Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

Komarov leaned forward, biting his shortened finger. ‘Whose job was it?’

‘Papa said it was Marshal Shako’s and he spoke to Shako about it, but they agreed they couldn’t change the designs.’

‘Did Papa say why?’

‘No. Just that the designs were approved at the top.’

‘The top of what?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘You know Comrade Satinov, of course?’

‘Yes, he supervises my father’s ministry.’

‘Perhaps he blamed Comrade Satinov as the “top”. He’s in the Politburo and the State Defence Council.’

‘I think…’

‘Go on.’

‘I think Papa meant above Satinov.’

‘Who’s above Satinov?’

‘Well… Comrade Stalin.’

‘So your papa says it is the Head of the Soviet Government who approves planes that crash?’

‘Yes – well, no… yes… I’m not sure.’ Komarov raised his eyebrows but said nothing and sure enough Vlad filled the vacuum: ‘I think he meant that the top people don’t understand planes so they sign off designs that make planes crash.’

‘Who’re they? You mean the Head of the Soviet Government signs the plans?’

‘I think he signs everything.’

Vlad noticed that Komarov was writing fast. For a long time, he said nothing, just listened to the nib scratching paper.

‘You must sign this statement right now,’ Komarov said, pushing the paper over to him.

‘Will my parents come to collect me then?’ Vlad’s stomach clenched and cramped; he felt a burning hole in his chest and a rising fear in his gullet.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Komarov, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms. ‘After everything you’ve shared with me, I’m just not sure.’

HERCULES SATINOV HAD arrived in Germany. The ZiS limousine that collected him from Tempelhof Airport raced and swerved through Berlin’s apocalyptic landscape. Lights flickered, illuminating momentary glimpses of figures eking out an existence: a woman carrying a jerrycan of water, packs of dogs, gangs of urchins running, running, a madman dancing around a fire.

Satinov peered out at the red and desperate eyes of humans and animals catching the lights of the convoy as they scurried amongst the burnt-out tank hulks, the mountains of rubble, the shattered shells of buildings. But each shadow, every ruin reminded him of Dashka, for here he’d held her, there they kissed, glimpses of beauty in a world on the other side of catastrophe.

Stalin, who had been at meetings with the American President and British Prime Minister all day, wore the new fawn uniform of a generalissimo with gold shoulderboards and just one medal. Satinov could tell the meetings of the Potsdam Conference had gone well. There was a breezy swagger about him and he had recovered some of his energy.

‘ Gamajoba bicho , happy you could join us,’ said Stalin, speaking Georgian. ‘We’ve got the cook from Aragvi with us and I thought you’d enjoy a Georgian supra !’

‘Thank you, Josef Vissarionovich,’ replied Satinov, thinking that Berlin was a long way to fly for some lobio beans. He looked around him. Beria, Mikoyan and Genrikh Dorov were there too.

A new line-up, he thought, his experienced mind analysing what it conveyed. Genrikh Dorov was not a good sign: he never came to Stalin’s dinners, being more of a retainer than a leader. Stalin deployed him as an attack dog, his presence denoting a witchhunt or an investigation that would have tragic consequences. He thought of Dashka instantly – what must it be like being married to the Uncooked Chicken? He nodded at him in greeting, and Genrikh grinned back at him with menacing geniality. The Dorov children had been arrested too, Satinov thought, but that wasn’t why Genrikh was there. He was already slavishly devoted to Stalin, whether his children were in jail or not. No, he was there as a scarecrow. To frighten someone. To frighten me.

‘I hope the flight was easy. I hate flying myself. I prefer the train,’ said Stalin. ‘But I wanted to look at you in the eyes.’

Satinov’s six-year-old daughter Mariko was in prison with his eighteen-year-old son George, and Stalin wished to look him in the eyes to check that he was still loyal. It was a rite of passage, and he, Satinov, was not alone. President Kalinin’s wife was in prison; Poskrebyshev’s pretty young wife Bronka had vanished altogether, probably dead. Stalin was telling him that family was a privilege just as living was a privilege, and that both were at the mercy of the Party. And the Party was Stalin. It was an odd system but it was the Bolshevik way, and Satinov was accustomed to it.

They sat down to table, with Satinov on Stalin’s right and Beria on his left.

‘Have you seen the palace where we’re holding the conference?’ asked Stalin.

‘I have,’ replied Satinov, picturing Mariko, screaming, being prised off her mother by brutal warders.

‘It’s meagre compared with our palaces,’ mused Stalin. ‘The tsars really knew how to build.’

‘They did,’ agreed Satinov, hearing Tamriko screaming at him, ‘They’ve taken Mariko! She’s six, Hercules. Get her released!’ Satinov composed himself, knowing his face must reveal nothing but reverence and fondness for Stalin.

Yet the night seemed endless. He knew, at some point, there would be a clue for him about Mariko and George, providing Stalin was satisfied that he had learned his lesson and harboured no resentment. Soon enough too, he would find out why Genrikh Dorov was here. Such games had perhaps been necessary before the war, but, he wondered, were they necessary now?

‘So is everything well in Moscow?’ asked Stalin.

‘Nothing can be decided without you, but Comrade Molotov and the rest of us are doing our best.’

‘You’ve got to decide things without me,’ said Stalin. ‘I’m tired.’

‘But we need you, Comrade Stalin!’ cried Beria.

‘The Soviet Union needs your genius, comrade generalissimo,’ added Dorov.

Stalin waved this away, and his yellow eyes returned to Satinov. ‘So Tamriko is well?’

‘Very well,’ answered Satinov. My wife is distraught, he thought. Our little Mariko is in prison, on your orders, and you look at me knowing this. ‘Everyone at home is so proud to see you here at Potsdam, the man who won the war, who led us to Berlin.’

‘Yet Tsar Alexander made it all the way to Paris in 1814,’ said Stalin. ‘Comrade Dorov and I have been discussing you.’

‘Me?’ Satinov swallowed. This was the warning.

Stalin let the silence draw out. Satinov thought of Tamriko and his children, he thought of Dashka, and he thought: Shoot me, but free my children. Leave Tamara alone.

At last Stalin gave him his satyr’s grin. ‘Don’t worry, Hercules! The Central Committee thinks you and Beria should be promoted to marshal.’

Satinov’s first and absurd concern was whether his new rank would impress Dashka. It shouldn’t impress her – but he knew it would. He flicked a glance at her husband, who looked away.

‘It’s an honour and of course I always obey the Party. But I’m not a soldier.’

‘Nor is Beria. Far from it!’ A disdainful look at Beria. ‘But, Hercules, you’re a colonel general already,’ replied Stalin.

‘But I don’t have anything like your military knowledge—’

‘Or your strategic genius!’ interjected Beria.

‘I’ve never commanded so much as a platoon,’ insisted Satinov. ‘The generals will resent it.’

‘That’s just the point,’ answered Stalin. ‘We’ve voted on it and it’s decided.’

‘I’m honoured by the Party’s trust in me,’ said Satinov. The promotion was not reassuring. Stalin often promoted people only to arrest them the next week; Satinov remembered how Kulik had been promoted to marshal two days after his pretty young wife had vanished, never to return. The promotion was to put the generals in their place – like the recent arrest of Marshal Shako. Yet accepting it also meant that he was accepting Mariko’s arrest and conversely, by the rules of their topsy-turvy customs, this would accelerate her release.