A fear has come upon me. I am so far from home. Last time there were twenty of us, silly laughing girls. oh, papa!
And now we reach the outskirts of Moscow. A tremor of excitement runs through the train. The blocks and factories stretch as far and wide as the tundra. A hot haze of metal and smoke. The June sun is much warmer than at home. I am excited again.
430! Yaroslavskaya station!And now what?
LATER. The train halts, the man opposite, who had been watching me all journey leans Forward ‘lnna Mikhailovna Safanova?' For a moment I am too amazed to speak. Yes? 'Welcome to Moscow. Come with me, please. He wears a leather coat, like Comrade Mekhlis. He carries my case along the platform to the station entrance on Komsomolskaya Square. A car is waiting, with a driver We drive For a long while. An hour at least. I don't know where. Right across the city it seems to me, and out again. Along a highway that leads to a birch forest. There is a high fence and soldiers who check our papers. We drive some more. Another fence. And then a house, in a large garden.
(And Mama, yes, it is a modest house! Two storeys only Your good Bolshevik heart would rejoice at its simplicity!)
I am taken around the side of the house to the back. A servants' wing, connected to the main quarters by a long passageway Here in the kitchen a woman is waiting. She is grey haired almost old And kindly. She calls me 'child'. Her name is Valechka Istomina. A simple meal has been prepared- cold meat and bread, pickled herring, kvas. She watches me. (Everyone here watches everyone else: it is strange to look up and find a pair of eyes regarding you.) From time to time, guards come by to take a look at me. They don't talk much but when they do they sound like Georgians. One asks, 'Well now, Valechka, and what was the Boss’s humour this morning?' but Valechka hushes him and nods to me. I am not such a young fool as to ask any questions. Not yet. Valechka says: 'Tomorrow we shall talk. Now rest.'
I have a room to myself. The girl who had it before has gone away Two plain black blouses and skirts have been left behind for me.
I have a view of a corner of the lawn, a tiny summer house, the woods. The birds sing in the early summer evening It seems so peaceful. Yet every couple of minutes a guard goes past the window. I lie on my little bed in the heat and try to sleep. I think of in the winter: the coloured lanterns strung out across the frozen rivet skating on the Dvina, the sound of ice cracking at night, hunting for mushrooms in the Forest. I wish I was at home. But these are foolish thoughts. I must sleep. Why did that man watch me on the train for all that time?
LATER: In the darkness, the sound of cars. He is home.
12.6.51 This is a day! I can hardly set it down. My hand shakes so. (It did not at the time but now it does!) At seven I go to the kitchen. Valechka is already up, sorting through a great mess of broken crockery glass, spilled food, which lies in a heap in the centre of a big tablecloth. She explains how the table is cleared every night: two guards each take two corners of the cloth and carry everything out! So our first task every morning is to rescue all that isn't broken, and wash it. As we work, Valechka explains the routine of the house. He rises quite late and sometimes likes to work in the garden. Then he goes to the Kremlin and his quarters are cleaned He never returns before nine or ten in the evening, and then there is a dinner At two or three He goes to bed This happens seven days a week. The rules: when one approaches Him, do so openly. He hates it when people creep up on Him. If a door has to be knocked on, knock upon it loudly don’t stand around don’t speak unless you are spoken to. And if you do have to speak, always look Him in the eyes.
She prepares a simple breakfast of coffee, bread and meat, and takes it out. Later she asks me to collect the tray Before I go, she makes me tie up my hair and turn around while she examines me. I will do, she says. She says He is working at a table at the edge of the lawn on the south side of the house. Or was. He moves restless, from place to place. It is His way The guards will know where to look.
What can I write of this moment? I am calm. You would have been proud of me. I remember what to do. I walk around the edge of the lawn and approach Him in plain view. He’s sitting on a bench, alone, bent over some papers. The tray is on a table beside Him. He glances up at my approach, and then returns to His work. But as I walk away across the grass - then, I swear I feel His eyes upon my back, all the way until I’m out of sight. Valechka laughs at my white face.
I don't see Him again after that.
Just now (it is after ten): the sound of cars.
14.6.51 Last night. Late. I’m in the kitchen with Valechka when Lozgachev (a guard) comes rushing in, all steamed up, to say the Boss is out of Ararat. Valechka fitches a bottle, but instead of giving it to Lozgachev, she gives it to me: Let Anna take it in.' She wants to help me - dear Valechka! So Lozgachev takes me down the passage to the main part of the house. I can hear male voices. Laughter He knocks hard on the door and stands aside. I go in. The room is hot, stuffy, seven or eight men around a table - familiar faces, all of them. One - Comrade Khrushchev, I think - is on his fret, proposing a toast. His face is flushed sweating He stops. There is food all over the place, as if they have been throwing it. All look at me. Comrade Stalin is at the head of the table. I set the brandy next to him. His voice is soft and kindly He says, And what is your name, young comrade?' Anna Safanova Comrade Stalin.' I remember to look into his eyes. They are very deep. The man next to him says, She’s from , Boss.' And Comrade Khrushchev says, 'Trust Lavrenty to know where she’s from! 'More laughter 'Ignore these rough fellows,' says Comrade Stalin. 'Thank you, Anna Safanova. 'As I close the door, their talk resumes. Valechka is waiting for me at the end of the passage. She puts her arm around me and we go back in to the kitchen. I am shaking, it must be with joy.
16.6.51 Comrade Stalin has said that from now on I am to bring him breakfast.
21.6.51 He is in the garden as usual this morning How I wish the people could see him here! He likes to listen to the birdsong, to prune the flowers. But his hands shake. As lam setting down the tray I hear him curse. He has cut himself I pick up the napkin and take it over to him. At first, he looks at me suspiciously Then he holds out his hand I wrap it in the white linen. Bright spots of blood soak through. 'You are not afraid of Comrade Stalin, Anna Safanova?' 'Why should I be afraid of you, Comrade Stalin?' 'The doctors are afraid of Comrade Stalin. When they come to change a dressing on Comrade Stalin, their hands shake so much, he has to do it himself Ah, but if their hands didn't shake - well then, what would that mean? Thank you, Anna Safanova.'
Oh, mama and papa, he is so lonely! Your hearts would go out to him. He is only flesh and blood after all like us. And close up he is old Much older than he appears in his pictures. His moustache is grey, the underside stained yellow by his pipe smoke. His teeth are almost all gone. His chest rattles when he breathes. I fear for him. For all of us.
30.6 51 Three a.m. A knock at my door Valechka is outside, in her nightdress, with a pocket torch. He has been in the garden, pruning by moonlight, and he has cut himself again! He is calling for me! I dress quickly and follow her along the passage. The night is warm. We pass through the dining room and in to his private quarters. He has three rooms and he moves between them, one night in this one, one night in another Nobody is ever sure where. He sleeps beneath a blanket on a couch. Valechka leaves us. He is sitting on the couch, his hand outstretched It is a graze. It takes me half a minute to bind it with my handkerchief 'The fearless Anna Safanova...'