Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

‘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?’

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 repeating 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.

His head spun, his jaw clenched, his belly tightened and he vomited in the corner of the room. The face was scarcely recognizable but when he wiped his mouth and looked again, Colonel Likhachev said, ‘Don’t you remember your dear friend? Look more closely!’

The man seemed barely conscious. He was muttering to himself, and one of his eyes was totally closed, with blood seeping out of it. He wore a uniform, though the tunic was missing half its buttons, the chest was torn where the medals had been ripped off and the shoulderboards had been cut away. George half covered his eyes. Even like this, the man was all too familiar.

‘Losha?’ he said. ‘Losha – oh God, what have they done to you?’

‘Ssssizz!’ The sound came from Losha Babanava’s mouth but it was incomprehensible. He opened his good eye which somehow almost seemed to twinkle at George. ‘Ssshhhzz.’

‘Sizzling?’ said George.

The head nodded.

George collapsed back into his chair. He thought he might vomit again. After his father, Losha Babanava was the man George most loved and respected. He had known him all his life. Whatever happened, whatever he needed, Losha had been able to fix it. Now Losha, this prince of men, was the bloodied ruin before him, flanked by two guards, in this Godforsaken prison. If Losha was broken, anything was possible. His father could be here too.

‘George, George, calm down,’ said Likhachev. ‘You can see what happens when you don’t tell us all you know. No one can stand in the way of the state, however strong you are – isn’t that right, Prisoner Babanava? Losha’s as strong as an ox but we broke him, didn’t we?’ He paused, and then smiled at George, his face shining with sweat. ‘We should thank you, George. How else could we have known where you got the gun that Rosa Shako used to kill Nikolasha and herself?’

George was almost overcome with the shame of it, and angry too. There was no shortage of guns in Moscow. Nikolasha could have got that gun anywhere. Yes, he, George, had borrowed it from Losha and given it to his schoolfriend, but it had not occurred to him that Losha would get into trouble. And now he realized that this ruin of blisters, blood, bruises, was his own doing.