Red Sky at Noon (The Moscow Trilogy)

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  ‘My name is Benya Golden.’

  ‘Benya Golden.’ Fabiana savoured the name, said it twice.

  ‘Oh Dio, it sounds lovely in Italian,’ he said. ‘But then everything sounds better in Italian.’

  ‘So you are Red Army lost behind our lines? Madonna santa!’

  She looked back into the village. Soon someone would notice they were out here talking or Malamore might ride up with his SS comrades.

  ‘Can we walk a little into the field of sunflowers? Please accompany me.’

  She shook her head but she walked beside him.

  ‘Tell me about your childhood in Venice … Fabiana, if may?’

  She started to answer but then she stopped. ‘I haven’t asked you a thing about yourself. I’ve been wondering, trying to guess, what you did in peacetime.’

  ‘I want a sip of wine before I get into that,’ he said, and he took back the bottle from her and pulled out the cork.

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘You can’t drink. The anaesthetic, the painkillers.’

  ‘Really?’ He looked anxious, and for a moment this made her beam.

  ‘I bet in real life you’re a hypochondriac,’ she teased him.

  ‘Of course I am, but not today. I am unlikely to make it anyway. Allow me this,’ and he took a swig from the bottle. ‘I love Massandra wine and one day I’ll tell you about the Crimea. Now your turn.’

  She looked around. Nothing. Just the sky of eggshell blue, the sun, and the tall sunflowers with their golden faces and black fringes, dusted by chaff, on every side of them. ‘I can’t. I’m on duty …’

  ‘Are you? I think you’re in the Secret Kingdom of Sunflowers where you can do anything. We’re in a dimension outside the real world, and here we’re free for the first and only time in this war. You’re free of the army and your dead husband and Malamore, and I’m not a soldier, a prisoner, or even a patient. I have no past in the Secret Kingdom of Sunflowers. There are only two inhabitants of the kingdom, and one is often angry, and sticks out her chin, and waves her finger – and one is just grateful to see her angry as often as possible because it makes her look magnificent. Besides, Fabiana, if you don’t drink, I won’t tell you anything. Deal?’

  ‘An Italian regards it as sacrilege to drink from a bottle …’

  ‘Like cutting pasta?’

  ‘Exactly. Or eating it with a spoon.’

  ‘Dammit,’ said Benya, ‘we’re lucky to be alive. I think Bacchus will forgive you. Go on, sit down.’

  ‘This stupid white uniform, I’ll get grass stains on it and—’

  ‘Just drink then.’

  She took the wine and drank from the bottle. Benya sank down, his strength ebbing, sapping his sight, which had started to blur; he sighed and recovered, the wine recharging him.

  ‘I was arrested, sentenced to death, reprieved and sent to the Gulags. But I got this fresh chance of life.’

  ‘And this torture and getting shot is your wonderful new start?’ Fabiana asked, kneeling down beside him.

  ‘They let me join the penal battalions so I might live again, and I’m not sure I’ll get another opportunity.’

  Fabiana smiled at him, her face very close to his. ‘Well, wasn’t it luck that your horse stood over you on the ground, waiting for you to be picked up? And then finding me to sew you up?’

  ‘And give me wine. But then that horse is my dearest friend, and perhaps you are the only other friend I have in the world at this moment. So I want to enjoy this. It’s as simple as that. I have no plan beyond this field of sunflowers, this stale wine, and my conversation with my Venetian nurse.’

  ‘What were you sentenced to death for?’

  ‘Do I seem like a murderer? Or a bank robber?’ He paused. ‘No, I was a writer. I fell out of favour – and I still don’t know exactly why. But I ended up as a Political prisoner working in – have you heard of Kolyma?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Well, the prison gold mines of the far east.’

  ‘I didn’t think of you as a miner.’

  ‘It wasn’t my chosen vocation.’

  ‘I know that – but of course you’re a writer. It’s obvious.’ Above them in the shimmering sky with a few white contrails, a flight of German planes flew in formation towards Stalingrad. She got up. ‘We have to go back,’ she said, staggering a little, and as she did so, the atoms between them rearranged themselves: she saw that clearly. Something altered inside them too. But that can mean nothing, she told herself quickly. A beautiful view did that too – one remembered it but the moment passed quickly.

  She brushed herself down and glared at him: ‘After all you’ve been through, you have the energy to waste on trying to flirt with a nurse, stupido?’

  ‘If it was the last iota of life I possessed,’ he replied. ‘How could I use it better?’ He took a breath and his voice changed tone. ‘You know, Fabiana, I’ll remember this, somehow forever.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Somehow forever.’ And as she said this, she held up her right hand, fingers open towards the sky, and he laughed, imitating her.

  ‘You’re laughing at me again?’ she said gravely.

  ‘No, celebrating you. Somehow forever!’ and they both made the gesture.

  Then he turned and started to walk back.

  ‘Benya,’ she said.

  He looked back. He wanted to kiss her, but he felt suddenly depleted, suddenly hopeless, and red sparks whirlpooled behind his eyes. He almost fell, and she put her arms around him, and held him up.

  ‘You must go to your bed. I’ll say I don’t know who you are.’

  ‘Better to say …’

  ‘ … that you wore Italian uniform, because you’re one of our Russian auxiliaries?’

  ‘If you could say that, it would win me time.’

  ‘Benya Golden, it’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?’

  Benya nodded, leaning on her strong shoulders. ‘I have nothing left to tell you. My life is yours now.’

  When he awoke, night had fallen. He was back in the tent, and Fabiana sat beside the bed. ‘I was dreaming of our conversation in …’ he whispered.

  ‘ … the Secret Kingdom of Sunflowers.’

  ‘It did happen, didn’t it?’

  She nodded, gazing at him, her finger touching her lips. He wondered what she was thinking about.

  ‘I doubt we’ll see each other again,’ he said. ‘Probably not. But I just wanted to say that for me those were truly the happiest hours of this war – no, of the last few years of my life.’

  Oh, these words, she thought, she who had learned poetry. She wanted to hear them again, and ran them around her mouth greedily, savouring them, devouring them.

  ‘For me too,’ she said, raising one hand, fingers open. ‘Somehow forever!’

  He nodded; yes, she did remember.

  ‘Listen, I don’t want you to take any risks on my behalf,’ he said. ‘Promise me you won’t.’

  ‘I promise. But I want to help you … if I can.’

  ‘Just tell me. Where are the horses?’

  ‘The stables are right beside this tent. But watch out for the camels.’

  ‘Is my horse still here? She’s a chestnut Budyonny mare with a white blaze on her forehead and white socks.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Are they guarded?’

  ‘Not at night.’

  ‘I need a weapon before I can go.’

  ‘A gun?’ She looked worried. ‘Montefalcone keeps all captured weapons in our arsenal, in the cottage next to the stables, but …’

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Forget about the guns, please … But I must go in a few hours’ time.’

  ‘Can’t you stay one more day?’

  ‘I can’t risk that. I go tonight.’ He put his hand in hers. ‘Somehow forever.’

  V

  Darling Lioness,

  I just want to kiss you again. On your lips, your neck, your shoulders. I want to smell your hair. You delight
me …

  Your very own Lion

  Day Seven

  I

  True darkness in high summer does not come until very late, and Benya waited until it was well after midnight. He listened to his own heart ticking like a fuse and to the sounds of the village. Cats fighting, the camels nuzzing, scattered shots, planes overhead, Italians singing, horses whinnying – then just a hiss outside the tent. ‘Benya!’

  He opened the flap and there was the white blaze of Silver Socks with Fabiana leading him. Socks searched for him, and Benya stroked her muzzle and kissed her neck.

  ‘Grazie mille,’ he said to Fabiana, ‘grazie mille.’ And Fabiana, now wearing light green Italian uniform with a bustina at a raffish angle on the back of her head, said the same thing to him and then he kissed her cheeks, three times Russian-style, and he could feel her, so warm and close to him, and he kissed her mouth, and she kissed him back and whispered:

  ‘Benya, you must strike me so …’

  ‘That’s not easy for me.’

  ‘Just hurry.’

  He slapped her hard across the face and she flinched, and touched her lip.

  ‘OK.’ There was blood on her fingertip. ‘There’s food in the saddlebags. Go then. Go!’

  Silver Socks skittered as he mounted, and he calmed her with a touch on the withers. He meant to say poetical things to Fabiana, to say ‘Somehow forever’, but he was too afraid to think of such things. Instead, without looking back, he kicked Socks into a canter and rode away, knowing that she would wait a while and then cry out: ‘Help!’ They’d agreed that she would say ‘the prisoner’ had knocked her over and escaped into the night. And would the Italians bother chasing one wounded Russian prisoner on the run? Unlikely.

  He rode out across the rye fields, staying close to the hedges. In the dark, he could see the heads of a thousand sunflowers, lowered to the dark ground, waiting for the sun to rouse them, and beyond them, the steppes all the way to the Don. As he rode, he realized he had no weapon, not even a penknife to defend himself – just my fingernails, he thought, smiling grimly. He pulled Socks to a halt. Should he go back and steal a weapon – at least a sidearm so he could shoot himself rather than fall into the hands of Mandryka’s men? Indecision overcame him and he rubbed his forehead. He was not very good at this, not good at all. He had no idea where to go, or what to do.

  He heard the thud of hooves coming across the fields. His heart scudded – they were chasing him already. He dismounted and stood in the shadows, listening, shaking. It sounded as though just one rider was following him. Was it Malamore? Or one of Mandryka’s Hiwis?

  Then he heard the soft voice: ‘Benya, it’s me. Are you there?’

  ‘Here!’

  Fabiana rode towards him on her palomino. ‘You took no weapons. I forgot to give you these.’ She handed over a Parabellum, a couple of grenades, a Papasha with the ammunition, and she had a rifle in her scabbard on the horse’s flank. ‘I didn’t know which to take.’

  ‘Thank you, but you stole too many. They’ll notice. Take the rest of these back, and hurry!’

  ‘OK,’ she said but she did not move.

  ‘I must ride on. I meant to say – I’ll never forget you, or what you’ve done for me, everything—’

  ‘Va bene,’ she whispered. ‘Somehow forever.’ And she made the extravagant gesture he was familiar with. Briskly he put the Parabellum in his belt, the PPSh over his shoulder, and the ‘zincs’ that held the ammunition for its drum-like magazine in his saddlebags, passing the rifle back to her. She slipped the rifle into her scabbard. He mounted Silver Socks and looked back at her.

  Fabiana hadn’t moved. He turned Socks around. She was still there.

  ‘Right! Thank you. I must go, Fabiana, and you must go back right now. Vai subito! Arrivederci.’

  She turned the palomino but in a circle and ended up closer to him. ‘You know, Il Primo, I can’t go back. Not now. You have your horse and your guns and you are gone. They will know and they will shoot me for treason.’

  Benya absorbed this in a second: the Italians would presume he was taking a hostage; they would hunt them down; and probably they would die together. It was not what he had planned, but he knew she was right. In bringing him the weapons, she’d put herself in supreme danger. ‘So we ride together. But we must go now!’

  The horses were nervous; Socks stamped; there were shouts from the village; lights were going on; and then the first shot rang out.

  Benya leaned over and smacked the rump of her horse with his quirt. Violante reared up and almost bucked Fabiana off but she stayed on and then they were galloping. A volley of machine-gun fire thwanged over them and Benya could see muzzle flashes from the village and the pirts of dust on the ground rising from the impacts. A bullet chinged right off his stirrup. A searchlight cast a beam into the dark, seeking them. At this rate, they would shoot him like a dog. He seized her horse’s bridle and pulled Fabiana closer: ‘Stay next to me.’ The searchlight found them and suddenly Benya could see her clearly in boots and britches and khaki, the bustina on her tied-up hair – he thanked God she wasn’t wearing her snow-white nurse’s outfit – and he levelled the Papasha right at her, knowing the Italians could see her too, and sure enough, the voices cried out, ‘Fabiana!’ and then to him: ‘Let Fabiana go!’ But the shooting had stopped. They wouldn’t kill her, he knew this, when it was he they wanted.

  Using Fabiana as a shield, he kicked both horses on until they were out of range and the moon was high on that silvery summer night, lighting up the high grasses and the sunflowers and the rye. And, all the time, there she was beside him, concentrating on the riding, spurring her palomino, dressed for this, and he realized that sometime that evening she had made a reckless decision and now they would both live with the consequences. There was a glint of something he hadn’t seen in her before, and sometimes, when he looked back at her, she smiled as she rode, her white teeth bright in the moonlight.

  II

  It was morning in the Kremlin, and Svetlana was wide awake, and thinking about Lev Shapiro. Waking up early was a symptom of being in love, she decided, but love is the only illness everyone wants to catch.

  In a few days, she had gone from the ideal Soviet schoolgirl, the diligent student, to a lover, a dreamer, and now she did not care about her homework at all. She kept looking at the phone. She had given Shapiro the number of her private line to her apartment, the one used by herself, Klimov and the housekeeper. She waited, then waited some more; then it started to ring. She was about to answer on the first ring but would that seem desperate, too keen. She held her breath, counting four rings, five, six, and then she picked it up.

  ‘Ya sluzhoo,’ she said. ‘I’m listening.’

  The phone line echoed and pranged, a sonar echo fathoms away, and she imagined telegraph poles and wires across steppes, rivers, farms stretching away, a fragile line of communication between herself and her lover.

  ‘It’s me, Sveta,’ he said at last. ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Wait a moment.’ She jumped up and closed the door so the housekeeper and her nanny would not hear. ‘Now I’m here. The flowers are blossoming in the Alexandrovsky Gardens! How are you?’

  ‘I’m at the front in the headquarters bunker.’

  ‘And where is that?’

  The throatiness of his virile voice echoed down the rough, reverberating line. ‘My location is top secret except I can tell you it’s a town with your name.’

  She laughed too. ‘You’re talking in such deep code that no one could possibly break it.’

  ‘I know.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you on your own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I just have to tell you, darling Sveta, that I want to kiss you again, passionately, deeply.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she answered, her heart syncopating, almost melting into the mouthpiece.

  ‘No, really, I can still smell your skin. Taste your lips.’

  Svetlana took a deep breath. ‘I
want to kiss you too. I wish you were here. I can’t work. I am bored by my studies.’

  Shapiro groaned. ‘If we’d only been alone …’

  ‘If we had been?’

  ‘If your detective hadn’t been waiting for you.’

  ‘Oh, he was listening to everything, but we managed to kiss,’ she crowed. ‘And what a kiss!’

  ‘Was it your first kiss?’

  She nodded. ‘Is it bad if it was my first? Am I too much of a novice for you? Will you be bored of me?’

  ‘No, it’s charming, it’s delightful. It makes it so special for me. And we had so much to talk about as well. I want to know what you’re reading, what you’re thinking – but we don’t have time now. Now I must tell you the essential things, which are that I am thinking of you in the bunker in the city with the famous name on the Volga, and that I want to kiss you again now. Immediately.’

  ‘I burn for you too,’ she whispered.

  There was a gap in the conversation. She heard voices like ghosts ricocheting down the line. And then Shapiro was back again, his voice sounding more urgent. ‘I have to go. All the correspondents have to use this phone. Grossman is waiting and he’s getting impatient. He wants to know who my girlfriend is …’

  ‘Will you tell him?’

  ‘God no. You’re a secret. For so many reasons.’

  ‘Will you be safe?’

  ‘For you, sweetheart, yes. The fighting is desperate here. But this city won’t fall. Sveta, we will win.’

  ‘Kisses, Lev, darling Lion. Call me again. Soon.’

  ‘I’ll call you every spare hour I have, I promise, darling Lioness. I’m sending you a kiss down the phone. Here! Can you feel it? It’s travelling from this bunker on the Volga all the way to you. It’s a sacred vibration. Love sends it. Can you feel it?’

  ‘Yes, I can feel it. Here’s one from the Kremlin. Across great rivers and steppes and bridges.’

  A pause: ‘I’ve got it. Till tomorrow. I kiss you, darling.’

  Svetlana put the phone down. The blush ran up her body, emanating from her middle, her thighs, to her feet and up to her neck and lips, to every spot of her body. She closed her eyes. In a few days she had changed completely. She was no longer merely Stalin’s daughter. A beautiful brave man in a bunker faraway in Stalingrad was thinking of her, and she – she was someone’s darling, someone’s secret.