One Night in Winter

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  ‘Congratulations.’ And David embraced Vasily.

  ‘Serafima! I’ll take you flying in my plane,’ cried Vasily. ‘We’ll dive so low, the peasants will hide in their haystacks. Let’s celebrate. Come on, dance!’

  ‘Hey, Vaska, go easy on her, she’s young,’ said David.

  But Vasily Stalin pulled Serafima into the crowd. ‘Let’s foxtrot.’ He took her in his arms, his hands cruising her hips, running through her hair . . . She stiffened as he squeezed her, and Andrei could see her discomfort. Several other girls started to gyrate around Vasily; while trying to dance with all of them, he loosened his grip on Serafima, who, somehow, a moment later, managed to slip out of the crowd.

  David was waiting for her.

  ‘Come on, you two.’ He gestured towards Andrei. They trailed him through the party, out of the front door, down the steps towards the cars, where chauffeurs and guards stood smoking and chatting.

  ‘Is it the poetry sissy from school?’ boomed Colonel Losha Babanava. ‘Not enjoying the party?’ Then he saw Serafima. ‘What’s she doing? She’s too young to be here!’

  ‘We need to go home,’ said Andrei. David Satinov stood behind them.

  ‘Take the kids home, Losha. I’ll square it with General Stalin.’

  Losha Babanava sang a Georgian song as he drove Andrei and Serafima home through the warm darkness.

  In the back of the car, Serafima rested her head on Andrei’s shoulder. ‘You’re so dependable, Andrei,’ she said sleepily. ‘Thank you for not abandoning me. I don’t think I’d have managed if you hadn’t been there.’

  Andrei dreamed that she was his girl. He would invite her to stroll around the Patriarchy Ponds and the Alexandrovsky Gardens. He’d hold her hands and recite a verse by Blok, Akhmatova, or even Pushkin. Dizzy with drink and the smell of her skin, he stroked her hair as he stared at the straight, empty road back to Moscow, guarded by an army of silvery birches, lit by the face of a full Russian moon.

  7

  ‘ANDRYUSHA,’ GEORGE CALLED to him the next morning as they rushed along the parquet corridor towards Mrs Satinova’s English lesson. ‘A word!’

  Andrei turned and George pulled him into the changing room. He checked there was no one in the lavatory by kicking open the doors of the two cubicles, and then turned on the tap. ‘I heard from my brother David about last night. Don’t speak about it to anyone, will you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Andrei said, knowing that only a fool would ever gossip about anything that concerned the Leader.

  ‘People could lose their heads over those faulty planes,’ George said urgently. ‘It never happened. Oh, and David said you acquitted yourself well. And Serafima . . . Well, Serafima says you were heroic.’

  After school, Andrei walked to the Patriarchy Ponds. His head ached, and he felt sick. His mother had been distraught when he arrived home in the early hours of the morning; she’d taken him in her arms, mewing plaintively. It had irritated him enormously but there was nothing he could do to stop her. Now he should be feeling pleased with himself, he thought. He had met and survived the attentions of Vasily Stalin; he had shaken hands with Comrade Satinov; yet he was still alone, observing the tankmen and pilots buying their girls ice creams or iced lemonades. Old ladies sat watching the ducks. Mothers let their toddlers play on the grass. Nothing had really changed.

  ‘Shall I buy you an ice cream?’ The voice was soft as a kitten’s but it still made him jump. It was Rosa Shako, daughter of the air force commander.

  ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’ she said. ‘Do you want to go for a walk in the Sparrow Hills, escape the traffic and everything else . . .?’

  ‘I don’t feel very well today, Rosa. I think I should get home.’

  ‘But I have Papa’s car,’ said Rosa, waving towards a limousine parked nearby.

  ‘Can’t we do it tomorrow?’

  Her hand gripped his arm with a force that surprised him.

  ‘You don’t understand. Nikolasha’s waiting at the cemetery for us. He’s inviting you. It’s his place. And he’s never invited you before. You need to come.’

  ‘But, Rosa—’

  Rosa let go of his arm and placed her slender hands together almost as if she was praying. ‘Andryusha’ – she lisped like a child – ‘please. If you don’t come, it’ll be my fault. Nikolasha’s so unforgiving. I can’t disappoint him.’

  ‘In what way?’ he asked, a little intrigued.

  ‘Nikolasha says it’s impossible to compromise in the way we live. If we compromise, it’s not worth living at all.’

  ‘And you believe that?’

  Rosa appeared amazed that anyone could question anything that Nikolasha said.

  ‘He’s a true original, the ultimate romantic. He guides me. He’s not like anyone else I’ve ever met – surely you can see that? I think one day he’ll be famous, don’t you, Andrei? So are you coming? They’re all going to be there.’

  ‘All?’ Andrei asked. And when Rosa nodded, he knew he had to be there too.

  It was already getting dark, and jagged splinters of scarlet zigzagged across the sky as Andrei opened the gate of the cemetery and then stepped aside to allow Rosa to lead the way.

  Inside the cemetery, buzzing with midges, the gravestones were overgrown with green ivy; Andrei could see that rich families from the nineteenth century had built their tombs here: some were like little marble houses with pilasters and capitals and arches. It took him a moment to find his friends in the rosy graininess of a summer dusk, but then he saw the candles, their flames dancing in the still, sultry air.

  Vlad Titorenko greeted him in a green frock coat and britches. ‘Nikolasha’s expecting you,’ he said to Andrei. ‘The Romantics are gathered.’

  ‘Come here!’ It was Nikolasha. He was standing beside an ornate tomb covered with candles and decorated with crosses, carved names, and embellished with moss and old beer bottles.

  ‘Quiet, please. Everyone ready?’ said Vlad. ‘Let us begin. First everyone take one shot glass of vodka. Andrei, you stand there – and you may take a glass.’

  Andrei, holding the thimble of vodka, was on his own on one side of the tomb and on the other stood the Fatal Romantics. He could see Minka and George and Rosa, all of whom were dressed in nineteenth-century costumes; surely Serafima was also here somewhere?

  The Velvet Book, an illuminated candelabrum and a dark green leather case lay on the tomb itself and, all around them, the dark cemetery flickered with scores of candles. Corny, certainly, but melo-dramatic, undoubtedly.

  ‘Fatal Romantics,’ said Nikolasha solemnly, his freckles buried deep in his white skin. ‘This is the temple of the Fatal Romantics’ Club. Let us welcome a neophyte: Andrei Kurbsky.’

  ‘Do I . . . do I need a costume?’ stammered Andrei, feeling self-conscious in his grey trousers and white shirt.

  ‘Wait please!’ mouthed Nikolasha testily. He cleared his throat. ‘Fatal Romantics, I hereby declare that we are in session. I open the Velvet Book. Its words are secret; few names are inscribed in its sacred pages.’

  Andrei glanced at George, who gave him a wink. Andrei looked away and Nikolasha continued, his unnaturally deep voice wavering a little as he chanted like a pagan priest.

  ‘First, let us together declare our essential beliefs. Vlad, you may lead us.’

  ‘Fatal Romantics,’ started Vlad and then, all together, they chanted, ‘WE BELIEVE IN A WORLD OF LOVE.’

  ‘How will we live in this steely age?’

  ‘LOVE IS OUR LODESTAR.’

  ‘What is our choice?’

  ‘LOVE OR DEATH.’

  ‘Do we fear death?’

  ‘WE FEAR NOT DEATH. IF WE LIVE WITHOUT LOVE, LET US DIE YOUNG!’

  ‘And if we die?’

  ‘OUR LOVE WILL BE IMMORTAL.’

  ‘Let us drink to love,’ Nikolasha declared.

  The Romantics downed their vodka, but, troubled by the anti-Party talk of death and love, Andrei hesitated.

&nb
sp; ‘You may drink, Andrei,’ Nikolasha commanded. Feeling a little like he had done the previous evening, Andrei swallowed. The vodka was like a red-hot bullet in his belly.

  There was a loud sigh and then a burp, and George started to giggle; Minka too fought back a laugh that travelled up her nose and emerged as a strangled sneeze that made George shake with laughter.

  ‘George!’ snapped Vlad.

  ‘Don’t spoil it,’ added Rosa.

  ‘Sorry,’ said George.

  ‘While we’re here at a sitting of the Romantic Politburo, we can quite easily vote out a member,’ explained Nikolasha with the weariness of a severely tried teacher. ‘Now. Let us begin our meeting. Membership of our sacred brotherhood is select and secret. Andrei Kurbsky, what is your choice?’

  ‘Umm . . . love or death?’

  ‘Yes. Andrei, you have been called here to enter our Club of Fatal Romantics. Do you wish be considered for inscription in the Velvet Book of Love?’

  Andrei nodded.

  ‘Andrei, I should explain that in our membership, there are two grades. The first is candidate membership and candidates are welcomed to our meetings. But to play the Game, to wear the costume and bear the pistol, one must be a full member of our Politburo.’

  Andrei understood this system perfectly because that was how the Communist Party worked: you first became a candidate member and then a full member – and the whole country was run by the Politburo.

  ‘One day in the distant future you may be honoured by being considered for full membership but tonight you have been chosen as a candidate member of the Fatal Romantics’ Club. Step forward and place your hand on the leather case on the tomb. Now recite with all of us: LOVE OR DEATH!’

  ‘LOVE OR DEATH!’

  ‘Andrei, welcome to our society. I hereby write your name in the Velvet Book of Love.’ Nikolasha scribbled portentously in the book. ‘Toast our new candidate.’

  Rosa refilled the glasses.

  George swigged back two shots. ‘Can we talk now?’

  ‘Now for item two on the agenda,’ Nikolasha said, ignoring him. ‘We propose to play the Game in full costume after the Victory Parade on the twenty-fourth of June. On the far end of the Great Stone Bridge where the road will be closed.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ asked Minka. ‘On such an important day?’

  ‘Why not?’ answered Vlad. ‘We’ve played it in the street before. People love Pushkin.’

  ‘So shall we vote?’ asked Nikolasha.

  They all raised their hands just like Politburo members at a Party Congress. Nikolasha counted them with his pen. ‘Passed.’

  ‘So what do you think of my costume, Andrei?’ asked Minka, coming around the tomb. She struck a pose.

  ‘You look lovely,’ said Andrei, smiling at her.

  ‘You may watch us play the Game although, as a candidate, Andrei, you may not participate,’ continued Nikolasha, ‘but you realize that the duel in Eugene Onegin, echoed later in Pushkin’s own fatal duel, is the essential expression of our belief in romanticism.’ He raised the leather case on the tomb and the members bowed their heads, all except Andrei who looked at it – and George who was pouring out another vodka shot. It was the case that George had showed him at his apartment. Within lay the two antique duelling pistols borrowed, presumably with the costumes, from the Little Theatre.

  Rosa said, ‘Who dies tonight? Let’s play . . .’ Then she recited:

  ‘The gleaming pistols wake from drowsing.

  Against the ramrods mallets pound.

  The balls go in each bevelled housing.’

  She offered the case to Nikolasha who chose one pistol, and then she handed it to Vlad who took the other.

  ‘Are you happy with your weapon, Mr Lensky?’ Rosa asked Vlad. He nodded. She turned to Nikolasha. ‘And you, Mr Onegin?’

  ‘Are the pistols charged and ready to shoot?’ he asked.

  She nodded formally.

  Vlad and Nikolasha held their pistols upright like crucifixes in church and proceeded ritualistically out into the graveyard where a twenty-yard path was marked out by candles.

  ‘The duellists shed their cloaks and wait,’ said Nikolasha. He and Vlad shed their frock coats, George marked out thirty paces, and the boys stood facing each other. Their ruffled white blouses glowed in the moonflooded twilight, and the oiled steel of the pistols glimmered.

  Rosa’s voice rang out: ‘“Approach at will.”’ The boys walked towards each other.

  ‘Four fateful steps . . . Five paces more.’

  Nikolasha lowered his pistol slowly and, closing one eye, he aimed the barrel at Vlad’s chest, saying as he did so:

  ‘Onegin then, while still not ceasing

  His slow advance, was first to raise

  His pistol with a level gaze.’

  Vlad raised his pistol too and took aim. But Nikolasha, playing Onegin, was ahead of him: he started to squeeze the trigger.

  Andrei found it hard to breathe. It was all very silly, this ritual of amateur dramatics, yet there was something enthralling about it. The black thuja trees, the candles casting long shadows over the graves, the swirling teenage emotions and the macabre drama of fatal duels touched him. They were play-acting, but every Russian had lived Pushkin’s duels, the passion plays of the Russian soul.

  The trigger clicked, and there was a deafening crack and an orange flash. Vlad held his chest, tottering. Red blood soaked his white shirt. He fell.

  Nikolasha, narrating every movement with the correct words from Pushkin, ran to Vlad, knelt beside him, called his name and then, standing over his ‘body’, the Fatal Romantics recited together:

  ‘The storm has blown; the lovely flower

  Has withered with the rising sun.

  The altar fire is out and done!’

  The Game was over, and Andrei could breathe once more. Half an hour later, as Rosa was collecting the glasses, she tripped and knocked one off the tomb.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, picking up the shattered glass from the ground.

  ‘You’re so clumsy, you spoil everything,’ Nikolasha snapped in a spasm of cruelty that made Andrei wince for her. ‘You just don’t have the sensory talents for passion. But Serafima has it in spades. Serafima understands poetry. Without her, the Fatal Romantics wouldn’t exist. Don’t you agree, Rosa?’

  Rosa’s pale face flushed. ‘At least I’m here this evening,’ she said. ‘Serafima’s not. Where is she, Nikolasha?’

  ‘She said she might come later,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I hate to tell you, but I don’t think she’s coming.’ Rosa turned to Andrei. ‘But that makes no difference. Even when she doesn’t deign to join us, she’s always here.’

  And that was when Andrei realized why Nikolasha was so peevish. Serafima hadn’t come and Rosa’s devoted presence reminded him of her absence. Andrei understood how he felt. Ever since he’d arrived at the school, he had wanted to join the Fatal Romantics’ Club. Now he was in – but without Serafima, he didn’t give a kopeck whether his name appeared in the Velvet Book of Love or not.

  8

  A COLUMN OF mechanical khaki dinosaurs, T-34 and heavy KV tanks, rumbled down Gorky Street the next morning as Andrei walked to school. One lurched to a halt, shook and broke down, spluttering black diesel smoke. Phalanxes of soldiers drilled on Red Square, horses clattered on the cobbles, and the roar of the machinery and bark of drill sergeants sounded louder, more urgent: a symphony of rising excitement. It was five days until the Victory Parade, and Moscow had become a stage with a vast cast of foreigners arriving each day: Chinese, Americans, even Fijians and Africans, filled the hotels. Women were on the streets too – peasants offering fruit and flowers and sometimes a knee-trembler in an alleyway. The roads were crammed with trucks and self-propelled guns; and one could not move at the Belorussian Station for soldiers in army green and navy blue, all arriving to march past Stalin.

  At assembly in School 801, Director Medvedeva announced the Pioneers
who would go on a special camping trip.

  ‘I hate camping,’ whispered Senka Dorov, who was sitting next to Andrei. ‘It’s cold and uncomfortable and the food’s horrid. Why’s everyone in the Soviet Union so obsessed with camping?’

  But Andrei was looking for his fellow Fatal Romantics. There they were – all together a few benches away: Minka and George, Vlad more cadaverously pale than ever, Nikolasha with Rosa Shako, her eyes as always seemingly half closed, at his side. But where was Serafima? Try as he might, Andrei couldn’t find her.

  At lunch break, Andrei bumped into George and Minka, who were running down the central corridor towards the lavatories. Dr Rimm was following them.

  ‘Chin up, girl!’ he cried at Minka. ‘Discipline. The world’s eyes are settled on Moscow. Five days until the parade. Long live Stalin. No smirking, Andrei Kurbsky – tuck your shirt in!’

  As soon as he’d passed, George pulled him into the cloakroom. ‘Have you noticed anything special about Dr Rimm?’ he whispered.

  ‘He’s excited about the parade,’ said Andrei.

  ‘No, silly, he’s quivering with love,’ added Minka.

  ‘You haven’t sent him another letter, have you? The more you send, the more dangerous it’ll be if he ever finds out.’

  ‘How can he?’ George was laughing. ‘We’ve been sending him special ones for the Victory Parade. We’re going to post this to him right now.’ He showed it to Andrei.

  DEAREST PEDAGOGUE,

  I DREAM OF YOU SINGING A PATRIOTIC SONG TO CELEBRATE THE VICTORY PARADE. IF YOU LOVE ME, OH BOLSHEVIK NIGHTINGALE, SING, SING LOUDLY!

  YOUR ‘TATIANA’

  He didn’t see Serafima until that afternoon at pick-up.

  ‘I hear they let you in to the Fatal Romantics’ Club.’ She’d come up behind him. Andrei jumped a little and he remembered the drive back from Vasily’s.

  ‘I’m sure you told them to.’