Birthright

by Alan Gold

  Henry swayed and slurred and attempted to grope Judita’s breast. She allowed it for a moment and then playfully swatted him away. She judged he needed to know the honey was on offer if he was to open up.

  “Take me away with you,” she said in lighthearted Hollywood-esque fashion, and kissed him on the cheek. It was her toe in the water to see how he would respond.

  Henry dropped into English, the alcohol dissolving what was left of his Russian. “Honey, you would love it in the States. Girl like you, you could go to Hollywood. I could make you a star.”

  “Do you know people in Hollywood?” Judita asked in apparent awe.

  “Of course. I know all kinds of people,” he said, again moving his hand up Judita’s leg.

  “Then take me.” She phrased the word for all its double entendre.

  “I’ll put you in the diplomatic bag,” he said, then started to giggle to himself. It was the funniest joke he’d ever told. And Judita laughed, judging the moment, counting his drinks, watching his eyes.

  “I’d be very, very grateful . . .” She let the last word hang in the air.

  “You wanna show me your gratitude now, babe?” he said.

  She thought she’d rather jump into the icy Moskva River than have him kiss her. But she remained focused. “Sure,” she said, and started to fondle him. He opened his mouth like a fish dying on a riverbank, and moaned. She glanced over to the bar and saw the waiter staring at her, shaking his head in warning. But she winked again at him.

  Judita whispered into Henry’s ear, “Can you get me to America next February? That’d be the most wonderful thing. Then I’ll really, truly show you my gratitude.”

  From the depths of his drunken fog and his urgent need for sexual release, something stirred in his mind. “February? No. Not a good time. That’s when Roosevelt . . . oops . . . shouldn’t say too much.”

  “My God,” she said in wonder. “You know the American president. You’re that important?”

  He looked at her, trying to focus. She was so utterly beautiful, young, and innocent. And her big eyes opened wide when he dropped the name of the president. He nodded and put his finger to his lips. “Shush . . . mustn’t say. Very confishential . . . I mean con-fid-ential.” He slowed the word down to get it right.

  “What’s confidential?” asked Judita, sensing she was close, though what information he might offer, she didn’t know.

  “The conference. Very secret. Shhh.” And he giggled at himself.

  “Will you be there?”

  “Sure I’ll be there, baby. I’ll be leading the discussions.”

  He smiled to himself. She’d been briefed that he was a rather junior diplomat, a pen pusher who’d risen to a senior position more by the necessities of war than by merit.

  “Will you meet Roosevelt? Will you meet Stalin? What will they say to you? Oh, Henry . . . I never dreamed I’d meet somebody as important as you.”

  He thought for a moment, blinked and tried to focus, then said, “Don’t say anything to anybody . . .” He held her hand and leaned so close to her face that she felt she could almost become drunk from the fumes from his mouth. “We’re going to put Europe back together again when this war’s finished. That’s what I’m going to be talking about with your great leader Stalin and my boss . . . put the whole shooting match back together again. Yep!”

  “But how? Isn’t Hitler winning?”

  Henry snorted. “You kidding, babe? That Nazi asshole is staring at the end. As soon as this thing is over and ol’ Adolf is captured, we’re gonna try him. American justice! And we’ll carve up Europe so that Germany ain’t no more . . .”

  “And what about here? What about Russia? What do you plan to do with little ol’ us?” said Judita, feigning the accent of an American Southern belle. She’d never seen nor heard such a person with such an accent. But her training had been thorough, including American movies and culture.

  He shook his head and said softly, “You’ll do okay. Ol’ Uncle Joe Stalin will get the scraps from what we have left over. Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, the Brits will get the Balkans, and we’ll throw some scraps to France. They can have the fucking Ruhr if they want it!”

  “So shall I stay here in Russia without you, Henry? If everything is as good as you say it will be?”

  “No, baby. Let Uncle Henry take you outta here. I think your uncle Joe is gonna be so pissed off with what we leave him that all hell’s gonna break loose. Maybe even another war.”

  It was in this moment that Judita understood. This was not a mission so much as a test. The diplomat gave up little that the NKVD wouldn’t already know—just motives and objectives rather than tactics. So as she excused herself, telling Henry that she needed to go to the bathroom and with the promise of something “special” when she returned, she wondered if she had done enough to pass the test. Had she performed in a way that would make Anastasia proud?

  Judita slipped out of the doorway and into the freezing night air. It had been snowing, and her footprints in the fresh powder caused her concern, should the idiot attempt to follow her. But the moment she appeared on the street, the black car she had arrived in roared up beside her and the door opened.

  The cabin of the car was deliciously warm, and in the dull light she saw Anastasia Bistrzhitska sitting in the backseat. “Well, little one?”

  Judita nodded and recounted to Anastasia the entire conversation from her extraordinary memory. Every detail. Every word. She did so without emotion or embellishment. Pure reportage of what the diplomat had said. All the while watching Anastasia’s face for signs that she had done well and that her handler approved.

  Finally, Anastasia smiled and said simply, “Well done, my little dove. You’re set for great things, Judita Ludmilla, for the motherland, for the Soviet Republic, and for the glory of the Russian people.”

  “You already knew everything I’ve told you, didn’t you?” said Judita.

  Anastasia smiled. “Of course.”

  “So it was nothing more than a test to see if I was ready.”

  The interior of the car was dark, but Judita knew that Anastasia nodded and was smiling.

  “And did I pass?”

  “Oh yes, my little dove; you passed with flying colors.”

  Judita remained quiet as the car drove back to the Lubyanka. As it crossed the Moskva River and went right on Borovitskaya to pass Red Square and the Kremlin, Judita said quietly, “Oh, you’d better drop me off here. I had a note earlier today to meet tonight with Comrade Stalin.” Out of the corner of her eye, even in the dim light cast by the streetlamps, Judita could see Anastasia turning toward her in shock. “He wants me to teach him Hebrew,” she said.

  Anastasia said nothing. Her mouth was open. She was incredulous.

  “Just testing you,” said Judita, trying not to laugh.

  Anastasia burst out laughing and threw her arms around the young woman. She kissed her on the cheek and lightly on the lips.

  “So you think I’m ready for my mission?” Judita said softly.

  Anastasia was still laughing but managed to say, “Soon, my dove. Very soon. But not quite yet . . .”

  Moscow, USSR

  December 1944

  JUST WEEKS AFTER she’d passed her initiation test with the American diplomat, Judita rode through the streets of Moscow in the backseat of a car driven along the river, parallel to the magnificent embankment. The streetlamps bathed the white snow in sepia. Next to her was Anastasia.

  “Where are we going?” asked Judita, turning toward the imposing woman beside her. Beautiful, powerful, confident, and cold, Anastasia was everything Judita had been shaped to admire.

  “You will see” was her only answer, given without turning to face her protégée.

  Judita knew better than to ask further and turned her attention back to the snow outside.

  • • •

  That day when NKVD agents had come for her at the school in the basement of the old synagogue seemed so very
long ago. A different time. A different life. A different Judita. When she thought of herself then, it was like thinking of a stranger, someone distant and unfamiliar. Much more significant than the change she’d undergone from girl to woman, Judita now saw the world differently. The lessons she had been saturated in—communist theory, philosophy and history, spycraft and languages—all changed her sense of self and her place in the world. And yet as she watched the city of Moscow drift by the window, she felt its familiarity, a connection older than the self she knew now. She had been a Jewish child in these streets before she was a Soviet woman. She’d thought the training had knocked that out of her, but it was a memory she couldn’t remove.

  She had passed her initial training as an NKVD agent and been handed over to specialists. Anastasia remained her lead handler, but her world had shifted and changed yet again since the meeting with Beria, since her test with the American diplomat. Of the initial fifteen young and middle-aged Russian Jews who had been selected from all over the Soviet Socialist Republic, only a handful from her group had been chosen for further training.

  Now she and her colleagues were studying Jewish and Arab languages, history, imperialism, collectivism, government structure and its intersections, the inefficiencies of officialdom, and the personal weaknesses of key members of the Jewish Assembly of Representatives, a new governing body in Palestine. Lectures were conducted every morning and afternoon, six days a week, and tests were given every evening.

  It also meant that every Sunday, she and the others were free to wander the streets of Moscow and marvel at the buildings, the wide boulevards. Lighthearted on a Sunday morning after a concentrated week, the young men and women would walk along the banks of the river, accompanied by a number of guards to ensure that they didn’t wander away.

  On one particular day the group had passed a café, and Judita glanced inside to see a number of customers sitting at tables, sipping drinks, when something caught her eye. She looked in again; then she peered deeper into the shop, much deeper. To her utter amazement, two of the people sitting there looked more than familiar. The sun was playing tricks on the glass window, but Judita stared carefully and was certain she could see her father and mother at one of the tables, sitting opposite each other, talking animatedly, silhouetted against the dim lights of the interior.

  She began to move away from the group to go into the café, but the guard prevented her, telling her to keep up with the others. She started to argue, but the guard, as though under instruction, uncharacteristically became aggressive and forced her to move forward. For the next ten minutes, as they were virtually frog-marched along, Judita continued to turn back and stare in the direction of the café, but nobody emerged.

  • • •

  The car came to a stop and Judita leaned toward the window to ascertain where they had arrived. It was a place she’d been many times in her youth; she had played there as a child the few times her mother had the time to spend with her and her brother and sister. She turned to Anastasia. “What are we doing here?”

  “You’re a Muscovite; you should know well enough why people come here. To walk and talk and enjoy nature.”

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Judita, her instincts making her focus and gain clarity on the situation and her orders.

  Anastasia’s face and body didn’t move, but her lips parted just enough to say, “I want you to kill someone.” Then she stepped out of the car.

  Judita tried to hide her shock, but she had known such a task would be asked of her one day. She’d been trained for it. But knowing the moment was coming and feeling its arrival were very different things. Shooting targets and distant bottles on rocks wasn’t the same as shooting a human being in cold blood. But Judita had no time to ponder and quickly pushed the car door open to follow Anastasia.

  The two women stood at the front of the vehicle. Before them was the enormity of Gorky Central Park. It was surprisingly empty except for two people sitting on a bench about two hundred meters from where they were standing. Judita glanced at the couple and then back to Anastasia. “Who are they?” she asked.

  “Does it matter?” replied Anastasia. “I’m about to order you to kill an enemy of the state. That’s all you have to know.”

  Judita nodded. She knew this was the only answer expected of a loyal officer of the state.

  But Judita did look closer. Her keen eyesight, so used to rifle sightings, traced the figures across the park and observed their movements. She was familiar with the way they sat, moved their arms, inclined their heads. She’d known them since she was a baby. Her heart sank. Her childhood flooded into her mind as she blinked, trying to remove the distant man and woman from her view. But they remained. Even from this distance, she was certain of who they were, from the way the woman held her head at a slight angle to the ground and how the man appeared to be telling her what to do.

  For a moment she forgot herself and turned to Anastasia. “But it’s . . . they’re my . . .”

  It was all she was able to say before her tongue fell silent and her gaze went quickly back to the couple.

  Anastasia, to Judita’s surprise, put her hand on her back, the closest thing to an embrace from the woman who was at one time her friend but now her commander.

  “Where lies the highest duty of every child in Mother Russia?” Anastasia asked in a near whisper.

  “To Comrade Stalin. To the Supreme Soviet. To the state. To the Praesidium.”

  “And this is your order. This is your command from the state, from the Supreme Soviet. And from me.”

  Judita’s eyes didn’t leave her parents, sitting on a park bench in the distance. “You want me to kill them? You want me to kill my mother and father?”

  “Your order is to kill one of them. One only.”

  “Which?” A simple but horrifying question.

  “Of that there is no order. Only choice. Your choice.”

  As if on cue, the chauffeur approached them with a Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle and a telescopic sight. It was the weapon made famous by snipers during the Nazis’ siege of Stalingrad, and it was one Judita knew well. But as the chauffeur thrust it into her hands, it felt foreign and awkward, as though she were holding something she had never seen.

  The chauffeur disappeared into the car, and so did Anastasia, leaving Judita alone.

  With a strange panic rising inside, Judita tried to remember her lessons. Detachment. Personal feelings must never count. The object was the well-being of the state, and nothing else mattered. But while these mantras focused her for the act of killing, they did not help her with the choice. If it had been an abstract scenario for class debate in her lessons, she might have reasoned between knowledge of the father’s alcoholism and violence against his sole ability to support the family. If the mother were to die, the father could still work and feed the children. To kill the father would be to make paupers of the whole family.

  As she positioned herself on the ground, flat on her belly with the rifle snug against her shoulder, she found the rational practicality ill at ease with the reality of the choice. She had hated her father and grown to resent her mother, but as her gun sight framed them both, the choice was impossible.

  Judita drew upon the steely determination she’d shown in all the other tests. She bit the inside of her lip and felt the rifle in her hands, cold and indifferent. She adjusted the telescopic sight until both of her parents were clear and sharp. Then she aligned the crosshairs until her father’s chest was filling the entire circle, the intersection of the black lines crossing his heart.

  She paused. Thoughts of her siblings, of their life without the income of a father, came to her, and almost without physical intention, her gun sight shifted so that it was in place over the heart of her mother.

  Was living with violence better than dying of starvation? Was this the choice Anastasia was asking her to make? Was this the purpose of the test? No doubt Anastasia knew about her father, his violence, his drunkenness. No doubt
her handlers knew more about Judita’s childhood than even she remembered. This was a test, but what was it testing, and what was the answer?

  Judita steadied herself again, but the crosshair drifted—from the heart of her mother to the heart of her father and back. The order was clear, but the choice was not.

  By reflex, Judita found herself saying a short Jewish prayer: something she had not recalled in what felt like a long time, but it was imprinted on her soul. She drew in a breath, holding it as she was taught, feeling her heart’s pulse in her temple.

  She remembered hiding under the table, she remembered her childhood fear, her mother’s cries, the bruises on her face . . .

  The crosshair centered and held firm over her father’s sunken chest, and she squeezed the trigger.

  But there was no sound. No percussive pop, no kick in her shoulder from the recoil, only a dull metallic click. Through the viewfinder her father, still sitting there, talked animatedly at her mother’s bowed head. She pulled the trigger again, but still the dull click. She felt the presence of a woman, warmth and perfume enveloping her. Anastasia reached down and took the rifle from her hand.

  “Come, Judita. No more tests. You’ve passed. And I’m so very sorry to have had to put you through this. Your loyalty is unquestionable. It’s time to go, my little dove.”

  • • •

  Inside the car, threading back through the Moscow streets, Anastasia and Judita sat in silence until Judita could bear it no longer. “Don’t you want to know who I chose?”

  Anastasia turned to her and put a gloved hand on hers. “I trust you made the choice that was right for you.”

  It was then that Judita knew she was capable of anything.

  Passenger ship Agon, Palestine

  January 1945

  JUDITA LUDMILLA MAGIDOVICH looked at the distant shoreline of the city of Haifa, a hillside dotted with lights and a dockside ablaze with illumination. She stood amid 160 men, women, and children, many of them elderly and horribly emaciated after their lives in Nazi Europe. Most of them were also rendered seasick during their journey from Trieste, through the Adriatic, into the Mediterranean, and finally, to the shores of Palestine. Judita watched with a focused eye so different from that of her fellow travelers as their ship was dwarfed by a British battle cruiser escorting them through the waters.