The Concubine's Secret by Kate Furnivall Page A

was Popkov’s friend, the big woman with the straight straw hair, the one from the train, the one with the tongue that asked too many questions. What did he say her name was? Irina? No, Elena, that was it.
    ‘ Dobriy vecher , comrade,’ Lydia said politely. ‘Good evening.’
    ‘ Dobriy vecher . I thought you might be bored here on your own.’
    ‘No, I’m busy.’
    ‘So I see.’
    The woman didn’t attempt to enter the small room. Instead she leaned a hefty shoulder against the doorframe and continued to smoke the stub of a cigar, balancing it delicately between her fingers. Lydia paused in arranging her possessions neatly on the quilt and studied her visitor.
    ‘I’m sorry about your son.’
    The woman’s face folded into a scowl. ‘Liev talks too much.’
    ‘ Da . He’s a real blabbermouth,’ Lydia said with a straight face.
    The woman blinked, then smiled. The aroma of the cigar drifted across the room. ‘Don’t worry, he’s told me nothing that need give you sleepless nights. Just that you’ve travelled from China and are searching for someone.’
    ‘That’s more than enough. It’s one more fact than I know about you, so I’ll ask you a question.’
    ‘Sounds fair.’
    ‘What do you want with Liev Popkov?’
    ‘What does any woman want with a man?’
    She swung her hips lasciviously and pushed the cigar into her mouth, sucking hard on it so that the tip glowed brightly. Lydia looked away. She folded her two skirts, one navy and the other a heavy green wool, and placed them in an orderly pile beside two pairs of rolled-up socks, a pair of scissors, three handkerchiefs, a book and a small cotton drawstring bag.
    ‘Was your son in the camp?’ she asked without looking up.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Don’t be.’
    Something about the way she said it drew Lydia’s glance to her face. It was totally expressionless.
    ‘He was one of the guards,’ Elena explained in a flat voice. ‘One of the prisoners killed him with a piece of glass. Cut his throat open.’
    Lydia’s head filled with the image of blood bursting from the son’s severed flesh, the young man clawing at his throat, eyes glazing. Was Jens there? Did he see it happen? Did he wield the weapon? Because whoever did it would be dead by now. A pain started up in Lydia’s throat. She unfolded and refolded one of the skirts, pulled out a hairbrush from her bag. It wasn’t special to look at, just plain and wooden with a cracked handle, but it had belonged to her mother. She placed it in line with the scissors and drawstring bag.
    ‘Your son was a guard,’ she whispered, turning her head to one side. She spat on the floor with a sharp little hiss.
    The woman nodded, all softness emptied from her eyes. ‘I know, he had it coming.’ She gave a little growl of despair in the back of her throat. ‘God only knows what the bastard did to those men.’
    Outside a truck roared past, its headlamps carving through the darkness and flaring briefly into the room.
    ‘But it must be hard to lose a son,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘I’m not.’
    ‘No parent would want to lose a child.’
    ‘Don’t be so sure.’
    Lydia concentrated on her canvas bag and removed a pad of writing paper and a pencil. Papa, would you want to lose a child? She started a new row on the quilt and added an unopened bottle of rosewater that her widowed stepfather had presented to her for the journey. Dear Alfred. He was back in England, but if he could see her now he would die of embarrassment. For an Englishman to hold a conversation about the loss of a son with a complete stranger would be tantamount to torture. Unthinkable. But here in Russia things were different. There was a raw edge that Lydia was starting to appreciate because it made doors easier to push open.
    ‘Elena,’ she said with a sudden smile, ‘let’s drink to your son.’ From the bag she extracted a half bottle of vodka, a small pewter cup upturned over its neck.
    Elena’s