Uncle Anton's Atomic Bomb

by Ian Woollen

  Mary lived in a studio apartment at Spaso, a former sugar baron’s mansion, near the embassy. She commented, “I enjoy not being an official part of the diplomatic side. I can join in if I want, but I don’t have to wear hats with flowers and such.”

  Mary’s parents insisted that she take along the family dog, Zippy, for protection. The Starks were dog people. They favored standard poodles. Loretta knitted sweaters for them. All Stark family photographs included their dogs. Decades later, after Mary became a psychotherapist, she routinely inquired about her clients’ dogs and asked for problem assessments from the dog’s point-of-view.

  In his letters, Ward questioned how the Starks could allow their only daughter to venture forth halfway around the globe to a dangerous place under the protection of an old poodle (Ward, an only-child, had been shielded from any potentially dangerous activity, such as dogs and bike-riding).

  Mary answered with a revealing admission. A bit developmentally delayed, she had not uttered a word until age three, and only then to the family dog. Her dog was her talisman.

  Ward surmised that Mary knew her letters, often hastily finished for “pouch day,” were probably being screened by both sides. He prodded her with questions. He asked about her brother, Robert, a transport pilot, who flew in support material to the Tinian Islands for the raid on Hiroshima. Support material that included cases of beer. His death had been tragically prosaic. Due to limited refrigeration in the island base camps, beer was often spontaneously cooled by taking a few cases up to twenty thousand feet. On one such flight, Robert’s plane crashed in the ocean. Mary said her bereaved parents had never fully recovered and warned Ward, if he saw them around town, not to offer them a beer.

  Ward worked diligently on his replies. He neatly filled the blue international airmail sheets with a tiny script. His letters were surprisingly long and effusive. “My father hobnobs with hundreds of people around town, and yet his barber, Ernesto, is his best friend. They talk about UFOs. Ernesto is a nut about UFOs. I went in for a haircut and mentioned Jung’s idea that UFOs are a manifestation of the unconscious mind. It didn’t go over well.”

  Ward described a dream about accompanying Mary to an opera that featured singing dogs and a yacht with red sails. He revealed his hopes for writing a novel about the fishing wars on the Maine island where the Wangerts vacationed. His effusiveness was motivated by the fear that one night on a Penn Central train and an hour spent over a couple of ice-cream parlor sundaes before Mary’s departure were not enough to counter the romantic advances being made by the young diplomats in Moscow.

  Ward sent a photograph to Mary, a close-up in profile with a cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth. He wrote of his admiration for Mary’s brave leap into an exciting future and his doubts about his own decision to come home and join the family business. He noted his mother’s penchant for paper cocktail napkins. “Of all the great inventions in our modern world, to her by far the greatest is the paper cocktail napkin.”

  Three months later, a drizzly morning, he had just breakfasted and gone upstairs to dress for work. He buffed his shoes and reached for a pen to complete a letter to Mary. He heard the front doorbell tinkle and Meemo’s shuffling gait. He heard a volley of crow calls from the trees outside his window. Ward stepped out of his room and glanced down over the banister. It was the Western Union man. Meemo turned and started up the main staircase. Ward met her halfway. She handed him the telegram.

  An urgent summons from Mary. “I need your help. Please come.”

  Chapter 3

  The Dark Star

  Ward spent four days traveling to Moscow, after fending off a twelve-hour filibuster by his parents and making a phone call to He Who Remains Classified, who had just returned from the Soviet Union.

  At first, fresh from a bibulous lunch, He Who Remains Classified thought Ward was calling about a change of heart on the job offer. He scratched at his blond, brush-cut scalp and belched into the phone, “Good to hear back from you, chum!”

  Adopting a respectful ‘old boy’ tone, Ward soberly described the situation with Mary and expressed an impulsive desire to go down on one knee and talk her into returning to the Indiana cornfields where she belonged, if he could secure a safe-passage.

  He Who Remains Classified couldn’t resist a jab. “Yes, I know who you’re talking about. Typical dame. I offer her the mountain, and she takes the pebble on the beach.”

  “So … you’ll arrange it?” Ward asked, temporarily ignoring a slur that would haunt him for years.

  “My impression is, given the recent flap with this Dmitri fellow, our people would be happy to have Miss Mary Stark removed to the Indiana cornfields.”

  “Who’s Dmitri?”

  “I’m sure you’ll hear all about it. We’ll arrange for your transfers and your tickets out through Vienna. And one more thing. I know you’ve decided against playing the spy game, but I am going to need you to keep an eye on her.”

  “An eye on her? Why?”

  “Because there’s always the possibility that they’ve turned her. And, a piece of advice from a secret-society brother. Just because you’ve slept with a woman, doesn’t mean you have to propose to her. A lot of our brothers make that mistake.”

  “Thank you,” Ward replied.

  He Who Remains Classified dropped the phone into its cradle. He turned his attention to his new paper shredder, the latest model. Very powerful and also soothing. A brief gnashing sound and then a gentle hum. He Who Remains Classified insisted on doing his own paper-shredding. One couldn’t take too many precautions. Occasionally, he fed a ream of blank paper into its churning maw, simply to feel the cleansing effect.

  He regretted his phony, sour grapes warning to Ward. He knew in his heart that Mary was okay. Realistically, as a career agent, he would probably never experience a salt-of-the-earth woman like her again. He tried to summon a feeling of magnanimity about handing her off to Ward. As with many corruptible persons in high positions of power, he clung to odd scraps of integrity; in this case, their Yale secret society vow not to steal each other’s girls. However, he rationalized that for security reasons, keeping tabs on her from a distance would be justified—a window into a quotidian world that was fast disappearing for him.

  He Who Remains Classified summoned his assistant and ordered a file opened on Mary Stark and Ward Wangert. Basic surveillance, no alert levels, a monthly update would be fine. “Do you want photographs, sir?” the assistant asked. He Who Remains Classified shrugged and nodded. A bathing suit snapshot of Mary already held an honored place in his wallet. He suggested assigning one of those leftover Soviet industrial spies who’d been captured in the Upper Midwest and turned during the 1943 Lend-Lease flights.

  Chapter 4

  The Rescue

  Ward’s trip through the Iron Curtain was uneventful, except for his internal turmoil. He dozed fitfully on the flights and paced in the hotel lobbies and drank too much coffee. He barely noticed the familiar landmarks in Vienna. He arrived in Moscow in a spotty early morning rain, the same as he’d left half a world away. Mary’s friend, Celestine, met him at the airport. She wore a hat with flowers.

  She said, “We’ve told Mary that her parents requested a transfer to a safer posting, after what happened to her brother and all.”

  Celestine and the embassy car waited outside a vine-clad apartment building that had once been an ornate mansion. A hundred noisy crows spun in the gray sky. Mary’s studio was small and dark. The electricity sputtered and cut out.

  Mary greeted Ward holding a candle. The timelessness of candlelight briefly erased all context. Their smiles defied Distress and triumphed over Absence. The candle flickered in the draught from the hallway. A soft mesh of light played across Mary’s face in a manner that momentarily flushed away Ward’s doubts.

  “You came,” she said.

  “As fast as I could,” he said.

  Mary said, “You must be hungry. Here you are in Moscow. We ought to get you
a bowl of borscht. We ought to show you the sights.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Ward said, peering around in the shadows. “I caught a glimpse of an onion dome on the way in. Where’s your dog?”

  Wincing at the candle wax spilling down on her fingers, she set the candle back in a holder. She stepped into a dark corner, as if she didn’t want to be seen while she answered: “They poisoned her. Blood foaming out of her mouth. Found her in the courtyard. They poisoned my dog. Trying to scare me away.”

  Ward shook his head. “Oh, Mary, I’m sorry. It’s gone too far.”

  “Can’t leave now,” Mary muttered. “Can’t leave my students. Tonight is the Bolshoi Ball at America House. I’m a part of the floor show. I’m in the can-can line. Our skirts are made of crepe paper, hats of German plumes, black stockings and Russian ladies’ bloomers. Russian ladies wear thick cotton bloomers that come in five nauseating shades—pink, purple, violet, lime green, and blue. No, I can’t leave now.”

  “I’m not sure we have a choice,” Ward said.

  Mary reemerged into the dim light. “Do you have a cigarette?” she asked. He lit two on the nearest candle.

  “Who poisoned the dog?” he asked.

  He never got the full story. Mary started in on an account of Dmitri, the retired Soviet colonel, who claimed to be Chekhov’s grand-nephew, approaching her in the market and helping her to buy chocolate. Celestine interrupted with a knock at the door. She and Mary exchanged a few words in Russian. A look of wilting acquiescence washed over Mary’s raw face.

  “Where’s your luggage?” Celestine asked.

  “Forget about my luggage,” Mary said. “I’ll throw a few things in a handbag. Let’s just go.”

  She had never been on an airplane, not uncommon for Americans in the 1950s. She was terrified. Along with her dog, she’d crossed the ocean by boat and then on to Moscow by train. Her fear was complicated by her brother’s plane-crash. “Robert was a daredevil bully … and some people probably think he got what he deserved … meanwhile my parents have turned him into a hero … but still … I can see him ….” She sat trembling against Ward’s shoulder. He stroked her pale neck and synchronized his breathing to hers.

  Ward coaxed forth more of her story, along with teary digressions about her dog and her bully brother, between naps and plane changes and staring at the stars.

  “Dmitri walked with a cane,” she noted. “He claimed the limp was from a war injury.” They had wandered back from the market toward Spaso, exchanging platitudes about an alliance between their two great countries that had overcome the Fascist threat.

  Mary said, “As with any impromptu conversation between a Russian and an American these days, who knows what the real subtext was?”

  After a few minutes of struggling over what to say next to the Soviet officer, Mary mentioned Chekhov. Dmitri twirled his graying mustache and proudly claimed to be related to the author, a cousin of his mother. And if the young American lady would deign to visit his apartment, he would be happy to show her family photographs of “Uncle Anton,” and, yes, of course, arrangements could be made to travel to Sakhalin Island if the young lady so wished.

  “Hook, line, and sinker,” Mary confessed. “I felt thrilled at the opportunity to become a facilitator for improved international relations.”

  Most of her time was spent with the diplomats’ children and their families, and she had secretly yearned for a meeting such as this. She considered bringing a chaperone, and decided Zippy would be sufficient. She thought about informing an embassy staff member of her plans that night, but what if they forbade her to go?

  Dmitri picked her up at seven. His apartment was near the river. Dmitri admired Mary’s poodle and boasted how Miss Mary would laugh when she saw a tall, standard poodle, just like hers, standing beside Uncle Anton in one of the photos. They climbed three flights of stairs. The tiny apartment was not what Mary expected for a retired officer. She asked about Dmitri’s rank. He said he had been a colonel. She asked to see the photos. First, out came the requisite bottle of vodka. And a toast to our two great countries. “Your country, my country, we must be friends,” Dmitri insisted.

  Mary sipped cautiously, while Dmitri gradually consumed half the bottle. Mary was encouraged by Dmitri’s extensive knowledge of Chekhov’s writing, or at least his ability to recite the official Marxist position on Chekhov as a precursor of their movement, a harsh critic of bourgeois society. He cited chapter and verse and the famously oblique line about the Utopia coming in ninety years, which the Soviets interpreted to mean their movement. The revolution just happened a little sooner than Uncle Anton predicted.

  Cheese and stale bread appeared, but no photographs.

  Dmitri opened another bottle. While pouring a second glass for Mary, he attempted to kiss her. Zippy jumped up and growled. Mary utilized standard Vassar technique for dealing with unwanted passes. Swipe it away with a napkin, as if a small insect had just landed on one’s lipstick, and keep the conversation going. She redirected the topic to Chekhov’s medical career and spoke about her interest in Sakhalin Island. The colonel, unfazed, cheerily started making promises that he couldn’t possibly have kept. He would take her to see the Chekhov family dacha in Yalta, and as her state-sponsored guide, he would then accompany her on the long journey to Sakhalin.

  Beginning to sound slurry, Colonel Dmitri waved his arms and launched into dangerous territory. He said, “I don’t think Uncle Anton would have predicted atomic bomb. No, he would not know what to make of it. Atomic bomb is going to give us all problems. Very bad problems.”

  Mary didn’t know how to respond. Dmitri was losing his English. He lapsed into Russian and drinking straight from the bottle. He grew increasingly upset. Mary tried to catch a few words. He mentioned Stalin several times. She thought she heard some phrases that were less than flattering and possibly the word for “insane.” Colonel Dmitri closed his eyes and tried to gather himself. Breathing slow, breathing heavy, he fell asleep.

  Mary admitted to Ward that she felt a fleeting desire to search the apartment for the photos of Chekhov. Instead, she tiptoed out with her dog. In the hallway, a uniformed man was waiting. At first Mary thought he was the taxi driver. It was not the driver. Zippy barked at him. The man put out his hand for the dog to sniff. He patted the dog’s head and said, “Nichevo.”

  “Nichevo,” Mary echoed, in Russian. “Not to worry.” She continued down the narrow staircase. As she exited the building, Mary heard a scrape or a crash of furniture on the floor above and a sharp sound that could have been a gunshot. No car to be seen. She fled on foot and took an hour to find her way back to the embassy neighborhood.

  Her biggest mistake was not telling anyone on the staff what had happened for the next forty-eight hours. She kept playing it over and over in her head, trying to determine at what point it went wrong. When her superiors found out about the colonel’s fate from other sources, she was questioned harshly. And her dog was poisoned.

  “And Ward Lynton Wangert entered, stage right,” Mary said.

  “When your telegram arrived, I—”

  “But that’s not the worst of it,” Mary whispered.

  They were halfway across the Atlantic. He had not yet mentioned anything about matrimony. Ward remembered He Who Remains Classified’s parting words on the question of whether a proposal was required after sleeping with a woman. In that department, relations with Mary had gone beyond stubble-nuzzling at the airport hotel in London. Ward figured it would be best to wait until she was more herself, until she could give him a rational decision.

  “What do you mean?” Ward asked. “How could there be more?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mary said, “I’ve gotten into so much trouble lately by not telling people things that I should just come clean about. Not that I expect anything from you except condolences and any advice you might offer me as a good friend.”

  “Okay, spill it,” Ward growled.

  “I’m pregnant,” Mary annou
nced. “I can’t tell you by whom. It’s not that I don’t want to. I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have to repress it.”

  Repression took the form of a black lacquer Russian box. Slowly, over many seasons, her memories of the Moscow episode became sealed, as if in a mini-crypt, in the special box that resided on Mary and Ward’s bedroom dresser. Exquisitely painted on the cover: a green knight on a red horse holding up a lance against an unseen danger. A purple cape flowed behind him in the wind. The knight appeared mysteriously lit, perhaps by a flash of lightning, amid the black enamel darkness.

  When the three Wangert children sneaked into their parents’ bedroom, as children often do, to inspect the grownups’ stuff, they never got further than this mesmerizing box. They never opened it, interpreting the position of the knight’s lance as poised against anyone who would dare touch the box. All they knew was that their mother had brought it back from Russia. She had been to the Other Side.

  Chapter 5

  Maine Island Honeymoon

  Mary and Ward concocted a plan to marry at The Little Church on the Circle and depart immediately for the Wangert cottage in Maine. But the church was not available for another month, so they arranged a small wedding at the country club. ‘Small’ by Wangert standards. A hundred people, including Ernesto.

  Mrs. Loretta Stark wore her gardening denims. They gathered in the heat on the White River overlook. A punchy breeze blew away the programs and the minister’s notes, which some people viewed as an omen. “ ‘Caught in a whirlwind’ could be our epitaph,” Mary whispered to her groom at the altar. Her glittering diamond-pendant earrings, on loan from her new mother-in-law, spun around like little rope swings.