‘Do any of you know the man named Rafik Ilyan?’ the officer demanded.
‘I am Rafik Ilyan.’
The other three horsemen dismounted. Sofia saw the teacher immediately link hands with the blacksmith and with the priest. Zenia joined them and they stood facing outward in a circle around Rafik.
‘We are here to arrest you, Rafik Ilyan.’
‘No!’ The word tore out of Pyotr’s mouth before Mikhail could stop him.
The officer glanced at him with irritation. ‘Get home to your mother, boy, if you don’t want a thrashing.’
‘I have no mother.’
‘You have Mother Russia.’
‘Comrade,’ Elizaveta spoke calmly, ‘I think there has been some mistake. Rafik Ilyan is a loyal member of our village.’
‘No mistake.’
‘Why is he under arrest?’ Pokrovsky demanded.
‘My father has done nothing wrong.’ Tears were running down Zenia’s cheeks.
The priest glared at the intruders, his lips moving in silent prayer.
The officer smiled, satisfied, and nodded at his men. ‘Arrest the gypsy, then search his house.’
They came for him, and it was Zenia who broke the circle first. She threw herself towards the officer, clung to his horse’s bridle and begged.
‘Please don’t. This is all wrong, a mistake. I didn’t mean to tell Vanya anything-’
The horse tossed its head viciously, sending Zenia flying on to the trampled snow. Sofia ran to her, crouched down and put an arm round her shoulders, despite the sharp hooves dancing close.
‘This isn’t right,’ she accused.
‘Not right?’ The officer chuckled, his expression so amiable she thought for a moment he was agreeing with her, but the chuckle ceased abruptly. ‘We have information that Rafik Ilyan has been conducting anti-Soviet activities. Arrest him.’
‘What exactly is he accused of?’ Mikhail demanded.
‘I have already said. Anti-Soviet activities.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ Sofia said sharply. But she turned in a swift movement away from the officer, closing the gap between herself and the gypsy. Her eyes pleaded with him.
‘Rafik, help yourself,’ she murmured.
He shook his head. ‘I have no power to help myself, Child of the Stone. I can only help others.’
Sofia reached quickly into her coat and drew out the white stone.
‘Help me to help you,’ she begged.
His eyes locked on the pebble. Its milky surface seemed to pull at him so that he stumbled towards it, but suddenly the uniforms surrounded him. With a bellow of rage the big blacksmith charged forward, Zenia at his side.
‘If you take one more step, it will be your last.’ The officer’s voice rang out through the bleak landscape. A solitary crow drifted overhead, folded its wings and sank down on to the white fields in silence.
Rafik shook his head. He laid a gentle hand on each of his companions in turn; on Pokrovsky’s barrel chest, on Elizaveta Lishnikova’s proud shoulder, on Zenia’s pale damp cheek. He caught hold of the priest’s hand for a moment, staring deep into his eyes, then released him in a mute farewell. When finally he stepped away from them, the three uniforms moved with him.
‘Comrade,’ he called to the officer, ‘leave my friends in peace. I am the one you-’
Before he’d finished speaking Sofia stepped forward, her hands on the wrists of two of the OGPU men. She was pressing their flesh and murmuring to them. Time hung lifeless in the white fog. The metallic click of a rifle bolt sounded loud in the silence.
‘Get away from her. Come over here.’ The officer was gazing fixedly at Sofia but he was speaking to Rafik.
‘Sofia, don’t.’ It was Mikhail. ‘I love you, Sofia.’ His voice was urgent. ‘Don’t risk it all. You are needed.’
The two men were standing slumped, their jaws slack, their spines soft. Rafik was smiling strangely at Sofia.
‘Mikhail is right,’ he said. ‘You are needed.’ He placed his thumb in the centre of her forehead. ‘I have faith in you, Daughter of my Soul.’
‘I’ll say it only once more. Come here,’ the officer snapped.
Instead of obeying the order, Rafik turned and walked in the opposite direction towards the village.
‘Rafik!’ It was Zenia’s desolate cry.
‘I cannot leave Tivil.’ His voice carried to them through the fog and Sofia heard the gypsy’s words echo, resounding in her head, a split second before the shot rang out in the still air. Rafik’s wiry frame jerked. His arms flew out like wings, then he crumpled to the snow and a stain spread from under him.
‘Run, Pyotr, run! Fetch Chairman Fomenko.’ Mikhail’s voice sliced quick and decisive through the heavy air.
Pyotr ran. Sofia couldn’t feel the ice freezing her cheeks or the snow treacherous under her feet – all she could feel was the huge hole in her heart.
63
The pebble crouched in Sofia’s hand and she didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
‘Rafik, don’t leave me.’
The words trailed desperately out of her, but Rafik was gone. The pain of it pooled in her chest and she closed her eyes, but dark places had started to open up in her mind, lonely places she didn’t want to visit. She shivered uncontrollably.
Then warm arms were around her and the air rushed back into her lungs. Mikhail was speaking to her. She didn’t hear the words but she heard the love in them, felt the strength of them banish the loneliness.
‘Come,’ he said.
He led her to where Rafik lay in the snow. Zenia had turned over her father’s body so that his black eyes gazed sightlessly up at a crow that hovered overhead, its ragged wings whispering words only he could hear. The gypsy girl lay across Rafik’s chest, her wild tangle of black hair writhing, dry sobs shaking her. Around her stood the teacher, blacksmith and priest, their faces grey with shock. Snowflakes had started to come spinning down in great white spirals, the first icy blast of a purga, a sudden snowstorm, and dimly Sofia became aware of angry voices behind her. She turned to see Aleksei Fomenko, a tall and broad figure in his fufaika coat, arguing with the OGPU officer. The wolfhound as always was at his side.
‘You had no right to come into my village to arrest a kolkhoz member without informing me first.’
‘I am not answerable to a village Chairman.’
‘It looks like you’ve more than done your job,’ Fomenko growled with fury. ‘Now leave.’
‘My men will search the gypsy’s house first.’
‘No,’ Sofia whispered. The strange mystical contents that lay therein would condemn the whole village.
Mikhail stepped forward to stand beside Fomenko, eyes narrowed against the falling snow. ‘Look, he was just a gypsy who was good with horses, nothing more; a man who understood their moods and could get a solid day’s work out of them. And now he’s dead. You’ll find nothing in his house except a few pots of stinking grease for softening bridles.’
‘So you knew this Enemy of the People?’ the officer demanded with interest.
Sofia’s heart slid somewhere cold.
But Mikhail was careful. ‘I knew him only as someone who lived in Tivil. We didn’t share a glass of vodka together, if that’s what you mean.’ He nodded at the officer and banged his hands on his arms in a noisy show of the shivers. ‘It’s cold, comrade. The coming storm will trap you here in Tivil if you don’t hurry. Get back to Dagorsk with your men, this business is finished.’
Sofia could feel an uneasy suspension of breath around her and, barely noticeable in the darkening of the light, she moved close and touched the officer’s pale horse on its big shoulder muscle. It bared its teeth but didn’t bite, though the white threads of its tail twitched like serpents. Leave. Just leave. After a long thoughtful moment the officer swung his horse’s head and, hunched against the wind, cantered off through the snow at the head of his troop. The purga swallowed them.