‘Isn’t it? Yes it is! You want to fuck him!’
‘Stop it, Vasya, or I’ll leave. You coarsen everything! Really I should leave…’
‘Go, leave then, you little prude…’ Vasily turned nasty so quickly. His sallow face was tightening, his lips thinning. But then he changed again. ‘Then you won’t meet your fancy man!’ he said.
‘He’s not my – Oh, please, Vasya.’
‘Come on, little sister, we’ll find him. And you can fuck him later!’
‘Vasya—’
‘Wait!’ He grabbed her arm. ‘He’s right here. See! You can’t leave now.’
And finally there he was.
‘Lev!’ cried Vasya, embracing him. ‘Look who wants to meet you!’
A tall man in army uniform with a thick shock of grey-streaked black hair and intense dark eyes was talking to a group of women who were listening to him intently. Svetlana would always remember that his hand was raised in a fist with one finger pointing to make his point. He put his arm around Vasily.
‘Lev Shapiro, this is my sister Svetlana,’ Vasily said. ‘I hope she doesn’t bore you. She’s very serious!’
Shapiro looked down at her, and in that moment Svetlana felt tiny and ugly and very young. The women turned to her with their scarlet lips, curled hair and black made-up eyes, and they seemed irresistible, carefree and sophisticated. But to her amazement Shapiro left them without a further word and led her aside.
‘Your letter made my day,’ he said. ‘How daring of you to write like that! And I wrote back.’
‘I know! How did you dare to reply?’
They laughed with mouths open as if they already knew each other.
‘Aren’t we lions?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s your name.’
‘And it will be your name too. I am going to call you Lvitza. May I, Lioness?’
‘Yes, oh yes.’
He looked very closely at her: ‘You have something sad in your eyes. Do you want to tell me about it?’
It was the strangest thing, Svetlana thought later. He had just met her and he saw right into her heart. It was the greatest secret in her life and this man whom she had known for a minute seemed to know about it. So she told him about her mother and what she had learned. And he comforted her, told her it was unjust, analysed how she must be feeling, listened to her. What kindness there was in this man.
‘Now we’ve talked are you feeling better?’
‘So much better.’
‘Would you like to dance a little with me?’
‘The foxtrot?’
‘Yes, the foxtrot. Have you tried it?’
‘Yes, but only with my girlfriend Martha. She taught me.’
He took her hand and pulled her on to the dance floor and held her so close that she sensed his strength and his virility. Gradually she relaxed against him, trusting him, following his movements. Afterwards she said, ‘I was useless. Sorry! My flat shoes are hideous!’
‘What do you mean, Lioness? You were brilliant. I loved dancing with you. And that dress is so chic. Is it new?’
Then he took her hand again, just like that, without a moment’s hesitation, as if she was an ordinary girl. ‘Tell me what you think of the coverage of the war. Are we getting it right?’
She did not remember her answers, but he listened carefully and discussed her opinion as if she was a literary critic, a scholar, not just a schoolgirl. He asked her about books and movies and history and not once did he mention her father or the Kremlin. She was accustomed to flattery of a Sultanic intensity. No one ever disagreed with the Tsar’s daughter, but they always wanted something or they escaped from her fast, afraid of her name. But Shapiro did not flatter her once. He disagreed with her about an article of Ehrenburg, and treated her as an equaclass="underline" ‘You only say that because you didn’t read the whole article,’ he said. ‘If you’d read the last sentence…’ When finally she looked at her watch, it was past midnight and she caught Captain Klimov’s eye and the policeman nodded.
‘Oh, I must go home,’ she said. ‘I have—’ She caught herself: she was about to say ‘school’! Disaster!
‘Must you go?’ Shapiro said. ‘I’m so enjoying our conversation.’ He paused and smiled at her. ‘Yes, you’re so refreshing. Not like these jaded actresses. You’re the only person here I can have a serious conversation with…’
‘Don’t mock me.’
‘No, I mean it. Your views are purely intellectual, quite untainted with vanity or ambition. Can we meet again?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. I have absolutely nothing to do every evening.’
‘You see? No one here would say that. They’d claim to be busy. Play games. And they’d already be flirting with ten men and…’ He looked at her very intensely. ‘You’re not like that at all, are you?’
She shook her head.
‘I’m going back to the front the day after tomorrow. So tomorrow night? It’ll be my last night in Moscow.’
On the way home in the back of her car, with Klimov and the driver in the front seats, she lay back and closed her eyes and gloried in what had happened. For the first time, she was absolutely happy, in her own right. Happy as a lioness with her lion.
IV
Stalin was alone in the Little Corner with General Vasilevsky. Even Molotov and the other leaders were away and running their commissariats, directing fronts or catching a few hours’ sleep. Only the burly Chief of Staff with the big, plain face and the curl across his forehead remained.
Stalin went to the little room behind his desk and made himself tea, in a glass with a silver base and handle, then took the bottle of Armenian cognac and poured in a teaspoon of brandy, stirred and then sipped it.
The news from the south was dire. The Germans were massing vast forces to push further into the Caucasus and they were squeezing the last Soviet forces on the Don. Soon they could cross the river and charge across the steppe towards Stalingrad. Yet he knew he must hold his nerve, and seek the chance to attack; attack whatever the cost.
‘Any more news of Melishko’s Shtrafbat?’ he asked Vasilevsky after he had heard the rest of the reports.
Vasilevsky understood that Melishko’s Shtrafbat had become something of a distraction for the Supremo, almost a talisman.
‘No news of Melishko himself,’ Vasilevsky said, ‘though one of his officers informed us that he always called the Shtrafniks “my bandits”.’
Stalin blinked and Vasilevsky continued, ‘On your orders, despatched by radio, the small Second Don Partisans Brigade under Major Elmor, made up of soldiers who had escaped from Kharkov encirclements and regrouped in the Don, successfully rendezvoused with them for a joint operation against the Schuma and Cossack elements under the traitor Mandryka.’
Stalin lit up his Herzegovina Flor and watched Vasilevsky talk through the veins of white smoke. ‘And how did Melishko’s bandits do?’
‘I am waiting for confirmation of this, Comrade Stalin. I don’t like to report until I know…’
‘Tell me anyway. I won’t hold you to it.’
‘I’ve heard that at five p.m. yesterday, they assassinated the traitor Mandryka in an ambush. The partisans lost forty men. Mandryka’s security police, now commanded by the traitor Bronislav Kaminsky, have joined forces with German Einsatzgruppe D along with special task forces under Dirlewanger. They are conducting savage reprisals against villages in the area.’
‘But Mandryka is dead.’
‘Yes.’
‘How do we know this?’
‘Our source? I assume there is an agent loyal to us, a source amongst Mandryka’s Hiwi units.’
Stalin nodded, knowing more than Vasilevsky on intelligence matters: ‘Darkness is as important in war as the daylight,’ he said. ‘So, a success for Melishko’s bandits. Please radio Stavka’s congratulations to General Melishko.’