Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

His special vertushka telephone was ringing. He unwound Tamriko’s arms and listened to Poskrebyshev’s monotone summoning him to dinner at Stalin’s. Always a trial, a duty, now it seemed to offer relief of a kind. At least he wouldn’t wake at four and lie in sleepless torment till another bruised dawn.

At the dinner, Stalin was boasting about his exploits in Siberian exile. ‘One day I skied twenty kilometres, shot four partridges, fought off a wolf – I shot it right through the head – and then managed to ski back through a blizzard to the village.’

Stalin’s exile stories became taller with each telling and Satinov started to think about Dashka. Suddenly she was talking to him: ‘You’ll always be part of my life, angel, how could I forget you, more than yesterday, less than tomorrow.’ Stalin was talking on, almost talking to him, maybe asking his views. But what did Stalin matter when Dashka was kissing him? Concentrate, he told himself, don’t lose the thread…

Stalin’s eyes flashed their yellow glint at him but still he couldn’t focus. He was in the cage of a man-eating tiger yet he didn’t care if he was eaten. Stalin was pointing at him now. Nineteen forty-five is your peak, he told himself. You saw the storming of the Reichstag, there are towns, streets and factories named after you – but this is nothing compared to losing her . For heaven’s sake, keep your mind on the job. But he couldn’t.

The greenish, blotchy faces of Beria, Khrushchev, Molotov, the wan, sweating Zhdanov were all looking at him suddenly. Stalin was waving a finger. Khrushchev, warty, snub-nosed and bald-headed, was waving his hands in the air as the noise around him became distant, and then began to fade completely.

Satinov wanted to tell Stalin that he finally understood that every movie, every popular song was about the very same dilemma in which he found himself: love lost. He wanted to tell Stalin that now he was just an ordinary man. Nothing more. He had not lost his faith in Marxism-Leninism, but he was indulging in the crassest bourgeois sentimentalism, the very romantic philistinism that had disgusted him in the Children’s Case. He remembered how he’d dismissed George, Andrei and their crush on Pushkin. When George said, ‘Love is everything,’ he had mocked him. Now the white dread of the very same hunger ate at him remorselessly day and night.

Suddenly Beria was elbowing him hard in the side. ‘What is this? You’re not listening to Josef Vissarionovich? Are you talking to yourself? Wake up, you drunken motherfucker. Comrade Stalin was asking you about Berlin.’

Stalin was looking right at him, peering into his soul.

‘Perhaps Comrade Satinov is tired? Well, we all are. What is it, boy? Drink, weariness, war or love?’

The other leaders laughed. ‘Drink!’ cried Khrushchev.

‘Or is it love?’ teased Beria.

‘Not our Hercules. Surely not,’ said Stalin. ‘He’s far too uxorious! Our Choirboy! Our straight arrow.’

‘Either way, you’ve got to drink a forfeit shot for your rudeness,’ Beria said. ‘There – now drink that! No heeltaps!’

Satinov drank the vodka in a single scourging gulp, and the next that Beria demanded, but if anything it made the images of Dashka even more vividly delicious. He fought back the urge to sob uncontrollably.

‘What is it, comrade?’ asked Stalin, sounding cross and impatient. ‘Does Comrade Satinov wish to retire and sort himself out?’

‘Absolutely not,’ replied Satinov firmly, remembering that in the thirties, Stalin often destroyed those leaders who were no longer competent and hard-working. (Yet even as he reviewed that terrifying prospect, some madness within him was saying, I don’t care if I get nine grams in the neck. Only Dashka matters. I’d die for her and if I can’t have her, let everything end.) ‘In fact, Josef Vissarionovich, I would be happy to curate more ministries if you trusted me to take on more.’

‘Like what, bicho ?’

‘At the front, I learned a bit about medical supplies…’ Oh my God, he should retract this, but it was too late. ‘If you wished it, I’d be happy to supervise the Ministry of Health.’

Stalin narrowed his hazel-specked eyes. His peacocks cried in the gardens outside, a haunting sound. Inside all was silent. ‘Good,’ he said finally. ‘Why not? Health’s in a mess like everything else. Sort it out.’

Afterwards, Satinov stood next to Mikoyan at the urinals downstairs. ‘Careful, Hercules,’ said Mikoyan, an Armenian and the most decent of the leaders. ‘Are you mad? Only a suicide dozes off when Stalin’s talking to him.’

Satinov hoped dinner would go on all night, and that sometime in the early hours, he would stagger out into Stalin’s garden of peacocks and roses – and never wake up.

DASHKA WAS STRUGGLING to live. It was as if the air filling her lungs was turning to glue, as if she was wading through setting concrete. With Minka and Senka gone, every moment was dominated by a crushing sadness. If she stopped for a moment, she knew she would collapse and she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to get up. Genrikh’s mechanical nature and his fanatical Bolshevism were also beginning to drive her to the edge. Was his obedience to Stalin and his devotion to Chekist justice more important than her, than Senka and Minka? Yet the harsh, strong Genrikh was her family; her one concern was her children and they would only return if she was with him.

Now, at the Golden Gates as she walked Demian to the door of the school, she saw Hercules Satinov, magnificent in his general’s summer uniform, but as drawn and weary as she. She knew she shouldn’t speak to him. Yet she was terrified that he would look into her eyes as she had once looked into his, and they’d remember all that had passed between them.

The very thought of her adorable Senka missing her, crying in his bed, hating the food, literally made her sick – and that was before she even considered his fear during the interrogations; and what if he suffered an asthma attack? These horrors seemed to be swarming over her, within and without. Please God, let them be kind to him and let him come home soon!

She glanced at the parents, bodyguards and teachers surrounding her. It was a typical drop-off, but their lives were ticking over while hers was now utterly still. Nothing was the same for her; everything, even the sunlight and the summer show was stained a funereal black.

Surely Hercules would know something about Senka? She had to quiz him. Fast. Yet she feared somebody might overhear their anguished conversation, notice the way they leaned towards each other. Any mistake now could cost Senka and Minka dear, and that would make her hate Hercules. When he looked at her, a pulse started on his cheek and she could sense a stormy interior of repressed emotion.

‘Good morning. I wonder if the weather will change?’ she asked him now. ‘The sunshine is… blinding me. I don’t think I can take much more.’

‘Don’t look at the sun,’ Satinov replied, speaking slowly and carefully. ‘It may be blinding you now, but it won’t always be so bright.’ Was he saying: let the investigation take its course and your children will be back soon? What was he saying? What is this system we’ve created that treats children in this way? She wanted to scream at Satinov: What do you know? But she mustn’t scream, she mustn’t stare at the sun, she knew she was being tested and she must reveal nothing of her fear and anger. Dissemble, she told herself, but it was almost impossible. It hit her in her belly again and a cramp twisted her insides as if someone was turning a corkscrew in her womb. For a moment, she felt as if she might fall.