One Night in Winter

Losha slammed the door; then, whistling at the ‘tail’, the small Pobeda car filled with guards behind them, he placed his hairy hands on the car roof and swung himself into the front seat as if he was leaping into a saddle. ‘Foot down!’ he barked to the driver. The cars accelerated together, the driver spinning the white leather steering wheel and manipulating the brakes to give unnecessary screeches of burning rubber that made passersby jump out of the way as the little convoy careered past the Kremlin.

‘Your papa was up all night and he’s been in the office since dawn,’ Losha told the Satinov children, nodding at the red crenellated walls of the Kremlin and lighting up a cigarette. ‘I’ll be picking him up in a moment…’ Then, with a creaking of leather and a whiff of cologne, Losha swivelled around and pointed at a girl on the pavement. The chauffeur, also in uniform, craned his head to look – and almost crashed the car. ‘Hey, Merab, eyes on the road!’ Losha turned back to the children. ‘You see those Russian guys? No rudeness intended, Andrei, but most of ’em don’t know how to handle a woman. Russian girls are always looking sideways. Do you know why?’

Andrei shook his head.

‘They’re always looking for a Georgian guy, that’s why! You understand me, right?’ He slapped his palms together. ‘Kerboosh!’

The drive from Ostozhenka to Granovsky Street took only a few minutes. Soon they were turning into a small street, and guards were waving them through the checkpoints into a car park.

‘Welcome to the Fifth House of the Soviets,’ said George as a guard from the Pobeda car behind them jumped out and opened the door for them.

‘Out you get, youngsters,’ said Losha. ‘I’ve got to get to the Little Corner and pick up the big man.’ Banging his hands on the dashboard, he gestured to the chauffeur to drive on, leaving Andrei and the Satinovs standing amidst a collection of beautiful cars.

‘Whom do these all belong to?’ asked Andrei.

‘Well,’ explained George. ‘Most of the leaders live here. But these are ours – you’ve seen the big one, but then there’s the Cadillac, the Dodge, and that open-topped Mercedes came from Berlin. It belonged to Goebbels. Or was it Himmler?’

‘Do you use them all?’

‘Of course not. Papa couldn’t care about cars and stuff. But no one turns down a gift from the Central Committee.’

Andrei looked around him at the cars shimmering in the sunlight, then up at the pillared pink building above.

‘Recognize that Rolls-Royce?’ George asked. ‘Serafima lives here too. It’s the only privately owned Rolls in Moscow.’

A guard opened the back door of the apartment building, and Andrei and the Satinovs walked up a flight of wide, marble steps.

George pushed open the door on the first floor. Inside, a dazzling corridor of parquet and crystal chandeliers beckoned. So this is how the grandees live, thought Andrei as the maid, a swarthy but cheerful girl in a white and black uniform, hugged each of the children, kissing them several times on the face and shepherding them down the corridor.

‘Go on,’ she called after them. ‘I’m cooking up a Georgian feast. Oh and your big brother’s here. Hurry!’

The smell of spicy vegetables, melting cheese and roasted chicken curled through the airy spaces of the apartment. They passed through a reception room with a grand piano, Persian rugs, photographs of the children, a display case of turquoise china, an oil painting of Stalin – larger than life – at the front holding binoculars (could it be an original by Gerasimov, Andrei wondered?). Then they were in a small wood-panelled room filled with books and papers.

‘This is Papa’s study. We never look over there.’ George pointed at the heap of beige files on the desk marked ‘Central Committee. Top Secret.’ Andrei glanced at them: were they signed by Stalin himself? George opened a wooden case, took out four discs and, placing them carefully on the turntable mounted in a laminated wooden cabinet, he turned a knob. The turntable started to whirl, a long arm with a needle jolted into place, and the jazz songs of Utesov started to play.

‘It’s a gramophone from RCA, America,’ said George. ‘It can play the discs one by one – and isn’t the sound beautiful?’

‘It’s not bad,’ Andrei said, absolutely dazzled by what he was seeing.

‘And this has just arrived.’ George was pointing at a bizarre glassy tube set in another elegant wooden cabinet.

‘What a weird contraption. What is it?’

‘That’, said George, ‘is a machine called an iconoscope – or a television – and it shows a picture…’

‘Really? But how—’

‘Come on.’ Andrei could hear the sound of laughter, sizzling food and clinking cutlery as they ran through into a huge kitchen, where the Satinov family sat at a mahogany table while Leka, the maid, was juggling at least three steaming pans on the stove.

‘Andrei Kurbsky!’ His English teacher, Tamara Satinova, George’s fine-boned stepmother, was shaking his hand. ‘You’re the new boy in my English class. Come on in and have some khachapuri.’