Simon Montefiore - Sashenka

“But it’s run by the NKVD…for the Party, and they care about reforging the children. Comrade Stalin said—”

“No! You don’t understand!” He was shouting again and she was a little afraid. She had never seen him angry before. He shook her off him, jumped up to get a piece of paper from his jacket and began to read:

The Felix Dzerzhinsky Communal Orphanage for the Re-education of Children of Traitors to the Motherland is one of the most delightful examples of redemption in our Soviet paradise. Here, in a charming rustic glade, these innocent children, tainted only by the cruelties of chance in their relationships to their wicked parents, the bloodsucking terrorists, wrecking spies, snakes, rats and Trotskyite murderers, are given a wonderful new introduction to the generosity of Soviet education. No wonder at 6:00 a.m. at morning assembly, they happily sing the “Internationale,” chant “Thank you, Comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood” and then start to study the Short Course. Meanwhile, in the Little Red Corner, a gang of hungry, dirty and brutalized teenagers have started to torture a little girl of four with a switchblade and a cigarette lighter under the negligent gaze of the corrupt and depraved Director Khanchuk. Before the end of the day, she will probably be raped again by these feral children stripped of all the kindness and innocence of childhood. No wonder, because this very morning two children celebrating their twelfth birthdays were arrested as Trotskyite and Japanese spies and marched off to be sentenced to execution or hard labor in the camps…

Sashenka gasped. “We can’t publish that! If I handed that to Klavdia, my deputy, she would immediately take you to the Party Committee and they would denounce you to the Organs.”

Benya was silent.

“You don’t want me to hand it in, do you?” she said.

“I don’t want to die, if that’s what you mean—but I don’t want to be a Russian toady either. I didn’t sleep last night. I saw my own child in that Dantean hell and I woke up sobbing. I want you to mention that place to your husband.” Her husband. Following Benya’s imaginary book, “The Soviet Proletarian Guide to the Etiquette of Adultery,” they had agreed never to mention Vanya or Benya’s wife, Katya.

“I’m not sure I should mention you to my husband at all.”

“I don’t suppose he’d be all that interested, especially if he’s still working boisterously on those diplomats…” There was an edge to his voice that she did not like.

“Boisterously? He works too hard.”

“Well, we’ve all heard about his hard work.”

Sashenka looked at him a long time, her belly churning at the sting in his words, which she did not quite understand. Their lovemaking had been so frenzied and it was hot under the eaves of the Metropole. She was horrified by Benya’s article, which brought back that song from her Petersburg youth:

Here I am abandoned, an orphan, with no one to look after me…

Only the nightingale…

Benya lay down beside her again and stroked her gleaming white back, his fingers exploring between her thighs, but she flicked his hand away and lit the article with her lighter, holding it as it flamed and fell.

“Do you despise me?” Her bumble-bee voice was breaking up.

He sighed, again. “‘The Soviet Proletarian Guide to the Etiquette of Adultery’ reveals that this is the adulteress’s most commonly asked question. No, actually I think all the better of you…”

Craving him, she rolled him on top of her, dreaming of spending a night with him, of singing with him at the piano, and of waking up together.

Lavrenti Beria knew he did not suit the full blue and red uniform of Commissar-General, first degree, of State Security. His legs were too short for the pleated trousers and boots, his shoulders too broad, his neck too thick, but he had to wear the ridiculous rig sometimes. His black Buick with the darkened windows drove him through the Spassky Gates into the Kremlin, turned into Trinity Square, and halted with a skid at the Sovnarkom Building. Security in the Little Corner, as Stalin’s office was known, was very tight. The Guards Section answered only to Stalin himself, so that even the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs needed to show his pass and surrender his sidearm.

Beria had been in Moscow for only ten months, so he was still new enough to enjoy his position—but keenly aware that he had to fight to keep it. He was confident that he could handle any degree of responsibility—he was indefatigable, he could work without sleep.

Holding his leather satchel, Beria passed through the first security barrier into the office of Alexander Poskrebyshev, Stalin’s chief of staff. Here he surrendered his Mauser. A bald dwarf with the face of a baboon and livid, almost burned skin, Poskrebyshev recorded his arrival in the Master’s appointment book. He greeted Beria respectfully, a sign of Stalin’s favor.

“Go right in! The Master’s ready—and in a thoughtful mood.” Poskrebyshev offered this service to important visitors: a forecast of Stalin’s state of mind.

The first door opened and a group of military commanders and intellectual types came out, holding drawing boards. Beria thought he saw tanks and guns on these. The soldiers and designers glanced at him and Beria saw them blanch: yes, he was the pitiless sword of the Revolution. They had to fear him. If they didn’t, he was not doing his job.

When they were gone, Beria passed through the last security checkpoint. The young men in blue saluted.

The room was empty. Beria knew that the Master was now thinking about the European situation. Madrid, the capital of the Spanish Republic, had just fallen—and that removed any obstacle to dialogue with the Hitlerite Germans. Britain and France had caved in to Hitler at Munich, and momentous changes were now on the Master’s mind. That was the reason for the case against the former diplomats at the Foreign Commissariat—it was a signal to Berlin that Soviet policy was changing.

Poskrebyshev shut the door behind him.

Beria waited by the door of a large, high rectangular office with many windows. A huge table covered in green baize stood in the center. Portraits of Lenin and Marx hung on one side, and (an addition that anticipated the coming war) those of Field Marshals Kutuzov and Suvorov on the other. Lenin’s death mask was illuminated by a green-shaded lamp to remind visitors that this was the holy of holies.

At the far end, behind a large empty desk, a small door, almost invisible in the wood paneling, opened and Stalin came in, carrying a steaming glass in a silver holder. Beria was always impressed with the Master’s mixture of animal grace, peasant swagger and thoughtful intellect. A great statesman required all three.

“Lavrenti, gamajoba !” said Stalin in Georgian. Alone, they could talk Georgian. When Russians were present, Stalin did not like to talk in his native tongue because he was a Russian leader and Georgia was a minor province of the Russian Empire; “a parochial marsh,” he had once called it. But when they were alone together, it was fine.

Stalin gave Beria his tigerish smile. “Ah, the new uniform. Not bad, not bad at all. Sit down. How’s Nina?”

“Very well, thank you, Comrade Stalin. She sends her regards.” Beria knew that Stalin liked his blond wife, Nina.

“And your son, little Sergo?”

“Settling into school. He still remembers when you tucked him up in bed when he was very small.”

“I read him his bedtime story too. Svetlana’s very happy he’s now in Moscow. Does Nina like that nobleman’s house I chose for you? Did she get the Georgian jams I sent over? You’re a specially trusted responsible worker, you need some space. You need special conditions.”