CHAPTER SIX
Jane Barrington, 1948
Sam Gulotta
Silver Spring, Maryland, just north of DC, Tatiana said, “Stop the camper.” He did stop—at the designated meeting point, at a gas station. They got out; he filled the tank, went to go get them Cokes, cigarettes, candy for Anthony, who was running around raising dust. They were meeting Sam at eight in the morning; it was seven-thirty.
Tatiana had put on the sheer ivory muslin and tulle dress Alexander had bought for her in New Orleans; she had taken it in herself on Bethel Island; after all, her mother had been a seamstress. She had brushed out her hair and left it down. In the summer morning breeze, the diaphanous dress floated up slightly and the wisps of her sundried hair blew around her face.
“Thank you for looking so lovely for me,” said Alexander.
She managed a “You’re welcome.” She tried to speak to him, but her voice wouldn’t work. It was unseemly in the zenith of a bright Godlike summer morning to be filled with so much anxiety. He lit a cigarette as they waited. He was wearing his U.S. captain’s Class A dress uniform he had been given by the U.S. consul in Berlin. He had shaved and cropped short his hair.
Tatiana had at first insisted she was going to be by Alexander’s side through everything. Trouble was, there was no one to leave the boy with. She said she would call Vikki and ask her to come help, but as soon as Anthony, who was milling nearby, obviously listening to adult conversations, had heard the name Vikki in conjunction with his own, he started to cry and clinging to his mother’s leg, said please, please, don’t leave me alone with Vikki.
And though Tatiana was horrified, she was not so horrified as to not want to call her friend. It was Alexander who put his foot down. They were not going to both leave Ant now when he needed his mother again.
Standing at the camper, Tatiana said bitterly, to no one in particular, “I can’t believe we’re subjecting ourselves to this. Who would have found us in our vast America? We’d have been lost forever.”
“How many times do you intend to step out in front of me, Tatiana,” Alexander asked, “to hide me from the Communists?”
“The rest of my life, if that’s what it takes.”
He turned to her, and something in his eyes opened and cleared and focused on her. He stared into something he was obviously trying very hard to understand. “What did you just say?”
She turned her upset face away from his questioning gaze.
“Oh, I am such a f*cking idiot,” said Alexander—as Sam Gulotta drove up in his old Ford sedan.
Sam shook Alexander’s hand, and then stood in front of Tatiana without speaking. He was wearing an atypically rumpled suit, and his face was weary. His curly hair had started to go gray at the edges and thin on top; he looked less sturdy though he had coached his sons’ baseball games for many years. “You look well, Tatiana. Very well.” He cleared his throat, and looked away. Sam, who never noticed her, looked away! “Marriage obviously agrees with you,” he said. “I got married again myself.” His first wife had died in a plane crash at the start of the war, bringing supplies to the troops. Tatiana wanted to say that the second marriage didn’t seem to agree with him quite so well but of course didn’t. Her arms were crossed on her chest.
Sam said, “So finally you saw reason.”
“Not me,” she retorted.
“Well, since he’s the one who’s going have to pay for your shenanigans, I’m glad one of you had some sense.”
“I’m not paying for her shenanigans,” said Alexander.
Tatiana waved them both off. “Sam, don’t pretend you don’t understand why in today’s climate I might not be completely forthcoming with bringing you my husband.”
“Yes,” said Sam. “But why were you not forthcoming with bringing me your husband back in 1946?”
“Because we were done with all of you!” Tatiana exclaimed. “And he’s already talked this to death in Berlin. That’s not in his file for all to see?” Alexander put his hand out to quieten her. Anthony was nearby.
“It is in his file,” Sam said evenly. “But I told you, the military tribunal in Berlin had their own protocol and we have ours. After he got here he had to talk to us. Which part of that didn’t you understand?”
“Oh, I understood. But why can’t you leave him alone?” She stepped in front of Alexander. “A hundred million people—don’t you have something better to do? Who is he bothering? You know he is not in an espionage ring, collecting information for the Soviets. You know he’s not hiding. And you know perfectly well that the last thing he of all people needs is to have your little State Department get their hooks in him.”
Alexander put his hands on Tatiana’s shoulders to stop her from heaving. Sam stood powerlessly in front of her. “Had you called me two years ago,” Sam said, “this would’ve been behind you. Now everybody in three government departments is stuck on the fact that he’s been hiding!”
“Traveling, not hiding. Do they know the difference?”
“No! Because they haven’t debriefed him. And Defense really needed to debrief him. It’s only because of your obstinacy that it’s snowballed to this level.”
“Don’t blame it on me, you with your incessant phone calls to Vikki! What did you think I was going to think?”
Alexander fixed his hold on Tatiana’s shoulders. “Shh,” he said.
“No shh. And you know what, Sam?” Tatiana snapped, still under Alexander’s hands. “Why don’t you spend less time looking for my husband and a little more time looking at your State Department? I don’t know if you’ve been reading the papers the last few years, but all I’m saying is, you might want to first clean your own house before searching all over the country to clean mine.”
“Why don’t you come and talk to John Rankin of the House of Un-American Activities Committee,” Sam said impatiently. “Because he’s waiting for you. Perhaps you can illuminate him about what you know about our State Department. He loves to talk to people like you.”
Alexander’s hold constricted around her. “All right, you two,” he said. He turned Tatiana to him. “That’s enough,” he said quietly, staring her down. “We have to go.”
“I’m coming with you!” Tatiana exclaimed. “I don’t care what I promised. I’ll take Ant with me—”
“Sam, excuse us for a minute,” Alexander said, pulling Tatiana with him behind their camper. She was panting in desperation. He brought her flush against him and took her face in his hands. “Tatia, stop,” he said. “You told me you were going to stay calm. You promised. Come on. The boy is right here.”
She was shaking.
“You’re going to wait here,” he said, his steadying hand spreading around her gauzy back, holding her close, comforting her. “As you promised me, God help me. Just sit and wait. No matter what happens, we will come back. This is what Sam said. One way or another, I’m going to come back, but you have to wait. Don’t go off. The boy is with you now, and you have to be good. Now swear to me again you’ll be good.”
“I’ll be good,” she whispered. She only hoped her face wasn’t showing him what she was feeling. But then Anthony jumped between them and was in her arms, and she was forced to pretend to calm down.
Before they left, Sam ruffled Anthony’s hair. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’ll do my best to take care of your dad.”
“Okay,” said Anthony, his arm around his mother’s neck. “And I’ll take care of my mom.”
Tatiana backed away. Alexander nodded. She nodded. They stood for a moment. She saluted him. He saluted her. Anthony’s hands were around his mother. “Mommy, how come you salute Dad first?”
“He’s higher in rank, bud,” she whispered.
Her face must have been so contorted that Alexander’s words failed him. He just said, “Dear God, have a little faith, will you?” But he said it to her turned and squared back. The boy was in her arms.
“When did she become this overwrought?” Sam asked as they drove to the State Department in his sedan. He shook his head. “She used to be so much calmer.”
“Really?”
Sam obviously wanted to talk about her. “Absolutely. You know when she first came to me, she was a stoic. A young petite widowed mother, spoke in a low voice, polite, never talked back, barely knew how to speak English. As time went on and she kept calling, she remained polite and quiet. She would come to DC sometimes, we would have lunch, sit quietly. I mean, she was so placid. I guess the only thing until the end that should have given me a clue was that she called every single month, without fail. But toward the end, when I got word about you in Colditz, she transformed into…into—I don’t even know. A completely different woman.”
“No, no,” said Alexander. “Same woman. The quiet and polite is a ruse. When it’s going her way, she is quiet and polite. Just don’t cross her.”
“It’s true, I’ve seen that! The consul in Berlin has seen that. Did you know the man asked to be reassigned after she dealt with him?”
“The U.S. Consul to Berlin?” said Alexander. “Try the Soviet Communist Party-trained Commandant to the Special Camp at Sachsenhausen. I don’t even want to guess what happened to him after she was done with his little special camp.”
Soon they were driving along the Potomac, heading south. Alexander turned to the window, fanning out his hand over the glass.
On the fourth floor of the State Department on C Street, a block north of Constitution Avenue and the Mall, Sam introduced Alexander to a brand-new, just-out-of-law-school lawyer named Matt Levine, who had the smallest office known to man, smaller than the prison cells Alexander spent so much time in, a six by six cubicle with an imposing wooden desk and three chairs. The three men huddled together so close and uncomfortable that Alexander had to ask Levine to open the small window for an illusion of space.
Even in a suit, Matt Levine looked barely old enough to shave, but there was a certain shortstop look about him that Alexander liked. Also it didn’t hurt that the first thing he said to Alexander was, “Don’t worry. We’ll lick this thing,” even though he spent three subsequent hours reviewing Alexander’s file and telling him that they were completely f*cked.
“They’ll ask about your uniform.” Levine appraised him admiringly.
“Let them ask.”
“They’ll ask about your parents. There are some unbelievably damning things about them.”
“Let them ask.” This part he wished he could avoid.
“They’ll ask why you haven’t contacted State.”
That Tania.
“Did you know Gulotta here thinks we can blame the whole thing on your wife?” Levine grinned.
“Does he?”
“But I told him old soldiers don’t like to blame their troubles on their women. He insisted though.”
Alexander looked from Sam to Levine and back again. “Are you guys f*cking with me?”
“No, no,” Sam said, half-seriously. “I really considered blaming it all on her. It’s not even a lie: you actually didn’t know we’d been looking for you—though ignorance is not a legal defense. But she can plead spousal privilege since she can’t testify against you, and we’re done. What do you think?”
“Hmm,” Alexander drew out. “What’s plan B?”
They didn’t have a plan B.
“I will object to everything. That’s my plan B.” Levine smiled. “I just passed my bar exam. I’m retained by State as legal counsel. You’re only my second case. But don’t worry, I’m ready. Remember, don’t be riled.” He squinted his eyes at Alexander. “Are you…easily riled?”
The guy was scrappy. “Let’s just say I’m not not easily riled,” Alexander replied. “But I’ve been provoked by tougher men than these.” He was thinking about Slonko, the man who interrogated his mother, his father, and finally—years later—himself. It hadn’t gone well for Slonko. Alexander decided not to tell the just-passed-the-bar-exam Levine about the intricacies of Soviet NKVD interrogation—half naked in a freezing dark cell, starved and beaten, without witnesses, being pummeled with vicious insinuations about Tatiana.
Alexander was perspiring in his heavy uniform. He was not used to being this close to other people. He stood up, but there was nowhere to go. Sam was nervously chewing his nails in between tying and retying his tie.
“Some hay will almost certainly be made over your citizenship issue,” Levine told Alexander. “Be careful of those questions. You’ll see. There’ll be some dueling between the departments.”
Alexander mulled a question of his own. “Do you think”—he didn’t want to ask—“that extradition might, um, come up?”
Sam and Levine exchanged fleeting frank glances, and Levine mumbled, all averted, “I shouldn’t think so,” and Sam, also averted, said, “If all fails, we’re reverting to plan A: Save your ass, blame your wife.”
Sam told him the hearing would be conducted by seven men: two from State (“One of whom will be me”), two from Justice (one Immigration and Naturalization, one FBI), and two from Defense (“One lieutenant, one old colonel; I think you might like young Tom Richter; he’s been very interested in your file”) and the most important person at the hearing—Congressman John Rankin, the senior member from the House of Un-American Activities Committee, who would come to determine if Alexander had ties to the Communist Party at home or abroad. After the session was over, the seven men would put the question to vote by majority. John Rankin would be the one to cast the tiebreaker—if it came to that.
“He’ll also be the one to determine whether or not you need to be investigated by the full HUAC,” Sam said. “I don’t have to tell you,” he added, telling Alexander nonetheless, “at all costs, try to avoid that.”
“Yes,” said Levine, “if you go on to meet with HUAC, you’re f*cked. So no matter how rude anyone is, be polite, apologize and say, yes, sir, absolutely, sir, and I’m sorry, sir.”
“You’re very lucky in some respects,” Sam said (Alexander agreed), “you really couldn’t be getting a hearing at a better time.”
“Oh, yeah?” Alexander desperately needed a smoke, but he didn’t think there was enough oxygen in the office to light one small cigarette.
“HUAC is about to launch an explosive investigation into one of our own,” said Levine. “Count your blessings. Alger Hiss, you heard of him?”
Alexander had. Alger Hiss had been the director of a committee presiding over the founding of the United Nations. Hiss had been leading the charge on the U.N. since 1944. He nodded.
“Hiss was at Yalta with Roosevelt and Churchill, he was the President’s adviser, and now he’s been accused by a former communist colleague of being a Soviet spy—since the 1930s!”
“That’s one high-up man facing some high-up charges,” noted Alexander.
“No shit,” said Sam. “Point is, HUAC is busy with much bigger fish than you, so they want you, need you, to be square and on the up and up. So be on the up and up, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Alexander, standing up and heading for the door, out of the stifling room. “Absolutely, sir. I’m sorry, sir, but I have to have a f*cking smoke, or I’m going to die, sir.”
Lieutenant Thomas Richter
Alexander was grateful that the room in which he met with the representatives of State, Defense and Justice across the National Mall was bigger than Matt Levine’s office. The room in a Congressional testimonial room on the second floor of the Old Executive Building near the Capitol was narrow and long, with a row of tall open windows to his right that overlooked trees and gardens. The half-pack of cigarettes he smoked en route from State to Old Executive calmed him but did not quell his hunger or thirst. It was mid-afternoon.
He downed a glass of water, asked for another, asked if he could smoke, and sat tensely—and smokelessly—behind a small wooden table across from a raised wooden platform. Soon seven men filed in. Alexander watched them. They took their places, took a long good look at him, who was standing in front of them, appraised him, sat. He remained standing.
They were serious and well-dressed. Four of the men were in their fifties, two looked to be Alexander’s age and one was 39-year-old Sam, who could’ve used a smoke himself. And Sam said Tania was overwrought. Tania was a woman—what was Sam’s excuse? The two from Defense, one young, one old, were in full military dress. There were microphones in front of everyone. A stenographer, a court reporter, a bailiff were present. The bailiff said there would be no chair at the hearing and the members were therefore allowed to direct questions to Alexander and to each other.
After Alexander raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth and the meeting was called to order, but nearly before he finished saying, “So help me God,” the young soldier from Defense opened his mouth.
“Lieutenant Thomas Richter,” the soldier said. “Tell me, why are you wearing a U.S. military uniform? Officer’s dress greens no less?”
“I’m a military man,” Alexander said. “I own no suit. The dress greens were given to me by Mark Bishop, the U.S. Military Governor of Berlin.” It was better than lobstering dungarees. Or a Red Army uniform. He liked Richter’s question. It was as if Richter had invited Alexander to set himself slightly outside the order of this civilian committee.
“So what do you call yourself nowadays?” Richter continued. “Do we refer to you as Commander? Captain? Major? Judging from your file, you seem to have had a number of ranks.”
“I was major for only a few weeks,” said Alexander. “I was wounded and arrested, after which I was demoted back to captain as punishment. I served as commander of a Railroad Patrol in General Meretskov’s 67th Army and of a penal battalion in General Rokossovsky’s 97th Army—as captain in both capacities. Upon my last conviction in 1945, the Red Army stripped me of my rank and title.”
“Well, you seem like a military man to me,” remarked Richter. “You say you served as an officer from 1937 to 1945? I see you received the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. There is no higher military honor in the Red Army. As I understand, it’s the equivalent of our Congressional Medal of Honor.”
“Mister Barrington,” interrupted an elderly, desiccated man, introducing himself as Mr. Drake from the Department of Justice. “Major, Captain, Mister. Medals, years of service, titles, ranks—none of these things are at issue or our concern or the purpose of this meeting, frankly.”
“I beg the pardon of the gentleman from Justice,” said Richter. “But the establishment and verification of Captain Barrington’s military history is of prime concern to the members of Defense at this meeting, and is the reason we’re here. So if you’ll excuse me…”
“Could the gentleman from Defense allow me to ask just one question, if I may. Just one,” Drake said sonorously. “Mr. Barrington, as I’m sure you’re aware, this committee is very troubled that you came to this country two years ago on special asylum privilege from the U.S. Government, and yet this is the first time we’re meeting you face to face.”
“State your question, Mr. Drake,” said Alexander.
Richter suppressed a smile.
Drake coughed. “I see no record of your asylum application.”
“State your question, Mr. Drake,” repeated Alexander.
“Objection!” That was Matt Levine. “You see no record of my client’s asylum application because my client did not come to this country on asylum. He returned to the country of his birth as a U.S. citizen with a full passport and all his rights as a citizen intact. Mr. Barrington, tell the Court how long your family had resided in Massachusetts prior to 1930.”
“Since the 1600s,” said Alexander. He went on to explain that there were indeed some special and sensitive circumstances surrounding his return, but that he believed he had fulfilled his obligations after meeting in July 1946 with Sam Gulotta, the details of which were in the public record.
Drake pointed out that it was also in the public record that Alexander Barrington’s file was open until the final formal debriefing—which had not taken place.
Sam said into his microphone, “I wish to elaborate on Mr. Barrington’s statement. I did indeed meet and speak at length with him, and had not made the urgency and necessity for a full debriefing clear. I apologize to the members of this hearing for my oversight.”
Tania was right about Sam.
“Mr. Gulotta is correct,” Alexander said. “As soon as I was aware that the State Department needed to speak to me, I contacted him and returned immediately.”
“I will attest to that,” Sam said. “Mr. Barrington voluntarily, without an arrest or a subpoena, returned to Washington.”
“Why have you not contacted us earlier, Mr. Barrington?” asked Drake. “Why were you in hiding?”
“I have been traveling,” Alexander said. “I was not in hiding.” He was being hidden—a vital difference. “I was not aware I had outstanding business with the U.S. Government.”
“Where have you been traveling?”
“Maine, Florida, Arizona, California.”
“By yourself?”
Alexander very nearly lied. If seven copies of his file were not lying in front of the men behind the long table, he would have. “No, not by myself. My wife and son are with me.”
“Why did you hesitate, Mr. Barrington?” asked the man from State sitting next to Sam. He had not introduced himself, though it was his first question. He was portly and in his fifties, with beads of perspiration gluing his combed-over slick hair to his wet scalp. His brown tie was to one side; his teeth were bad.
“I hesitated,” Alexander replied, “because my debriefing here today has nothing to do with my family.”
“Doesn’t it though?”
Alexander blinked, taking half a breath. “Not with my wife and son, no.”
The man from State cleared his throat. “Mr. Barrington,” he said, “tell me, please, how many years have you been married?”
Something from Slonko came to him—Slonko, standing just three feet away in Alexander’s cell, holding the specter of a defenseless pregnant Tatiana over Alexander’s head. After another slight pause Alexander said, “Six.”
“So—you got married in 1942?”
“Correct,” Alexander said tersely. He hated being questioned about Tatiana. Slonko had inferred that well, which is why he kept pushing. A little too far, as it turned out.
“And your son—what is his name?”
Alexander thought he had misheard. “You want to know my son’s name?”
“Objection! Relevance!” Levine rattled the windows yelling out that one.
“Withdrawn,” said the man from State. “How old is your son?”
“Five.” Alexander said through his teeth.
“Born in 1943?”
“Correct.”
“But Mr. Barrington, you just told us you didn’t return to this country until 1946.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s only two years ago. And your son is five?”
“Objection!” exclaimed Levine. “How is this relevant?”
“I’ll tell you how it’s relevant,” said the man from State. “Things are not quite adding up. Am I the only one who can count? Mr. Gulotta, are Mr. Barrington’s wife and son American citizens?”
“Yes, they are,” said Sam, his eyes steady on Alexander, as if to say, it’s all right. But remember? Yes, sir, absolutely, sir. I’m sorry, sir.
“So where could Mr. Barrington, a soldier in the Red Army, have possibly married a U.S. citizen in 1942 to have a child by in 1943?” A mulling silence fell over the room. “This is why I was inquiring as to the name of the boy. Pardon me for the indelicacy of my next question, Mr. Barrington, but…is it your child?”
Alexander was frigid. “My wife and child are none of your business, Mr.—”
“Burck,” said the man. “Dennis Burck. Foreign Service. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eastern European and Soviet Affairs. Where in the world did you marry your American wife, Mr. Barrington, that she could have become with child in 1942?”
Alexander pushed away from the table, but Levine, elbowing him, jumped up. “Objection! The wife and child are not under a subpoena from this committee. They do not fall under the jurisdiction of these proceedings, therefore I ask that all questions regarding them are to be excised from the record! I request a recess. If the hearing members want to learn more about Mr. Barrington’s wife, they are welcome to subpoena her!”
“All I’m trying to ascertain here, Counsel,” said Burck, “is the veracity of Mr. Barrington’s statements. After all, the man has been in hiding for two years. Perhaps he has reasons to hide.”
“Mr. Burck,” said Levine, “if you have proof regarding my client’s veracity, or lack thereof, by all means, bring it to the attention of this hearing. But until then, I request that no more scurrilous aspersions be made and that we move forward.”
“Why can’t Mr. Barrington answer my simple question?” Burck persisted. “I know where I married my wife. Why can’t he tell me where he married his—in 1942?”
Alexander had to hide his clenching hands under the table. He had to protect himself. He didn’t understand this man Burck, he didn’t know the man, and perhaps these questions were harmless and just the normal order of operations. Perhaps. But he understood himself, and he knew himself. And he had spent too long being interrogated along these lines when it wasn’t normal and it wasn’t harmless, when her name, her safety, her security, her life was flung over his neck like a noose. Tell us who you are, Major Belov, because your pregnant wife is in our custody. She is not safe, she is not in Stockholm, she is with us, and we have ways of making her talk. And now here—did he hear Burck correctly, or was he just paranoid: We know who your wife is. We know how she got here. She is here on our privilege. There was simply nothing that could make Alexander lose reason quicker than explicit or implicit threats against Tatiana. He had to protect himself—for her sake. He didn’t want Burck to know she was his Achilles heel. He sat up square-shouldered and with a force of his will placed his hands flat down on the table.
“My wife is not here to defend herself, Mr. Burck,” Alexander said in a low voice. “Nor is she being debriefed. I will not answer any further questions regarding her.”
Lieutenant Richter, sitting erect and unperspiring in his uniform, leaned into his microphone. “With all due respect to the other members, we’re not here to assess the length and quality of Captain Barrington’s marriage. This is not one of the questions put before this committee. This is an executive closed session to assess the security risk this man poses to the United States. I second the counsel’s request for a recess.”
The members took recess to confer. While waiting, Matt Levine whispered to Alexander, “I thought you said you weren’t going to get riled?”
“That was riled?” said Alexander, taking a long drink. That wasn’t riled.
“Don’t you understand, I want them to subpoena your wife,” Levine said.
“Not me.”
“Yes. She’ll plead spousal privilege to every single f*cking question and we’ll be out of here in an hour.”
“I need to smoke. Can I smoke now?”
“They told you no.”
The seven men returned to the order of business. They concurred with counsel, and Dennis Burck was forced to move on.
But he didn’t move far.
“Let’s return to your record then, Mr. Barrington,” said Burck. Didn’t anyone else have any questions for Alexander? “I had a chance to review your Military Tribunal papers from Berlin in 1946. Fascinating bit of business.”
“If you say so.”
“So then, just to assert, as per the record, Alexander Barrington and Major Alexander Belov are one and the same man?”
“They are.”
“Why then did you describe yourself as a civilian man, Mr. Barrington, when your record clearly states that you were a Red Army major who escaped a military prison and killed a number of Soviet soldiers after a protracted battle? Are you aware that the Soviets want you extradited?”
“Objection!” yelled Levine. “This meeting is not concerned with the demands of Soviet Russia. This is a U.S. committee.”
“The Soviet Government says this man falls under their jurisdiction, and that this is a military matter. Now, once again—Mr. Barrington, are you or are you not aware that the Soviets want you extradited?”
Alexander was silent. “I am aware,” he said at last, “that the Red Army stripped me of my rank and title in 1945 when they sentenced me to twenty-five years in prison for surrendering to German forces.”
Richter whistled. Twenty-five years, he mouthed.
“No,” said Burck. “Your record states that you were sentenced for desertion.”
“I understand. But the rank and title is removed upon conviction for desertion or surrender.”
“Well, perhaps the title was not removed,” said Burck with a gentle expression, “because there was no conviction.”
Alexander paused. “Pardon me, but then why was I in the Soviet prison, if there was no conviction?”
Burck’s demeanor stiffened.
“My point is,” said Alexander, “I cannot be a deserter in 1945 and a major in 1946.” He took a breath, not wanting to leave his name besmirched with desertion. “Just for the record,” he said, “I was neither.”
“Your record says you are a Red Army major. Are you saying your record is wrong, Mr. Barrington?” said Burck. “Incomplete? Perhaps less than truthful?”
“I’ve already explained I was a major for only a few weeks in 1943. My direct statement to the tribunal in Berlin regarding my years in the Red Army is clear and unequivocal. Perhaps we need to go over it.”
“I move to go over the commander’s record,” joined in Richter, opening his notes, and then proceeded to ask two hours of questions about Alexander’s years in the Red Army. He was single-minded and relentless. He was interested in Alexander’s war experience, in the weapons the Soviets used, in their military campaigns in and around Leningrad, and through Latvia, Estonia, Byelorussia and Poland. He asked about Alexander’s arrests, interrogations, and years in the penal battalion without supplies or trained soldiers. He asked so many questions about the Soviet activities in Berlin that Burck, who was otherwise quiet, finally piped up with an exasperated request that they move on to the order of business.
“This is our order of business,” said Richter.
“I just don’t see how these alleged Soviet activities in Berlin are relevant to the assessment of the man before us,” said Burck. “I thought we were trying to determine if this man is a communist. When do you think we could begin determining that?”
That was when John Rankin from HUAC finally leaned into his microphone and spoke for the first time. He was a tall stiff gentleman in his sixties, who spoke with a deep Southern accent. A Democrat, Rankin had been a member of Congress since the twenties. He was grave, purposeful, and humorless. Alexander thought Rankin was a military man himself, something about his no nonsense demeanor as he had sat and listened.
“I’ll answer Mr. Burck,” Rankin said, addressing the whole committee. “The looting of atomic laboratories, the Soviet rampage in a closed Berlin for eight days, the transformation of Nazi concentration camps into Soviet concentration camps, forced repatriation—in light of the blockade of Berlin by the Soviet Union that is going on even as we speak, does the gentleman from State really think that Soviet activities in Berlin are irrelevant to this hearing?” He smiled.
Alexander looked down at his hands. Rankin was definitely military—and perhaps not so humorless.
“Alleged activities,” corrected Burck. “It’s all hearsay—from a man who the honorable Congressman suspects of being a loyalty risk.”
“I have not asked Mr. Barrington a single question,” said Rankin. “The gentleman from State should not postulate what I’m suspecting.”
Clearing his throat, Richter interjected. “Just for the record, there is nothing alleged about the Soviet blockade of Berlin.” He changed the subject back to the POW camp at Catowice and at Colditz. During Alexander’s recounting of the escape from Sachsenhausen, the entire room full of men and one female stenographer, fell mute. The only thing Alexander omitted from this version was Tatiana. He didn’t know if it was perjury, but he figured if they weren’t meticulous enough to sift through his tribunal transcript and ask, he certainly wasn’t going to volunteer.
“Well, well, Captain Barrington,” said Rankin when Alexander had finished. “I agree with Lieutenant Richter—as a former soldier in WWI, I don’t know what to call you myself after what we’ve just heard. I think perhaps ‘mister’ is not entirely appropriate. But we do need to go a little further back in your history than Sachsenhausen.”
Alexander held his breath. Perhaps they sifted through his record more meticulously than he had hoped.
“Do you have Communist sympathies, Captain Barrington?”
“No,” he replied.
“What about your mother and father?” Rankin wanted to know. “Harold and Jane Barrington? Would you say they had Communist sympathies?”
“I don’t know if they had sympathies,” said Alexander. “But they were Communists.”
A chill ran through the long room. Alexander knew his parents were fair game, but he noticed that Burck clammed up.
Rankin fixed his gaze on Alexander. “Please continue. You were about to tell us about your Communist background, I believe.”
He was? “We moved to the Soviet Union in 1930, when I was eleven,” he said. “My parents and I were ultimately arrested during the Great Purge of 1937–38.”
“Well, hold on here,” said Burck, unclamming. “Let’s not use the term the Great Purge the same way we use the term the Great Depression. It’s just propagandistic words, meant to scare and confuse. Often what is a purge to one is simply the execution of applicable laws to another. The record on whether or not there was something called a ‘purge’ is extremely unclear.” He paused. “Much like your record, Mr. Barrington.”
Alexander silently narrowed his eyes at Burck.
“And may I point out,” continued Burck, “that, since you are sitting before us, you are actual proof that you were not purged.”
“I wasn’t purged because I escaped on the way to Vladivostok,” said Alexander. “What does that prove?”
“Which escape was this, Mr. Barrington?” said Burck pleasantly. “There seem to be so many.”
Drake, from Justice, took the opportunity to intervene. “When you escaped were you already a Soviet citizen?”
Here it was. More murkiness. “Yes,” said Alexander. “When I was conscripted at age sixteen, I automatically became a Soviet citizen.”
“Ah! And when you became a Soviet citizen, your American citizenship was automatically revoked,” said Drake with cooped-up delight, finally given the chance to uphold the immigration and naturalization laws of the United States.
“Objection!” said Levine, “Mr. Drake, I will repeat again, my client is an American citizen.”
“But, Counsel, your client just stated for the record that he was a Soviet citizen. He cannot be a citizen of both the United States and the Soviet Union,” Drake said. “Not then—and certainly not now.”
“Yes,” said Matt Levine. “But his American citizenship cannot be revoked if he became the citizen of the Soviet Union involuntarily. And I would posit that conscription, by its very definition, infers involuntary citizenship. Once again, my client is a natural-born citizen of the United States.”
“Unlike someone who was a naturalized citizen after, say, receiving asylum?” said Burck, looking only at Alexander. “Like a refugee coming into one of our ports—oh, say, Ellis Island, during war?”
Alexander’s hands did not move from the table this time; he had had a chance to prepare himself. Only his teeth ground in his mouth. He had been right to be on guard. It was exactly as he had suspected.
Matt Levine said, “That’s right, nothing like that. Can we move on?”
They moved on—to Harold and Jane Barrington.
For another hour, maybe longer, the man from FBI, along with Congressman Rankin kept on and on.
“Objection! Already asked. Eight times.”
“Objection. Already asked. Ten times.”
“Objection.”
“Objection.”
“Objection.”
“His parents’ history and his own seditionary activities speak to relevancy here, Counsel,” said Rankin.
“What seditionary activities? He was a minor! And his parents are not here to defend themselves. We really need to move on.”
“It says here that Anthony Alexander Barrington was arrested at the age of ten in Washington DC during unrest at a pro-revolutionary radical demonstration,” said Rankin. “That’s his history. So did he or did he not have some Communist sympathies of his own? He went to the Soviet Union? Lived there, went to school there? Joined the Red Army? Did he become a member of the Communist Party to be in the officer corps? My understanding was that all officers had to be card-carrying party members.”
“That is not true,” said Alexander. “I wasn’t. Which was fortunate for me because almost all card-carrying officers of the Red Army were shot in 1938 during”—he paused, coldly staring at Burck—“the execution of applicable laws.”
There was stiffness on Burck’s face and satisfaction on Rankin’s. “Answer my question, Captain,” he said.
Levine started to object, but Alexander cut him off. “There were many questions, Congressman Rankin. Starting with the first, you are right, I had been many times by my father’s side when I was a boy.” Alexander took a small breath. “I participated in a number of demonstrations with him. I was arrested three times during some turbulence. He was a Communist, but he was also my father. None of this is in dispute.”
“Mr. Barrington, at the very crux of what is in dispute,” said Rankin in his Mississippi drawl, “is whether or not you’re a Communist.”
“And I have answered you a number of times, Congressman,” said Alexander. “I said I was not.”
“Just so you’re clear about the Congressman’s line of questioning, Mr. Barrington,” said Burck with unrestrained derision, “in the now famous opinion of John Rankin, and I quote, ‘the real enemy of the United States all along has been not the Axis Powers but the Soviet Union.’”
“And is this something in this day and age that the honorable gentleman from State would like to go on record as disputing?” said Rankin with his own unconstrained derision.
Alexander looked from one man to the other and said nothing. He wasn’t being asked a question. Tania was right. He needed to be very careful. Talk about dueling agendas. His head was swimming. The Immigration Department wanted him to be a Soviet citizen without asylum, whom they could deport. The FBI wanted him to be a spy, Soviet or American, they weren’t choosy. Rankin wanted him to be a Communist and an American, so he could be charged with treason. Burck, Alexander thought, wanted him to be a Communist and a Russian so he could be deported. And Richter just wanted him to be a soldier with a f*ckload of information about the enemy. That’s how the forces were lined up at the frontline across from Alexander’s trench.
“Was your father part of any underground espionage network?” asked Rankin.
“Objection,” Levine said in a tired voice.
“Popular Front perhaps? Comintern? The Red Brigade?” Rankin continued.
“Perhaps,” replied Alexander. “I really don’t know.”
“Was Harold Barrington involved in espionage activities for the Soviet Union when he was still in America?”
“Objection, objection, objection…”
“Objection noted. Please answer the question, Captain Barrington.”
“I don’t know. I doubt it,” said Alexander.
Rankin said, “Did your father run to the Soviet Union because his cover as a spy for them was blown in his own country and he feared for his safety?”
“My father didn’t run to the Soviet Union,” said Alexander slowly. “We moved to the Soviet Union with the full knowledge and assent of the U.S. Government.”
“He didn’t run to escape arrest on espionage charges?”
“No, he did not.”
“But wasn’t his U.S. citizenship revoked?”
“It was not revoked as punishment. It was revoked when he became a Soviet citizen.”
“So the answer would be yes?” said Rankin politely. “It was revoked?”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “It was revoked.” He almost wanted to voice his own objection.
“Captain Barrington, did your father commit treason,” asked Rankin, “against his own country, the United States, by spying on it for the Soviet Union?”
“No, Congressman,” said Alexander. “He did not.” He forced his hands to remain steady. Oh, Dad, look what you’ve left behind for me.
They stopped questioning him to take another short recess.
“What happened to Harold and Jane Barrington after they were arrested in 1936 in Leningrad?” asked Rankin when the meeting resumed.
“They were executed in 1937.” Alexander gave Burck a look that said, this is what I think of your “record is unclear,” gentleman from State.
“On what charges?”
“Treason. They were convicted of being American spies.”
There was a pause. “Convicted, you say?” said Rankin. “Of being American spies?”
“Yes. Arrested, tried, convicted, shot.”
“Well, we know for a fact,” said Rankin, “that they were not spying for the United States Government.”
“With all due respect, Congressman,” said Burck, “there is nothing in Mr. Barrington’s record that shows the details of his parents’ alleged conviction. There is only his account of it, and he, by his own admission, was not present at their trial. And the Soviet Government exercises the privilege of not releasing information about its own citizens.”
“Well, they released plenty of information about a certain Alexander Belov, Mr. Burck,” said Mr. Rankin.
“As is also their privilege with regard to their own citizens,” said Burck and quickly went on before Levine could object. “I think we must keep perspective on why we’re here, which is not—despite the Congressman’s best efforts—to re-examine the Soviet Union’s role in world conflict, but simply to ascertain whether Mr. Barrington is who he says he is and whether he poses security concerns for us here in the United States. There are two vital questions of order before this hearing. One, is Mr. Barrington an American citizen? Two, is Mr. Barrington a Communist? I, for one,” Burck went on, “think that we should look a little more closely at the former and not the latter, for I think it is very easy to see witches everywhere”—he paused and coughed—“particularly in today’s political climate. However, as to the first point of order, Mr. Barrington does not deny that he was a Soviet citizen. The Soviets to this day are maintaining that he is still a Soviet citizen. Perhaps we should rely on concurring information.”
“The gentleman’s own State Department established Mr. Barrington’s American birthright two years ago when they granted him safe passage from Berlin,” said Rankin. “Is this something the gentleman would like to dispute with his own department?”
“All I’m saying,” said Burck, “is that the Soviet Union is disputing it. That is all.”
“The Soviet Union that executed his parents?” said Rankin. “His parents who surrendered their U.S. citizenship, became Soviet citizens and then were tried and shot? I am not in complete agreement with the gentleman from State with regard to the Soviet Union’s reliability on matters of Captain Barrington’s lineage.”
“We don’t know for a fact his parents were executed, Congressman,” retorted Burck. “Was Captain Barrington present at their execution? It’s just speculation, frankly.”
“Mr. Burck is correct,” said Alexander. “I was not present at their execution. However, I was present at my own arrest. I am not speculating on my own ten-year sentence to hard labor.”
“Wait, wait,” said Thomas Richter, looking into his notes. “Captain, you said before you were sentenced to twenty-five years.”
“That was the third time, Lieutenant,” said Alexander. “The second time, I was sentenced to the penal battalion command. The first time it was to ten years. I was seventeen.”
There was silence in the room.
“I think,” Richter said slowly, “that it’s probably safe to conclude that Captain Barrington is not a Communist spy.”
“Only according to the words of Captain Barrington himself,” said Burck. “We have no way of verifying the truth of his statements, except to check it against the records of the country where he lived, where he maintained his citizenship, and in whose army he served for eight years.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Rankin incredulously, “but is the gentleman from State contending to the chairman of HUAC that Captain Barrington is a Communist?”
“No, no, a Soviet citizen,” rejoined Burck hastily.
Sam and Alexander exchanged glances. Matt Levine, dumbfounded, asked in a slow voice if anyone had any further questions for his client.
“I’m wondering, Captain Barrington,” said Rankin, “if you would be so kind as to answer two questions for me, please, sua sponte, two questions that I had posed to William Bullitt, this country’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union.”
“Objection!” And that was Burck!
Alexander didn’t know what was going on. Sua sponte? He stared questioningly at Sam, who waved his hand slightly, to say, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir.
Rankin turned slowly to face the man from State. “I believe only counsel is allowed to object.” Turning back to Levine, he said, “Do you have any objections to my asking your client two questions, Counsel?”
“Well,” Levine replied, “my client hasn’t heard the sua sponte questions. I would rather not object in principle.”
“Except I know the questions the honorable Congressman posed to Ambassador Bullitt last year in a public session,” said Burck. “We all know them, everyone in this room knows them, and they are completely irrelevant to these proceedings. Are they going to help you determine if this man is a loyalty risk, Congressman?”
“I don’t know them,” said Alexander.
“The answers will tell me where his heart is,” said Rankin. “After all, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”
Congressman Rankin was right. Tania fully believed that.
Levine said quietly to Alexander, “Sua sponte means of your own accord. Choose to answer or not answer.”
“I’d like to answer the congressman,” said Alexander.
“Captain Barrington,” said Rankin, lowering his drawling voice, “is it true what we heard—that they eat human bodies over there in Russia?”
Not expecting it, Alexander flinched. It was a good ten seconds before he opened his mouth to answer. “I think, Congressman,” he said slowly, “that we don’t need to invent horrors about the Soviet Union. What is true is that during the great famine in the Ukraine in 1934, and during the blockade of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944, there have been instances of people killed for their flesh.”
“As compared, say, with the ongoing blockade of the American sector of Berlin,” said Rankin, “during which no one is eating anyone’s flesh?”
“Because the U.S. Government is air-dropping all the food and supplies its citizens need.” Alexander sat stiffly. His voice was curt. “The instances you heard about are in no way a reflection of the Russian people. These are extenuating circumstances. After all the horses and rats are gone, there is nothing left. It’s impossible to fully represent to this hearing what it is like for three million people in a large, civilized, modern, cosmopolitan city to starve to death. Really, it cannot bear any more discussion.” He lowered his head momentarily, looking at his balled-up hands.
Burck stared at Rankin with unconcealed glee. “Oh, please,” he drew out, “can the Congressman from Mississippi proceed with his next question to Captain Barrington, who obviously knows a great deal about the Soviet Union.”
After pausing gravely, Rankin spoke. “On further consideration,” he said, “I have no more questions for Captain Barrington.” Looking thoughtfully at Alexander, he closed his notebook.
Burck’s smile was irrepressible. “Does anyone else have any more sua sponte questions for Captain Barrington? Anyone? No? Then does counsel wish to conclude?”
After looking in his notes for a couple of minutes, Levine stood up. “Yes. Our stipulation is that Captain Alexander Barrington is a man who went to the Soviet Union as a minor, changed his name to save his life, joined the Red Army because he had no choice, and is now back home as an American citizen. His two-year absence from a debriefing, while troubling, is not sufficient evidence of any espionage activities or communist sympathies. And since there is no other evidence against him, I motion that these proceedings be called to end and that my client’s name be cleared of all charges.” He sat down.
Rankin moved to adjourn and the seven men got up and left the room.
Alexander and Levine were left alone.
“What did Rankin ask Bullitt last year?” Alexander wanted to know. “What was his second question?”
“Rankin asked the ambassador if people were just like slaves in Russia,” Levine said. “Bullitt apparently replied that they were.”
Alexander said nothing.
“So how do you think it went?” he asked Levine after a short silence.
“As good as can be expected,” Levine said, closing his notes. “But perhaps we should have gone with plan A.”
“I’m beginning to think so myself,” said Alexander.
“Richter quite liked you. Is that a soldier thing? You have Sam’s vote. That’s two. All you need is two more. Probably won’t be getting Burck’s. Maybe the mute colonel’s? That’s three right there. And Rankin? I think he would’ve been happier if you had told him publicly and for the record that mothers eat their little children with glee in that live slave beast pit, the Soviet Union. But there you go.”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “But you did very well, Counsel. No one could have done better. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Captain. Thank you very much.” Levine beamed and left to go get Alexander more cigarettes.
As Alexander remained alone in the executive room, waiting for seven strangers to decide on his life, he tried to focus on things from which he could draw sustenance at a time like this: Sundays on Nantucket, sitting on boats, smelling the ocean, picking sea shells, playing with his friends. Memories of himself as a happy American boy, just a few years older than Ant. But he couldn’t drum up any of those memories now, that breath of sunshine he needed as he drummed tensely on the table.
Levine came back with cigarettes, asked him to stop drumming. Alexander walked to the open window, sat on the ledge and smoked instead; o mercy. He inhaled deeply, held the smoke in his throat, the cymbals of nicotine clanging into his lungs.
All things considering, he couldn’t complain. Many times the vicissitudes of life had gone in his column. When he jumped off a moving train into the Volga River, he did not hit boulders and smash his head open. His column. When he got typhus, he did not die. His column. When a shell exploded and ripped open his back, an angel flew over him and poured her blood into him. His column.
But he was not thinking of his column. Night had long fallen.
He was thinking of the other column.
He thought about Tatiana’s brother, Pasha, about carrying him on his back for three days, Pasha so hot he couldn’t breathe.
Alexander held snow to Pasha’s head, bandaged his oozing leg wound, pleading, praying, disbelieving. I didn’t find him in the mountains of Holy Cross to watch him die. Find him, save him, perform a frontline tracheotomy on him—
“Pasha. Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you.”
“What’s wrong? What’s hurting? I cleaned your leg. What’s the matter?”
“I’m burning up.”
“No, you’re fine.”
“I can’t feel my legs.”
“No, you’re fine.”
“Alexander, I’m not…dying, am I?”
“No. You’re fine.” Alexander looks right at him. He doesn’t blink. If he can look straight and narrow, brave and indifferent, into Tatiana’s pregnant face and lie to send her forever away, to give her her only dim chance of survival, he can find the strength to look at her brother before he is forever away. Though he must admit, he doesn’t feel quite as strong. Pasha is half lying, half sitting on the ground, propped up against Alexander.
“Why do I feel like I’m dying?” says Pasha, his breathing lower, more shallow. He is rasping. Alexander has heard this rattle a thousand times, the rattle of a dying man. But this is Pasha! He cannot die!
“You’re not, you’ll be fine.”
Pasha whispers, “You’re lying to me, you bastard.”
“I’m not.”
“Alexander,” he rasps, “I can see her!”
“Who?” Alexander nearly drops Pasha to the ground.
Tears trickle down Pasha’s face “Tania!” Pasha cries, extending his hand. “Tania. Come, swim with me one more time. Just once more across the Luga. Run with me across the meadow to the river, just like you did when we were kids. You are my sister.” He stretches out his arm to something near Alexander, who is like an apparition himself, shell-shocked and ashen. He actually turns to look. Pasha is smiling. “We are in the Lake Ilmen boat. She is sitting by my side,” he whispers.
That’s when Alexander knows—the impossible is true.
Alexander carries Pasha dead on his back for one more day in winter Germany, refusing to believe what could not be believed, refusing to bury him in the frozen ground.
Now, sitting on the windowsill in the Old Executive Building, Alexander admitted that a world in which Tatiana’s vanished brother could die because he got his trouser leg caught on a rusty nail, was a world in which armed forces sometimes did not go into your column.
Inhaling the nicotine, Alexander closed his eyes. He did not see her by his own side—at least that was something. Tatiana, who always sat by the dying, was not here with him.
At Catowice, a supervisor had died, and was buried in a casket! Some of the men complained, including Ouspensky, including Pasha. Alexander had been digging one or two mass graves a day for the last several weeks, and here was a man buried by himself in a casket. Grumbling over his bowl of oats and boiled carrot shavings, Pasha said to Alexander that maybe they should complain. “Yes, you go ahead,” Alexander said. “But I tell you what—you’re not working hard enough. That man has been here for three years. He was a respected work supervisor and a favorite of all the prison chiefs because he made their jobs easier.”
That evening, Pasha drew up twenty leaflets by hand regarding the man buried in the coffin. “REMEMBER! WORK HARD!” his leaflet said. “IF YOU WORK HARD ENOUGH, YOU TOO CAN BE BURIED IN A WOODEN CASKET!”
“Now isn’t that encouraging?” said Pasha with a big grin as he distributed the handmade leaflets. And Alexander agreed with a smile of his own that it was.