He gazed at her, astonished to hear such perfect lips using such expressions. “Then surely you have nothing to fear from me.”
“I do not fear anything from you, Comrade Stalin. But if you mean that I have nothing to fear from sharing your bed, you are mistaken. It is a matter of honour rather than fear. It is a masculine misconception that the entire sexual universe revolves around orgasm and ejaculation — if that does not happen, then nothing has happened. That is not correct. If I allowed you to touch a single part of my body, sexually, I would be dishonoured. And of course, so would you. But you long ago discarded any concepts of honour, did you not?”
She had to keep challenging him, rather as a lone traveller surrounded by wolves had to keep a fire burning between him and them all the time. It was the only way of keeping the beast out. But this time she suddenly realised she had gone too far, as the glare in his eyes suddenly overtook his entire face, so that he became convulsed with a mixture of lust and hatred. She stood up as he lunged at her, and tried to put the table between them, but he moved with surprising speed for a man of his bulk and age, caught her arm, and threw her across the table itself.
Temporarily winded, she tried to push herself up, and was seized by the nape of the neck and thrust down so hard she banged her face on the wood. Her skirt was already thrown up around her shoulders, and he was dragging on her knickers, pulling them down around her knees. She tried to kick, but that only enabled him to yank them right off. Freed for the moment of his grasp, she rolled off the table and on to the floor, striking it with a thud that again left her gasping for breath, and before she could recover he was on her again, once more throwing up her skirt, holding her legs apart as he knelt between, then putting one hand on her chest to hold her flat while he fumbled at his belt and buttons.
Desperately, Priscilla struck at him, while fighting back the urge to scream. She had not screamed when Rotislav the valet had done this to her 25 years before, and besides, a scream would only bring his creatures in to help him. This was a battle she had to fight, and win, on her own. But for a moment she thought she had lost, as his trousers slid down. She had been wrong in her assumption that he could not have an erection. Her arms were free, and she could strike at his face. But did she dare scratch the cheeks of probably the most omnipotent man in the world? She panted while she tried to come to a decision, and realised that the immediate crisis was past, and that she had, after all, won; he was already drooping, before he had even attempted entry.
She could only hope it was not a pyrrhic victory, as he threw himself on her, muttering into her ear as his moustache roamed over her face. She made herself lie still. He was not re-erecting, and had to know that. He rolled off her, turned his back on her, dressed himself. Still she lay absolutely still, even if she was unable to suppress her gasps for breath. Then he went to the door and left the apartment.
Priscilla lay still for several seconds before getting up in turn, and dressing herself. She ached in so many places she couldn’t count them all. She went to the mirror on the wall and peered at it, not for the first time wondering if it was two-way glass and there was someone looking back at her. There was always a jug of vodka in the room, and she poured herself a glass, spilling a good deal of it as her hands were shaking. She could not imagine what might be going to happen next. She dared not imagine what might be going to happen next. Stalin was no philosopher. He had no ability to see life through other eyes, to understand, and therefore, to forgive. He was a monster, who had failed to impose his manhood on the object of his desire. She could expect only destruction.
She sat at her table and waited, as she had done for so long. She was tensed all the time, hut even so she jumped when the door finally opened, standing up instinctively. She looked at a tall man with an utterly bald head, a great moon face, and rimless glasses. He wore uniform, and held himself stiffly. “My name is Lavrenty Beria,” he announced. “I am Commissar for Internal Affairs.”
Priscilla held her breath; that meant he was head of the secret police, the NKVD. “Am I under arrest?”
“It is the wish of Comrade Stalin that you leave this apartment and go to stay with your cousin Comrade Ligachevna, until arrangements can be made for you and your husband to leave the Soviet Union.” Priscilla’s knees gave way, and she sat down. “There are certain conditions attached,” Beria went on, speaking in a complete monotone.
“I was sure there would be,” Priscilla muttered.
Beria continued to look at a spot immediately above her head. “You will discuss your stay in the Kremlin with no one. Do not suppose that because you have left Russia we cannot find you and destroy you at will: remember what happened to Comrade Trotsky. I have no doubt that you will wish to tell your husband of your stay here, but should the slightest word of it reach any newspaper in the world, my people will seek you out and your husband, wherever you may be. Do you understand this?”
“I understand you,” Priscilla said. The arrogance of these people, she thought, that they can just imprison someone for several months, subject her to threats of an horrendous nature, and then calmly let her go again with the warning not to talk about it! But then, as no one had appeared to believe Joseph’s articles about life in the gulag, why should they not be arrogant?
Beria went to the door. “You have fifteen minutes to pack, then my people will come for you.”
“And Monsieur Stalin?” she asked.
“Monsieur Stalin does not wish to see your face again,” Beria told her.
“Why, Priscilla,” Jennie said, and hugged her. “How very good to see you. Have you had a nice vacation?” They might have last seen each other only yesterday. “You are looking so well,” Jennie said. “And isn’t the news tremendous? They are calling it the greatest tank battle in history. And we have won it! The panzers are entirely wiped out. Now the war will be won. Tatiana will be coming home!”
And Alexei, Priscilla thought. Pray God he is still all right. And Joseph! “I should like to see Sonia,” she said. “Is she at the hotel?”
“Sonia?” Jennie raised her eyebrows. “Sonia went back to the States some time ago.”
“The greatest tank battle in history,” Chuikov said proudly. Joseph could well believe that. For the past fortnight he had been an appalled spectator of a conflict which had staggered the imagination, as thousands of great steel-clad fighting vehicles had clashed, their guns spitting flame and lead, every so often exploding into blazing fire and smoke. Now they littered the fields, burned-out skeletons, in whose midst were other skeletons that had once been men. But there could be no doubt of the magnitude of the victory. For every destroyed Russian T34 tank there were some four German Panzers. And these were mostly Tigers, the giant tanks of the battlefield, yet unable to withstand the concentration and weight of the Russian fire.
Equally there could be no doubting that this was the beginning of the end of the German invasion of Russia. All the reports spoke of columns of German troops and their allies streaming west, no matter what directives they might have received from Hitler. The Russians now had almost total air superiority, and their planes could watch every German movement. “So where do we go from here?” he asked that night at dinner, whereas always the vodka flowed and there was great good humour_
“Ah!” Chuikov said. “We continue the advance. Next stop, Germany, eh? But you, my friend, you go back to Moscow.”
Joseph frowned. “Is that an instruction from Stalin?”
“It is an instruction from your wife, Comrade. She has finally arrived. Do you not wish to obey her?”
They clung to each other, while Jennie looked on benevolently. “I thought you would never make it,” Joseph said.
“So did I,” Priscilla answered, truthfully.
He held her at arms’ length. “You look magnificent!”
“Which is more that can be said for you!”
“I am fully recovered,” he assured her. “It’s just a matter of looking well again.”
The door of the apartment opened. “This is my friend, Galina Shermetska,” Jennie said. “She lives upstairs.”
“Mr Cromb I know,” Galina said. “And you are the Princess. The reports of your beauty have not been exaggerated.”
“Galina’s daughter Sophie is serving with the partisans in the Pripet,” Jennie explained. “With Tatiana. And Alex, of course.”
“It is so long since we have heard from them,” Galina said.
“You must be terribly worried,” Priscilla ventured.
“They will be all right,” Galina asserted. “They are with Tatiana.”
Her confidence was touching. Priscilla wished she could feel the same way about Alex. But first, there was Joe to be savoured. “We have so much to tell each other,” he said, when they were at last alone.
“I think it should wait until we are out of this foul country,” Priscilla said. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. She made a move. “Even the walls have ears, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Can we go, without Alex?”
“I don’t think we have any choice. Nor do I think our staying will help him, one way or the other.”
“There are a whole lot of things I simply do not understand,” Joseph confessed.
“Well, we’re talking about Russia, right?” she asked.
The partisans crowded round the radio to listen to the news and their instructions. “Kiev,” Shatrav said. “They are in Kiev.” It was almost impossible to believe; Kiev was less than 250 miles away.
“The enemy is in full retreat,” the voice said. “Now is the time for all true comrades to rise up and strike the beast, strike him so that he can never recover from the mauling he has received from the Red Army. Here are the instructions for the Partisan Groups. These instructions must be implemented as rapidly as possible. Groups One, Three and Four will amalgamate. Concentration centre will be map reference Seven A. I repeat, concentration centre will be map reference Seven A.”
They looked at each other; no one in Group One needed to be told that map reference Seven A was in their section of the Pripet. “The commander of this unified force,” the voice continued, “will be Number One. I repeat, the commander of this unified Group will be Number One.”
All heads turned towards Tatiana. “Now you really are a general,” Shatrav said, admiringly.
“Your target is reference Number Twelve,” the voice said. “I repeat, your target is reference Number Twelve, and your instructions are Number Six, pending the arrival of Red Army units.”
He went on to other instructions, while hands tore at the reference book. “Brest-Litovsk,” Tatiana said. “We are to assault Brest-Litovsk. What is Number Six?”
“Take and hold,” Alex said.
“Brest-Litovsk?” Shatrav studied the page. “We are to hold it?”
“Pending the arrival of Red Army units.”
“Hold the town?” Shatrav scratched his chin.
The voice was still speaking. “Using Code Seven, transmit the day of your assault, and you will receive air support. I repeat...” Tatiana got up and walked away from them, staring into the trees. She was to be commander of three groups. Such had their numbers grown over the summer that she would have more than a thousand people under her command. But to take a town! And then hold it! They had virtually taken the town a year ago, with less than a hundred partisans. But they had never considered trying to hold it.
“Can we do it?” Alex asked, standing behind her.
She turned to face him. “Of course! We have been told to do so. But we shall make some plans of our own. I will work it out. You will help me. The first thing we need to do is utterly destroy the rail links, both east and west of the town, so it cannot be reinforced. Blocks must be erected on the road, as well, and all bridges must be blown. Bring the maps.”
He had become her right-hand man since the deaths of Feodor and, they had to presume, Olga — although so far as they knew Olga had not been executed as her body had not been publicly displayed. “And Elaine?”
“Elaine will have to come with us, or remain by herself in the swamp. We will need every man and woman. But I would have supposed she would wish to come with us. Holzbach is still in command in Brest-Litovsk. I would have thought she would wish to be revenged on him for what he did to her.”
“If only we knew what he did do to her,” Alex muttered, without thinking.
“I would have supposed you at least would have found that out by now. If not it might be a good idea to find out now.”
She was, as always, utterly confident. Alex did not suppose she in any way loved him, or even felt the slightest affection for him; Tatiana Gosykinya, above all the women he had ever encountered — or all the men, either—was totally amoral and ruthless. It was not that she was self-centered, or that she valued herself more highly than anyone else. If she did do that, on occasion, it was because she was required to lead, and she knew that only she could do the job. She was totally dedicated to the job, to the winning of the war, and, in her small part of the conflict, that meant the killing of Germans. He did not even suppose that when she tortured a man to death she enjoyed it, or even found it interesting, any more; it was simply her business to make war as hellish as possible — for the enemy. But she was also a woman, with a sexual drive as strong as her hatred. And he was her chosen mate, whatever his own feelings in the matter. Well, he would have had to be gay not to be overwhelmed with desire every time he crawled into her sleeping bag. But that did not mean he could not love another.
If only he knew, or could be the least sure, that he did love, that he could, any longer. More importantly, that Elaine could, any longer. She had refused to speak of her experiences at the hands of the Germans. Nor had she spoken of exactly how Olga had got her out, but she knew Olga had sacrificed her life. What else did she know? Although Olga had neither divulged her plan to them, nor given them any idea of the timescale involved, there had been the usual patrols along the edges of the Marshes, and one of these had found Elaine, wandering alone through the darkness. Tatiana and Alex had examined her together, realised that she had been beaten. But as far as Alex could discern, she had not been tortured in any other way. When they had asked her, she had merely gazed at them, her face closed and cold. It had remained that way.
“Do you think she is suffering a breakdown?” Tatiana asked.
Alex had no doubt that she was, but he wasn’t going to say so, just in case Tatiana had it in mind that anyone suffering a breakdown might be an unnecessary mouth to feed. “She’ll come round,” he had said.
But Elaine remained as aloof as ever. She had always been a private person, quite astonishingly so in view of the utter intimacy in which the partisans had been forced to live for the past two years. But however much she might have to expose herself, or perform her necessaries in the company of several others of both sexes, she had never indulged in the banter that invariably accompanied such acts; it was as if from time to time she could take leave of her body, and while it remained there, her mind had soared to a plateau beyond the reach of other humans. Perhaps that ability had stood her in good stead when it had come to withstanding Nazi torture. Equally perhaps, was the possibility that her mind had had to escape once too often, and now could not return. Or did not wish to return. Alex suspected he was the only member of the Group who would even faintly be able to understand that.
He found her sitting on the banks of a pond, idly watching the fish that darted to and fro in the clear water. It was a marvellous day, with not a cloud in the sky and warm enough to take off one’s jacket, as Elaine had done. She was, in fact, as pretty as a picture, with her hair loose and tumbling past her shoulders, and her rather solemn face relaxed. He sat beside her. “What do you think of the news?”
“I think it is tremendous,” she said.
“We’re all set to let rip. Elaine, you will have to come with us, this time.”
“Yes,” she said.
He was surprised. She had never wa
nted to before. “It’ll be rough.”
“I know.” She turned her head. “Do you think Olga is still alive?”
“There’s a chance. One feels that if they had executed her they would have done so publicly. But...it’s been a month.”
“You mean, if she has spent a month in that cellar then she is dead, to all intents and purposes.” He bit his lip, and she touched his hand. “I only spent a week there.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Do you want me to?”
“It’s just that, perhaps, if you did you might feel better.”
“I have no feelings about it, Alex. And there is nothing to talk about. Nothing happened.” Alex made no comment, but she could tell from his expression that he either didn’t believe her or he felt her brain had closed down the memory.
“It’s the truth,” she said. “That man, Holzbach, is a psychiatric case. He wanted me, sexually. He came close to taking me, sexually. But he could not bring himself to do it. Then he wanted to hurt me, as he did the first day. But because I would not scream he could not do that again, either. So he would just come and look at me. He and his goons.” She shuddered. “Just standing there, looking at me. Or playing a hose over me.” She gave another shudder.
“Were you afraid?”
“Of course I was afraid. Every time he came I supposed he had made up his mind to kill me. But he didn’t.”
“And it doesn’t appear as if he has killed Olga, either. So maybe we will be able to rescue her.”
Elaine looked at him. “Do you understand about that? About her and me?”
“Yes. What I would like to know is where that leaves you and me?”
Elaine sighed. “I didn’t love her, Alex. But when you went off with Tatiana...all right, you were summoned to do that. But that still left me out in the cold, right? So I was lonely, and miserable, and she was there, and, well, I’m not quite as sexless as I appear. The problem was, is, I guess, that she genuinely loved me. And sacrificed herself for me.”
The Scarlet Generation Page 29
