Our Woman in Moscow

by Beatriz Williams

  “All right,” Marina says quietly. “I guess I’ll see you at home, then.”

  “Go back to school, darling. Everything will be all right.”

  “Yes,” says her daughter.

  Yes to what? Lyudmila thinks frantically. “Probably they started the summer holidays a few days early.”

  “That’s not allowed,” Marina says flatly. “Good-bye, Mama.”

  “Good-bye, Marina.”

  The line clicks and goes dead. Lyudmila replaces the receiver and stares at the smooth black handle. The world, which seemed so orderly and so satisfactory a moment ago, has now gone haywire. All because of some impudent scrap of an eleven-year-old girl.

  All right, Dmitri, she thinks. Have your revenge. Just remember she’s your daughter, too.

  After that, the telephone goes quiet. Lyudmila resists the urge to pick up the receiver and ask Dubrovskaya if a message has come in, a cable. Of course, Dubrovskaya would bring down any message or cable instantly—she’s perfectly well trained, she’s as loyal as it’s possible to be loyal within these walls.

  Trust nobody, Lyudmila reminds herself.

  She stands and sits again. She flips through the papers on the desk before her—the cables, the transcripts, her own notes, all arranged in chronological order to tell the story of this operation. She rearranges the position of a stack or two. She sips her tea, which has gone cold.

  The telephone rings, jarring her. She snatches up the receiver. “Ivanova!” she snaps.

  Dubrovskaya’s voice, carefully neutral—“The head of your daughter’s school is on the telephone for you. Shall I take a message?”

  It is invidious—invidious!—to sit in this low chair before Comrade Grievskaya’s desk as if one were a recalcitrant schoolchild. It’s invidious even to be here at all, in such a moment, when she’s supposed to be directing this operation that will possibly bring down the careers of several traitors to the Soviet people, if Lyudmila’s suspicions are accurate—and they always are, in these matters. Lyudmila wants to scream at this woman—Do you know I am a KGB officer in the middle of a major operation? Do you know I can bring down so much trouble upon your head, you’ll wish I would just execute you instead?

  But she doesn’t. There’s something in the authority of a head of school that transcends even the authority of the KGB—the authority of the Kremlin itself.

  Still. Her male colleagues would never find themselves in such a position, on such a day, in a chair specifically designed to make a person feel several inches shorter than the person behind the desk. They’ve never known these ritual humiliations. They have wives to deal with them.

  Lyudmila starts with an offensive move, as she’s been trained. “I’m well aware that Marina has been absent from school today—”

  “Yes, Comrade Ivanova,” says Grievskaya, “and we will address this infraction shortly. At the moment, however, I must bring a more serious matter to your attention.”

  She pauses to examine Lyudmila over the rim of her spectacles. Lyudmila swallows and glances at the clock. Half past three.

  “Yes?” she says.

  Grievskaya steeples her hands above the blotter on her exemplary desk. “For some months—since the winter holidays, in fact—we have heard reports of a group of students meeting in secret to exchange subversive materials and discuss their contents.”

  Oh, shit, Lyudmila thinks.

  “Subversive materials?” she says, perfectly composed. “I don’t understand. How do young students get their hands on such things?”

  Grievskaya waves her hand. “We are not yet concerned with how. Right now, we are concerned with who and where. Until recently, we were unable to identify even a single member of this clandestine group. It seems they are bound by a vow of absolute secrecy, to which they have proved remarkably loyal, given their ages. But this morning, a certain piece of information came to us by chance.”

  Grievskaya plucks a sheet of paper from the blotter and hands it across the desk to Lyudmila, who takes it reluctantly, forcing her fingers not to tremble. She smooths it out before her. EMERGENCY MEETING, it reads. AFTER SCHOOL AT HEADQUARTERS.

  Underneath those letters, a list of names—PETREL, BEAR, EAGLE, PEGASUS, LION, ELEPHANT, HORSE, RAT. All of them are crossed out except the last two.

  “What’s this?”

  “It was found on the floor of the cafeteria after lunch. It appears someone had dropped it.”

  Lyudmila hands the note back to Grievskaya. “Well? What does this have to do with Marina? Her name’s not on the list.”

  “No. These are code names, Comrade Ivanova. That is plain even to those of us not engaged in intelligence work. But one of our teachers has identified the handwriting as that of your daughter. Who, as we have already established, left school early today, without authorization. What is more, two additional students are absent without leave today—one of whom we have long suspected of subversive opinions—which suggests . . .”

  Grievskaya’s voice trails away. She looks expectantly at Lyudmila.

  “Suggests what, Comrade?” Lyudmila says. “What do you imply? I see nothing but some ordinary high spirits among young people, which is regrettable but hardly subversive.”

  Grievskaya removes her spectacles and folds the arms together. She speaks tiredly, as one who’s repeated this lesson too many times already. “Out of little acorns, oak trees grow. As you very well know, Comrade, whose business it is to fell these oak trees. Would it not be preferable to root out the acorns before they can secure themselves in the soil and begin to sprout?”

  Of course! Lyudmila wants to scream. Of course it’s preferable—everybody knows this—Lyudmila believes wholeheartedly in the necessity for rooting out stubborn, rebellious acorns as aggressively as possible.

  But this is not an acorn. This is Marina! This is her daughter, a human being, not a goddamned acorn!

  “I confess, I’m surprised that you would presume to deliver me a lecture on this subject, Comrade Grievskaya,” Lyudmila says, in the silky voice she uses to interrogate suspected oak trees. “A little like the arithmetic teacher presuming to instruct Einstein on calculus?”

  Grievskaya shrugs her shoulders. “I am giving you the facts, Comrada Ivanova. I’m confident you will know how to use them. You are, after all, the child’s mother. You are responsible for her. Her character reflects upon your reputation.”

  “My daughter is the most brilliant student in her class.”

  “In a few days, school will close for the summer, and Marina will join the youth camp at Ekaterinburg, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Then I will dare to offer you a piece of advice, Comrade Ivanova, because I have directed this school for many years, and I well understand how nature softens us and makes us blind to the true character of our offspring. Believe me, I am entirely sympathetic to your plight.”

  Rage boils up inside Lyudmila. She presses her lips together so it doesn’t escape in some catastrophic eruption.

  Grievskaya continues. “Here at my school, I prefer to address these infractions quietly, within the walls of my office, in conversations with parents. I find it’s the most efficient and effective solution, when the child is so young and his character still so soft and easily corrected. As you know, however, youth camp is different. The children are old enough to have some responsibility for themselves. They will be expected to understand the consequences of their actions, and it is the duty of the instructors at the camp to report any subversive behavior not to the parents of the child in question, but to the Soviet state. Do I make myself clear?”

  It would be so easy to lean forward and apply some pressure to a certain point in Grievskaya’s neck that would render her unable to speak further. It would be so easy to return to Moscow Centre and make a telephone call or two that would ruin Grievskaya’s life, if not end it entirely by the most agonizing means possible.

  But despite the rage that still boils in Lyudmila’s c
hest and stomach and sizzles its way to the tips of her fingers and toes, she comprehends that Grievskaya is not altogether wrong. In fact, she speaks the truth. Were Marina to be caught at the youth camp engaging in any kind of activity deemed contrary to the principles of communism, or subversive to the Soviet state, it would be a serious matter indeed. Lyudmila would not have the luxury of sitting in an office with the camp director to discuss some gentle measures to correct her daughter’s character. Lyudmila would have to strain every nerve, call in every possible favor, to remove the stain on Marina’s official record. And—knowing Marina—that wouldn’t stop her daughter from doing it again.

  And again.

  Indeed, as Lyudmila sits in her chair and locks her gaze with Grievskaya’s gaze in some kind of silent, powerful duel, a terrible future seems to open up before her—a future she has willfully ignored for the past few years, while Marina dropped hint after hint, offered glimpse after glimpse. Honestly, you couldn’t blame Marina. Lyudmila can blame only her own blind eyes for this oversight.

  She rises from the chair and holds out her hand. “Perfectly clear, Comrade Grievskaya. Now, if you will excuse me, I must return to my work.”

  When Lyudmila opens the door to her office at Moscow Centre at a quarter past four, Anna Dubrovskaya jumps from the chair at her desk. Her sallow face sags with relief.

  “Thank goodness you’re here,” she says. “Comrade Vashnikov has been asking for you for the past hour. He says he has some very serious news to share with you, and he refused to tell me what it was.”

  Vashnikov’s face is gray and shiny, the face of a sick man. He even smells like a sick man—like sour sweat. “They’ve disappeared,” he croaks.

  Lyudmila doesn’t need to ask who’s disappeared. “Of course they have. Mr. Fox is an American intelligence officer, as I warned you, and Mrs. Fox is his accomplice. I am going to hazard a guess, Vashnikov. I’m going to speculate that Mr. Fox has overpowered your driver, has assumed his identity, and has taken away HAMPTON and his children in a KGB car, which will not be questioned at any checkpoint or border in the Soviet Union.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Call it intuition, perhaps.”

  He stares at her. “You’ve planned this, haven’t you? You’ve counted on it.”

  “Just because it’s all unfolded as I said it would doesn’t mean I’ve planned it. The only thing I’ve counted on is your incompetence, Vashnikov. Or is it your desire to protect your own hide, perhaps? Because it seems you did find a few items at the Digbys’ apartment, after all.”

  Vashnikov pauses in the act of lighting a cigarette. “How do you know this?”

  “Does it matter? I found out. It wasn’t hard, Vashnikov. Your people have no loyalty to you at all—it’s a pity. A one-time pad for coding, a Minox camera? All very incriminating. If only you’d found some papers, too. If only you knew just how deeply HAMPTON has betrayed us. You must be desperate, eh? Desperate to find a way to cover this up, instead of simply admitting your mistake and stretching your utmost nerve to discover where HAMPTON has gone and bring him to justice.”

  Vashnikov is quivering like a jelly. He puts his unlit cigarette and his lighter on the desk before him. His mouth flops open and closed like a fish gasping for water.

  “I thought so,” says Lyudmila. “Very well. I will clean up your mess for you, never fear. It so happens I know precisely where HAMPTON is going, and with whom. I’m headed there shortly myself, to lead the interrogation and extract whatever information he’s taking back to his handlers. We’ll discover just how much damage has been done by your prize defector, Vashnikov, just how many valuable assets have been compromised by your stupidity, and if you’re lucky, Comrade Stalin will never know just how spectacular a failure you are. But please remember one thing, as you go about your business.”

  “Yes, Comrade Ivanova?” Vashnikov says meekly.

  She leans forward and whispers, “I know.”

  Minutes later, Lyudmila returns to her office and tells Anna Dubrovskaya that she’s been called away to attend to an emergency. She will communicate regularly to receive any messages. In the meantime, she will need Dubrovskaya to go immediately to Lyudmila’s apartment and wait there for Marina, whom Dubrovskaya will look after with the strictest possible eye until Lyudmila’s return.

  Ruth

  July 1952

  Outside Riga, Latvia

  The children want their mother, naturally, but the last thing Iris needs right now is a bunch of kids crawling over her. She sits in the front seat, the passenger side, holding Gregory, while Fox aims the car swiftly down the highway. I’ve crammed myself in back with the other kids. Kip sits squashed against the opposite door, Jack next to him, Claire cuddled up to my side. She motions me down to hear a secret and cups her hands around my ear.

  “Daddy’th in the twunk,” she whispers.

  “Is he, now? I do hope he’s comfortable in there, poor dear.”

  Claire giggles and nestles herself to sleep on my lap. I stare at the back of Fox’s neck and think how lovely it would be to fall asleep like that, in somebody’s lap, so limp and trusting that she doesn’t even stir when I lean diagonally forward and ask Iris how she’s feeling.

  “Oh, I’m fine. Just fine.”

  I place my fingers against her temple. The skin burns me, but then my fingers are icy cold, so what? I turn to Fox and whisper, “How does she look to you?”

  He glances to the side. “Not good.”

  I swear and sit back against the cloth cushions. A soft thump occurs somewhere behind me, so at least Digby’s still alive. I wonder if he went in willingly, or if Fox had to force him there by gunpoint or moral persuasion. Outside, the sun bathes the landscape in the golden glow of late afternoon, except it’s almost ten o’clock at night. According to plan, we should be skirting around Riga by now, heading to some remote location on the coast where a small boat will be waiting to take us to safety.

  “Who’s in the boat?” I asked earlier, and Fox shook his head. The less I know, the better, remember? In case we’re caught. In case I—a mere amateur at enduring physical discomfort—spill all the beans under interrogation. At all costs, we must protect the small, covert network that directs our affairs—the secrets of which repose in the feverish head of the woman in the front seat.

  I place my hand on Claire’s warm, silky head. She’s only three years old, this niece of mine. Her brothers sit next to me—Jack dozing off against the back of the seat, Kip staring out the window, arms crossed. I can’t see his expression, but I know he understands what’s going on. He’s no innocent, this fellow. He’s still wearing his school uniform, because Fox had no way of supplying changes of clothing for everybody. The contents of the dead drop would have been limited to passports and papers and the elements of his own current disguise. And the gun, of course. Fox is relying on speed and surprise, and the KGB identification of the driver of this car, God rest whatever soul he possessed.

  It will be all right, I tell myself. In a matter of hours, we’ll be safe on that boat, and Iris will have all the doctors and medicines and rest she needs.

  Fox will take care of us. Fox takes care of everybody. There he is now, driving this car confidently along the highway, as if he knows every road in Latvia like the pattern of lines on the palm of his hand. And I expect he does. I expect he memorized that map before he even left New York.

  At last, the sun starts to set. The golden light takes on a salmon hue, and the streaking clouds seem to be holding their breath. I think Fox is traveling on secondary roads, which are pitted with holes and bumps and the scars of war. Claire is a dead weight in my lap, and now Jack leans against my shoulder, mouth open and drooling a little on my crisp navy jacket. I turn my head just in time to catch Fox looking at me in the rearview mirror, before his gaze turns back to the road before him.

  “How much farther?” I ask softly.

  “Not long. We’re getting near the coast.”

 
“But how many minutes?”

  “About twenty.”

  Some words come to my lips, but I bite them back.

  “How’s Iris?” I say instead.

  He glances at her. “Holding strong.”

  Which means she’s alive, I guess. Her head leans back against the top of the seat—her eyes are closed. Is her skin flushed, or do the colors of sunset melt on her beautiful skin, that creamy wonder I always admired and often envied? Nobody has a skin like Iris, as flawless as alabaster, not a line or a crease, each emotion ebbing and flowing along its surface. Now it’s perfectly still. The baby lies secure in his swaddle on the seat between them. He doesn’t make a sound. The only noise in the car—apart from the faint rasp of respiration, from my soft questions and Fox’s low replies—comes from the trunk, where Digby rustles and thumps like a man in a fever dream.

  Well, let him thrash.

  I look back at the rearview mirror, just in time to catch Fox watching me again. This time he holds my gaze for a beat or two, because we’re the only ones left awake inside this peculiar world—even Kip dozes off against the window glass—and because it seems we might be in love.

  At last Fox presses the brakes and turns off onto an unpaved road. The car lurches and wallows, waking everybody up. Grunts and groans float through the back of the seat from the trunk. Gregory starts to cry and Iris finds the strength to gather him up in her arms.

  “Poah Thathdy,” Claire says solemnly around her thumb, which she’s stuck into her mouth.