Sashenka

Accompanied by a guard, Investigator Mogilchuk led Sashenka down a long passageway that she had never seen before, up some steps, across the covered bridge, down some steps, and they emerged onto a wide corridor with a parquet floor. It was lined with gleaming panels of Karelian pine, portraits and busts of early Chekist heroes, and silken banners. A blue carpet ran down the center, held in place with chunky gold tacks. Guards in ceremonial NKVD uniform stood beside a Soviet flag and a life-sized statue of Dzerzhinsky. The corridor ended in imposing double doors of oak. A guard opened them.

They entered an anteroom where two NKVD officers, probably from the regions, sat with their briefcases. Mogilchuk walked straight through a further set of double doors, which were opened by another guard. Inside, Sashenka recognized instantly the bustling apparat of a Soviet potentate: many secretaries in white blouses and grey skirts, eager young men in Party tunics, lines of Bakelite phones, piles of papki files, and green palms. A young officer jumped up and led them to a third closed door. He knocked and opened it.

“Investigator Mogilchuk?”

They entered an airy and bright office of monumental proportions, gleaming parquet and Karelian pine, smelling of polish and cool forests. To the left, some sofas and soft chairs were set on Persian carpets. Over the mantelpiece hung a huge oil painting by Gerasimov of Comrade Stalin, and in the corner sat a steel safe taller than a man. Marble busts of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky stood on each side of the room and, so far away that Sashenka could barely see it, another Gerasimov loomed, this time of Dzerzhinsky, Iron Felix, the founder of the Cheka, with his insane eyes and goatee.

In the middle of the room, a polished oak desk was attached to a conference table to form the T shape common to every office in the USSR. It was in pristine order, with a silver desk set, inkwells of turquoise ink, and only one or two pieces of paper on the blotter. The table behind the desk boasted eight telephones—and the vertushka Kremlin line. And presiding over it all, on a high-backed velvet burgundy chair, sat Comrade Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, Narkom of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs.

Beria was eating from a plate of what appeared to be spinach or salad leaves. He beckoned her into the room with an open palm, masticating energetically.

Mogilchuk saluted and left the room.

“Oh Lavrenti Pavlovich,” Sashenka said, “I’m so pleased to see you! Now we can clear this up.”

Beria swallowed his mouthful then stood up courteously, walked round the desk and kissed her hand. “Welcome, Alexandra Samuilovna,” he said formally in his rich Mingrelian accent, still holding her hand between his silky fingers. “You’re wondering what I’m eating?”

“Yes,” she said, though she did not give a damn what he was eating.

“Well, I don’t eat meat, you see. I hate killing anything. Those poor calves or lambs! No, I can’t bear it, and besides, Nina says I mustn’t put on weight! I’m a vegetarian so I eat only this—even at Josef Vissarionovich’s place. ‘Beria’s grass!’ says Comrade Stalin. ‘Look, Lavrenti Pavlovich is having his grass again!’ Now, let me look at you.” He kept her hand and turned her around as if they were dancing. ‘Ah, you’re so pale. But so beau-ti-ful still. That figure’s enough to drive a man like me to folly! To risk everything for just one caress. You’re like a cream cake. What a shame to meet like this, eh?’”

His colorless eyes ran over Sashenka with such gobbling greed that she flinched. The stocky and bald People’s Commissar with the pince-nez circled her noiselessly on his soft suede shoes. He was not in uniform, just baggy yellow slacks and a collarless, embroidered blouse, like a Georgian at the seaside. Sashenka had not forgotten that her husband used to play on Beria’s basketball team at his Sosnovka dacha. When she watched the games, she had noticed that Beria was incredibly quick on his feet.

“I’m so glad to see you,” she repeated. She meant it. Beria was ruthless but competent. Vanya had admired his diligence, industry and fairness after the drunken frenzy of Yezhov. “You can sort this out, Lavrenti Pavlovich! Bless you!”

“I could look at your hips and breasts all day, my cream cake, but you’re tired, I can see. Will you eat something?” He picked up a phone and said, “Bring in some sandwiches.”

At Beria’s invitation, she took one of the leather-seated chairs at the conference table adjoining Beria’s desk. He sat down too. The double doors opened and a woman in a white apron wheeled in a tea cart. Placing a white napkin over her arm (just like one of the waitresses at the Metropole Hotel), she served tea and set out some sandwiches and fish zakuski, then left.

“There!” said Beria, smacking his loose, balloon-like lips. “Now eat while we talk. You’re going to need your energy.”