Satinov had read very little literature, yet Stalin often told him that he must read Chekhov to improve himself – ‘I’m old but I never stop studying,’ Stalin said – but Satinov was always too busy.
Now he read this page from a story called ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’. The hero and heroine, both happily married to others, meet at the Yalta resort and begin an affair. He read that they ‘loved one another as close intimates, as man and wife, as very dear friends. They thought that fate itself had intended them for each other.’ When the lover was on his way to meet her, he mused that:
…not a soul knew about it and… probably no one would ever know. He was leading a double life: one was undisguised, plain for all to see and known to everyone who needed to know, full of conventional truths and conventional deception, identical to the lives of his friends and acquaintances; and another which went on in secret. And by some strange, possibly fortuitous chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting and necessary for him, where he behaved sincerely and did not deceive himself and which was the very essence of his life – that was conducted in complete secrecy.
This section was marked. Satinov pressed the bell on his desk. Chubin, his aide, appeared instantly, notebook, pencil and Adam’s apple poised.
‘Send out someone to the House of Books to buy Chekhov’s stories.’
‘Now, comrade?’
‘This minute, Chubin. Make sure it contains a story called “The Lady with the Little Dog”.’
And when he read the story, he felt he was reading about himself and Dashka. Truly, there was no better present than this.
On the last day of term, the parents of the Children’s Case were called in to the school a little before pick-up.
Satinov met Tamriko outside the director’s office. She was worried what was coming. ‘Suppose,’ she whispered, ‘suppose they have to go back to prison? Suppose they’re arrested again? I just couldn’t bear to lose them a second time.’
Satinov kissed her forehead. ‘Mariko won’t be affected,’ he replied. ‘Even for George, it won’t be as bad as you fear.’
Moments later, Genrikh and Dashka Dorov arrived along with the other parents. Serafima’s father, Constantin Romashkin the screenwriter, was there too; Satinov knew that Sophia was filming. Tamriko stood next to Satinov and she slipped her hand into his and he squeezed it, noticing with a sudden twinge of sadness – or irony that the Dorovs were doing exactly the same thing. Irina Titorenka and Inessa Kurbskaya were alone.
Director Medvedeva was still suspended so it was the mathematics teacher, old Comrade Noodelman, who opened the door and summoned them in.
‘Please be seated and I hand the floor to Comrade Colonel Likhachev who is here to brief you,’ said Noodelman.
Colonel Likhachev, in army uniform, greeted Comrades Satinov and Dorov, but merely nodded at the women. What a charmer he was, this torturer! Satinov pushed to the back of his mind the thought that this degenerate had had control over his little Mariko.
Likhachev blinked as if unaccustomed to the wholesome brightness of this school room with its happy posters and jolly geraniums. Unzipping his leather case, he pulled out a beige file marked ‘MGB’ – Ministry of State Security – and ‘Top Secret’. He slipped a single paper out of the folder.
‘Comrades and citizens,’ he began grandiloquently. ‘The children, all pupils at School 801…’ He read out their names: George Satinov was the first. Tamriko’s grip had tightened on Satinov’s hand and he imagined that Dashka’s must be clasping Genrikh’s fiercely too because both mothers would be thinking of their younger children, fearing prison. Mariko was mentioned. Then there was Minka Dorova. Her mother’s face froze as she waited for the next… Yes, Senka Dorov. Dashka moaned slightly. Satinov imagined he could hear all their hearts beating in unison but perhaps it was just his own for suddenly he found himself suffering not just for one woman and her children but for two.
‘All of the above have signed confessions of conspiracy to overthrow the Soviet State and therefore have been liable under Article 158 to be sentenced to between ten and twenty-five years and, for those over twelve years old – that is all of the above criminals except Mariko Satinova, six, and Senka Dorov, ten – to the Highest Measure of Punishment.’ Death!
