‘We were all meeting here. After the parade. Just for fun.’
‘M-e-e-ting,’ said the policeman, trying to write this down. Andrei realized he was drunk. Most of Moscow was drunk and several of the policemen at the scene were struggling to stand up at all. ‘Why the hell are you in fancy dress?’
‘We’re in a dramatic club,’ said Serafima.
‘What the fuck is that?’
‘They’re playing the Game,’ blurted out little Mariko Satinova from the back of the group. Andrei noticed Marlen was standing in front of her so she could not see the bodies or the blood.
‘Give me your name and address and you can take the little ones home.’
‘Satinov,’ said Marlen.
‘Satinov? Like the Politburo member?’
‘Yes, I’m Marlen Satinov.’
‘And I’m Mariko, his sister,’ added the little girl.
‘Mary mother of Christ!’ said the policeman, pushing back his cap and wiping his forehead. ‘GRISHA, GET THE FUCK OVER HERE!’ he yelled, turning around.
A pimply policeman who did not look any older than the schoolchildren ran over, looking anxious. ‘Yes, captain?’
‘Run fast as you can over to the guardhouse at Spassky Gate’ – he pointed towards the Kremlin tower – ‘and ring Lubianka Square. Tell them we have a double killing with special characteristics. It’s for the Organs. Tell them to send someone down here fast. Go!’
Andrei watched the young policeman running; just as he reached the sentry box with its telephone link to the MGB, the Ministry of State Security, he jumped as the sky boomed and a galaxy of fireworks exploded above the Kremlin.
The roar of the crowd spread from the bridge along the packed embankments and bridges of the River Moskva, but Andrei only had eyes for the policeman gesticulating as he told the guards to ring their superiors. He imagined phones ringing from guardhouses up the vertical hierarchy – captains to colonels, generals to ministers – all the way to Lubianka Square and thence to the Kremlin itself.
Around him, the fireworks made the night into a daylight that turned the two bodies on the bridge red and white and green as those supernovas flashed above them in crescents and stars and wheels.
Serafima stood beside him. In the dazzling, bleaching light he saw her tears, and, for a moment, it felt as if they were quite alone. Then he took her in his arms as a stab of sheer dread pierced his innards.
‘It’s begun,’ she kept saying. ‘It’s begun.’
It was only much later that he’d understand that she was not just crying for their dead friends and the pasts they shared, but for their futures. And for the secret that she cherished more than life itself.
PART TWO
The Children’s Case
Children in ages to come will cry in bed,
Not to have been born in our lifetime.
‘We Have No Borders’, popular Soviet song
11
A FEW HUNDRED metres away, in the room behind the Lenin Mausoleum, an old man smiled, honey-coloured eyes glinting, his face creasing like that of a grizzled tiger.
‘You’re looking like a Tsarist station manager in your uniform,’ Stalin teased Andrei Vyshinsky, his Deputy Foreign Minister, a pink-cheeked, white-haired man who stood before him in a grey, gold-braided diplomatic uniform with a ceremonial dagger at its belt. ‘Who designed this foolish rig? Is that a dagger or a carving knife?’
‘It’s the new diplomatic uniform, Comrade Stalin,’ replied Vyshinsky, almost at attention, chest out.
‘You look like a head waiter,’ said Stalin, his eyes scanning the leaders who formed a semi-circle around him. Golden shoulderboards and gleaming braid, Kremlin tans and bulging bellies. ‘What a collection,’ he said. ‘Some of you are so fat, you hardly look human. Set an example. Eat less.’
Hercules Satinov, who stood to Stalin’s right in a colonel general’s uniform, was proud to stand beside the greatest man in the world to celebrate Russia’s victory. Stalin had promoted him, trusted him with challenging tasks in peace and war and he had never disappointed the Master. Stalin’s restless scrutiny of his comrades-in-arms was sometimes mocking, sometimes chilling – even Satinov had experienced it – but it was just one of the many methods Stalin had used to build Soviet Russia and defeat Hitler. Virtually the entire leadership was in this room. Every single man was pretending to talk – but actually they never took their eyes off him, and Satinov knew that Stalin was always aware of this. Now he felt Stalin’s gaze upon him.
‘Now look at Satinov here. Smart! That’s the ticket!’
‘He’s no more a soldier than me,’ Lavrenti Beria objected.
‘True, but at least Satinov has the figure for it, eh, bicho?’ Stalin gave everyone nicknames and he often called Satinov bicho – ‘boy’ in their native Georgian. ‘He looks like a Soviet man should look. Not like you, Vyshinsky.’ Stalin beamed at the sweating courtier, enjoying his discomfort – especially when Alexander Poskrebyshev, his chef-de-cabinet, a bald little fellow in a general’s uniform, crept up behind Vyshinsky, slipped the dagger out of its scabbard and replaced it with a small, green gherkin.
‘I think Vyshinsky needs to drink a forfeit, don’t you, comrades?’ asked Beria, the secret-police chief. Satinov did not like this bullying of Vyshinsky even though he was a craven reptile: sycophantic to superiors, fearsome to inferiors. He observed how Beria played up to Stalin, however. Beria’s glossy, braided Commissar-General of Security uniform ill suited his glinting pince-nez, grey-green cheeks and double chins.
‘But I have to be careful, I have a heart condition,’ pleaded Vyshinsky.
‘Comrade Vyshinsky, might you deign to join us in a toast to the Soviet soldier?’ said Stalin, as flunkies in dark blue uniforms filled all the glasses.
Stalin had drunk several vodkas earlier and Satinov could tell that he was slightly drunk – and why not? Today was his supreme moment. But the stress of the war – four years of sixteen-hour days – had visibly aged him. Satinov noticed that his hands shook, his skin was waxy with red spots on his cheeks; the grey hair resembled a spiked ice sculpture. He wondered if Stalin was ill but put that thought out of his mind. It was unthinkable; Stalin’s health was a secret; and the Master distrusted doctors even more than he distrusted women, Jews, capitalists and social democrats.
‘To Comrade Vyshinsky,’ Stalin announced. ‘And to our diplomats and our gherkin-growers who supplied our brave forces!’
The leaders guffawed at this and Vyshinsky, still wearing his scabbarded gherkin, joined in with oblivious enthusiasm, unsure what the joke might be.
Stalin was still smiling but he immediately noticed when the State Security Minister, Merkulov, who ran the secret police Organs, tentatively joined the outer edges of the circle.
‘Comrade Merkulov, welcome,’ said Stalin. ‘Haven’t they arrested you yet?’ He winked. It was a running joke.
Merkulov bowed but was hopelessly tongue-tied around Stalin. ‘C-c-congratulations . . . C-c-comrade Marshal Stalin.’
A silence inside, the hum of crowds and engines outside.
Stalin narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you reporting something?’
‘Yes, but n-n-nothing important . . . Should I report to Comrade Beria?’
‘Haven’t we shot you yet?’ teased Stalin since it was Merkulov’s ministry that was responsible for chernaya rabota – the black work, his euphemism for blood-letting. Stalin was not shy about that: killing was the quickest, most efficient way to accelerate the progress of history. ‘We must never lose our sense of humour,’ said Stalin with the tigerish grin, ‘eh, Comrade Merkulov?’
Merkulov mopped his brow and tried to laugh, but hurried across to brief his boss, Beria. Satinov had been waiting for just this gap in the conversation. He nodded at Marshal Shako, the stalwart air force commander. But the marshal hesitated. Even brave warriors were nervous around Stalin, and with good reason.
‘Go on,’ Satinov prompted him. The gruff commander saluted.
>
‘Permission to report! Comrade Marshal Stalin,’ Shako blurted, ‘I propose on behalf of the marshalate of the Soviet armed forces that you be promoted to the rank of generalissimo and receive the gold star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.’
‘No, no.’ Stalin waved this aside with his good arm; the other he kept stiffly by his side. ‘Comrade Stalin doesn’t need it. Comrade Stalin has authority without it. Some title you’ve thought up!’ Stalin, who had started to refer to himself in the third person, cast a black glance at Satinov and Beria. ‘Who cooked up this pantomime?’
‘The people demand it,’ replied Satinov.
Stalin suddenly paled and raised his hand to his forehead. He was having one of those dizzy spells that had become frequent at the end of the war. He stumbled forward and leaned against the wall, but it passed, and he dismissed the concerned frowns of his comrades. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. I’ll work another two years then retire.’
‘No, Comrade Stalin, that’s unthinkable!’ cried Beria.
‘I will let Molotov and Satinov run things,’ insisted Stalin.
‘No one could replace you,’ said Molotov urgently. ‘Certainly not me.’
‘Nor me. We need you!’ added Satinov. His comrades, whether in marshal’s stars or Stalinka tunics, repeated this, outdoing each other in enthusiasm. ‘You’re everything to us! Indispensable! Retirement is out of the question!’
Stalin’s honey-coloured eyes scrutinized them, but he said nothing. He pulled a pack of Herzegovina Flor cigarettes out of his pocket. ‘Bicho!’
Satinov lit it.
‘Generalissimo?’ murmured Stalin. ‘It makes me sound like a South American dictator. Comrade Stalin doesn’t need it, doesn’t need it at all.’
‘The people demand you accept this rank,’ insisted Satinov.
‘Ten million soldiers insist,’ said Marshal Shako. Marshals Zhukov and Konev, the most famous army commanders, forming a bull-necked human rampart of shoulderboards and medals behind him, nodded gravely.
‘What liberties you take with an old man!’ Stalin said, almost to himself, closing his eyes as he inhaled.
‘We have to do something,’ said Beria. The courtier knows when the king wishes him to disobey, Satinov thought. Stalin was weakening.
‘It’s not good for my health at all,’ said Stalin. ‘As for the gold star, I’ve never commanded in battle.’
‘But I have the gold star, right here,’ said Satinov, drawing a little box out of his pocket. ‘May I present it?’
‘No!’ Stalin held up his hand, the cigarette between the fingers. ‘That, I won’t accept.’
Satinov looked across at the other leaders, Molotov and Beria. What to do? He put it back in his pocket.
‘Fuck it! He’ll accept in the end like he accepted the generalissimo title,’ Beria whispered.
‘We’ll find a way to give it to him,’ Molotov, formal in his dark bourgeois suit, agreed.
Beria stepped closer to Stalin. ‘Josef Vissarionovich,’ said Beria, ‘may I report?’
‘What, even today? Can’t you decide anything without consulting me?’
‘We all wish we could, Comrade Stalin, but it’s something a little out of the ordinary.’
The wily old conspirator inhaled his cigarette wearily. Satinov wondered what it was. It was often better not to know the black work Stalin discussed with Beria. Yet even as the two stepped back slightly, Satinov could still hear some of their conversation.
‘There’s been a strange event on the Kammeny Most. A schoolboy and schoolgirl have been killed. Just thirty minutes ago.’
‘So?’
‘They are both pupils at School 801.’
‘School 801?’ replied Stalin, a degree more interested. ‘The finishing school for little barons? My Vasily and Svetlana were there.’
‘Some of them were in fancy-dress costume, Josef Vissarionovich.’
‘What on earth were they doing?’
‘We’ll find out imminently. We haven’t identified the dead yet but initial reports mention the involvement of the children of “responsible Party workers”.’ Satinov took a quick breath. ‘Responsible workers’ was the euphemism for the leadership.
Stalin focused like a diving hawk. ‘Who?’
‘Some of the parents are in this room. Comrade Satinov, Marshal Shako, Comrade Dorov . . .’
Stalin shook his head. ‘Fancy dress, you say? We let our guard down during the war. This could be the work of our enemies abroad – or of the children themselves.’ He held up a single finger as straight as a tallow candle. ‘No little princelings are above Soviet justice. Everyone knows how I demoted my Vasily for behaving like a spoilt aristocrat. Solve the case. If it’s murder, heads must roll.’
‘Right, I’ll get to work,’ said Beria, backing away from Stalin and leaving the room.
Satinov felt the hand of fear clutch his heart: what role did his children play in this? What if George or Marlen or Mariko lay dead on the bridge?
But Stalin was strolling back towards him and Satinov saw that he was bristling and bushy-tailed again, a satyr refreshed by the macabre excitement of conspiracy. His eyes twinkled roguishly.
‘How’s your family?’ Stalin asked. Satinov concealed his worries with all the arctic expertise of a veteran of Stalin’s world. There would be time later to find out what happened on the bridge.
12
JUST BEFORE 7 p.m., Sophia Zeitlin and her husband Constantin Romashkin climbed the steps to the Georgievsky Hall. The dinner to celebrate victory would be her moment to shine and be admired – but that depended on her table placement. The fifteen hundred guests crowded nervously around the table plans on boards outside; a seat near Stalin endowed the lucky ones with an almost visible halo; those seated furthest away could scarcely hide the shadow of disappointment.
‘Darling, that dress will dazzle everyone,’ said Dashka Dorova, kissing Sophia and Constantin. Many were quick to criticize Sophia for un-Bolshevik vulgarity but she knew that Dashka was a real friend who wished her well.
‘I have to give the public what they expect.’
‘Well, your dress certainly does that,’ said Dashka.
‘I love your dress too. That cream colour really suits you, and the pleated skirt shows off your curves,’ said Sophia, who also meant it. ‘I have to tart myself up a bit, but you always look so chic and professional. You are our most glamorous minister!’ She hesitated, and then gave her deep throaty laugh. ‘But that’s hardly a compliment when you see the rest of them!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Dashka laughed away the compliments and started to peruse the table plans. ‘Ah, there I am. Not too bad. I’m on the Council of Ministers’ table.’ She looked at her husband. ‘How about you, Genrikh?’
Genrikh looked pasty and irritable. ‘I’m nowhere near the Politburo,’ he said glumly.
‘No one will notice, dear,’ Dashka said, patting his arm. But Sophia knew that everyone noticed such things and she certainly liked her own placement. Her husband was placed with the editors of the Red Army newspaper, even further away than Genrikh, but she was on the Politburo table.
The leaders hadn’t arrived yet and she could feel everyone looking at her as she put a cigarette in her holder and Marshal Shako lit it.
A hush; then a collective intake of breath: Stalin had entered with the Politburo. The entire Georgievsky Hall jumped to its feet and shouted ‘Urrah! Urrah!’ and cheered for so long that Stalin himself first waved at them to sit down, then clapped back at them and finally became cross, ordering them to stop. But no one would stop. Stalin sat down at the table next to Sophia’s between Marshal Shako and Molotov, and, shrugging modestly, looked a little embarrassed until the cheering subsided.
Sophia could not take her eyes off Stalin. As an actress she noticed how he seemed to change before her eyes, walking sometimes with quick little movements, occasionally like a clumsy goose, often more like a stealthy panther.
She was sitting between
Satinov and Mikoyan, the most courteous and elegant of the leaders, who were, as a rule, uncouth and dreary. When she looked around, she saw most of them sported the telltale archipelago of red spots on their cheeks, the signs of alcoholism and arteriosclerosis. She noticed the gruesome Beria making eyes at her across the table.
‘I wish he would look at someone else,’ she whispered to Satinov.
‘You are dressed to be admired,’ replied Satinov, who seemed to Sophia to be uncharacteristically tense. ‘Wasn’t Serafima meeting with her Pushkin club friends tonight on the Stone Bridge?’
‘I think so, but I never know where she goes these days,’ Sophia said with a sigh.
‘We know less about our children than we think,’ Satinov agreed. ‘It worries me.’
‘And they know even less about us! Thank God!’ And Sophia laughed huskily.
Twenty stodgy courses – blinis and caviar, borscht with cream, beef Stroganoff, sturgeon, suckling pig, Georgian wines and Crimean champagne, brandy and vodka – were served by the waiters Sophia recognized from the Aragvi as well as the Metropole and National Hotels.
Stalin stood. Silence fell. He spoke in his Georgian tenor, surprisingly high and soft, toasting the Russian people ‘without whom none of us marshals and commanders would be worth a damn!’ Then he turned to the generals, starting with Marshal Zhukov, whom he invited to come and clink glasses with him. Sophia noticed that Stalin downed his glass of vodka at each toast, and guessed that his carafe was full of water.
When he toasted Admiral Isakov, Satinov whispered to Sophia: ‘How’s Isakov going to walk all that way?’ – Isakov had lost his leg in the war – but Stalin seemed to know where the admiral was sitting for he threaded through the tables to the far end of the hall and clinked glasses with him there.
‘That’s so touching!’ Sophia said.
Ten, twenty, forty toasts were drunk, and she lost count until suddenly, surprisingly, it was her turn.
‘Sophia Zeitlin!’ The breath left her body and she felt quite alone in the magnificent hall. ‘Your beauty inspired our soldiers in dark times!’
One Night in Winter Page 10
