Red Shadow by Paul Dowswell Page A

passed.
    They all walked home, their arms linked together, all of them declaring it had been a brilliant evening. Yelena smiled so sweetly when she said goodbye, and squeezed his hand.
    Valya only spoke to Misha at the very end of the evening, after they had shed their other friends one by one on the walk back to the Kremlin. ‘She’s a nice girl, Yelena,’ said Valya. ‘Very pretty too. She’s always liked you!’
    Misha blushed. Valya sounded a bit tipsy.
    ‘Who was the fellow who came with you?’ he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
    ‘Oh, that’s Vitaly. I know him from the flying club. I think he’s quite good-looking, and he can be charming, but he’s a bit too fond of talking about himself. He kept buying me drinks and I thought maybe he was trying to get me drunk. He offered to walk me home but by then I think I knew he wasn’t really interested in me. I told him I had plenty of friends here to see me home. He seemed quite relieved.’
    Misha wondered if she was disappointed or annoyed about it. Then she said. ‘You know, for all this talk about women being the equal of men in our brave new Soviet world, I don’t think many young men actually like women who are ambitious, or scientists, or pilots . . .’
    She sounded quite crestfallen, which wasn’t something he expected from Valya. But then she laughed and perked up. ‘It would never have worked anyway. His name is Vitaly Ustyuzhanin. What a mouthful. I wouldn’t want that name. And we’d be called Vitya and Valya – people would be forever mixing us up!’

Chapter 9
    Early June 1941
     
    Misha’s evening mealtime conversations with his father grew more disturbing, so much so that he began to fret about Yegor’s state of mind. He even put off asking him if he could have the keys to the dacha in Meshkovo to stay there a few nights with friends because he didn’t want to leave his papa alone in the apartment. Sometimes he heard muffled shouting through the wall. It reminded him of when Mama and Papa used to argue and he quickly realised that Yegor was having nightmares and talking in his sleep.
    One summer night, when Yegor had come home a whole two hours before sunset, he seemed particularly agitated. He could not sit down and paced around the room. As they ate, he fidgeted and could barely find the patience to chew his food. Eventually he turned on the radio and whispered, ‘I have something so important to tell you. We must go outside and walk in the street as we talk.’
    Misha nodded. It was a beautiful evening. Warm, slightly damp, the kind of twilight that made you wish you were at the dacha rather than on the stale streets of Moscow, breathing in the chemical smells from the factories and road repairs.
    They walked out of the Borovitskaya Tower and on to the bridge across the Moskva. The rush hour was long over and there were only a few people crossing the bridge with them. Misha and his father stopped and rested on the stone balustrade and stared over the river at the Kremlin.
    ‘Misha, what I tell you now you must never ever repeat . . .’
    Misha’s exasperation spilled out. ‘Papa. I would never tell anyone what you tell me. I know that would be inviting my own execution, and yours.’
    Yegor shushed him. Misha rarely spoke so brazenly to his father and he expected a clip around the ear at least. But this time Yegor looked at him with a mixture of tenderness and fear. ‘Misha, my son, the Nazis are coming. I am sure of it. And if they come now, they’ll be here before the winter.’
    Misha gasped. ‘Papa, that’s treason. We have the greatest military forces in the world. How can this possibly happen? Haven’t you seen that film If War Should Come ? If Hitler invaded, the working people of Germany would rise up and destroy him from within. It just won’t happen.’
    ‘You must know that’s complete nonsense,’ he said sadly.
    Misha wasn’t sure. He realised that he really wanted to believe it. He found it comforting.