I did just sign up to become a Communist, I thought to myself but didn’t dare say the words aloud. Instead I cringed, hearing every one of my teachers’ New England voices drill etiquette admonitions into my head. “Right,” I said weakly. “No goddamned alcohol.”
Lee clapped her approval, then reached down to roughhouse with Vlad. “For your next act,” she said, “I know some handsome Party members, real gentlemen. I’ll set you up.”
“Absolutely not,” I said, but Lee ignored my protests and pulled out her tattered address book.
I sighed. Perhaps I’d missed the fine print about “loose morals” when I’d joined the Party—I supposed it wouldn’t kill me to curse on occasion.
But who knew having friends was this hard?
* * *
* * *
Lee set me up first with an Iraqi student and then a Greek worker who were members of my Party unit. When they invited me back to their apartments (one at a time, mind you—I wasn’t a total hedonist, at least not yet), I thought, The Party encourages equality and sexual freedom. Just do this, Elizabeth.
It was only for kissing. I made sure of that.
“I hear you’re eating pita in bed these days,” Lee quipped one afternoon while we marched in a parade, our arms linked while belting out the Communist “Internationale” with other students. Arise, ye prisoners of starvation, arise, ye wretched of the earth! Party policy was that we could show ourselves publicly in large groups—CPUSA enrollment continued to swell following the Black Tuesday crash of 1929—so it was only when it came to a paper trail that we needed to be entirely anonymous, for our individual protection. Until public opinion toward Communism fully shifted, that was.
I took Lee’s meaning, was adequately scandalized. “There’s no bed about it. You mandated that I had to go on dates and so I have—”
Lee only wrapped her arm around my waist. “Good for you.”
I wanted Lee to like me, which meant I was willing to make concessions—even those involving kisses and awkward fumbles I didn’t always enjoy—for her. It was as simple as that.
(The bright side was that I’d started a whole new section in my lavender journal on human behavior: Kissing & Loose Morals.)
I’d thought being a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of America meant that I’d simply continue to attend the League meetings, but I was wrong. Apparently, I’d graduated to a new level of activism just by signing my name on a dotted line.
If the Communist Party of the United States possessed a patron saint, Lee Fuhr was her name. Lee constantly told me to do more. To say yes to everything and see what lit a fire in my belly.
So, I attended unit bureau meetings, volunteered for a fundraising party, and offered to become the financial secretary in charge of collecting party dues and keeping books for the unit. I wasn’t always sure how to act or what to say, but I could manage those silent, behind-the-scenes chores that no one else wanted to do, and was surprised to find myself earning other comrades’ admiration for accomplishing menial tasks. Perhaps I didn’t have much of a personal future—it still seemed the highest job I could aspire to outside the Party was that of a shorthand secretary—but at least with my small efforts inside the Party I was contributing to a worthwhile cause. As an added benefit, I was so busy there was no time to be lonely or talk to houseplants; I was so immersed that there was no time to doubt the path I’d chosen.
This new Elizabeth Bentley, Elizabeth Sherman, whatever you wanted to call her—the one who finally had caught in her net that elusive feeling of belonging—merely lofted her hammer and sickle banner ever higher and sang herself hoarse.
4
SPRING 1938
Friendship and knowledge are all well and good, but a girl has to eat. Oh yes, and pay her rent too.
In a fit of ire following having my rather ample backside pinched one too many times, I’d quit my position at the insurance office and had landed a brief position at New York’s Emergency Home Relief Bureau—a physically and mentally draining job I’d thrown myself into by walking from one end of Manhattan to the next to visit families in unlivable conditions—but I’d turned in my resignation after working myself to such a state of exhaustion that I’d fainted. Finally, my district leader informed me of a paid position with a highly placed woman within the Party named Juliet Glazer, who was doing research on Fascism and had requested my assistance translating Italian.
Fourteenth-century Florentine poetry had never benefited me much, but thank goodness I’d left the land of Mussolini with a brain stuffed full of Italian verbs and conjugations.
I forced myself to stop plucking errant bits of Vlad’s fur from my jacket and twirling my fingers around its buttons—no pencil was handy to accommodate my nerves—when I showed up for my interview at Glazer’s apartment building on West Seventy-Fourth Street, just off Riverside Drive. I expected an academic sort of woman and was instead surprised when a bearded man opened the door. “Juliet, the translator is here.” He spoke with military precision in an accent that sounded almost German, and I felt the hot rake of his gaze as he gestured to a side room. After so much time spent in shabby boardinghouse rooms and run-down office buildings, the gleaming mahogany and plush Aubusson rugs jarred my senses, as did the silver candlesticks and oil paintings on the walls. “She is waiting for you in the dining room.”
He took up a post at the near end of the long table while a tall and heavily built woman—Juliet, I presumed—already sat at the far end.
“Welcome, Elizabeth,” Juliet of the toast-brown eyes and cultured New England accent said after she introduced herself. (Of course, Juliet certainly wasn’t her birth name; as I mentioned was common practice within the Party, she’d swiped the name from Shakespeare.) Since she was a fastidiously dressed woman—her blouse’s stiff neck looked tight enough to cut off her breathing—I expected Juliet to launch into the job requirements, but instead she spoke only of trivialities: the weather, the titles of my favorite books, and whether I enjoyed traveling. “Marcel and I have heard much about you through the Party grapevine,” she said after she’d thumbed through my résumé and qualifications over a tray of afternoon tea. “Born in Connecticut, I see, although I understand you spent time in Europe. Please tell me you’re not one of those puritanical New Englanders who don’t drink and subsist off delusions that getting married and raising a brood of children is the only thing that matters in life.”
Was this some sort of labyrinthine test? If she’d heard about me, wouldn’t she know a thing or two about my background? “I spent a year in Italy and watched Mussolini’s Blackshirts terrorize the Italians there. And I haven’t given much thought to ever getting married.”
Honestly, I could barely handle polite conversation. Raising children seemed about as likely as my suddenly developing a penchant for designing submarine engines.
I folded my fingers around my purse. “However, I don’t drink.”
“So, you are a Puritan.” Juliet sighed. “Well, I suppose we’re still pleased to meet a kindred spirit in this fight against Fascism. That said, I’ll need your solemn oath that you’ll never speak of anything we discuss within these walls. You see, I’m in constant contact with the anti-Fascist underground in Italy. I’m afraid you’d be punished if you ever revealed our meetings, given that you might wind up endangering those same operatives.”
Was she serious? How on earth could I endanger people on the other side of the world? And what did she mean by punished?
“I promise?” I replied weakly, but even that timid vow seemed to placate Juliet. I was beginning to doubt my decision in coming here, and glanced at Marcel, still unsure of his role. He must have seen the question writ clear on my face, for he strummed blunt fingers against the table and gestured to Juliet. “Juliet means what she says. She and I have known each other since before the Ark.”
“And you work together?”
&n
bsp; He nodded slowly. I didn’t miss the question in his eyes that was aimed toward Juliet. If only I’d known what the question was. “Yes, for an organization similar to the Catholic Church.”
Juliet actually snorted at that. “Yes, except if you leave the Church, all you lose is your soul.” I didn’t have a chance to ask the question on the tip of my tongue as she tented her long fingers before her. “Miss Bentley, this is a rather immersive—and frankly, fairly lucrative—position I’m offering you. In addition to your translation work and duties in teaching me Italian, I’m interested in paying you for extra services rendered.”
I shifted in my seat. “What sort of services?”
“All sorts. I could pay for a trip to Italy for you as well, although you’d be required to sleep with several high-ranking Fascists. Think of it as a sort of mining assignment.” My eyes bulged in their sockets, but Juliet and Marcel merely exchanged a glance before chortling with laughter, so I couldn’t tell how much of what she’d said was farcical and what might have been true.
God and the angels. What have I gotten myself into?
I was the sort of girl who liked to know all the facets of any situation, but the facts of the matter were that my rent was due in a few days and my dusty cupboards contained a half-empty box of Saltine crackers, two cans of Campbell’s celery soup, and . . . well, that was it.
(Let’s be honest, Catherine. If Juliet had asked if I was willing to steal lollipops from babies or lie to old ladies in exchange for a decent wage, I’d probably have said yes. My banking balance was getting that desperate.)
Juliet suddenly grew serious. “One more question before we officially begin this new partnership.”
I waited, counted almost to ten before Juliet spoke again. She certainly had a flair for the dramatic, this one.
“Are you willing to make certain sacrifices in the name of your country? We need someone who is passionate about the cause, who is willing to go even farther than the extra mile.”
I felt that V forming between my brows again. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to wind up looking like a woman twice my natural age. “So long as I don’t have to do anything illegal.”
(After all, Catherine, I still had some morals. Mostly.)
“Duly noted, my sweet little Puritan.” Juliet gave a sly smile, crossed her arms, and tapped her chin. “But what about the gray area between legal and illegal?”
Rent is due in a few days. And you hate celery soup.
I ironed out the frown that threatened, rearranging my lips into a smile that was open for interpretation. “I suppose the gray zone is up for negotiation.”
To which Juliet offered me her hand. “Glad to hear it.”
* * *
* * *
Spit shining Mussolini’s shoes would have been easier than working for Juliet. And less volatile.
Juliet was a late riser, so I showed up at her spacious, light-filled apartment every afternoon, eager to show off my translation skills and prove my worth to my new employer, whom I found to be a strong-willed, steely-eyed woman who smoked more than she ate. But I quickly discovered there was little work to be done. Sometimes Marcel was there, and instead of working, he’d take us out for dinner at Barbetta’s, a quaint Italian place off Times Square that served decent meatballs, although not a word of Italian was ever spoken between the three of us. If I was lucky, Juliet had me translate a few sentences of Italian here and there, but she often spent long hours on meandering conversational tangents that I had a difficult time following. After several days of this, I realized that Juliet really only asked questions about me, yet never offered any substantive information about herself. Once, over scalding hot glasses of tea, Juliet asked my opinion on the Party’s ideals of equality between men and women. “Can we women ever truly work equally with men? Or should we stick to our own kind?”
I had only been half listening—my mind had wandered to my latest worry, that Juliet wasn’t even a real Communist given that no one outside of my district leader had heard of her when I mentioned her at my latest Party meeting—and offered some lukewarm response, prompting her to slam her teacup down on the table. “Are you a Trotskyite?” she demanded, pointing her cigarette in its tortoiseshell holder at me as if she might use it to gouge out my eyes.
I gaped, so gobsmacked that all the words I might have said rolled away like marbles. Calling someone a Trotskyite was one of the biggest slurs within the Party. After all, Leon Trotsky was an anti-Stalin ex-revolutionary who had split the Communist Party in Russia and had recently been sentenced to death in absentia for plotting to kill Stalin. According to current Party literature, he and his followers were unscrupulous terrorists who wanted to smash out the Communists in every land.
Pinpricks of panic dotted my shock when Juliet stood so quickly she almost knocked over her chair, leaning forward with both hands on her mahogany dining room table. “You know, I’m one of the powers behind the Communist Party here in America—I could make or break you. And I’d rather kill you here and now than suffer having a Trotskyite in my own home.”
I almost bolted but forced myself to fall back on a Party maxim Lee had recently taught me: when you’re in a tight spot and want to keep calm, think of a group of words—it doesn’t matter whether they make sense or not—and repeat them over and over to yourself until you have drowned out everything else. Complements of my happy childhood moments spent studying paintings with my mother, I made a point to always think of art as a means to calm myself.
Tranquil. Garden. Pond. Water lilies. Monet. Peace.
It was only the fact that I desperately needed the job that kept me in my seat. That, and I didn’t want Juliet to stab me with a teaspoon. No normal person talked this way. “Of course I’m not a Trotskyite.” Now seemed a good time to employ a sanguine sort of smile despite the thunderstorm in my heart. I repeated an early entry from my journal that had helped me survive several social blunders at Vassar: Calm face equals a calm mind, relaxed eyes denote comfort and confidence, eyes normally blink sixteen to twenty times a minute unless stressed or aroused. “Would the Party have recommended me if I was smitten with that Socialist?”
Thankfully, that seemed to placate Juliet, and she sank back into her chair and started nattering about Mussolini’s ill-advised invasion of Ethiopia, all the while pouring me a second glass of tea served in the Russian style—piping hot with a slice of lemon and a maraschino cherry. I tried to listen, but her next statement had me wishing I could flee for the door.
“You know, I think Marcel is interested in you,” she said, suddenly seeming eager. “He’s a very wealthy businessman and could offer you a very comfortable salary. I could tell he was taken with you from the start.”
“Marcel?” I actually sputtered his name. “But I thought you and he . . . that he . . .”
The woman actually had the gall to laugh at me. “Marcel and me? Oh no, my dear. Certainly not. But you and Marcel, why that would be a different matter entirely.”
This was the second time Juliet had propositioned me regarding men. Did I really seem to have no morals? Or was she teasing me somehow?
Did I really want to find out?
“I have to be going.” I gathered up my things with lightning speed. “Good night, Juliet.”
I swear that as soon as I closed the door, I heard her muffled laughter from the other side.
* * *
* * *
The Party had gotten me the position with Juliet, so I couldn’t very well complain to them. But I could complain to Lee—wasn’t that what friends were for?
“I think she might be a counterrevolutionary,” I confided to Lee that night after rehashing my ordeal. We’d just finished playing a new board game that one of Lee’s coworkers had let her borrow—Monopoly—which Lee loved since its goal was to highlight the evils of concentrating wealth in the hands of the few. (Until I placed a hot
el on Boardwalk and she started losing—then the game lost its allure.) The thought that Juliet might be a counterrevolutionary had occurred to me after I’d left her apartment for the day, what with how she was always trying to ferret out my opinion on everything political. Either that, or the woman was just plain unstable. “I’ve asked around the Party, and no one can tell me anything concrete about her—maybe she’s spying on us. On me.”
Lee started packing away the Monopoly pieces. “Or maybe she’s part of the underground, trying to discern whether you’re a suitable partner.”
“Partner?”
“For some sort of secret project—the Party has those, you know. I don’t know the details, but I’ve heard rumors—spying, gathering intelligence. With Marcel and the Fascists she wanted you to sleep with, it sounds like she’s already felt you out for a couple possible jobs. Either that, or . . .”
“Or what?”
Lee gave a wicked smile, shook a stack of rainbow-colored play money at me. “Or she could be just a sapphist on the prowl, making sure you turn down all the men she throws your way.” Lee dodged the couch pillow I threw at her. “It could happen!”
“I don’t care which side Juliet butters her bread on—” Lee gave me an arch look, to which I only shrugged. “Really, I don’t,” I mumbled. (That much was true, Catherine. Who am I to fret about what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms? I have far bigger things to worry about.) “I do care if she’s somehow spying on me. And her threatening to kill me—even if it was hyperbole—creates less-than-ideal working conditions. I should quit.”
“If Juliet Glazer is part of the underground, she might be so high-ranking that she could even have Stalin’s ear.” I snorted at that, but Lee only shook her head. “All right, maybe not, but you definitely don’t want to upset her,” Lee advised, so I wondered if she knew more than she was letting on. “Stick it out, comrade, or you might regret it.”
A Most Clever Girl Page 5