One Night in Winter

It was only much later that he’d understand that she was not just crying for their dead friends and the pasts they shared, but for their futures. And for the secret that she cherished more than life itself.

PART TWO The Children’s Case

Children in ages to come will cry in bed,

Not to have been born in our lifetime.

‘We Have No Borders’, popular Soviet song

11

A FEW HUNDRED metres away, in the room behind the Lenin Mausoleum, an old man smiled, honey-coloured eyes glinting, his face creasing like that of a grizzled tiger.

‘You’re looking like a Tsarist station manager in your uniform,’ Stalin teased Andrei Vyshinsky, his Deputy Foreign Minister, a pink-cheeked, white-haired man who stood before him in a grey, gold-braided diplomatic uniform with a ceremonial dagger at its belt. ‘Who designed this foolish rig? Is that a dagger or a carving knife?’

‘It’s the new diplomatic uniform, Comrade Stalin,’ replied Vyshinsky, almost at attention, chest out.

‘You look like a head waiter,’ said Stalin, his eyes scanning the leaders who formed a semi-circle around him. Golden shoulderboards and gleaming braid, Kremlin tans and bulging bellies. ‘What a collection,’ he said. ‘Some of you are so fat, you hardly look human. Set an example. Eat less.’

Hercules Satinov, who stood to Stalin’s right in a colonel general’s uniform, was proud to stand beside the greatest man in the world to celebrate Russia’s victory. Stalin had promoted him, trusted him with challenging tasks in peace and war and he had never disappointed the Master. Stalin’s restless scrutiny of his comrades-in-arms was sometimes mocking, sometimes chilling – even Satinov had experienced it – but it was just one of the many methods Stalin had used to build Soviet Russia and defeat Hitler. Virtually the entire leadership was in this room. Every single man was pretending to talk – but actually they never took their eyes off him, and Satinov knew that Stalin was always aware of this. Now he felt Stalin’s gaze upon him.

‘Now look at Satinov here. Smart! That’s the ticket!’

‘He’s no more a soldier than me,’ Lavrenti Beria objected.

‘True, but at least Satinov has the figure for it, eh, bicho?’ Stalin gave everyone nicknames and he often called Satinov bicho – ‘boy’ in their native Georgian. ‘He looks like a Soviet man should look. Not like you, Vyshinsky.’ Stalin beamed at the sweating courtier, enjoying his discomfort – especially when Alexander Poskrebyshev, his chef-de-cabinet, a bald little fellow in a general’s uniform, crept up behind Vyshinsky, slipped the dagger out of its scabbard and replaced it with a small, green gherkin.

‘I think Vyshinsky needs to drink a forfeit, don’t you, comrades?’ asked Beria, the secret-police chief. Satinov did not like this bullying of Vyshinsky even though he was a craven reptile: sycophantic to superiors, fearsome to inferiors. He observed how Beria played up to Stalin, however. Beria’s glossy, braided Commissar-General of Security uniform ill suited his glinting pince-nez, grey-green cheeks and double chins.

‘But I have to be careful, I have a heart condition,’ pleaded Vyshinsky.

‘Comrade Vyshinsky, might you deign to join us in a toast to the Soviet soldier?’ said Stalin, as flunkies in dark blue uniforms filled all the glasses.

Stalin had drunk several vodkas earlier and Satinov could tell that he was slightly drunk – and why not? Today was his supreme moment. But the stress of the war – four years of sixteen-hour days – had visibly aged him. Satinov noticed that his hands shook, his skin was waxy with red spots on his cheeks; the grey hair resembled a spiked ice sculpture. He wondered if Stalin was ill but put that thought out of his mind. It was unthinkable; Stalin’s health was a secret; and the Master distrusted doctors even more than he distrusted women, Jews, capitalists and social democrats.

‘To Comrade Vyshinsky,’ Stalin announced. ‘And to our diplomats and our gherkin-growers who supplied our brave forces!’

The leaders guffawed at this and Vyshinsky, still wearing his scabbarded gherkin, joined in with oblivious enthusiasm, unsure what the joke might be.

Stalin was still smiling but he immediately noticed when the State Security Minister, Merkulov, who ran the secret police Organs, tentatively joined the outer edges of the circle.

‘Comrade Merkulov, welcome,’ said Stalin. ‘Haven’t they arrested you yet?’ He winked. It was a running joke.

Merkulov bowed but was hopelessly tongue-tied around Stalin. ‘C-c-congratulations… C-c-comrade Marshal Stalin.’

A silence inside, the hum of crowds and engines outside.

Stalin narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you reporting something?’

‘Yes, but n-n-nothing important… Should I report to Comrade Beria?’