One Night in Winter

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One Night in Winter Page 1

by Simon Sebag Montefiore




  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  List of Characters

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Two

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Part Three

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Part Four

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Part Five

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Epilogue

  History

  Copyright

  About the Book

  If your children were forced to testify against you, what terrible secrets would they reveal?

  Moscow 1945. As Stalin and his courtiers celebrate victory over Hitler, shots ring out. On a nearby bridge, a teenage boy and girl lie dead.

  But this is no ordinary tragedy and these are no ordinary teenagers, but the children of Russia’s most important leaders who attend the most exclusive school in Moscow.

  Is it murder? A suicide pact? Or a conspiracy against the state?

  Directed by Stalin himself, an investigation begins as children are arrested and forced to testify against their friends – and their parents. This terrifying witch-hunt soon unveils illicit love affairs and family secrets in a world where the smallest mistakes can be punished with death.

  About the Author

  Simon Sebag Montefiore’s history books are world-wide bestsellers, and are published in over 40 languages. Catherine the Great & Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper, and Marsh Biography Prizes. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards. Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (USA), Le Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France) and the Kreisky Prize for Political Literature (Austria), and is currently being developed as a tv mini-series. Jerusalem: The Biography won the Jewish Book of the Year Prize (USA) and was number one bestseller in the UK. He is the presenter of the BBC TV series Jerusalem, Making of a Holy City 2011 and Rome, History of the Eternal City.

  A Visiting Professor at Buckingham University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children. For more information, see: www.simonsebagmontefiore.com

  Also by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  FICTION

  Sashenka

  NON-FICTION

  Jerusalem: The Biography

  Catherine the Great and Potemkin

  Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

  Young Stalin

  Titans of History

  One Night in Winter

  Simon Sebag Montefiore

  Not a soul knew about it and . . . probably no one would ever know. He was leading a double life: one was undisguised, plain for all to see and known to everyone who needed to know, full of conventional truths and conventional deception, identical to the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another which went on in secret. And by some strange, possibly fortuitous chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting and necessary for him, where he behaved sincerely and did not deceive himself and which was the very essence of his life – that was conducted in complete secrecy.

  Anton Chekhov, ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’

  List of Characters

  Major characters are underlined; historical characters are marked with an asterisk*

  THE CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTS

  The Romashkin family

  Constantin Romashkin, scriptwriter and poet, married to:

  Sophia ‘Mouche’ Gideonovna Zeitlin, film star

  Serafima Romashkina, 18, their only child

  Sashenka Zeitlin, Sophia’s cousin, arrested 1939, fate unknown

  The Satinov family and household

  Hercules (Erakle) Satinov, Politburo member, Central Committee Secretary, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, married to:

  ‘Tamriko’, Tamara Satinova, English teacher at School 801

  Mariko Satinova, 6, their daughter

  Satinov’s sons by an earlier marriage in Georgia:

  ‘Vanya’, Ivan Satinov, pilot, killed 1943

  David Satinov, 23, pilot

  ‘George’, Georgi Satinov, 18

  Marlen Satinov, 17, School Komsomol Organizer

  Colonel Losha Babanava, Comrade Satinov’s chief bodyguard

  Valerian Chubin, Comrade Satinov’s aide

  The Dorov family

  Genrikh Dorov, Chairman, Central Control Commission, and Minister of State Control, married to:

  ‘Dashka’, Dr Daria Dorova, Minister of Health, cardiologist

  Their children:

  Sergei Dorov, 20, army officer

  ‘Minka’, Marina Dorova, 18, schoolfriend of Serafima

  Demian Dorov, ‘the Weasel’, 17, Organizer of Young Pioneers

  ‘Senka’, Semyon Dorov, ‘the Little Professor’, 10

  The Blagov family

  ‘Nikolasha’, Nikolai Blagov, 18

  Ambassador Vadim Blagov, his father, diplomat

  Ludmilla Blagova, his mother

  The Shako family

  Rosa Shako, 18, schoolfriend of Serafima

  Marshal Boris Shako, her father, Soviet Air Force Commander

  Elena Shako, her mother

  The Titorenko family

  Vladimir Titorenko, 17

  Ivan Titorenko, his father, Minister of Aircraft Production

  Irina Titorenka, his mother

  The Kurbsky family

  Andrei Kurbsky, 18, a newcomer to the school

  Peter Kurbsky, his father, Enemy of the People, arrested in 1938, sentenced to twenty-five years ‘without right of correspondence’

  Inessa Kurbskaya, his mother

  THE TEACHERS OF THE JOSEF STALIN COMMUNE SCHOOL 801

  Kapitolina Medvedeva, Director (headmistress) and history teacher

  Dr Innokenty Rimm, Deputy Director, political science/Communist morals teacher

  Benya Golden, Russian literature teacher

  Tamara Satinova, English teacher (see Satinov family above)

  Apostollon Shuba, physical education teacher

  Agrippina Begbulatova, assistant teacher


  THE LEADERS

  Josef Stalin,* Marshal, General Secretary (Gensec) of the Communist Party, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Master, the Instantsiya

  ‘Vaska’, Vasily Josefovich Stalin,* 24, his son, air force officer, ‘Crown Prince’

  Svetlana Stalina,* 19, his daughter, student

  Vyacheslav Molotov,* Foreign Minister, Politburo member

  Lavrenti Beria,* secret policeman, Minister of Internal Affairs (NKVD/MVD) 1938–45, Deputy Chairman of Council of Ministers, Politburo member

  Georgi Malenkov,* Politburo member

  Andrei Vyshinsky,* Deputy Foreign Minister

  ‘Sasha’, Alexander Poskrebyshev,* Stalin’s chef-de-cabinet

  Vsevolod Merkulov,* Minister of State Security (MGB)

  Victor Abakumov,* Chief of Military Counter-intelligence (SMERSH: Death to Spies), then Minister of State Security (MGB)

  THE GENERALS

  Marshal Georgi Zhukov,* Deputy Supreme Commander

  Marshal Ivan Konev*

  Marshal Constantin Rokossovsky*

  THE SECRET POLICEMEN

  Colonel Pavel Mogilchuk, investigator, Serious Cases Section MGB

  General Bogdan Kobylov,* ‘the Bull’, MGB

  Colonel Vladimir Komarov,* investigator, SMERSH/MGB

  Colonel Mikhail Likhachev,* investigator, SMERSH/MGB

  THE FOREIGNERS

  Averell Harriman,* US Ambassador to Moscow

  Captain Frank Belman, diplomat, deputy military attaché, interpreter

  To my parents April and Stephen and my son Sasha, the oldest and the youngest

  Acknowledgements

  I wish to thank the following friends and sources whose stories have helped inspire this novel with the elixir of passion and the detail of authenticity: Hugh Lunghi, Gela Charkviani, Nestan Charkviani, General Stepan Mikoyan and his daughter Aschen Mikoyan, Sergo Mikoyan, Stanislas Redens, Galina Babkova, Rachel and Marc Polonsky; and Sophie Shulman.

  First: Hugh Lunghi. Hugh and I became friends while writing my books on Stalin because he translated for Churchill at some of the Big Three meetings with Stalin. He kindly told me the entire story of his Russian love affair which inspired Serafima’s story. Without him the book could not have been written.

  Gela Charkviani, son of Kandide Charkviani, Stalin’s First Secretary of Georgia 1938–51, shared his elegant memoirs of élite life, Memoirs of a Provincial Communist Prince. Sophie Shulman kindly let me read her fascinating memoirs, Life Journey of a Secular Humanist. Gela Charkviani and Sophie Shulman answered my questions about their schooldays in Stalin’s Russia. General Stepan Mikoyan, air force pilot, and Sergo Mikoyan, sons of Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan, were both arrested (Sergo was fourteen) in the real Children’s Case and both talked to me about their experience, as did Stanislas Redens, Stalin’s nephew, who was also arrested.

  Thanks to the Polonskys who had me to stay in Molotov’s apartment in the Granovsky building.

  I am hugely grateful to my brilliant, tireless and meticulous editor and publisher, Selina Walker, and to the irrepressibly superb Georgina Capel, the best agent in town. Thanks to my parents for editing this.

  Above all, thanks to my wife Santa for the supreme gifts of serene love and best friendship; and for shrewd advice on this book; and to my adored children Lily and Sasha, who have inspired the children in both my Russian novels.

  SSM

  Prologue

  June 1945

  Just moments after the shots, as Serafima looks at the bodies of her schoolfriends, a feathery whiteness is already frosting their blasted flesh. It is like a coating of snow, but it’s midsummer and she realizes it’s pollen. Seeds of poplar are floating, bouncing and somersaulting through the air in random manoeuvres like an invasion of tiny alien spaceships. Muscovites call this ‘summer snow’. That humid evening, Serafima struggles to breathe, struggles to see.

  Later, when she gives her testimony, she wishes she had seen less, knew less. ‘These aren’t just any dead children,’ slurs one of the half-drunk policemen in charge of the scene. When these policemen inspect the IDs of the victims and their friends, their eyes blink as they try to measure the danger – and then they pass on the case as fast as they can. So it’s not the police but the Organs, the secret police, who investigate: ‘Is it murder, suicide or conspiracy?’ they will ask.

  What to tell? What to hide? Get it wrong and you can lose your head. And not just you but your family and friends, anyone linked to you. Like a party of mountaineers, when one falls, all fall.

  Yet Serafima has a stake even higher than life and death: she’s eighteen and in love. As she stares at her two friends who had been alive just seconds earlier, she senses this is the least of it and she is right: every event in Serafima’s life will now be defined as Before or After the Shootings.

  Looking at the bodies of her friends, she sees the events of the day with magnified vividness. It’s 24 June 1945. The day that Stalin reviews the Victory Parade. Yes, it’s one of those occasions when every Russian remembers where they are, like 22 June 1941, the day the Nazis invaded. The war’s over, the streets teem with drunken, singing crowds. Everyone is certain that a better, easier Russia will emerge from the war. But this depends on one man whose name is never uttered by sensible people except in reverent praise.

  Serafima cares nothing for all this. She thinks only of love, even though her lover is a secret, and for good reason. Usually when schoolgirls nurture such a secret, they confide every detail to their closest girlfriends. This isn’t Serafima’s style: she knows from her own family that gossip can prove fatal in their age of witchhunting. She also knows that she’s somehow different even if she cannot quite decide why. Perhaps it’s growing up in her mother’s shadow. Perhaps it’s just the way she’s made. She is convinced that no one in all of human existence has ever known such a passion as hers.

  This morning, she is woken by the oompah rhythms of the military bands practising their Glinka down the street, the rumble of tank engines, the clip of cavalry hooves on pavements, and she gets out of bed with the bruised feeling that she has scarcely slept.

  Her father, Constantin Romashkin, knocks on her door. ‘You’re awake already? You’re excited about the parade?’

  She goes to the window. ‘Oh no, it’s raining.’

  ‘It’ll stop for the parade.’ But it doesn’t. ‘Shall we wake your mother?’

  Serafima walks along the parqueted, chandeliered corridor to her parents’ room, past the framed poster advertising the movie Katyusha, which is dominated by a statuesque woman in army uniform, toting a machine-gun against a military background. She has jet-black hair and smudges of gun oil on her cheeks like a Cherokee brave. Dramatic letters declare that the movie stars ‘SOPHIA ZEITLIN’ (Serafima’s mother); and its script is written ‘BY CONSTANTIN ROMASHKIN’ (Serafima’s father). Katyusha is the Soviet soldiers’ favourite film by Stalin’s top scriptwriter. Serafima has a strong impression that it was through such scripts that her papa had romanced her mama – it’s certainly the way he has kept her.

  The bedroom. A heap of silk sheets. There lies ‘Katyusha’ herself. Long black hair, a bare plump arm. Serafima smells her mother’s familiar aura of French scent, French cigarettes, French face cream.

  ‘Mama, wake up!’

  ‘God! What time is it? I have to look good today – I have to look good every day. Light me a cigarette, Serafimochka.’

  Sophia sits up; she’s naked; her breasts are full. Somehow though, she is already holding a cigarette in an ivory holder. Her father, anxious and fastidious, is pacing up and down.

  HE We mustn’t be late.

  SHE Stop bothering me!

  HE You’re always late. We can’t be late this time.

  SHE If you don’t like it, divorce me!

  Finally, they’re dressed and ready. Serafima unlocks the front door just as the doors of all the capacious parquet-floored, high-ceilinged apartme
nts are opening in the pink wedding cake of the Granovsky building (otherwise known as the Fifth House of the Soviets). The other élite families are coming downstairs too.

  In the stairway: the voices of children tremulous with excitement; the creak of well-polished leather, the clip of boot-heels; the jiggling of medals, pistols clinking against belts with starred buckles. First, her parents greet the smug Molotovs – he’s in a black suit like a bourgeois undertaker, pince-nez on a head round as a cannonball, his tomahawk-faced wife Polina in mink. Just ahead of them: Marshal Budyonny of the waxed moustaches as wide as bicycle handlebars is singing a Cossack ditty (soused? At 8 a.m.?), a pretty new wife preening behind him.

  On the first landing: Hercules Satinov is in his general’s dress uniform, red-striped trousers and scarlet shoulderboards with golden stars. Her mother embraces Hercules – a family friend since before the Revolution. The Satinov children nod at Serafima with the complicity of school conspirators. ‘What’s news?’ asks George Satinov eagerly. He always says that. She saw them last night at the Aragvi Restaurant and this afternoon they are going to do what they always do. They’re going to play the Game.

  ‘Communist greetings, Serafimochka,’ says Comrade Satinov. Serafima nods back. To her, he’s a chilly, passionless statue, typical of the leaders. Granite and ice – and hair gel. She knows he’ll soon be standing beside Stalin atop Lenin’s Mausoleum.

  ‘I think the rain will stop for Comrade Stalin,’ says Mariko, the Satinovs’ six-year-old daughter. She has braided hair and a toy dog under her arm.

 

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