Authors: Paul Dowswell
The room fell silent. Gribkov scoffed. ‘Comrade Petrov, we know you and Rozhkov have an intimate relationship, and you are acting out of kindness. You do not know the facts I now have before me and you would be well advised to remain silent.’ He was on a roll now, scenting blood, and he twisted the knife further. ‘Your attitude is incorrect, especially for a member of the
Komsomol
. You should not be showing pity to the daughter of enemies of the people.’
Gribkov boldly announced that Yelena’s parents had been factory owners in Kharkov before the Revolution and were exploiters of the toiling classes. It had also been discovered that three of her cousins, who had fled after the Revolution, now lived in Berlin and, it was assumed, were directly assisting the Hitlerites in their war of subjugation.
‘Yelena Rozhkov, you are a non-person,’ he announced. ‘You are denied further education. Never return to this school.’
Yelena ran from the hall in tears, dodging the fists of some of the bolder students and Misha and Nikolay deliberately stood in the way of some who were rushing over with cruel animal glee to land a blow on her. Then they tried to find her but she had fled.
Misha had barely given a moment’s thought to non-people before his mama had been arrested, and he was ashamed now that he had felt no more than a momentary flicker of pity. His earlier school days had been full of occasions where a girl or a boy was made to stand in front of the whole school and have their Pioneer scarf snatched away from them because they had been unmasked as the offspring of a ‘non-toiling element’. Then the child, often bewildered and sobbing in shame, would be expelled from the school.
He’d sometimes see them later, hollow-eyed and begging in the street, the son or daughter of a former priest or noble or factory owner. He’d see a parent he recognised from the school gates cleaning a public lavatory, with that same haunted look. None of his schoolmates ever stopped to talk to these non-people, even if they’d been friends with them in the past. He and his comrades at school had all agreed that these factory owners had done the same thing to the ordinary workers before the Revolution. The rich and powerful had treated the people with scorn, and now they were only receiving natural justice for centuries of repression.
He burned with shame to think how easily he had accepted these unmaskings. Especially now that he was keenly aware that only his father’s position in the Kremlin had stopped the same thing happening to him. When Mama went, her arrest had been kept quiet. Misha had told his schoolmates his mother had fallen ill and had been taken to a sanatorium on the banks of the Caspian Sea.
The next Rest Day, Misha went to Yelena’s home. Nikolay and Valya had wanted to come with him but he had persuaded them to let him go alone. It made no sense to put all their futures at risk.
The Rozhkovs lived in a small apartment near his Grandma Olya. Her parents were quite elderly and worked at the office of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry. They were ‘prominent people’, although Misha was sure they would now both have lost their jobs. He knocked on the door and was half surprised to hear movement behind it. A frightened voice called out, ‘Who is it?’
Yelena’s mother pulled back the door a crack. She looked as though she had been crying. ‘You are lucky to find us, Mikhail,’ she said, opening the door to let him in. ‘We have to move out in two days, to a
kommunalka
in the Sokolnichesky district.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Misha. ‘Can I help you with your packing?’
‘Anton, he wants to help with our packing,’ she cried out to her husband, suppressing a hysterical laugh. ‘Mikhail, we can only bring one suitcase each.’
Misha looked around the apartment aghast. It was comfortably furnished and full of books and ornaments and paintings. They would have to leave behind almost everything they owned.
‘I just wanted to tell Yelena how sorry I am that this has happened and that I wanted her to keep in touch,’ Misha said.
Yelena’s father had come to join them. ‘She always had a soft spot for you, Mikhail, and that is a very touching gesture. I wish you could tell her that. I wish I could too . . .’ He clenched his jaw as he fought back his emotions. ‘She has gone to fight with the partisans. She told us if she did that, then nobody would be able to accuse her of being an enemy of the people.’
Misha felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. He told the Rozhkovs how sorry he was that this had happened to them, then he left. He managed to walk two streets before he had to sit down in a doorway and fight back his tears.
After the terrible first day, it was a relief to be back at school. The routine kept Misha occupied. He was pleased to discover that Valya would also be coming into school a couple of times a week to teach physics to the younger classes while she awaited her call-up to the air force.
Misha had also volunteered to teach literature to the younger ones, but he found that far more difficult than his classes with the factory workers. The children were too restless and could not understand why they should take an interest in Chekhov and the comings and goings of nineteenth-century aristocrats and merchants.
‘Forget the Chekhov,’ Sergey told him. ‘You should try Tolstoy.
War and Peace
– Napoleon’s invasion and what happened to his army. That’ll make them sit up and take notice.’
In the next lesson Misha read them an extract depicting Napoleon’s disastrous retreat through the Russian winter.
‘And that is how we shall defeat the Hitlerites!’ Misha announced triumphantly. The class cheered. This was what they wanted to hear and from then on he had their full attention.
After class, he hurried to the school canteen, keen to share his success with his friends, although his heart sank a little at the thought of what there would be to eat. Having spent the summer enjoying the usual provisions of the Kremlin elite, Misha had been particularly shocked by the sudden decline in quality of the school meals. They had always been bland but but now they were almost inedible. On his first day back there was a thin gruel for lunch that was barely more than hot water with potato peelings in it, and a few other unidentifiable vegetables. He thought longingly of the beautiful chicken soup his mother used to cook, with its tender meat, and sliced carrots, always cut on the horizontal – ‘They look nicer that way,’ she used to say, – and a good sprinkling of dill in the delicious salty broth.
Today’s lunch was probably the vilest thing Misha had eaten that year. The meat was almost entirely gristle.
‘What’s this?’ said Nikolay. ‘Lizards’ gizzards?’
They all laughed quietly at that. The potatoes were full of black spots and the cabbage was stone cold. Worst of all was the gravy – a lukewarm glutinous paste which had traces of skin on top that reminded Misha of flaking brown paint on a damp wall.
‘Is this the sort of thing you get to eat in the Kremlin?’ said Barikada coldly. They were never going to be friends but Barikada had been especially distant with him from the first day back at school.
Misha thought about taunting him, telling him about the roast goose they had eaten yesterday, left over from a Kremlin banquet for visiting diplomats from the British Embassy. But he understood why Barikada was angry, and he didn’t want to make his friends feel bad either.
‘The Soviet leaders share the people’s hardships,’ he said, and felt like a creep.
Barikada gave him a look of burning hatred. Misha averted his gaze. He wanted to tell him to be careful. But it would sound as though he were threatening to denounce him to the NKVD.
That evening as Misha helped his papa tidy a conference room in the Senate, there was some rare roast beef on the table, left over from a snack the catering staff had brought in while the generals and ministers worked on the latest strategy to stem the Nazi advance. Without a second thought, Misha wrapped it in a fresh white napkin and popped it in his pocket.
At lunchtime the following day, as they sat round the table with another lukewarm grey mince and potato dish, a furious row broke out between Nikolay and another boy in his class, Spartakus. In their previous lesson the politics tutor had been lecturing them on the achievements of the Soviet Union. Moscow’s underground railway, he told them, was one of the great wonders of the world, and there was nothing like it in the capitalist countries.
Nikolay had said nothing during the lesson, but now he was bursting to share his real thoughts. ‘I read a railway book a few years ago that said London and Paris had underground railways built in the previous century. There were pictures, and everything, with tunnels and electric trains.’
‘Capitalist propaganda,’ huffed Spartakus. ‘You are a class traitor, duped by
i
mperialist jackals.’
Nikolay bristled. ‘Well it was published by the People’s Commissariat for Education. And as far as I know, they produce their books in the Soviet Union, and I don’t think they are written by imperialists. Besides, these imperialist jackals are our allies now, aren’t they?’
Spartakus was growing increasingly angry. ‘No one has an underground system, apart from the Soviet Union. And the British imperialists might be our allies for the moment, but they will betray us as soon as it suits them.’
Barikada had come over and Misha wondered if he would join in. But he just sat there, his face a brooding scowl.
Misha tried to calm things down. ‘Hey, never mind that. I’ve got something to share.’ He pulled out the napkin and spread out the slices of beef on the table. If he’d got out a Fabergé egg, it would not have had a greater effect. Nikolay went to grab a piece. ‘Hold on, I’ll cut it up for us all,’ said Misha.
He divided the beef into six more or less equal slices and passed them round so they could each take a piece. But when Misha got to Barikada the boy spat into the meat. Nikolay stood up and pushed him so hard he fell off his seat. ‘Someone could have eaten that, you imbecile,’ he shouted.
Barikada got to his feet and Nikolay stood up too, expecting to have to defend himself. But it was Misha Barikada turned on. Shaking with rage, he said, ‘You think you’re so special, don’t you, Mikhail Petrov. You up there in the Kremlin with the rest of them who’ve betrayed us all. You with your fancy foods while we eat muck you wouldn’t give to a dog. Well, enjoy it while you can. When the Nazis get here, they’re going to nail you all to the Kremlin gates. And I’ll be there to applaud.’
The cafeteria had come to a standstill. If Barikada had stripped himself naked and slashed his wrists, he could not have drawn more attention.
Barikada turned on his heels and walked out. The rest of them sat in stunned silence. No one said it, but they all knew they would never see Barikada again.
Valya had been teaching that afternoon and she and Misha walked back slowly to the Kremlin at the end of the day. It was still warm, with no hint of the autumn to come.
‘I heard about Barikada,’ said Valya.
Misha nodded.
‘I wonder when they will come for him,’ she said. ‘Will they leave him a few days, or will they come at once?’
‘Well, I won’t inform on him,’ said Misha. He was feeling a little nauseous now, knowing that he had done something that was going to contribute to the arrest of one of his schoolmates.
‘It was stupid of him to talk like that so publicly. But people do stupid things when they’re upset.’
‘Maybe no one will say anything,’ said Misha hopefully.
Valya looked at him and he knew she was about to say something crushing. ‘Oh, Misha. Do you honestly think that no one in the entire canteen will go to the NKVD and tell them what happened? The Komsorg, the hall monitors, the canteen staff . . . the NKVD probably heard about it before the lunch break had ended.’
‘But he didn’t really do any harm, and he’s not even eighteen.’
She looked at him with a twisted smile. ‘Look at Beria. Look at Zhiglov. They are people who do not understand the meaning of mercy. The NKVD probably get paid or promoted by the number of arrests they make, the number of executions . . . the lower functionaries, obviously, I’m not talking about Beria, or Zhiglov here. I wouldn’t want to be in Barikada’s shoes.’
They had reached the great bridge across the Moskva and a slight wind was blowing off the water. Valya pulled her coat tight around her. ‘You and I are luckier than most,’ she said. ‘We trust each other enough to talk. We know we will never betray each other to the NKVD.’ She drew Misha closer and leaned her head on his shoulder. He longed to kiss her.
‘Oh, Misha. I know it will never come to that. You are safe with me. I will never betray you.’
But that night, as he lay in bed, thinking about how it felt when she held him close, he realised that what also bound them was fear. It made him feel sad. Then he felt angry. Angry with this country that could make friends fear each other. He knew he would never deliberately betray Valya. But, though she might say she had no intention of betraying him, if they tortured Valya, Misha realised, she would say anything, eventually. And, in his heart, he knew he would too.
End of September 1941
There was a knock at the door around nine in the evening. It sounded like Valya, which surprised Misha because she did not usually visit at that hour, unless she was coming with her father for a meal.