One Night in Winter

George made a thumbs-up: Kerboosh! A full stomach!

‘I’m at the phone on the embankment. Looking up at your window. How about meeting in the usual place?’

‘Give me ten minutes. I’d better put on a nice frock. See you soon!’

With his back against the phone box, George settled down to wait. Not long now.

Minka came out of the lobby of the House on the Embankment in a red summer dress that she knew she looked good in. But as she stepped into the breezy evening air, two men in suits took her arms with such smooth momentum that she found herself sitting between them in the back of a boxy Volga, the car of the middle bureaucracy, before she had even had time to say anything.

‘What’s this? Who are you?’ she whimpered as the car sped into the night.

The man in the passenger seat turned round. ‘Just a few questions,’ he said. ‘You’ll be back for your hot date before you know it.’

Across the street, the boy in the Spartak football strip standing next to a public telephone had seen it all.

‘Minka! No,’ said George, as he too was almost lifted off his feet and guided into a little Emeka car. As it accelerated into the traffic and crossed the river, he kept saying to himself: Losha will have to shave off his moustaches… This was just about the deaths on the bridge, he told himself a few minutes later. He had nothing to hide. The Organs had to investigate it, and he would answer all their questions.

But if it was so straightforward, why was he so afraid? Why was his football shirt soaked with sweat? And why was he worried for Minka too? Surely his father would get him out soon enough. Then he remembered overhearing his father say to his stepmother: ‘At this rate, I’ll have to take them and pick them up every day until this blows over.’ George had often heard them whispering behind the doors of the bathroom and though the main part of the conversation was always inaudible, it virtually always ended with the words: ‘Say nothing to anyone. Carry on as normal.’

His heart was thudding in his ears. This could only mean one thing: his father would do nothing.

High in his kommunalka apartment, Andrei was planning the evening. Losha was on his way to pick him up, and then he would meet up with George and his friends.

‘Have fun,’ said his mother. ‘But be careful too. Watch your tongue.’

‘Don’t be silly, Mama. See you soon.’

But when he went downstairs, it wasn’t Losha at the wheel, but another driver entirely.

‘Hop in, boy,’ said the driver. ‘We’ll have you with your friends sooner than you think.’

‘But this isn’t the way to Granovsky Street,’ said Andrei, five minutes later, as the car swept into Dzerzhinsky Square where the buildings seemed like colossal granite tombs.

‘You’re not going to Granovsky Street,’ replied the driver.

Andrei closed his eyes for a moment and experienced the terrifying feeling of falling into an abyss without end.

‘You’re not surprised, are you, kid?’ asked the driver.

Andrei shook his head. He was not sure he could have spoken even if he had wanted to. He felt the joints in his arms and legs were made of jelly and his blood ice cold.

‘My…’ He could not say it.

‘Your mother? She’ll be fine. After all, she’s used to this, isn’t she?’

The Aragvi Restaurant that night. Maître d’ Longuinoz escorted Sophia Zeitlin and some of her friends from the Mosfilm Studios to her favourite table just below the band. He held her wrist a second longer than necessary: he knew something important.

‘Go right ahead to the table,’ she called to her friends. ‘Order me a cosmopolitan.’ As she lingered beside the maître d’, Longuinoz whispered: ‘More on holiday. Up the hill.’

‘Up the hill? How many? Who?’ she replied breathlessly, her mouth close to his ear with its pearl earring.

‘One Yak fighter plane. Second model. Check-up at the local doctors. Two o’clock appointment.’

Her heart raced: ‘Oh God,’ understanding his code instantly.

On holiday meant arrested. Up the hill was Lubianka Prison. Yaks were the brand of fighter plane built in Satinovgrad. Therefore ‘Yak’ was Satinov. ‘Second model’ meant second son – George. ‘Local doctors’ – Dr Dorova. ‘Two o’clock’: second child, i.e. Minka.

Sophia guessed that Longuinoz knew this because he performed discreet favours for the Chekist ‘responsible workers’, favours no doubt involving food, girls and information. He was safe provided the information only went one way.

Longuinoz raised two hands as if to say: Sorry, but it’s routine. As he showed her to the table, he whispered, ‘A bit of advice, Sophia. Pull your horns in, darling!’