Sashenka

  When she saw Katinka’s downcast face, Roza put out her arms to her. ‘Don’t worry, Katinka. I’m disappointed too, but I think I understand. I left it all much too late.’ Then she squeezed Katinka’s hand. ‘The most important thing is that I’ve found out who I am – and I’ve found a niece I never knew I had. I’ve got you, darling Katinka.’

  They stood there for a moment as if they were alone in the world – until Pasha kissed his mother gently on the top of the head.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ he said, walking her to the car. ‘It’ll take time, Mama.’

  As he closed Roza’s door, he whispered to Katinka: ‘It’s understandable. It’s not your fault. Don’t you see? They’re strangers. Your father didn’t want to find his past. It found him.’

  * * *

  Now Katinka and Roza, her newly discovered aunt, whom she was coming to love, stood arm in arm waiting their turn in the short line that led across the sitting room at Satinov’s home. Even without her brother, Roza had insisted on coming to see the man who had changed her life so decisively, once damningly, once selflessly and now, belatedly, in an attempt at redemption.

  The other mourners seemed to belong, Katinka thought, in a bizarre seventies time warp. She watched as bloated women in bosom-squeezing suits and sporting giant nut-red hairdos passed by with their men, sausagey apparatchiks with oiled brushovers on bald pates and brown suits with medals. But there were younger army officers too and some children, probably Satinov’s grandchildren. Their parents kept trying to hush their giggles and games at such a solemn ritual.

  At the front of the line, Katinka held Roza’s hand as they stepped up on to the slightly raised plinth and looked down into the coffin. She couldn’t help but look at Satinov’s face with fondness, despite the games he had played with her. Death – and the attentions of a meticulous embalmer and hairdresser – had restored to him the graceful virility and serene grandeur of a Soviet hero of the older generation. Four rows of medals glinted on his chest; the starred and gilded shoulderboards of a marshal of the Soviet Union glistened; the grey hair reared up stiffly in bouffant, razor-cut spikes.

  ‘I remember playing with him long ago,’ said Roza, looking at him. ‘And he was the man in the car who watched me going to school in Odessa from his limousine.’ She leaned into the coffin and kissed Satinov’s forehead, but stepping off the plinth she tottered and Katinka caught her. ‘I’m fine,’ Roza said. ‘It’s all so much to absorb.’

  Katinka helped her to a chair, from where Roza watched the children running up the long corridor and sliding on their knees along the gleaming parquet floor. Katinka went to the kitchen to get Roza a glass of water. Mariko and a couple of relatives, obviously Georgians, perhaps her brothers, were drinking tea and nibbling on Georgian snacks.

  ‘Oh, Katinka,’ said Mariko, ‘I’m pleased you came. Would you like some chai or a glass of wine?’ Mariko looked weary in her black suit but Katinka was sure she had grown younger and prettier in the last few days. ‘Tomorrow he’s going to lie in state in the Red Army Hall,’ she said proudly.

  ‘Thanks to your father, I found Sashenka’s children,’ explained Katinka, ‘and – you’ll never guess – thanks to him, I learned that Sashenka was my grandmother. Imagine that!’

  Mariko brought Roza into the kitchen. Mariko’s relatives left them alone and she poured chai and offered them food.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Roza as she sipped her tea, ‘I remember sliding on the floor of this apartment.’

  ‘Your apartment was in this building too, wasn’t it?’ asked Katinka.

  ‘Not just in this building,’ said Roza sharply. ‘This was our home, this very apartment, and I remember when the men in shiny boots came here: a pile of photographs, papers in a heap on the floor over there, and us being hugged by a pretty woman in tears.’

  Katinka glanced at Mariko, who said nothing for a moment: she and Roza were close in age but they had led very different, almost mirrored lives.

  ‘I was born in 1939,’ said Mariko, taking a sip of red wine. ‘I think we were granted this apartment at that time too. It was impossible to refuse a gift from the Party – it was a test of loyalty …’ – she swallowed hard and looked away – ‘but I never dreamed it came to us like that. I don’t know what to say.’

  Roza reached out and put her hand on Mariko’s. ‘It is so wonderful to meet you. If things hadn’t happened the way they did, we might have grown up together.’

  ‘I wish we had. It must be so hard for you to come here … It’s hard to learn some things, and it was hard for my father.’

  ‘He helped me,’ Katinka told her, ‘but there were some things he didn’t want me to discover.’

  ‘He so wanted you to find Sashenka’s children again,’ said Mariko, ‘but he’d devoted his life to the Soviet Union and the Party. He needed to help you without undermining his beliefs. And he never wanted anyone to know the terrible thing he had done. My father saw much tragedy in his life but, you know, I think Sashenka was always in the back of his mind, in his dreams. She and all her family. He must have seen them every day in this apartment.’

  ‘But we still don’t know what happened to her,’ said Katinka with a touch of bitterness. ‘The file was missing. Only your father knew, and he’s taken the secret to his grave.’

  There was nothing else to say. Mariko stood up, collecting the plates and the cups, piling them in the sink.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ said Roza.

  Mariko dried her hands on a towel. ‘And I’m s—’ but she stopped herself sharply. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said at last.

  A few minutes later, Katinka and Roza walked down the stone steps to the street where Pasha’s Bentley waited. A chauffeur opened the door. History is so messy, so unsatisfactory, Katinka thought, remembering her father’s sorrowful words earlier that morning. She too hated the way history toyed with people.

  ‘Katinka!’ She looked up. ‘Katinka!’ Mariko was calling her from the first-floor landing.

  The front door was still open and Katinka turned and ran back up the steps.

  ‘Take this.’ Mariko thrust a yellow envelope into Katinka’s hands. ‘My father made me promise to destroy it. But I want you to have it. Go on, Katinka, it’s your story as well as ours. Yours and Roza’s.’

  27

  ‘I need your help, Maxy, for one last time,’ Katinka told him on the telephone once she and Roza were back at the Getman mansion.

  ‘It’s lovely to hear your voice,’ answered Maxy. ‘I missed you. And I’ve got something to show you, out in the countryside. What better place to talk and think. Can I pick you up?’

  Half an hour later, Katinka heard the welcome roar of his motorbike. Feeling excited and suddenly pleased to see him, she ran outside, and soon they were racing along roads newly covered with sleek black tarmac, paid for by the oligarchs and ministers who owned dachas in that region, no longer ramshackle wooden villas but gigantic chalets and mock-Tudor palaces, guarded by watchtowers and high walls. After a while Maxy turned the bike off the road and on to a rougher lane into the forest.

  The sunlight shone through the leaves of birch and pine and linden. Katinka enjoyed the bumpiness of the ride and the clarity of the air after all the hours she had spent recently on planes and in dusty archives. Finally they stopped in a clearing near an old-fashioned wooden villa. Katinka pulled off her helmet and found herself among raspberry canes and blackberry bushes.

  ‘What a beautiful place,’ she said, shaking back her hair.

  ‘I’ve brought some Borodinsky bread and cheese to nibble while we talk, and some juice.’

  ‘I never thought you’d be so domesticated,’ she said. ‘I’m impressed.’

  Maxy looked embarrassed but pleased. He put the food on the grass and sat down. ‘Well? Who’s first?’

  ‘You!’ they both said at the same time – and then they laughed.

  ‘No,’ Maxy said, ‘I want to hear your news first, and how I can help
you. But I just wondered … what was it like being home?’

  ‘Fine,’ she answered. She sat down on the grass, enjoying the way the dappled beams made puzzles on Maxy’s face. The sun heated the pine resin so that it sweetened the air.

  He broke up the black bread, cut a slice of cheese and offered her both.

  ‘How’s your boyfriend down there?’

  ‘Oh, I see what you meant. About being home.’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just …’

  ‘Curious? He’s the same as he was before, but I’m not sure how long I’ll stay down there. Meeting Roza and Pasha, researching Sashenka …’ – she was surprised at how nervously he seemed to be listening to her words – ‘has changed things a bit, changed me in fact. So I’m thinking of staying in Moscow this summer. I might get on with my research or, if you’re kind to me, I might even help you out a bit at the foundation …’

  ‘That’s great!’ Maxy smiled so sunnily at her that Katinka wanted to laugh. But she discovered his pleasure delighted her, though she resolved not to show it. He was too pleased with himself as it was.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, changing tone, returning to business, ‘what did Satinov’s daughter give you?’

  Katinka pulled the envelope out of her jacket, undid the string at the top and drew out an old file from the archives. ‘I’ve only glanced at it. It’s the missing file.’

  Top Secret.

  To: J. V. Stalin; L. P. Beria

  Report of the Commission of Inquiry on behalf of Central Committee – Comrades Merkulov, Malenkov, Shkiryatov – on the official misconduct concerning the Highest Degree of Punishment of Object 83 at Special Object 110 on 21 January 1940. Report filed 12 March 1940.

  Katinka noticed the doodlings – circles, rhomboids and crescents in green crayon – around the heading, and gasped: ‘It’s Stalin’s own copy.’

  ‘Right,’ said Maxy.

  ‘How did Satinov get it?’

  ‘That’s easy. After Stalin’s death in ’53, each leader wanted to save his own skin so they all rifled through the archives to remove any especially incriminating documents. Usually they burned them. But Satinov kept this.’ He studied the document carefully, absent-mindedly putting a cigarette in his mouth, striking a match but forgetting to light it.

  ‘Now let’s interpret this. The Highest Degree of Punishment is execution with a single bullet to the back of the neck. The Special Object 110 is Beria’s special prison, Sukhanovka, the former St Catherine’s Convent at Vidnoe, where Sashenka and Vanya were tried and executed. It was so secret that prisoners there were known by numbers, not by their names, so Object 83 is—’

  ‘Sashenka,’ interrupted Katinka. ‘It was her number on the deathlist.’ She leaned over and started to read. ‘First they interviewed Golechev, the prison commandant …’

  Commission: Comrade Commandant Golechev, you were responsible for the completion of the Highest Degree of Punishment on sentenced prisoners on 21 January 1940. The Highest Degree was to be witnessed on behalf of the Central Committee by Comrade Hercules Satinov. Why did you begin early and in such a disorderly and un-Bolshevik way?

  Golechev: The Highest Degrees were carried out in the professional manner expected of an NKVD officer.

  Commission: I warn you, Comrade Golechev, this is a serious offence. Your conduct helped our enemies. Were you working for the enemy? You may well face the Highest Degree yourself.

  Golechev : I confess before the Central Committee to serious and foolish mistakes. It was my birthday. We started drinking early, at lunchtime, and drinking helps when there’s a Vishka to conduct. Cognac, champagne, wine, vodka. At midnight it was time to bring the prisoners down, but Comrade Satinov was late and we couldn’t start without him.

  Commission: Comrade Satinov, why were you, the witness, so late?

  Satinov: I was taken ill, seriously ill, but I reported my illness to the commandant and arrived at Sukhanovka as soon as I could.

  Commission: Comrade Satinov, you knew some of the convicted prisoners, especially Sashenka Zeitlin-Palitsyn. Were you suffering from a neurasthenic crisis caused by bourgeois sentimentality?

  Satinov: No, on my word as a Communist. I simply had food poisoning. In our times of struggle and war, Enemies of the People must be liquidated.

  ‘You get the picture?’ asked Maxy. ‘The NKVD guards are wildly drunk; Sashenka, Vanya and over a hundred others are awaiting execution; and Satinov is so upset that he is too sick to attend. So what happens?’

  Golechev: As we drank, our talk turned to the depravity of our female Enemies, most particularly Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn – the famous Sashenka. We’d heard about this traitor’s repellent, snake-like depravity, how she used her devious female wiles to seduce and entrap other traitors, and since Comrade Satinov was not yet present, we, under the influence of alcohol and our disgust for her betrayal, decided to begin with her. We brought her up to my dining room and …

  In green pen, beside this statement, Stalin had written one word: Hooligans.

  ‘Now we hear from Blokhin,’ said Maxy.

  Commission: Comrade Major Blokhin, you were designated to conduct the Highest Measure on the 123 prisoners on this list, yet you complained about the commandant’s conduct.

  ‘Blokhin was Stalin’s top executioner,’ Maxy explained. ‘In the case of the Polish prisoners at Katyn, he personally executed about eleven thousand men in a series of nights.’

  Blokhin: At midnight, I arrived ready to begin my duties as Chief of the Command Operations Section in the Highest Degree of this list of 123, but I wish to report to the Central Committee that I found the commandant and his officers drunk in the presence of Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn, who was being treated in a highly unprofessional way, against the noble Chekist morality. She was already partially disrobed. I protested strongly. I offered to carry out the sentence myself at once but I was sent away. I tried to call Comrade Satinov. When he arrived I reported everything to him. These drunken and bungling amateurs made a mockery of my Chekist professionalism and skill in this special and sensitive work. They were taking bets and shouting. At approximately thirty-three minutes after midnight, they forced Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn outside into the courtyard near the officers’ garages, which is lit up very brightly by searchlights. The temperature was approximately minus 40 degrees.

  Golechev: When she was outside, we performed the Highest Degree, the sentence of the Military Collegium against Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn, but in our drunkenness and because of the unprofessional lateness of Comrade Satinov … we did so in an unacceptable, frivolous and depraved manner. Yes, I admit we were curious about her as a seductive agent of the Japanese Emperor and British lords, and as a woman.

  Katinka felt cold. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘Did they rape her?’

  ‘No. If they had done, it would say so here,’ said Maxy. ‘But they were certainly excited by her beauty, her reputation as a seductress. They’d heard of the transcript of Sashenka and Benya.’

  Satinov: I arrived at 3.06 a.m. and noticed something strange in the courtyard near where my driver parked my car. I admit before the Central Committee that my lateness was partly the cause of this misconduct. Commandant Golechev was drunk and tried to conceal what he had done. I summoned Major Blokhin and reviewed the List of Prisoners to Face the Highest Measure. I noted the absence of Prisoner Zeitlin-Palitsyn. I ordered Commandant Golechev to take me to her. Afterwards, I ordered Commandant Golechev and Major Blokhin to begin at once. The prisoners were brought down to the cell designed for this purpose and I observed the Vishka of 122 prisoners as the witness of the Central Committee. Major Blokhin put on a butcher’s apron and conducted himself very competently. As a devoted Communist, I delighted in the liquidation of these Enemies, traitors, scoundrels and bastards.

  Golechev: We committed a crime against the highest morals of the Communist Party but I’m devoted heart and soul to the Party and Comrade Stalin. I expect pitiless punishment f
or this but I throw myself upon the mercy of the Central Committee. At around 3 a.m., Comrade Satinov finally arrived and he behaved in an unprofessional manner, exposing his bourgeois sentimentality …

  Stalin’s red crayon encircled this accusation and scrawled the words: Satinov sympathy???

  ‘So what happened? What did Satinov see?’ asked Katinka, concentrating absolutely – no question had ever seemed so vital.

  Satinov: She was completely … exposed. Commandant Golechev displayed depraved infantilism and corrupt philistinism, as I reported in person and on paper to the Instantzia. I confess that, while questioning Golechev, I struck him twice and he fell to the ground. This was due to my outrage as a good Communist, not any bourgeois sentimentality towards the Enemy.

  Maxy whistled. ‘So whatever happened to Sashenka, it made Satinov, an iron man of that pitiless generation, lose control. How extraordinary – to have cracked up like that in front of those secret policemen who could have signed his own death warrant there and then.’

  ‘But what did he see?’ Katinka realized she was actually shouting.

  ‘Hang on …’ Maxy went on reading. ‘Here.’ He pointed at the bottom of the document. In the midst of a maze of green shading and squiggles, Stalin had written a word.

  Hose.

  ‘Hose? Have I misread it?’

  Maxy shook his head. ‘I don’t think so …’ He hesitated.

  ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘I heard of a similar case at Vladimir Prison in 1937. I think they tied Sashenka to a post and turned the hose on her. She was naked. It was an unusually cold night. They took bets on how long it would take … the water to freeze. Gradually the ice encased her. Like a glass statue.’

  28

  Neither of them spoke for a long time. The finches serenaded them in the woods, bees danced around the cherry blossoms and the lilacs peeked their white and purple heads through the silvery birches.

  As Katinka wept for the grandmother she’d never known, she thought of what Sashenka must have endured during that long, terrifying night in the cold winter of 1940. After a while, Maxy put his arms around her.