22
Over the next couple of days as the train sped westward on the final leg of our cross-country trip, I stayed mostly in my sleeper compartment, feigning illness. Jack had come up with this plan, so as to buy us some time. That way, I could say I hadn’t yet had a chance to deliver Vasilyev’s letter to Mrs. Roosevelt. Out my window, I watched as the flat, endless plains gave way first to towering mountains, some already snowcapped, followed by brown, desiccated deserts, then more mountains, and at last, the green abundance of California. I lay there thinking about Jack Taylor, about the possibility of a life with him, about all that was soon going to change for me. Wondering if I could actually go through with defecting to the West. Once, as if sensing my conflicted state of mind, Jack Taylor stopped by to see how I was doing.
“I heard you were sick,” he said loudly, playing along with our ruse in case one of the chekist officers was within earshot.
“I’m feeling a little better.” Then in a whisper I asked, “Did you talk to Mrs. Roosevelt?”
“She’s been busy,” he said, somewhat evasively, I thought. “Listen, I have to go. I’ll check back with you later.”
Before he left, I said, “Jack.”
“Yes?”
“You do love me, right?”
He smiled, reached out and stroked my cheek. “Of course I love you. How could you doubt that?”
Finally we arrived in San Francisco. I was to give a couple of speeches, make a tour of the city, meet with some reporters, before having a final gala dinner. After that, Vasilyev had informed me that we were to head home by way of an American merchant ship bringing lend-lease materials through the Persian Gulf. We arrived at our hotel, which was in the downtown part of the city, near the water. I went up to my room and took a long bath. I was lying there in the hot water, thinking about everything, when there was a knock on my door.
I threw my robe on and answered it. Dmitri was standing there.
“The Boss wants to see you,” he said.
“What’s he want?”
“I don’t know. But he’s in one of his moods, so you better get a move on.”
I quickly got dressed and followed him to Vasilyev’s room. When I entered, I saw Gavrilov sitting on the bed, his back to the wall. Prior to this, Vasilyev had usually excluded Gavrilov from our most private conversations, but now he sat across from me, staring at me with that smug expression of his. On his lap he held a briefcase. Vasilyev was seated on one of two wing chairs overlooking the city below.
“Have a seat,” Vasilyev told me brusquely. I sat opposite him. “I trust you are feeling better, Lieutenant?”
“A little.”
“Did you get a chance to deliver the message to Mrs. Roosevelt?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“And?”
“She didn’t say anything.”
“What do you mean, she didn’t say anything?”
“She just read the letter.”
“She didn’t give you any response at all?”
“No.”
Vasilyev and Gavrilov traded glances. I realized then that Gavrilov was in on all of this too, just as Viktor had guessed. He wasn’t just a student representative, a Komsomol member. He was one of them.
“Do you still have the letter you received in Chicago?” Vasilyev asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Give it to me.”
“I don’t have it on me. It’s in my suitcase in my room.”
“Bring it to me later,” he said. “Did you inquire of Captain Taylor if he were ever in Moscow?”
“He said he wasn’t.”
“Do you think he’s telling the truth?”
“How would I know that?”
With a nod to Gavrilov, he said, “Show her.”
From the envelope on his lap, Gavrilov removed what I could see was a photograph. He leaned across the bed and handed it to me, a thin little sneer drawing his face into a rigid mask.
“I knew I’d seen him somewhere before,” Vasilyev commented.
I glanced at the photo. It was a little fuzzy and had been taken from some distance. It showed two men emerging from a building. I didn’t recognize the first one, a heavy, middle-aged man with a light-colored suit and a fedora. The other was younger and slender, also dressed in civilian clothes. Despite his clothing and the fact that he had both his arms, there was no mistaking that it was Jack Taylor.
“Do you recognize him?” Vasilyev asked.
I looked across at him. “Of course. It’s Captain Taylor.”
“Do you recognize that building?”
“Should I?”
“You were there,” Vasilyev said. “That’s the American embassy in Moscow.”
“So?” I said, trying to act as if this information didn’t come as something of a surprise.
Gavrilov said, “Has love blinded you to his deception?”
“Go to hell,” I hurled at him. “That could be any building.”
“But it’s not,” Vasilyev replied. “The captain lied to you when he said he was never in Moscow.”
“So what? Perhaps he forgot. Perhaps he merely made a visit and overlooked it,” I said, though I was starting to get that buzzing sensation in the back of my head again.
“No, he wasn’t visiting, and he surely didn’t forget. He worked there,” explained Vasilyev. “The man with him is Robert Fowles. He’s a well-known agent of the Americans. A spy. As is your Charles Pierce.”
“Who?”
“Captain Taylor. His real name is Charles Pierce. Or at least that was the name he used on his visa back then.”
“I don’t believe you,” I snapped at him.
“Stop behaving like a schoolgirl with a crush,” said Vasilyev harshly. “Charles Pierce is an OSS officer. He worked in Moscow and later in New York translating cables the Americans had stolen from us.”
I recalled then Jack telling me his friend had contacts in the OSS. Still, I fought to keep my doubt from being displayed on my face.
“How do I know you’ve not made this all up?” I said.
“Pictures don’t lie,” Gavrilov added.
“What have you told him?” Vasilyev asked.
“What do you mean?”
“About what we are doing? About what we know regarding Enormous?”
“I haven’t told him anything.”
“You’re not working for the Americans now, are you?”
“No! Of course not.”
Vasilyev’s eyes searched mine, trying to ferret out a hint of falsehood. “You had better be telling the truth.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“Has the captain told you anything I should know?”
“Nothing of importance.”
“The American is only using you,” said Gavrilov. “He doesn’t love you.”
I wanted to strike his thin weasel face. “And what would you know about love?” I flung at him.
“All right, enough,” Vasilyev said. “Comrade Gavrilov will be giving the rest of the speeches.”
I looked at Gavrilov, who raised his eyebrows self-righteously, as if to say he’d won.
“It makes no difference to me,” I replied. But the truth was I was wary about what this sudden change implied.
“You will speak to the press only under my direct supervision and with Radimov doing the translating,” Vasilyev continued. “And you are to cease having any contact with the Americans.”
“The Americans?” I asked.
“Yes. All Americans. Including the captain. Is that clear?”
“You don’t wish me to talk to Mrs. Roosevelt?”
“That’s correct. No contact.”
“Won’t they think that’s strange?”
“It doesn’t matter what they think anymore. You will be going home shortly.”
“Home,” I said.
“Yes, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” offered Vasilyev.
I felt a churning sensation begin in the pit of my stomach. I wondered what was going on. If they had gotten Viktor to talk, perhaps he’d told them I had been considering defecting. Or maybe they had somehow found out about my conversations with Captain Taylor. Or what was the other name Vasilyev said? Charles Pierce. It did cross my mind that they had somehow bugged a room I’d been staying in and had listened to our conversations.
“Why the sudden change?” I asked.
“It’s just the way it will be, Lieutenant,” Vasilyev said, staring at me. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes. Will I be returning to the front?” I asked.
“In two days we sail for Dudinka.”
“Siberia?” I exclaimed. “I thought we were headed for the Gulf.”
“A change of plans.”
Dudinka, I knew, was a port on the Arctic Sea. It provided supplies for the nickel-producing town of Norilsk, made infamous for its labor camp. Back home, people spoke of “going to Norilsk” as one might say “going to hell.”
“I warned you, Lieutenant,” Vasilyev said. “Now it is out of my hands.”
When I left this meeting, I headed back to my room. I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts in complete disarray. What was all that about? I wondered. Did Vasilyev know about my plans to defect? Why had he suddenly ordered me not to have any contact with the Americans? And he was obviously worried I had told the captain something about what we had been doing. But then I thought about the picture he’d shown me regarding Jack. How he’d said he was really someone called Charles Pierce, an American spy. Could I believe him? I wanted to think that Vasilyev was lying just to manipulate me, but why had Jack denied being in Moscow? Could I trust him? Or was he just using me, as Gavrilov had said? I found myself ensnared in a web of treachery and deception, with seemingly no way out. I couldn’t trust anyone, it seemed.
After a while, someone knocked on the door.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
“It’s me,” came Jack Taylor’s voice.
I opened the door a little but not wide enough for him to enter.
“Are you going to let me in?” he asked, smiling.
“I’m not supposed to talk with you anymore.”
“What?”
“Vasilyev’s orders. I’m not supposed to talk to Americans.”
He frowned.
“You’re not serious, are you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I feel,” I replied coolly. “Those are his orders.”
“What’s really the matter?”
“I told you.”
“There’s obviously something else going on, Tat’yana.”
I stuck my head out and glanced down the hall both ways, to make sure no one was watching us. Then I said, “Come in quickly.” After I’d shut the door, I said, “I think Vasilyev suspects us.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked me about Enormous. If I had said anything to you about it. And he ordered me not to talk to you anymore.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“That we would be sailing to Siberia. Not the Middle East.”
Jack ran his hand over his face, rubbing his jaw contemplatively. “Jesus. Do you think they got Viktor to talk?”
“I don’t know.” I stared at him, remembering the picture of him and the other man coming out of the American embassy. “Why did you lie to me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said you hadn’t been to Moscow.”
“It’s true. I haven’t.”
“I saw a picture.”
“Picture?” he said. “Of what?”
“Vasilyev showed me a picture of you and another man. You were coming out of the American embassy.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Stop trying to deny it, Jack. I saw it with my own eyes. It was you.”
He took a deep breath. “All right. I can explain.”
“You can explain!” I said with a caustic laugh. “How convenient.”
“I can.”
“What else did you lie about?”
“Nothing. I swear.”
He leaned toward me and tried to kiss me, but I turned my head.
“No,” I said. “Do you know a Charles Pierce?”
“What?” he said, feigning ignorance of the name. He quickly and adroitly recovered, but I saw a momentary flicker of acknowledgment in his hazel eyes, enough to tell me I had hit a nerve. “Who’s—”
But I cut him short. “For God’s sakes, stop lying to me, Jack. Or Charles or whoever the hell you are.”
“I’m not lying,” he pleaded.
“Yes, you are. Tell me, who is Charles Pierce?”
He seemed about to continue with his denials, but then he suddenly changed tactics and said, “All right. Let me explain.”
I laughed at that. “You can explain away all of your lies.”
“Please, Tat’yana. I love you.”
“Do you take me for a complete fool?” I said, turning and heading over to the window. “Damn you…,” I said, not knowing whether to call him Jack or Charles.
He followed me over and put his hand on my shoulder. “We don’t have time for this now, Tat’yana.”
I spun around. “We don’t have time for the truth, you mean. You made me believe you. That you loved me.”
“I do. You have to believe that.”
“I don’t have to believe anything,” I cried.
“I understand how it must look to you.”
“Look to me! You lied to me.”
“We can talk about this later. Right now, Mrs. Roosevelt wants to see you.”
“I don’t know if I want to see her.”
“Why not?”
“I told you, I’m not supposed to talk to Americans. They might be watching me,” I said. “Besides, I don’t know if I want to go through with it anymore.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure I want to defect,” I said.
“You don’t have any choice,” he cried.
“One always has a choice.”
“If you go home, they’ll punish you.”
“I don’t care anymore.”
“If you don’t care about yourself, what about us?”
“How can I believe there was ever really an ‘us’? That it wasn’t just another one of your lies?”
“It wasn’t, I swear. I love you.”
“I don’t even know who or what to believe anymore. You Americans are as bad as our side.”
“Before you make up your mind, please, just talk to Mrs. Roosevelt. It’s very important.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, whether I wanted to go back home and perhaps be denounced as an enemy of the state, be sent to a camp, or worse. Or take the chance of defecting. Both paths seemed equally unappealing and equally fraught with peril now.
After a while, I said, “All right. I’ll talk with her.”
“She’s on the eighth floor.”
We headed over to the door. He started to open it, but I said, “Wait.”
I poked my head out and saw one of the chekisty just down the hall. He was leaning against the wall, smoking.
“I will go distract him,” I whispered to Jack. “When he’s not watching, slip out of the room. Tell Mrs. Roosevelt I shall be there as soon as I can.”
I headed down the hall and struck up a conversation with the chekist officer. It was the stocky one. I stood on the far side of him so that he wouldn’t see when Jack Taylor left my room. I asked him if he had a cigarette. He hesitated for a moment, then took out a pack, an American brand, and gave me one and lit it for me. He had a broad face, with high cheekbones and small liquid eyes. I asked him where he came from, and he replied Sverdlovsk. He wasn’t much for words. As we spoke, I saw the captain slip out of the room and disappear down the hall. Then I thanked the man and told him I was going down to buy some cigarettes at the front desk and did he want anything. He shook his head.
Mrs. Roosevelt sat in a high-backed chair in a small sitting area over near the window, with Miss Thompson across from her. The First Lady seemed to be dictating something to her secretary. Without stopping what she was saying, when she saw me the First Lady indicated that I have a seat, which turned out to be one of the two twin beds in the room. The captain stood off to one side, glancing at me from time to time. When Mrs. Roosevelt was finished, Miss Thompson shut her pad, stood, said something in English to the First Lady, and then left the room. Mrs. Roosevelt remained silent for a moment, staring out the window, lost in thought.
Finally, turning toward me, she said, “Captain Taylor has briefed me on what has been going on, young lady. And your role in it.” Her tone was businesslike, restrained, even aloof. “I understand the pressures that were placed on you, Lieutenant. You were a soldier and you were simply following orders. That’s what soldiers do. However, I can’t say that I’m not sorely disappointed in your behavior.”
“I am very sorry, Mrs. Roosevelt,” I pleaded. “You have been a dear friend to me.”
“As I thought you had been to me.”
“I didn’t mean for any of this happen. And I never meant to betray our friendship.”
“But betray it you did, Tat’yana. I feel very hurt by what you’ve done. You betrayed not only me, you’ve betrayed the United States of America. An ally of your country against the Germans.”
Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes and streamed down my cheeks. In a moment I was sobbing. I felt a burning shame at what I had done to this good and decent woman who had shown me nothing but kindness.
“Please…forgive me,” I said, between sobs.
Mrs. Roosevelt got up and came over and sat down next to me. She put her arm around my shoulder and hugged me to her, as she had done that first night when I stayed at the White House.
“It’s all right, my dear,” she said soothingly. “I suppose we will all soon be living in a world where we won’t be able to trust one another. Though I shall be very loath, indeed, to have to live in such a world. Still, I am proud of your accomplishments in this war and shall always value your friendship.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Roosevelt.”
“The captain tells me you’re in trouble with your own side and that you wish to defect.”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure anymore.”
She glanced across me at the captain.
“Well, if you’re going to ask for political asylum, you will have to make up your mind pretty quickly, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Roosevelt explained. “You’re slated to leave the day after tomorrow. I’ve spoken to my husband about all of this, and he informs me it will be a very sticky situation. Your Mr. Stalin will no doubt be quite upset if you jump ship, so to speak,” she said with a sad smile. “However, I made it quite clear to Franklin that you may well be in danger if you return to the Soviet Union, and he assured me we can work something out. It all depends on how much your side expects in return. Of course, you know that if you defect, there’s no going back.”
“I know.”
“So what’s it to be, Tat’yana?”
I took a deep breath, looked at Captain Taylor, then back at Mrs. Roosevelt.
“I will defect,” I said.
“Very well then. We’ll have to work quickly. We don’t have much time. Certain arrangements will need to be made for your being granted asylum.” She gave me a last hug, then stood. “I have a meeting. I suppose you two have lots to talk about.” Before she left, she leaned over and grasped my hands in both of hers. “I wish you all the happiness in the world, Tat’yana. And I forgive you.”
I thanked her and then she left.
That was the last time I would ever see her.
Captain Taylor and I remained silent for a moment. Then he came over, sat beside me, and took my hand.
“I’m sorry,” he began.
“I don’t even know what to call you. Is that your real name, Charles Pierce?” I said to him.
“Yes,” he said. “Let me explain.”
He went on to tell me how he’d gotten into this “spying” business. How since he’d been good at languages, they’d recruited him before the war to spy on the Soviets. He told me how he had worked in Moscow as an American agent. That the United States had feared that the Soviet Union would sign a treaty with Nazi Germany, which, of course they did, and which would allow the Germans to focus all of their might on the Western Front. That he had worked in the embassy reading and translating cables the Americans had intercepted. He told me how his government had received incontrovertible evidence of my government running an extensive spy ring in the United States well before the war, that it had infiltrated high levels of American industry, government, and now even in the development of this secret weapons project.
When he was finished explaining, I paused for a moment. Then I said, “Just tell me one thing. Did you get involved with me just to find out about the spy network?”
“No.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“All right. At first I did. But later it had nothing to do with my job.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? Or anything you tell me?”
“I love you, Tat’yana. You have to believe me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“So who are you really?”
“Charles Pierce is my real name. But most people called me Charlie.”
“Charlie.”
He smiled at me, that smile that could soften my heart. “I’m still the same person.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
He put his arm around me and kissed me on the lips. “I love you,” he said again.
And suddenly all of my fears and doubts and worries simply crumbled. I had a choice to make in this as well.
“I love you too,” I replied.
As I headed back to my room, I saw the familiar figure of Vasilyev standing outside my door.
“Where were you?” he asked.
“Out for some fresh air.”
“I thought I told you to stay away from the American.”
“I shall be returning home shortly. And you can do whatever you want to me then.”
“And they will, Lieutenant. Believe me, they will.”
“I am going to bed.”
I unlocked the door and pushed past him, yet he followed me in.
“By the way, this just came for you,” he said.
I turned to see him holding out a letter to me.
“What is it?”
“You might want to read it.”
He handed me a letter that had already been opened. It was on official military stationery. My heart stopped for a moment as I thought it was going to confirm what I already knew in my heart—that Kolya was dead. Before I read it, I felt the guilt well up in me again. He had tried to be a good husband, had certainly been a better one to me than I had been a wife to him. And yet, as I began to read the letter, I found myself thinking, No, this can’t be. This is wrong. The letter said that Kolya was in a hospital in Leningrad, recovering from wounds suffered in battle.
“What is the meaning of this?”
“Meaning?” Vasilyev said, furrowing his brow. “Just that your husband is alive.”
I stared at him, wondering if this could actually be true. Even then it occurred to me that it was only another one of his deceptions, a trick intended to keep me under his control.
Vasilyev gave me that avuncular smile of his.
“Why, I thought you would be pleased,” he said. “This will give you something to look forward to when you return home.”