Katerina
“May I sit?”
Katerina asked with a bright, easy smile.
It was not really a question that waited on an answer, so Rokossovsky hurriedly shifted to make room beside him.
“O-of course. Please, sit here.”
He stammered as he offered the seat. Katerina gave a light nod and settled into the chair; at the same moment the rest of us took our places as well.
“…….”
“…….”
The moment the free-talking Rokossovsky fell silent, a peculiar stillness settled over the table. Model was no different. The man who had been digging at me with such persistence seemed to have read the mood; he asked nothing further and only lifted his glass quietly to his lips.
…What is this atmosphere?
I looked from the three suddenly altered men to Kacha. She propped her chin in one hand, holding the fresh glass the waiter had brought in the other, and regarded it with an expressionless face.
“Have I interrupted something?”
In the hush, Kacha’s glass was the first to move.
“Ah, no! Interrupt? Not at all—we’d just run out of topics, actually…”
“…What a thing to say.”
Rokossovsky and Zhukov, who moments before had been snarling as if ready to tear each other apart, waved their hands in perfect unison. Their timing was almost uncanny. Katerina seemed wholly uninterested in whatever topic had left Rokossovsky’s mouth; she merely turned her glass slowly in her fingers.
I asked her,
“Kacha. How do you know these two gentlemen?”
“Ah, that…”
Rokossovsky opened his mouth to answer for her—
—and Katerina cut him off with a single, casual gesture of her hand.
“Who knows.”
“…?”
“The two officers here are promising cavalry commanders in the Red Army. Men the whole service looks up to. As a political commissar, wouldn’t I naturally know of them?”
She had deliberately withheld information about herself from me.
…Why?
What did that mean? While I turned over one conjecture after another in my mind, Katerina’s mouth curved in a faint, one-sided smile.
“There’s no need for such a serious face. The bit about knowing them as a political commissar was only a joke.”
“…….”
“My adoptive father was a Voenspets.”
A Voenspets…?
The instant the word settled in my mind, the familiar ability stirred again.
On 19 March 1918, the Sovnarkom convened a meeting on the disposition of officers and generals of the Tsarist era. Having decided to bring them into the Red Army, the Council of People’s Commissars abolished the electoral system in the forces on the 26th of the same month and enrolled former generals and officers in great numbers. We called them military specialists.
Voenspets.
The white bones that still symbolized the old world the revolution had swallowed—those among them who had torn off the Tsar’s shoulder boards and pinned on the red star instead.
Unfortunately the ability offered only this fragmentary scrap. But I hardly needed its help. Everyone knew what had become of those specialists once the Civil War and the Polish-Bolshevik War were over and their usefulness had run out.
“And Comrade Zhukov and Comrade Rokossovsky were comrades-in-arms who shared life and death with my adoptive father.”
“Comrades-in-arms…?”
I tilted my head, and Rokossovsky looked at me and added,
“Comrade Sokolova is right. Though ‘comrade-in-arms’ is almost too modest—he was closer to a mentor. Both I and Zhora learned a great deal over his shoulder.”
“…He was something like a legend of the cavalry.”
…A mentor to two future marshals?
I was less curious about the man’s identity than astonished that Katerina’s adoptive father had been a figure of that stature. And yet, on reflection, it made a certain sense. Kacha was the agent Mikoyan had attached to watch over me.
Mikoyan would never have been careless in choosing a bodyguard for Stalin’s son, and Stalin himself—who never let a single document pass unread—could not possibly be unaware of Kacha’s existence.
The Red Tsar of the Union would know everything as a matter of course. So this was no coincidence. Mikoyan—or rather Stalin—had deliberately placed at my side the adopted daughter of a giant from whom even two future marshals had learned by watching over his shoulder.
…Whatever the purpose might be.
“How is the general?”
Rokossovsky asked. Katerina shook her head.
“He is very ill. They say it would be a miracle if he lasts out the year.”
“Mmm…”
Rokossovsky lifted his glass and took a long swallow. Zhukov only nodded once, adding nothing, as was his way.
I raised my own glass in silence. There was nothing I could say. Mourning belonged to those who had known the man; to me, who did not even know his name, death was only an unknown country wrapped in a plain shroud. So, as a guest who had merely borrowed a seat at this table for a little while, I lifted my glass—not in mourning, but as the courtesy one offers with drink instead of words.
“I think I had better take my leave about now.”
Model set down his empty glass with a soft click. At the same moment he drew a monocle from his breast pocket, settled it in place, and rose.
“Captain Model, leaving already?”
“I am. It is nearly time to write a letter to my wife in Dresden.”
He showed Rokossovsky the watch on his wrist.
“A fine gathering. Thanks to the two colonels I have also learned of an excellent drinking house.”
Zhukov and Rokossovsky stood and exchanged farewells with him. Model shrugged into his overcoat, inclined his head briefly to Katerina as well, and at last turned his gaze on me.
“Yasha.”
The sharp eyes behind the monocle fixed on mine. His cheeks were flushed with drink, yet his mind seemed perfectly clear.
“A pity—I never did hear your answer in the end.”
“…….”
“Well, it hardly matters. I know full well it would be foolish to lay out tactics carelessly for an officer of another country. This is, after all, a problem we must solve ourselves.”
He indicated the dried vodka rings on the table with a fingertip. The severity of his expression carried a keen pressure.
“Still—next time we meet, show me a little more of what is inside that head of yours.”
“…Will you remain in Leningrad?”
Model shook his head.
“No. I am going to Kazan. Leningrad… I may be able to return toward the end of my posting.”
“Leningrad to Kazan is rather far…”
“It cannot be helped. Orders are orders.”
At the word Kazan I understood at once where he was bound.
The Kama Tank School—Panzerschule Kama. That school, marked on no map along the banks of the Volga, was the secret tank training ground Germany had built on Soviet soil to escape the eyes of other nations. The agreement to establish it would not be signed until 1926, and actual operations would not begin until 1929; for now he was merely scouting the site.
“In any case, I wish you a good journey, Captain Model.”
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Yasha.”
We clasped hands in farewell. With that, Model turned and walked out.
A breath of cold night air swept in, then faded. I watched the door through which he had vanished and wondered what influence this meeting with Model might one day have.
“Anyway, Mariya.”
Rokossovsky waved toward the waiter. His tongue had been thickening for some time… was he drunk? I studied his face more closely. Cheeks flushed crimson, eyes half-lidded—he looked every inch a man in his cups.
“Hey, Tanya! Another bottle over here. No—two!”
Zhukov propped up the liquor-softened Rokossovsky.
“…Kostya, you’ve had enough.”
Even when Zhukov offered a mild rebuke, Rokossovsky paid not the slightest heed. Embarrassed by his friend’s display, Zhukov scratched at his hair and offered an apology.
“He… sometimes—only very occasionally—gets like this.”
He gave an awkward smile.
Well now. To see a drunk Rokossovsky with my own eyes! It was a sight worth the price of admission.
“It’s been a long while since we had a chance to drink without looking over our shoulders. Forgive me.”
“No need to apologize. I’ve had an excellent show.”
Zhukov snorted a laugh and half-dragged the now thoroughly limp Rokossovsky to his feet.
“Haa… This simply will not do. We’ll have to stop here for tonight.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, and patted Rokossovsky’s cheek.
“Hey, get up, Kostya. If you fall asleep here I’m leaving you.”
“Th-that’s not… allowed…”
Rokossovsky flailed and forced his eyes open. With unfocused gaze he waved a hand, called my name, and declared that we must meet again—
…except he was facing the wrong direction entirely.
“…Yasha is over there, Kostya. That’s a wall.”
Zhukov seized his friend’s head and turned it toward me. Only then did Rokossovsky manage to focus; he grinned broadly.
“Huh…? A wall?! …Ah, Yasha. There you are. Mmm… we absolutely have to meet again!”
“Yes. Until next time.”
I took my leave of him and helped Zhukov support the man. As they made for the door, Zhukov paused a moment and looked back at me.
“I enjoyed this evening, Jugashvili. …Comrade Sokolova as well—go carefully.”
“Take care, Comrade Zhukov.”
The door creaked open, and Zhukov and Rokossovsky were swallowed by the night street. A cold wind swept through once; by rights my whole body should have been chilled, yet somehow I felt warmer than before.
“Kostya! Your drinks are here!”
“Huh?”
Tanya the waitress appeared with her arms full of bottles. Only then did I remember that Rokossovsky had ordered more a moment ago.
“Ah—Kostya has already left, so the drinks…”
“It’s all right.”
I started to wave her off, but Katerina drew a glass toward herself first.
“We can finish them between the two of us, can’t we? Right, Yasha?”
Once again she wore that courteous, gentle smile—the professional kind, perhaps? In any case, the drinks had arrived, so I thanked the waitress.
“Mm… thank you, Tanya.”
“…Not at all.”
Tanya stared blankly at Katerina for a moment, then glanced at me, set the bottles down, and withdrew.
“…….”
And so only Katerina and I remained at the table.
“That waitress seemed to hope you would call her milaya.”
Katerina’s sudden remark left me frozen, glass still in hand.
“What do you mean by that…?”
…Had she been listening from the very beginning? To all of our conversation?
Gooseflesh rose along my arms as I turned to her.
“Rather, I am the one who would like to ask.”
She tilted her glass and smiled softly. That face, usually as cold as ice, looked unusually radiant tonight.
“Just how long do you suppose I have been here?”