‘I’m Frank Belman.’
The following afternoon, Satinov was heading out of the Front’s staff conference in the library when he bumped into Dr Dorova. They looked at each other, unsure of the right thing to do or say.
‘You’re still here?’ he said curtly. Too curtly, he thought afterwards.
‘I’m working,’ she said. ‘I’ve been out in the field with our medics since dawn and there’s a lot more to do. I’m reporting to the comrade marshal,’ and she carried on towards the conference in the library.
Smoke was billowing in the light of low green lamps when Satinov joined them later, and a crowd of officers and adjutants was leaning over the map on the billiard table.
‘Comrade Doctor Dorova,’ said Marshal Rokossovsky, ‘what do you need?’
‘A new field hospital needs to be established before the offensive,’ replied Dashka.
‘Agreed,’ said Rokossovsky.
‘I therefore need a site easily reachable from the front with the appropriate facilities, space for five hundred beds, and mattresses, and transport.’
‘Women are so much more efficient than men,’ Rokossovsky said to a chorus of male laughter.
‘And that’s not all they’re good for,’ croaked one of the generals. Satinov felt a sudden rush of irritation that he swallowed with some difficulty.
‘What more do you need, comrade doctor?’ he asked.
‘I need to look at the site. I must drive out there tonight and check it, so that we can begin setting up at dawn. It’s already getting dark.’
Rokossovsky, a cigarette between his teeth, ran one hand through his cropped grey-blond hair and peered at the map again. ‘Who can see an appropriate site?’
‘I can,’ said Satinov, stretching over. ‘Here. A shooting lodge. On the main roads. Close to the railway. Just a few kilometres behind the front.’
‘Approved!’ said Rokossovsky. ‘Thank you, Comrade Dorova. Let’s move on. Quartermaster, please report!’
Dashka came round to Satinov’s side. He had a map pin in his hand. ‘Comrade doctor,’ he said, ‘here’s your site. There! I’ll mark it for you.’ He pushed the pin into the map.
‘I see,’ she said, leaning over to put her finger on the spot so that he could smell her spicy scent and see her dimpled wrists.
FRANK BELMAN. CAPTAIN Frank Belman of the US Army. He looked too young to be a captain. As Serafima waited for him in the small street behind the Bolshoi, close to the dressing rooms, she was impressed by his discretion: he had not said a word to her in front of anyone else; he ignored her in the box after their short chat just as he had before; and she saw that, while the street had been crowded by theatregoers for ten minutes after the ballet had ended, it was now completely deserted. Unlike the boisterous Americans in the bar, he seemed to have an understanding of the Soviet system. Even though it was wartime and so many girls were keen to bag an American, Serafima knew from the comments of her parents’ friends in the leadership that already there were signs that this would not be acceptable for much longer.
She looked up, and there he was: a solitary figure, no longer in uniform, but wearing a flat cap and dark blue greatcoat, a cigarette between his lips. He was even taller than her but with his smooth pink cheeks and wide eyes he resembled a provincial poetry student. He smiled and gave a jaunty two-fingered salute as if to say: Here I am and, boy, isn’t this a blast!
Soon she was at his side. He took her arm and they walked away from the theatre, as if they had done so many times before. First they discussed the ballet rather earnestly until he said, ‘I’m being a bit of a phony. I really love the ballet but I’m no expert. I only started to attend here in Moscow. You know much more about it than me.’
‘I come all the time,’ she said. ‘But not so much for the ballet. For us, it’s a…’
‘A breath of the old world?’ he suggested.
‘Yes. The thirties were so hard and the war’s been terrible but now we’re winning, it’s brought some glamour back to Moscow. Not much…’
‘But just enough?’
‘Well, everything’s relative, but for a Muscovite—’
‘The Bolshoi’s like the aristocratic ball in
‘Frank, it seems you’re finishing my sentences.’
‘Or you’re stealing my thoughts, Serafima.’
They both laughed.
‘How old are you?’
‘I’m twenty-two,’ he said.
‘I’m still at school,’ she said. ‘But it’s my last year.’
‘I know,’ he said, looking at her openly for the first time. ‘I can tell.’
They were still walking when the blizzard struck, and soon the snow was so dense that they could not see ten metres in front of themselves.
