Simon Montefiore - Sashenka

“You didn’t invite me,” said the man, “but I came anyway. I’ve heard about your parties. Everyone comes. Or almost everyone.”

“You mean I’ve always forgotten to invite you.”

“Precisely, but then I’m very hard to get.”

“You don’t seem too shy to me. Or too hard to get.” She was glad she had worn the Coty perfume. “Then why did you come?”

“I’ll give you three guesses who I am.”

“You’re a mining engineer from Yuzovka?”

“No.”

“You’re a hero-pilot, one of Stalin’s Eagles?”

“No. Last chance.”

“You’re an important apparatchik from Tomsk?”

“You’re tormenting me,” he whispered.

“All right then,” Sashenka said. “You’re Benya Golden, writer. My naughty uncle Gideon said he’d asked you. And I love your Spanish stories.”

“Gee, thanks,” he said in English with an American accent. “I’ve always really wanted to write for Soviet Wife and Proletarian Housekeeping . It’s one of my life’s ambitions.”

“Now you’re mocking me.” She sighed, aware of how much she was enjoying talking to this strange man. “But we do need a piece for the autumn on ‘How to prepare Happy Childhood chocolate cakes and Soviet Union candies—tasty and nutritious food for the Soviet family.’ Or if that doesn’t take your fancy, how about a thousand words on the new Red Square perfume produced by Comrade Polina Molotov’s Cosmetics Trust? Don’t laugh—I’m being serious.”

“I wouldn’t dare. No one laughs these days without thinking first, especially not at Comrade Polina’s perfume, which, as every Soviet woman knows, is a revolution in the struggle of perfumery.”

“But you usually handle wars,” Sashenka pointed out. “Do you think Benya Golden could handle a really serious subject for a change?”

“Yours are truly challenging subjects, Comrade Editor,” replied Benya Golden, “and I know you wouldn’t tease a poor scribbler.”

“Poor scribbler indeed. Your stories sell really well.”

There was a silence.

“Must I stand here in holy audience,” Benya asked, changing the subject, “or may I sit beside you?”

“Of course.” She made space in the hammock. Benya was wearing a white suit with very wide sailor trousers and was looking at her intensely from beneath eyebrows set low over blue eyes with yellow speckles. His fair hair was balding. In the dimming pink light, she could see he had long eyelashes like a girl. She knew he was originally a Jew from Habsburg Galicia, and she remembered her mother saying that Galitzianers were jackanapes and rogues, worse than Litvaks—and Ariadna had probably had personal experience of both. I’m not sure I like him, she decided suddenly; there is something brash about him.

She found herself aware of her movements as she rearranged herself in the hammock, and felt irritated by the way he had crept up on her. He was invading her privacy, and his proximity made her feel shivery inside.

“I have an idea for our article,” said Benya. “What about ‘The disturbing effect of Red Square ladies’ perfume and Moscow Tailoring Factory stockings on those promiscuous shock workers and Stakhanovites in the Magnitogorsk steelworks’? That will really get their furnaces stoked.”

He started to laugh and Sashenka thought he must be drunk to say something so clumsy and dangerous.

“I don’t much like that idea,” she said soberly. She stood up, sending the hammock rocking.

“Now you’re behaving like a solemn Bolshevik matron.” He lit a cigarette.

“I’ll be who I like in my own house. That was an un-Soviet philistine joke. I think you should leave.”

She stormed toward the dacha, so furious that she was shaking. She had relaxed for a moment, her head turned by his fame, his presence in her house, but her Party-mindedness now righted her tipsy mind. Was this sneering vulgarian here by coincidence or had he been sent to provoke her into a philistine joke that could ruin her and her family? Why was she so infuriated by his boozy arrogance and pushy flirtatiousness? Wasn’t he wary of her husband’s position? Her anxiety about her fragile happiness made it all the more unsettling.

Then, stepping from the fuzzy darkness into the light of the house, she saw Carlo asleep in the big chair by the piano. He looked adorable, his upturned nose and closed eyes so innocent. Snowy was sitting on Uncle Gideon’s knee, trying to poke the corners of her pink cushion into his mouth while he talked to Utesov about Eisenstein’s new movie, Alexander Nevsky . Gideon’s actress girlfriend, almost a child herself, sat next to them on the sofa, wide-eyed as she listened to Gideon’s loud reflections on famous writers, beautiful women and faraway cities.

“Uncle Gideon?” said Sashenka.

“Am I in trouble?” he replied with mock fear.

“I don’t much like your friend Golden. I want him to leave.” Sashenka scooped up Carlo, kissing him, careful not to wake him.

“Come on, Snowy. Bedtime.” Carolina appeared magically at the door and was beckoning to her.

“I don’t want to go to bed! I won’t go to bed,” shouted Snowy. “I’m playing with Uncle Gideon.”

Gideon slapped his thigh. “Even I had to go to bed when I was little!”

Sashenka felt suddenly weary of her party and her guests.

“Don’t act spoiled, Snowy,” she said. “You’ve had a lovely present today. We’ve let you stay up and now you’re tired.”

“I’m NOT tired, you silly—and I want a cuddle with Uncle Hercules!” Snowy stamped her foot and pretended to be very angry indeed—which made Sashenka want to laugh.

The sitting room was at right angles to Vanya’s study. As she headed toward the door, Sashenka could make out her husband’s curly greying head and barrel chest. He was still in his blue trousers although now sporting his favorite embroidered shirt.

Vanya sat at a desk on which were placed three Bakelite phones, one of them his new orange vertushka , the hotline to the Kremlin. He was arguing with Uncle Mendel, one of the few Old Bolsheviks elected to the Central Committee at the 1934 Congress of Victors and re-elected at the Eighteenth Congress. The others had overwhelmingly vanished into the meat grinder and Sashenka knew that most of them had been shot. But Mendel had survived. They were discussing jazz: Soviet versus American. Mendel liked Utesov and Tseferman’s Soviet version while Vanya preferred Glenn Miller.

“Vanya,” boomed Mendel’s trumpet of a voice out of his tiny twisted body, “Soviet jazz reflects the struggle of the Russian worker.”

“And American jazz,” replied Vanya, “is the music of the Negro struggle against the white capitalists of—”

“I won’t go to bed,” cried Snowy, throwing herself onto the ground.

Vanya leaped up, effortlessly gathered Snowy into his arms and kissed her. “ Bed before I box your ears!” Vanya put Snowy down and gave her a little push. “Now!”

“Yes, Comrade Papa,” said Snowy, chastened. “Night, Papochka, night, Uncle Mendel.” She skipped out.

“Thank you, Vanya,” said Sashenka as she followed with Carlo in her arms.

A car door slammed outside, a light step sounded on the veranda, and the family favorite, Hercules Satinov, smart in a white summer Stalinka tunic, soft cream boots and a white peaked cap, peeped round the corner.

“Where’s my Snowy?” he called. “Don’t tell Cushion I’m here!”

“Uncle Hercules!” cried Snowy, scampering back into the room, opening her arms to him and kissing him.

Sashenka kissed their friend thrice, bumping into her daughter in the process. “Hercules, welcome. Snowy was longing to see you! But now you’ve seen him, Snowy, you’re going to bed! Say good night to Comrade Satinov!”