One Night in Winter (11 page)

The Game was over, and Andrei could breathe once more. Half an hour later, as Rosa was collecting the glasses, she tripped and knocked one off the tomb.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, picking up the shattered glass from the ground.

‘You’re so clumsy, you spoil everything,’ Nikolasha snapped in a spasm of cruelty that made Andrei wince for her. ‘You just don’t have the sensory talents for passion. But Serafima has it in spades. Serafima understands poetry. Without her, the Fatal Romantics wouldn’t exist. Don’t you agree, Rosa?’

Rosa’s pale face flushed. ‘At least I’m here this evening,’ she said. ‘Serafima’s not. Where is she, Nikolasha?’

‘She said she might come later,’ he said.

‘Well, I hate to tell you, but I don’t think she’s coming.’ Rosa turned to Andrei. ‘But that makes no difference. Even when she doesn’t deign to join us, she’s
always
here.’

And that was when Andrei realized why Nikolasha was so peevish. Serafima hadn’t come and Rosa’s devoted presence reminded him of her absence. Andrei understood how he felt. Ever since he’d arrived at the school, he had wanted to join the Fatal Romantics’ Club. Now he was in – but without Serafima, he didn’t give a kopeck whether his name appeared in the Velvet Book of Love or not.

A COLUMN OF
mechanical khaki dinosaurs, T-34 and heavy KV tanks, rumbled down Gorky Street the next morning as Andrei walked to school. One lurched to a halt, shook and broke down, spluttering black diesel smoke. Phalanxes of soldiers drilled on Red Square, horses clattered on the cobbles, and the roar of the machinery and bark of drill sergeants sounded louder, more urgent: a symphony of rising excitement. It was five days until the Victory Parade, and Moscow had become a stage with a vast cast of foreigners arriving each day: Chinese, Americans, even Fijians and Africans, filled the hotels. Women were on the streets too – peasants offering fruit and flowers and sometimes a knee-trembler in an alleyway. The roads were crammed with trucks and self-propelled guns; and one could not move at the Belorussian Station for soldiers in army green and navy blue, all arriving to march past Stalin.

At assembly in School 801, Director Medvedeva announced the Pioneers who would go on a special camping trip.

‘I hate camping,’ whispered Senka Dorov, who was sitting next to Andrei. ‘It’s cold and uncomfortable and the food’s horrid. Why’s everyone in the Soviet Union so obsessed with camping?’

But Andrei was looking for his fellow Fatal Romantics. There they were – all together a few benches away: Minka and George, Vlad more cadaverously pale than ever, Nikolasha with Rosa Shako, her eyes as always seemingly half closed, at his side. But where was Serafima? Try as he might, Andrei couldn’t find her.

At lunch break, Andrei bumped into George and Minka, who were running down the central corridor towards the lavatories. Dr Rimm was following them.

‘Chin up, girl!’ he cried at Minka. ‘Discipline. The world’s eyes are settled on Moscow. Five days until the parade. Long live Stalin. No smirking, Andrei Kurbsky – tuck your shirt in!’

As soon as he’d passed, George pulled him into the cloakroom. ‘Have you noticed anything special about Dr Rimm?’ he whispered.

‘He’s excited about the parade,’ said Andrei.

‘No, silly, he’s quivering with love,’ added Minka.

‘You haven’t sent him another letter, have you? The more you send, the more dangerous it’ll be if he ever finds out.’

‘How can he?’ George was laughing. ‘We’ve been sending him special ones for the Victory Parade. We’re going to post this to him right now.’ He showed it to Andrei.

DEAREST PEDAGOGUE,

I DREAM OF YOU SINGING A PATRIOTIC SONG TO CELEBRATE THE VICTORY PARADE. IF YOU LOVE ME, OH BOLSHEVIK NIGHTINGALE, SING, SING LOUDLY!

YOUR ‘TATIANA’

He didn’t see Serafima until that afternoon at pick-up.

‘I hear they let you in to the Fatal Romantics’ Club.’ She’d come up behind him. Andrei jumped a little and he remembered the drive back from Vasily’s.

‘I’m sure you told them to.’

‘Why would anyone listen to me?’ She smiled as they walked through the Golden Gates.

‘Will you be playing the Game?’ he said, desperate to detain her. ‘You’d suit the costumes.’

She stopped, her head on one side in that way of hers that made him feel he had her full attention – just for a moment. ‘You mean I’m old-fashioned?’

‘I like the way you dress.’

‘You admire my Bolshevik modesty?’

‘It just makes you even more—’

‘A compliment from Andrei?’ She cut him off. ‘Don’t we have enough romantics here already?’

‘But you’ll be at the Victory Parade?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You don’t sound very excited.’

‘My parents are excited. I’m not very interested in howitzers and tanks.’ She leaned towards him. ‘But I’m looking forward to the Game afterwards.’

‘Why’s it all so secret?’

‘Don’t you see? In our age of conspiracy,
everything
is conspiratorial. Even having a picnic or reading poetry.’

They’d reached the street and, with a wave, she was gone.

Andrei hesitates for a moment or two – and then he follows her. She doesn’t notice, so entirely is she in her own world. She pushes her hair back from her face, and when her head turns a little, showing the perfect curve of her forehead, he sees that her lips are moving: she’s talking to herself, to someone, all the time. Up Ostozhenka she goes, past the Kremlin, Gorky Street, and into the House of Books. Up the stairs to the Foreign Literature section. She looks at the same books. Then she’s off again.

Often she looks up the sky, at trees, at ornaments on buildings. Three soldiers point and whistle at her. She walks down another street, and men look after her. She notices none of them. Several times, he wants to shout, ‘Wait! Stop!’

He longs to know what she’s saying and to whom. She skips up the steps of the Bolshoi Theatre and vanishes into the crowds waiting for curtain-up.

THE GOLDEN GATES
resembled a parade ground the next morning. Comrade Satinov was in full dress uniform, boots, medals and braid. There was Rosa’s father, Marshal Shako, with his spiky hair, snub nose and Tartar eyes, in jodhpurs and spurs that clanked on the flagstones.

‘I’m rehearsing for the Victory Parade,’ he growled at Director Medvedeva. Then he spotted Serafima, whose waist he tweaked as he passed. ‘You’re a beautiful girl. Just like your mother!’ he bellowed.

‘Behave yourself,’ said Sophia Zeitlin, waving a jewelled finger at him. ‘Men get more excited about dressing up than women,’ she added, and Andrei realized she was talking to him. ‘Are you Serafima’s friend, Andrei?’

He blushed. ‘Yes.’

‘Serafima told me how kind you were during your trip to the country house of a certain air force general.’ She drew him aside confidentially and took his hands in hers. ‘It’s hard for a mother to say this but may I speak frankly?’

Andrei nodded.

‘I’m concerned about her, and suspect she may be meeting someone after school. Her father and I know she has her admirers, but you probably know more than we do. If you do, dear, may I count on you to tell me?’

Andrei started to say something but stopped himself. Was she referring to the Fatal Romantics’ Club?

‘Oh Mama, leave poor Andrei alone,’ said Serafima, coming to his rescue.

Sophia laughed. ‘I was only inviting Andrei to dinner with us at Aragvi tonight, wasn’t I, Andrei? I’ll send the car for you.’

A summer evening in a street just off Gorky. Outside the engraved glass doors of the Aragvi Restaurant, a moustachioed Georgian in traditional dress – a long
cherkesska
coat with bullet pouches and a jewelled dagger hanging at his belt – stood as if on sentry duty. He opened the door for Andrei, who stepped hesitantly inside a panelled restaurant with tables on the ground floor.

Andrei looked around him. The place was crowded, every table taken. He felt the thrill of a famous restaurant, the sense of shared luxury, the glimpse into the lives of others, lives unknown and unlived. Where were Serafima and her mother? There, making their way towards some stairs at the back that led to the main part of the restaurant. He hurried to join them, and together they entered a space that contained more crowded tables as well as closed alcoves on a second-floor gallery where a moon-faced and very sweaty Georgian in a burgundy tailcoat sang ‘Suliko’, accompanied by a guitarist.

Sophia Zeitlin embraced the tiny maître d’ who wore white tie, white gloves and tails: his skin was so tautly stretched over his cheekbones that you could almost see through it.

‘
Gamajoba
, Madame Zeitlin!’ the man declaimed operatically. ‘Hello, dear Serafima! Come in! And who’s this? A new face?’

‘This is Longuinoz Stazhadze,’ said Sophia to Andrei. ‘The master of Aragvi and’ – she raised her hand in mock salute – ‘one of the most powerful men in Moscow.’

He’s wearing face powder, noticed Andrei.

People from many different tables hailed Sophia Zeitlin, and then Minka appeared as if from nowhere.

‘Andrei! Serafima! We’re expecting you!’ Minka led them to a table heaped high with dishes –
satsivi, khachapuri, lobio
. . . Waiters brought more to form a precarious ziggurat of plates. Longuinoz crooked his fingers, and more waiters bearing chairs above their heads wove amongst the closely packed tables, laying out new places just in time for Andrei, Serafima and Sophia to sit down.

The whole Dorov family was there, Senka perched on his mother’s knee.

‘Andrei,’ Senka called out, ‘do you like my suit?’

‘You look just like a real little professor,’ Andrei agreed, laughing.

Their host, Genrikh Dorov, ordered Telavi wine Number 5. His wife, Dashka Dorova, embraced Sophia, and pulled up a chair next to hers.

‘Have a martini,’ she suggested in her rather exotic Galician accent.

‘I’ll have a cosmopolitan. American-style,’ Sophia declared.

‘Eat up, children,’ said Genrikh, who seemed too puny to be a Party bigshot.

Andrei scoured the restaurant. In the far alcove, next to a table of American officers, sat Comrade Satinov and family. George, next to him, made frantic wing-flapping gestures while pointing at Genrikh Dorov. Andrei smiled back at him to signal that he understood. Genrikh Dorov, the Uncooked Chicken, was looking more uncooked than ever.

‘There’s a happy family,’ joked Minka, who was next to Andrei. She was pointing at Nikolasha Blagov sitting in silence with his parents at a poky corner table.

‘I wonder if they’re sending Nikolasha’s father abroad as ambassador?’ asked Serafima.

As they watched, Nikolasha sulkily pushed back his chair and stood.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Minka. ‘He’s heading this way!’

The two girls laughed at what happened next as Nikolasha became stranded in the middle of the restaurant as streams of Georgian warriors flowed around him, balancing plates of
lobio
for the group of Americans at one of the larger tables.

‘You know the Game is just Nikolasha’s way of seeing you, Serafima.
That’s
what it’s really about,’ said Minka.

‘I don’t think Papa would approve of your game,’ said Demian Dorov prissily. ‘Papa would say it’s un-Bolshevik.’

‘Are you going to tell him?’ asked Minka. ‘You’d be a real creep if you did.’

Demian raised his finger. ‘I’m just saying: be careful. There’s something sinister about Nikolasha’s obsession with death.’

Andrei looked up as Nikolasha loomed over them. ‘My father’s been sent to Mexico as ambassador,’ he said dolefully.

‘Surely you don’t have to go too?’ Minka was sympathetic.

‘He says I must. It makes tomorrow night especially significant,’ said Nikolasha. ‘It could be the last Game!’ He leaned down to whisper to Serafima and then Minka.

‘I think we should invite Andrei to play it this time,’ said Serafima suddenly.

‘But Andrei’s not a full member. He only became a candidate last week. He’s not ready,’ Nikolasha protested.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Andrei. ‘I can just watch.’

‘Do you want
me
to come?’ Serafima looked intently at Nikolasha, who shifted uncomfortably.

‘Very much.’

Andrei saw her green eyes shine as she leaned forward.

‘Then Andrei plays the Game. If you want me, you must include him too.’

THE MORNING OF
the Victory Parade, and the rain was pouring down on the soldiers, tanks, horses and, amongst the throng of Muscovites on the streets, Andrei and his mother, Inessa. He was, he thought, the only one of his new friends not to have a seat in the grandstand on Red Square. Wearing hats, galoshes and anoraks, they’d got up early to find a good place at the bottom of Gorky Street to watch the show.

A roar. ‘That’s Stalin arriving!’ said the woman next to Andrei. As the orchestra of fifteen hundred musicians played Glinka’s ‘Glory’
,
blasted out of giant but tinny loudspeakers mounted on the backs of trucks, Andrei and Inessa could just make out Marshal Zhukov, on a white horse, riding out of one of the Kremlin gates to meet Marshal Rokossovsky in the middle and take the salute. Tanks, howitzers and horsemen passed; flanks of steel and muscle glistened in the rain. They saw soldiers bearing Nazi banners, scarlet and black, like a Roman triumph, and heard their passionate ‘
URRAH
’
as they tossed them at the feet of their leader, the Great Stalin.

Afterwards, the roads were clogged with tanks and jeeps, crowds of soldiers and civilians.

‘What a shame it rained,’ Andrei said to his mother. But he was not really thinking about the rain. ‘Mama’ – he turned to her and put his arms around her – ‘do you think—’

‘Do I think Papa will come home now?’ she finished his thought perfectly. ‘Hush.’ She looked around, even though no one could hear in that din of singing and shouting, footsteps and rain. ‘Lower your voice.’