Under a Blood Red Sky (60 page)

Sofia was surprised to find Elizaveta Lishnikova and the blacksmith standing shoulder to shoulder beside the gypsies; Elizaveta in stern grey, Pokrovsky in menacing black. Their silent presence here meant only one thing: Rafik was going to need help. Sofia slipped her hand into her pocket and let her fingers fret at the white stone that lay there. The priest raised his arm in the cold air and painted the sign of the cross.

‘Four horsemen,’ he announced. ‘You understand what that means? May God have mercy on our souls.’

‘What does it mean, Sofia?’ Pyotr asked impatiently. ‘What does it mean? Who are the four horsemen?’

‘Hush, Pyotr,’ Zenia hissed.

‘They’re soldiers,’ Rafik said.

‘Why are soldiers coming to Tivil?’ Pyotr asked.

Instead of replying, Rafik fixed his gaze on Zenia and he asked her softly, ‘Is it you who brings them here?’

‘No, Rafik!’ she cried out. ‘I didn’t, I swear I didn’t.’ Her black eyes glittered and her hands stretched out to her father.

Gently he enfolded them in his.

‘I always knew it would happen.’ The sorrow in Rafik’s quiet voice melted the air around him. ‘I knew that betrayal would come, but…’ his lips smiled at her tenderly and he raised her hands to them, ‘but I could not see it would be you, my daughter. My love for you stood in the way of my Sight.’

‘Rafik, no.
No
.’

He pressed his lips to her cold forehead just as the jangle of horses’ bridles and the creak of stiff leather came upon them.

‘Rafik, forgive me. I meant no harm.’ Zenia clung to him. ‘A careless word to Vanya, that’s all it was, I didn’t mean it. You know how I love you. I even torched the barn last summer to distract the troops from ransacking Tivil and causing you pain. Please forgive me, I-’

‘Hush, my beloved daughter. There’s nothing to forgive.’ He opened his arms to her.

She folded into them and kissed his cheek.

Priest Logvinov lifted his stricken face to the heavens, stretched out his arms in the shape of a cross and roared, ‘See her give the kiss, oh Lord. See, here among us is the Sign of Judas.’

Four shapes emerged from the white confusion of the fog. Men on horseback, bulky in their greatcoats and high leather boots, determined men who knew their own power. They were OGPU. The officer in the lead was scanning the group standing in the snow with a hard, arrogant scrutiny, his collar turned up against the cold and a calming hand laid on the neck of his pale-coated horse. Sofia didn’t like the horse. It had small, wild eyes.

‘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.

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.

The figures stood motionless in the moment of shock that followed, then Mikhail quickly wrapped one arm round Sofia, the other round Pyotr. ‘We must get Rafik’s body out of the storm.’

But before they could move, Elizaveta spoke out in a voice that was powerful against the rising wind.

‘Listen to us, Sofia.’

Four figures stood in a line, blocking the path into the village. Priest Logvinov, Elizaveta Lishnikova, Pokrovsky and the weeping gypsy girl. The blacksmith had lifted Rafik’s limp body into his arms and Zenia’s hand rested on her father’s dark head.

‘Sofia,’ Elizaveta said, ‘we ask you to take Rafik’s place.’

‘No.’

‘Sofia,’ Pokrovsky said, ‘you are needed.’

You are needed. Rafik’s words.

Sofia recoiled. ‘No.’

A sound, rustling, seemed to brush against her mind. She shook her head sharply. ‘No.’

‘Sofia.’ The priest raised a hand into the snow-laden air between them but carved no cross this time. ‘God will grant you strength. You are the one who can help care for our village. Rafik knew it, he believed in you.’

I have faith in you. His final words to her.

‘
Nyet
. No.’ She inhaled deeply, ice stinging her lungs. ‘Mikhail, it’s dangerous. Tell them.’

Fomenko was standing to one side, observing them in silence, his eyes intense and curious. But Sofia’s eyes were drawn to the road into Tivil and she felt it pull at her, as powerfully as the moon pulls the tide. Through the snow that was now falling fast, the village drifted into view, the
izbas
waiting.

Mikhail took her hand in his. ‘My love, it has to be your decision. Yours alone.’

‘I don’t have the strength. Not like Rafik.’

‘We will help you.’

Sofia looked at the circle of people around her. With a rush she knew that the life she’d been pretending she and Mikhail could lead elsewhere was never destined to happen.

‘I’ll be with you,’ Mikhail said, his hand tightening on hers.

The sound of Tivil breathing came to her. She didn’t want it to die, and somehow she sensed that the decision had been made long ago, before she was born. Was there any truth in what Rafik had told her, that she had inherited a special gift as the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter? She didn’t know. She knew only that from him she had started to learn a way of applying her mind, a way of shifting sand. She looked around her in the swirling snow, at these people who believed in her and who cared so passionately for their village, and she felt for the first time a huge sense of belonging. Here was a place that pulled at her heart, a place that was home. And she owed it to Anna. My dear Anna, grow well and strong again. It’s because of you that I am here, with this man at my side. Spasibo.

‘I’ll stay,’ she said simply.

Tivil Spring 1934

The air was crystal clear, and high above Tivil the wispy trail of an aeroplane skimmed across a pale blue sky. Mikhail gazed up at it, shading his eyes.

‘It’s an ANT- 9,’ Pyotr said confidently. ‘The same as the
Krokodil
.’

‘You’re right,’ Mikhail grinned. ‘You’ll be a pilot yet.’

They were in the graveyard at the back of what was once the church, the grass still fragile with frost where the building’s shadow lay, but the spring sunshine was tempting out the first buds. Sofia was kneeling beside Rafik’s grave. In her hand she held a bunch of podsnezhniki, snowdrops, their delicate heads softly swaying as she placed them in a jar on the grave.