Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

Lines of cell doors, detergent vying with sweat, metallic stairways. ‘Eyes straight ahead! No talking!’ snapped one of the warders.

‘Prisoner, step inside the box,’ said the other, and he was forcefully guided into a metal box like an upright coffin: its door was closed, a lock turned. Short of breath, George started to sweat. He heard another prisoner coming, the same way as he, and that prisoner too was ordered: ‘Eyes straight! No talking!’

In the gait of the steps, in the breaths of the prisoner, he imagined it was Minka. For a moment he tensed his vocal cords and prepared to shout: ‘Minka! Is it you? I know you’re here!’ But soon the corridor was empty again, the coffin unlocked, and he was free to breathe. Up stairways and down, through more sealed doors. As he was marched towards the interrogation rooms, he thought of his father’s fury: ‘I’ll strangle you myself,’ he’d warned George and Marlen if he found they were involved in the shooting. And now George was. What would his father say?

Inside the room, George found not just the gingery, bespectacled Mogilchuk but the giant Kobylov too. Both were tense, focused. There was going to be no more playing around.

‘We’re almost ready to send you home,’ Mogilchuk said. He held out a cup of coffee. ‘For you!’ and he placed it in front of him.

‘Thank you,’ said George. He sipped the coffee. ‘Do you always work at night?’

‘You know how it works from your father,’ answered Mogilchuk.

‘Now,’ said Kobylov, his bejewelled fingers drumming like cockroaches with diamonds on their backs. ‘Just tell us: what was the Game?’

‘The Game?’ George said, surprised.

‘We want the details,’ explained Mogilchuk.

‘It was a pantomime, really.’

‘Who ran it?’

‘Nikolasha and Vlad.’

‘And you wore fancy dress?’

‘Yes, but why does that matter? It has nothing to do with what happened.’

‘Let us be the decider of that,’ said Kobylov. ‘Continue.’

Minka shook her head. ‘I never took it seriously. I thought it was absurd.’

‘But what was the Game about , Prisoner Dorova?’ Kobylov asked. Mogilchuk sat beside him, writing.

‘It was a re-enactment.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of literature or history.’

‘You’re losing me, girl, just spit it out. We need this fixed by dawn.’

‘Sometimes it was the death of Pushkin himself. We’d re-enact the duel in which he was killed—’

‘—and sometimes,’ continued Vlad in the third interrogation room, ‘it was the duel from Pushkin’s Onegin .’

‘Who decided?’ asked Mogilchuk.

‘Nikolasha.’

‘Then what?’

‘We borrowed the costumes and turned up at the graveyard where Nikolasha led our rituals.’

‘Rituals?’ repeated Kobylov, who was by this time leaning against the wall, chain-smoking.

‘We would chant things.’

‘What things?’ Kobylov leaned over Vlad, breathing smoke in his face.

‘You’re frightening me,’ said Vlad.

‘I’ll really frighten you if you don’t get on with it.’

‘Well, first… Nikolasha checked who was there in his Velvet Book of Love and he’d say something like, “Comrade Romantics, we’re here to celebrate passion over science. Without love let us die young.” And everyone repeated: “Without love let us die young!”’

Kobylov shook his head, and exhaled a lungful of smoke with a sticky cough. ‘Sounds to me like voodoo!’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Andrei agreed. ‘I only went once to this secret club. It worried me. It was un-Soviet. But no one took it seriously except Nikolasha, Vlad and Rosa.’

‘Did she chant with the others?’

‘Yes, and then she said, “Who dies tonight?”’

‘This is dark stuff,’ Kobylov said. ‘Carry on, Prisoner Kurbsky.’

‘Then Nikolasha decided who would play Onegin and Lensky. Onegin kills Lensky in the duel.’

‘Then what?’

‘We played out the duel, reading the poetry.’

‘Using which guns?’

‘The duelling pistols from the theatre.’

‘And the duelling pistols fired blanks?’

‘Yes.’

‘So there were no real guns?’

‘Not that I ever saw.’

‘So they would choose their pistols from the cases and then, holding them up, they would take the steps,’ said George.

‘Like a real duel?’ said Mogilchuk, looking interested for the first time that night.

‘Yes, sometimes I did the counting.’

‘Count what?’

‘The steps in the duel. I had to say: “Approach at will!” That night, Nikolasha was playing Onegin, and Rosa was playing Lensky, and they started to take the steps at the far end of the bridge. In their costumes. It was crowded, but we always followed the poem exactly.’

‘What did they say?’

‘I can’t remember exactly.’

‘Dammit, prisoner, I’m not here for a literature lesson.’

‘Lensky tried to aim, but Onegin – that’s Nikolasha – was quicker.’

‘So you saw the pistols?’ asked Kobylov.

‘Yes. Just the duelling pistols from the theatre,’ said Minka.

‘And what did they look like that night?’

‘Like they always did. We weren’t paying that much attention, general.’

‘What were you doing?’

‘We were drinking vodka. And laughing. George, Andrei, Serafima…’

‘You weren’t watching?’

‘The bridge was packed with people so I kept losing sight of George and Rosa and… Anyway, we thought it was a joke.’ Minka started to cry.

‘I took it seriously,’ admitted Vlad. He rubbed his eyes, fingers jiggling compulsively, and Kobylov could tell he was still in shock. ‘Some of the others were mucking around and ruining the evening. But the Game was a serious tribute to Pushkin. Nikolasha got angry when the others fooled about.’

‘Concentrate, Prisoner Titorenko. Tell us what happened.’

‘Because Rosa was Lensky, it meant she was the one who was going to die.’

‘How do you all prepare for your roles?’

‘I had the costume: frock coat, boots, tricorne hat. Whoever played Lensky, in this case Rosa, had fake blood from the theatre ready.’

Fake blood , wrote Mogilchuk.

‘They took the steps. Nikolasha cocked his pistol.’

‘And Rosa levelled hers?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nikolasha aimed his?’

‘Yes, and he recited the verses from Pushkin that recount the duel: And that was when Onegin fired! ’

‘I don’t want your fucking poetry!’ Kobylov banged the table. ‘Just get on with it!’

‘It was very dramatic. Nikolasha would fire his pistol and then Rosa would fall as we’d recite:

Mogilchuk leaned forward. ‘But he didn’t fire his pistol, did he?’

‘No,’ said Andrei. ‘Onegin was meant to kill Lensky. Then they were supposed to put:

‘But that didn’t happen?’

‘No, because some drunken sailors kept interfering, and the bridge was so crowded that most of us got separated…’

‘But Nikolasha and Rosa were still holding the pistols?’

‘I think so. We were looking for them. We’d all drunk vodka and we were fooling around. But I couldn’t see them and then I suddenly heard two shots.’ He put his hands to his ears, and looked at Kobylov, stricken. ‘I can still hear them. Boom! Boom! Even now!’

‘ That was the Game?’ Kobylov scratched his kinky hair. It was 4 a.m. and they were taking a break outside the interrogation rooms. ‘That’s all it was?’