Simon Montefiore - Sashenka

With her heels clicking on the marble floors, the assistant led Katinka, feeling dowdy in her denim skirt, past a room filled with electronic equipment and television screens, watched by guards in blue uniforms; then a dining room where a young man was checking place settings, flowers and cutlery; and then an airy modern office, all glass and chrome, where Pasha Getman waved at her.

He was on the phone but Roza was sitting on the sofa beneath some pieces of expensive (and hideous, in Katinka’s view) modern art.

“Dear girl, you’ve done so well already,” said Roza, kissing Katinka thrice and holding on to her warmly. “I just can’t believe that you’ve found all this. I’m going to call Mouche right away…As soon as you mentioned the name Palitysn, Sashenka and Vanya, it was as if I already knew them.”

“You didn’t mention you also had a brother.”

“I wanted to start with my parents, and even now I find it hard to say his name, to talk about him…” Roza stopped and closed her eyes for a second. “Anyway, I wasn’t sure what you’d find. But oh, Katinka, I just can’t thank you enough. You’ve given me back a slice of myself, my identity.” Now that those violet eyes were open again, Katinka saw how hard Roza was fighting not to break down.

“Do you want me to go on?” Katinka realized she very badly wanted to find out what had happened to the rest of Roza’s family, especially Carlo, but she felt guilty too. Was she becoming addicted to the drama of someone else’s tragedy?

“Yes—and here’s the cash for the KGB,” said Pasha Getman, coming around the desk to embrace her. He handed her an envelope. “I knew I’d hired the right person.” Katinka caught Roza’s eye as he said this, and they exchanged a conspiratorial smile. “But now, go and find the other Palitsyns. If any of them are alive…”

Katinka felt very nervous about carrying the money in her handbag. She had never held so much and was sure it would be stolen, or she would drop it. She was relieved when she entered the Café-Bar Piano near the Patriarchy Ponds to meet the two KGBsti, the Marmoset and the Magician.

She played with the thick envelope for a minute, then opened it in front of them to show the U.S. greenbacks.

“For this much cash, we’d like the files fast. You said tomorrow, didn’t you?”

“It’s all there?” asked the shiny-cheeked Marmoset, eyeing the envelope.

“Yes, against my advice,” said Katinka, “Mr. Getman insisted on paying.”

“All in Abraham Lincolns?” asked the Magician.

“I have no idea,” she said, disdainful of this gangster jargon.

“An angel of the north Caucasus! You’ll learn the way things work!” The Magician laughed and stroked his coarse gingery hair. As she pushed the envelope across the table, he slapped his hand onto hers. “Beautiful, girl. Beautiful, like you.”

Katinka removed her hand quickly, and shuddered.

“Tomorrow, in my office, you’ll have the files on Sashenka and Vanya as well as Mendel and Golden,” promised the Marmoset. “Everything we have.”

Katinka stood up but the Magician took her hand again in a clammy grip.

“Hey, girl, wait, what’s the hurry? Please tell Mr. Getman we hope this is the start of a relationship. And for you as a historian. We have some espionage materials about the Cold War period that would interest the Western media and publishers. Now you know Londongrad, you flew there. We would share a commission with you if you could interest newspapers or publishers in London…”

“I’ll tell Mr. Getman.”

“A little taste of a malt whiskey much favored by the royal families of Europe? It’s Glenfiddich, a famous name,” suggested the Magician. “A toast to our English historical partnership?”

“I’m late,” answered Katinka, longing to be away from these disgusting hucksters, the successors of the Chekists who had arrested Sashenka and Vanya.

She fled outside. Spring in Moscow seethed with the tang of new life, and the ponds were surrounded by cherry blossom and new growth. She bought an ice cream and sat admiring the daffodils growing under the trees and the majestic swans on the pond with their grey-feathered cygnets.

At the pay phone, she called Satinov.

Mariko answered. “My father is ill. He fell. He also has respiratory problems.”

“But I’ve got a lot to tell him. I’ve found Snowy, and Lala Lewis who told me what a hero he’d been to help those children—”

“You’ve talked enough to him already. No more calls.”

And Mariko slammed down the phone.

Sitting of Military Tribunal, office of the Narkom L. P. Beria, at Special Object 110 [Sukhanovka Prison, Beria’s special jail in the former St. Catherine’s Nunnery at Vidnoe, outskirts of Moscow] 3:00 a.m. 21 January 1940

Chairman of the Military Tribunal V. S. Ulrikh: Accused Palitysn, have you read the indictment? You understand the charges?

Palitsyn: Yes, I, Vanya Palitsyn, understand the charges.

Ulrikh: Do you object to any of the judges?

Palitsyn: No.

Ulrikh: Do you admit your guilt?

Palitsyn: Yes.

Ulrikh: Did you not meet with Mendel Barmakid and your wife Sashenka Zeitlin to plot the assassination of Comrade Stalin and the Politburo?

Palitsyn: My wife was never involved in this conspiracy.

Ulrikh: Come now, Accused Palitsyn, we have before us your full signed confession that states how you and said accused Sashenka Zeitlin…

Palitsyn: If the Party wants…

Ulrikh: The Party demands the truth. Stop playing games with us now. Speak up.

Palitsyn: Long live the Party. I have been a dedicated and devoted Bolshevik since the age of sixteen. I have never betrayed the Party. I have served Comrade Stalin and the Party with absolute fervor all my adult life. So has my wife, Sashenka. However, if the Party demands it…

Ulrikh: The Party demands: do you confess your guilt to all charges?

Palitysn: I do.

Ulrikh: Do you wish to add anything else, Accused Palitsyn?

Palitsyn: I remain in my heart devoted to the Communist Party and Comrade Stalin personally: I have committed grave sins and crimes. If I face the Supreme Measure of Punishment, I shall gladly die a Bolshevik with the name Stalin reverently on my lips. Long live the Party! Long live Stalin!

Ulrikh: Then let the judges retire.

3:22 a.m. The judges return.

Ulrikh: In the name of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Military Tribunal of the Supreme Court has examined the case and established that Ivan Palitsyn was a member of an anti-Soviet Trotskyite group, connected to Okhrana double agents and White Guardists, and controlled by the Japanese and French secret services, linked to his wife Alexandra “Sashenka” Zeitlin-Palitsyn (known in Party circles as Comrade Snowfox), Mendel Barmakid (known in Party circles as Comrade Furnace) and the writer Beniamin Golden. Having found Accused Palitsyn guilty of all said offenses under Article 58, the Tribunal sentences him to the Highest Measure of Punishment, to be shot. The verdict is final and to be effected without delay…

Katinka was sitting at the T-shaped desk in the Marmoset’s office at the Lubianka, reading the transcript of Vanya’s trial and the originals of his confessions. The Marmoset buffed his nails and read his Manchester United fanzine—but Katinka, her flesh creeping, could hear only the brutal verdict of the judge. Vanya Palitsyn was no longer a historical character to her. He was Roza’s father—and somehow she was going to have to tell her that he’d died so terribly. She was just searching through the papers for a certificate of execution when the door opened and the archives rat, Kuzma, hobbled into the room, pushing his cart with its cats frolicking together on the lower tray.