One Night in Winter

As Sophia Zeitlin and Comrade Satinov advanced down the corridor, greeting everyone, Zeitlin’s daughter, noticing perhaps that Andrei was watching her, raised her eyes towards the heavens, a complicit gesture that seemed to say her mother embarrassed her too.

‘Serafima!’ It was Satinov’s son again. ‘Good holidays? What’s news?’ It seemed to be George’s catchphrase, Andrei thought.

Andrei was following Serafima and George down the corridor when the bell rang. The parents started to retreat and the children headed for assembly. Serafima and George watched Dr Dashka Dorova and her desiccated husband pass.

‘What an affinity of opposites Minka’s parents are,’ said George.

‘He’s just like… yes, an uncooked chicken cutlet!’ said Serafima.

‘That’s exactly what he’s like!’ chuckled George. And Andrei smiled too. Serafima’s wicked comment was spot on.

The children flowed one way and the parents the other. When Comrade Satinov passed, he nodded brusquely at Andrei, who had no idea how to react (salute? No!) but was borne on down the corridor by the crowd.

In the school gymnasium, ranks of wooden seats had been placed beneath thick ropes that hung like giant nooses from the rafters of a high wooden ceiling. Exercise ladders ran up the walls and a wooden horse was stored near the back beside the Lenin Corner’s white bust of Lenin. Seats for the teachers were arranged in two rows on the wooden stage. Director Medvedeva’s stood in the middle: the only one with arms and a cushion. The school was a mini-Russia, thought Andrei. Every institution had its hierarchy just like the Party. Giant portraits of Stalin and the leaders hung from the walls behind (yes, there, fourth in order, was Satinov).

For a moment, Andrei panicked as the five hundred pupils found their friends. They were all greeting each other after the holidays – what if he couldn’t find a seat? He caught George’s eye for a moment but George looked away. ‘Minka, I’ve saved you a seat,’ he called out. ‘Serafima, here!’ Sitting between Minka Dorova (daughter of the Uncooked Chicken) and Serafima (daughter of the film star), George radiated the pinked-cheeked satisfaction of the boy who believes he is in his rightful place. A tall red-haired boy rushed to get the seat next to Serafima.

Andrei looked for a seat for what seemed like a horribly long time before sitting down with relief on one of the empty chairs opposite George and Serafima. A slim pale girl with fair hair sat down beside him. She looked at George and his friends, and then turned to Andrei as if she had just awoken from a dream.

‘Oh, hello. You’re new?’

‘Yes,’ said Andrei.

‘Mmm,’ she murmured. ‘I’m Rosa Shako.’

She must be Marshal Shako’s daughter, thought Andrei, who’d seen the air force commander just outside the school. When they’d shaken hands, she gazed over at George’s row as if she’d forgotten him again.

‘Those are my friends,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you meet George outside school?’

‘Not really.’

‘It must be hard arriving for the last term of the year,’ she said. Andrei thought that with her blue eyes and flaxen ringlets she looked just like an angel in a children’s book. ‘You see the red-haired boy?’

‘The one who’s sitting next to Serafima?’

A cloud crossed her face. ‘That’s Nikolasha Blagov. My friend.’ She’d opened her mouth to say something else when – hush – everyone’s voices sank to a whisper. The teachers entered, filing in order of importance down the aisle and up the steps to the stage in exactly the same way Stalin and the Politburo entered at Congresses.

‘Do you know who they all are?’ asked Rosa kindly.

‘I only know her,’ said Andrei as Director Medvedeva herself marched forward on to the stage, followed – presumably – by her deputy, a man whose greasy straggle of auburn hair, brushed over his baldness, had the texture of a woven basket.

‘That’s Dr Rimm,’ whispered Rosa as he passed them. ‘Serafima, who thinks up all the nicknames, calls him the Hummer. Listen.’ Comrade Rimm was loudly humming a tune that was unmistakably ‘May Comrade Stalin Live Many, Many Long Years’.

‘Quiet, George,’ said Dr Rimm in a high voice. ‘Eyes straight ahead, Serafima. Sit up straight. Discipline!’

Then came the rest of the teachers. ‘That’s Comrade Satinov’s wife, Tamara,’ said Rosa. ‘She teaches us English.’

A strapping old gentleman, whose wrinkly knees the colour of tanned leather were framed between flappy blue shorts and scarlet socks, entered next. ‘That’s Apostollon Shuba, our physical instructor. Do you think he looks like a sergeant major in the Tsarist army? Well, he was!’

‘Really?’ How on earth had this relic with the pitchfork-shaped moustaches survived the Terror? Andrei thought. But he was one of a generation of children brought up to believe that discretion was the essence of life, so he said nothing.

One seat was still empty. And then a teacher in a baggy sand-coloured suit and striped socks jumped nimbly on to the back of the stage. A murmur buzzed through the children.