Sashenka (46 page)

“We can’t sleep well here. We’re beside the canteen but we want to go home. The cushion is my friend.”

“We want our mummy,” said the little boy, who already had the anxious eyes of a station child.

The words seemed to upset the Volga German woman. Stepanian glanced at her and she shook her head, immediately beginning to collect the bags in order to return to the platform where an Azeri family was keeping their place under the shelter just outside the canteen. She was trying to hide her anxiety but the stationmaster was a connoisseur of misery and uncertainty.

“Thank you, comrade,” the woman said very politely. “I’ll check in again tomorrow.”

Stepanian got up and held open the door for them. “Sorry, I can’t help,” he said. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Is she a fantasist? Maybe there’s no telegram?” his assistant asked when they’d left.

“Who knows?” Stepanian shrugged, dismissing them, and returned to his desk with a click of his tongue. He had an important job to do.

Outside the office, the bedraggled threesome walked slowly back to the platforms. RostovonDon station boomed with the thunder of shunting carriages while the air sang with the whistle and puffing of locomotives. Even though the turmoil of collectivization and the Terror was over, the regional stations were still mangy bedlams of confused humanity.

Families camped around their suitcases, some welltodo, some in rags, some in city clothes, some in peasant boots and smocks. Trains were overbooked and never left on time; tickets were hard to buy; the militia checked and rechecked passes and passport stamps, removing those who lacked the correct papers or the energy to dodge their sudden descents.

It was lucky it was a warm summer because the platforms resembled an encampment, crowded with soldiers, workers, peasants and children, hungry ragged children, wellfed lost children, children sitting on handsome leather suitcases, urchins with the faces of old men, little girls with painted lips and short skirts smoking cigarettes and looking for customers.

The canteen in the station offered snacks for those with rubles. An old Tatar ran a kiosk selling newspapers and candies, and behind the Moscow platform was a rusty spigot where the station’s inhabitants lined up all day for water. The lavatories, down the steps under the station, were awash with a foamy stinking waste yet there were constant lines; children sobbed and wet themselves and adults fought to get to the front faster.

Carolina was more than worried now. She did not know what had happened to Sashenka and presumed the worst. She was a deeply practical woman but the stress of caring for two children in the station was eating at her. She prided herself on her cleanliness, but by now all three of them were dirty, the children’s clothes stained with food, grease and piss.

She had a plentiful supply of rubles for food, but Snowy and Carlo, delicate eaters, were used to fine cooking and hated the watery vegetable soup, black bread and dumplings in thin tomato sauce that were the only things available in the canteen. They were already losing weight. During the day they played with other children but Carolina could never relax because some of these urchins had become feral tricksters who were capable of anything. She had to watch the suitcases too. At night they slept together, hugging one another, on their rolledup mattress under a blanket and some coats. Snowy and Carlo cried in her arms and asked about Mummy and Daddy. When would they see them again?

Where were they going?

The actual departure from Moscow had been easy enough: Vanya’s parents had reserved seats for Carolina and the children. The train had left on time; and although the journey had taken a day longer than scheduled, a kind Red Army soldier and his young wife, on their way to a new posting on the Turkish border, had taken pity on them and brought them ice creams and snacks from the stations where the train stopped. But the children knew something was terribly wrong. They wanted their mother. Carolina longed to comfort them but did not want to lie, or to encourage them to say dangerous things that might draw attention. It was agony. As they traveled away from their former life, from their parents, from Moscow, Snowy and Carlo clung to her.

“Will you be with us, Carolina? You’re staying with us, aren’t you? I miss Mama!”

After their visit to Comrade Stepanian, they went for their daily snack in the canteen. They sat at one of the greasy Formica tables. Carolina found that she was shaking. Weary and dispirited, she tried to fight off an attack of naked panic. The Palitsyns were gone. Perhaps Comrade Satinov had forgotten his plan? Perhaps he too had been destroyed? She counted her money in her mind: she had twentyfive rubles in her hand and the large sum of four hundred rubles in her brassiere, for emergencies. If there was no message soon, she would have to make a difficult decision. She had already decided there was no question of leaving Snowy and Carlo at an orphanage of any sort, especially not an NKVD one, but she had few connections in officialdom, and none that was independent of the Palitsyns. She would have to take the children home with her, to her German village not far from Rostov.

This filled her with joy, for she loved Snowy and Carlo. They loved her too and she knew that in time she could heal the wounds of loss with her loving care. But she was too old to be their mother and how long would it be before the NKVD came to arrest the Palitsyns’

nanny—and where else would they search than in her own village?

That night, she could not sleep. She listened to the chug of locomotives and hiss of steam, the neverquiet rumble of people and machines in the station. Carolina looked down at the pale faces of the children, at Snowy pressing her pink cushion against her lips for comfort, and, for the first time since she left Moscow, she started to cry.

39

“Prisoner seven hundred seventyeight, sit down. Now, did you sleep well?”

Sashenka, disheveled, pale, dehydrated and barely strong enough to speak, shook her head.

“Is your cell comfortable? How is the air circulating in this hot summer?”

Sashenka said nothing.

Investigator Mogilchuk swept a hand over his thick pompadour and stroked the papers in front of him. It was the same as yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

Sashenka had spent three days on the socalled conveyor. No sleep in an overheated cell had broken stronger prisoners than her. After breakfast and slopping out, they brought her back to this interrogation room.

“Your cheek has come up with quite a bruise. It’s black and blue.”

Sashenka touched it gingerly. It was very painful. Perhaps her cheekbone was fractured, she thought.

“Let’s start again. Remember your uncle Mendel. Do not wait until we force you! Begin your confession! Then we’ll let you sleep and solve that heating problem in your cell.

Would you like a night’s sleep?”

“I have nothing to confess. I am innocent.”

“Then how do you reconcile the fact of your arrest with that declaration of innocence? Do you think I’m a clown and Comrade Beria’s just passing the time of day?”

“I don’t understand it myself. I can only think it’s a mistake or the result of a misunderstanding caused by some coincidences.”

“The Party doesn’t recognize coincidences,” said Mogilchuk. “You saw Comrade Investigator Rodos in Comrade Beria’s office? He’s quite a man, a legend in the Organs, more like a dangerous beast: we have to stop him killing prisoners all the time. In fact, he’s damaged quite a few people close to you this very week. He says he gets a red mist before his eyes and forgets himself. He hates our sort, Sashenka. He hates intellectuals! You might have to meet him soon if you don’t disarm. But you’re in luck. I’m going to give you one more chance: I am going to introduce someone who might jog your memory.”

He picked up the telephone on his desk. “Deliver the package!” he said genially.

He smiled at Sashenka, removed and replaced his spectacles, and checked his pompadour.

They waited in silence. The phone rang.

“Yes, yes, comrade, we’ll wait for you.”

Mogilchuk left the room for a moment and then returned. “Just making sure everything is just so.”

“Can I have a glass of water?” Sashenka repeated Vanya’s instructions to herself and then, under her breath but still moving her lips, she chanted, “Snowy, Carlo, Cushion, Bunny.”

Mogilchuk was pouring her out a glass when the door burst open and Kobylov pretended to creep in, raising his huge shiny hands with the many glistening rings.

“Pretend I’m not here, Comrade Investigator. I’ll hide over here in the corner!” Just like a headmaster sitting at the back to observe a teacher’s class, the fragrant giant leaned against the wall and crossed his boots.

There was a knock on the door.

“Your show!” Kobylov whispered and wrinkled his nose at Sashenka. She looked away.

“Tired?” he hissed.

“Enter!” piped up Mogilchuk. “The confrontation starts now.” The door opened. The torturer from Beria’s office entered. “Welcome, Comrade Rodos,” Mogilchuk said.

Butterflies of physical fear fluttered in Sashenka’s belly. Rodos moved slowly as if made of rusty steel. He nodded at his comrades and then looked Sashenka straight in the eye. He sat down in the chair next to Mogilchuk and started to play with the long red hairs of the mole on his chin. This was the Sashenka team: Kobylov was in charge, with Mogilchuk and Rodos as the soft and hard men. Just to break her? No, they must be working on some bigger case, she thought; one that involved poor Mendel. Her natural optimism, barely still beating in her breast, told her she would survive this. No one had yet broken, that was clear.

So who were they bringing to surprise her? She had already seen Mendel—a heartbreaking, dreadful sight.

If it was Vanya, and he had told lies against her, she would understand that, under the ministerings of Rodos, he had crossed into the other world: she would still beam her love at him. She would not confess: she could still survive.

If it was Benya, darling Benya of the eight stars, of the seven thousand rubies, he was beyond blame now. She had rung him that day to say “I love you.” Now she loved him once more, convinced he was as innocent as she. If she never got out of the Lubianka, she would always be grateful that she had known such a love.

But she would not confess, whatever anyone said, because she was still innocent. And if she did not confess, she would one day be freed. And she would reclaim Snowy and Carlo. It was all for them now.

The door opened.

Sashenka looked down at her fingers with terrible foreboding. This was it.

She sensed, through her peripheral vision, a wizened figure hesitating in the doorway.

“Sit down, prisoner,” said Rodos, pointing at the chair facing Sashenka on the Tshaped conference table. “There!”

A skinny old man in blue prison overalls hesitated again, pointing at himself. “Yes, you!

Sit there, prisoner. Hurry!”

A bolt of expectation hit her. Was it her father? She gulped. Was he alive? Had he testified against her? It did not matter: if he was alive, she would be jubilant.

Love welled up in her for her father, her mother, her grandparents, all of them.

Papa! Whatever they’d done to him, whatever he’d done to her, she just wanted to hug him. Would they let her kiss him?

“Accused ZeitlinPalitsyn!” barked Rodos. “Face the prisoner.”

40

Esteemed Josef Vissarionovich, dearest Koba,

I write to you as an old comrade of over twentyfive years, during which time I have served the
Party and you as its ideal personification without once deviating from the Party line. I believe I owe
my successful career as a responsible worker in our noble workers’ and peasants’ Party to your
trust and kindness. I will obey any order of the Central Committee as I have always done, but I
wish to protest at the methods of “investigation” used on me by the workers of the Organs. I suffer
from ill health (a shadow on my right lung; angina and cardiac failure as well as physical weakness
from childhood lameness and severe arthritis from hard labor and prolonged exile in Siberia during
the Tsarist times) and I am now aged sixtyone. As a member of the Central Committee, I wish to
report to you as General Secretary and Politburo member that on arrival here in the Internal Prison
at the Lubianka, I was asked to confess to serving foreign powers. When I refused, I was forced
down onto a carpet and beaten on the feet and legs with rubber truncheons by three men with terrible force. I could no longer walk and my legs became covered in red and blue internal hemorrhages.

Each day, I was beaten again on the same places with a leather strap and rubber truncheons.

The pain was as intense as if boiling water had been poured on me or acid had burned me. I passed
out many times, I wept, I screamed, I begged for them to tell you, Comrade Stalin, what I was enduring. When I mentioned your name, they punched me in the face, breaking my nose, my cheekbone and my glasses, without which I can barely function, and they started to beat my spine too.

My selfrespect as a Bolshevik almost prevents me from telling you more, Illustrious Comrade
Stalin, and it pains me even to say this: when, lying in a shuddering heap on the floor, I refused
again to tell the Party lies, the interrogators relieved themselves (and, in doing so, polluted the
name of our sacred Party of Lenin and Stalin) on my face and in my eyes. Even in the
katorga
hardlabor camps under the Tsar, I never endured an iota of this fear and pain. I am now in my cell
shivering in every muscle, barely able to hold this pen. I feel such overpowering fear, I who as a revolutionary of thirty years have never experienced fear, and a terrifying urge to lie to you, Josef Vissarionovich, and to incriminate myself and others, including honest responsible workers, even
though this itself would be a crime against the Party.

I understand that our great state needs the weapons of terror to survive and triumph. I support our
heroic Organs in their search for Enemies of the People and spies. I am not important. Only the
Party and our noble cause matter. But I am sure that you do not know of these practices and I urge
you, esteemed old comrade, Great Leader of the Working Class, our Lenin of today, to investigate
them and alleviate the sufferings of a sincere and devoted servant of the Party and you, Comrade
Stalin.