She threw aside her book and started to read an article in Krasnaya Zvezda – or Red Star – the Red Army newspaper. It was by a correspondent called Lev Shapiro who reported from the Stalingrad Front. A few writers stood out: the novelist Ehrenburg with his murderous bombast, a younger writer called Grossman – and this Shapiro whose tales of the carnage in the south hid none of the tragedy of war. Yet he saw the world through such romantic eyes. Who was he? His words reached her, even here in her tower.
In his study along the corridor, Stalin shut the door and, taking off just his boots and tunic, lay down on the long divan, pulled a counterpane over himself, and closed his eyes. Svetlana, my little dove, he thought. You look just like my mother. There was a picture of his late wife, Nadya, Svetlana’s mother, on the table next to his couch. He looked at her round, pouchy face, her dark eyes. Pah, he thought. She let me down. But it’s hard to be Stalin’s wife, Stalin’s daughter. And it’s hardest of all to be Stalin.
And then he thought of the crisis in the south, the direst of the war, and the punishment battalion on the Don. The only way they can redeem themselves is by shedding their own blood, he mused, pleased with his idea, which seemed to belong in Ancient Rome. My reading of history helps me, soothes me, he told himself. But he was too tired to read now. He tried to sleep but he was still shaking. Russia was close to the edge – but this was his destiny in history. To command Russia, and ultimately to triumph, whatever the cost. That was the meaning of the word ‘Stalin’. It was the name he had invented just for this.
He slept spikily in fragments, then awoke again, thinking of that wild, boneheaded, horse-worshipping fool Budyonny and his stallions, and the mission of the Shtrafniki. He half remembered three years earlier ordering Beria: ‘Beat Melishko – he might be a bastard; don’t treat him with silk gloves; he’s mixed up with enemies in Spain; he knows something.’ But he had been a good man all along. And now he was right where he, Stalin, needed him.
He got out of bed in his vest and britches and lifted one of the phones. ‘Get me Melishko,’ he said. ‘Now.’
VII
At the Budyonny Stud Farm Nine, Melishko had finished talking to the General Staff in Moscow and had organized his bandits into the new units ordered by Stavka. Wearing only his underwear, he was now asleep on his mattress on the floor, snoring deeply, when the phone started to ring in his command centre in the farm manager’s house.
His adjutant, fast asleep in a chair in the room, picked up the phone. ‘I’m listening,’ he said.
‘Is this the command of Colonel Melishko at the Budyonny Stud Nine?’
‘It is,’ replied the adjutant.
‘Comrade Stalin on the line for Melishko,’ said the voice impassively.
The sergeant’s first thought was this was a joke. ‘Who?’ He paused and the words stuck in his throat. ‘I’ll get him,’ he said, and ran in his underwear to Melishko’s room in the outhouse.
‘They say Stalin’s on the line,’ he stuttered.
‘Fuckers! Taking the piss, are they?’ But Melishko got up and staggered in his bare feet across the yard to the house, his exposed paunch shaking. He tripped up on a bucket, swore, got up again and ran into the headquarters where he picked up the phone.
‘Melishko on the line,’ he panted. He’d forgotten to put in his false teeth. Hell, I’ll sound like a simpleton, he thought.
He heard the operator connect the call and then the echo of breathing. He stiffened to attention.
‘Melishko.’ The Georgian accent reverberated down the line. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I am well, Comrade Stalin.’
‘They gave you a hard time in prison. There are too many yes-men in this country who harm innocent people. That’s over now, isn’t it?’
‘It is, Comrade Stalin.’
‘The Motherland needs you. You have your orders? After this attack, you will have your rank back.’
‘Thank you, Comrade Stalin.’
‘And, Melishko?’
‘I hear you, Comrade Stalin.’
‘Your criminals are now Soviet cavalry and you must attack the Germans at full charge. Give no quarter. If you run out of bullets, use your sabres, and if you run out of sabres, kill them with your bare hands… Even if none are left, your men will redeem themselves by shedding their own blood.’
The phone line went dead. Melishko still held the phone. ‘Even if none are left…’ Then he shook his head and called for his adjutant. ‘Get the men on parade,’ he roared. ‘We move out at dawn.’
Day Two
I
It was early morning, the cavalry was massing on the ridge, looking out over the endless plains. In the half-light, Benya could see the flash of hundreds of equine eyes, the gleam of stirrups, hear the stretch of girth straps, the clink of spurs, the jolt of rifle bolts being cleaned and checked, the thump of hooves – and, over it all, the drumming of his own terrified breaths. They were walking forward into squadron, so tight, Benya felt he could hear the heartbeat of the nearest rider. Right next to him, Speedy Prishchepa was drawing and redrawing his sword from its scabbard making a sound like a sharpened cymbal.
He grinned at Benya, his teeth glowing in the gloom, and leaned over to whisper: ‘Did I ever tell you I was married back in the old country? She was such a sweet one, a real apple pie, a bun with currants! The Cossack girls have such style, not like Russian peasant women – they’re mules dressed in sacks – but a Cossack girl, phew, she knows how to walk. Who knows where she is now? Maybe I’ll meet her today,’ and he started to sing under his breath.
On the other side sat Spider Garanzha, his large soft hand on his curved Cossack sword. ‘This shashka can cleave a man from neck to hip with one blow,’ he said, spitting. ‘The human body’s soft as a watermelon. With a sword like this, bones are like butter. Do you know how to do the Splitter? They don’t teach it at your Jew schools? No worries! I’ll teach you. Once when I was in the old country, I met a farrier who…’ They were packed so close, their boots were rubbing against each other, their stirrups almost entangled, but Benya was not listening. The suspense was intensifying. Garanzha went quiet but Prishchepa was talking incessantly. Smiley swivelled his steel teeth, his eyes hooded, and Little Mametka beside him, on his little horse, peeped ahead, looking, thought Benya, like a scared marmoset. It was always a relief to find someone more afraid than he was.
‘How long until…?’ stammered Benya.
‘Till what? Till Christmas?’ joked Prishchepa. ‘Till you get kissed again?’
Spider shrugged and spat out a sunflower seed.
Benya was trying frantically to remember his instructions: how would he fire his weapons? His Mosin–Nagant M38 carbine was slung over his back. Training seemed ages ago. He fingered the sabre, remembered its weight in his palm, but could he swing it? On to a man? His hands were shaking violently, the energy dripping out of him. He knew with a sudden certainty that he would die out there.
They had crossed the Don several hours previously. The majesty of the great river had astounded him. Hundreds of men and horses were wrangled on to creaking old ferries, hooves thudding, guns clanking, the men quiet and breathless once they felt the rise and fall of the water. The German guns had, for some reason, eased, and as they had pushed off, there was, for a moment, a collective intake of breath, followed by an eerie stillness, a stillness more still than any he had ever felt. Crickets chirruped and bitterns boomed and he even heard the frogs croaking and the lap of the river breathing, wide and shimmering under a red sky, its waves green and foamy, and although the near bank was high, the far one was low. It was indeed the sacred river he had read about, the one the Cossacks sang about.