Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

But Losha was shaking and trying to say something. ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ he thought Losha was trying to mouth. ‘Do whatever you have to do.’

‘Silence, prisoner,’ shouted Likhachev. ‘Or we’ll finish you off!’

Losha slurred one more word until George recognised it: ‘Family!’ Family was everything to a Georgian, and Losha loved their family. George buried his face in his hands.

‘Let’s get on with this,’ said Likhachev. ‘Losha says there’s something you haven’t told us, George.’

George could barely hear him. He felt the fires of hell were screaming in his ears.

‘If you want to earn Losha a visit from the doctor, tell us who was the important man who chased Serafima. Focus, George. Losha might die without a doctor.’

George looked at Losha and the caked head nodded. He was right. It did not matter. He must tell or Losha would suffer more.

‘I’ll tell you, if you get him a doctor. It was Vasily…’ Losha nodded. ‘Vasily Stalin.’

Likhachev stiffened when he heard the name. ‘Vasily Stalin and Serafima?’

George read in Likhachev’s face that no one else had mentioned that name in connection with Serafima. Well, now he’d said it, and it didn’t matter because Vasily Stalin was untouchable.

Likhachev rubbed his narrow brow. ‘Vasily Stalin, you say?’

‘Yes.’

Likhachev called out to the guards: ‘Get Colonel Komarov.’

Komarov joined them, and Likhachev turned to George again.

‘General Vasily Stalin was courting Serafima?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said George.

‘Did they have an immoral relationship?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can you confirm this, Babanava?’

Losha nodded and George told the story that he had heard from his brother about the night Vasily had gone out with Serafima. The two interrogators looked at one another in silence for what seemed like an age while George understood that they, like him, were running through all the possible consequences of his revelation – but from a very different angle. All George could hope was that he had won Losha a medical visit. The interrogators would have to report to their superiors and George wondered if the magic name might stop this crazy investigation altogether. Surely if Comrade Stalin was told, if Vasily complained to his father, then the schoolchildren would be released… But this was George’s last burst of optimism: he was so drained that, whatever the consequences to himself, all he wanted to do was sleep, to escape this hell.

‘Let’s return to the New Leader,’ said Likhachev. ‘If you still want to help Losha, that is?’

George rubbed his eyes. ‘I don’t think NV means New Leader. Nikolasha may have been referring to someone in Onegin. You need a Pushkin scholar…’

As the guards were dragging Losha towards to the door, he looked back at George trying to say something again. ‘Sszzy…’ And then George understood it: ‘ Sissies .’

George wept. For himself. For Losha. For sissies everywhere. Innokenty Rimm had never been happier. In the past, he had often felt himself handicapped by his figure, by the bottom that looked big in whatever suits or tunic he chose. (He replayed the pain of his schooldays, thanks to the trousers that made his hips look ungainly, however tight or baggy they might be! What tantrums he had had when his mother bought him trousers and he looked in the mirror!) When he had received those love letters from ‘Tatiana’, he had often wondered what such a Helen of Troy had seen in him. But now power had lightened his chunky midriff, now he felt snake-hipped with the headiness of success. If she liked him then, when he was merely deputy director, she must love him so much more now. He expected the next letter to acclaim his new status.

He was at the Golden Gates, greeting the parents with bon mots. How natural: they all treated him as if he had always been in charge.

Assembly. School, stand! A simple gesture to sit. A merry song. A pointed homily.

Afterwards: ‘Morning, Teacher Golden. A word please?’ he said, buttonholing Benya as the children pushed back their chairs. The children were watching him inconspicuously, wondering if he was reprimanding Golden, interested in his every act now he was (acting) director.

‘Yes, Innokenty,’ said Benya Golden. ‘I’m all ears.’

‘Your Pushkin classes are suspended while the school is under such scrutiny and while we are rethinking the literature syllabus. Understood?’

Benya Golden had opened his mouth to make one of his facetious comments when Rimm spotted four strangers in suits who were obviously plain-clothed officers of the Organs. Now he was in charge, he hoped they were not here to arrest any of his pupils. He was quite sure that the children in custody would be released very soon. If the Party believed Kapitolina Medvedeva had committed crimes, well, he would not dream of challenging the Party. ‘Morning, comrades!’ he said to them masterfully. In fact, he knew why they were here: to arrest Benya Golden after his denunciation.

The agents marched purposefully down the central aisle. The children too recognized them as the comrades who had arrested Vlad Titorenko on the day after the shooting, and shouldered their satchels more slowly, scared but still curious. The teachers froze in their seats. Rimm smiled as they approached, knowing why they were there, ready to guide them. Sure enough, one of them gestured slightly towards where he and Golden stood. So he had been correct. He always was.

Rimm looked at Golden and he was amazed to see that, while he was pale, he was calm. A courage of sorts.

Rimm stepped forward towards the Chekists. Now that they were close, he could not help but take control (as acting director and advisor to the Organs). He gestured a little towards Golden, to guide them to the right place, and they were grateful because they placed their hands on Golden’s arms, lightly but firmly.

‘Would you come with us?’ said their leader. ‘It won’t take long. We just have a few questions.’ They turned Golden around – he glanced back at Agrippina Begbulatova – and were just about to march him out when the chief agent said, ‘You are Innokenty Rimm, are you not?’

‘No, I’m not,’ said Golden.

‘I’m Dr Rimm,’ Rimm said. ‘But surely…’

‘Apologies,’ said the chief agent, patting Benya Golden on the arm in an entirely different way than a second earlier. ‘Do carry on and have a good day.’

Then, moving with the robust agility of men who live in the realm of physical force, they laid their hands on Rimm in such a way that they instantly assumed possession of him. He felt cumbersome as if made of clay. He could not move his legs, and his face seemed to burn.

‘Innokenty Rimm? Come with us, please. Just a formality. A couple of hours and we’ll have you back in class. Nothing to worry about…’

As he was frogmarched out of the hall, Rimm glanced back, expecting to see a smirk of triumph from Benya Golden – but instead he saw only deep sympathy, and this from a man who had every reason to despise him.

And he wondered in that fearsome moment of freefalling if he had been wrong about Golden, about the headmistress, about everything , all along.

WAS IT MORNING or midnight, midsummer or the dead of winter? The days and nights were blurred together: interrogations that started in the middle of the night seemed to last into the afternoon. But the very fact that Senka had settled into the almost reassuring routine of the Grey Granite Mountain proved that a great deal of time had passed. More than a week. Maybe even two weeks. How could he tell? All Senka Dorov knew was that he was very tired and very hungry, and back in the interrogation room that had become his entire world, facing Colonel Likhachev.