She shook her head slowly, sadly, and the tears returned to her eyes. "Not when you're a prisoner, dorogoi moi. Not when you are a hostage."
"What are you saying? How can this "
"It is my father. He knows how I love my father, how I would do anything to protect him."
"Von Schussler is threatening your father?"
"No, it is nothing so open. He ... he has a document. A piece of paper that has the power to kill my father. To get my father executed and me arrested."
"Lana, what the hell ?"
"Listen to me. Please, just listen!" She took his hand in both of hers and held it tightly. "You know the name of the famous
Red Army general Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, the great Hero of the Revolution?"
"I've heard the name, yes."
"He defended Moscow in 1918, captured Siberia in 1920. A great, loyal military man. The chief of staff of the Soviet army. And he was an old friend of my father's. A few times we had dinner with his family. My father worshiped him. He had a photograph of himself with Tukhachevsky which he displayed prominently on top of the piano." She paused, drew in her breath as if steeling herself. "One night in May it was three years ago, in 1937 I was asleep when I heard our doorbell ring. I thought it must be some prankster, some hooligan, some drunk, so I rolled over and put the pillow over my head. The ringing did not stop. I looked at my clock. It was after midnight. Finally the ringing stopped, and I was able to fall back to sleep. I had a big performance the next evening we were doing Sleeping Beauty.
"It must have been an hour later when I was awakened again, this time by loud voices. My father's voice. I got up from my bed and listened. The voices were coming from my father's study. He seemed to be arguing with someone. I ran to his study but stopped just outside the door. Father was there, in his dressing gown, and he was talking quite agitatedly to Tukhachevsky. My first thought was that Marshal Tukhachevsky was yelling at Father for something, and I became quite angry. I stood there, eavesdropping. But I soon realized that Father was not yelling at him at all he was angry, furious as I had never seen him before, but not angry at his friend Mikhail Nikolayevich. He was furious at Stalin. Tukhachevsky did not seem to be angry, though. His tone of voice was sad, resigned, almost mournful.
"I looked around the corner to see the two men, and I was shocked to see that Tukhachevsky's hair had turned gray. I had seen him two weeks earlier, and it was quite dark. Obviously something terrible had happened to him. I pulled back, careful not to be seen. I knew that if they knew I was there, that I was listening in, they would stop. And I had the feeling that whatever they were discussing was so serious, so dangerous, that my father would never tell me. He is always so protective of me, you know."
"Not because he doesn't respect you, dusya. But because he loves you."
"Yes. I've come to understand this, though for years it made me so angry that he insisted on treating me like a small child. So I listened to Tukhachevsky tell my father that Stalin and his NKVD had uncovered a huge plot within the army. He said the NKVD was tailing him, on Stalin's direct orders. The rumor was that Stalin had strong evidence indicating that a number of his top military officers were engaged in a secret conspiracy a plot with members of the German High Command to carry out a coup d'etat against Stalin. And that among these plotters was ... Tukhachevsky!"
"That's insane."
"Is it? I don't know the truth. I know that when my father and he spoke privately, they both agreed that Stalin was a dangerous man." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "My father loathes Stalin. This I know. He will not allow Stalin's name to be used in our house. Oh, in public he joins in all the toasts to the General Secretary. He praises Stalin to the skies when others are listening. He is not stupid. But he hates the man. And so did Tukhachevsky."