The Kirilov Star (14 page)

She slumped into a chair and stared up at him. ‘You are going to abandon me without any means of support?’

‘You can work, can’t you?’

‘But what about Yuri?’

‘What about him?’

‘How can I work when I have to look after him?’

‘I’m sure you’ll manage. When we go, I’ll leave your passport and enough money to get you to Odessa. You can throw yourself on the mercy of the British consul there, though if war is declared, he isn’t likely to have much time for a runaway.’

‘When are you going?’

He shrugged. ‘When Olga’s travel papers come through.’

Wearily she rose and went to take her things from their room. She would not sleep there again. She took her belongings to the old part of the house where the windows were missing and the plaster was falling off the ceilings and walls, where rats and mice scurried, huge spiders built their webs and where the birds nested in the remains of the chimneys. There were even weeds growing up between the tiles on the floor. She made several trips, piling her belongings in a corner, went back for Yuri’s crib and then poked about for something to use as a mattress for herself. A sack and some straw was all she could find.

When she had added that to the rest, she went back to the kitchen to fetch Yuri. Kolya and Olga had gone and so had the baby. She searched frantically for them in the house, running into every room that hadn’t been locked by its occupants. She rushed outside and ran into all the outbuildings but there was no sign of them. They were having a game with her and it made her angry. Returning indoors, she met Svetlana who had just come back from shopping. ‘Have you seen Kolya and Olga?’ she asked her.

‘Yes, I met them in Petrovsk, going to catch a train they said. Olga’s got promotion to a factory in Minsk.’

‘Did they have Yuri with them?’

‘Yes. I thought it was strange but they said you had given him to them—’

Lydia heard no more; she had fallen to the ground in a faint.

When she recovered she was lying on the tiled floor and Svetlana was squatting beside her, fanning her with a newspaper. ‘You gave me a fright.’

It was a moment or two before Lydia’s brain cleared and she remembered. She sat up. ‘How long ago since you saw them? What time does the train go? Was Yuri crying?’

‘He wasn’t crying, why should he? He knows Olga Denisovna as well as he knows you. And the train has gone. I heard its whistle as I was walking home.’

Lydia struggled to her feet. ‘I must go after them. What time is the next train?’

‘There isn’t another until tomorrow, not one that goes to Kiev and connects with a train going north.’

‘No. Oh no. It can’t be. It can’t be.’ She sank to the floor again, but Svetlana hauled her up and, putting her arm about her, led her to the kitchen where she sat her down at the table and put a kettle on the stove. ‘A glass of tea, isn’t that the English cure-all?’

‘It won’t cure this, will it?’ She put her arms about herself and rocked to and fro. ‘Yuri, Yuri, my baby. They have stolen him. Why? Why?’

‘I should think because Olga cannot have children of her own.’ Svetlana busied herself brewing tea, while Lydia watched, her mind on a train steaming north. ‘She was married once, you know, but when her husband found she
could not have children, he divorced her. It has been her shame ever since.’

‘I didn’t know that, but it’s no excuse for taking Yuri from me. He is all I have, my whole life. I have to go after them and get him back.’ She stood up and began pacing the room. Was this her punishment for not wanting him? But she hadn’t known then what it was like to be a mother, had she? Now she would willingly have died for him.

‘It won’t be easy. Even if you catch them up, Yuri is Kolya’s son and he won’t give him up.’

‘Do you think I’m going to stand by and do nothing? What sort of mother would that make me? I’m going after them. Kolya promised to leave me my passport and a little money.’ She ran from the room and up the stairs to the room she had shared with Kolya. Lying on the crumpled bed was an envelope. She snatched it up. It held her passport and a few roubles but no travel permit. She didn’t want to stay in that room a moment longer than necessary and returned to the kitchen. Svetlana put a glass of tea on the table in front of her. ‘Sit down and drink that. I put some vodka in it. When Grigori comes home, we’ll ask him what he can do to help.’

She was still shaking with a mixture of fear and fury when Grigori came in about eight o’clock. The summer had been hot and dry and the wheat harvest was better than it had been the year before, and it looked as though they might meet their quota with a little to spare. He was dusty and tired and had little advice to offer. It was not in his power to arrange travel documents, he said, but he did know the name of the factory to which Olga had been posted. ‘You won’t get anywhere near it,’ he added.

‘I’ve got to try. I can’t let them get away with kidnapping my son.’

‘He is Nikolay Nikolayevich’s son too, you know. He will claim him, and as he is a good Party man and you are who you are, they will give him custody.’

She hadn’t thought of that. ‘I don’t care. I’ll get on the train and hope for the best. Perhaps in Kiev I can obtain the necessary permits.’

‘I’ll give you the name of the man to ask for.’ He was evidently as anxious to be rid of her as she was to go.

‘Thank you.’

The train left at five-thirty the next morning. Afraid she would oversleep and miss it, she packed a few belongings in a bag and went to Ivan’s
izba
where she told him of the latest developments and asked him to fetch the Star; she would need every penny she could raise on it. He was shocked but not surprised by what had happened, but refrained from saying ‘I told you so’. ‘Stay here tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure you wake in time to catch the train.’

But she would not, because if it was discovered he had helped her, he would be in trouble himself and it was best he went on with his quiet life and let her go. They embraced, both of them in tears, and then she left him and walked to the station to spend the night in the waiting room.

It was midday when Alex left the train at Petrovsk and made his way out of the station. The situation in Europe and the demands of the Foreign Office meant that he had taken far longer than he had hoped to get there. He had been sent to the embassy in Moscow first to act as an interpreter during the negotiations between Britain and the Soviet Union, but even while the talks were going on,
he heard rumours that the Soviets were negotiating a
non-aggression
pact with Germany. He had been ordered to find out all he could and orders like that could not, should not, be disobeyed. He had put on a Red Army uniform and spent some time infiltrating the military command which was extraordinarily disorganised, but all he had learnt was rumour and counter-rumour, while he grew more and more frustrated and impatient to be going to Kirilhor. When at last he was able to ascertain the truth, that even while negotiating with Britain, the Soviets had signed a pact with Germany, he was free to go to Ukraine. Praying that Lydia was still at Kirilhor, he boarded a train, sporting an untidy beard and wearing a Red Army major’s uniform, to all intents and purposes Alexei Petrovich Simenov going on leave.

There was a plain brick building calling itself a hotel and he booked in there and had a meal before venturing out onto the street and asking the way to Kirilhor. His uniform was enough to ensure cooperation and deter questions about why he wanted to know, though he was conscious of the curiosity of those he asked. He smiled; no doubt there would be gossip, but as long as his disguise held, he was safe, although he was wary of walking directly up to the
dacha
in case Lydia saw him and gave the game away. He had to find some way of seeing her alone. He turned off the road and onto a path through the forest which he guessed would bring him out to the back of the house.

What if she was happy as she was? What if his arrival was unwelcome? He could not forcibly take her away if she did not want to come. His head was full of questions and it was not until the sound of an axe striking wood impinged on his consciousness that he took note of where
he was. There was a crude hut in a clearing and a big man with a shock of pure white hair was chopping firewood. He stopped to look at Alex as he approached. ‘Good day, Comrade Major,’ he said.

‘Good day, to you. Am I going in the right direction for Kirilhor?’

‘Yes, this path will take you there.’

‘How many people are living there now?’

Ivan shrugged. ‘Several families. I cannot tell how many.’ He paused. ‘Do I know you, Major? Have we met?’

‘I don’t think so. I have never been here before.’

‘Strange. I never forget a face. But it was a long time ago.’ He shook his white head as if to clear it. ‘It must have been someone who looks like you.’

‘Possibly. Tell me your name.’ Alex could see the man was reluctant and added, ‘You have nothing to fear.’

‘Ivan Ivanovich. It is a very common name, Major.’

‘Yes, but perhaps not in connection with Kirilhor. I believe you met my father, Baron Pyotr Simenov. He was here in 1921, making enquiries about the Kirilovs. Do you remember?’

‘Yes, now I remember. He asked about the count and countess and the little girl.’

‘Lydia Mikhailovna,’ Alex said. ‘Have you seen her recently?’

‘No. I thought she went to England.’

Alex had, over the years since working in intelligence, learnt to tell when someone was lying and the big man’s mumbled reply and inability to look him in the face were evidence enough. He smiled. ‘I believe you have seen her, Ivan Ivanovich. I wish her no harm, quite the contrary. I have come from England to take her home, if she wants to
come. She is very dear to me and has been ever since I met her the day after you left her in Simferopol.’

Only the son of the baron could know that. Ivan’s wariness disappeared. ‘You are too late,’ he said. ‘She left to go to Kiev on the early train this morning. Oh, if only you had been a day sooner. I fear she will be in trouble with the authorities …’

‘Why? Is she not with her husband?’

‘That vile worm!’ Ivan spat in the sawdust at his feet. ‘He left her for Olga Denisovna and took the baby with him. She was going after them, but she had money only to take her as far as Kiev.’

‘Baby?’ He hadn’t thought of her having a child and it caused him a few pangs of jealousy, before he took hold of himself. Lydia had married the man; so what did he expect?

‘Yes, she had a child, a boy called Yuri. They, that is Nikolay Andropov and his mistress, took the child. Poor Lydia was distraught. She was determined to go after them.’

‘When is the next train?’

‘Later this afternoon.’ He stuck the axe in the next log. ‘Come inside, Major. I can offer you tea and a little bread, while you wait. I don’t advise you to go to Kirilhor.’

‘Thank you.’ Alex followed him into the dismal little hovel. Both had to duck their heads under the lintel. Alex watched as Ivan set about poking more wood into the
burzhuika
and putting a kettle on it. ‘Tell me all you know,’ he said. And Ivan did.

Alex was appalled at what Lydia had had to endure and vowed not to leave Russia until he found her. One side of him rejoiced to think that there was no love lost between
her and Kolya, that the marriage had been a failure. But there was a baby to consider. Getting Lydia out with her child would not be easy. He would have to call in every favour he had ever done. And how could he square it with his work as an intelligence agent, for which he was paid by the British government?

‘Where was she hoping to go after Kiev?’ he asked.

‘Minsk. That was where the woman, Olga Nahmova, was going. I’m afraid my little Lidushka is walking into trouble.’

‘Not if I can help it,’ Alex said grimly. ‘You do not need to mention I have been here.’

Ivan laughed. ‘I am not likely to do that. I have never set eyes on you.’

Alex found her standing in line at the railway station in Kiev, waiting to buy a ticket. She had a small case at her feet. Her clothes were shabby, her hair unkempt and she was so thin she was hardly recognisable as the lovely girl he knew. Her face was pale and drawn and her eyes bleak with misery. She had not seen him and he wondered if she would recognise him with his beard and uniform. He walked up behind her and bent to put his mouth to her ear. ‘Lidushka,’ he whispered. ‘I am here. You are not alone.’

She whipped round with a cry of such joy it lit her face, and threw herself into his arms. ‘Alex! Alex! Oh, thank God! Thank God!’ And then she burst into tears.

He held her close, for a few moments, feeling the boniness of her and cursing himself for not arriving sooner.

‘Come,’ he said, wiping her eyes with his handkerchief. ‘We must find somewhere to talk.’

‘But I have to go to Minsk.’

‘I know. I’ll take you.’

‘I thought I was hearing things, that it was a ghost saying my name. Oh, how did you get here? How did you know where to find me? Kolya’s gone off with Olga Denisovna and they’ve got Yuri. I have to find them …’

‘We will.’ He took her to a hotel and ordered food for them both. And while she ate, he questioned her about her life since coming to Russia. She was so glad to see him and so bewildered, she could hardly speak coherently, but he managed to follow her. ‘I had to sell the Kirilov Star, to pay the train fare,’ she said. ‘The man who bought it said it was not of the highest quality and would only give me a few roubles. I daren’t argue with him …’

‘He lied,’ he said. ‘Show me the place.’

As soon as she had finished eating and drinking her fill, she took him to the jeweller’s where she had sold the Star. He left her outside while he went in and demanded its return, telling the man he would be in trouble for buying stolen goods if he refused to hand it over. He offered more than Lydia had been given as compensation and returned to her with it in his pocket. ‘Now, back to the station,’ he said, taking her arm.

‘Are you coming with me?’

‘Sweetheart, you need me, and while you need me, I shall be at your disposal.’