One Night in Winter полностью

He couldn’t sleep; he couldn’t eat; he imagined the most diabolic things: that she was being raped, or tortured, or that she had already been shot, or despatched to the furthest camps. But while the Satinovs and Dorovs could talk about what was happening, and share the pain with their loved ones, no one in Frank’s world knew about Serafima. He hadn’t talked about their relationship with the ambassador or his fellow diplomats, and he had never met her family. He fantasized about calling her parents – he had seen so many of her mother’s movies – but it was too late for that now.

He would have preferred to see her running into school, safe and happy, even if it meant that she had forsaken him and he would never see her again. But she was not at the school gates on the days he’d stood outside, watching from a distance, desperate for a glimpse of a tall girl with long fair hair.

And then one night at the ballet, he glanced down at the stalls, and there she was. She was back!

Satinov held Tamriko in his arms as she told him about Mariko. ‘The greatest privilege of childhood’, she said, ‘is to live safely in the present. That’s why I became a teacher. I wanted that for Mariko.’

Their daughter’s arrest and the agonizing scenes at the Lubianka made him reel. For the first time in his life, he was spinning out of control. He had not wavered when his comrades were being arrested and shot, when his army group was surrounded, even when his eldest son was reported missing and then dead. But now he was struggling to dam up the raging torrent of his obsession for a woman who was not his wife.

His special vertushka telephone was ringing. He unwound Tamriko’s arms and listened to Poskrebyshev’s monotone summoning him to dinner at Stalin’s. Always a trial, a duty, now it seemed to offer relief of a kind. At least he wouldn’t wake at four and lie in sleepless torment till another bruised dawn.

At the dinner, Stalin was boasting about his exploits in Siberian exile. ‘One day I skied twenty kilometres, shot four partridges, fought off a wolf – I shot it right through the head – and then managed to ski back through a blizzard to the village.’

Stalin’s exile stories became taller with each telling and Satinov started to think about Dashka. Suddenly she was talking to him: ‘You’ll always be part of my life, angel, how could I forget you, more than yesterday, less than tomorrow.’ Stalin was talking on, almost talking to him, maybe asking his views. But what did Stalin matter when Dashka was kissing him? Concentrate, he told himself, don’t lose the thread…

Stalin’s eyes flashed their yellow glint at him but still he couldn’t focus. He was in the cage of a man-eating tiger yet he didn’t care if he was eaten. Stalin was pointing at him now. Nineteen forty-five is your peak, he told himself. You saw the storming of the Reichstag, there are towns, streets and factories named after you – but this is nothing compared to losing her. For heaven’s sake, keep your mind on the job. But he couldn’t.

The greenish, blotchy faces of Beria, Khrushchev, Molotov, the wan, sweating Zhdanov were all looking at him suddenly. Stalin was waving a finger. Khrushchev, warty, snub-nosed and bald-headed, was waving his hands in the air as the noise around him became distant, and then began to fade completely.

Satinov wanted to tell Stalin that he finally understood that every movie, every popular song was about the very same dilemma in which he found himself: love lost. He wanted to tell Stalin that now he was just an ordinary man. Nothing more. He had not lost his faith in Marxism-Leninism, but he was indulging in the crassest bourgeois sentimentalism, the very romantic philistinism that had disgusted him in the Children’s Case. He remembered how he’d dismissed George, Andrei and their crush on Pushkin. When George said, ‘Love is everything,’ he had mocked him. Now the white dread of the very same hunger ate at him remorselessly day and night.

Suddenly Beria was elbowing him hard in the side. ‘What is this? You’re not listening to Josef Vissarionovich? Are you talking to yourself? Wake up, you drunken motherfucker. Comrade Stalin was asking you about Berlin.’

Stalin was looking right at him, peering into his soul.

‘Perhaps Comrade Satinov is tired? Well, we all are. What is it, boy? Drink, weariness, war or love?’

The other leaders laughed. ‘Drink!’ cried Khrushchev.

‘Or is it love?’ teased Beria.

‘Not our Hercules. Surely not,’ said Stalin. ‘He’s far too uxorious! Our Choirboy! Our straight arrow.’

‘Either way, you’ve got to drink a forfeit shot for your rudeness,’ Beria said. ‘There – now drink that! No heeltaps!’

Satinov drank the vodka in a single scourging gulp, and the next that Beria demanded, but if anything it made the images of Dashka even more vividly delicious. He fought back the urge to sob uncontrollably.

‘What is it, comrade?’ asked Stalin, sounding cross and impatient. ‘Does Comrade Satinov wish to retire and sort himself out?’