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“Tatyana Litvinova, Brighton, England: During the war, my husband and I often visited Kostya at the Moscow Hotel — we went to use his bathtub. When Raisa Mikhailovna and Nina came, the Umanskys moved to the House of Government, and our bath-and-laundry visits continued there. We gossiped with full mutual trust; we used to get letters from my parents in America through Kostya. Once, I remember, Kostya said about Dad: ‘The old man’s gone mad. His replies to Stalin’s telegrams are pure obstruction.’”
Sometimes he’d call from work, late at night, around two, and we’d jump up and drag ourselves to the phone across our unheated apartment on Pervaya Meshchanskaya, shivering, there was frost in the corners. Kostya called when he was bored — officials of his rank used to spend nights on end in
