Winter of the World

‘And you believe the politicians and generals in the West realized the military potential of the research and made it secret?’

‘I can’t think of another reason. And yet here in the Soviet Union we have not even begun to prospect for uranium.’

‘Hmm.’ Volodya was pretending to be doubtful, but in truth he found it all too credible. Even Stalin’s greatest admirers – a group that included Volodya’s father, Grigori – did not claim he understood science. And it was all too easy for an autocrat to ignore anything that made him uncomfortable.

‘I’ve told your father,’ Zoya went on. ‘He listens to me, but no one listens to him.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘What can I do? I’m going to make a damn good bomb sight for our airmen, and hope for the best.’

Volodya nodded. He liked that attitude. He liked this girl. She was smart and feisty and a joy to look at. He wondered if she would go to a movie with him.

Talk of physics reminded him of Willi Frunze, who had been his friend at the Berlin Boys’ Academy. According to Werner Franck, Willi was a brilliant physicist now studying in England. He might know something about the fission bomb Zoya was so exercised about. And if he was still a Communist he might be willing to tell what he knew. Volodya made a mental note to send a cable to the Red Army Intelligence desk in the London embassy.

His parents came in. Father was in full dress uniform, Mother in a coat and hat. They had been to one of the many interminable ceremonies the army loved: Stalin insisted such rituals continue, despite the German invasion, because they were so good for morale.

They cooed over the twins for a few minutes, but Father looked distracted. He muttered something about a phone call and went immediately to his study. Mother began to make supper.

Volodya talked to the three women in the kitchen, but he was desperate to speak to his father. He thought he could guess the subject of Father’s urgent phone call: the overthrow of Stalin was being either planned or prevented right now, probably here in this building.

After a few minutes he decided to risk the old man’s wrath and interrupt him. He excused himself and went to the study. But his father was just coming out. ‘I have to go to Kuntsevo,’ he said.

Volodya longed to know what was going on. ‘Why?’ he said.

Grigori ignored the question. ‘I’ve called down for my car, but my chauffeur has gone home. You can drive me.’

Volodya was thrilled. He had never been to Stalin’s dacha. Now he was going there at a moment of profound crisis.

‘Come on,’ his father said impatiently.

They shouted goodbyes from the hallway and went out.

Grigori’s car was a black ZIS-101A, a Soviet copy of an American Packard, with three-speed automatic transmission. Its top speed was about eighty miles per hour. Volodya got behind the wheel and pulled away.

He drove through the Arbat, a neighbourhood of craftsmen and intellectuals, and out on to the westward Mozhaisk Highway. ‘Have you been summoned by Comrade Stalin?’ he asked his father.

‘No. Stalin has been incommunicado for two days.’

‘That’s what I heard.’

‘Did you? It’s supposed to be secret.’

‘You can’t keep something like that secret. What’s happening now?’

‘A group of us are going to Kuntsevo to see him.’

Volodya asked the key question. ‘For what purpose?’

‘Primarily to find out whether he’s alive or dead.’

Could he really be dead already, and no one know about it? Volodya wondered. It seemed unlikely. ‘And if he’s alive?’

‘I don’t know. But whatever happens, I’d rather be there to see it than find out later.’

Listening devices did not work in moving cars, Volodya knew – the microphone just picked up engine noise – so he was confident he could not be overheard. Nevertheless, he felt fearful as he said the unthinkable. ‘Could Stalin be overthrown?’

His father answered irritably: ‘I told you, I don’t know.’

Volodya was electrified. Such a question demanded a confident negative. Anything else was a Yes. His father had admitted the possibility that Stalin could be finished.

Volodya’s hopes rose volcanically. ‘Think what that could be like!’ he said joyously. ‘No more purges! The labour camps will be closed. Young girls will no longer be pulled off the street to be raped by the secret police.’ He half expected his father to interrupt, but Grigori just listened with half-closed eyes. Volodya went on: ‘The stupid phrase “Trotsky-Fascist spy” will disappear from our language. Army units who find themselves outnumbered and outgunned could retreat, instead of sacrificing themselves uselessly. Decisions will be made rationally, by groups of intelligent men working out what’s best for everyone. It’s the Communism you dreamed of thirty years ago!’

‘Young fool,’ his father said contemptuously. ‘The last thing we want at this point is to lose our leader. We’re at war and retreating! Our sole aim must be to defend the revolution – whatever it takes. We need Stalin now more than ever.’