Sashenka

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

‘I used her … I hated the revolutionaries as scum … but I came to love her.’

  ‘We don’t want your romantic reminiscences, prisoner. Your professional relationship?’

  ‘She was my double agent.’

  ‘When did you recruit her for the Okhrana?’

  ‘Winter 1916. We arrested her as a Bolshevik. I recruited her at Kresty Prison. Thereafter we met in safehouses and hotel rooms where she betrayed her comrades.’

  ‘This is not true. You know it’s not true! Whoever you are, you’re telling lies!’ Sashenka stood up. Kobylov’s bejewelled hands fell heavily on her shoulders, jolting her back into her seat. A chill rose up her body, and she started to shiver.

  ‘Did she recruit other agents for you, higher up the Bolshevik high command?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell us who.’

  ‘First, Mendel Barmakid.’

  Sashenka shook her head. She felt she was drowning, the waters closing above her head.

  ‘Was Mendel a valuable agent, Prisoner Sagan?’

  ‘Oh yes. The other leaders were in prison, Siberia or abroad. He was a member of the Central Committee in contact with Lenin.’

  ‘How long did he remain a double agent?’

  ‘Mendel’s still a double agent.’

  ‘Lies! You bastard!’ she shouted again, energy draining from her. ‘You’ll rot in hell for this! If you knew what you were doing! If you only knew …’ She started to weep.

  ‘Get a grip on yourself, accused,’ said Mogilchuk, ‘or Rodos will tear you apart.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘After the Revolution, Sagan, what happened to your Okhrana agents?’

  ‘They went underground as I did myself.’

  ‘Under whose control?’

  ‘Initially the White Guards but later we became the servants of … an unholy alliance of snakes and running dogs.’ At this, Sagan again smirked, and Sashenka sensed within him a mixture of shame and mockery. Behind his shifting, restless blue irises he seemed to be weeping, begging her to forgive him. Had they drugged him?

  ‘Under whose command, Sagan?’

  ‘Ultimately under the command of Japanese and British intelligence but taking orders from the United Opposition of Trotsky and Bukharin.’

  ‘So all these years you were still in contact with the accused?’

  ‘I was the contact between her and the enemies of the Soviet working people.’

  ‘You met regularly?’

  ‘Yes, we did.’

  ‘This is laughable,’ Sashenka shouted. ‘I’ve never heard of this man. The policeman Sagan was killed on Nevsky Prospect in 1917. This man is an actor!’

  ‘What other agents did she recruit?’

  ‘Her husband, Vanya Palitsyn. And more recently the writer Benya Golden – using the same degenerate sexual techniques I taught her as a girl.’

  ‘So Japanese and British intelligence, along with Trotsky and Bukharin, were running traitor Mendel in the Central Committee, traitor Palitsyn in the NKVD, and traitor Golden the writer for years on end?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘You bastard!’ Sashenka threw herself across the table but when her fingers came into contact with her accuser, it was like grabbing handfuls of sand. There was nothing to hold. The old man was so weak that he fell off his chair, grazing his head on the side of the table and lying on the floor in a heap.

  Kobylov lifted her up from behind like a rag doll and dropped her hard on to her chair.

  ‘Careful, girl, we’ve got to look after him, haven’t we, boys?’ said Mogilchuk as he helped Sagan off the floor. He was still floppy and could barely sit up, legs and hands a blur of spasms.

  Sashenka experienced the despair of the damned. This scarecrow was tolling the bells on her entire life. She thought of her children. The unthinkable had happened. Nothing was as she had imagined.

  She was not irrelevant to this case, she realized. She was its pivot – the centre of the spider’s web – and she would never get out, never see Snowy and Carlo again. ‘Give me time to settle the children,’ Satinov had demanded. She prayed he had succeeded.

  Was it now time to put Vanya’s plan into action? ‘Only confess when you realize you have no choice,’ he’d instructed. Had he held out this long?

  ‘Good work, boys!’ Kobylov clapped his hands together and left, kicking the door shut behind him with a gleaming boot.

  Mogilchuk held up a file entitled Protocol of Interrogation and opened it.

  ‘Here’s your confession. You’ve signed every page and at the end, have you not?’

  Sagan nodded, jiggling his knees and scratching.

  The Chekist tossed it over to Sashenka. ‘There, Accused Zeitlin-Palitsyn! Read it! You couldn’t remember all this? How could you have forgotten?’

  44

  ‘Comrade Stepanian, any sign of a telegram?’

  Carolina staggered into the stationmaster’s office. It was the next morning, a fan whirred overhead, and the hot office was crowded that day. An old peasant in blouse and clogs, two little eyes peering over a long white beard, sat in front of the desk; a young man in a Party tunic with a Kalinin beard waited with passport and tickets; an NKVD officer read a sports magazine with his feet up on the radiator.

  Comrade Stepanian put his hand on the pile of telegrams and patted it.

  ‘No, no, there’s no telegram …’

  Carolina was overcome with despair. Satinov had failed them; it had all been for nothing. ‘I’m leaving today,’ she said, on the edge of tears. ‘I can’t wait any longer.’

  She dragged herself and the children to the door and was struggling to open it when suddenly Stepanian shook himself and clicked his tongue like a woodpecker.

  ‘Wait! There’s no telegram – but there’s someone waiting for you by the samovar in the canteen. A woman. She’s been here for some time.’

  ‘Thank you, Comrade Stepanian. Thank you! I could embrace you …’ and she rushed out.

  ‘Is it Mama?’ asked Carlo as they hurried to the café.

  ‘Mama’s gone away,’ said Snowy seriously. ‘Carolina’s told you already. We’re on an adventure.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Carolina. ‘Run quickly. Oh, please God she hasn’t left already.’

  Inside the canteen, a little apart from the queue for tea and hot water beside the steaming samovar and further from the trays of greasy dumplings, pirozhki and pelmeni, a dignified older woman with a heart-shaped face and grey curls around her ears sat stiffly. Wearing an old-fashioned lady’s cloche hat and a suit, Lala was sipping a cup of tea, scanning the crowds eagerly. When she saw the bedraggled nanny and the two children, she stood up and beckoned them over.

  ‘Hello, I’ve come to meet you.’ She smiled at them all and offered a hand to Carolina, who seemed beyond such courtesies. The two women eyed each other for a moment, then hugged like old friends.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s taken so long. The train was delayed and I’m not practised at all this. Come, let’s sit down at this table,’ she said, speaking slowly, looking hard at the children, her darling Sashenka’s children. ‘I have a room in the Revolution Hotel in Rostov where we can go and wash and get some sleep. We can eat there too. I have papers stamped for the children and I was given some money.’

  Carolina tottered and then sat and buried her face in her hands – and Lala knew what this moment must be costing the nanny. Carlo ran to Carolina and kissed her hair. ‘You’re my best friend in the whole wide world!’ he said, stroking her cheek.

  Lala placed her hand on Carolina’s shoulder. ‘We’re living in bad times and you’ve done so well to get here. Please, Carolina, stop crying! I never asked for this job. Like you, I’m risking a lot to do it. I too am out of my depth.’

  ‘But you have a plan? You know what to do?’

  ‘Yes, I have instructions. Carolina, I’ll do anything to carry them through.’ She looked once more at the children and they stared at her.

  ‘Who is she?’ asked Snowy.

&nb
sp; ‘Be polite, Snowy!’ Lala saw Carolina return to her brisk self. ‘This lady is going to help you.’

  ‘Where’s Mama?’ asked Carlo, his face collapsing again.

  ‘You must be Carlo,’ said Lala. ‘I have something for you.’ She reached into a canvas bag and pulled out a biscuit tin illustrated with a picture of the Kremlin.

  Carlo could not take his eyes off the tin. Lala opened it and Carlo gasped at the yellow magic of the biscuits with their delicious custard and jam fillings but did not move.

  ‘I heard you liked these,’ she said, feeling Carolina smile at her.

  ‘Look, Carlo,’ said Snowy, ‘she knows they’re your favourite.’ Snowy took one and gave it to Carlo, who ate it. He took hold of his sister’s hand.

  ‘Hello, Snowy. Is that your friend Cushion?’ asked Lala.

  ‘You’ve heard of Cushion?’

  ‘Of course, Cushion is famous. Hello, Miss Cushion! You’re much blonder than your mummy, Snowy, and your eyes are blue but you have her mouth – and you, Carlo, look just like your father.’

  ‘You know Mama?’ asked Snowy.

  ‘You know Papa?’ said Carlo.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Lala, remembering the day she’d first met Sashenka and had loved her instantly like her own. She recalled the nights she spent with Sashenka in her bed at the mansion on Greater Maritime Street, the sleigh rides sweeping through the boulevards of St Petersburg, the hilarity of ice skating, the exhilaration of riding ponies on the family estate. She had been Sashenka’s real mother and, although she had not seen her for almost ten years in the crazy, man-eating world that Sashenka had embraced, she had thought of her every day and talked to that portrait of the Smolny schoolgirl in her pinafore, as if they were still together. She knew too that she was here, in this station, not just for herself or Sashenka – but for Samuil Zeitlin as well, whether he was alive or dead.

  Now Sashenka had been swallowed up by the Party she’d served so assiduously – and the only way Lala could express her deep love was by undertaking this troubling mission for the Zeitlin family. ‘I know your mummy better than anyone alive,’ she told Carlo and Snowy. ‘But we mustn’t think about Mummy now. We must make plans for the future, for your next adventure. Oh, and you must call me Lala.’

  ‘So you’re Lala?’ said Snowy. ‘Mama told me you gave her a bath every day. I like you. You’re very cushiony.’

  The two nannies smiled at each other, sharing their admiration of Snowy – then looked away, abruptly. It was too painful.

  Turning their backs on the station, they walked into Rostov-on-Don, each holding the hand of one of the children.

  ‘Swing me!’ piped Carlo, kicking up his legs, happy for the first time in days.

  As Carolina took one arm and Lala the other, Lala could not help thinking that one stage of Snowy and Carlo’s lives was ending – and another was about to begin.

  45

  Sashenka crawled to her cell door. ‘Take me to Kobylov!’

  The Judas port slid open, muddy, bored eyes blinked; it shut again. Sashenka lay back sweltering on her bunk, falling in and out of sleep. How many days since she had slept for longer than ten minutes? She had lost count. She had lost the sense of day and night. There was no window in her cell, just a brilliant light that penetrated and burned even the deepest and darkest and coolest chambers of her soul.

  The confrontation with Captain Sagan had changed everything. She had thought about it all day and into the night, slipping in and out of delirium. Awake, she dreamed of the children, of Vanya, of Benya Golden, and debated absurd questions: could a woman love two men at the same time, one as a lover, one as a husband? Oh yes, it was possible. But each time, she passed into dreamless unconsciousness, she slipped under the surface of fathomless black water where she saw nothing.

  Then she was shaken awake roughly. ‘No sleeping!’

  She did not even know if Vanya was alive. She knew they would have been merciless. He was one of them, he knew where all the bodies lay buried, and now they were crushing him. She longed to see him.

  She thought about asking to meet him to confirm that she should take the next step, but she feared that any suspicion that they had coordinated their plans would draw the investigators towards the children. They had had over a week now, darling Cushion and Bunny, to go on their dread adventure.

  What was their smell? Hay and vanilla. How did Snowy say, ‘Let’s do the Cushion dance!’ Sashenka struggled to get the children’s intonation right, sketching their faces again and again, but sometimes the shape of a nose or the curve of a forehead (those delicious foreheads, her favourite places to kiss, just where the hair met the temple, oh, she could nuzzle them there for ever!) confounded her and they sank beneath the remorseless black water. Perhaps this was Nature making it easier for her, allowing her to forget.

  Her mind was barely functioning, she scarcely registered the life of the prison around her: she just existed on the conveyor. But if she went insane, she would be no use to Carlo and Snowy. She sensed it was time for the next step.

  It was deep in the night when they came to get her. The whole Soviet government functioned throughout the night, from Stalin down. How naïve she had been about Vanya coming home at dawn, smelling like an old wolf, as if he had been in a bar-room brawl. His secrecy had suited her too because she had never had to ask what he was doing all night. Now she knew the compromise they had both made.

  When they reached the interrogation rooms that existed, in Sashenka’s mind, in limbo, exactly halfway between the panelled offices at the front of the Lubianka complex and the dungeons of the Interior Prison, she was relieved, just as she had been oddly relieved when they had arrested her.

  She walked into the room and was struck so hard on the back with a rubber truncheon that she fell over. She was kicked viciously, which made her curl up with a groan. The truncheons – there were two men in there – fell on her back, her breasts, her stomach, wherever she turned, but especially on her legs and feet. She screamed in pain, and blood ran down her face into her eyes. She tried to pretend that this was a very unpleasant medical procedure that was necessary and even therapeutic and would be over soon, but this did not work for long.

  In the compacted odours of vodka sweat, cologne and pork sausage that oozed from her persecutors, in the agony of the blows that struck her breasts, in the virile grunts and heaves of these unfit men as they swung their bullysticks, Sashenka recognized that her tormentors found berserk sport in beating her. Perhaps her request had interrupted a banquet in the NKVD Club – or even an orgy at a safehouse somewhere.

  The men halted briefly, breathing heavily. Wiping her eyes, shivering and gasping with agony, she squinted up at Kobylov and Rodos, in boots, white shirts and jodhpurs held up with braces. They stood together, such different men but with the same eyes: bloodshot, yellowed and wild, like wolves caught in the headlights.

  ‘I want to confess,’ she said as loudly as she could. ‘Everything. I beg you. Stop it now!’

  46

  ‘Urrah! Urrah!’ shouted Kobylov, jumping up and down like a schoolboy at a football match. ‘Christ is risen!’

  He remembered his own mother, the big-breasted cheerful Georgian woman who so cherished him. The last time he was with her in her new apartment in Tiflis, she had warned him: ‘Careful of the unhappiness you cause, Bogdan! Remember God and Jesus Christ!’

  He pulled on his tunic, wiping his forehead with a yellow silk kerchief. ‘Enough now! Get her cleaned up, Comrade Rodos, let her get some sleep, cool her cell down and give her some coffee when she wakes. Then give her a pen and paper and get Mogilchuk to charm her. I’m off back to the party where so many mares await me! Thank heaven we can stop before we ruin her looks altogether. This is hard work, Sashenka, for a man who loves women. It’s not easy, pure torture, not easy at all.’ And with a fleshy wave of jewelled fingers and a gleaming boot kicking the door shut, he was gone.

  * * *

  Sashenka slept all the
next day. The cell was deliciously cool and dark but her chest was agony – perhaps they had broken a rib? Some time in the night a doctor, a grey-bearded, white-coated specialist, fallen from his fancy city practice into this world of the living dead, came to see her. She was half awake but she dreamed that he was the vanished Professor Israel Paltrovich who had delivered Snowy in the Kremlin Hospital. Something about his hush of surprise when he saw it was her, something about his aristocratic and soft-spoken bedside manner, even though he himself looked so broken, something about his gentle reassurance in the middle of the night, reminded her of him. She wanted to talk to him about Snowy.

  ‘Professor, is it you …?’

  He put his calm fingers on her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Just rest,’ he said, and more quietly, ‘sleep, dear.’ He gave her injections and rubbed some healing cream into her muscles.

  When she woke up, she could not move. Her body was black and blue, and her urine was red. She ate and slept some more, then they let her wash and walk in the exercise yard, where, hobbling along, she stared at the gorgeous turquoise tent above her. The air was racy and fresh and warm. It was as if she had been born again today.

  She had been lucky after a fashion, she told herself. What luck to be loved by Lala and raised by her; to marry Vanya and create those children; to have enjoyed the seven-thousand-ruby caresses of Benya Golden, one wild, reckless love affair in her life of good sense and hard work. She had known Lenin and Stalin in person, the titans of human history. Given that it was all about to end, thank God she had known such things. What riches, what times she had enjoyed!

  They would draw it out of her, she knew, and she would deliver all they wanted – and more. The words she would utter, the confessions she would make, were a long form of suicide, but addictively indispensable to her one reader: the Instantzia, Comrade Stalin, who would find in her breathless reminiscences all he had ever wanted to believe about the world and the people he hated. Vanya had told her about Stalin’s lurid visions and she would pander to every one of them. Vanya, if he was still alive, would do the same, less flamboyantly. She did not know, probably would never know now, why she, Mendel, Benya and Vanya had been arrested in the first place. The workings of spiders and webs were now beyond her. All that mattered was that she was the centre of it all, she had destroyed them all. She and Peter Sagan.