Simon Montefiore - Red Sky at Noon

The Atamansha guided Nyushka out of the door and into the night, which was when Benya realized she’d also won some time with the nurse.

He felt Jaba’s hand squeeze his neck. ‘In case you’re wondering, that man disobeyed an order from the Atamansha. We never forget that. Sit down.’ Benya sat. ‘I hear you volunteered for the army?’ Jaba asked this as if nothing of any significance had occurred, as if a man’s body was not being lunked out of the barracks by his men with much falsetto swearing from Little Mametka.

‘You heard?’

‘Why would you do such a crazy thing, Benya?’

‘To fight the Fascists.’

‘And you think the Red Army can’t cope without your warlike ardour?’

‘It’s something I have to do. Boss, I am a Russian, a Jew. The Nazis are my enemies.’

Jaba shook his head. ‘In our code of Brigands, we don’t work for the state and we don’t fight for the state. None of us will volunteer. Aren’t you missing something, writer-in-residence?’

Benya hesitated. Smiley, Deathless and Mametka were back now, watching their master, like guard dogs waiting for a whistle. ‘What?’

‘To survive here a man needs two things. The spirit of life; you have it. But he also needs luck, not once but many times. Golden, I am your luck. Don’t I look after you?’ A pause. He was still grinning but the almond-shaped eyes were slate-cold.

‘I apologize, Batono Jaba,’ answered Benya, who sensed this was the moment for antique Georgian courtesy. ‘I was ungrateful. I will never go to the war… Yes, you saved my life. I belong to you.’

‘He’s here, just back from the front,’ said her brother, Vasily Stalin. ‘Let’s find him!’ Wearing his air force uniform with a colonel’s pips, he led Svetlana through the carousers in the white stucco dacha with its Grecian pillars. ‘Zubalovo’s made for parties, isn’t it? Shame Papa never enjoyed it.’

Svetlana had almost not come. The revelation about her mother had so upset her. Why had her mother abandoned her? She had been tricked all these years only to discover the truth in a newspaper. She wanted to discuss it with Vasya but he was so frivolous and so soused that this was obviously not the moment. Instead she took a glass of champagne and downed it and felt a little better. If it hadn’t been for the possibility of meeting Shapiro, she would have missed the party, but she sensed that this opportunity might not come again.

The rooms of the villa were filled with officers in boots and tunics and tall glamorous Russian Veronica Lakes and Ingrid Bergmans with curled hair, bare shoulders and vertiginous décolletage. Svetlana was wearing her first dress, copied from Vogue magazine, and flat shoes, and she felt awkward amongst so many of Moscow’s beautiful women and dashing men, the Stiliagi – the Stylish Ones. She recognized many of them: there was the poet Simonov and his wife the film star Valentina Serova; over there, the movie director Roman Carmen with his wife Nina, another actress. Svetlana knew all the gossip: her brother Vasily was in love with Nina; Vasily had moved Nina into his house, kicking out his wife Galina. Nina’s husband was so furious that he’d written to Stalin to complain!

Vasily was pulling her by the hand, a sour-faced imp whispering horrible things to her: ‘I fucked that one with her husband in the next-door room,’ he was saying. ‘And that one…’

‘Stop telling me, or I’ll block my ears,’ said Svetlana – but he didn’t. Making love couldn’t be as ugly as he made it seem, she thought, surely it must be exquisite when you’re in love? Women danced to the gramophone. The foxtrot was the new dance, so fast, so close – and Svetlana longed to be able to do it. Sometimes a girl wrapped herself around Vasily snickering and dancing and he was lost and she was left standing apart, watching like a prim spectator.

‘Oh, wait, Sveta, I’ll be right back,’ he’d say, and she had to wait like a fool. But soon he was back, and pulling her onwards. ‘Why do you want to meet him?’

‘Just to talk about his articles.’

‘Ugh, don’t bullshit your brother. You’re in love with him!’

‘No! You’re wrong.’

‘You’re just a girl. It’s a schoolgirl crush then. But do you want to kiss him, do you want to get naked—’

‘Shut up, Vasya, don’t be disgusting. Not everything’s about that…’

‘Isn’t it? Yes it is! You want to fuck him!’

‘Stop it, Vasya, or I’ll leave. You coarsen everything! Really I should leave…’

‘Go, leave then, you little prude…’ Vasily turned nasty so quickly. His sallow face was tightening, his lips thinning. But then he changed again. ‘Then you won’t meet your fancy man!’ he said.

‘He’s not my – Oh, please, Vasya.’

‘Come on, little sister, we’ll find him. And you can fuck him later!’

‘Vasya—’

‘Wait!’ He grabbed her arm. ‘He’s right here. See! You can’t leave now.’

And finally there he was.

‘Lev!’ cried Vasya, embracing him. ‘Look who wants to meet you!’

A tall man in army uniform with a thick shock of grey-streaked black hair and intense dark eyes was talking to a group of women who were listening to him intently. Svetlana would always remember that his hand was raised in a fist with one finger pointing to make his point. He put his arm around Vasily.

‘Lev Shapiro, this is my sister Svetlana,’ Vasily said. ‘I hope she doesn’t bore you. She’s very serious!’

Shapiro looked down at her, and in that moment Svetlana felt tiny and ugly and very young. The women turned to her with their scarlet lips, curled hair and black made-up eyes, and they seemed irresistible, carefree and sophisticated. But to her amazement Shapiro left them without a further word and led her aside.

‘Your letter made my day,’ he said. ‘How daring of you to write like that! And I wrote back.’

‘I know! How did you dare to reply?’

They laughed with mouths open as if they already knew each other.

‘Aren’t we lions?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s your name.’

‘And it will be your name too. I am going to call you Lvitza. May I, Lioness?’

‘Yes, oh yes.’

He looked very closely at her: ‘You have something sad in your eyes. Do you want to tell me about it?’

It was the strangest thing, Svetlana thought later. He had just met her and he saw right into her heart. It was the greatest secret in her life and this man whom she had known for a minute seemed to know about it. So she told him about her mother and what she had learned. And he comforted her, told her it was unjust, analysed how she must be feeling, listened to her. What kindness there was in this man.

‘Now we’ve talked are you feeling better?’

‘So much better.’

‘Would you like to dance a little with me?’

‘The foxtrot?’

‘Yes, the foxtrot. Have you tried it?’

‘Yes, but only with my girlfriend Martha. She taught me.’

He took her hand and pulled her on to the dance floor and held her so close that she sensed his strength and his virility. Gradually she relaxed against him, trusting him, following his movements. Afterwards she said, ‘I was useless. Sorry! My flat shoes are hideous!’

‘What do you mean, Lioness? You were brilliant. I loved dancing with you. And that dress is so chic. Is it new?’

Then he took her hand again, just like that, without a moment’s hesitation, as if she was an ordinary girl. ‘Tell me what you think of the coverage of the war. Are we getting it right?’

She did not remember her answers, but he listened carefully and discussed her opinion as if she was a literary critic, a scholar, not just a schoolgirl. He asked her about books and movies and history and not once did he mention her father or the Kremlin. She was accustomed to flattery of a Sultanic intensity. No one ever disagreed with the Tsar’s daughter, but they always wanted something or they escaped from her fast, afraid of her name. But Shapiro did not flatter her once. He disagreed with her about an article of Ehrenburg, and treated her as an equal: ‘You only say that because you didn’t read the whole article,’ he said. ‘If you’d read the last sentence…’ When finally she looked at her watch, it was past midnight and she caught Captain Klimov’s eye and the policeman nodded.