The Lieutenant’s Lover. Harry Bingham

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I want to study. I think I’d like engineering.’

      Tonya shrugged, approached the man, and struck a bargain. Misha thought she’d used her lump of sugar and a half-pack of tobacco, but he wasn’t sure. The man leaped away, as though hurrying to preserve his good fortune. Tonya dumped the stack of books on the sledge.

      ‘There.’

      ‘Goodness! Thank you! You didn’t have to… How can I…’

      Tonya brushed aside his offers of repayment with a cross shake of her head. ‘Why do you owe me anything? If you don’t tie those books down, you’ll lose them.’

      Misha tied the books down next to the logs.

      ‘You’ll need to go fast. My place is a mile or two further than yours.’

      ‘As quick as I can.’

      He set off. The way back lay slightly uphill and even though the snow had a good icy crust, the slope and the rutted surface caused innumerable problems. Misha’s arms and back were already sore by the time he arrived back in Kuletsky Prospekt. He unloaded the logs, getting Yevgeny and his mother to carry them upstairs. Then he headed back to Tonya, who had been waiting four hours by now, but who looked as immobile and impassive as if she’d been waiting four minutes or four years.

      ‘Comrade Lensky.’

      ‘Comrade Malevich.’

      Without much further talk, they loaded up and began the long journey back. The roads had thawed a little, making the pulling conditions worse. It was heavy, dogged labour, even with Tonya helping. Once a soldier challenged them to produce the right documentation for their load. Tonya didn’t even bother to pretend to justify herself. She just swore at the soldier, using deliberately coarse, proletarian expressions. Misha had never heard a girl swear before. And though the soldier swore back, he didn’t try to stop them.

      ‘You put him in his place,’ said Misha.

      ‘Did it shock you?’

      ‘No. Yes, maybe. The way people speak and so much else seems to have changed these days. But I’m pleased we didn’t have to stop.’

      Tonya made a ‘tsk’ noise, as though Misha had said something wrong, and they relapsed into silence as they continued. Tonya’s house was further than she had said and it was almost dark by the time they reached her yard. Misha was very tired now, but said nothing about it. They unloaded the sledge. The logs had become wet on the journey and were now starting to freeze.

      ‘Do you want me to carry them up for you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘A good day’s work.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘If you want…’ Misha began, then stopped. If she wanted, then what? Misha knew where the peasants congregated now. He wouldn’t need her help again, and without things to trade – things such as he still had and she didn’t – the girl wouldn’t have much reason to go back there.

      ‘If I want, what?’

      ‘Nothing. Only … where do you work?’

      ‘The hospital. The Third Reformed. I’m a nurse.’

      ‘I see. And your father works on the railway, I think you said.’

      ‘Yes. Why?’

      ‘Nothing, only I need a job.’

      ‘Well you can get work anywhere, can’t you? I don’t think you’d be much use as a nurse.’

      ‘No, but the railway appeals.’

      ‘Well then. Go to the railway.’ Tonya picked up an armful of logs. She stacked them in the crook of her arm, piling them until they were tucked high under her chin.

      ‘You’re sure I can’t help?’

      ‘I’ve been carrying logs all my life, comrade Malevich. For me, today wasn’t an adventure.’

      ‘Yes, I see.’

      Misha picked up the reins of the sledge and began the slow trudge home.

      7

      He got home, weary but satisfied.

      His satisfaction lasted approximately one second from the moment he threw open the door to their rooms.

      His gaze fixed first on his mother, silent and white-faced – then Yevgeny, the same – then on two soldiers in the corner by the window, holding their rifles in front of them like walking sticks. A third man in a tie and a dark coat waited on the opposite wall. He had a revolver at his waist. There was total silence.

      Misha broke it.

      ‘Good evening,’ he said.

      ‘Mikhail Ivanovich Malevich?’ said the man in the tie.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Come with us.’

      ‘Come? Why? Is this an arrest?’

      The man didn’t bother to answer. Emma was frozen in her chair by the stove, eyes terrified, too scared even to cry. Misha saw Yevgeny, his ‘little comrade’, clutching his mother as though it was his job to comfort her.

      ‘I’ll be fine, Mother. This gentleman only wants to ask some questions. I’ll be home soon.’

      Perhaps or perhaps not. He knew he had no way of telling. With the man in the tie leading the way, the soldiers pushed Misha out of the door, then led him downstairs into a waiting car. There were two more soldiers in the vehicle, also armed. Still no one spoke.

      The car, lurching dangerously on the uncleared roads, crept through the city. It was dark now and from his position, seated in between two soldiers, Misha had a hard job working out where they were going. Lamps flashed by in the darkness. The soldiers in front muttered inaudibly between themselves. Once, they hit a patch of ice and slid sideways into a drift. Two of the men had to get out to help push the car out again, while the driver turned in his seat and stared at Misha with unreadable eyes.

      After twenty-five minutes they stopped outside a large building somewhere near the centre of town. The building had two large iron lanterns burning outside and a pair of armed guards just inside the doorway. Misha thought he could see a sign reading ‘Ministry of Economic … but he didn’t have time to read the whole sign and wasn’t certain of what he’d seen anyway. He was thrust through the doorway and was marched at speed up a broad turning staircase and along wide, ringing corridors. They stopped at a door. One of the soldiers knocked once, got an answer, then shoved Misha through.

      The room was around a dozen feet square, with a grey striped rug over a parquet floor. One wall was covered by a dark wooden unit, cupboards on the bottom, glass-fronted shelves above. The shelves were mostly empty, except for a few rows filled by books with titles like Report of the Commission into the Iron and Steel Industry 1912. The only other adornments were a map of Russia and a portrait of Karl Marx.

      Behind the desk sat a man, formal, neat, wire-rimmed spectacles over a beaky nose. The man wore a carefully trimmed beard and a look of mild busyness. A second man stood on the opposite side of the room by the door, so Misha couldn’t look at them both at the same time. Misha was given a low stool and told to sit.

      ‘Malevich? Mikhail Ivanovich Malevich?’

      Misha confirmed his identity with a nod. Then it began. Questioning, intense and repetitive, constant and intrusive.

      He was asked about everything. Things that mattered, things that didn’t. Things to which they must already have known the answers, things that it was impossible for anyone to have known. Misha’s