Beautiful Assassin

14

That evening, Mrs. Roosevelt had invited our delegation to a reception at the home of an important senator and supporter of her husband’s pro-Soviet policies. She thought it a good idea that we meet him. On the drive over from the conference, Vasilyev, his earlier mood having improved dramatically, sat there humming “Katyusha.” When I asked about Viktor, he told me they had found him in the hotel lounge, drunk and flirting with an American waitress. So they brought him back to the embassy.
“And now?” I asked.
“The fool is sleeping it off,” replied Vasilyev.
“Will there be the consequences?” I said, referring to our earlier conversation.
“I have to remind myself that I was once his age.”
“But Comrade Semarenko is old enough to know better,” Gavrilov offered prissily, glancing over at me.
“His only crime is not holding his liquor,” Vasilyev stated. “We’ve all been guilty of that at one time or another.”
“If I may be so bold, Comrade, this is not the first time that he has overstepped himself.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t all be such perfect martinets as you, Gavrilov.”
Gavrilov stared at Vasilyev for a moment, not sure whether a “martinet” was a compliment or not. He decided finally it wasn’t. “I only try my best to be a loyal Communist,” he said, sullenly stroking his goatee. His pince-nez had left red indentations on his nose.
“And we are all deeply appreciative of your loyalty,” Vasilyev replied.
“If I err on the side of being, as you put it, a martinet, it is only because of my great love for the Party.”
“I was merely joking, Gavrilov. Why on earth do you have to take everything so bloody seriously?”
His feelings hurt, Gavrilov stared out the car’s window.
“So nothing will happen to Viktor?” I ventured.
“He will need to know that in the future such behavior won’t be tolerated.” He reached out and patted the back of my hand. I had not seen him in such a jovial mood in a long while, not since we were back in Moscow when he was showing me about the city. “Let’s not worry about him now. Let’s try to enjoy ourselves tonight, shall we, Lieutenant?”
The house, which overlooked the Potomac River, was an imposing brick structure, a place that would have comfortably housed half a dozen families back in Kiev. A Negro butler in a crisp white uniform answered the door and led us into a large drawing room, where most of the guests had congregated. Servants floated about with trays of food and champagne and vodka, while strains of Prokofiev drifted through the house. There was a large crowd, mostly civilian but with a number of men dressed in military uniforms. As soon as we entered, Mrs. Montgomery, that same silly woman I had met the previous night at the White House, spotted me and came rushing up. “Hello, hello,” she chirped. She held a drink in one hand and planted a wet, boozy kiss on first one and then the other cheek, I guess thinking she was being European.
“Don’t they let you wear anything besides that drab old uniform?” she asked me through Radimov. “You must be roasting in that wool.”
I simply smiled. Like the previous night, she chattered away. It was apparent that she’d already had too much to drink, which made her tongue wag even more.
“They have some wonderful caviar here,” the woman informed me. “I know how you Russians love your caviar and your wodka.” She pronounced the word with a reverberating w.
Vasilyev grabbed three glasses of wodka from a passing waiter and handed one to me and to Gavrilov.
“To the Motherland,” he said.
Gavrilov, who didn’t drink, was able only with great difficulty to gag his down. For me, it was the first of several drinks I permitted myself that night. I decided to take Vasilyev’s advice and try to forget about the war, about everything, and enjoy myself for the evening.
“You must be hungry, Lieutenant,” Vasilyev said.
“Yes I am, a little.”
“I’ll get you something. Come, Gavrilov. Radimov, stay with the lieutenant,” he said as they headed over to a table filled with food.
While he was gone, several people came up and, through Radimov, introduced themselves and congratulated me on my speech at the conference that day. I hadn’t thought it was such a big deal, but evidently it had made quite an impression. I happened to spot Mrs. Roosevelt across the room talking with Mrs. Litvinov. Mrs. Roosevelt looked elegant in a long, sleeveless silver dress with a string of pearls about her neck, her hair done up on her head. She saw me too and eagerly waved me over. Radimov followed closely on my heels.
“I’m so glad you could make it, Tat’yana,” Mrs. Roosevelt said. Radimov began to translate but he deferred when Mrs. Litvinov did the honors.
“You look lovely tonight, Mrs. President,” I said.
“Why thank you, Tat’yana.”
“I listened to your speech on the radio, Lieutenant,” the ambassador’s wife said to me. “I found it quite moving.”
“You brought the war home to us Americans in a way no one has before,” Mrs. Roosevelt added. “Franklin was getting calls from all across the country from people who’d heard you. I have some ideas I’d like to share with you later.”
Just then Vasilyev arrived with a plate of food for me.
“Good evening, Mrs. President,” Vasilyev said to Mrs. Roosevelt, through Radimov. “And how are you, Mrs. Litvinov?”
“Hello, Mr. Vasilyev,” Mrs. Roosevelt said, her tone noticeably cool. Mrs. Roosevelt, I could tell, didn’t like Vasilyev. I saw it in her eyes, a chilly sort of restraint. She was a woman who spoke much by way of her eyes. When she liked someone, they seemed almost to radiate warmth. But when she didn’t, no matter what she said, her eyes told her true feelings.
“What did you think of Lieutenant Levchenko’s speech today?” Vasilyev asked.
“I was just telling her I thought it was wonderful, actually.”
After a while, Captain Taylor appeared, carrying two plates of food, which he handed to Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Litvinov.
He turned toward me and smiled. “Why hello, Lieutenant,” he said, as if surprised to see me here.
Mrs. Roosevelt spoke to him in an aside.
To Vasilyev, the captain said, “Mrs. Roosevelt wishes to introduce Lieutenant Levchenko to some people.”
“Certainly,” Vasilyev replied. “Comrade Radimov will accompany her.”
“If it’s all the same with you, Mr. Vasilyev, I wish to use my own interpreter,” said Mrs. Roosevelt, through the captain.
“But, Madame President, our two languages have certain nuances. I wouldn’t want any confusion about what’s said.”
“I have every confidence in Captain Taylor.”
“As you wish, Mrs. President,” conceded Vasilyev, smiling obsequiously. I could tell, however, he took this as a slight.
The First Lady showed me around, introducing me to several congressmen and diplomats and a number of her friends. Secretary so-and-so and this ambassador and that congressman’s wife. Being toasted with champagne. Called the “Ukrainian Lion” or the “Russian Girl Sniper” or the “Beautiful Assassin.” Asked the same foolish questions I had already been asked many times (“Do you mind getting dirty?” “Do you wear makeup into battle?” “Are women soldiers forced to sleep on the ground?”). Or they would ask me things that exhibited a complete ignorance of my country. “Does everyone live in dorms over there?” one congressman’s wife asked. Another wanted to know if the government allowed women to raise their own children or were they taken from us at birth and raised in a nursery.
“No,” I said, “we raise our own children, just like you.”
For the most part, I nodded agreeably and smiled until my jaw ached. Could these Americans really be such imbeciles? I wondered. I was especially annoyed by the women. I wanted to scream, You silly prattling fools, don’t you know there’s a war going on? Occasionally, though, Mrs. Roosevelt would shoot me a sympathetic look. And once she whispered something to Captain Taylor, who said to me, “She says she doesn’t know how you remain so polite.”
At one point Mrs. Roosevelt had excused herself, leaving me alone with the captain. We were talking when Gavrilov approached.
“If I might have a word with Comrade Levchenko,” he said to Captain Taylor, drawing me aside. Gavrilov seemed a little drunk. His eyes, normally so intense, had softened, become unfocused. He seemed nervous, his mouth appearing to work on saying something that was giving him difficulty articulating. Finally he blurted out, “I have not spoken of this matter before because I did not think it, well, appropriate. But I must say that I find you quite attractive, Lieutenant.”
I stared at him, not sure how to take this confession. It seemed so incongruous coming from this normally dispassionate apparatchik, for whom everything was the business of the Party. But of course I recalled that Viktor had confided to me how Gavrilov felt.
“Thank you, Comrade,” I replied.
“Perhaps, when we return home we could…” Here he paused, stroking his goatee. “Attend a lecture together.”
“I don’t think that is such a good idea, Comrade Gavrilov.”
“But why not?”
“For one thing, I am a married woman.”
“But with your husband…”
“He’s missing in action. Not dead. Despite what Vasilyev would have you believe.”
Fortunately, Mrs. Roosevelt rescued me. She appeared suddenly and said she had some people she wanted me to meet. She drew me across the room toward a group of men who were standing in the corner. Through the captain, in an undertone, she said, “These men are very important congressmen, Tat’yana. My husband needs their support for bills related to the war. So work your magic on them.”
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Mrs. Roosevelt said to the men. “I would like you to meet Senior Lieutenant Tat’yana Levchenko of the Red Army. She’s newly arrived from the Eastern Front.”
Smiling, I made a stab in my faltering English: “How do you do?” I said.
“It’s certainly a pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant,” one greeted me, shaking my hand.
“Young lady, I’d say you have an unfair advantage,” offered a second, a thin man with a lean, deeply etched face and the gnarled hands of a farmer.
“What is that, sir?” I replied.
“Well, it’s plain to see that those poor krauts go sticking their heads out to get a look at you.”
They all chuckled at this.
The congressmen and I chatted for a while, about the war, how things were at the front, if I liked America.
After a time, the man with the lined face said, “Young lady, we’re spending an awful lot of money on this here war in Europe.”
“Senator Pepper,” Mrs. Roosevelt explained, “is one of my husband’s biggest supporters.”
“I’d like to think I am, Mrs. President. But I have an election coming up, and I’ve stuck this neck of mine out about as far as I can for him,” he explained. Then, looking directly at me, he said, “Miss Levchenko, my constituents down in Florida keep asking me what’s in it for them to go and fight in somebody else’s war, the second time in a generation. What would you have me say to them?”
I glanced at Mrs. Roosevelt and she nodded her approval to speak.
“I suppose, sir, I would tell them this. It’s not somebody else’s war. It is your war, just as much as it is mine. If you think that Hitler is going to stop in Europe, you are mistaken. He didn’t stop with Czechoslovakia or the Rhineland or with Poland. And he won’t stop with Europe. So the question is, do you want to fight them in Stalingrad or here in Washington?”
“All right,” he continued, “let’s say we give you everything you ask for. Can you promise that you can hold the krauts at bay until we can get our boys over there?”
“That would all depend, sir,” I replied.
“On what?”
“On how fast you can get your boys over there.” We held each other’s gaze for a moment, and he knew that I was alluding to the immediacy of the second front. “But I can promise you this. That we Soviets are tough. We won’t surrender to the Germans. We will fight the invaders as long as we have breath in us.”
Senator Pepper slowly gave in to a wide, toothy grin. “I like this girl, Mrs. President. She’s got spunk.”
“Didn’t I say as much, Senator?”
We were about to leave when one congressman, a tall, gray-haired older man with sharp blue eyes, spoke up. He hadn’t uttered a word before this.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” he said. “Have you heard of a man named Krivitsky?”
I was about to say that I hadn’t when Mrs. Roosevelt answered for me. “Now, Congressman Rankin, let’s not start that.”
“With all due respect, Mrs. President, here we are sending the Reds millions of dollars, and they have the gall to come into our country and murder an American citizen, right under our very noses.”
“Congressman, that’s just conjecture,” Mrs. Roosevelt said. “Besides, that’s not something the lieutenant would know anything about. Good evening, gentlemen.” Mrs. Roosevelt led me away.


Later that evening, feeling a little tipsy from the heat and from having drunk too many glasses of champagne and wodka, I told Mrs. Roosevelt that I had to use the lavatory. On my way there, I happened to notice doors leading out onto a terrace at the back of the house, and I took the opportunity to slip outside for some fresh air. I loosened my collar, removed my cap, and took a deep breath of the fragrant-smelling night. It was quiet out here and cooler, the sky speckled with stars like tiny fish scales. In the distance I could see the river, the lights from the far side shimmering off its surface. Farther off was a white stone structure with columns, well lit, seeming almost to glow with a lunar brightness. I was leaning against the cool stone balustrade, thinking of home, when I heard a voice behind me.
“Getting some air?”
I turned to see Captain Taylor standing there.
“Yes,” I replied.
“May I join you?”
From his uniform pocket, he removed a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I took it, and with his right hand he dexterously struck a match with his thumbnail, and I leaned in and cupped my two hands around his and lit my cigarette. I felt a chill at touching his hand.
“Thank you,” I said.
“How are you holding up?”
I shrugged. “That congressman,” I said, “the one who asked me about the man who was murdered.”
“Oh, Rankin. He’s on the House Un-American Activities Committee.”
“Un-American activities? That sounds rather ominous.”
“I guess it does. His committee investigates Communists in America. He and his cronies think you Soviets have spies hiding everywhere,” he said, smiling. “You don’t, do you?”
I looked at him and replied with a straight face. “Just me,” I replied.
The captain laughed.
“And what of that man he mentioned?” I asked. “The one who was murdered.”
“The police found this Krivitsky fellow dead in his hotel room. There was a suicide note, so at first they thought he’d killed himself. But later there were some questions about whether he might have been murdered.”
“What does this have to do with my country?”
The captain took a long, pensive drag on his cigarette. “Some believe he was a Soviet spy who defected to the West, and then was murdered by agents from your country.”
“But for all our differences, our two countries are supposed to be allies, no?”
He turned toward me and ran a hand over his scalp. His mouth formed a faint smile. “Isn’t that being a little na?ve, Lieutenant?”
I thought how that was the second time I’d been called that in the past few weeks. The other time was by Viktor, when we were aboard ship.
“I may be a lot of things, Captain, but na?ve is hardly one of them,” I replied.
“Sorry,” he said. “But your country and mine have always been enemies.”
“We have never fought against you.”
“Maybe not openly. But you have to admit that communism’s goal is to overthrow capitalism. You want world revolution.”
“We want simply what everyone does—enough to eat, a safe place to raise our children,” I said. “If you’ll recall your history, Captain, it was your country who invaded mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
“After our revolution, it was the United States, along with its western allies, who sent troops into Siberia.”
“But what about the Marxist saying: ‘The proletariat is the undertaker of capitalism.’”
“We’re no one’s undertaker. We have never tried to hurt the United States in any way.”
“And Molotov’s nonaggression pact with Ribbentrop?”
I nodded. “That was wrong, I must admit. But if it were up to you Americans, my country would still be under the repressive tyranny of the czar. You would deny us the basic freedoms that you enjoy.”
I found myself, suddenly and instinctively, threatened by what the captain had said and rushing to my country’s defense, like some Party zealot, the way Gavrilov would have. Or even the way my father once had. I guess I felt that we Soviets, who’d fought and sacrificed so much for our nation and who’d suffered so terribly under it—we had the right to criticize it, but not outsiders.
“I wouldn’t exactly call what you have now the sort of freedom we enjoy in America,” the captain said.
“Your supposed freedom is not for all of your people,” I said. “What of your millions of poor? Or your Negroes? Or what of your Japanese who have been rounded up and put in camps? Do those people enjoy your precious freedoms?”
“All right, all right,” he said, raising his hand in surrender. “I can see I’m not going to win this one.”
We fell silent for a moment, staring out over the water to the far side. When I happened to glance at him he was rubbing the sleeve of his missing left arm.
“Forgive me, Captain,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“No, I guess I had it coming.”
“It’s just that I’m so tired of everyone over here looking down their noses at us. They think of us as godless barbarians. Primitive savages. We had culture a thousand years before your War of Independence.”
“You don’t have to convince me. I know your country. I studied it. I guess we Americans can be pretty arrogant sometimes. Where’s your watchdog?”
“Vasilyev? Oh, he’s around somewhere. Spying on me,” I said.
“Spying?” he repeated.
“I meant that metaphorically, of course.”
“Of course.” He paused, then added, “He keeps you on a pretty short leash, doesn’t he?”
“He worries that Viktor and I will say something that will cause you Americans to stop sending us guns.”
“What could you possibly say to do that?”
“I have no idea,” I replied, inhaling deeply on my cigarette. “What is that, Captain?” I asked, pointing at the well-lit monument across the river.
“That’s the Lincoln Memorial.”
“Ah, yes. We read about your Mr. Lincoln in school. He was a great man, was he not?”
“Yes, he was. He was president during our Civil War and he freed the slaves.”
“And yet your Negroes are still not free.”
He looked over at me and pursed his lips. “Unfortunately, no. One of our early presidents called it our great and foul stain.”
“The Negro woman today, the one who sang so beautifully. What was her name?”
“Marian Anderson. She’s quite a famous singer. She’s good friends with Mrs. Roosevelt. A couple of years ago, Miss Anderson was supposed to give a concert right here in Washington, but they wouldn’t let her because she was black. So Mrs. Roosevelt stepped in and used her connections. In fact, she ended up singing right over there at the Lincoln Memorial. Tens of thousands showed up. Mrs. Roosevelt has done much for the poor and for the working class. And for women too. Some people don’t like her because they think the wife of the president should keep out of such things. But I think she’s first-rate.”
“Yes, she seems to be a very strong-willed woman.”
“Are you looking forward to touring with her, Tat’yana?”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Going across the country speaking about the war.”
I stared at him, confused. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Captain. When the conference is over, I shall be going back home to fight.”
“Oh, I was under the impression that you and she were going to tour together.”
“No,” I said. “May I have another cigarette, Captain?”
As he lit it for me, I happened to look up into his face. The light from the match danced in his eyes, and up close I could smell him—his cologne or hair pomade or sweat mingling into an aromatic fragrance, sweet and musky as fermenting corn. Our eyes met and he smiled at me. He had a smile that was open and generous, that came so naturally to him that it reminded one of a child’s, but for the fact that his eyes had a sad, almost wistful look to them. I couldn’t help returning the smile.
“There,” he said, pointing at me.
“What?”
As if he’d read my thoughts, he said, “You have a nice smile, Tat’yana. You ought to show it more often.”
I smiled again, this time exaggeratedly. “You Americans with your grim optimism.”
“Isn’t it better to be an optimist than a pessimist?”
“Better still to be a realist. One needs to know the world as it is, not as you would wish it.”
“And do you know the world as it is?” he asked.
“I suppose I am learning it right now,” I said with a toss of my head back toward the party.
“Yes, the complex subtleties of Washington,” he replied. “One has to learn one’s way around that.”
“And have you learned your way around it?”
He shrugged his thin shoulders. “May I ask you something, Tat’yana?” he said to me. “Something personal.”
“I’m really not supposed to be talking to you alone.”
“Why, because you might say something ‘inappropriate’?”
He leaned toward me, staring deeply into my eyes. Then he reached out and touched my face. For a moment I thought that he was going to kiss me.
“I was wondering—”
Just then a voice: “Oh, there you are, Lieutenant.” It was Vasilyev. “I was looking all over for you.”
Captain Taylor quickly pulled his hand back and used it to rub his face.
“I just stepped out for some air,” I explained.
“Good evening, Captain,” he said to Taylor with a circumspect nod. “Several people wish to meet you,” he said to me, tucking his arm into mine and leading me away.
I glanced over my shoulder at Captain Taylor.
“What did the two of you talk about?” Vasilyev whispered to me.
“We spoke of history.”
“History?”
“Yes. Comrade Vasilyev, when the conference is over, I am going home, am I not?” I asked.
“Just as soon as we finish business here. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” I replied. “Have you heard of a man named Walter Krivitsky?”
Vasilyev shook his head. “Should I have?”
“The captain said he was killed by Soviet agents because he was a spy who defected to the West.”
“And just how would the captain know such a thing?”
“He said it was in the newspapers.”
“Ah, the American newspapers. A bastion of truth.”
“Are they any less duplicitous than our own, Comrade?”
Vasilyev leaned in to me and said in an undertone, “I would be a bit more circumspect with my tongue, if I were you, Lieutenant.”