Simon Montefiore - One Night in Winter

‘I’m so glad you came,’ he said. ‘I hope you didn’t mind that I contacted you…’

‘No, I wasn’t surprised,’ said Serafima. ‘I knew we’d meet again one day.’

‘I’m speaking English because I know you’re an English teacher.’

‘How well informed you are.’

‘Can we walk through the woods? English was your favourite subject, along with Pushkin.’

‘You have a good memory.’

‘Of course.’

He seemed very assured, this prince of capitalist America, much more confident than the young, faltering Frank she remembered. She was not sure that any part of her Frank remained in this suntanned, grey-haired statesman and millionaire. There is nothing for me here, she thought.

‘It seems a long time ago,’ he went on.

‘Yes.’ She felt disappointed and yet relieved as she realized she wanted to go home. How could she end this tactfully?

‘You know I’m married with four children now?’ he said.

‘I’m pleased for you.’

‘And you?’

‘Yes, I’m also married and I have two children.’

He nodded. ‘You look wonderful.’

‘You seem a real American plutocrat.’ She forced a smile. ‘One of those villains we read about in our propaganda!’ She paused. ‘Frank, I’m pleased to have met you again, I really am – but I think I should go now.’

Frank looked most concerned. ‘Did I say something wrong? There’s so much I want to ask you.’

Serafima stepped back. ‘I feel the same way. There’s much to say but really there’s nothing. So if you don’t mind, I’ll leave now.’

Satinov closed the doors of his study where so many important events of his life had taken place. At this desk Stalin had called to tell him the Nazis had invaded. Here he’d heard that his son Vanya had been killed. In that Venetian mirror he had seen himself crying about Dashka as he comforted Tamriko after the arrest of their children. Here Mariko had shown him her Moscow School for Bitches the day she came out of prison, Marlen had introduced his parents to his fiancée, and George and his wife had presented their baby son to him. Now he sat in his leather chair and looked at the package that seemed to him to have a faint glow like a lamp deep under the ice.

He cut the string, imagining Dashka, with her short fingers and plump gold-skinned wrists, tying these knots. Later he and Brezhnev would be negotiating the future peace of the world with the Americans. But now he could think of nothing but the woman he’d once loved so deeply. He remembered how, for a long time after Dashka had gone, his life with Tamara and the children had felt like a becalmed ship, no longer tossed by the drama of towering waves and roaring winds, and he had wondered if this was death until he realized this hushed serenity was the beginning of his return to happiness…

Inside the package was a green uniform, immaculately folded, somewhat faded, a book and some smaller objects. First he looked at the book: Chekhov’s Complete Short Stories , a cheap edition from 1945. Instinctively he opened it at ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ to read the page that she had once sent him but when he reached the place, the page was missing and there was just a jagged edge. This was the very book she had used to tell him that she loved him – and she had kept it all these years.

Next he drew out the uniform, his hands shaking as much as they had when he had first laid his hands on her body and gradually unwrapped her so that he could touch her glowing skin. He stood up so that he could examine the uniform, and then unfolded it piece by piece on the floor like a body. Here was the tunic with the red cross and medical corps insignia, cinched at the waist, a green blouse, a khaki skirt, its hem turned up a little more than allowed by regulations, a pair of black silk stockings, one pair of plain army boots, a blue beret – and, pinned onto the tunic’s lapel, a little Red Cross medical badge. He looked down at each item, utterly bowled over by the thought that had gone into this last present, by the sensuality of the woman who had kept all this, and by the boundless joy of knowing that she had always loved him, all this time.

Suddenly he fell to his knees and lay full length on the uniform. He raised the blouse to his face and recognized her scent, Coty, from all those years ago.

‘Hello, it’s me!’ she said in his ear.

‘Hello, me,’ he said, tears streaming down his cheeks.

He did not know how long he lay there, struggling for control. But after a while, he got to his feet and brushed himself down, went to the fireplace and fed the material into the flames. He left the tunic until last. He unclipped its medical badge and slipped it into his trouser pocket. As he raised the tunic to his lips for the last time, something heavy fell out of it and he looked down: it was her stethoscope. Old-fashioned, leather. He checked there was nothing left in the fire, but he placed the stethoscope on his desk.

There was a knock on the door: it was his young adjutant.

‘Time to leave for the American Embassy in five minutes, comrade marshal.’

‘Very good,’ said Satinov.

‘Your wife and daughter are back, comrade marshal.’

‘Thank you.’

When the door was closed again, he went to the man-sized chrome safe in the corner of his office, unlocked it and brought out the yellowed page, torn long ago from a Chekhov story. Opening the book, he reunited the page with its torn edge, matching each tear on the paper to its other half. Then he closed the tome sharply. He smiled. The page and the book were reunited finally – just as he and the lady with the little dog could never be. He squeezed the book into the shelf next to his desk and his hand was still resting on it when Tamriko came into the study to kiss him.

She noticed the stethoscope immediately: ‘That’s new,’ she said. ‘From the war perhaps?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘just something from the war. A veteran medic sent it to me.’

‘A veteran?’ She glanced at him acutely. ‘Are you going to keep it?’

‘May I?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course. You must. What a lovely thing to have. A keepsake.’

‘Goodbye, Frank,’ said Serafima, offering her hand coldly.

‘Goodbye.’ He offered his hand too. ‘Dear enchantress.’ She stood frozen to the earth. ‘You know I do remember. Everything,’ he said softly.

‘Me too.’ She broke into a smile. ‘Then you will appreciate that I teach Hemingway, Edith Wharton, Galsworthy.’

The names of these authors seemed to strike him as hard as the word ‘enchantress’ had struck her: he looked away from her and the air between them seemed to change.

‘Our code!’ His voice had grown husky. ‘Serafima, I never forgave myself for your arrest and your time in the camps. It took me years to find out what had happened. Of course I didn’t believe that you were really ill on the train, but there was nothing more I could do. We couldn’t ask your family without putting them in danger and I felt so guilty that I had ruined your life. It’s only now with détente that I could enquire about you. Thank God you survived, but what I really want to say is…’ He paused and took her hands. ‘… will you forgive me for what happened?’

Serafima could hardly speak. ‘There’s nothing to forgive. You were the greatest blessing in my life. You still are. You always will be.’ She looked at him, remembering the way he always greeted her with his trademark two-fingered salute, brimming with excitement at seeing her again. ‘When did you marry?’

‘Nineteen fifty-one. I waited for you for six years.’

‘I was still in the Gulags then.’ She imagined his diamond engagement ring on the finger of another woman, his wife, the mother of his children. Yet she had released him on that snowy night with Dashka. She, the ghost, had no right to it.