‘No, I suppose not. You don’t belong to them, do you?’
He laughed. ‘No. I am a loyal Party man, you saw my application to travel.’
She knew the information on that had been a fabrication. ‘How long will you be gone?’
‘Only an hour or two. You wait here for me.’
She wondered afterwards why she had not asked more questions, but then it would not have made any difference; the die was cast and there was no going back. Behind her she had left a letter to her parents, explaining why she felt she had to go, reaffirming her love for them and promising to write regularly. How had she come to be so unfeeling and ungrateful?
It filled her with remorse every time she thought about it and she wished she had discussed the huge step with them first. But they would only have tried to dissuade her and she hated arguments, especially with those she loved. She could have said something to Alex but he was out of the country, and in any case, he would be bound to side with Sir Edward.
If she had imagined getting married in Moscow would involve a religious ceremony, she should have known better. Most of the cathedrals and churches had either been destroyed or turned into warehouses, and getting married meant they both had to stand in line to book a time at the Civil Registration Bureau, known to the Russians as the Palace of Weddings. Having done that, they returned two days later for the ceremony, which could hardly be called a ceremony and all it did was confirm the legal status of their union. It was far from the wedding of her dreams; instead of a white wedding gown with a long train and a veil held by orange blossom, she was dressed in a light wool skirt and jumper and a raincoat. Instead of friends and family wishing her well there was only a dour registrar. Leaving the building hand in hand with her new husband, she didn’t feel married at all, even though she had his ring on her finger. He was cock-a-hoop and bought caviar and cheap champagne which they took to their room.
‘Well, Lydia Andropova,’ he said, when she was more than half tipsy. ‘Tonight is our wedding night and I have been a patient man, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ she murmured, consumed with nerves.
‘Then you will not mind if I make up for lost time.’ And with that he picked her up, deposited her on the bed and fell on her.
The next morning, sore and more than a little disillusioned, she followed him to the railway station and boarded a train for Crimea. Unlike the train in which she and her parents and brother had travelled in 1918, this one did have seats and it was possible to buy food from babushkas with baskets of fruit and bread whenever the train stopped at a wayside station. After they changed trains at Kiev, the countryside seemed to be one vast wheat field, the result of Stalin’s collectivisation policy. This was Crimea, this was where her roots were, and as they rattled through the countryside, going further and further south, she began to wonder just what was ahead of her.
By the time she found herself standing beside Kolya at the station at Petrovsk, with their cases at their feet, she was a bundle of nerves. He didn’t seem to notice. ‘Well, here we are,’ he said, picking up the cases and leading the way out of the station building into the street, where he hailed a battered Lada which was apparently a taxicab. The driver did not think it was any part of his duty to help with the luggage, so Kolya loaded it into the boot himself.
Lydia sat in the car looking about her while this was happening, trying to recognise the place. Everything seemed more run-down than her childish memory had painted it. There was a huge new apartment block next to the station, built to house the families sent from other parts of Russia to work the fields. The recent famine had decimated the local population. The church at the end of the street had lost its dome and the windows were boarded up. As they rattled along the main street, she caught sight of the school and that seemed not to have changed.
Kirilhor, when they reached it, shocked her. It looked derelict. The paint was peeling off and half the windows were broken. One end of the building seemed to be falling down. The garden which her mother had been at such pains to cultivate was overgrown. It didn’t seem habitable.
But it was. As they drew to a stop, the door was opened and several small children ran out, screaming and chasing each other. They stopped and stared when they saw the car. Lydia got out, making them stare even harder. She smiled at them. ‘Do you live here?’
They nodded shyly.
‘Where is your mama?’
They pointed to the house. ‘In the kitchen.’
‘Will you fetch her, please?’
Giggling, they ran to obey.
‘This is terrible,’ Kolya said, curling his lip in disgust. ‘I thought we were coming to a considerable dacha.’
‘So it was. Once.’
A woman in a long black skirt and a white blouse emerged from the house, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘What can I do for you, comrade?’ she asked, speaking to Kolya.
‘We are looking for anyone who knew Mikhail Mikhailovich Kirilov,’ he said.
‘Never heard of him.’
‘It would be before the Revolution,’ Lydia put in. ‘He was my father.’
‘Still can’t help you. We’ve only been here eighteen months. You had better ask Grigori Stefanovich. He might know, he’s lived here a long time.’
‘Where can I find him?’
‘He’ll be back when he finishes work. Do you want to come in and wait for him?’
Lydia indicated she would and they were led through the house to the kitchen where three women were vying with each other for the use of the cooking stove. ‘This is…’ she started, then turned to Lydia. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Lydia Andropova. This is my husband, Nikolay Nikolayevich Andropov.’
‘And I am Sofia Borisovna.’ She pointed to the other women in turn. ‘That’s Svetlana, Grigori Stefanovich’s wife. That’s Katya Ivanova Safanova, and over there, Olga Denisovna Nahmova. They work night shift in the tractor factory.’ Lydia and Kolya greeted them and shook their hands.
‘Sit down,’ Olga said, fetching out bread and salt, the traditional courtesy offered to guests. ‘Tell us all about yourselves.’
‘We have come from England.’ It was Kolya who answered because Lydia seemed suddenly tongue-tied. She was back in her childhood. Although it was dirtier and more dilapidated, the kitchen had not changed and it was easy to recall playing under the table with Andrei while her mother stitched jewels into their clothes, to feel again the frisson of fear she had felt then and not understood. It was the last place she had seen her mother and father and, in spite of the years between, she felt her eyes filling with tears. She brushed them away impatiently and tried to listen to what Kolya was saying to the women, whose mouths were agape at his story.
‘Lydia was abducted by the Englishman,’ he was saying. ‘She was given no choice and it is only now, when she is old enough and married, that she has been able to come back to search for her parents.’
‘You don’t look as though you have suffered,’ Olga said, looking Lydia up and down and reaching out to finger the material of her coat. ‘You don’t see coats like this hereabouts.’
‘I have been well looked after,’ Lydia said, shrinking from the woman’s exploring fingers.
‘That doesn’t mean she hasn’t suffered,’ Kolya put in. ‘The mental anguish has been unbearable.’
When they had eaten the bread and drunk a glass of tea, Svetlana offered to take them to meet Grigori. They rose and followed her through the house, along a corridor to a separate wing. This was a huge improvement on the rest of the house. All the best of the old furniture had been collected up and brought to furnish what was a comparatively well-ordered apartment.