rumba but she knew the Caucasian moves too, so she made the dainty steps while first Satinov, then Beria and Egnatashvili set to her.
“Comrade Hercules, you can really dance,” said Stalin approvingly. “I haven’t seen anyone dance so well since I was a boy…Where’s your family from?”
“Borzhomi,” answered Hercules Satinov.
“Not far from my hometown,” said Stalin, restarting the record. This was Georgian talk but Sashenka agreed with Stalin: Satinov danced gracefully. His dark eyes shone, his steps were lithe and agile, and his hands were elegant and expressive. He held her firmly, while Beria’s hand squeezed her and he put his face too close. His lips were so fat it seemed as if there was too much blood in them. Presently, she felt tired and stood back to watch. She found herself next to the gramophone where Stalin was laying out the records.
Sashenka felt happy suddenly, and at ease, almost too relaxed. She’d been terrified when first she saw Stalin, right there in her garden. But he had relaxed them all and now she was fighting against her instinct to flirt and chatter. She was overexcited and probably drunk on that heavy Georgian red. Several times, crazy things were on the tip of her tongue. Be careful, Sashenka, she ordered herself, this is Stalin! Remember the last few years—the meat grinder! Beware!
Waves of devotion rolled over her for this tough yet modest man, so decent yet so pitiless toward his enemies. But she sensed her cloying devotion would irritate him, make him uneasy. She wanted to ask him to dance. What if he was longing to dance with her? But what if such an offer was insolent or made him uncomfortable? Yet she wanted to dance with him and he must have seen it on her lips.
“I don’t dance, Sashenka, because I can’t hold a woman with my arm.” His left arm was a little shorter than his right—it was why he held it stiffly. They stood beside the piano and she was aware of the tense silence, of the danger that surrounded this extraordinary man.
“I adore this music, Comrade Stalin.”
“Music relaxes the beast in a man,” said Stalin. He looked about him. “Are you and Comrade Palitsyn happy with this dacha?”
“Oh yes, Comrade Stalin,” she answered. “So happy.”
“I hope so. May I look around?”
Beria and the others watched but did not follow them, and Sashenka was immensely proud and stirred that Stalin was talking only to her.
“We’re so grateful for it—and today we received the refrigerator. Thank you for the Party’s trust!”
“We have to reward the Party’s responsible workers.” Stalin looked into Vanya’s study. “Is it warm enough in winter? I like the study, very airy. Are there enough bedrooms? Do you like the kitchen?”
Oh yes, Sashenka loved everything about it. She fought her giddiness, her feelings of joy and freedom as an unspeakable but powerful thought crossed her mind. She was thinking of her father, Samuil Zeitlin. Couldn’t she ask Comrade Stalin now? She was so intimate with him at that moment: how could he refuse her anything? She could tell he admired her as a new Soviet woman.
“Comrade Stalin…,” she began.
Her father had lost his mind after Ariadna’s suicide and his fortune after the October Revolution. He had stayed behind in St. Petersburg, put his financial knowledge at the service of the Bolsheviks, and during the twenties he had served as a “non-Party specialist” in the People’s Commissariats of Finance and Foreign Trade, then the State Bank, before he was purged in 1930 as a “wrecker with Trotskyite tendencies.” Yet they let him retire to Georgia. Beria had arrested him there in 1937—and he had vanished. Of course, they were right to “check” this class enemy, thought Sashenka. On paper, Zeitlin was among the worst of the bloodsucking oppressors. But he had “disarmed” and had served Soviet power sincerely, without a mask. Surely Stalin would see he was no longer a threat?
Stalin smiled indulgently at Sashenka. He looked, she thought, like a friendly old tiger, creases forming on either side of his mouth—and she hesitated for a second. The honey in his eyes sharpened to yellow and a shadow of embarrassment crossed his face. She suddenly grasped that Stalin must recognize her expression. He, who could divine everything, could tell she was about to ask about the arrest or execution of a relative and there was nothing he hated so much as that request.
“Comrade Stalin, may I ask a…” The words were forming again on Sashenka’s lips and she could not stop them. She had excised her father from her memory in 1937 but now, at this most unsuitable, most fatal and yet opportune moment, she longed to say his name. What was happening to her? A Bolshevik didn’t need a family, just the Party, but she loved her papa! She wanted to know—was he felling logs somewhere? Were his bones in some shallow grave out in the Siberian taiga? Had he long since faced the Highest Measure? Please, Comrade Stalin, she prayed, say he’s alive! Free him! “Comrade Stalin…”
“Cushions!” Stalin and Sashenka turned to the doorway, and Vanya’s mouth fell open. “Mamochka, I can’t sleep!” cried Snowy. “There’s so much noise. You woke me up. I want a cuddle!”
Snowy was wearing a nightie printed with butterflies, her long golden hair curling around her rosy cheeks, her smile revealing evenly spaced milk teeth and pink gums. She fell into her mother’s arms.
7
“Snowy!” Vanya, who had been cheerfully drunk a minute earlier, stood up, his face darkening. Sashenka too sensed real peril. She had tried to teach her children to say nothing, repeat nothing, hear nothing, but Snowy was capable of anything! With Stalin in the house? One foolish word, a single stupid game could at best make a fool of her and Vanya in front of Stalin, at worst dispatch them all to the firing squad. What would Stalin say? What would Snowy say to Stalin?
“Who’s this?” asked Stalin quietly, apparently enjoying Vanya’s expression of panic.
“Comrade Stalin,” said Sashenka, “may I introduce you to my daughter, Volya.”
Stalin beamed at her daughter. Didn’t all Georgians love children? thought Sashenka, as he bent down and tickled her nose. “Hello, Volya,” he said. “That’s a good Communist name.”
“That noise woke me up,” Snowy grumbled.
Stalin pinched her cheek.
“Stop!” she cried. “You’re pinching me!”
“Yes, so you’ll remember me,” said Stalin. “I confess my guilt before you, Comrade Volya. It was me playing the music, not your mama, so be angry with me.”
“She’s not angry at all. I apologize, Comrade Stalin,” Sashenka said quickly. “Now, Snowy, off to bed!”
“I hate sleeping.”
“Me too…Snowy,” said Stalin playfully.
“Here’s my cushion!” Snowy pushed her cushion toward Stalin’s face but Sashenka caught it just in time.
“Well, what’s that?” asked Stalin, bemused, half smiling.
“It’s my best friend, Miss Cushion,” said Snowy. “She’s in charge of production of cushions for the Second Five Year Plan and she wants to join the Young cushiony Pioneers so she can wear the red scarf!”
“That’s enough, child,” Sashenka said. “Comrade Stalin doesn’t want to hear such nonsense! Off to bed!” She was aware that, on the other side of the room, her husband had raised a hand to his face.
“Yes, bed!” he said too loudly.
“Easy, Comrade Palitsyn,” said Stalin, ruffling Snowy’s hair. “Couldn’t she stay up a little? As a treat?”
“Well…of course, Comrade Stalin.”
Snowy performed a quick cushion dance and blew a kiss to her father.
“So you’re a Cushionist?” said Stalin solemnly.
“I’m in the Cushion Politburo,” said Snowy with that gummy smile. Sashenka saw she was thrilled to find herself the focus of all eyes. “Long Live Cushionism!”
Sashenka felt as though she were drowning, as she waited miserably for Stalin’s reaction. There was a long silence. Beria sneered. Mendel scowled. Stalin frowned, glancing gravely round the room with his yellow eyes.
“I think, since I woke her up,” said Stalin slowly, “we should let this little beauty stay up and join our singing,
