Sashenka

“I think, since I woke her up,” said Stalin slowly, “we should let this little beauty stay up and join our singing, but if your parents think you should go to bed…” Sashenka shook her glossy head, and Stalin raised a finger: “I resolve: one, the Party recognizes that Cushionism is not a deviation. Two, if you stay up, you should sit on my knee and tell me about Cushionism! Three: you will go to bed when your mother says so. How is that, young Comrade Snowy Cushion?”

Snowy nodded then peered at Stalin with her very blue discerning gaze. She raised her arm.

“I know you,” she said, pointing. Sashenka flinched again.

Stalin said nothing, watching.

“You’re the poster in the Red Corner,” said Snowy. “The poster’s come for dinner.” Everyone laughed, Sashenka and Vanya with relief.

Stalin sat back at the table and opened his arms. Terrified that her daughter would reject Stalin, Sashenka put Snowy onto the Leader’s knee, but she was much more interested in waving the cushion to the music. They sang another round of songs. After the first song, Stalin put Snowy down, kissed her forehead and she sped round to her mother.

“Say good night and thanks to Comrade Stalin,” said Sashenka, holding Snowy tightly.

“Night, night, Comrade Cushion,” said Snowy, waving her pink cushion.

“I’m sorry, Comrade Stalin…”

“No, no. That’s a first!” Stalin laughed. “Good-bye, Comrade Cushion.”

Sashenka carried Snowy from the room. “Comrade Stalin, you are so good with children. She’ll remember this all her life. I can’t thank you enough for your kindness and tolerance to Snowy.” Sighing with relief, she tucked Snowy into bed and the child was asleep a moment later.

When she returned to the sitting room, she was holding something. Stalin’s eyes flicked toward her hands. “Comrade Stalin, as a small thank you for the honor of having you as our guest, but really to thank you for your patience with our daughter, may I give you a gift of a sweater for your daughter Svetlana?” She held up a cashmere sweater that would fit the thirteen-year-old Svetlana Stalin and handed it to him.

“Where’s it from?” Stalin asked coldly.

Sashenka swallowed. It was from Paris. What should she say?

“It’s from abroad, Comrade Stalin. I am very proud of our Soviet products, which are better than any foreign luxuries, but this is just a simple sweater.”

“I wouldn’t accept it for myself,” said Stalin, puffing on a cigarette, “but since Svetlana is really the one who runs the country, I shall accept it for her.” Everyone laughed and Stalin stood up. “Right! Who’s up for a movie? I want to see Volga, Volga again.”

Almost everyone except Sashenka, who had to listen for the children, and Comrade Mendel, who said he was too tired and ill, was up for a movie. They piled into the cars to drive back to the movie theater in the Great Kremlin Palace. Stalin kissed Sashenka’s hand and complimented her dress again. Outside, he inspected the buds on the bushes.

“You grow roses here. And jasmine. I love roses.” Then, surrounded by the swaggering Georgians and the young men in white suits, he lumbered away in that heavy, slightly crooked gait, toward the waiting cars. Egnatashvili opened the door for him.

As he climbed into one of the cars, Vanya waved at Sashenka, exhilarated to be in the entourage for the first time. “Back soon, darling!” he called.

Beria kissed her on the mouth with his sausagey, blood-swollen lips. “He likes you,” he said in his thick Mingrelian accent. “Well done. He’s got good taste, the Master. You’re my type too!”

Satinov was last to leave, peering round to make sure the bosses were in their cars. Doors slamming, wheels screeching, the clouds of exhaust and dust rising over the moon-kissed orchards, the Buicks and ZiSes revved up and skidded out of the drive.

“Phew, Sashenka!” he said. “Long live Cushionism! Kiss my goddaughter for me, the little charmer!” Feeling weak, Sashenka kissed Satinov good-bye. Then he jumped into the last car, which sped away.

The young men in white suits had disappeared.

Alone on the veranda, Sashenka looked up at the sky. Dawn had begun to break. Wondering if she had been dreaming, she went inside and looked into the children’s rooms.

Carlo had slept through it all but he had thrown off his pajamas and now lay naked with his head at the wrong end of the bed. His body was still wrapped in the pink fleshy curves of a baby and he held on to a soft rabbit. Sashenka shook her head with pleasure and kissed his satiny forehead.

Snowy slept like an angel in her pink room, her hands resting open on her pillow, on either side of her head. That damn cushion lay on her bare chest. Sashenka smiled. Even Comrade Stalin loved Cushion. What a strange night it had been.

8

Stalin sat in the middle pullout seat between the front and back seats of his new ZiS limousine, Beria in the back with Egnatashvili, and his chief bodyguard, Vlasik, in the front beside the driver. The rest were in other cars.