One Night in Winter

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  Now nothing else mattered –

  A brace of pistols and a shot

  Shall instantly decide his lot.

  Andrei admired the pistols: the bevelled barrels, polished wood, burnished steel. ‘Are they real?’ he asked.

  ‘I doubt it. We borrow them from the Little Theatre. They use them in plays,’ George said, laughing. ‘And we’re going to use them in the Game – you’ll see.’

  A few streets away, School 801 was not quite empty. The janitor mopped the floors of the empty corridors with the disinfectant that gives schools their characteristic pungency, and the director, Kapitolina Medvedeva, was alone in her office planning how the school would celebrate the Victory Parade on 24 June. It was getting closer. A few Komsomols and Pioneers would be chosen to serve in honour guards. And when she thought about this, she wished she could include Andrei Kurbsky because she knew how much it would mean to a boy of tainted biography.

  The report on her desk showed that Andrei was thriving in the school and she was proud that she had overruled Rimm to let him in.

  ‘I wish to register my disapproval of the acceptance of a child of an Enemy of the People,’ Rimm had said. He believed Medvedeva was not Party-minded enough, and he wanted her job. She knew that every school, every institution had a Rimm. They were usually cowards so she’d stood her ground.

  ‘Fine,’ Rimm had surrendered. ‘Let him in if you must, but a family like his won’t be able to pay the fees.’

  ‘Actually, comrade, they can afford the fees,’ she’d responded, and smiled as she thought about the opportunity she was giving Andrei. He was her special project and she approved of his neat, reserved appearance, his parted brown hair and dark-framed spectacles. And he was already friends with George Satinov, Minka Dorova and Rosa Shako.

  Kapitolina Medvedeva was a devout Communist, who believed that loving children too much made them egotistical. She was proud to be the director of a school with pupils from such eminent Party families. She was not impressed by the clammy and rather menacing pallor of Comrade Dorov, but his wife Dashka managed to be both chic and a doctor. Marshal Shako, the commander-in-chief of the air force, was the very model of a Soviet commander. And as for Comrade Satinov, he was so impressive that, when she spoke to him, she stammered and over-egged her compliments. There was something about Comrade Satinov. Perhaps it was because he was the real thing: he had done time in the Tsar’s jails, helped storm the Winter Palace in 1917, known Lenin, spent the winter of ’42 in Stalingrad. And no one was closer to Stalin himself.

  Kapitolina Medvedeva had taught Stalin’s own children just before the war. Svetlana loved history – and came almost top of her class. But Kapitolina had failed to teach anything to his son, Vasily. The boy had been a delinquent scoundrel. Still, it must be hard to have the greatest titan in world history as your father.

  She looked down at her desk to read Benya Golden’s report on Andrei. The hiring of Golden was another decision she had made over Rimm’s head, and he had turned out to be the best teacher she had ever known. Besides, how could any headmistress pass up the chance to employ the author of Spanish Stories?

  She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. When she put them on again, she noticed that she could see herself in the reflection on her polished inkwell. Was it the distortion of the reflection or did she really look that frayed? What a sight she was! She had grey streaks in her hair, and her nose was more like a beak! There’s not much one can do with a face like mine, she thought.

  She was a spinster, living alone in one room in a kommunalka on the outskirts, her only luxury being a little set of antique Tolstoys in brown leather bindings. A woman had more important tasks in life than lipstick and dresses, she told herself. The school was her mission in life, and she had to be as hard and modest as a Bolshevik should be.

  She had taken two risks in her professional life but both were consistent with her mission: to educate and enlighten – even in an age of ice.

  She looked at her watch. It was after seven, and she had nowhere else to be. She sighed, admitting to herself that she now groaned aloud when she got out of bed or the bath – or when she sipped at a particularly delicious soup. She was fifty-two. Getting older.

  She closed her eyes, thinking about Benya Golden. She enjoyed having him around the school, and when he fixed her with his playful blue eyes, she actually blushed. Sometimes she dreamed of him at night. She knew he would be wonderful to kiss and she felt that the touch of his hands would transform her. Her hair would grow thicker; her skin would become as rich and tanned as that of Minka’s mother, Dashka Dorova. With him, she could become the woman she had always wanted to be.

  She shook her head. Golden was a real gamble, not just because Dr Rimm had denounced his teaching style as ‘a bourgeois circus act of philistine anti-Party hucksterism’. She didn’t know the details of his case, of course; only the Organs, the secret police, knew that, but she knew that no one had expected Golden to return from prison or exile or wherever he’d been. The Organs hadn’t stopped her hiring him so they must have checked him out and cleared him, but however charming and exuberant Golden was, he still had the power to destroy her.

  ‘Don’t you know what Golden is? He bears the mark of Cain on his forehead. He’s like a leper!’ Rimm had whispered to her. ‘He’s a “lucky stiff”. He’s come back from the dead.’

  ‘He’s alive now,’ she’d replied. ‘And that’s what matters.’

  She perused the report again, but thoughts of Golden and Andrei still filled her mind. Andrei was a safer bet than Golden, but he too was a liability who could harm her. Because what no one else knew – least of all Andrei himself – was that she had accepted him into the school not in spite of his tainted background but because of it. And she was paying his fees out of her own salary.

  Yes, she thought now, I may be on my own and getting older, but I believe that everyone’s capable of redemption, no matter who they are.

  6

  ANDREI EMERGED FROM the Granovsky building into the blinding sunlight. On Gorky Street, Moscow’s main thoroughfare, he passed soldiers, not much older than him, in uniforms, laughing with their sweethearts. Their careless happiness was infectious. He was convinced that his life had changed, and couldn’t wait to tell his mother about how the Satinovs lived, about the glacial grandeur of Comrade Satinov, about George’s hints concerning the Fatal Romantics’ Club and their esoteric rituals. Then he saw her. A tall girl with blond hair crossing Gorky Street without looking in either direction so that cars braked around her. She wore her school blouse buttoned right up to the neck and long sleeves, even though it was a glorious summer evening. She turned purposefully into the House of Books, Moscow’s best bookshop.

  Andrei had no money to spend and he was already late for supper but he followed her inside. The books of Marx, Lenin, Stalin were displayed at the front alongside the romantic war poems of Simonov, the novels of Gorky and Fadayev, the screenplays of Constantin Romashkin (yes, Serafima’s father). Where was she?

  Immediately, Andrei was soothed and inspired by the smell of new books – by the acrid glue and the fresh leather as well as the mustiness of old ones that were almost rotting on the shelves. He scanned students and pensioners, spotted a titian-haired lady in a fuchsia trouser suit, a government apparatchik in a blue suit and peaked cap, but no sight of Serafima.

  Andrei had no plan, no particular idea, just the optimism of a summer’s day, and the boost of tea at the Satinovs, as he climbed the stairs to the second floor. Perhaps he had imagined her, he thought, as he surveyed the gorgeously bound special leather volumes on the shelves around him. He went deeper into the metal forest of the bookstacks. Then, as a hunter senses the quick breath of a deer in the woods, he knew she was there. He pulled out a book by Ernest Hemingway in English and, peering through the gap, he saw her. She was leafing through a book, intensely, as if searching for a line. And her head was on one side, that winning mannerism that he had noticed in class. />
  ‘Serafima?’

  She started. Green eyes speckled with gold looked at him questioningly. ‘Teacher Satinova recommended Hemingway and I just found For Whom the Bell Tolls and you were just looking at . . . oh, Galsworthy. The Forsyte Saga. Isn’t that about a bourgeois-capitalist dynasty in London?’

  ‘What if it is?’ Serafima asked.

  Andrei saw the other book she was holding. ‘The Age of Innocence? Edith Wharton on the corrupt haut-bourgeois customs of robber-capitalism in old New York?’

  She looked at the book, as though surprised she was holding it, and then up at him again. Her intense gaze made him feel he was being very tedious.

  ‘If I was reading Fadayev would it tell you something different about my character than if I was reading Wharton or Akhmatova? Are you analysing me by what I read?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Feeling embarrassed, Andrei tried a different tack. ‘What’s Edith Wharton like?’

  ‘Just like our own barons and princelings here. Our secret world is just like hers but with one crucial difference – it’s Edith Wharton with the death penalty.’ She smiled at him, and he felt the rays of the evening sun were shining right on to him. He noticed she had one very pointed tooth to the right of her front teeth.

  Then he glanced around, concerned; no one had overheard her. Things were different for people like Serafima, he told himself. She could say what she liked.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ She replaced the books and headed for the stairs. ‘By the way, why are you following me?’

  ‘I wasn’t . . . I happened to be looking for the same books.’ Andrei knew that he needed to be a better liar to survive in this milieu. ‘I’d heard about the House of Books but I hadn’t had time to pop in until today . . .’

  Serafima looked back at him. They were now on the street outside, and he was about to be dismissed.

  ‘I’m on my way to the Bolshoi to see Prokofiev’s new ballet . . .’ she began, but her words were lost in the skid of tyres.

  An open-topped Packard had performed a U-turn on Gorky Street and swung towards them so recklessly that its wheels ground against the pavement.

  Andrei pulled Serafima out of peril’s way, conscious of the perfume on her neck.

  ‘God, he almost hit us. What an idiot!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Hey, Serafima!’ called the driver. He had a cigarette between his teeth, and was wearing an air force colonel’s shoulderboards. ‘I’ve been meaning to come round ever since I saw you outside school. I was going to surprise you and pick you up at the gates. Wouldn’t that be good for your standing? My sister and I were at School 801, you know. How’s that lesbic witch of a director and that preening motherfucker Rimm?’

  ‘Still haunting us,’ Serafima said coldly.

  Andrei sensed her distrust, her unease.

  ‘I was just going to grab a drink at the Cocktail Hall. Hop in, darling.’

  ‘Thank you, but I can’t right now. I’ve got homework.’

  ‘Your mother won’t mind, I can tell you. She thinks I am a good thing. I love her movies. Come on!’

  A diminutive man got out of the car, wearing skin-tight britches, shiny boots, an array of medals. His dark brown hair was brushed back in a wave. He kissed her hand, old-style. ‘Are you going to make me – me of all people – beg?’

  Serafima glanced at Andrei. ‘I’m with my best friend, Andrei. He comes too.’

  ‘Sure,’ said the man. ‘I get it. Best friend comes too! Get in, Andrei.’

  He held open the back door and Serafima stepped inside. As Andrei got in beside her, the man ground the car into gear, backed it into the middle of Gorky, and accelerated into the path of a Studebaker truck that swerved to avoid them. A couple of militiamen watched, but did nothing to stop him.

  ‘Do you know who he is?’ whispered Serafima. ‘He’s Stalin’s son, Vasily. Be careful, OK?’

  After a couple of minutes, Vasily swung the car to the right, stopped, and ran round to help Serafima out. They were in a cul-de-sac. In front of them was a plain wooden door guarded by a muscle-bound Uzbek in a crimson blouse.

  ‘You’re not going in, you hayseed,’ he was telling a cavalry lieutenant with his girl. The queue of people snaked around the corner. When he saw Vasily, he changed his tune: ‘Good afternoon, Colonel!’ he said, shoving the others out of the way and opening the door with a bow. ‘Welcome to the Cocktail Hall. Go right in!’

  Vasily and Serafima swept in, but Andrei hesitated.

  ‘Not you, schoolboy. Scat!’

  ‘But I’m with them! Serafima!’ Andrei called out, hating the whine of his own desperation. Vasily Stalin raised a hand without even turning.

  ‘Your lucky day!’ The Uzbek opened the door, and Andrei caught up with Serafima in a crowded rabbit warren of booths and alcoves, all richly upholstered with scarlet silk and pine panelling.

  Vasily knew everyone. He kissed the raddled hag at the cloakroom, and the moment he entered the little bar, he began holding court like a chieftain. He was embraced by a drunk pilot, a fat general and two girls in tight cocktail dresses with décolletages. But he seemed happiest to meet a bald toad with a squint who wore three watches on his wrist.

  ‘Hail the King of Sturgeon!’ he shouted. ‘Send some steaks over to the dacha!’

  Another man, dressed in a zoot suit like an American Negro in a jazz band, with two-tone shoes, approached him.

  ‘Fancy a Schiaparelli ballgown that once belonged to a Viennese princess?’ the man asked in a Hungarian accent. ‘For your lady? How about this ring? You can find anything in Europe these days if you know where to look.’

  Vasily turned away, and ordered cocktails from an Armenian waiter in a brocade waistcoat.

  ‘Who are these people?’Andrei asked Serafima.

  ‘These characters’, whispered Serafima, ‘are the styliagi. Muscovites with style!’ (She did a good American accent.)

  The cocktails arrived. Andrei sipped his and it made his eyes water.

  ‘Who’s the schoolgirl, Vaska?’ the man with the squint asked.

  ‘Sophia Zeitlin’s daughter. I’m on my knees begging her for a date, but she won’t even look at me. Hey, Serafima, how do you like your cocktail?’

  ‘It’s vile,’ said Serafima, looking haughtier than ever. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Vasily. ‘My home.’

  Andrei could scarely remember the journey to Vasily Stalin’s house. His head was spinning from the orange cocktail he had consumed too quickly at the Cocktail Hall. Leaving the city, they sped through pine woods dyed red by a sinking summer sun. Somewhere along the way, Vasily drew his Nagan pistol and fired it as he overtook a truck. ‘That’ll teach the fucker!’ he shouted.

  Now they were pulling into a driveway. They were waved through a heavily guarded checkpoint, the barrier rising as Vasily put his foot down, throwing up clouds of dust. At last they stopped outside a white-pillared mansion in colonial, southern style, and went inside.

  ‘Bring drinks! Where’s the food! Fetch the gramophone!’ cried Vasily, his voice high, his eyes wild. ‘Welcome to Zubalovo. My parents used to live here. Now it’s mine.’

  Minutes later, Andrei was next to Serafima at a table covered in Georgian snacks and bottles of exotic liqueurs Andrei had never even heard of. Vasily was at the gramophone playing records as guests arrived and started to dance. ‘Listen – this is American jazz, the music of the oppressed Negroes!’ He cackled with laughter.

  ‘Hey kiddo,’ he said, his eyes in his pinched, sallow face narrowing at Andrei. ‘You’re not drinking. That’s an insult! Don’t forget my father’s a Georgian. Or rather he used to be a Georgian. Now he’s a Russian.’

  ‘I’m not a great drinker,’ confessed Andrei.

  Vasily handed Andrei and Serafima shots of something disgusting called Fernet Branca. ‘No heeltaps!’ he said.

  Andrei looked at his drink, feeling sick.

  ‘Best to drink, dear,’ said Serafima.
r />   Vasily pointed at him. ‘I’m watching you!’

  Andrei downed his Fernet Branca shot. Around him, the party, the dancers and the sitting room seemed to twist and wave like a mirage in the desert. Two girls from the Cocktail Hall were dancing closely together, each holding a cigarette but somehow not burning each other. Rivulets of mascaraed sweat streamed down their faces so they looked like half-naked coalminers in the rain. A captain was doing the lezginka in just his boots and britches. And, at the centre, Vasily stood clapping his hands, checking the gramophone while drinking vodka, Armenian cognac, Crimean champagnski, Georgian wine and brightly-coloured liqueurs from a fleet of glasses and bottles.

  Andrei looked at Serafima, who looked as alone and vulnerable as he was. How were they going to get away? He felt very far from Moscow; they had no car, no means of escape. His mother would be worried about him. And what would Serafima’s parents think?

  A dapper air force officer sat down at their table. ‘What the hell are you two doing here?’ he asked. It was David Satinov, George’s older brother. ‘Who brought you?’

  Serafima pointed at Vasily Stalin. ‘We didn’t have much choice in the matter, actually.’

  David Satinov shook his head. ‘I might have guessed. This is no place for schoolgirls.’

  Vasily had rejoined them. ‘David, a toast to my father. To Stalin! To our brave pilots!’ Everyone drank to this amidst a chorus of cheers.

  ‘Tell me this, David, why do our planes keep crashing?’ Vasily asked suddenly, leaning across the table.

  ‘Soviet planes are the best in the world,’ said David.

  ‘If there are faults in our planes, I’ll tell my father. We’ve got to find the criminals who send our boys up in coffins! Their heads will roll, David.’

  ‘Yes, Vaska,’ said David.

  ‘You know why I’m celebrating?’

  David shook his head.

  ‘I’ve just been promoted to general. My father trusts me again. He’s forgiven me.’ Tears pooled in his fallow, wounded eyes.