One Night in Winter

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  ‘There was one time . . .’

  ‘When?’ The Lobster put down the club and took up a pen.

  ‘It was a few weeks ago . . . Minka and I were walking on Gorky Street and . . . and . . .’

  The truncheon came down hard on Senka’s hand. It hurt desperately and he started to cry, holding his wounded right hand in his left. The tears blurred his eyes until he couldn’t see. ‘I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you!’

  But he still hadn’t decided what to tell.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me again. I want to see my mama . . . Once Minka and I were walking down Gorky and we saw Serafima and . . .’ He tried to remember and then he had it. Yes, this was perfect – and it hurt nobody he loved. ‘Behind her, a hundred metres behind her, we saw him following her.’

  The relief was intoxicating as Senka settled down and began to tell his story.

  25

  KAPITOLINA MEDVEDEVA WAS in her office waiting for Innokenty Rimm to speak. In the last few days, that witch-hunting hypocrite had pranced the corridors like a broad-hipped conquistador. Something – nothing good – had happened to give him this spurt of confidence. What was it? Kapitolina Medvedeva had studied Dr Rimm as a zoologist does a rare and poisonous spider. His bluster had to be connected to the Children’s Case, she knew this.

  Director Medvedeva was a strict disciplinarian, a Party member of many years, but what she really cared about was teaching and the children. This case had ruined her term – and she knew it could ruin her life too.

  At night, she couldn’t sleep. By day, she sat at her desk but she couldn’t work. The parents (had Comrade Satinov ever visited the school gates so often?) brought the children; the children attended lessons, which the teachers taught, but all were pretending. They weren’t really there. They were in the dungeons of Lubianka. If she was lucky, the children would be released quickly and the case would blow over, but she knew such crises were often exploited by busybodies with axes to grind, overweening Party-minded pedants like Rimm who could turn harmless scandals into tragedies. I must be strong, she resolved, I must be like steel. Tverdost – hardness – is a Bolshevik virtue.

  Rimm hadn’t knocked; he had just barged in. Now she was scrutinizing his nose – it was like a duck’s beak – and his hair the colour of rusty wire.

  ‘I wish to call an extraordinary meeting of the School Party Committee,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To examine if any mistakes have been made in your leadership of the school.’

  Kapitolina sat back in her chair. I’m in charge here, she thought. Not him. Not the Hummer. ‘I veto that idea, Dr Rimm.’

  ‘You cannot do so, comrade director. I am its secretary.’

  ‘There are three members of the committee and I have already spoken to Comrade Noodelman, and he is against.’

  Director Medvedeva could see that Rimm was prepared for this. ‘You may remember that the rules allow for me to convene an extraordinary meeting of the School Party Committee with the attendance of all school staff to read Party announcements. Such as this one on mathematics teaching textbooks from the Central Committee Education Sector.’

  He raised his eyebrows, and Director Medvedeva could see the gleam of victory in those watery red-rimmed eyes. ‘I shall see you there, shall I?’

  The common room was full for Dr Rimm’s special meeting of the School’s Party Committee. The teachers were pale, tense, worried – and Director Medvedeva remembered the tragic meetings during the late thirties when two teachers had disappeared off the face of the earth and they had voted unanimously that ‘Enemies of the People should be shot like hyenas’.

  Now only one teacher, Benya Golden, was relaxed enough to recline on one of the sofas with his legs crossed and a world-weary grin on his face.

  She opened the meeting but Rimm immediately interrupted her. As secretary, it was his meeting and he moved fast to pass a series of resolutions – that the committee should examine whether the Children’s Case exposed any mistakes by the director of the school; that during this process, he, Dr Rimm, should take over the school . . .

  Silence greeted these proposals.

  ‘Is this a coup d’état, Dr Rimm?’ said Benya Golden at last. ‘Do you wish to be the Napoleon of School 801?’ There was quiet laughter from somewhere, and then silence.

  ‘I’m surprised you joke! Your bourgeois and un-Party-minded teaching, particularly in your Pushkin lessons, has played a role in this tragic case, Teacher Golden.’

  ‘All right, Dr Rimm,’ Golden said, sighing and stretching. Director Medvedeva knew how hard Golden had taken the shootings and the arrests, and she sensed he had more experience of men like Rimm than she did. ‘Have your vote but I will only vote for you if you promise that your singing of “May Comrade Stalin Live Many, Many Long Years” will improve dramatically. In fact, are you singing it deliberately badly? That may be a subversive act of musical sabotage.’

  A gasp of surprise and, from someone, an attempt to fight laughter greeted this, but Rimm’s officious demeanour, laced with hints of powerful connections, bewitched the frightened staff who voted for him unanimously.

  Afterwards, Kapitolina Medvedeva, who felt herself growing smaller and more insignificant with each step, walked slowly back up the corridor to meet the parents at the Golden Gates. She could survive this. Such intrigues occurred all the time. But her worry about the arrested children compounded by this blow made her limbs heavy as lead. At the gates, she greeted the first parent, Dr Dorova. Demian was at her side but where was Senka? Director Medvedeva glanced at her face and the answering look of sleepless despair revealed the unthinkable. They had taken a ten-year-old! Whatever next?

  She heard the ominous humming get closer, and Dr Rimm stood right in front of her, his womanly hips in his Party tunic blocking her way. ‘I’ll greet the parents and hold assembly this morning,’ he said. ‘This place is riddled with rotten elements and a fish rots from the head.’

  She stepped backwards just as Dashka Dorova left and Comrade Satinov arrived.

  ‘Esteemed Comrade Satinov,’ she heard Rimm declare in his breathless soprano. ‘I’m delighted as acting director to greet you at the gates of our school! Long Live Comrade Stalin!’

  It was early morning but the good humour of the Chekists, even though their eyes were tired and their chins covered in stubble, showed Andrei Kurbsky that they were making progress, and that meant someone had sung. Andrei knew he was the only outsider amongst the children, and he simply could not bear to go backwards, to exile, to penury. He was determined to survive this. I still have cards to play, he reminded himself. I can still get out of here.

  Andrei knew that Colonel Likhachev would beat him but in that knowledge lay strength, for violence is at its most potent when it is unexpected. Andrei distilled all his fears down to two concerns: first was his mother. She would know by now where he was. She might even have been to the prison, having queued outside so many jails for his father. While the other parents could probably ring Comrade Beria himself, she alone had no one to turn to.

  The bullystick struck him so hard in the face that it did not hurt. He felt a blackness with a heartbeat and pumping blood that turned the light into a night sky speckled with red sparks instead of stars. He was on his back on the concrete floor when Likhachev and another guard picked him up.

  ‘That’s just to wake you up, scum. To show you that here you’re nothing. Whatever you say, you might never see the streets of Moscow or your mother again.’ Andrei could feel his face pulsating as if it was a creature with its own life. He tried to wipe away the blood.

  Be calm, he told himself, return to your mother, protect those you love. Above all, Andryusha, survive this to reforge yourself. Play chess with these brutes, even if your eyes are blind with blood.

  Likhachev placed the truncheon glistening with Andrei’s blood beside his notebook and pen: ‘Nikolasha Blagov’s conspiracy against the Party was inspired by a mentor known as NV. Your friends have
already told us this stood for Novi Vozhd. New Leader. We know this snake was connected to Serafima Romashkina.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Andrei said quickly. A smirk crossed Likhachev’s face. ‘No one was close to her.’

  ‘Even after a smack in the chops, you jump when she’s mentioned,’ said Likhachev. ‘Perhaps you’re her lover. Are you NV?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ But Andrei did, because protecting Serafima was his second priority.

  ‘We know how you followed her around like a puppy, and that you conspired avidly to overthrow the Soviet Government.’

  ‘Not true.’

  ‘That’s not what your friends say.’

  ‘Did they also tell you that I was working for the Organs?’ There. He’d said it. Played his ace card. Now the question was: How would it be picked up?

  Likhachev twitched. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I offered to work with the Organs.’ Andrei made himself speak slowly. ‘When I read the Velvet Book I was worried by these potentially dangerous views. Given my background, I wanted to show my loyalty. I informed them that Nikolasha Blagov was propagating anti-Soviet ideas. I met my controller in a safe apartment. My codename was “Teacher’s Pet”. I am proud of my work with the Cheka.’

  Likhachev’s red face had turned a sickly grey. This was something he should have known.

  ‘We will check your claims. Did you inform your controller that Nikolasha was planning a coup?’

  ‘I didn’t realize he had gone that far.’

  ‘You were concealing evidence from the Organs?’

  ‘No, he didn’t show us his scribblings.’

  He saw Likhachev sit forward as he tried a different tack. ‘Serafima Romashkina. You think you knew her well? The one thing we Chekists know is that no one knows anyone well. You can be married to a woman for twenty years and not realize that she is an Enemy, a traitor, a whore. Since you’re one of us, let me share with you that we know from Nikolasha Blagov’s notebook that Serafima Romashkina was central to the conspiracy.’

  ‘I know that’s not true because I was watching her on behalf of the Organs.’

  Likhachev smiled. ‘Your friends have already told us name after name of her lovers. All were devoted to her. Young and old. What was her trick? Who taught her? The geishas of Japan? She must be quite a girl.’

  Andrei was trying to keep his footing in a landslide. He church-steepled his fingers to concentrate. Save yourself, your mother and Serafima, he repeated. He had to give them someone else. But who?

  ‘Serafima’s a decent, honourable Soviet patriot,’ said Andrei. ‘She didn’t have a lover. I reported on her movements, her routine, I saw who she met. Yes, she met people like anyone does. Maybe she had mentors like we all do. But no lover. Read my reports.’

  Likhachev was caressing his bullystick. ‘Now you’re fucking boring me. You mentioned a mentor, did you not?’

  Andrei touched his face. His right cheek and mouth were numb and swollen. And he was tired. He felt he would die if he didn’t get some sleep. The answer was obvious: Vasily Stalin. Perhaps there was something between Serafima and him? Vasily Stalin had picked her up, and she knew him. If NV – New Leader – was Vasily Stalin, wouldn’t they see this entire case as a harmless joke, instead of a conspiracy? But George Satinov had warned him: never mention Vasily Stalin, and he had left him out of his reports to the Organs. Anyway, who would believe him, the son of an Enemy? And what gruesome Caucasian vengeance would the Great Stalin himself take on a boy who dared to mention the Name in vain? Yet despite it all, the word Vasily danced on his lips.

  Likhachev leaned over and put his jaw so close to the wounds on Andrei’s face that he could taste the sausage on his interrogator’s breath. ‘Come on, lover boy,’ he said. ‘Prove to me that Serafima’s whiter than white.’

  At lunchtime, the inspector from the Education Sector of the Agitprop Department, Central Committee, arrived to hear Dr Rimm’s accusations.

  ‘Comrade director.’ Inspector Ivanov licked his finger as he turned some papers. ‘In the light of the Children’s Case, we have received four anonymous complaints about the direction of School 801.’

  Kapitolina Medvedeva looked miserably at Rimm, who beamed jubilantly back at her. Who cares if she knew it was he who had written all four denunciations, he thought? Whoever had written them, they told the truth.

  ‘Therefore, I have been deputed to consult Comrade Rimm who has confirmed some of the accusations. Is that right, Comrade Rimm?’

  ‘Yes, Comrade Ivanov. But most reluctantly and with sincere sadness.’

  Dr Rimm was delighted at the way things were going. It turned out he had quite a talent for undercover work. Demian had given him the Velvet Book and he had given it to an officer whom he knew in the Organs. Yes, Senka Dorov had been arrested thanks to him but Comrade Stalin often said, ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,’ and, besides, the Chekists had promised no harm would come to Senka and the shock might teach the runt some respect.

  ‘Good,’ said Ivanov, licking his fingertips repeatedly as he turned more pages. ‘Shall we take these one by one, comrade director?’

  Kapitolina Medvedeva nodded.

  ‘Who accepted Andrei Kurbsky, the son of an Enemy of the People, into the school this term?’

  Kapitolina looked a little surprised. ‘I did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Comrade Stalin said we must not visit the sins of the fathers on to the children,’ she said.

  ‘True enough.’ Ivanov made a note. ‘Who is paying the fees?’

  ‘I am. Out of my own salary.’

  ‘Comrade director, did you permit’ – two licks of the fingertips – ‘the teaching of Pushkin against Communist ethics with a romantic-bourgeois sentimentality?’

  ‘If I suspected any teacher of bourgeois philistinism I would have dismissed them.’

  He noted this.

  ‘I fear these petty accusations are wasting your time, inspector,’ Kapitolina continued. ‘In recognition of this, I propose that Comrade Rimm, with Comrade Noodelman, should investigate this and report in one month.’

  This was a clever move. Even Rimm had to admit this, although he could see she was playing for time.

  ‘That seems a good idea,’ said Inspector Ivanov. ‘Perhaps for the moment that is the best solution, don’t you think, Comrade Rimm? The Central Committee would be satisfied with that.’

  ‘Thank you Comrade Ivanov,’ said Rimm. The director had foiled him – cunning bitch. Now he would have to prove his own accusations, which would be much harder than sending anonymous denunciations.

  But he had held back his gravest accusation.

  ‘I have one question, Comrade Ivanov. You are doubtless aware of Teacher Golden’s biography and the role he played in the tragedy.’

  Inspector Ivanov looked interested. ‘Pray tell us, comrade.’

  Rimm leaned forward. ‘Golden created the poisonous ideology that inspired these children to kill. I propose you investigate why this two-faced mask-wearer is teaching at this school? Who hired him? And even more importantly, who is protecting him, even now?’

  26

  WHEN GEORGE WAS young, an aquaintance of his parents named Mendel Barmakid, a famous Old Bolshevik, had been arrested. His parents had whispered about it in the bathroom as parents did in those days – with the taps running.

  ‘Can he be guilty?’ asked Tamara.

  ‘Read this,’ answered his father.

  Tamara quietly read out: ‘“Protocols of Interrogation of Mendel Barmakid . . .” But they could have used excessive methods,’ she said. ‘Excessive methods’ meant torture in Bolshevik language.

  ‘I doubt it,’ answered Satinov. ‘Look. He confesses everything and every page is signed by him. See? That’s convincing. If he wasn’t guilty, he wouldn’t confess. Confession is the mother of justice. The lesson is to tell the truth but never confess anything!’

  George Satinov was r
epeating this to himself now.

  ‘Who is NV?’ Colonel Likhachev was asking. ‘And what was his relationship to Serafima Romashkina?’

  George thought of Vasily Stalin. He recalled his brother David saying, ‘Vaska’s crazy about Serafima, and he always gets what he wants. When the rogue takes girls flying, they fall into bed with him out of sheer terror!’ What if Likhachev found out George had not told him about Serafima’s partying with Vasily Stalin? What if Andrei had told them already, and they were testing him? George kept his nerve and held back.

  Likhachev stood up abruptly and banged on the door, which opened almost instantaneously. ‘Major,’ he rasped, ‘bring in Prisoner 72.’

  George’s heart beat faster as terrible thoughts rushed through his mind. Would this be Minka? Or Serafima? And he prayed that if it was any of his friends, they would not be harmed. He hoped that they had not punched Andrei or Vlad as they had punched him and he prayed too they had been as strong as him and not incriminated themselves. And then for a moment, the nightmare: could it be his father? But that was simply unthinkable. He could hear the clip of footsteps getting closer. For the first time, George, so confident, so brash, experienced the most elemental fear. His belly contracted. Amidst the martial marching of guards, he sensed dragging: the shuffling of another presence barely walking at all. Then two guards pulled in a figure whom they deposited on the chair opposite. There was a bump like a sack of grain and a big head fell forward, but Colonel Likhachev seized the hair and held it up like a primitive warrior with the scalp of a fallen enemy. George gasped. At first it was just the atrocious wounds that shocked him: the face was smashed into pulp, swollen to twice its normal size, the nose crushed, teeth missing, the lip gashed to the nose, the hair caked with blood.