Read Online One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore - Free Book Online

merely as the cravings of bourgeois romanticism? Would you like to switch?’
    ‘Thank you, Dr Rimm. I am content in whatever class the director places me.’
    ‘Your answer is correct,’ he said. ‘But bear in mind that it is the Party that teaches us the only way to analyse literature. The non-Party path has no future. You’re intelligent. I know your tainted file, but remember this is the school that Comrade Stalin chose for his own children. If things go well for you, there’s Komsomol, and perhaps the Institute of Foreign Languages. Do you understand me?’
    Andrei had dreamed of wearing the Komsomol badge. The cleansing of his tainted past would mean that he could join the Party and follow his heart into academia or the diplomatic corps. His mother had warned him; now Dr Rimm was doing the same thing. The antics of the Fatal Romantics could ruin his rehabilitation. But as Andrei hurried towards his next lesson, he sensed it was already too late.

5
     
    ‘ KURBSKY! ARE YOU Kurbsky?’
    A strapping security officer in MVD blue tabs loomed up in front of Andrei outside the school at pick-up a few weeks later. He was someone’s bodyguard no doubt, but Andrei’s heart still missed a beat: he remembered the night, long ago, before the war, when the Chekists had come to arrest his father, when men in boots had tramped with ominously officious footsteps through the apartment.
    ‘I . . . I am,’ stammered Andrei.
    ‘Are you a sissy like those floppy-haired friends of George? Do you read girlish poetry? Do you pick flowers? Do you fold your britches before you fuck a woman – or do you just rip ’em off, toss ’em aside and go to it like a man?’ asked the security officer.
    Andrei opened his mouth to answer, but then closed it again.
    ‘Just joking, boy.’ He introduced himself: ‘Colonel Losha Babanava, chief of security for Comrade Satinov,’ and Andrei’s hand was crushed in a throbbingly virile handshake. Losha’s accent was thickly Georgian, his barrel chest was covered in medals, and his red-striped britches were skin tight. Andrei noticed his ivory-handled Mauser in a kid-leather holster, and how his teeth gleamed under an extravagantly winged set of jet moustaches.
    ‘George is waiting in the car with his brother and sister. You, boy, have been invited to tea with the Satinovs.’
    The officer guided Andrei by the shoulders towards a ZiS limousine.
    ‘Hello, Andrei,’ said George through the open window. ‘Get in.’
    Losha opened the door and Andrei saw George, Marlen and little Mariko in the back seat, which was almost as large as his bedroom. George gave him a smile. ‘You see the door and windows? Fifteen centimetres thick. Armour-plated! Just in case anyone tries to assassinate Marlen.’
    ‘Why would anyone want to kill me?’ asked Marlen, looking around.
    ‘Because you’re so important in the school. Our enemies will certainly know you’re school Komsorg.’
    ‘Really?’ Marlen seemed pleased by this.
    Losha slammed the door; then, whistling at the ‘tail’, the small Pobeda car filled with guards behind them, he placed his hairy hands on the car roof and swung himself into the front seat as if he was leaping into a saddle. ‘Foot down!’ he barked to the driver. The cars accelerated together, the driver spinning the white leather steering wheel and manipulating the brakes to give unnecessary screeches of burning rubber that made passersby jump out of the way as the little convoy careered past the Kremlin.
    ‘Your papa was up all night and he’s been in the office since dawn,’ Losha told the Satinov children, nodding at the red crenellated walls of the Kremlin and lighting up a cigarette. ‘I’ll be picking him up in a moment . . .’ Then, with a creaking of leather and a whiff of cologne, Losha swivelled around and pointed at a girl on the pavement. The chauffeur, also in uniform, craned his head to look – and almost crashed the car. ‘Hey, Merab, eyes on the