30 April 1950—Brink, F. has been accused of being an agent of foreign reconnaissance, and for an extended time of engaging in spy work against the Soviet Union.
We did not find adequate proof of espionage in the investigation.
But along with this—being anti-Soviet oriented, Brink, F. kept up ties with enemies of the people, concealed their and her own enemy work, and voiced her anti-Soviet views to them, as well as kept and distributed anti-Soviet literature.
We propose changing the charge 58-1(a), according to statute 204, to charge 58-10.
I reread it because I couldn’t believe my eyes. Just like that, with no buildup, her interrogators had dropped the espionage charge.
Had her gambit worked?
How could it have? Most of the seven-month-long interrogation had been devoted to “unearthing” her contact with “known spies” and espionage cells. In contrast, the only so-called evidence to support her being a dispenser of anti-Soviet propaganda was the temporary possession of an anodyne magazine that featured as its main story a flattering puff piece about a movie star—Ingrid Bergman in the role of Joan of Arc, hardly a symbol of capitalist decadence. Furthermore, it was a magazine she had had in her possession because she worked as a translator for the foreign press. Could they really argue that showing a friend an article about an actress could constitute “distributing propaganda”?
I was fully aware that I was attempting to use logic in a logic-free zone. And yet it was undeniable that—if measured by correlation and volume alone—the weight of so-called evidence in my mother’s case fell much more heavily on the spying charge than on that of propaganda. How, then, I was forced to wonder, had the second charge been so abruptly dropped by her eager executioners? I inspected the protocols once more for an answer. There was no clue.
—
THE CLOCK ON MY BED stand flashed 3:12 A.M. I opened the mini-fridge and poured myself a club soda, then sat in the armchair, sipping it from a whiskey glass, gazing down at the white tunnel of Xeroxed papers on the bed. I’d have to clear them off soon if I planned to get any sleep. I finished my drink and rose slowly. With great effort I started putting the protocols back together. My eyes fell once more on the “Mish-Pok” page, which staggered me anew with its outrageousness. But now another thought arrested me: all this time my mother had never stopped communicating with her brother. She had kept writing to him, and he to her, through a Great Depression, two sets of purges, a world war, through the numerous trials and setbacks of her life. No doubt the letters had been heavily self-censored, and yet…in spite of the various pressures she must have been under, in spite of the various disruptions in their communication, she had never completely severed the thread of their correspondence! It was amazing, really. When I thought about it, there was no one else with whom she had shared such unbroken intimacy, not even me. I recalled now my mother’s final years, when I had installed her in her own Section 8 apartment in Brooklyn, in a largely Russian neighborhood off Ocean Parkway. She was happy to have her independence again after living with us in Bensonhurst. On Saturdays, when I would drive over with a carful of groceries, I’d often find her with Sidney, who would come from New Jersey to see her; the two of them would stroll slowly along the tree-lined median of the parkway. Sidney would hold my mother’s elbow as she pressed ahead with the help of her new rubber-tipped cane. I’d roll along past them in my car, unnoticed, before parking in front of her apartment building. It always surprised me how animated and unguarded her face looked in those moments. By the time I parked and walked over to them, they’d be sitting down on a bench, in mid-conversation, my mother chatting away as I rarely saw her do. Seeing me walk up, she’d stop talking and smile, happily but slyly, like a gossiping schoolgirl spotting an approaching teacher. I never bothered to ask myself what the two of them spent so much time discussing. They had their whole lives to catch up on, after all. And yet she was different around Sidney, more candid and innocent somehow, almost—I thought now—like the young Florie before all kinds of calamities had befallen her. A girl arrested in time.
—
I CHECKED THE CLOCK. Almost 3:30 A.M. in Moscow. I counted back the hours: 7:30 P.M. in New Jersey. I took my phone out to the balcony and dialed Sidney’s number.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Uncle Sidney?”
“Julian! Back so quick?”
“No, still in Moscow. Am I disturbing you? It’s probably dinnertime there.”
“Nah. They feed us all at six.”
“So early?”
“Doctor’s regimen. They’re as strict as the army with a quarter of the portions. It must be the middle of the night for you. What’s up?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“What’s the trouble? Work?”
Now I paused. “I have new respect,” I said, “for women who give lap dances to fat men for money. It’s not easy to put on a smile and pretend to enjoy it.”
I was glad to get a laugh out of him. “Welcome to the corporate world,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Mama.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I passed the Lubyanka the other day,” I continued. “You know, they’ve declassified a lot of those old dossiers.”
“It was no picnic” was all he said. I thought maybe he hadn’t understood me.
“Did Florence ever talk to you about it?”
There was a long pause, and then a sigh. “Some. Toward the end.”
I didn’t know how else to broach the subject, so I said simply, “I got hold of her file. I’ve been reading it over.”
A pause, and then, “Good for you.”
I couldn’t tell in what spirit he meant this, so I continued, somewhat faux-na?vely. “I’ve been trying to piece it together—her time in the prison. Some of it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I thought…I don’t know, maybe, if she told you something, you could help me get a better picture.”
“I don’t know what I’d be able to tell you.”
“Well, for one thing, they were charging her with spying and spreading propaganda….”
“It was all nonsense. She wasn’t any kind of spy or…”
“I know that. But see, they’d connected her to all these rings—these fake conspiracies—and then, all of a sudden, they dropped the spying charge. Dropped the questioning altogether. I can’t figure it out.”
I waited awhile for him to answer. From below came the sound of an occasional whooshing automobile along the night-abandoned avenue. I thought I’d lost the connection. “Uncle Sid?”
“Those weren’t her shining moments, Julian,” he said suddenly.
And I knew. She had told him. If not everything, then more than I’d imagined.