One Night in Winter

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  Andrei struggled to sit up straight and focus. ‘Look, I don’t know any “NV” but I was the last to join the Fatal Romantics’ Club. This is really nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I’m interested in this “Minister of Love”. It says here that Serafima Romashkina was elected to this position by the Politburo.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ Andrei did not want to discuss Serafima at all. Don’t mention Serafima, he told himself. Stay awake! ‘You couldn’t take Nikolasha Blagov seriously about anything. He was unbalanced.’

  Likhachev leafed through the notebook. ‘Even so, here he writes: Minister of Love is supreme because love is supreme, higher than Gensec.’

  Andrei shivered. ‘Gensec’ was the acronym for ‘General Secretary’ of the Party and there had only ever been one Gensec: Stalin himself. This was treason.

  Likhachev leaned across the desk, and Andrei was struck again by his bloodshot and yellow eyes, which reminded him of an egg with blood in the yolk. ‘You need to tell me who NV is.’

  ‘I think NV is imaginary.’

  Likhachev slammed his hands on the table. ‘Don’t dare to misdirect this investigation. We know that you, Prisoner Kurbsky, know who NV is. And you will tell us. Even if I have to scrape it with a scoop from the inside of your dead skull.’

  Minka had lost all track of time. She was back in her interrogation room and trying hard not to panic. But the sight of her small brother had rattled her, especially as she now knew that if she fell, she would drag Senka and her parents to perdition with her. She closed her eyes, picturing herself and Senka being shot in the back of their heads. What should she do? What should she say?

  ‘Why is Senka here?’ she asked. ‘He’s ten. Please, I beg you, send him home. My mother must be frantic.’

  ‘Tell us about Nikolasha Blagov’s notebook. The one you call the Velvet Book of Love.’

  ‘I never knew what was in it. If I had known that he was doing something so evil, something against our great Soviet State, I would have informed against him. But I promise: I knew nothing of any conspiracy. Nothing.’

  ‘Who is “NV”?’

  The walls seemed to lean in on Minka as she thought of Senka, her little brother. What was NV? NV? She must come up with something to free Senka, to free all of them. NV had to mean something. Perhaps she should invent a code, plant a red herring, a distraction to direct the Chekists away from herself and Senka, from George and Serafima. She presumed that because a code did not exist, they would not find it – and therefore nothing would come of it. Already an idea was ripening in her mind, taking shape at the tip of her tongue until the experienced Komarov could see it was coming.

  ‘Tell me,’ he coaxed.

  ‘I’ve never heard of NV. But can I suggest something it might be? Could “NV” stand for “New Leader”? NV. Novi Vozhd. Someone that none us knew about?’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘Perhaps it was Nikolasha’s candidate for a new Romantics’ leader?’ proposed Minka.

  ‘So you’re confirming that this was a conspiracy? For there can only be one Leader, the Father of Peoples, the Head of the Soviet Government.’

  ‘Well, no, I was just suggesting something . . .’

  ‘There are no suggestions here, girl. There is just evidence. We will find the so-called New Leader of this conspiracy.’

  ‘I was guessing,’ Minka said, beginning to feel unsure of herself again.

  ‘Are you telling me lies? Are you wearing a mask?’

  ‘No, of course not . . . I’d never lie to you.’

  ‘Good, then explain this. Here in the notebook, Nikolasha writes this: Serafima and NV. NV and Serafima. Meeting to approve the Romantic government. What was Serafima’s relationship with Nikolasha?’

  ‘There was no relationship. She didn’t even like him.’

  ‘So if Serafima Romashkina was not having a relationship with Nikolasha, who was she with?’ Komarov settled back in his chair. ‘She was with NV, wasn’t she? NV is Serafima’s lover.’

  ‘No! She had no lover. I’m her best friend and I’d know if she did.’

  Komarov opened his arms wide and stretched, like a diver leaping into a pool, and then he ran his hand through the fluffy hair that seemed alien to his uniform, his job, his lifeless eyes. ‘We’re going to have to start again. Tell me about Serafima and her relationship with NV.’

  Minka felt the sweat start to shimmer through her skin; her jaw clenched, her shoulders tensed. She had meant to protect Senka, and Serafima. Now she realized that the sight of her little brother had distorted everything. To save him, she had made a terrible mistake and had placed Serafima at the centre of a conspiracy that had never even existed.

  Too late, she saw that in this world, every breath had consequences.

  23

  ‘I’LL BE HONEST, Madame Zeitlin, I’m a fan. So I had to come myself,’ said Victor Abakumov in his deep baritone. ‘I’m a movie buff. I watch everything. Of course I have some of Goebbels’s movies from Berlin. I have a movie director’s eye. But you in that movie Katyusha. I’d call it a masterpiece. Your husband’s script contributed to its success but your performance . . .’

  It was early morning, and Serafima could hear Abakumov talking as she quickly packed a little bag under the eyes of the two uniformed Chekists who had already searched her bedroom and taken away books and letters.

  ‘Well, Comrade Abakumov, you are very kind but I wish we had met under other circumstances,’ her mother was saying. Her actress’s voice lacked its usual vigour but Serafima was grateful her mother was not howling in hysterics. She too hoped that if Sophia was civil to the Chekists, it would somehow help her.

  ‘Is that a poster from the movie I see over there?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ A silence. ‘Would you like it?’

  ‘I would and I’d like it signed: “To Victor, with love”. Yes, that’ll impress my friends.’

  ‘You flatter me, comrade general.’

  ‘I’d like to discuss the art of movies with you.’

  ‘I’d like that too – but couldn’t you question Serafima here? Do you really need to take her in?’

  ‘Perhaps we could meet some time later. Just you and I—’

  The Chekist’s trying to seduce my mother, thought Serafima, but didn’t every marshal or apparatchik flirt with her, regardless of the feelings of her long-suffering papa?

  Serafima felt the joints of her body prickling like pins and needles: it is fear, she told herself. Two of your friends have died; the incident has to be investigated; that’s why your other friends are in prison. There is nothing to fear! Yet when the Organs investigate, they always find something more, and that is what I must hide at all costs.

  Still wearing her school uniform, Serafima had finished packing her bag. Toothbrush. A sweater. Pyjamas. A couple of books: Hemingway and Pushkin.

  ‘Are you ready?’ said one of the Chekists.

  Serafima nodded. She wanted the packing to go on forever. She wished Abakumov would keep talking to her mother eternally. She sat down on her bed again. Her legs were weak. She put her face in her hands and started to cry, and the next thing she knew, her mother was with her, and had taken her in her arms.

  ‘There, there, Serafima, you’ll be back soon, just answer their questions . . . You’re not the only one, so don’t worry. Darling, I love you so much.’ But this only made the goodbye even worse. Her mother was trying not to cry herself but her voice petered out, and now Serafima was weeping so hard she couldn’t stand. She wished her papa was there too but he was away, covering the war against Japan. Yet there was something worse than that, far worse. She couldn’t say goodbye to the man she loved.

  She had always known she might be arrested. She had felt the shadow over her ever since the day on the bridge because she realized (and she had always known) that Nikolasha’s ideas were tinged with madness. She saw clearly how the members of the Fatal Romantics’ Club were roped together: when one fell into the abyss, the rest
would surely follow.

  ‘She’ll be back soon,’ said Abakumov jovially as if he was taking her on a camping expedition. ‘We’re talking to all the children and then we’ll release them soon enough. It’s just a formality.’ He filled the doorway like a slab of Soviet manhood. Wiping her eyes, Serafima looked up at his thick black slicked-back hair, his heavy eyebrows, his general’s uniform with its rows of medals and his sportsman’s barrel chest. Looking bored, he crossed his arms and leaned on the doorpost.

  Finally she managed to stand up. If you love someone, she thought, you can endure anything. Slowly – unbearably slowly – her mother walked with her to the door, and gave her the overnight bag.

  ‘Time to go!’ Abakumov said breezily. ‘Madame Zeitlin, it’s been an honour,’ and he took Sophia’s hand and kissed it. ‘Enchanté!’

  He mispronounced the French, but the humanity of the hand-kissing broke something within Serafima’s mother.

  ‘Please, comrade general, please . . . Do you have to take her? You don’t have to. She’s done nothing. She’s a child! Take me instead!’

  The two Chekists flanking Serafima took her arms, and together they walked down the wide steps of the Granovsky building; then they stood back as Abakumov strode past them, his gold-braided hat on his head, his dark eyes straight ahead under the visor, and the movie poster under his arm.

  ‘Get in with me, Serafima,’ said Abakumov, gesturing at the open door of his car, a white Fiat sports car, once the toy of an Italian general. ‘Few girls resist a ride in this machine.’

  The creamy leather creaked as he manoeuvred himself into the driver’s seat next to her. ‘I like to drive myself,’ he said, slipping on his driving gloves and gripping the beige calf’s leather of the wheel. ‘You’ll be more comfortable than in a ‘black crow’.’ He looked at her as she sat mutely in the passenger seat.

  Throwing the gearstick into first, he accelerated out of the courtyard of Granovsky, followed in convoy by one of the secret police vans, known as ‘black crows’, and a little Zhiguli full of guards. As they sped through the streets, Abakumov saw that Serafima was still crying. Fuck it, why did I transport her in my car? he thought. Because of the mother, of course. Weeping girls were tough for a man to see, even for him, whose rise had been oiled with the blood of men, women and children, those he had beaten to pulp with his own fists, or despatched with his own sidearm – and those hundreds of thousands more he had never met but whose lives he had destroyed. He suppressed a spasm of anger at her tears: didn’t the little fool realize how kind he was being to her? She could have been in the cage in the back of a ‘black crow’.

  ‘And I thought it was just a love story,’ Abakumov repeated Stalin’s words to him from the previous day. Stalin had been implying that the Children’s Case was a serious conspiracy that Abakumov must investigate vigorously. Well, he had arrested the children – even the ten-year-old Senka Dorov – but these were VIP kids. Silk gloves were called for. Stalin was preparing for the Potsdam conference but what did he really want Abakumov to do with them? Stalin spoke in hieroglyphic codes and Aesopian fables, and even Abakumov was often bewildered by the obscurity of his intentions. Abakumov needed another clue.

  The high steel gates of Little Lubianka Street were opened by guards and the car swung into the courtyard. The gates closed behind and the car doors were opened by two Chekists.

  ‘Take her down and register her,’ said Abakumov.

  He watched Serafima Romashkina get out of the car as if she was in a trance and look around, unsure which way to go, at the high walls with the tiny barred windows and, to the side, at the rank of waiting ‘black crows’. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he pushed her gently towards two figures in long brown coats who looked like laboratory assistants. ‘That way! And don’t worry, girl. You’ll be home before you know it. It’s just routine – you know that. Don’t cry.’

  The stench of detergent, distilled urine, compacted sweat – the perfume of prison life – made his nose twitch even though he knew it so well. He saw her face as it hit her for the first time. She staggered a little on her long legs and fear shadowed her green eyes. Well, prisoners were meant to be afraid, and this prison had been designed to frighten them because the power of the Knights of the Revolution had to be beyond the imaginations of the Enemies they had to break. But the main thing for him was that he was always on top. He always won. Stalin trusted him, and he believed absolutely in his own invincible destiny.

  Holding her little case, Serafima walked down the steps into the lobby of the prison and stood before the counter. Its varnish was cracked, its surface greasy from the hands of thousands upon thousands of prisoners, and there were two slight indentations formed by their elbows as they leaned forward, just as this new prisoner was doing now.

  ‘Surname, first name, patronymic and age?’ said a brown-coated woman.

  ‘Romashkina, Serafima Constantinovna. Eighteen.’

  She was pretty, this Serafima, thought Abakumov, but it was the mother, the film star, that he wanted. He wondered what else Serafima was saying but weren’t the words, like the tears, always the same, and hers were lost in the cacophony of doors slamming, cars arriving, locks grinding, orders barked and the crack of his boots on the stairs worn smooth by decades of unsteady feet entering the lost world for the first time.

  ‘Sign here, prisoner,’ said the warder. ‘Go through that door. Body search.’

  The registration section worked like clockwork, thought Abakumov, who had perfected the stages that reduced a free person to a prisoner with a number: register, surrender belongings, body search, photograph. It did not matter who they were before. They might be a Polish prince, a German general, a Communist bigwig or a film-star’s daughter, but that was the glory of the Soviet State and the Party.

  I am the servant of this all-powerful state, I am the sword of the Party, thought Abakumov, and I can reduce anyone to a number, to a smudge of grease on the floor. He was sorry to see this girl fed into his machine – but she had been very unwise.

  He walked further into the gigantic building, and now it was quiet. He had left the registration section far behind; here the doors were no longer opened by men with keys on their belts. Now his boots sailed over blue carpet as he was saluted by men in shoulderboards and striped trousers. A secretary opened the doors of his office. He tossed some genial words at his assistant: he prided himself on his lack of formality with subordinates.

  A wood-panelled office. Persian rugs, six telephones (plus a Kremlin vertushka), a man-sized safe, a life-sized oil painting of Stalin. The chief of SMERSH lay down for a moment on the divan, crossing his legs and admiring his shiny boots.

  Tonight, once he had read the interrogation reports on the children, should he watch Dynamo play football? Or go jazz dancing? He was proud of his nickname in the Dzerzhinsky Club’s dance hall where the MVD Jazz Band played the new songs: Vitya-foks-trotochnik – Victor the foxtrot-dancer. Or the theatre? Sometimes he even chatted to ordinary people during the interval.

  That’s the man I am, he told himself. Unlike Beria, I have interests beyond sex and power. He had learned how to work from Beria, but now they were nearly equals. And Beria hated him.

  He congratulated himself for stealing the Children’s Case off Beria. But success raised the stakes. The phone buzzed on his desk and he called out: ‘Send them in.’

  It was his two chief interrogators, Komarov and Likhachev, who saluted stiffly.

  ‘Easy. Sit.’ He waved at them from the divan and they sat in the leather chairs. ‘Comrades, before we get on to our new prisoner, I want you to work the other brats tonight. We must have names by morning.’

  They left, and on the divan, Abakumov closed his eyes. Serafima Romashkina was the key. Did she have a secret life? The Chief of Military Counter-intelligence grinned: I know something about secret lives. Everyone has one.

  24

  SENKA DOROV WAS the first to be called for interrogation that day. Even
though he was ten and small for his age, he had spent the previous night in an adult cell. Twelve-year-olds could be shot and he was younger so they couldn’t shoot him but suppose the rules had changed and . . .

  Every other second he whispered to himself aloud: Mama, where are you? I’m here. Please come and find me. I’m frightened. I love you. Do you know where I am?

  These words had sustained him ever since last night, when, at home (a radiant place that now seemed far away), he had tried on his new silk pyjamas, navy blue with red piping, made in China specially for him. His mama had loved the pyjamas, she even clapped when she saw him in them and she had kissed him again and again. She always laughed with her head thrown back, making a high sound as if she was singing. Even though she was so busy, being a minister and a doctor, she always took him, Demian and Minka to school and often picked them up too.

  I think I’m her favourite even though she says she loves the other three equally, he thought now. She kisses me more than them, especially Demian. Yes, they’re older but still, she says I’m irresistible. She’s the most beautiful mummy in the world, and when I’m grown up, I can marry her. (But she’s married to Papa, of course. Would Papa mind? He’s often very grumpy and gloomy, so I think not. Surely Papa would step aside?)

  Last night, he’d decided to borrow a book from the neighbours so he went out on to the landing and down the stairs, still wearing his incredibly smart pyjamas and a little red and blue dressing gown to match. Minka said he was a dandy. Was that bad? ‘I’m merely a flamboyant academic,’ he’d told her.

  He’d knocked on the neighbours’ door and his friend Lulu answered. Her mother was behind her.

  ‘Hello, Little Professor,’ said Lulu’s mother.

  ‘May I please borrow a book: Discussing Music, Choreography and Libretto in Tchaikovsky’s Opera and Ballet.’

  ‘For your parents to read?’

  ‘No, for me to study,’ said Senka quite seriously.