Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

‘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.