Simon Montefiore: Sashenka

Satinov: No, on my word as a Communist. I simply had food poisoning. In our times of struggle and war, Enemies of the People must be liquidated.

“You get the picture?” asked Maxy. “The NKVD guards are wildly drunk; Sashenka, Vanya and more than a hundred others are awaiting execution; and Satinov is so upset that he is too sick to attend. So what happens?”

Golechev: As we drank, our talk turned to the depravity of our female Enemies, most particularly Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn—the famous Sashenka. We’d heard about this traitor’s repellent, snakelike depravity, how she used her devious female wiles to seduce and entrap other traitors, and since Comrade Satinov was not yet present, we, under the influence of alcohol and our disgust for her betrayal, decided to begin with her. We brought her up to my dining room and…

In green pen, beside this statement, Stalin had written one word: Hooligans.

“Now we hear from Blokhin,” said Maxy.

Commission: Comrade Major Blokhin, you were designated to conduct the Highest Measure of the 123 prisoners on this list, yet you complained about the commandant’s conduct.

“Blokhin was Stalin’s top executioner,” Maxy explained. “In the case of the Polish prisoners at Katyn, he personally executed about eleven thousand men in a series of nights.”

Blokhin: At midnight, I arrived ready to begin my duties as Chief of the Command Operations Section in the Highest Degree of this list of 123, but I wish to report to the Central Committee that I found the commandant and his officers drunk in the presence of Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn, who was being treated in a highly unprofessional way, against the noble Chekist morality. She was already partially disrobed. I protested strongly. I offered to carry out the sentence myself at once but I was sent away. I tried to call Comrade Satinov. When he arrived I reported everything to him. These drunken and bungling amateurs made a mockery of my Chekist professionalism and skill in this special and sensitive work. They were taking bets and shouting. At approximately thirty-three minutes after midnight, they forced Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn outside into the courtyard near the officers’ garages, which is lit up very brightly by searchlights. The temperature was approximately minus 40 degrees.

Golechev: When she was outside, we performed the Highest Degree, the sentence of the Military Collegium against Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn, but in our drunkenness and because of the unprofessional lateness of Comrade Satinov…we did so in an unacceptable, frivolous and depraved manner. Yes, I admit we were curious about her as a seductive agent of the Japanese Emperor and British lords, and as a woman.

Katinka felt cold. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Did they rape her?”

“No. If they had done, it would say so here,” said Maxy. “But they were certainly excited by her beauty, her reputation as a seductress. They’d heard of the transcript of Sashenka and Benya.”

Satinov: I arrived at 3:06 a.m. and noticed something strange in the courtyard near where my driver parked my car. I admit before the Central Committee that my lateness was partly the cause of this misconduct. Commandant Golechev was drunk and tried to conceal what he had done. I summoned Major Blokhin and reviewed the List of Prisoners to Face the Highest Measure. I noted the absence of Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn. I ordered Commandant Golechev to take me to her. Afterward, I ordered Commandant Golechev and Major Blokhin to begin at once. The prisoners were brought down to the cell designed for this purpose and I observed the Vishka of 122 prisoners as the witness of the Central Committee. Major Blokhin put on a butcher’s apron and conducted himself very competently. As a devoted Communist, I delighted in the liquidation of these Enemies, traitors, scoundrels and bastards.

Golechev: We committed a crime against the highest morals of the Communist Party but I’m devoted heart and soul to the Party and Comrade Stalin. I expect pitiless punishment for this but I throw myself upon the mercy of the Central Committee. At around 3:00 a.m., Comrade Satinov finally arrived and he behaved in an unprofessional manner, exposing his bourgeois sentimentality…

Stalin’s red crayon encircled this accusation and scrawled the words Satinov sympathy???

“So what happened? What did Satinov see?” asked Katinka, concentrating absolutely—no question had ever seemed so vital.

Satinov: She was completely…exposed. Commandant Golechev displayed depraved infantilism and corrupt philistinism, as I reported in person and on paper to the Instantzia. I confess that, while questioning Golechev, I struck him twice and he fell to the ground. This was due to my outrage as a good Communist, not any bourgeois sentimentality toward the Enemy.

Maxy whistled. “So whatever happened to Sashenka, it made Satinov, an iron man of that pitiless generation, lose control. How extraordinary—to have cracked up like that in front of those secret policemen could have signed his own death warrant then and there.”

“But what did he see?” Katinka realized she was actually shouting.

“Hang on…” Maxy went on reading. “Here.” He pointed at the bottom of the document. In the midst of a maze of green shading and squiggles, Stalin had written a word.

Hose .

“Hose? Have I misread it?”

Maxy shook his head. “I don’t think so…” He hesitated.

“But what does it mean?”

“I heard of a similar case at Vladimir Prison in 1937. I think they tied Sashenka to a post and turned the hose on her. She was naked. It was an unusually cold night. They took bets on how long it would take…the water to freeze. Gradually the ice encased her. Like a glass statue.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time. The finches serenaded them in the woods, bees danced around the cherry blossoms and the lilacs peeked their white and purple heads through the silvery birches.

As Katinka wept for the grandmother she’d never known, she thought of what Sashenka must have endured during that long, terrifying night in the cold winter of 1940. After a while, Maxy put his arms around her.

“What are we doing here?” she asked finally, slipping out of his arms.

“I did a little more research and found the burial records of Sashenka, Vanya, even Uncle Mendel. After execution, they were cremated and the ashes were buried in the grounds of an NKVD dacha in the birch woods just outside Moscow. Afterward, following NKVD orders on mass graves, raspberry canes and blackberry bushes were planted on the site. Look, there’s a plaque on the tree there.” He pointed.

Here lie buried the remains

of the innocent tortured and executed victims

of the political repressions.

May they never be forgotten!

“She’s here, isn’t she?” said Katinka, standing close to him. He put his arms around her again, and this time she didn’t object.

“Not just her,” he said. “They’re all here, together.”

Evening was falling—that rosy, grainy dusk when it seems as if Moscow is lit from below, not above—as Maxy dropped Katinka back at the Getman mansion. She stood on the steps and waved as he drove off.

When the guards admitted her the house was unusually hushed, but she found Roza in the kitchen.

“You need some chai and honeycakes,” said Roza, giving her a look. Katinka realized that her skin must be raw, and her eyes red. “Sit down.”

Katinka watched as Roza made the tea, adding honey and two teaspoons of brandy to each cup. Her aunt didn’t miss much, she thought.

“Here,” said Roza, “drink this. We both need it. Don’t worry about your father. I was rushing him too much. You know, I can still see that sturdy little boy with his beloved rabbit at our dacha. I’ve thought of him like that all my life and I’ve been aching to find him again—but of course, I don’t know him anymore. Will you tell me what to do?”