The Lieutenant’s Lover. Harry Bingham

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СКАЧАТЬ what she had just done, he pulled her back and kissed her again. After a few minutes, they stopped kissing, but stayed arm in arm, suddenly and astonishingly close.

      ‘If this is concussion,’ said Misha, ‘then I like it.’

      She butted his shoulder with her head in mock-rebuke.

      ‘Do you always thank people like this?’ he continued. ‘I should think it makes a good impression mostly, but some people must be a bit surprised.’

      She shoved against him as if to scold him, but he had his arm so tightly wrapped around her body that the two of them moved together, one creature under the moonlight.

      ‘I wanted to kiss you when we sledged down that hill together and rammed the big snowdrift at the bottom. I wanted to kiss you and kiss you and never stop,’ he said.

      ‘Me too.’

      ‘Well, why didn’t you?’

      ‘Why didn’t you?’

      ‘Because I thought you didn’t want me to. You weren’t very friendly, you know.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘Well then… What about you? Why didn’t you let yourself kiss me?’

      She tossed her head coquettishly, secure now that she was in his arms. ‘A girl doesn’t have to explain,’ she said.

      ‘But a good citizen always should, comrade Lensky.’

      ‘You make a good point, comrade Malevich. But I still won’t say.’

      ‘In that case, comrade Lensky, I might be obliged to tickle you.’

      ‘But first, comrade Malevich, you would be obliged to catch me.’

      She broke away and ran from him, laughing. He chased her down the muddy street, and caught her. They were both laughing hard and panting hard. He pulled her close and they kissed again, longer and even more passionately than they had the first time.

      Tonya did walk Misha home that night, but it took her more than four and a quarter hours to do so. Misha did go to bed that night with his cut head wrapped in bandages and bathed in vinegar, but it took him until dawn to get to sleep. Both Misha in his bed and Tonya in hers knew that their lives would never be the same again.

      3

      Four weeks passed the same way.

      Misha and Tonya were in love: each was the other’s ‘little paw’, as the Russian phrase had it. Each day after work, Tonya would meet Misha by the road leading down to the rail yard. Mostly, they spent their time together walking. The spring was a warm one and it was a pleasure to be outside after a long and dreary winter. They strolled through the city parks, or along the banks of the Neva. But they were outside for another reason too. There was nowhere else for them to go. Twice Tonya had come to Misha’s rooms on Kuletsky Prospekt. Both times his mother had treated her as she would have treated any member of the servant class. Tonya felt invisible, irrelevant and unwanted. Neither she nor Misha could behave normally in that atmosphere and they burst downstairs and outside as soon as they could.

      Things were no better at Tonya’s home. Her father had been sent home from hospital, but his arm was healing slowly and it would be months before he was able to return to work. Deprived of his work, the nasty old man was also deprived of his access to tobacco and vodka. When Tonya and Misha were there together, he missed no opportunity to make a cackling joke, a dirty innuendo. He never thanked Misha for saving his life, nor did he ever once refer to the incident. When Tonya had to go next door to look after her grandmother, Misha had to sit and endure the old man’s silent, malicious scrutiny until Tonya was done and they could leave.

      So, in the time that they weren’t at work, or taking care of their respective families, Misha and Tonya walked – outside, covering miles and miles, talking, laughing, kissing and walking. They made love too, not once but many times. There was a spot in the park they returned to again and again. It lay inside a thicket of birch trees, screened off by a dense curtain of juniper and broom. They were hardly alone in wanting privacy, of course, and there were times when they found their spot had already been taken (‘Give us a sodding minute, will you, mates?’ came from inside the thicket), and other times when they sensed a queue forming outside (‘Sorry, comrades, take your time’).

      But, despite the limitations on their relationship, their love expanded. They lived in a daze. When they were with each other, nothing else seemed real. When they were apart, they dragged themselves around as though drugged.

      There was one subject, and only one, that had never been broached by them, but, aside from Tonya herself, it was the topic uppermost in Misha’s mind. The subject had to come up, and one day it did. It was the middle of May. They were walking through the streets in the deepening shade, listening to the dying burr of traffic and the clop-clop of horses’ hooves. Then Tonya squeezed Misha’s hand and said, ‘Your mother. You said she was ill.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Headaches again?’

      ‘Headaches, yes, and back pain. And if it isn’t headaches or back pain, then it’s a cough or a fever or something else.’

      ‘She’s not strong.’

      ‘Oh, she’s strong enough, or would be if things were easier for her… You know they want her to start work as a factory hand?’

      ‘Your mother, a factory hand!’

      ‘At the saw mill down by the Finlyandsky goods depot. Can you imagine? Wearing blue overalls and shouting above the rotary saws all day.’ Misha laughed, but his face reverted almost instantly to its former serious expression. ‘I have to get her out of Russia. You know that, of course?’

      ‘To get her out? But…’

      ‘Her and Yevgeny. They’ll have to join Natasha and Raisa in Switzerland.’

      Tonya heard his words and something inside her began to freeze. She walked along, silent and tense. Misha was preoccupied and took a moment or two to notice.

      ‘What’s up with you?’ he said in surprise.

      ‘Switzerland!’

      ‘Yes. Where else? Most of Europe is still at war, you know.’

      ‘But if she goes, won’t you need to … will you … who would go with her?’

      ‘Who would go with her?’

      Misha stopped and looked full into Tonya’s face. He saw the worry gathered between her eyebrows, her green eyes flitting from one place to another on his face. He was still for a moment, then his mouth quivered and broke out in a merry, widening laugh.

      ‘Oh, comrade Lensky, comrade Lensky!’

      He took her by the waist and her left hand, and, whistling out a tune to give them rhythm, he led her in a rapid waltz down the empty street. Infected by his mood, she started to laugh, but her anxiety hadn’t gone.

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ