Simon Montefiore - Sashenka

“Collecting files, Colonel,” murmured Kuzma in his white coat, placing some papki on his cart and sorting them into piles.

Katinka returned to Palitsyn’s interrogations: he confessed to the crimes specified by Captain Sagan, whose confessions were also stowed in his file. But here was something odd: the confessions, signed by “Vanya Palitsyn” on the top right-hand corner of each page, were filthy, as if they had been splashed in a muddy winter puddle. Had the interrogator spilled his coffee? Only while she was turning the pages did she realize that this muddy spray was surely the spatter of blood. She raised the paper to her face, sniffed it and thought that she could divine the telltale copperiness…Katinka felt disgust for the Marmoset, and for this evil place.

“Excuse me, Colonel,” said Katinka, her head full of Roza’s family and their sufferings. “There’s no death certificate in Palitsyn’s file. What happened to it?”

“That’s all there is,” said the colonel.

“Was Vanya Palitsyn executed?”

“If it’s in the file, yes; if it’s not, no.”

“I saw Mouche Zeitlin yesterday. She said that the KGB sentenced Sashenka to ‘ten years without rights of correspondence.’ What did that mean?”

“It means she couldn’t receive or send letters or packages.”

“So she could be alive?”

“Sure.”

“But these files are empty. There’s so much missing!”

The Marmoset shrugged and his nonchalance infuriated her.

“I thought we had a deal.” Katinka was aware she was almost shouting. They both glanced at Kuzma, who was edging slowly toward the door in his stiff, cadaverous gait.

“I’m not an alchemist,” said the Marmoset testily.

Now she understood what Maxy had told her: archives start out as sheets of crushed tree pulp but they come to life, they assume the grit of existence, they sing of life and death. Sometimes they are all that is left of families, and then they metamorphose. The stamps, signatures and instructions on scuffed, stained scraps of curling yellow paper can convey something approaching life, even sometimes love.

The Marmoset came round the table and pulled a chit from the back of the file: Send files of Palitsyn case to Central Committee .

“What does that mean?” she asked him.

“It means it’s not in this file. It’s in another one, and it’s not here. And that is not my problem.”

Just then Kuzma unleashed a jet of gob into his KGB spittoon.

“Comrade Kuzma, how good to see you,” she said, jumping up. The fat marmalade cat sat on the cart licking the scrawny kitten. “How are Utesov and Tseferman, our jazz cats?”

This time, Kuzma opened a toothless mouth and emitted a high-pitched yelp of pleasure. “Ha!”

“I brought them something. I hope they like it,” Katinka said, taking a bottle of milk and a tin of cat food out of her handbag.

Kuzma seized both these objects as if he were in a hurry, snorting loudly and muttering to himself. He produced a brown saucer from his cart and poured out milk for the cats, who immediately started to lap it up with pink tongues. When he spat enthusiastically in a high green arc, Katinka realized that the gobbing was the weathervane of his mood.

The Marmoset sneered at her and shook his head, but Katinka ignored him, smiled at Kuzma instead, and then returned to the next file as the cats purred in the background.

Investigation File June 1939

Case 161375

Mendel Barmakid (Comrade Furnace)

Sashenka’s uncle; Roza’s great-uncle; comrade of Lenin and Stalin, the so-called Conscience of the Party—but the file contained just one piece of paper.

To Narkom L. P. Beria, Commissar-General, State Security, first degree

From: Deputy Narkom B. Kobylov, Commissar-General, State Security, second degree

12 October 1939

Accused Mendel Barmakid died today 3:00 a.m. NKVD Dr. Medvedev examined prisoner and certified death by cardiac arrest. Medical report attached.

So Mendel died of natural causes. At least she had discovered the fate of one of the family.

“Put the papers down,” ordered the Marmoset.

“But I haven’t gotten to Sashenka’s file!”

“Two more minutes.”

“We paid for these files,” she whispered vehemently at him.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied. “Two minutes.”

“You’ve wasted my time. You broke your word!”

“One minute fifty seconds.”

Katinka could barely stand this filthy place where those dear to her employer had suffered grievous sorrow. She wanted to weep, but not under the eyes of the Marmoset. She turned to Sashenka’s file, which contained a single sheet of paper that “read Please find enclosed the confession of Accused Zeitlin-Palitsyn . But it was not in there. Just a note: Send files of Zeitlin-Palitsyn case to Central Committee .

She cursed herself for her rudeness to the Marmoset. “Sashenka’s confession is missing: please may I have it?”

“You insult me and through me the Soviet Union and the Competent Organs!” He pointed at the white bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky. “You insult Iron Felix!”

“Please! I apologize!”

“I’ll report all this to my superior, General Fursenko, but it is unlikely to be permitted.”

“In that case,” said Katinka, emboldened by the courage of those who had been in far greater peril than she, “I doubt very much Mr. Getman will be interested in helping you sell your spy secrets to the newspapers abroad.”

The Marmoset stared at her, sucked in his cheeks, then crossly got up and opened the door. “Fuck off, you little bitch! Your sort have had their day! You blame everything on us, but America’s done more damage to Russia in a few years than Stalin did in decades! And your oligarch can go fuck his mother. You’re finished in here—get out!”

Katinka stood up, gathered her notebook and handbag and, trying to maintain some dignity, walked out slowly right past Kuzma, who stood outside collating some files on his cart. She was crying: she had spoiled everything with her own foolish temper.

Now she would never discover what happened to Sashenka, never find Carlo. She felt faint. It was hopeless.

“You again?” said Mariko sourly. “What did I tell you? Don’t call.”

“But Mariko, please! Just listen one second,” beseeched Katinka, the desperation audible in her voice. “I’m calling from the public phone outside the Lubianka! I’ve been to see Lala in Tbilisi. Just listen one second. I want to thank Marshal Satinov. I’ve learned how your father saved those children, Snowy and Carlo, how he risked his life. They want to thank him.”

A silence. She could hear Mariko breathing.

“My father’s very sick. I’ll tell him. Don’t call again!”

“But please…”

The line was dead. Groaning in frustration, she called Maxy at the Redemption office.

“There you are!” he greeted her affably. “Our sort of research isn’t easy—this happens to me all the time. Don’t lose heart. I’ve got an idea. Meet me at the feet of the poet—Pushkin Square.”

Katinka waved down a Lada car, handing the driver two dollars. She reached the Pushkin statue first. It was a dazzling spring day, the sky metallic blue, the breeze biting, the sunlight raw. In the gasoline fumes and lilac scent, girls were waiting for their lovers beneath the poet, bespectacled students read their notes on the benches, guides in polyester suits lectured American tourists, limousines for German bankers and Russian wheeler-dealers drew up at the Pushkin Restaurant. My verses will be sung throughout all Russia’s vastness , Katinka read on the monument. My ashes will outlive and know no pale decay . Pushkin consoled her, calmed her.