‘Please sit down,’ Svetlana said. ‘Grigori will be here soon. He’s the head of the Petrovsk Land Department. How long is it since you lived here?’
‘I was four when we left in 1920,’ Lydia told her, perching herself on a sofa. Nikolay went over to the window and stood looking out at the tangled garden.
‘That was a bad time, but there have been worse times since.’
‘How long have you lived here?’ Lydia asked her.
‘Since 1922, the end of the Civil War, soon after I married Grigori. He got promotion and was sent here and we took over this house. Ah, here he is.’ She looked up as the door opened and her husband came in. He was a big, broad man, dressed in a neat grey suit, though his shirt was collarless. ‘Grigori, we have visitors from England. This is Nikolay Nikolayevich Andropov and his wife, Lydia.’
Lydia stood up and Nikolay turned from the window to greet him. They shook hands. ‘All the way from England, eh?’ he said. ‘You are a long way from home.’
‘On the contrary,’ Kolya said. ‘We are home. My wife is the daughter of Mikhail Mikhailovich Kirilov. This was his dacha. She has come back to search for her parents.’
Grigori sank into a chair and stared up at them. He looked shocked and his ruddy face turned pale. ‘The count’s daughter,’ he said, at last.
‘Yes, did you know him?’
‘He was my cousin. On my mother’s side, you understand, but it is not a relationship I boast about.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Kolya said, with a wry smile. ‘But do you know what happened to the count?’
‘Why, in God’s name, did you come back, Lydia Mikhailovna?’ he said, angrily, ignoring Kolya’s question. ‘You are risking your life and ours as well.’
‘Lydia is a good Communist, as I am,’ Kolya said. ‘We have nothing to fear.’
Grigori laughed, though there was no humour in it. ‘The very fact that you have lived in the West is enough to condemn you – and us by association. Go back, Lydia Andropova, go back where you belong.’
‘Not until I find out what happened to my parents,’ she said.
‘I told Pyotr Simenov what happened to them when he came asking questions. Did he not tell you? He said he would.’
‘He said they had been executed for trying to take jewels out of the country.’
‘So they were, and for being counter-revolutionaries. They were shot by a firing squad.’
‘Do you know how they came to be arrested? When? Where were they at the time? Are you sure they were shot and not just imprisoned? Was there a trial? Did no one defend them?’
‘Questions, questions, questions,’ he said irritably. ‘What difference does it make?’
‘I need to know for my peace of mind. I should like to see their graves and say a prayer for them.’
‘Prayers!’ he mocked. ‘There is no religion in Russia now.’
‘Perhaps not officially. I expect people still say their prayers privately. And that is beside the point. Will you help us?’
‘The count and countess were denounced and arrested by the Cheka. They were tried by the People’s Court and found guilty. The death sentence was carried out the next day.’ It was said flatly, as if he were bored with it all.
‘Who denounced them?’
He shrugged. ‘It makes no difference. It was done.’
‘Where were they buried?’
‘Where they were executed in the Cherkassy Forest. I doubt the grave is marked.’
‘But you do know where it is?’
‘Roughly. I couldn’t be exact. If you think I’ll take you there, you are mistaken, Lydia Andropova. I haven’t the time for such sentiment. The harvest is about to begin and I am responsible for meeting the grain quotas, so I shall be very busy. I suggest you go back where you came from.’
‘We’d like to stay awhile,’ Kolya put in. ‘You can put us up for a few days, can’t you? My wife has been looking forward to this visit for years. You’d not deny her that, would you?’
Both Grigori and his wife looked at Lydia. There were tears running down her face. She did not seem aware of them. Kolya took his handkerchief and wiped them away. ‘Don’t cry, sweetheart. Grigori Stefanovich will let us stay a few days, I’m sure.’ He looked at Grigori. ‘Can I have a word with you in private?’
The big man shrugged. ‘Very well. We’ll go next door.’
Kolya followed him from the room, leaving Lydia and Svetlana facing each other. ‘Tell me what life is like in England,’ Svetlana said.
Lydia smiled wanly and obeyed. England seemed a world away and unreachable, and already she regretted leaving it. She wondered what her father would make of the letter she had sent him. He would be heartbroken and Mama angry. She had been wicked to come away in that hole-and-corner way, after all they had done for her. Now, when it was too late, she realised she should never have listened to Kolya. Alex’s father had been right and her parents were dead.
‘After the bandits shot my brother, I was all alone in the world. My brother and nurse were dead and my parents had disappeared. I was only four and so shocked I could not speak. I was taken to England by an English diplomat who adopted me. He has been very good to me…’ She choked on the words. ‘I was brought up like an English child: school, university, a job…’
‘What job did you do?’
‘Translating Russian into English.’
‘You speak Russian with an accent.’
‘Do I?’ she queried. ‘I suppose it’s because I have not needed to speak it at home.’
‘But you say this is home,’ Svetlana pointed out.
‘It was, but everything has changed. I don’t recognise the Russia I knew.’
‘That is not surprising, is it? You were no more than a baby when you left. And life is different now.’
‘I know, but some memories are very vivid. They come to me in a series of unconnected pictures. What I wanted to try and do was put them together and make sense of them. Do you think anyone in the village would remember me?’
‘Some of the old babushkas might, those who didn’t die in the famine. It killed a lot of people.’
‘But the fields are full of grain.’
‘That is needed to fulfil our quota; we are allowed very little of it, though Grigori is luckier than most because of his position, and those who work in the tractor factory are kept fed.’ It was said flatly, in a manner of acceptance.
‘Oh.’ She had read about the Ukrainian people going hungry, but the Russian papers were very cagey about how extensive the famine had been. ‘I have money to buy food, we won’t be a burden on you. As soon as Kolya has arranged for us to go to Cherkassy, we will leave.’
The men came back. Kolya was smiling broadly. ‘We can have a room in the attic which is not occupied,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to find some furniture, but there might be something useful in the part of the house that’s uninhabitable.’
‘How did the house come to be like that?’ Lydia asked.
‘It was done in the Civil War,’ Grigori said. ‘There was fierce fighting hereabouts. Come, let me show you the room.’
They followed him through the house. Every room they passed seemed to be occupied, though the occupants were absent, presumably at their work. ‘How many people live here?’ Lydia asked as they climbed the stairs. There was no carpet on the treads as there once had been.
‘Twenty families in all,’ Grigori told them. ‘Some are allocated one room, some with big families have two. It is big enough to house more if need be. If we are sent extra workers for the harvest, they will have to be housed. In that case you will have to move out.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I thank you.’