Sashenka

“That was why Stalin summoned you to the Little Corner when he read the transcript of Benya and Sashenka. He was aware you’d known them since Petersburg and that you were Roza’s godfather. He’d seen you all together at the May Day party. Did he want to find out what you knew about them?”

Satinov blinked and said nothing.

“Beria left and you arrived at ten thirty p.m.—I’ve seen Stalin’s appointment book. But then what happened? Sashenka had had an affair. Vanya was jealous and bugged their hotel room. How did that grow into Captain Sagan’s conspiracy and the destruction of an entire family?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Satinov.

“Why did Stalin request all the files on the case?” She glared at him. Cold bloodshot eyes looked back. “You’re not going to answer that either? How can you pretend you don’t know what happened?”

“Just find Carlo,” Satinov wheezed. “You must be so close.”

“And what did Stalin mean when he wrote Bicho to curate?”

There was a long pause during which Satinov breathed painfully. “Read my memoirs carefully,” he said at last.

“Believe it or not, I’ve read every word of your interminable speeches on peaceful coexistence and your heroic role in forging the socialist Motherland and there’s not a word of humanity in it.” His eyes were fixed on her but she didn’t stop. “You’ve lied to me again and again. The KGB has concealed its crimes but today I got hold of the transcript of Sashenka’s trial. You were at the trial of your best friend!”

His breathing creaked.

“Take a look,” she said, pulling out the first page of the trial.

“I haven’t got my glasses.”

“Well, let me help you then. Here, look at this. It’s you, Marshal Satinov! You didn’t just attend the trial,” she was almost yelling at him, “you were a judge.”

“Read my judgment,” he gasped.

“You sat there in judgment on your best friend, the mother of your godchild. Sashenka found you at the trial. What did she think when she saw you? What went through her mind? I thought you were a hero. You saved Snowy and Carlo yet you presided over Sashenka’s destruction! Was she sentenced to death? Or did she die in the Gulags? Tell me, tell me! You owe it to her children!”

Satinov’s face tightened as his breathing constricted and his mouth gaped open.

To her shame, Katinka fought back her own tears. “How could you have done such a thing? How could you?”

“What’s going on in here?” Mariko appeared in the doorway, holding a tea tray. “What is it, Papa?”

As Katinka left the room, she looked back at the old man. The oxygen mask was on his face, his lips were blue, a wiry arm was raised—and a gnarled finger pointed toward the door.

19

Judge Ulrikh: Sashenka Zeitlin-Palitsyn, you have confessed to a remarkable conspiracy to kill our heroic leaders, Comrade Stalin and the Politburo, at your own house. We have read your confession. Do you have anything more to say?

Accused Zeitlin-Palitsyn: I plotted to kill the great Stalin at my house. I rubbed arsenic and cyanide powder onto the curtains of the room where Comrade Stalin would stand.

Judge Ulrikh: And the gramophone?

Accused Zeitlin-Palitsyn: Yes, on the gramophone too. I had heard from various comrades, including my husband Vanya, that Comrade Stalin liked to listen to music after dinner so I dusted the gramophone with cyanide dust.

Judge Satinov: Accused Zeitlin-Palitsyn, we need more details…

Satinov was speaking for the first time at the trial. Katinka could almost hear the voices of these flint-hearted men in the pine-paneled office in the Sukhanovka Prison, lit up in a bright electric glare in the middle of the night. NKVD guards in blue stood armed at the doors. Ulrikh, with his bullet-like bald head, sat behind the desk with Satinov and the other judge, all in their Stalinka tunics and gleaming boots.

As soon as she had left that disastrous meeting with Satinov, Katinka had called Maxy, repeating what had been said word for word, trying to disguise her tears. But Maxy was encouraging. Satinov had told her to read his judgment, so she must read it right away. Satinov had told her to read his memoirs—and that must mean something too. Maxy proposed that they meet at midday the next day at the closed Archive for Special Secret Political-Administrative Documents, through the archway off Mayakovsky Square.