Sashenka

Half an hour later, Katinka heard the welcome roar of his motorbike. Feeling excited and suddenly pleased to see him, she ran outside, and soon they were racing along roads newly covered with sleek black asphalt, paid for by the oligarchs and ministers who owned dachas in that region, no longer ramshackle wooden villas but gigantic chalets and mock-Tudor palaces, guarded by watchtowers and high walls. After a while Maxy turned the bike off the road and onto a rougher lane into the forest.

The sunlight shone through the leaves of birch and pine and linden. Katinka enjoyed the bumpiness of the ride and the clarity of the air after all the hours she had spent recently on planes and in dusty archives. Finally they stopped in a clearing near an old-fashioned wooden villa. Katinka pulled off her helmet and found herself among raspberry canes and blackberry bushes.

“What a beautiful place,” she said, shaking back her hair.

“I’ve brought some Borodinsky bread and cheese to nibble while we talk, and some juice.”

“I never thought you’d be so domesticated,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

Maxy looked embarrassed but pleased. He put the food on the grass and sat down. “Well? Who’s first?”

“You!” they both said at the same time—and then they laughed.

“No,” Maxy said, “I want to hear your news first, and how I can help you. But I just wondered…what was it like being home?”

“Fine,” she answered. She sat down on the grass, enjoying the way the dappled beams made puzzle shapes on Maxy’s face. The sun heated the pine resin so that it sweetened the air.

He broke up the black bread, cut a slice of cheese and offered her both.

“How’s your boyfriend down there?”

“Oh, I see what you meant. About being home.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just…”

“Curious? He’s the same as he was before, but I’m not sure how long I’ll stay down there. Meeting Roza and Pasha, researching Sashenka”—she was surprised at how nervously he seemed to be listening to her words—“has changed things a bit, changed me in fact. So I’m thinking of staying in Moscow this summer. I might get on with my research or, if you’re kind to me, I might even help you out a bit at the foundation…”

“That’s great!” Maxy smiled so sunnily at her that Katinka wanted to laugh. But she discovered that his pleasure delighted her, though she resolved not to show it. He was too pleased with himself as it was.

“Anyway,” he said, changing tone, returning to business, “what did Satinov’s daughter give you?”

Katinka pulled the envelope out of her jacket, undid the string at the top and drew out an old file from the archives. “I’ve only glanced at it. It’s the missing file.”

Top Secret.

To: J. V. Stalin; L. P. Beria

Report of the Commission of Inquiry on behalf of Central Committee—Comrades Merkulov, Malenkov, Shkiryatov—on the official misconduct concerning the Highest Degree of Punishment of Object 83 at Special Object 110 on 21 January 1940. Report filed 12 March 1940.

Katinka noticed the doodlings—circles, rhomboids and crescents in green crayon—around the heading, and gasped: “It’s Stalin’s own copy.”

“Right,” said Maxy.

“How did Satinov get it?”

“That’s easy. After Stalin’s death in fifty-three, each leader wanted to save his own skin so they all rifled through the archives to remove any especially incriminating documents. Usually they burned them. But Satinov kept this.” He studied the document carefully, absentmindedly putting a cigarette in his mouth, striking a match but forgetting to light it.

“Now let’s interpret this. The Highest Degree of Punishment is execution with a single bullet to the back of the neck. The Special Object One Hundred Ten is Beria’s special prison, Sukhanovka, the former St. Catherine’s Nunnery at Vidnoe, where Sashenka and Vanya were tried and executed. It was so secret that prisoners there were known by numbers, not by their names, so Object Eighty-three is—”

“Sashenka,” interrupted Katinka. “It was her number on the death list.” She leaned over and started to read. “First they interviewed Golechev, the prison commandant…”