Beautiful Assassin

PART III

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
—ISAIAH 2:4


16

It is hard for one who did not live during that period to understand the paranoia, the fear, and the hatred that existed between our two countries, and the lengths to which each side would go to in order to best the other. Over the next several weeks, things with Vasilyev and the shady bunch he worked for grew ever more bizarre, as well as more dangerous. I had seen many strange things in the war, but nothing compared with what I was about to experience. At least since our little meeting in the shed, my eyes had been opened. It would still be a while before I learned the true extent of their machinations, but I knew enough now to realize that my role promoting the war was, if not quite a complete ruse, secondary to their other, more sinister plans, plans that had more to do with fighting the Americans in some future war than fighting our very real enemies now. Viktor, of course, had been right all along.
Nevertheless, I decided I would try to go along with what they wanted, play their game, be the good soldier, at least as much as I was able without completely compromising myself. I figured I owed it to my comrades back home fighting to do whatever I could to help defeat the Germans. Whether that was raising money, increasing the Americans’ awareness of the plight of my people, or even trying to persuade the West to open up that second front sooner rather than later. Since arriving in Washington, we had raised more than a million dollars for the Soviet War Relief Fund. Each time I spoke or smiled demurely or agreed to an interview, each dollar I was able to get from the Americans was another dollar to buy guns and bullets, trucks and planes and bandages. I thought of Zoya and Captain Petrenko and my other comrades I’d fought with in Sevastopol. I tried to think only in terms of the Soviet lives I might be saving, the mothers who wouldn’t be grieving over children lost, or the Germans I might be helping to kill, even if only indirectly. I figured I could pretend to go along with what Vasilyev and the others wanted me to, if for no other reason than so that I could return home all the sooner to take up the real fight. I told myself that the rest was their slimy business, not mine. I was a soldier. My job was to follow orders.
We began our tour heading north by train. Accompanying Mrs. Roosevelt was a small army of personal assistants, advisers, friends, Secret Service agents, and reporters assigned to cover the First Lady. She brought along Miss Hickock, of course, and Captain Taylor, as well as her private secretary, Miss Thompson, to whom she dictated every morning her daily newspaper column. The First Lady had a train car all to herself and her entourage, while the Soviet delegation and the press corps occupied the car directly behind hers. The train was unlike any I’d ever been on. It was like a hotel on wheels, with a dining car, a lounge car, a smoking car, an observation car, and several Pullman sleepers where at night we slept in private compartments on comfortable beds with windows that looked out on the passing landscape. We had every imaginable convenience, which Gavrilov, in his usual surly manner, referred to as “bourgeois luxury.”
Sometimes we would make a brief “whistle-stop” at a station, where the First Lady and I would say a few words from the back of the train to groups that must have heard of our coming. The Americans appeared just as eager to see her as to see me. Like a benevolent queen, she was clearly adored by her subjects. They thronged about her, wanting to touch her, to get her autograph. Some held up their babies for her to kiss. Many called out her name. “Eleanor!” they’d cry. “Over here, Eleanor,” almost as if she were a personal friend rather than the wife of their leader. I couldn’t imagine anything similar taking place back home, the natural, unrehearsed outpouring of real emotion. Not the sort of staged affairs that occurred in Red Square, where thousands were paraded by Stalin and forced, through the simple mechanism of fear, into obsequious shows of affection. And we certainly had no leaders’ wives who would have inspired such respect or love, and certainly none who were so influential. And for her part, Mrs. Roosevelt seemed genuinely to care for “her people,” as she referred to them. I marveled at the way she reached out and shook hands, accepted hugs, let them get close enough to look into their eyes, listen with real concern to what they had to say. Her enthusiasm and warmth were incredible. Here, I thought, was a remarkable woman, the model of what a woman could be. Her face beamed, her toothy smile was radiant. The sadness I had seen in her eyes at the cemetery was replaced by passion and joy and love.
At one stop in a small Maryland town, several hundred people, mostly laborers and farmers, had come out.
“Look at all your admirers,” Mrs. Roosevelt had said to me through the captain.
“No,” I corrected, “it is you they want to see. They adore you, Mrs. Roosevelt.”
She smiled kindly at me. “Thank you, my dear. But I’m afraid you haven’t met our Republicans yet.”
As I watched her waving and smiling to the crowd, the thought that I was going to have to betray her—a woman of such kindness and compassion, someone who had been so considerate of me, so helpful to my country—actually made me sick to my stomach. How could I do this? I asked myself. I thought of what Captain Taylor had told me at the cemetery—that he wouldn’t want to see her hurt.
One night on the train, after a pleasant meal with Mrs. Roosevelt and the others, Captain Taylor and I played a game of chess. I’d mentioned to him that I played, so he challenged me. It turned out he wasn’t much of a chess player, unlike Kolya. He gambled and played recklessly, lost his queen early, and I was able to checkmate him in short order.
“You’re very good,” he said to me.
“Not really,” I said with a smile.
“Is there anything you’re not good at?” he kidded.
After our game, I stepped outside for some fresh air. The evening was cool, the air smelling crisply of autumn, of the fecund aroma of recently harvested crops. It made me think of the fields of the Ukraine, the times my mother and father would take me by train from Kiev to Sevastopol on holiday. I was standing there between cars, staring out at the countryside, when the door behind me opened.
“Good evening, Lieutenant,” said Vasilyev.
“Hello,” I replied.
He removed his silver case and offered me a cigarette. He lit both of ours, then stood there for a moment silently watching the land pass by.
“It is a beautiful country, is it not?” he said.
I nodded.
“Anything to report regarding the Captain’s Wife?”
“No,” I replied.
Vasilyev had continued to loosen his previously tight hold on my leash, permitting me more and more freedom with and access to, as Zarubin had called her, the Captain’s Wife. Sometimes he would let just the three of us—her, Captain Taylor, and me—take breakfast together in the dining car or stay up late talking with her and Miss Hickok in the First Lady’s private compartment. Mrs. Roosevelt had even taught me how to play a game of cards called pinochle. Occasionally, the four of us would play and talk well into the evening. Of course, his goal in allowing me this freedom had nothing to do with friendship and everything to do with the fact that he felt Mrs. Roosevelt would be more likely to “open up” with me if we were alone and I might find out something of interest. Afterward he’d grill me regarding what subjects we had conversed about, if she had mentioned anything of her husband’s plans, if he were preparing to travel abroad. I shared with him a few things about our conversations. Not much, and nothing I felt of real consequence, nothing that would do harm to my dear new friend. But I did give him scraps, because I thought if I hadn’t he might suspect that I was withholding information. For instance, I informed him once that Mrs. Roosevelt had made a passing remark about Mr. Wallace, her husband’s vice president. She’d said Mr. Wallace would likely not be around for a second term. It proved to be a mistake, as Vasilyev interrogated me for an hour about whether she had meant that her husband was going to select another running mate or that he wasn’t going to be running at all and therefore Wallace would be free to make his own bid for the presidency. I told him I had no idea, that she hadn’t said anything further about it. I also fed him other bits and pieces of my conversations with the First Lady. But mostly I managed to avoid telling him anything of real significance, in large measure because Mrs. Roosevelt and I normally didn’t talk much beyond the personal sorts of topics any two women might discuss. Even if Mrs. Roosevelt did allude to something I sensed might be of greater interest to Vasilyev, I carefully chose to ignore it or at least to try to skirt the issue. How would he know what we’d talked about? However, especially when he’d press me for more information, I would become nervous as I found myself ensnared in my own lies. And Vasilyev, the chekist well versed in the ways of extracting information from unwilling subjects, was good at ferreting out a lie.
“Did she say anything regarding her and the Hickok woman?” he asked me this evening.
“You mean if they are lovers or not?” I replied sarcastically.
Vasilyev knitted his brows in annoyance, then looked out at the passing landscape. When he glanced back at me his expression had changed. It was almost sympathetic. “If I may give you some advice, Lieutenant. Comrade Zarubin is not someone you want to cross. He has important friends.”
“But you can’t seriously believe what he suggested,” I said to him. “It’s all madness. Do you really think Mrs. Roosevelt is going to share state secrets with us, even if we threatened to blackmail her?”
“What I think is unimportant,” he said. “But if you must know, I do not happen to share Zarubin’s opinion. He has, shall I say, unconventional methods. Unfortunately, he has the ear of a higher-up who has the ear of Beria himself. So what I think is irrelevant. But I am in agreement with him that the First Lady can be of use to us, directly or indirectly. As they say in America, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
“Isn’t it enough she’s helping us raise money?”
“She is also privy to vital information. She shares the president’s bed.” Then, glancing up at me, he added with a smile, “At least on occasion. Besides, she is vulnerable.”
“How do you mean?”
“She is an idealist who believes the best of people. And like all idealists, she is blinded to what’s under her nose.”
“I think you’re wrong. She’s one of the smartest women I’ve ever met.”
“I see that you’ve become quite fond of her.”
“Yes, I have.”
“That’s good. But be careful that your feelings don’t cloud your judgment, Lieutenant.”
“Rest assured, Comrade, my judgment won’t be clouded in the least,” I replied. “Did you always know this was to be the real reason for my coming to America?”
“Does it matter?” he said. “Good night, Lieutenant.”
He flicked his cigarette into the wind, turned, and headed into the next car.


Now and then we would stop in a particular city and spend the entire day touring it. We made appearances in Baltimore and Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey. In each city I would make a speech, meet with public officials and reporters, have what they would today call a “photo op” session. At the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, I was photographed shooting a bazooka at an old tank sitting out on the target range. In Philadelphia, I had my picture taken with Mrs. Roosevelt standing in front of the Liberty Bell. At Fort Dix in New Jersey, I sat in the nose turret of a Flying Fortress, pretending to shoot its .50-caliber machine gun at German Messerschmitts while mugging for the cameras. (Vasilyev, of course, continued to remind me to flash my smile. “Show them you are having a good time,” he instructed.)
During our tour, Gavrilov’s role had been reduced to almost nothing. He would sometimes be called upon to utter a few lines in praise of the Soviet Union’s heroic struggle against the Germans, perhaps answer a question or two the press directed his way about the Soviet youth organization Komsomol. But other than that, he’d been told to remain silent, “out of the spotlight,” as Vasilyev had put it, because the Americans had come to see the “Beautiful Assassin.” Of course this insult stuck in his craw. On the train once, as I was passing between cars, I overheard him talking to Dmitri, with whom he seemed to have struck up a friendship. “The f*cking bitch thinks she’s movie star.” I think too he was jealous of the attention I received from and paid to Captain Taylor. Whatever “feelings” Gavrilov had had for me quickly vanished, to be replaced now by the keenest envy and loathing. He often went out of his way to make cutting remarks about a speech I’d made or something I’d said to a reporter, toning it down only for Vasilyev. It would have done little good to try to convince him that none of this had been my idea, that I didn’t seek or want the spotlight, so I let him think what he would.
Viktor had accompanied us also, though he did even less than Gavrilov. He simply smiled woodenly for the cameras, showing off his scar or occasionally mouthing a few words that Vasilyev had written for him—how happy he was to be in the United States, his gratitude to the Americans for their continued support. Ever since the beating he’d received at the hands of the chekisty, he seemed to have changed, become complacent and docile, his eyes as vacant as someone anesthetized. Even with me he acted odd, distant and wary. Since leaving Washington I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to talk with him. On the one or two occasions that I happened to bump into him on the train or in a hotel lobby, he would give me the cold shoulder, almost as if he considered me the enemy. He would drink with some of the reporters covering the First Lady or play cards with them in the lounge car of the train.
In New York they had arranged for me to make a series of speeches and public appearances at various sites throughout the city—at Astor Place, Cooper Union, Columbia University, Central Park, as well as at factories and plants and union halls, wherever they thought it likely that people would give money. During all of these visits, Mrs. Roosevelt accompanied me, lending me support and encouragement, helping to calm my nerves before I spoke. Our friendship grew, despite the hectic pace of our schedule and the secret task I had been charged with. In front of a large crowd at Columbia, she introduced me. As I passed her to the podium, she whispered, “Udachi, Tat’yana.” Good luck. During our long trip, with the captain’s tutoring, we’d each been trying to learn a little of the other’s language. Mrs. Roosevelt would say something like “It is a lovely day,” and Captain Taylor would have me give it a try in English. Or in Russian I would say to Mrs. Roosevelt, “I like your hat,” and she would try to say, “Mne nravitsya vasha shlyapa.” At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, when she was unable to break a bottle of champagne across the bow of a new battleship about to be launched, she turned to me and said, “Pomogite mne, pozhaluysta” (help me, please). Along with Mrs. Roosevelt, I had to cut the ribbons at the opening of an aircraft plant on Long Island that had been converted to making P-47 Thunderbolt fighters. At a factory in lower Manhattan we had been invited to speak to workers who built radio compasses and other navigational devices for Allies’ aircraft. And always nearby to guard the First Lady there would be policemen, as well as Mrs. Roosevelt’s Secret Service agents, men I came to recognize. But soon I thought I noticed other men hovering at the periphery, dark-suited men who reappeared over and over again at our speeches, jotting down notes or surreptitiously taking pictures of us. It was Vasilyev who finally tipped me off as to who they were.
“Do you see those men over there?” he said to me once in a factory in the Bronx. We were giving a speech to workers in a munitions plant and he was pointing at two men standing off by themselves.
“Yes.”
“G-men,” he said. When I frowned, he explained that they were with the FBI.
Wherever I spoke, looming just offstage would be Vasilyev, watching me carefully, ready to whisper something to me or Radimov, or step in to clarify a statement I had made (“What Lieutenant Levchenko means by that is…”), or offer the precise response he wished me to give to a reporter’s question: somewhat like an understudy for an unskilled actor who might forget her lines. And he watched too whenever Mrs. Roosevelt or I would say something to the other. Afterward, he would want to know what it was she had shared with me, or what we had discussed over a luncheon with military personnel.
Once Mrs. Roosevelt and I were onstage at Cooper Union, speaking to an audience made up largely of college students. I happened to glance backstage and saw that Vasilyev was talking to someone. It took me a moment to recognize the man as Zarubin, the one I had met in the shed behind the Soviet embassy. After my speech, we headed back to our hotel.
“Let me buy you a drink, Lieutenant,” Vasilyev said to me.
We went into the bar and sat down. He ordered whiskeys for both of us. In front of him on the table, he had placed a Russian newspaper.
“Comrade Zarubin has informed me that his superiors are getting anxious,” explained Vasilyev.
“Anxious?” I said.
“Yes. They expect some results,” cautioned Vasilyev as he nervously downed his glass of whiskey in one gulp and waved to the waitress for another. “You haven’t been holding anything back from me, have you, Lieutenant?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t be coy. Regarding the First Lady.”
“Of course not,” I lied. “Why would I do that?”
“Misplaced loyalties perhaps.”
“You don’t have to lecture me about my loyalties.”
“Good. It would be unwise to cross Zarubin. His methods are coarse but effective.” Vasilyev then slid the newspaper across the table toward me. “There is a very nice article back home about you, Lieutenant. Praising your gallantry.”
As I opened the paper, I saw my picture with a headline that read, “People’s Hero Welcomed in the States.” It was that silly photograph they had taken of me in the tree outside of Moscow. Yet what caught my attention was another article to the right of mine, about another Soviet soldier. He wasn’t being praised for his heroism, though. Rather the article was about his recent arrest and conviction for being a vrag naroda, an enemy of the people. He had written a letter to his parents questioning the high command’s tactics. The letter had been read by Soviet censors, and for this he’d been sentenced to seven years at a reeducation camp.
“What do you think, Lieutenant?” Vasliev said to me.
When I looked over at him, I got the feeling that he wasn’t so much referring to the article about me as to the one about the other soldier. A kind of warning.
“I wonder who the real enemy of the people is,” I said.
“I would think that would be abundantly clear to you by now, Comrade,” quipped Vasilyev, downing his second glass of whiskey.


During my stay in New York, I met a number of dignitaries and celebrities. One was the actor Charlie Chaplin, a delightful little man whose silent films had been permitted to be shown in the Soviet Union. Against the strong isolationist forces that held sway at the time, he had supported the United States’ entry into the war against Hitler, and he helped raise thousands of dollars for the Soviet war fund. Mrs. Roosevelt had arranged for a private screening of The Great Dictator, with Captain Taylor whispering a translation in my ear. I laughed until my sides ached at the slapstick antics of Mr. Chaplin, who played both the role of Adenoid Hynkel, the pathetic dictator of Tomania, with his twitchy little mustache, as well as the part of the Jewish barber. After the film, Mr. Chaplin came up to me and personally thanked me for killing all of those Nazis.
Throughout my tour of the United States, most Americans, despite their na?veté about the war and their general ignorance of or disdain for “Red Russia,” treated me rather well. They came in droves to hear me speak. Doubtless it was partly due to their curiosity about such an oddity—a woman who not only killed men but, at least according to one newspaper article, “seemed to enjoy her sanguinary vocation,” and was, in their opinion, attractive. Still, they came and cheered loudly and seemed genuinely to appreciate both my and my countrymen’s efforts against our common enemy. They dropped their coins and dollars into donation cans. Little girls would come up to me and hand me a dollar and talk to me. Old men would come up and thank me. Afterward various groups would present me with gifts. Mostly they were only of symbolic importance—a bouquet of flowers or some sort of medal, occasionally the key to the city, an honorary degree from some university. But other times it was something of real value. From the labor union of the gunmaker Colt, I was presented with a silver-plated .45 automatic with “Beautiful Assassin” engraved on the side and a single bullet that had stamped on it the number 316 (presumably for the next German I would kill once I returned to the front). And from the furrier workers’ union of New York, I received a full-length mink coat. They said it was to keep me warm at the front during the cold Russian winter. I don’t know if they thought that we women fighters could wear such things at the front, but I accepted it with gratitude. Afterward, Miss Hickok ran her hand along the coat and said, “It looks stunning on you, Tat’yana.” However, after the “show,” as I had taken to thinking of each appearance, Vasilyev quickly confiscated it, as he had the gun. “I shall keep these safe for you, Lieutenant,” he said with an ironic little smile. My guess was I would never see them again. That the fur coat would end up donning the soft white shoulders of some politburo member’s mistress, and the gun, like Vasilyev’s cigarette case, would adorn the collection of some higher-up NKVD member.
At every show, the American press flocked around me, as if I were, as Gavrilov had accused me of being, one of their motion picture actresses. Journalists were quite different from the average American: they were prying and meddlesome, tedious in their badgering, usually trying to trick me into saying something I would later regret when I saw it distorted in the newspaper. Whereas the facts of a story in Pravda or Izvestiya were conjured up by government officials to achieve some predetermined end, in America, I learned, they were manipulated and given shape by the writers’ desire merely to sell newspapers. They wanted to know my opinion on all manner of subjects. They would ask what I thought of some recent defeat back home or if I believed Japan would invade Siberia or whether or not the Germans would take Stalingrad. They asked what life was like under communism and how it compared to life under capitalism. They wanted to know what I liked most about America—what were my favorite foods, movie actors, perfume, what items I most wanted to bring back with me to Russia. They especially wanted to know my opinion on various topics related to women, as if I were some sort of expert on all things feminine. One female reporter even wanted to know if Soviet women shaved their underarms. They wanted to know what I thought a woman’s role should be in society, if American women should be able fight in the war, if they should be allowed to smoke, wear trousers, work outside the home.
“Let me apologize for the stupidity of my fellow journalists,” Miss Hickok offered.
I had, of course, to watch myself during such encounters with reporters, because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and be harangued by Vasilyev. In fact, before each show, Vasilyev would coach me, going carefully over what I was to say, what I was to avoid, and afterward he would be sure to point out my “indiscretions,” as he called them. Sometimes he’d give me hypothetical questions that the American press might ask me. “If they bring up the matter of detention camps in our country, tell them you have no such knowledge. Say that we have, as America does, only prisons for the criminal elements.” He’d even taken to rewriting my speeches, going over them so that I wouldn’t say the wrong thing. Sometimes he would insert words or phrases into my speeches. One time he wanted me to use the word achievement, several times, as in “The Allies’ great achievement will be in ridding the world of fascism.” A number of times he slipped in the word “ogromny”—enormous—as he had for my speech at the student conference. “We face an enormous challenge in defeating the Germans.” Or, “We Soviets acknowledge an enormous debt of gratitude to the United States for all of their assistance, but we strongly encourage our good friends to open a second front with all due haste.” In fact, he used the word in three speeches in a row, so that it seemed rather peculiar to me.
“Why this particular word?” I asked him once as we sat in the lobby of our hotel. It was right before we were to leave for a speech I was scheduled to deliver in Battery Park.
“What word?” he responded, pretending ignorance.
“Enormous.”
“I don’t know. It just seems to fit.”
“But you’ve used it several times already.”
“Have I?” he said with a shrug. “I wasn’t aware.”
“I shall cut it then?” I offered.
“No. Leave it.”
I would shortly learn the word’s importance, a word that would become important not just to Vasilyev but to the entire world.
My most important public address in New York came at a big rally in Central Park sponsored by the Russian émigré community of the city. As it turned out, some ten thousand strong had come on a bright, cloudless, autumn morning to hear what I had to say. Actually, to hear what Vasilyev had to say. On the ride over to the rally, he had handed me an envelope.
“That’s your speech for today,” he said.
“But I’ve already written my speech.”
“Change of plans. Just read it as it’s written, Lieutenant,” he advised me. “Don’t improvise. There will be reporters today from around the world. Everything you say will get back to the Kremlin. So we don’t want any slipups. Is that clear?”
I nodded, though inside I felt like saying why not let Gavrilov be his mouthpiece. He’d have enjoyed that.
The late morning sun exploded into a million diamonds off the buildings, and the park was dazzling, green and lush and ornate as an emperor’s private garden. With me onstage that day was Mayor La Guardia, as well as a number of other city officials and dignitaries, including the folksinger Woody Guthrie, a thin, gaunt man wearing the plain garb of a peasant and with a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Miss Levchenko,” he said as he shook my hand. He told me he had even composed a song in my honor, called “300,” for the number of Germans I had killed.
“But she’s shot three hundred and fifteen,” Vasilyev quickly piped up.
Smiling amiably, the man explained, “I wrote the thing when I’d first heard about you. Sorry, but you’ve been too quick on the draw for me to keep up.”
Mr. Guthrie opened the rally with his song:
Miss Levchenko’s well known to fame;
Russia’s your country, fighting is your game;
The whole world will love her for a long time to come,
For more than three hundred Nazis fell by your gun.
After Mr. Guthrie finished singing, Mayor La Guardia introduced Mrs. Roosevelt, who talked about the Soviet War Relief Fund for a while before introducing me. Even after having spoken so many times, I was still a bit nervous as I stood behind the microphone gazing out over the sea of faces, and beyond to the park’s trees and ponds, and in the shimmering distance the glittering skyscrapers of the city. I suppose it should have been easy enough, just mouthing what Vasilyev had written, but I hadn’t had a chance to go over it and so was a little worried.
With Radimov translating, I began to speak. I talked of the need for more American support to defeat the Germans. I called on our “American friends” to understand the “enormous” sacrifice the Soviet people had made to stop Hitler. I spoke of the “tide of war” slowly turning, of the German advance being finally halted, of a new Soviet offensive about to “drive the invaders from our soil.” However, despite the optimism, after a while Vasilyev turned the speech into a personal plea for help. “Please, I beg you from the bottom of my heart,” I read, “help us. It is not just our fight, but yours as well. We need more assistance from our American friends. Try to imagine the loss of your own dear children to these heartless monsters.” At this point in the speech, in parentheses, Vasilyev had written a note to me: “Try to summon up a tear or two here.” I ignored it, continued to read. “But Soviet parents take an enormous pride in sacrificing their sons and daughters whom they send willingly to the front to fight the Germans. They gladly forfeit their children to defeat Hitler. I plead to every single American man: join me in the fight for freedom. Don’t let a woman do the fighting for you. Be courageous. Stand up for women and children everywhere. Thank you, my friends.”
When I finished, I went over and took my seat. Evidently they liked the speech. The crowd clapped and whistled and called out my name, so much so that finally, on the urging of Mrs. Roosevelt, I got up and acknowledged them with a bow, which sent them into another frenzy of applause. Afterward, the press came rushing up, peppering me with questions.
“Lieutenant Levchenko, aren’t you throwing down the gauntlet to American soldiers?” one asked.
“Well…I suppose I am.”
“Are you saying our boys are cowards?”
Before answering, I glanced at Vasilyev, who drew his lips together into a puckery ball of warning.
“No, I didn’t say they are cowards,” I replied. “You Americans have fought bravely in many wars. But I do think actions speak louder than words.”
“What do you mean by that?” another called out.
“Just that war is won by fighting, not by talking. I believe it is high time your troops stood shoulder to shoulder with me rather than behind me.”
After Radimov translated this, like a beehive struck with a stone, it stirred the group of reporters into an agitated frenzy. They frantically scribbled in their notebooks and chattered excitedly among themselves. Soon they were calling out more questions, faster than Radimov or I could possibly field them. One yelled something about me saying the Americans were hiding behind my skirt.
Right then, however, Mrs. Roosevelt, as she would do many times over the course of our trip, stepped in to rescue me. Smiling, she said something to the reporters that seemed to appease them, for they all laughed amiably.
As our group left the stage and made our way to the waiting limousines, Mrs. Roosevelt came up to me and said through the captain, “I think you may have struck a nerve, my dear. You assaulted the fragile male ego.” Then she laughed.
Just before we reached the street, Captain Taylor leaned in to me and asked, “So how are you?”
I had been so busy for the past several days with appearances and speeches, with running here and there for photos and interviews, I hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with him, at least not privately. The last real conversation we’d had had taken place at the cemetery. What time we did spend together involved him mostly translating for Mrs. Roosevelt or for reporters slinging questions at me, or teaching me English. Nonetheless, now and then he’d shoot me a wink when some reporter would ask me an absurd question.
I turned to him and said, “I’m fine, Captain.”
“Maybe we can talk later,” he said.
On the ride back to our hotel, I sat between Dmitri and Viktor and across from Vasilyev, Gavrilov, and the Corpse. Viktor, I noticed, stared indifferently out the window, his gaze vacuous.
“I think you went a bit too far by saying the Americans were hiding behind your skirt.”
“That’s not what I said,” I replied.
“We want to motivate them, not offend them. Don’t stray from what I’ve written for you,” Vasilyev said.
“He asked a question and I answered it. I’m doing my best!” I suddenly snapped at him. My nerves had been frayed from having to be on my toes constantly, having to fawn and smile, say this, avoid saying that, not to mention having to pass on to him whatever Mrs. Roosevelt told me. I had been worn to a frazzle. “If you don’t like me doing it, let your lapdog Gavrilov do it.”
“There, there,” he said, patting my knee. “I think you’re just tired. Perhaps you deserve some time off, Lieutenant.”
We finally reached the hotel a little after noon. The building was on the West Side overlooking the Hudson, just around the corner from where Mrs. Roosevelt and her group were staying. As we were heading up on the elevator, Vasilyev whispered he wished a word with me and so followed me to my room. I thought he wanted to continue haranguing about my mistakes with the reporters.
In my room, Vasilyev walked over to the window and gazed out. My room was on the fifty-seventh floor, and I got a terrible sense of vertigo every time I looked out, so I usually avoided it.
“It is quite the view from here. Come look.”
“I’d rather not,” I said.
Vasilyev headed over to a nearby table where there were a bottle of champagne on ice, a fresh bouquet of flowers, a platter of food, and some new correspondence. Each day there appeared various gifts from people I didn’t know, as well as letters and cards and cables. Most were from Americans, average people who’d read about me in the newspapers. But there were some from around the world. One was a handwritten letter signed by Charles de Gaulle. Vasilyev picked up a sandwich, looked it over, and sniffed it before taking a bite. He scooped up the packet of mail, began riffling through it. One caught his attention. He opened the envelope and began perusing it, though for what reason, I couldn’t fathom, as most were in English. Usually, Radimov would translate those.
“I have to use the bathroom,” I said. I went in and shut the door. I turned on the faucet, washed my face. I felt exhausted. In the mirror I saw that my face was drawn, my eyes fatigued. I hadn’t been sleeping well, all the moving about, trying to rest in a berth on a train, in strange hotel rooms. I had found all these public appearances and interviews much more draining than I had ever found war to be. Most of all I had grown tired of my role of spying on Mrs. Roosevelt, and trying to avoid passing on to Vasilyev anything that might hurt her.
I stalled in the bathroom, hoping he’d eventually leave. I was exhausted and I wanted to get some rest before whatever it was they had planned for me that evening. When I realized he wasn’t going to leave, I finally opened the door. I found Vasilyev seated comfortably in a corner chair, drinking a glass of champagne. He was reading a cable.
“I believe you will find this one of particular interest,” he said. He handed me the telegram. In Russian, it said:
Dear Comrade Levchenko (stop) I wish to commend you on your glorious triumphs in the United States (stop) Even now you are helping the Motherland in our Great Patriotic war to defeat the Hitlerites (stop) Respectfully, S.
S, I thought. Stalin. I felt something like a piece of ice slide down my spine, the same sort of feeling I’d had back in Moscow on meeting The Man of Steel.
“You’ve caught his attention, Lieutenant. That’s a very good thing.”
“Is it?” I said. I glanced at the cable again. Now I was another name in some vast book somewhere, a book that held thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of names just like mine, whose fates were controlled by him, the master puppeteer. “I think I would prefer he not know who I am.”
Vasilyev looked up from his reading, frowned, then let out with a dry cackle. “It is far too late for that, I’m afraid,” he said. “Champagne, Lieutenant?”
“You said you wanted to talk.”
“Have a seat. You look a little tired.”
“I am tired,” I said, walking over and sitting on the bed. “I would like to get some rest.”
“Indeed, I think you deserve a little R & R,” he offered. “Mrs. Roosevelt has invited you to the opera this evening. I think it’s a splendid idea. I want you to relax and have a good time. You won’t have to wear your uniform.”
“What will I wear then?”
“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering some new things for you. They’ll be delivered to your room this afternoon.”
“Civilian clothes?” I asked.
“Yes. I thought this way those foolish reporters won’t pester you as much. And besides, you are attending the opera, you ought to dress up.”
I hadn’t worn civilian clothes in well over a year. Of course I had worn my country’s uniform with pride. But regular clothes? I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
“Will you be accompanying me tonight?” I asked Vasilyev.
“No,” he replied, downing the rest of his glass. “I have some other business to attend to.”
“And Radimov?”
“I will need his services. Our Captain Taylor can translate for you.”
Our Captain Taylor, I thought. What was he implying by that? Vasilyev poured himself another glass of champagne. He seemed in an odd mood, distracted, content just to sit there.
“You ought to try the champagne. It’s not half bad.”
“I’d think I would like to rest a little before tonight,” I reminded him again.
But he didn’t budge. Instead he said, “I believe Captain Taylor may prove to be the key.”
“The key?” I asked, looking over at him.
“To unlocking the secrets of Mrs. Roosevelt. I’m sure he knows a great deal about her…activities.”
I thought of that meeting in the shed behind the embassy, what they had asked me regarding Mrs. Roosevelt. Then I thought of my conversation with the captain at the cemetery, how he’d said that if Mrs. Roosevelt’s relationship with Miss Hickok were to be made public, she would be ruined.
“Even if there was something to know about her ‘activities,’” I said, “the captain is not a fool. Nor is he disloyal.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I believe it will take some cleverness on your part to get him to part with what he knows.”
“Cleverness?” I said.
“Women have ways of getting men to talk,” he said. “Particularly attractive women like yourself.”
“What are you suggesting, Comrade?” I hurled at him.
“Just that the captain is quite taken by you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Am I? You would have to be blind not to have noticed, Lieutenant?”
I thought of Captain Taylor touching my face that night on the terrace, our conversation at the cemetery, all the times he had stared at me and smiled. The way he would sometimes look at me as he translated Mrs. Roosevelt’s words. I knew Vasilyev was right, even if I hadn’t wanted to admit it.
“And what is it you wish me to do?”
Vasilyev inspected his nails. “Nothing really. Just don’t discourage his attentions.”
“You would have me play a whore to get what you want?” I said angrily.
“Relax, Lieutenant,” Vasilyev said.
“Don’t tell me to relax. I won’t do it. I won’t!”
I got up and stormed over to the door. I stood there for a moment, debating my next move.
“Just where do you think you would go?”
I stood there, seething, but I knew he was right. Where would I go? And even if I managed to escape, I knew they would hunt me down, just as they had Trotsky, Erwin Wolf, Rudolf Klement. I knew they wouldn’t let me go, not now, not ever. I was theirs. I belonged to them in the same way as a tractor or a tank, or the fields back in the Ukraine they had taken from the kulaks. It struck me then, in a way it had never quite done before, that I owned nothing, not the clothes on my back, not my medals, not my body or my mind, not even my soul. Everything I was and had was theirs to do with as they pleased. I was just a pawn, to be used and sacrificed when they thought best. Still, I continued standing there for a moment, frozen between anger and fear—fear not so much of what Vasilyev and his bunch of thugs could do to me, but of the unknown, of what lay on the other side of the door, the great, unfathomable gulf that I would be crossing if I made that choice.
“Lieutenant,” came Vasilyev’s voice from behind me, his tone having softened. “No one’s asking you to compromise your precious morals.”
“No?” I said.
“No. In fact, I respect your integrity. Please, come and sit down.”
Stubbornly, I stood there for another moment or two, staring at the door, knowing that I had already capitulated though not wanting to admit it to myself. Finally I turned and headed over and sat on the bed again.
Vasilyev got up and came over and sat down beside me. The springs groaned under his bulk, and I found myself unwillingly leaning into him. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, “My dear Tat’yana.” It was the first and only time I could recall him calling me by my first name. “I can’t tell you just how proud I am of you.”
I turned toward him, looked into his blood-dark eyes. This close I could actually see my reflection there. Then he leaned toward me and planted a fatherly kiss on my forehead.
“In some ways I look upon you as a daughter,” he said. “Do you really think I would ask you to compromise yourself? I’m merely suggesting that you let the captain believe what he wants.”
“You mean, lead him on.”
“Call it what you will. It won’t hurt to be nice to him,” he replied, with an ironic smile forming on his lips. “Act as if his feelings are reciprocated.”
“And you think this will make him confide in me about Mrs. Roosevelt?”
“It certainly can’t hurt. In the presence of a pretty woman men have been known to be less than discreet. There are, shall we say, certain pressures being put on me.” I thought of Zarubin, of the ambassador, Vasilyev’s bosses. “Are we in agreement on this, Lieutenant?” he said, squeezing my shoulder.
I just stared silently at him.
“Good,” he said, standing. “I ought to let you get some rest. You will be picked up around six. Remember: keep your eyes and ears open.”
After he left, I paced the room, angry with Vasilyev, with all of them, those dark forces I felt tightening around me, biting into my flesh like barbed wire on a battlefield. Angry too with myself, for having gone along with all of this, for not having opened that door. I desperately wanted someone to talk to, and the only one I could think of was Viktor. Besides a few words in passing, I hadn’t really talked with him since that time in Washington. He was on the floor below mine, so I headed down and knocked on his door. He opened it just wearing his trousers, without shoes or socks, his chest bare. I noticed that the bruises along his ribs were beginning to fade.
“Can I talk with you?” I asked.
“About what?” he replied, a wariness to his voice.
“In private.”
Before letting me in his room, he glanced out into the hallway to make sure I was alone. He offered me the only chair while he sat on his bed. I noticed there was a half-filled bottle of vodka on the nightstand.
“How are you, Viktor?” I asked.
“How should I be?” he replied evasively.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I probably shouldn’t even be talking with you.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, as if it were too obvious to need an answer.
“You believe me when I told you I had nothing to do with what they did to you.”
“If you say so.”
“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t, Viktor. You have to believe me. Please, I have no one else to turn to.”
He stared blankly across at me; then he leaned over and grabbed hold of the bottle on the nightstand. He uncapped it and took a drink. “You look like shit. Here,” he said, handing the bottle to me. I accepted it as a kind of peace offering and took a sip.
“So what do you want to talk about?” he asked.
“They’ve been having me spy on Mrs. Roosevelt.”
He pursed his lips, as if he wasn’t any longer surprised by anything they did. “And you’ve agreed?”
“What else could I do?”
“I told you what you could do, but you let them bully you around. What is it they want?”
“I don’t know exactly. But they think they can get important information from her. And they are prepared to blackmail her. About her personal life. It’s all absurd.”
He laughed at this, his scarred mouth knotting his face to one side. Then he took another drink, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“They want me to…become ‘friendly’ with Captain Taylor,” I offered, feeling embarrassed even saying it out loud. “They think we might be able to use him to get information about her.”
“So what are you going to do, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What have you told the American captain?”
“About what?”
“Have you confided in him anything that Vasilyev has asked you to do?”
“No. No, of course not.”
“Be careful around him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I just think you should. Don’t trust the Americans either.”
“But why?”
“Just don’t.”
I thought of asking him more but decided not to go down that path. At least not right then.
“And what are you going to do, Viktor?”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to spy for that swine Vasilyev, that’s for sure. You and I, Lieutenant, we are soldiers. But this is not fighting. This is the usual trickery from those chekist bastards. The same ones that carted my father off in the middle of the night. They can get somebody else.”
“They’ll punish you,” I said.
He seemed to want to say something, but I could see that he wasn’t fully certain he could trust me.
“I’ll play their game. Smile and nod. But when the time is right, I’ll make my move.”
“Move?”
“The less you know, Lieutenant, the better.”
“You can trust me, Viktor.”
“It’s not that. I figure what you don’t know, they can’t get out of you.” He looked down at his bruised ribs. “They can make a stone talk, those pricks.”
I got up and went over to him. I took his face in my hands and looked at him.
“Think about the consequences,” I said to him.
“I have.”
I shook my head. “Since I can’t talk you out of it, at least be careful, Viktor.”
“Don’t worry. I will. You too, Lieutenant.”