Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

‘Please send President Truman my regards,’ replied Stalin. ‘And I hope you liked the Georgian food and wine.’

‘ Didi madlobt! ’ said the ambassador in Georgian.

A friend of Frank’s father, Harriman was burly and tall, with polo-player’s shoulders and heavy eyebrows.

Stalin scanned Harriman benignly. Their conversation seemed to be going horribly slowly, Frank thought, barely able to restrain himself from intervening. He was terrified that Harriman had forgotten about him or, worse, had decided that now was not the appropriate time to make a request.

‘Generalissimo, before we leave you to this lovely place and your much-deserved rest, may I ask a personal favour?’

Frank was so nervous that he could scarcely translate this, yet these were the words that he wanted to translate more than any that had ever been uttered.

‘Ask anything. After all these years, we’re friends,’ said Stalin, looking somewhat moved. ‘We’ve shared some moments as allies.’

‘Thank you. My interpreter here, Captain Belman, who has translated at several of our meetings, is engaged to a Russian girl named Serafima Romashkina.’

‘Congratulations!’ said Stalin. His eyes flicked towards Frank and back. No hint that he knew who she was. ‘We believe in love between allies.’

‘She’s the daughter of the actress Sophia Zeitlin and the screenwriter Constantin Romashkin.’

‘You must have good taste,’ said Stalin. A grin for a moment, then the inscrutable oriental mask.

‘Yet, probably due to an oversight,’ Harriman continued, ‘this girl has been refused permission to leave the Soviet Union.’

Stalin glanced sideways at Frank, and Frank tried to look honest and modest and earnest simultaneously.

Stalin sighed. ‘Our country is full of yesmen,’ he said. ‘Lenin called it the Russian disease. Your newspapers call me a dictator, but as you see, I don’t control everything. The Politburo has a mind of its own and sometimes I have to be wary not to offend the diehards there.’ He waved at the fat general nearby: ‘Comrade Vlasik, write down the names.’

The general was already writing in a little notebook. Frank felt the unfathomable glare of Stalin’s yellow eyes: ‘Don’t worry, young man, I’ll look into it.’

LATE AFTERNOON. SIX p.m. The phone was ringing. Waiting in the kitchen, Satinov, sporting a prickly grey beard and stained khaki trousers, shirtless, barefoot, picked it up.

‘How are you, darling?’ Tamara said.

‘Good.’ Once he had blotted out the momentary disappointment that it was not another voice saying ‘It’s me’, he was comforted to hear her.

‘How’s the project?’ asked Tamara.

‘I’m working hard here,’ he lied.

‘Is there as much to do as you feared?’

‘More. I’m busy from dawn until… I just got in.’

‘Is the sugar harvest going to fulfil the Plan?’

‘I hope so, if we can iron out the problems.’

‘Darling, do you know when you’ll be back?’

‘No, but I think of you all the time. How are the children?’

‘Mariko’s right here. Would you like to speak to her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you OK, Hercules? You sound a little down.’

‘Just tired.’

‘Here’s Mariko.’

‘Hello, Papasha!’ A voice as beautiful to him as the nightingale’s call. He struggled not to weep.

‘Darling Mariko: how are the dogs in their school?’

‘They’re doing a singing class today.’

‘Kiss them from me.’ His voice shook. Love, he thought suddenly, is only enough if it can exist in the world one lives in.

‘Mariko, I kiss you with all my heart,’ said Satinov.

‘Bye, Papasha! Here’s Mama again.’

‘I love you, Hercules,’ said Tamriko, sending, he felt, a ray of warmth that seemed too generous to emanate from her small body. It reached him faithfully, as she had meant it to, like an arrow flying through a dense forest to find its mark.

‘I love you too, Tamriko.’

‘Until tomorrow then,’ she said, and hung up.

It hit him then that he might never see Tamriko and Mariko ever again. That he had been so dangerously obsessed with Dashka that he had scarcely cared about his true life. It was only now, as Tamriko put Mariko on the line, that he remembered the interrogation protocols of Marshal Shako. As a Politburo member he had been sent a copy; they contained the following lines:

INTERROGATOR Who is responsible for the criminal sabotage of these planes?

PRISONER SHAKO One man is to be blamed – Satinov.

How much torture had been required to elicit this from his brave friend? But he, Satinov, had read the words like a blind man and had gone about his life as a sleepwalker somehow navigates the familiar stairs and corridors of his life without seeing them.

The next morning, Chubin had come into the office. ‘Comrade Molotov wonders respectfully if he might have a word with you and Comrade Dorov in his office?’

Satinov had walked down the long corridors and into the antechamber, where he found Molotov and Dorov waiting with odd expressions on their faces. Before he could say anything, Colonel Osipov, the head of Molotov’s bodyguard, had stepped in between him and them.

‘Hello, Comrade Satinov.’

‘Greetings, colonel.’

‘This is for you.’ He handed him an envelope.

Top Secret

To: Comrade Satinov, E. A.

From: Comrades Stalin, J. V., Molotov, V. M., Zhdanov, A. A., Beria, L. P.

The Politburo agrees that

1. Comrade Satinov has committed grave mistakes in the manufacture of aircraft;

2. That the Security Organs shall check out sabotage and wrecking in Comrade Satinov’s departments;

3. We appoint Comrade Genrikh Dorov to investigate Comrade Satinov’s conduct;

4. That Comrade Satinov is suspended as a Secretary of the Communist Party and First Deputy Premier;

5. That Comrade Satinov be sent forthwith to investigate sugar harvests in Turkestan.

He looked for Molotov and Dorov but they had gone.

‘When do I go?’ Satinov had asked Osipov.

‘Have you read it?’ Osipov had asked dubiously.

‘Of course. Do I leave now?’

‘No. First the Organs have arranged a meeting. Follow me.’

And so they’d led him into Comrade Molotov’s meeting room. At the table, between two plain-clothed secret policemen, sat a broken man, so thin he barely filled the shabby suit, his shirt collar loose around his bent neck, his face scarred and blistered, his once luxuriant moustaches now meagre. Osipov told Satinov to sit facing this man, and he knew this was a so-called ‘confrontation’ to elicit a confession from him.

‘You recognize this man, Comrade Satinov?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Colonel Losha Babanava.’

‘Would you accept, Comrade Satinov, that Babanava knows everything about you?’

‘No, not everything,’ replied Satinov. Babanava did not know about Dashka. Or did he? ‘But yes, he knows a lot.’

‘Babanava resisted us a little. He’s strong man. But now you must tell what you know, Losha.’

‘I’ve told them everything. Everything. I’m sorry, boss.’ Losha raised his eyes, and Satinov looked into them searchingly. Had Losha really betrayed their friendship? He wouldn’t blame him if he had, but he had to consider what his former bodyguard knew. Could Losha know his only secret: Dashka?

‘You see?’ said Colonel Osipov. ‘So save yourself much pain, Comrade Satinov, and tell us what Losha has already confirmed. Losha?’

A lull. One of the guards tapped Losha’s arm, pointing at a typed paper before him. He seemed to awaken.