Sashenka

“Ah. There are so few young comrades left, how refreshing to meet one,” said Agrippina. She paused, and stopped smiling. “But why hasn’t Comrade Satinov called me? He knows he should make an appointment…”

“He is very ill,” said Katinka. “Lung cancer.”

“I heard. But I should ring his daughter, this Mariko, and check…” She moved toward the phones on the T-shaped desk.

“Wait, Agrippina Constantinova,” said Katinka, a little frantically, “Mariko’s nursing him today…at the Kremlevka Hospital. That’s why I just came without an appointment. Comrade Satinov, in a lucid moment, told Mariko to give you a certain gift—and you would know it was from him.” She patted her package.

“It’s for me?”

“Oh yes.”

“From Mariko Satinov and the marshal?” Her beetle eyes fixed on the gift.

Agrippina wiggled her bottom closer to the edge of her seat so that she was closer to the package. Katinka rested her hand on it protectively. “Do you have Marshal Satinov’s full memoirs here, the manuscript?” Katinka was following Maxy’s instructions.

“Yes, young girl, I do, in this pile.” A blue-ringed hand pointed at the heaps of yellowing manuscripts that covered every inch of the room. “You understand that our famous comrades dictated their memoirs to their assistants or to me personally and then it was my task to edit the book for the Party, according to the guidance of the Central Committee, leaving out any materials that might distract the public. Not all the episodes in Marshal Satinov’s memoirs, as with all the memoirs of our leaders, were included in the final version.”

“Marshal Satinov is most keen for me to glance at those sections…so I can appreciate your editorial work. Before he became too ill in the last day or so, he told Mariko to give you this present as another mark of his gratitude.” Katinka took the package in her hands. “Do you have the manuscript?”

“I really must ring the marshal’s house or speak to the Archive Director about this…”

“If you wish,” said Katinka, “but then I would have to give the gift to someone else.”

That decided the matter. Agrippina fell to her swollen, dimpled knees on the carpet and, bending over the heaps of paper, so that Katinka could again see the scaffolding of her garter belt, she began talking to herself softly, naming each manuscript. Finally, in triumph, she held up Satinov’s memoir. Breathing heavily and pink in the face, she sat back on the chair and focused her eyes on the package.

Katinka waited, expecting Agrippina to hand over the document now resting so comfortably on her lap, but nothing happened. Agrippina looked at her, plucked red eyebrows raised, and Katinka looked back. The atmosphere in the room changed as the air changes when it is about to rain.

“Oh yes, Agrippina Constantinovna, I almost forgot,” said Katinka at last. “A gift from the Satinovs,” and she handed over the weighty package.

Agrippina, beaming, grabbed the bag and drew out an enormous three-hundred-dollar bottle of Chanel No. 5.

“My favorite!” exclaimed Agrippina, hugging the bottle. “How did the marshal remember?”

“May I look at the manuscript?” asked Katinka.

“Only in this room,” answered Agrippina. “There are a few fragments that weren’t published. No one has ever read them except me.”

Katinka felt a sense of foreboding as she took the wad of pages.

“Put your feet up on the divan,” said Agrippina. “Enjoy the cold air of the fans, and the music of Glinka. You may take notes.”

Katinka glanced through the pages quickly. Much of it was familiar from Satinov’s turgid book—“How we conquered the Virgin Lands,” “Building homes for Soviet workers,” “Creating the Motor Tractor Stations,” “An interesting conversation with Comrade Gagarin on our conquest of space” and so on…Another waste of time, thought Katinka, but then, as Agrippina anointed her wrists and neck and even behind her ears with Madame Chanel’s priceless nectar, she found something that made her heart pound.

21

A conversation with J.V. Stalin, January 1940

By Hercules Satinov

One night about 2:00 a.m., I was at my desk in Old Square when the phone rang.

“It’s Poskrebyshev. Comrade Stalin wants to see you at the dacha. There’s a car waiting for you downstairs.”

Stalin favored me. We had made an alliance with Nazi Germany but we knew the war would come soon. The Party had ordered me to supervise the creation of new tanks and artillery for the Red Army. I had been invited to the dacha twice already to discuss my work. So I wasn’t afraid, though when you went to see Stalin you never quite knew where it would end.

The car had chains on its wheels to avoid skidding on the ice—it was minus twenty degrees, a truly freezing winter. We sped up the Mozhaisk Highway and turned off into a drive through a forest of oaks, pines, firs, maples and birches. The occasional guard could be seen against the snows.