Sashenka

  ‘Welcome, Katinka,’ said a striking elderly woman standing in the middle of the room. Well-dressed, with a busty figure neatly shown off in one of those tweed suits worn by Marlene Dietrich in the forties and a hairstyle to match, she suited the room so well she might have been posed there by a fashion photographer. Katinka guessed she was well over eighty, yet with her strong eyebrows and thick hair dyed black she held herself like an actress on her very last tour.

  ‘I’m Mouche Zeitlin,’ the woman said, holding out her hand. ‘Come on in and I’ll show you round. This was my father’s study …’ She led Katinka into a small room still heaped with papers and books, pointing out a wall of volumes. ‘These are all his works. You probably remember some of them – or maybe you’re too young …’

  ‘No, I knew his name,’ answered Katinka. ‘In my father’s bookcase we have all the Gideon Zeitlin books along with Gorky, Ehrenburg and Sholokhov …’

  ‘A giant of the Soviet era,’ said Mouche, who spoke the noble Russian of a trained actress. ‘Here!’ She pointed at the large black and white photographs on the wall that showed a beaming black-eyed man with a grey-black beard and the same eyes and smile as his daughter. ‘That’s my father with Picasso and Ehrenburg in Paris, and that’s him with Marshal Zhukov at Hitler’s Chancellery in 1945. Oh, and that’s him with one of his many girlfriends. I used to call him Papa Momzer – that’s Yiddish for “Daddy the rogue”. As for us, my sister and mother died in the Siege of Leningrad but my father and I, with our sense of humour, survived wars, revolutions and terror. In fact, we flourished – I’m a little ashamed to say. See those posters? That’s me in my films. You’ve probably seen a few. Let’s have tea.’ They crossed the impressive hall and Katinka found herself sitting at a big kitchen table. ‘Are you writing about my father or me?’

  ‘No, actually, that’s not why I came to see you …’ Katinka blushed but Mouche Zeitlin waved it away.

  ‘Of course not, why should you, dear? You’re the new generation. But you said you were a historian.’ She lit up a Gauloise which she smoked in a silver holder, offering a cigarette to Katinka.

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Katinka. Then she told Mouche about meeting Roza and Pasha, and the story up to the previous day with Lala. ‘Lala sent me to you. She had your address; I think she must have kept it when Samuil died. And now we know that my client Roza Getman is Snowy, Sashenka’s daughter.’

  ‘God! Snowy!’ Mouche lost her brashness and suddenly she dissolved in tears. ‘I can’t believe it! How we longed to find that child. And what about Carlo?’

  ‘I hope we can find him somehow.’

  ‘But Snowy’s alive and well? I can’t believe it!’ Mouche held out her arms to Katinka as if the visitor herself was long-lost family. ‘You’re a messenger bringing us blessings! Can I phone her? When can I meet her?’

  ‘I hope very soon,’ replied Katinka. ‘But there’s still so much to discover. I came to tell you this good news but also to ask you – did you ever look for Sashenka and Vanya?’

  ‘Right up until his death, my father tried to find out what had happened to them and the children. There were many times during Stalin’s reign when my father was close to destruction himself, even though he was one of the dictator’s pet writers. At the end of the war, my father travelled down to Tbilisi to meet up again with his elder brother Samuil – and Lala Lewis, of course. They were very happy together. It was such a joyous reunion, the two brothers hadn’t seen each other for so many years. Anyway, Samuil made my father promise that as soon as he could, he would find out about Sashenka and her family.’

  ‘Did you find anything?’ asked Katinka, taking out her notebook.

  ‘Oh yes. Even during Stalin’s lifetime, Papa enquired of the Cheka and was told that Sashenka and Vanya had received ten years in the camps in 1939. We applied again in 1949, when Sashenka was due to be released, but were told that she had received another ten years without rights of correspondence. During the Thaw after Stalin’s death, we were told that they had both died of heart attacks in the camps during the war.’

  ‘So there’s really no hope for her.’

  ‘We thought not,’ said Mouche. ‘But in 1956 a female ex-prisoner, a newly released Zek, called on us here and told us that she’d been with Sashenka in the Kolyma camps, that she’d last seen Sashenka very recently, and she was alive when Stalin died in March 1953.’

  Katinka’s heart leaped.

  Later that day, a black armoured Mercedes collected Katinka from the Moskva Hotel and drove her to Pasha Getman’s headquarters, a former prince’s mansion off Ostazhenka Street. Katinka was curious to see ‘The Palace’, as it was known in the press. It was said to be a hive of political and financial intrigue so she was almost disappointed when they drove through the security gates and stopped in front of a graceful but small two-storey residence in white marble with curling oriental-style pilasters. Inside, the hall was decorated, decided Katinka, like a Turkish sultan’s harem, with many divans and fountains. She was met by a beautiful black-haired secretary, a Russian girl not much older than her, in a little black suit with a tiny skirt and colossal high heels, all set off by a clinking gold belt. Katinka knew at once, just from the girl’s proprietorial slink, that this ‘Versace girl’ was not exclusively Pasha’s typist.

  With her heels clicking on the marble floors, the assistant led Katinka, feeling dowdy in her denim skirt, past a room filled with electronic equipment and television screens, watched by guards in blue uniforms; then a dining room where a young man was checking place settings, flowers and cutlery; and then an airy modern office, all glass and chrome, where Pasha Getman waved at her.

  He was on the phone but Roza was sitting on the sofa beneath some pieces of expensive (and hideous, in Katinka’s view) modern art.

  ‘Dear girl, you’ve done so well already,’ said Roza, kissing Katinka thrice and holding on to her warmly. ‘I just can’t believe that you’ve found all this. I’m going to call Mouche right away … As soon as you mentioned the name Palitysn, Sashenka and Vanya, it was as if I already knew them.’

  ‘You didn’t mention you also had a brother.’

  ‘I wanted to start with my parents, and even now I find it hard to say his name, to talk about him …’ Roza stopped, and closed her eyes for a second. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t sure what you’d find. But oh, Katinka, I just can’t thank you enough. You’ve given me back a slice of myself, my identity.’ Now that those violet eyes were open again, Katinka saw how hard Roza was fighting not to break down.

  ‘Do you want me to go on?’ Katinka realized she very badly wanted to find out what had happened to the rest of Roza’s family, especially Carlo, but felt guilty too. Was she becoming addicted to the drama of someone else’s tragedy?

  ‘Yes – and here’s the cash for the KGB,’ said Pasha Getman, coming around the desk to embrace her. He handed her an envelope. ‘I knew I’d hired the right person.’ Katinka caught Roza’s eye as he said this, and they exchanged a conspiratorial smile. ‘But now, go and find the other Palitsyns. If any of them are alive …’

  Katinka felt very nervous about carrying the money in her handbag. She had never held so much and was sure it would be stolen, or she would drop it. She was relieved when she entered the Café-Bar Piano on the Patriarchy Ponds to meet the two KGBsti, the Marmoset and the Magician.

  She played with the thick envelope for a minute, then opened it in front of them to show the US greenbacks.

  ‘For this much cash, we’d like the files fast. You said tomorrow, didn’t you?’

  ‘It’s all there?’ asked the shiny-cheeked Marmoset, eyeing the envelope.

  ‘Yes, against my advice,’ said Katinka, ‘Mr Getman insisted on paying.’

  ‘All in Abraham Lincolns?’ asked the Magician.

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said, disdainful of this gangster jargon.

  ‘An angel of the north Caucasus! You’ll learn the way things work!’ The Magician laughed and stroked his coarse gi
ngery hair. As she pushed the envelope across the table, he slapped his hand on to hers. ‘Beautiful, girl. Beautiful, like you.’

  Katinka removed her hand quickly, and shuddered.

  ‘Tomorrow, in my office, you’ll have the files on Sashenka and Vanya as well as Mendel and Golden,’ promised the Marmoset. ‘Everything we have.’

  Katinka stood up but the Magician took her hand again in a clammy grip.

  ‘Hey, girl, wait, what’s the hurry? Please tell Mr Getman we hope this is the start of a relationship. And for you as a historian. We have some espionage materials about the Cold War period that would interest the Western media and publishers. Now you know Londongrad, you flew there. We would share a commission with you if you could interest newspapers or publishers in London …’

  ‘I’ll tell Mr Getman.’

  ‘A little taste of a malt whisky much favoured by the royal families of Europe? It’s Glenfiddich, a famous name,’ suggested the Magician. ‘A toast to our English historical partnership?’

  ‘I’m late,’ answered Katinka, longing to be away from these disgusting hucksters, the successors of the Chekists who had arrested Sashenka and Vanya.

  She fled outside. Spring in Moscow seethed with the tang of new life, and the ponds were surrounded by cherry blossom and new growth. She bought an ice cream and sat admiring the daffodils growing under the trees and the majestic swans on the pond with their grey-feathered cygnets.

  At the payphone, she called Satinov.

  Mariko answered. ‘My father is ill. He fell. He also has respiratory problems.’

  ‘But I’ve got a lot to tell him. I’ve found Snowy, and Lala Lewis who told me what a hero he’d been to help those children—’

  ‘You’ve talked enough to him already. No more calls.’

  And Mariko slammed down the phone.

  16

  Sitting of Military Tribunal, office of the Narkom L. P. Beria, at Special Object 110 [Sukhanovka Prison, Beria’s special jail in the former St Catherine’s Convent at Vidnoe, outskirts of Moscow] 3 a.m. 21 January 1940

  Chairman of the Military Tribunal V. S. Ulrikh: Accused Palitysn, have you read the indictment? You understand the charges?

  Palitsyn: Yes, I, Vanya Palitsyn, understand the charges.

  Ulrikh: Do you object to any of the judges?

  Palitsyn: No.

  Ulrikh: Do you admit your guilt?

  Palitsyn: Yes.

  Ulrikh: Did you not meet with Mendel Barmakid and your wife Sashenka Zeitlin to plot the assassination of Comrade Stalin and the Politburo?

  Palitsyn: My wife was never involved in this conspiracy.

  Ulrikh: Come now, Accused Palitsyn, we have before us your full signed confession that states how you and said Accused Sashenka Zeitlin …

  Palitsyn: If the Party wants …

  Ulrikh: The Party demands the truth. Stop playing games with us now. Speak up.

  Palitsyn: Long live the Party. I have been a dedicated and devoted Bolshevik since the age of sixteen. I have never betrayed the Party. I have served Comrade Stalin and the Party with absolute fervour all my adult life. So has my wife, Sashenka. However, if the Party demands it …

  Ulrikh: The Party demands: do you confess your guilt to all charges?

  Palitysn: I do.

  Ulrikh: Do you wish to add anything else, Accused Palitsyn?

  Palitsyn: I remain in my heart devoted to the Communist Party and Comrade Stalin personally: I have committed grave sins and crimes. If I face the Supreme Measure of Punishment, I shall gladly die a Bolshevik with the name Stalin reverently on my lips. Long live the Party! Long live Stalin!

  Ulrikh: Then let the judges retire. 3.22 a.m. The judges return.

  Ulrikh: In the name of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Military Tribunal of the Supreme Court has examined the case and established that Ivan Palitsyn was a member of an anti-Soviet Trotskyite group, connected to Okhrana double agents and White Guardists, and controlled by the Japanese and French secret services, linked to his wife Alexandra ‘Sashenka’ Zeitlin-Palitsyn (known in Party circles as Comrade Snowfox), Mendel Barmakid (known in Party circles as Comrade Furnace) and the writer Beniamin Golden. Having found Accused Palitsyn guilty of all said offences under Article 58, the Tribunal sentences him to the Highest Measure of Punishment, to be shot. The verdict is final and to be effected without delay …

  Katinka was sitting at the T-shaped desk in the Marmoset’s office at the Lubianka, reading the transcript of Vanya’s trial and the originals of his confessions. The Marmoset buffed his nails and read his Manchester United fanzine – but Katinka, her flesh creeping, could hear only the brutal verdict of the judge. Vanya Palitsyn was no longer a historical character to her. He was Roza’s father – and somehow she was going to have to tell her that he’d died so terribly. She was just searching through the papers for a certificate of execution when the door opened and the archives rat, Kuzma, hobbled into the room, pushing his trolley with its cats frolicking together on the lower tray.

  ‘Collecting files, Colonel,’ murmured Kuzma in his white coat, placing some papki in his trolley and sorting them into piles.

  Katinka returned to Palitsyn’s interrogations: he confessed to the crimes specified by Captain Sagan, whose confessions were also stowed in his file. But here was something odd: the confessions, signed by ‘Vanya Palitsyn’ on the top right-hand corner of each page, were filthy, as if they had been splashed in a muddy winter puddle. Had the interrogator spilt his coffee? Only while she was turning the pages did she realize that this muddy spray was surely the spatter of blood. She raised the paper to her face, sniffed it and thought that she could divine the telltale copperiness … Katinka felt disgust for the Marmoset, and for this evil place.

  ‘Excuse me, Colonel,’ said Katinka, her head full of Roza’s family and their sufferings. ‘There’s no death certificate in Palitsyn’s file. What happened to it?’

  ‘That’s all there is,’ said the colonel.

  ‘Was Vanya Palitsyn executed?’

  ‘If it’s in the file, yes; if it’s not, no.’

  ‘I saw Mouche Zeitlin yesterday. She said that the KGB sentenced Sashenka to “ten years without rights of correspondence”. What did that mean?’

  ‘It means she couldn’t receive or send letters or packages.’

  ‘So she could be alive?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But these files are empty. There’s so much missing!’

  The Marmoset shrugged and his nonchalance infuriated her.

  ‘I thought we had a deal.’ Katinka was aware she was almost shouting. They both glanced at Kuzma, who was edging slowly towards the door in his stiff, cadaverous gait.

  ‘I’m not an alchemist,’ said the Marmoset testily.

  Now she understood what Maxy had told her: archives start out as sheets of crushed tree-pulp but they come to life, they assume the grit of existence, they sing of life and death. Sometimes they are all that is left of families, and then they metamorphose. The stamps, signatures and instructions on scuffed, stained scraps of curling yellow paper can convey something approaching life, even sometimes love.

  The Marmoset came round the table and pulled a chit from the back of the file: Send files of Palitsyn case to Central Committee.

  ‘What does that mean?’ she asked him.

  ‘It means it’s not in this file. It’s in another one, and it’s not here. And that is not my problem.’

  Just then Kuzma unleashed a jet of gob into his KGB spittoon.

  ‘Comrade Kuzma, how good to see you,’ she said, jumping up. The fat marmalade cat sat on the trolley licking the scrawny kitten. ‘How are Utesov and Tseferman, our jazz cats?’

  This time, Kuzma opened a toothless mouth and emitted a high-pitched yelp of pleasure. ‘Ha!’

  ‘I brought them something. I hope they like it,’ Katinka said, taking a bottle of milk and a tin of cat food out of her handbag.

  Kuzma seized both these objects as if he
was in a hurry, snorting loudly and muttering to himself. He produced a brown saucer from his trolley and poured out milk for the cats, who immediately started to lap it up with pink tongues. When he spat enthusiastically in a high green arc, Katinka realized that the gobbing was the weathervane of his mood.

  The Marmoset sneered at her and shook his head, but Katinka ignored him, smiled at Kuzma instead, and then returned to the next file as the cats purred in the background.

  Investigation File June 1939

  Case 161375

  Mendel Barmakid (Comrade Furnace)

  Sashenka’s uncle; Roza’s great-uncle; comrade of Lenin and Stalin, the so-called ‘Conscience of the Party’ – but the file contained just one piece of paper.

  To Narkom L. P. Beria, Commissar-General, State Security, first degree

  From: Deputy Narkom B. Kobylov, Commissar-General, State Security, second degree

  12 October 1939

  Accused Mendel Barmakid died today 3 a.m. NKVD Dr Medvedev examined prisoner and certified death by cardiac arrest. Medical report attached.

  So Mendel died of natural causes. At least she had discovered the fate of one of the family.

  ‘Put the papers down,’ ordered the Marmoset.

  ‘But I haven’t got to Sashenka’s file!’

  ‘Two more minutes.’