It was a man who came to the door. The first thing Florence noticed about him was his polished black shoes, immaculate despite the slushy weather. Only after she’d followed them into the apartment did Florence take note of the rest of him: an egg-shaped head with side-parted hair presenting a pair of small, precise ears. He looked to be in his thirties, as well groomed as his oxfords, with a set of facial features worked into such a fine alignment that they might have looked effeminate were it not for his stubble and his flat, autocratic mouth.
He introduced himself unceremoniously as Comrade Subotin. The living room to which Subotin led her was, like him, neat and spare, with a touch of the bourgeois. Old-fashioned lace curtains covered the windows, and a lace runner bisected the oval table, anchored there by a potbellied samovar from which Florence half-expected Subotin to offer her tea. He did not. Instead, he moved to the oblong end of the table, where a portfolio of papers lay, evidently in preparation for their meeting. He told Florence to sit. If she had had the composure to do anything other than oblige Comrade Subotin’s request, Florence might have noticed, as she would on subsequent visits, the absence of slippers or coats, or books on the shelves—indeed, of any signs of actual habitation.
Hitching the creases of his trousers and taking the seat across from her, Comrade Subotin held up a piece of paper for Florence to examine. It was the visa application she’d filled out at OVIR three years earlier. “Let’s take a look at this.” He spoke politely but not warmly. “It appears that you did not fully complete your application.”
Subotin’s hand held a silver fountain pen. “Place of employment,” he read aloud. “Here it says the Central State Bank, but in fact you are on staff at the Institute of Philology, History, and Literature.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t working there at the time I filled out this form.”
“But you are now, are you not? Then let’s write that down.”
Florence followed the movement of his pen as it formed neat, slanted words on a clean form.
“Name of spouse…You wrote nothing, but, if I’m not mistaken, you are married.”
“We are not registered…I mean, officially.”
“And yet you’ve been living together with him for more than four years, which constitutes a civil marriage according to Soviet law. Shall we fill that out?” He repeated the question: “Name of spouse.”
Florence could feel a constriction in her chest, the weight of a lead spade where her lungs were supposed to be. She had been foolish enough to hope that whatever she was walking into would affect no one but herself. Now the truth was catching up with her at the speed of her galloping heartbeat. She cast her eyes to the window, its dark mirror obstructed by colorless lace. Had Leon been right—that, as long as she’d worked as a janitress and kept to herself, nobody would have reason to bother her? Now they had summoned her. And they knew everything. “Leon Brink,” she said.
“Patronym.”
“Naumovich.”
She tried to steady her pulse with shallow breaths. Subotin continued to fill out the form with his careful hand. Without looking up, he said: “I want to remind you where you are. If you provide the NKVD with inaccurate or incomplete information, you are committing treason, punishable by the full force of the law. It is similarly treasonous for a Soviet citizen to attempt to flee her homeland.”
She was tempted to say that whatever jurisdictional alchemy had magically transformed her into a “Soviet citizen” was itself most certainly illegal. Instead, she said: “Are you suggesting I was trying to flee my homeland? I went to OVIR openly and filled out a visa application to visit my family, whom I have not seen in six years. All of this I did in broad daylight.”
But Subotin’s immobile face suggested he was neither convinced nor impressed by this. “And yet,” he said, still not looking up, “you neglected to mention that you had a husband.”
Florence was silent.
“You claim you intended to visit your family. But that is for us to decide. Maybe you are intending to go to America to divulge confidential state secrets to its imperialist government?”
“Forgive me, Comrade Subotin. What secrets could I possibly have? I have never been entrusted with any. I am not a Party member.”
“Let’s not playact, shall we? You worked for the Soviet State Bank for several years, and have knowledge about its methods of obtaining funds, and its other operations. You and I both know that this kind of information has tremendous value to our enemies.”
Subotin’s smile made a sharp crease around his nose. He obviously did not care about the State Bank and its secrets. Anything could be a state secret. He was simply letting her know that it was not his job to prove her guilt, but hers to demonstrate her innocence. “Economic espionage, no less than fleeing, is a capital offense.”
It was important, above all else, to maintain the appearance of calm, of composure and imperturbability. “If you believe I intended to give away state secrets, why have you not arrested me yet?”
“You know where you are, and I have no intention of playing games with you. When we arrest someone we have more than enough evidence. You are here because we would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps an opportunity to visit your family in America, after all. Naturally, if we send you, at the state’s expense, you will be obliged to do some work for us. We hope that as a loyal citizen this is something you could do sincerely.”
As the buzzing of his threats faded from her head, an earlier hope started to beat in Florence’s chest. Could it be possible? They wanted to send her to America! Why not? She’d never hidden anything from the state; the NKVD had nothing to hang over her. If anything, she was valuable to them. Of course it was only logical that if they were going to send her to the United States it would be as part of a secret mission of some sort. If that’s how it was going to go, she would be ready. “I understand,” she said with new solemnity.
“We need to have the highest level of trust in those we send out of the country. To be sure we’re dealing with reliable people. Naturally, it is up to you to prove your reliability.”
She moistened the roof of her mouth. What did “proving” her reliability entail? Did they intend to give her an immediate assignment? Was this why she had been brought here?