Simon Montefiore - Red Sky at Noon

Upstairs in his study-cum-office, Sergo pulled down the blinds, Beria kicked off his shoes and fell back on the wide sofa where he often napped when he got the chance.

‘ Mamiko ’ – Sergo used the Georgian for ‘Daddy’ – ‘is it really so bad in the south?’

‘Worse, bicho , my boy,’ replied his father. ‘We could lose the war there. Not just our war, but if the Germans break through, the British and Americans would lose too. It’s desperate. Now tell me about your life. Tell me what the war drums are saying?’ All the leaders had read The Last of the Mohicans and every one of them talked about war drums and white chiefs . Sergo told him that he had been on a date with Martha Peshkova.

‘That girl is adorable,’ said Beria. ‘And what news of Sveta? He never lets her out. Poor child! She’s a prisoner in that gloomy apartment. Still so lonely?’

‘Well, yes and no…’

‘Still in love with you? I’d never let you marry into that family. Stay away!’

‘Don’t worry, Mamiko , she’s over me.’

Beria sat up. ‘She’s got someone else?’

Sergo took a breath, remembering what he’d promised Martha. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You know something, bicho . Tell me.’

‘I shouldn’t say. It’s a secret.’

‘I think I can keep a secret or two, don’t you?’ said Beria. ‘Tell me about Svetlana.’

When he was alone, Beria closed his eyes. He saw the grey face of Stalin earlier that morning hearing that the Russians were losing the battle of the Don Bend; remembered the cowardly panic of the headless-chicken generals at Budyonny’s headquarters in the North Caucasus; reminded himself that he had to recheck the plane, tank, rifle production figures and the mines of the Gulag Camps; and noted that the death roster of 124 eminent prisoners signed by Stalin would, by now, have been executed in Lefortovo Prison; some of their names meant nothing but he had tortured a couple himself back in ’38. Finally he indulged himself with the vision of the young woman with her Veronica Lake figure, golden hair and wanton thighs who’d been brought to him by his adjutant Colonel Sarkisian, how she’d ridden him naked in his office and then asked for an apartment for her mother. One day he’d find a girl who loved him for himself, he mused.

And out of all this murkiness and toil, only one thing was bright: Sergo his son, his sun, his hope for the cruel realm in which he was himself the cruellest. I will never let him work in my filthy world, he promised himself. He is too good for that. How I love him.

And Beria slept.

‘A Jew?’ asked SS-Obersturmführer Oskar Dirlewanger from the doorway of the house in Shepilovka where the collaborator SS-Brigadeführer Kaminsky had his headquarters. Malamore, who had been about to leave, looked up. The commander of the Sonderkommando , Oskar Dirlewanger, was just forty-seven but wizened by booze, pills, opium and the years in prison for petty thefts and raping children. His needled head was almost shrunken and too small for his body, which itself was so thin that his patron Himmler nicknamed him ‘Gandhi’. ‘A Jew has taken an Aryan nurse? Shameless.’ He pulled on his shirt and started to button it up.

‘He simply used her as a human shield to escape,’ said Malamore, aware that he was sounding almost apologetic.

‘Fuck that.’ Dirlewanger absentmindedly fingered his necklace of what appeared to be yellow beans, wrinkled and shapeless. ‘Can’t you see the Communist Jew has taken her for sexual gratification? Look, gentlemen, I know all about sexual congress with our enemies. You should see the Polish girls, the little Jewesses I’ve had along the way. But we can’t allow it the other way round.’ He strapped on his gunbelt.

‘Nonsense, Obersturmführer, and besides we didn’t ask for your help,’ replied Malamore in German.

‘What is this girl to you?’ Dirlewanger asked, alert suddenly.

‘Careful, Obersturmführer,’ said Malamore. ‘She is the respectable widow of an officer of the Tridentine killed in action this week, an Italian nurse.’

‘But you know her, don’t you?’

‘I do.’

‘Biblically? Inside and out?’

‘I warn you—’ Malamore seethed inside with a disquieting mixture of anger and nerves.

‘Fine.’ Dirlewanger waved a hand. ‘Let’s leave it at that.’ He turned to Kaminsky. ‘We’re responsible for this, Kaminsky. I shall join your detachment, Consul Malamore, with a few of my chosen poachers.’

This was not turning out as Malamore planned. This Dirlewanger was not a real soldier at all. More like a ratcatcher or someone who belonged in a straitjacket in an asylum. He would make a complaint to the High Command of the Armarta Italiana, General Gariboldi himself if necessary. If these cutthroats were with him, how was he to keep Fabiana safe?

‘I insist,’ replied Dirlewanger. ‘Our mission to Russia is to wipe out the very possibility of Blutschande – blood-shame – yet you let a Jew, yes a fucking Bolshevik Jew, right here in Russia where we’re annihilating the Jewish bacteria forever, steal your own whore from under your nose—’

No one had spoken to Malamore like this, ever. He wheeled around towards Dirlewanger, his hand on his Beretta. ‘She’s not anyone’s whore.’

‘Pardon me, Malamore. Apologies. No need to take offence. None was meant.’ Dirlewanger smiled, revealing yellow teeth, little and sharp like a ferret. A point scored. ‘But, esteemed consul,’ he went on. ‘She is something to you or I’ll be damned. This is the most reaction I’ve got from you in six months. Forgive me for speaking directly to a comrade but I can have a whore and cut her throat five minutes later. You can see one of mine hanging outside right here. Duty’s everything to me, and we all know you Italians are notorious for letting romance interfere with our mission.’

A vein started to throb on Malamore’s forehead.

‘Don’t do anything,’ whispered Montefalcone, who suddenly recognized that the necklace Dirlewanger wore was made of human earlobes. ‘Let’s get out of here. She’s getting further away all the time.’

‘He’s right,’ said Dirlewanger. ‘Pardon me but I am known for my frankness. I get the job done and if I upset the prudish bourgeois, I am proud of that. My patron the Reichsführer-SS himself regards it as an admirable quality. Lucky you have us Germans behind you, Consul Malamore.’ He turned to the doctor. ‘Dr Kapto, we need to get you to the Sixth Army today, but let’s also be clear. The Jew escaped under your watch, and I call that a strange occurrence. If you don’t want that investigated, I suggest you join us.’

‘But the child—’

‘Bring your little “lady friend” if you must. Everyone should see this beautiful countryside at least once. I’ve called the Sixth Army headquarters for you and they know about your map and they are keen to get it urgently. Wehrmacht units will ensure your map reaches Colonel von Schwerin.’

‘Thank you. It will be my pleasure to ride out with you, Obersturmführer,’ said Dr Kapto, ruffling the girl’s hair. He glanced brightly around the room with his colourless eyes.

‘All is agreed then,’ said Dirlewanger. ‘Brigadeführer Kaminsky, report this anti-partisan Aktion to the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe as well as our Italian, Romanian and Hungarian allies in case we pass through their sectors. Grishaka! Mironka!’ he shouted. ‘Saddle the horses!’

Two Cossack grooms, teenaged boys with topknots and unbuttoned German tunics, appeared at the doorway and then skedaddled towards the stables. There was no time to be lost.