Sashenka (41 page)

Was she dangerously linked to Benya Golden via the magazine? Klavdia had called Andrei Zhdanov’s cultural apparat at Old Square and Fadeyev at the Writers’ Union. They had both passed him so her back was covered. She and he had met to discuss the commission. There was no personal connection between them. She was suddenly overtaken by selfdisgust. She loved only her children, husband, herself—and no one else.

Perhaps Satinov had been wrong? Perhaps the only link between Mendel and Benya was that both were prominent, and it was this that put them in danger. Before he left, Vanya had told her that other writers and artists had recently been arrested: Babel for one, Koltsov the journalist, Meyerhold the theatrical director. Perhaps
they
were connected?

Vanya had whispered that they were planning a fourth show trial, starring the fallen “Iron Commissar” Yezhov, and were considering tossing some diplomats and intellectuals into the cauldron. Perhaps that was what this nightmare was about?

She kissed the children; she hugged Carolina; she dressed in her favorite cream suit with white buttons and the blouse with the big white collar; she touched behind her ears with some Red Moskva perfume. Greeting the janitor and the guards, she walked to work. Granovsky was an elegant street, the apartment building pink and ornate, a wonderful place to live. Down the road, behind, stood the Kremlevka where the best specialists had delivered her babies.

She came out of Granovsky near Moscow University, where Snowy and Carlo would study one day.

The zestful breeze danced around her and she smiled as she passed the Kremlin, beaming waves of affection at the charming little window of the exquisite Amusements Palace, right by the wall of the Alexander Gardens where Stalin had lived until the suicide of his wife Nadya. As she crossed the Manege and passed the National Hotel, she caught sight of the domed and triangular splendor of the Sovnarkom Building where Stalin worked and where he lived, where the light was on all night. Thank you, Comrade Stalin, you always know the right thing to do, she telegraphed to him mentally through the amber air of a sunny Moscow day. You met Snowy, you understand everything. Health and long life to you, Josef Vissarionovich!

Walking with her slightly bouncing step, she turned left up Gorky Street. On the right stood the building where Uncle Gideon lived in a roomy apartment, near other famous writers like Ilya Ehrenburg. Trucks growled down the street, carrying cement for the new Moskva Hotel that was rising like a noble stone temple; Lincolns and ZiS limousines swept down the avenue toward the Kremlin; a dappled horse and cart was stationed outside the Mayor’s office, a former palace. Moscow was still unformed, still that collection of villages, but she belonged here. Up the hill and over the top, Sashenka passed men and women working on the new buildings, militiamen on duty spinning their truncheons, children on their way to school, Young Pioneers with their red scarves. Before she reached the Belorussian Station, she saw the fine statue of Pushkin—and turned right down to Petrovka with its shabby stalls offering fried pirozhki.

At the office, she called the editors to sit at the Tshaped table. “Come in, comrades. Do sit!

Let me hear your ideas for Comrade Stalin’s birthday issue in December.”

The days passed lightly and gracefully like new skates on glazed ice.

30

“Papa’s back!” cried Snowy.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Sashenka was in her nightie and housecoat. “Back to bed! It’s almost midnight.”

“Razum’s at the door with Daddy!”

“Daddy’s back?” Carlo, in blue pajamas, emerged all tousled from bed and stomped down the parquet corridor of the apartment.

“He’s at the door!” Snowy was jumping up and down. “Can we stay up? Please, Mama!”

“Of course!” She opened the door.

“Hello, Razum, you picked him up? He’s late as usual…”

“Stand back, no crap,” said Razum in an exaggerated voice with a blast of vodka and garlic. He stood, boots wide apart, pistol in his hand, in his usual shabby NKVD uniform.

“Come on, boys, this is the place! See how they lived, see what the Party gave him, the fat boss—and see how he repaid it!”

Razum was not alone: four Chekists stood behind him, and behind them stood the janitor, sweaty and embarrassed, fiddling with his baroque bunch of a hundred keys. The Chekists filed past her into the apartment.

“Oh God, it’s started.” Sashenka’s legs almost gave way, and she leaned against the wall.

A senior officer, a narrowfaced commissar with two tabs, who was too thin for his overlarge uniform, stood in front of her. “Orders to search this apartment, orders signed by L.

P. Beria, Narkom, NKVD.”

Razum elbowed this stick insect aside, so keen was he to be part of the operation. “We’ve arrested Palitsyn right at the Saratovsky Station at first light. He punched one of them, did Vanya Palitsyn.”

“That’s enough, comrade,” said the stick insect in charge.

“Where is he?” asked Sashenka eagerly. So Vanya’s train had been on time. Razum (probably excluded from the secret in case he warned his boss) had been at the station to meet him, and Vanya had been arrested then and there. Razum’s grotesque pantomiming was his desperate attempt to prove his loyalty and save his skin. Sashenka knew enough to realize Vanya would have been taken straight to the Internal Prison at what they called “the Center”: Lubianka.

“Not another word, Comrade Razum,” said the stick insect. “This is our affair.”

“I always had my suspicions about these
barins
.” Razum was still chattering. “There wasn’t much I didn’t see. Now we’re going to search the place, find out what papers that snake’s been hiding. This way, boys!”

The stick insect and his Chekists were already in the study. Carolina watched from her bedroom door. Had they come to arrest her? Sashenka wondered. Frantic longings and selfish thoughts filled her again: perhaps she was safe? Perhaps they only wanted Vanya?

Let Vanya be arrested. Let her stay with the children.

Sashenka and Carolina looked at each other silently. Were they too late? Would the children be tortured in that orphanage? How would they know what to do? Vanya had sent no signal. Should Carolina leave right now with the children? Tonight? Or would that bring further torment?

“What’s happening, Mama?” asked Snowy, arms curling round her mother’s waist. Carlo sensed the turmoil in the boots and the loud voices, the casual way the Chekists were opening drawers and slamming cupboards in the study, tossing papers and photographs into a heap on the floor. His pliant face collapsed in three stages: a slight downturn of the eyes and the lips; welling tears and crumpling features; the spread of a deep red blush as he started to howl.

“Stay in your bedroom,” cried Sashenka, hiding them behind her body. “Go to Carolina.”

Carolina opened her arms but the children froze around Sashenka, their hands clutching her hips and thighs, sheltering under her like travelers during a storm.

Vanya’s mother burst out of her room in a purple nightdress, followed by her husband.

“What’s going on?” she shouted. “What’s happening?” She ran into the study and started pushing the Chekists away from Vanya’s desk. “Vanya’s a hero! There’s been some mistake! What’s he been arrested for?”

“Article Fiftyeight, I believe!” answered the stick insect. “Now, out of the way. They’re removing the safe.”

Sashenka saw the secret policemen fixing a seal onto the door of the study. Four of the boys were straining to get Vanya’s safe to the elevator. Finally the janitor brought up a metal cart and they wheeled it out.

“Good night, Comrade ZeitlinPalitsyn,” said the uniformed stick insect to Sashenka.

“Don’t tinker with the seal on the study. We’ll return for more material tomorrow.”

“Wait! Does Vanya need some clothes?”

“The spy had a suitcase, thank you very much,” sneered Razum, hands on hips, striking a pose. “I’ll be right with you, lads!” he shouted over his shoulder to the stick insect and the others who were loading piles of papers into the elevator.

“Why do you hate us?” Sashenka asked him quietly.

“He’ll sing! He’ll confess, the hyena!” Razum said to her. “You bosses live like nobility!

Think you’re better than the likes of us? You’ve gotten fat and soft. Now you’re getting your comeuppance.”

“Silence, Comrade Razum, or you’ll be in the soup yourself!” piped the stick insect, holding the elevator door open. Old Razum turned abruptly but as he did so, something fell out of his pocket. Shouting drunken insults, he trotted after his fellows. The elevator door closed.

Sashenka shut the door, leaned back against it and sank to the floor, Carlo and Snowy collapsing with her, tangled in her legs. She was thinking coldly, trying to plan with the icy dedication of a mother in crisis—though her hands were shaking, the red sparks rising in her eyes were blinding her, and her belly was squirming.

“Cushion!” Snowy reached out to pick up the little pink cushion with a bow. “Silly Razum dropped my lovely cushion”—and she showed the wrinkled pink object to Sashenka.

Sashenka grabbed it from Snowy, examining it, turning it over, smelling it.

“No, Snowy. Wait,” she snapped as her daughter tried to retrieve it.

“I want my little cushion!” cried Snowy pitifully.

“Carolina!” The nanny was there already.

Vanya’s parents emerged from their room again and stood staring at the scene.

“Where’s Vanya?” asked Vanya’s mother. She pointed savagely at Sashenka. “I always told him you were a class enemy, born and bred. This is your doing, isn’t it?”

“Be quiet for once!” Sashenka retorted. “I’ll explain everything later. Tomorrow you two should go to the dacha or to the village—but for now please go to your rooms. I need to think!”

The old peasants muttered at her rudeness but retreated again.

“That bastard Razum,” spat Carolina.

“From now on, everyone’s a bastard. We’ve just crossed from one species to another,” said Sashenka, holding the little pink cushion. “Carolina, this was at the dacha?”

“Yes.”

“We didn’t bring it back, did we?”

“No, we didn’t. It lives in the playroom there.”

Sashenka turned to her daughter. “Where did this come from, darling?”

“Razum dropped it. That silly old man! He smells!”

“But who took it from the dacha? Did you see someone take it?”

“Yes, silly. Papa took it. I gave it to him to look after and he put it in his pocket.”

“So your papochka remembered us,” murmured Sashenka. “Dear Vanya.” Snowy’s cushion: what signal could be more appropriate? “Good old Razum,” she added.

“Can I have it, Mamochka?”

“Yes, darling heart, you can have it.”

Sashenka looked up at Carolina and the nanny looked back at her: it was an exchange of absolute maternal love, a look of gravity that tolled so poignantly that both women were stunned by it.

In that instant, Sashenka tried to touch, taste, see and feel all the treasured impressions and precious moments of her children’s lives. But she could not hold them and they slipped through her fingers, carried away on the wind.

31

The next morning, Sashenka went to the office. Some would have stayed in bed, claiming illness, but that in itself might arouse suspicions. The arrest of a husband did not always lead to the arrest of the wife. No, she would edit her magazine as she always did and take what came.

As she departed, she kissed the children, inhaled their skin, their hair. She looked into each of their faces in turn. She kissed Carlo’s brown eyes and pressed her lips onto Snowy’s silky forehead.

“I love you. I will always love you. Never forget it. Ever,” she said to each of them, firmly.

No tears. Discipline.

“Mama, Mama, can I tell you something?” said Carlo. “You are a silly old pooh!” and he roared with laughter at his wicked joke.

Snowy laughed too but took her mama’s side. “No, she’s not. Mama’s a darling cushion.”

High praise indeed.

Carolina stood behind them. Vanya’s parents pulled their coats on. Sashenka hesitated then nodded at them. They nodded too. There was nothing else to say now.

Sashenka shook herself. She craved to kiss Carlo and Snowy again, so craved it that she could wear away their very skin with kisses—but she shuddered and pulled on her coat and opened the door.

“Mama, I love you in my heart,” cried out Carlo. He blew a raspberry at her and then grabbed Snowy’s cushion and trotted off with it.

“Give me that back, you pooh!” Snowy pursued him, away from the adults.

Sashenka seized the moment and was gone, taking a little canvas bag and her handbag.

Just like that. The children did not even notice. One moment she was a mother with her children; the next she was gone. It was like jumping out of an airplane: a second that changed everything in life.

As she walked down the elegant wooden staircase, Sashenka could not see for the salty tears swimming across her vision.

But her senses sharpened as she came into the lobby. The guards went quiet as she approached them, and the janitor swept the parking lot with astonishing enthusiasm. When she passed Comrade Andreyev, Party Secretary, and his wife, Deputy People’s Commissar Dora Khazan, coming down to their ZiS, they met her eyes but looked right through her.

They were probably going to see Comrade Stalin and Comrade Molotov and Comrade Voroshilov that very day in the corridors of the Kremlin, in the land of the living. They might never cross paths again.

She waved gaily at the guards. One waved back but the other told him off.

She set out for work. The light, the flowers of the Alexander Gardens, the carts and horses, the dust and rumble of all those new building projects, the crocodile of redscarfed Young Pioneers singing gaily, none of this registered with her.

The pavement did not seem hard. She floated on the air because her shoes, feet, bones were no longer solid. Adrenaline rushed through her, along with the fine coffee she had made during the night.

She suddenly felt the urge to run back and kiss the children again. It was so strong that her muscles actually bunched and started to move but she held them back. Stick to the plan!