Gave orders about who could be given posts in the Party and who couldn’t. ’strordin’ry woman, Elena. D’you ever meet her?’

‘Once.’

‘Quite ’strordin’ry. An’ now she’s first deputy premier. They made her that in 1980.’ He tried to count years on his fingers and gave up. ‘It was Nicolae’s doing, of course, ev’rybody knew that. Case of nep— netop—’

‘Nepotism?’

‘Sssh. Shouldn’t say things like that. Never know who might be listening. But I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said, suddenly more alert, ‘she’s absolutely ruthless, that woman.’ He was so pleased with himself for having pronounced this without a slur, he said it again, ‘Abso-fucking-lutely ruthless.’

‘So everyone says.’ Zoia opened another bottle of wine in case Pauker was going to be indiscreet about Elena. Indiscretions could be very useful at times. And the wine might as well be drunk as left here to gather mildew or be stolen by vandals.

‘Automaton, that’s what Elena is,’ said Pauker. ‘No heart. Call her the Mother of the Nation – pshaw, load of bollocks. Not a motherly bone in her body. Set the Securitate to spy on her own children, can you b’live that? Perfeckly true, though. Cold-hearted bitch, she is. As for all those grand qualifications she says she’s got – d’you want to know something?’ He drew nearer, his tone confidential.

‘Tell me,’ said Zoia.

‘Bought half of them,’ he said. ‘Paid for them in sordid coinage. An’ the ones she didn’t buy, she invented.’

‘But I’ve seen her speak at meetings,’ said Zoia. ‘She seemed very learned.’ She had, in fact, only heard Elena speak in public on two occasions, both times in company with Annaleise, but she had been quite impressed by Elena’s public manner.

‘Smoke and mirrors,’ he said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘If you listen properly she always defers to a “Comrade Engineer” or some such, for the real answers. Smoke and mirrors, tha’s what she is.’ He nodded solemnly into his wine glass, and Zoia surreptitiously topped it up.

‘This is all very interesting,’ she said.

‘I tell you, Elena Ceau
escu’s never written a thesish – pardon, thesis – in her life. My opinion she couldn’t. Mind you, neither could I, but I’m not the Mother of the Nation – bloody good joke that, don’cha think? Where’s the wine gone? An’ why aren’t you drinkin’ with me? Got to drink with me. Friendly. Here.’

Zoia gave a mental shrug and drank the wine he poured almost in one go. Here’s to you, Annaleise, she said silently, as she almost always did when she took a drink.

When her companion re-filled her glass, she drank that straight down as well, and followed it with a third. He was very fuddled by this time and his eyes were unfocused, but he was not too unfocused to suddenly thrust a hand into the bodice of her dress, and prod her small breasts. Zoia felt the familiar revulsion and was instantly plunged back to the small shabby cottage and the feel of her father’s rough labourer’s hands on her skin. But she controlled her disgust.

‘Bit of comfort tonight,’ he said. ‘S’all right, isn’t it? Sad day closing down one of our houses. Bit of comfort.’

Zoia said flatly, ‘You want to fuck me?’

‘Doan’ need to pretend, do we?’ he said. ‘Romance, all that stuff, lot of balls. See you don’t lose by it, though.’

‘How much?’ said Zoia coldly.

‘Don’t mess about, do you? Much as you like. Here . . .’ he pulled out his wallet and tipped the contents onto the table, ‘have it all. No use to me.’

‘Thank you,’ said Zoia, scooping up the notes, not bothering to apologize or explain that tomorrow she would be homeless and jobless. ‘D’you want to go upstairs or do it here?’

There had been quite a lot of money in the wallet. She put it safely in her own bag, and then, because you never knew what might come in useful, took his Politburo card as well. There was an address just outside Resita. Zoia was careful to note this down, because there might be a time in the future when she needed to make use of that encounter.

If it had not been for Gheorghe Pauker’s cash she would have had nowhere to live in the weeks that followed, but she was able to take a small room in a lodging house. The days were shapeless, the nights filled with lonely agony. Several times over the dreary years she thought about suicide – a bottle of pills, a jump into the river. Easy. But then the hatred of Mara and the desire for revenge burned up again warming Zoia’s cold heart, and she knew she would keep on living. Annaleise would have wanted it.

Eventually she found work in a library in a town near Mara’s own village and a room in a slightly better house. It was not really what she wanted, but she needed to remain near enough to Mara’s home to pick up news of what Mara was doing and to know when the creature finally came home from the Debreczen convent. She counted the years, hardly noticing when the 1970s slid into the 1980s, only really recognizing the years of Mara’s life. She would be fourteen, fifteen, nearing the age when the convent would send her home. Zoia did not go as far as disguising herself during those years, because it would have been melodramatic and probably would not have worked anyway, but she did not think anyone would recognize her from her time at the Black House. Her hair had turned grey after Annaleise’s death – it had gone what people called pepper and salt grey, and Zoia had it cut very short, pudding-basin style. It was remarkable how it altered her appearance. She lost weight as well – she had always been thin but now she became bony because she could not be bothered to eat much. Her skin grew dry and leathery-looking. It did not really matter how she looked – Zoia did not think it would ever matter again – but it was one more thing to lay at the door of that evil spiteful child.

Gheorghe Pauker’s drunken prophecies were turning out to be true. You had to queue for food – sometimes for hours. There was bread rationing. People said it was a sick joke, because you could hardly ever find a loaf of bread anyway and as for sugar for baking or sweetening coffee, forget it. In any case, you could not get coffee any more than you could get sugar or flour. A scientific diet, Ceau
escu was apparently calling it. And what was happening to the money saved by starving everyone, they would like to know? Was it paying off Romania’s debts? More likely it was going towards the grand palace he was said to be building for himself and his wife.

Standing in food queues, Zoia sensed the anger in other shoppers, but it was a strange, slightly frightening anger, as if something was gradually but inexorably coming to boiling point. Once Elena and Nicolae Ceau
escu had been seen as glittering and untouchable, but Zoia had the increasing sense that the glitter was starting to be perceived as pinchbeck.

Living in obscurity, she heard a number of things, some of which might one day be useful, others which were too trivial to bother with. Matthew Valk was studying art in Budapest. That was one of the things worth knowing and Zoia tucked the information away in her mind. She wondered where the money for it had come from. It might be worth finding out about that, as well, if she could.

And then, one day towards the end of 1982, midway through a long dull afternoon at the library, she heard the news she had been waiting to hear for so long. Mara Ionescu was finally leaving Debreczen and coming home.

Romania, early 1980s

Zoia had never had any compunction about making use of the people she had encountered during her work for the Party. When she heard that Mara was returning home, she composed a very careful letter to Gheorghe Pauker. She was cautious, not knowing who might actually see the letter; there might be a wife – Zoia rather hoped there was – or the letter might be opened by a branch of the Securitate. Some people said the Securitate operated censorship. Zoia had no idea if this was true, but it was very likely that a Politburo official such as Pauker would be subject to surveillance.

So she reminded him of their brief acquaintance at the time of the Black House’s closure. She was sure he would remember her, she wrote, they had had such a very interesting conversation about Elena Ceau
escu and she had never forgotten what he had said about their leader’s wife. She smiled as she wrote this, knowing that no matter how drunk Pauker had been that night, he was unlikely to have forgotten what he’d said about Elena Ceau
escu. Zoia did not spell it out. She merely said his words that night had given her much food for thought. She was still working diligently for the Party, she said in her letter, and she had a small project in mind with which she thought Gheorghe might be able to help her. Perhaps he would contact her as soon as possible? She would enjoy renewing their friendship. It was an innocent enough letter – a note from a former colleague, a note about work for the Party. But as she addressed and sealed the envelope, she thought those comments about Elena would bring him running.