Her hair was a wild, sparse corona of grey, and she was clutching a small bag in both hands, holding it high against her chest as if it would defend her against the indifference of the women and Vanko’s yelling. Scattered melting flakes of snow on her face and in her hair. She had no coat. Fasil was working his way towards her from the direction of the cutting machines.
Maroussia stood up, spilling a tin of pins across the floor. By the time she reached her, her mother had come to a bewildered halt.
‘Mother? What are you doing here?’ said Maroussia. ‘Do you want to lose me my job?’
Her mother’s eyes wouldn’t focus properly. She was pressing the little bag to her breasts. Fasil was coming closer. Maroussia put her mouth against her mother’s ear and shouted.
‘Come on. We have to get outside.’
Her mother didn’t move. She was saying something, but her voice couldn’t be heard. Maroussia put her hands on her shoulders – they felt as soft and strengthless as a child’s – and turned her towards the way out, pushing her gently forward. They had reached the door and Maroussia was pulling it open when Fasil gripped her roughly by the elbow and pulled her backwards.
‘You’re holding up the line. Will you pay for the pieces?’ He turned to Feiga-Ita. ‘Will you?’
‘Look at her, Fasil. She’s ill.’
Fasil pulled Maroussia closer against him. His cheeks were striated with fine red veins. His small eyes were narrowed, his mouth slightly open. There were damp flecks of stuff in his heavy tobacco-gingered moustache.
‘Superior little whore,’ he breathed. ‘You think we’re shit.’
‘Fasil, please, I just need a moment…’
He moved his hand down her back. She felt him trace the curve of her spine down into the valley of her buttocks, probing with his fingers through the thin material of her coat.
‘Whore,’ he hissed in her ear. ‘You can pay me later.’
Maroussia shoved her mother out and followed, pushing the door shut behind her and leaning against it, her eyes closed. Fasil was a bastard. There wouldn’t be an end to that, now.
Her mother was talking rapidly.
‘They’ve come for me. He’s back. We have to go. Run. Hide.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘He’s alive. He’s come back. He sent a message. He wants us. He says for us to go with her. To the forest, Maroussia. Back to the trees.’ She held out the bag she was clutching. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Take it. It’s here. You can feel it here.’
Maroussia pushed the shabby little bag aside.
‘You shouldn’t have come here, Mother. I have to go back inside now.’
‘No!’ Her mother was pleading with her. She held the little bag forward again, her thin white fingers like frail claws. ‘There were trees in the room. He wants you.’
‘He’s not in the forest! Josef is in Mirgorod. And he doesn’t want us, mother, of course he doesn’t. And we don’t want him.’
Her mother looked at her, puzzled. ‘Josef? No. Not him – not Josef – the other one.’
Maroussia felt the door move behind her. Somebody was trying to push it open. She heard Fasil’s voice.
‘Go home, mother!’ It was hard enough without this. ‘Please. Whatever it is, you can tell me later. At home.’
Maroussia turned and pulled the door open, surprising Fasil. She shoved past him and walked back to her trestle, looking neither right nor left, feeling the eyes of the women watching her. She picked a uniform from the line and began to work.
It took her two minutes, perhaps five, to realise that her mother would never find her way home by herself. It was a miracle she’d managed to get herself to Vanko’s in the first place.
Maroussia picked up her coat and walked back down the aisle, out into the Mirgorod morning. There were other jobs. Probably.
When she got outside she looked up and down the street. There was no sign of her mother.
40
Lom came round a corner against soft wet flurries of snow and stopped dead in his tracks. Twenty yards or so ahead of him two militia men were standing in the long alleyway that cut down between warehouses towards Vanko’s. They had their backs to him. One of them was Major Safran.
The other had laid a hand on Safran’s shoulder and was pointing out an elderly woman coming up the alley towards them, walking slowly, talking to herself. Her hair was a wild wispy mess and she was holding her hands cupped in front of her, carrying something precious.