Sashenka

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  The lights remained on. Sashenka tried to sleep. She talked aloud to the children but already they belonged to another world. Could she still smell their smells? The texture of their skin, the sound of their voices, everything was still utterly fresh and vivid for her. She started to cry, gently and with resignation.

  The peephole slipped open.

  ‘Silence, prisoner! Show your face and hands at all times!’

  She slept and she was a child again, on the Zeitlin estate at Zemblishino: her father, in a white suit and yachting shoes, was holding a pony by the bridle – and Lala, darling Lala, was helping her climb up into the saddle …

  35

  Sashenka was woken by the grating of trolleys, swishing of mops, screeching of locks. The peephole opened and shut, the door rasped open.

  ‘Slopping out! Bring your slop bucket!’ A guard marched her to the washroom, where the chlorine stung her eyes. She poured out her slops and washed her face with water. Then it was back to her cell.

  ‘Breakfast!’ The same prisoner whose glance had been so slyly sensuous now wore a plywood tray like an usherette selling cigarettes. The other prisoner, a bearded old man covered in tattoos – a real criminal, Sashenka guessed – poured out the tea and handed over a small piece of bread, a lump of sugar, and eight cigarettes with a strip of phosphorus from a matchbox. Once again the long thin face of the server revealed nothing, but again his eyes roved over her body and neck and glinted with the rudest lust before the door slammed again. Already, the tea and bread tasted divine. She knew from Vanya that prisoners sometimes waited weeks even to be interrogated so it might be ages before she was able to make her stand, to defend herself as a Communist – and find out what had brought her here.

  Then she lay again on the bed. Where are the children now? she wondered. And she said aloud the word that was becoming her talisman, her code to transmit her love across the vast steppes and powerful rivers of Russia to her distant children. ‘Cushion!’

  ‘Prisoner 778?’ The door had opened.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come!’ Three guards marched her along the corridors, up metallic steps, down concrete staircases with metal grilles to prevent suicides, over rickety wooden bridges suspended above granite canyons, across corridors, until they passed two security doors with manned barriers and entered a wide passageway with offices instead of cells. Sashenka hummed to herself – she found to her surprise it was that gypsy romance so beloved of Benya Golden, their lovesong:

  Black eyes, passionate eyes, lovely burning eyes, how I love you, how I fear you.

  I first laid eyes on you in an unkind hour …

  What an unkind hour for love it had turned out to be, but that tune fuelled a sudden surge of optimism. She was certain now there would be no need for Vanya’s terrible plan. She would easily disprove the Chekists’ accusations. Then they would release her. She would wait a little then recall the children. Oh, the joy of that!

  ‘In here!’ The guard pushed her into a small clean office with a linoleum floor, an empty desk, a grey telephone and a light turned towards her. The brightness of the bulb blinded her for a second. Golden beads sparkled before her eyes and she smelt the sweetness of coconut pomade.

  A young man in NKVD uniform with round spectacles, a ginger moustache and a preposterous pompadour quiff opened a papka file, licking his finger as he turned the pages. He took his time and when he had finished he sat back, his boots creaking. He stroked, almost massaged, the piece of paper in front of him.

  ‘Prisoner, my name is Investigator Mogilchuk. Are you ready to help us?’ He did not call her ‘comrade’ but he seemed gentle and reasonable. His voice was husky like that of a boyish student; the accent was southern, from around the Black Sea, Mariupol perhaps; and she guessed that he was a teacher’s son, provincial intelligentsia, probably qualified in the law, summoned to Moscow to fill the boots of the old Chekists, now deceased.

  ‘Yes, Investigator, I am but I would like to save you from wasting your time. I’ve been a Party member since 1916; I worked in Lenin’s apparat and I’d like to ask—’

  ‘Silence, prisoner! I ask the questions here. As the armed sword of the Party, we Chekists will decide your case. That’s our mission. Now will you help us?’

  ‘Absolutely. I want to clear this up.’

  Investigator Mogilchuk stretched his neck and raised his chin. ‘Clear up what?’ he said.

  ‘Well, whatever it is that I’m accused of.’

  ‘You know what it is.’

  ‘I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Oh, come now, prisoner. I’m going to ask you: why are you here?’

  ‘I don’t know. I am innocent. Genuinely.’

  Mogilchuk carefully checked the crusty surface of his pompadour and knitted his eyebrows. ‘That’s not being helpful. Are you sincere in your wish to serve the Party? I wonder. If you were sincere, you would know why you are here.’

  ‘I am a sincere Communist, Comrade Investigator, but I’ve done nothing wrong! Nothing! I joined no oppositions. Never! I supported every policy of the Lenin-Stalin Party line. I would never tolerate any anti-Soviet conversations. Not even anti-Soviet thoughts. My life’s been devoted to the Party …’

  ‘Shut up!’ said the investigator and banged the table, an action so absurd that Sashenka struggled to conceal her disdain. She had a misplaced urge to laugh.

  ‘Don’t waste our time!’ he snapped at her. ‘You think we bring you here for fun? I’m up to here in cases and I need you to confess now to what you have done. We know how to handle people like you.’

  ‘People like me?’

  ‘Spoilt Party princesses who think the State owes them their fancy clothes, cars, dachas. We specialize in grinding your type down to size. So I repeat: look into your life, your Communist conscience, your past! Why are you here? A confession will make things much easier for you.’

  ‘But I can’t … I’m innocent!’

  ‘How do you reconcile the fact of your arrest with your claim of innocence? Begin your confession! Do not wait until we force you!’

  Sashenka was rattled. What was he demanding? If she admitted something trivial would that satisfy him? She thought back over Vanya’s careful instructions as they sat on the swinging hammock in the dark hot garden that desperate night: ‘Confess nothing. Without a confession, they can’t touch you! Believe me, darling, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve broken legions of men and perhaps this’ll be their revenge on me. But don’t invent some little crime. It won’t ease the pressure! If they have something specific, they’ll confront you. If they want something specific, they’ll sweat it out of you.’

  Mogilchuk leaned forward. The sickliness of his coconut pomade was overpowering. ‘You come from a bourgeois family, real bloodsuckers. Did you genuinely embrace the Party – or did you remain a member of your filthy class, an enemy of working people?’

  ‘I worked for Lenin.’

  ‘Do you think I care about that now? If you deceived Comrade Lenin, you’ll be doubly damned.’

  ‘He called me Comrade Snowfox. He himself knew my background and he told me he came from nobility – it didn’t matter because I was a real Bolshevik believer.’

  ‘How dare you soil Comrade Lenin! Don’t you realize where you are? Don’t you realize what you are now? You’re as good as dust! You are sitting before the Tribunal of the Revolution: the Cheka. Just answer my questions.’ He looked down at the file, massaging the paper, round and round. ‘How long have you known Mendel Barmakid?’

  ‘He’s my uncle. All my life.’

  ‘Do you believe he’s a good Communist?’

  ‘I have always thought so.’

  ‘You sound like you have doubts?’

  ‘I know he’s been arrested.’

  ‘So you know we don’t arrest people for nothing?’

  ‘Comrade Mogilchuk, I believe in the armed wing of the Party. I believe you Chekists are, as Dzerzhinsky said, the knights of the Revolution. My own hus
band—’

  ‘Accused Palitsyn. Do you think he’s such a paragon of Party-mindedness? Really? Search your memories, your conversations: was he ever really an honest Chekist?’

  ‘Yes, he was.’ Suddenly she questioned even that: what if Vanya was a Fascist spy?

  ‘And Mendel? He was never a real Communist, was he … Comrade Snowfox’ – he added with a sneer – ‘if I may call you that?’

  ‘An honest Bolshevik who served five exiles, imprisonment in the Trubetskoy Bastion, ruined his health in hard labour and never joined a single deviation or opposition …’

  Mogilchuk removed his glasses. Without them, he was blearily myopic. He rubbed his face and ran his hands over his red hair. She sensed how eager he was to deliver her confession to his superior. Maybe he’d impress Beria. Perhaps even the Instantzia – Comrade Stalin himself – would hear of this ardent young investigator? He replaced his glasses. ‘Lift Mendel’s mask, show us this jackal and disarm him for us!’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ she said. ‘Mendel! I’m trying to think …’

  ‘Think and tell me!’ Mogilchuk raised his pen. ‘You speak and I’ll write. Did Mendel ever mention the Japanese diplomat he met in Paris?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The English lord who visited the embassy in London?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What foreigners did he know? Did he ever ask you to meet them? Think – scour your mind!’

  So it was Uncle Mendel they wanted! Sashenka knew it was not her. They’d invited Gideon to the Lubianka to talk about Mendel. Then Vanya had been pulled into this: perhaps someone had overheard Mendel and Vanya arguing about jazz? And, through Vanya: her. Benya was clearly unconnected to Mendel. Except via her – but that was much too tenuous. No, Benya was part of something else, the case against the intellectuals – and Mogilchuk hadn’t mentioned him at all. What was clear, though, was that they needed her to denounce Mendel.

  So it was Mendel who had brought this disaster upon her: it was he who had taken her children away. The mother in her was happy to sacrifice Mendel in a moment: she would do anything to see her children again. But if she invented the fact that Mendel was a Japanese spy, would they see that she was innocent and had loyally served the Party?

  She went back to Vanya’s instructions: ‘If they’re creating a case against Mendel, they’ll want your testimony, but remember he converted you and me to Marxism, introduced us both to the Party – and each other! That confession will destroy us all! Wait until we know what they have against us.’

  The investigator checked his hairdo again. ‘Well?’

  ‘No, Mendel’s a decent comrade.’

  ‘And you yourself have nothing to tell me?’

  She shook her head, feeling exhausted and weak. But there was hope, she told herself. Like someone buried in a landslide, she thought there was a way through to a chink of light. Vanya would not confess either; and even if her darling Vanya was destined for the meat-grinder, there was no case against her. Vanya, like any father, would die easier if he knew his wife was safe with their children! Be strong, confess nothing – and you will see Snowy and Carlo again, she told herself. After all, this had been polite enough. Perhaps they were just fishing …

  ‘All right, you want to play games with us?’ said Mogilchuk quite calmly. ‘You must realize, Comrade Snowfox, that I’m an intellectual like you are, like your uncle Gideon. You may have seen my stories published under the name M. Sluzhba? Well, I just like to talk to people. That’s my way. I’ve given you every chance but you’re going to get a nasty surprise if you don’t start to talk.’ He picked up the Bakelite phone and dialled a number. ‘It’s Mogilchuk … No, she won’t … Right!’ He replaced the phone. ‘Come with me.’

  36

  Accompanied by a guard, Investigator Mogilchuk led Sashenka down a long passageway that she had never seen before, up some steps, across the covered bridge, down some steps, and they emerged on to a wide corridor with a parquet floor. It was lined with gleaming panels of Karelian pine, portraits and busts of early Chekist heroes, and silken banners. A blue carpet ran down the centre, held in place with chunky gold tacks. Guards in ceremonial NKVD uniform stood beside a Soviet flag and a life-sized statue of Dzerzhinsky. The corridor ended in imposing double doors of oak. A guard opened them.

  They entered an anteroom where two NKVD officers, probably from the regions, sat with their briefcases. Mogilchuk walked straight through a further set of double doors which were opened by another guard. Inside, Sashenka recognized instantly the bustling apparat of a Soviet potentate: many secretaries in white blouses and grey skirts, eager young men in Party tunics, lines of Bakelite phones, piles of papki files, and green palms. A young officer jumped up and led them to a third closed door. He knocked and opened it.

  ‘Investigator Mogilchuk?’

  They entered an airy and bright office of monumental proportions, gleaming parquet and Karelian pine, smelling of polish and cool forests. To the left, some sofas and soft chairs were set on Persian carpets. Over the mantelpiece hung a huge oil painting by Gerasimov of Comrade Stalin, and in the corner sat a silver safe taller than a man. Marble busts of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky stood on each side of the room and, so far away that Sashenka could barely see it, another Gerasimov loomed, this time of Dzerzhinsky, Iron Felix, the founder of the Cheka, with his insane eyes and goatee.

  In the middle of the room, a polished oak desk was attached to a conference table to form the T-shape common to every office in the USSR. It was in pristine order, with a silver desk set, inkwells of turquoise ink, and only one or two pieces of paper on the blotter. The table behind the desk boasted eight telephones – and the vertushka Kremlin line. And presiding over it all, on a high-backed velvet burgundy chair, sat Comrade Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, Narkom of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs.

  Beria was eating from a plate of what appeared to be spinach or salad leaves. He beckoned her into the room with an open palm, masticating energetically.

  Mogilchuk saluted and left the room.

  ‘Oh Lavrenti Pavlovich,’ Sashenka said, ‘I’m so pleased to see you! Now we can clear this up.’

  Beria swallowed his mouthful then stood up courteously, walked round the desk and kissed her hand. ‘Welcome, Alexandra Samuilovna,’ he said formally in his rich Mingrelian accent, still holding her hand between his silky fingers. ‘You’re wondering what I’m eating?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, though she did not give a damn what he was eating.

  ‘Well, I don’t eat meat, you see. I hate killing anything. Those poor calves or lambs! No, I can’t bear it, and besides, Nina says I mustn’t put on weight! I’m a vegetarian so I eat only this – even at Josef Vissarionovich’s place. “Beria’s grass!” says Comrade Stalin. “Look, Lavrenti Pavlovich is having his grass again!” Now, let me look at you.’ He kept her hand and turned her around as if they were dancing. ‘Ah, you’re so pale. But so beau-ti-ful still. That figure’s enough to drive a man like me to folly! To risk everything for just one caress. You’re like a cream cake. What a shame to meet like this, eh?’

  His colourless eyes ran over Sashenka with such gobbling greed that she flinched. The stocky and bald People’s Commissar with the pince-nez circled her noiselessly on his soft suede shoes. He was not in uniform, just baggy yellow slacks and a collarless, embroidered blouse, like a Georgian at the seaside. Sashenka had not forgotten that her husband used to play on Beria’s basketball team at his Sosnovka dacha. When she watched the games, she had noticed that Beria was incredibly quick on his feet.

  ‘I’m so glad to see you,’ she repeated. She meant it. Beria was ruthless but competent. Vanya had admired his diligence, industry and fairness after the drunken frenzy of Yezhov. ‘You can sort this out, Lavrenti Pavlovich! Bless you!’

  ‘I could look at your hips and breasts all day, my cream cake, but you’re tired, I can see. Will you eat something?’ He picked up a phone and said, ‘Bring in some sandwiches.’


  At Beria’s invitation, she took one of the leather-seated chairs at the conference table adjoining Beria’s desk. He sat down too. The double doors opened and a woman in a white apron wheeled in a tea trolley. Placing a white napkin over her arm (just like one of the waitresses at the Metropole Hotel), she served tea and set out some sandwiches and fish zakuski, then left.

  ‘There!’ said Beria, smacking his loose, balloon-like lips. ‘Now eat while we talk. You’re going to need your energy.’

  Sashenka hesitated, afraid that eating these delicious snacks would somehow obligate her to betray her husband or Mendel. She concentrated and thought of her children. Now was her chance.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m accused of, respected Comrade Beria, but I’m innocent. I know you know that. You have no idea what joy it gives me to see you.’

  ‘Oh, and me you. Eat up, my dear cream cake. They’re not poisoned, I promise.’ She started to eat the sandwiches. ‘You know, you’re my type absolutely, Sashenka. The moment I saw you, I knew something about that overbite of yours suggests a capacity for pleasure. Yet you didn’t look too happy when I flirted with you at your place on May Day, hmmm? I think of women all day, you know. I’m a real Georgian man, aren’t I, eh?’ Beria’s eyes grew cloudy, the eyelids drooping. ‘You know what I’d like to do, Sashenka, I’d like to drive you over to my Moscow house. Nina and my son live at Sosnovka, at the dacha. We’d have a Georgian supra, you and me in my banya, we’d drink the best wines in that cosy bathhouse, and then I’d lay you on the divan and lift your skirt and run my nose up until I can smell your strawberries …’

  Sashenka knew that Beria was letting her know that he could do anything he wished. Yet she did not want to encourage him. His obscenity might be a trick, a lure. Or was it a sign that he really did desire her and if she wanted to get out, there was a simple price?

  But this was Lavrenti Beria, People’s Commissar, a man she respected and liked, a Bolshevik trusted and chosen by Comrade Stalin himself. How could he talk like this to a comrade who had known Lenin and entertained Stalin in her house? She thought quickly, and decided right then and there that she would do anything, however vile and demeaning, to see her children again.