Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

She came out of the fire exit and then crossed the road. Afterwards she could not quite remember how she found herself in the one-room apartment, with its single chair, white stuffing pouring out of several gashes, and the double bed. There was nothing – no pictures – on the damp, stained walls, except one cheap, water-stained print of Pushkin above the chair.

Frank was waiting. As nervous as her. When he gave her a cigarette, he was shaking so much he could barely light it and they laughed, which broke the ice a little.

‘I think we should have a little drink,’ he said, holding a bottle of wine: Telavi 2 from Georgia. ‘Your leader’s favourite.’

She was so grateful for the wine that she downed the entire glass, and felt a little giddy when he started to kiss her and led her to the bed. She was so aware of her snakeskin that she felt she was wearing it outside her clothes. So far he didn’t know it even existed and yet it was all she could think about.

Then he left her for a moment, drew the curtains, turned off the light and lit two candles that stood on the mantelpiece. She barely dared make a sound; she wanted to whisper something but her heart was beating in her neck like a kettledrum. When he returned, he kissed her mouth and he softly pushed down her dress, planting kisses on her neck. Serafima was flooded with a sensation she did not recognize: a shiver started in her thighs and then crept into her belly, making her lurch with its burning power. For a second she even forgot her snakeskin but then his hand rested on it outside her dress.

‘Stop!’ she said.

‘What is it?’

‘You… you haven’t done anything wrong, but I’ve got to tell you something…’

‘I know you haven’t done this before,’ he said, searching her face. Something else occurred to him. ‘Or if you have, it doesn’t matter. Either way it doesn’t matter.’

‘No, no, it’s not that. Can we… just stop, while I tell you something?’

They awoke in each other’s arms. In her room on the top floor of the Tempelhof Geriatic Women’s Hospital, which was now full of Soviet wounded. Without powder and lipstick, just her thick hair around her shoulders, her mascara running, she was more lovely than before. This time was so precious that he tried to imprint on his mind every detail of her beauty.

‘I dream of walking the streets with you,’ she said.

The streets of Berlin were deserted except for Soviet soldiers, tanks, jeeps. All the houses, all the streets were ruined. The lunar landscape of this obliterated city seemed as unreal as the generals under the klieg lights during the surrender. The tarmac and pavements were cracked, muddy and ingrained with fragments of shrapnel, scraps of material, rotting newspapers, children’s shoes, even sometimes a whole man (whose son, whose father?) flattened into cloth and cardboard, crushed into the earth by brutal tank treads.

Yet that morning their feet seemed to sing as they walked and the air sparkled as if it was set with crystals. They were both wearing plain tunics without insignia, and were noticed by no one as they visited the Chancellery, where Hitler had committed suicide, and the Reichstag. Mostly though, they just wandered through the city. Sometimes when they were alone for a moment he kissed her and she kissed him back, so passionately. She pulled him into a blasted alleyway. ‘Take me here,’ she whispered.

Her need, her desire, her reckless courage enthralled him. Satinov had never done anything so heedlessly carefree. He could have been recognized by any soldier; he could have been reported by any of the thousands of Chekists nosing around Berlin. But after twenty years of disciplined diligence, he could hardly believe how wonderful it felt to be with the woman he suddenly loved in this landscape of destruction.

Slowly, reluctantly, they walked back to headquarters before lunchtime, only to find he had been summoned to Moscow. Their idyll had been far too short.

‘Be careful, angel. It will be hard to see each other in Moscow. Almost impossible.’

‘I’ll think of something,’ he said.

‘You know how I love Genrikh and my children.’

‘And you know I’d never leave Tamriko, whom I love too.’

‘It’s impossible. Unthinkable,’ she agreed. Stalin had never allowed any of his leaders to divorce. To do so would not only destroy his career, it could destroy his entire family. Dashka had been right about that.

‘Yet I love you too,’ he said. ‘Is that possible?’

She hesitated and, when they formally said goodbye as he climbed into his car, she saluted and then embraced him à la russe. When her lips were closest to his ear, she whispered so quickly, ‘I love you, angel,’ that he barely caught it. ‘More than yesterday. Less than tomorrow.’

‘And I you, Dashka,’ he whispered it too. ‘More than yesterday, less than tomorrow.’

‘When I was a little girl, a maid spilled a pan of boiling water and I was burnt. I have a scar on my side that… that no one’s seen before and… I call it my snakeskin. I wanted to tell you so you know what to expect.’

Frank turned to her. They were lying together in Frank’s narrow bed, his flank against hers.

‘That’s why you’ve been so anxious?’

She nodded.

‘Oh darling, I thought you’d gone off me.’ He kissed her gently on the lips. ‘ Sladkaya , my sweet,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t care. It’s only you who’s worried and soon you won’t be either, I promise.’

‘Shall I show you?’

‘No need, darling, I’ll see you in all your beauty soon enough…’

‘But I’d prefer to show you so you know. So I can get it over with.’

‘If that would make you happier, then show me.’ They sat up.

The candles did their dances, and even though she was anxious, she was still trembling with the excitement. She looked at him. His sweet brown eyes shone with sympathy and love for her; the moisture in them caught the candlelight. He unhooked her dress. Then she faced him again and pulled down the dress slowly, as far as her breasts. She hesitated there and considered running away – out of the door and into the streets. But he shook his head as one does when one admires something beautiful. She reached behind and unhooked her brassiere, faltering there too. She pulled her dress down a little further, covering her breasts with her hands. She closed her eyes in case there was disgust on his face and then gradually she raised her arms and said: ‘There!’

‘Can I touch you?’ he asked and she could tell from his voice that he was smiling and she was so relieved. She jumped a little as his hand traced her snakeskin. His fingertips ran over the smooth skin and then across the borderline on to the roughness that extended up from her hip to her breast. ‘I think you’re so incredibly lovely, and I can’t wait much longer.’ His fingers retraced the snakeskin lightly, and she shivered.

‘Are you sure?’

‘More sure than I’ve been about anything. It can be our shared secret. Let this be the covenant of our love. Always.’

‘Our talisman.’

‘Yes, our talisman. Do you know the poem?’ He recited:

Serafima interrupted him to finish the verse:

She could not believe that she had been so blessed by this kind man who had transformed her fear into a talisman of love. He kissed away the tears on her cheeks.

‘Now may I undress you myself. Please?’

The undressing, with all its tension and anxiety, followed by success and relief, had deeply moved her. Now there were red stars before her eyes – was it the wine? – and waves of heat surfed up her body. Now she longed for him to touch her in the places where her body was vibrating with an unknown pleasure that she could neither bear, nor satisfy, nor end. She didn’t want to stop even when he reached for a package that she saw was marked ‘Trojan’. He covered her eyes, smiling.