The only problem was that Russia was still allied with the Nazis.
“Give it time,” Yasha murmured into my hair while he held me one dark night. He’d woken to find me staring out the window at the electric-illuminated city, had risen and gently closed the curtains, plunging us back into ink-black darkness. Despite my worries over Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini and Yasha’s health, it was nice to feel Yasha stroking my hair and to pretend that he was taking care of me instead of the other way around. “Be patient,” he whispered. “We are playing a long game, my little dove. You and me and Stalin. Together, we are going to beat Hitler—just you wait and see.”
Then, on June 22, 1941, our usual evening radio broadcast was interrupted with news that Hitler had breached the Soviet frontiers. Apparently, German food shortages and the Führer’s immediate desire for lebensraum for Deutschland had overridden any qualms about torching his nonaggression pact with Stalin. Yasha and I held hands as we listened to Molotov’s angry proclamation over the radio that this was “an act of treachery, unprecedented in the history of civilized nations. But have no doubts: the enemy will be crushed and victory will be ours.”
“See.” The triumphant gleam in Yasha’s eye that I’d missed these past months returned as he poured us two tumblers—one of Hennessy cognac (despite the doctor’s orders, I didn’t have it in me to deprive him of this celebratory toast) and mine with apple cider. “I knew Russia would land on the right side of history. To the health of Stalin and Molotov, Churchill and Roosevelt.”
We clinked our glasses together and tossed back the drinks, but I hushed him when Washington followed up with a special announcement that the United States would give economic assistance to the Soviet Union to help in its struggle against armed aggression. Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty were determined to beat Hitler and were prepared to do whatever it took to make it happen.
“Which must mean supplying Russia with whatever it needs.” I felt suddenly lighter as the twin vultures of guilt and worry finally took flight from their roosts on my shoulders. “Including intelligence.”
“Da, my very clever girl.” Yasha’s lips were soft on mine, teasing even. “I do suppose you are right.”
In one fell swoop, Yasha and I had seen our positions as secret patriots solidified, albeit patriots that the American government would never know about. In the days and weeks to come, US Service and Shipping was jammed with patriotic Americans sending to Russia presents that ranged from vitamins to shotguns. (The latter had to be rejected for obvious reasons.) America still watched the war from the safety of the sidelines, but everyone rich and poor wanted to help the besieged Soviet Union.
So long as America was in bed with Stalin, we were in the clear.
* * *
* * *
Yasha and I had taken Vlad out to romp in Central Park—my energetic bundle of fur had a difficult time being cooped up in my apartment, and Yasha didn’t often have the strength to walk him while I was out, although I knew from the fur on my pillow that he let Vlad sleep on my side of the bed when I was gone. It was a fizzy, incandescent sort of July morning where everything seems possible, and I’d brought my knitting bag and a large leather valise with me, placed both on the ground next to the Bethesda Fountain. (Catherine, like the shape of snowflakes, the sound of falling water is totally unique. This means that even as sound filtering inevitably improves—especially on recordings—a fountain will always provide the perfect cover for spilling secrets.)
“Well, Miss Wise,” Yasha said. “Are you ready for your trip to Washington, DC?”
My latest code name was a play on Clever Girl, which I enjoyed far more than the prosaic Myrna that I also sometimes used. I looked at him through my dark glasses and tugged tighter the knot on the black scarf at my neck. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
You see, Yasha and I had decided it was time I met alone with my contacts; being the freshly minted vice president of US Service and Shipping gave me reason to travel to Washington without the need for convoluted excuses. Not only that, but since America and Russia were now allies, the FBI had lost interest in surveilling Yasha and me.
(Catherine, I will go to my grave singing the praises of the FBI, but even I have to admit that wasn’t their finest decision. Even if they had only ever followed me while I was disguised.)
Yasha’s konspiratsia he’d built up over the years included informers from the Treasury Department, State Department, Office of Strategic Services, even the Army and Navy. I’d spent weeks listening to Yasha describe each of them until I could parrot back with crystal clarity their likes and dislikes, their idiosyncrasies, and the motivations—patriotism, medical bills that needed to be paid, a desire to end this war before America entered it—that led them to spy for him. There were no written records on any of these contacts, not even a sentence on a scrap of paper that could lead the authorities to them. Now I was to be their sole link to the Center.
Yasha beckoned so he might kiss me from the park bench where I’d commanded he remain while I tossed a stick to Vlad. My shaggy little beastie had a penchant for tearing off after sticks, often returning with a new one twice as long as himself. “First, you will meet with William Remington,” Yasha instructed, beaming like a proud papa. “And then today, Miss Wise will officially take over the contact of Miss Mary Tenney.”
I smiled, the flush of pride warm as sunshine on my skin. Never again would I be a lonely woman eating alone over a hot plate. Now I was working the largest Russian information network in America. And that was something.
“Code name Muse,” I said about Mary Tenney, gingerly tossing Vlad his slobbery stick while pulling out the imaginary drawer in my mind that contained Mary’s file. I’d met her once in New York during her final meeting with Yasha, but back then I’d been merely a silent observer. “Graduated from Chapel Hill and now works as a secretary for New York Herald journalist Walter Lippmann. Relies on her kickbacks from the Party to finance her expensive lifestyle.” I knew I had my facts straight, yet memorizing dossiers was different from actually interacting with the people in the field. After all, no matter what my journal said, years of observations taught me one uncomfortable fact: people are unpredictable. I swallowed hard and barely avoided wringing my hands by clasping them in front of me. My flush of pride was replaced with cold worry. “I hope I’m ready for this.”
Yasha pressed my palm to his cheek and then kissed my knuckles, his eyes utterly adoring. “Elizabeth, you were born for this. Just be careful with Mary. She is . . . delicate.”
Buoyed by Yasha’s steadfast confidence in me and with my totes in hand, I kissed him and then Vlad for good luck. “Don’t let the dog sleep on my pillow.”
“I would never.” Yasha’s water-blue eyes gleamed with his poorly kept secret. “Although if I did let him sleep on your pillow, it is only because I miss you.”
When I arrived three hours later at the station in Washington, DC, I knew from studying maps and schematics exactly which exit to take onto the street. And the best route to William Remington’s apartment.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the full amount of the dues I owe to the Party,” he said in a statement that I knew from Yasha was his usual greeting. Beyond him, a baby dressed in only a cotton nappy played with wooden blocks on the floor with Ann, who lifted a hand and wiggled her fingers at me. I wondered how Ann dealt with a husband who seemed perpetually broke. I wasn’t sure how much Bill’s promotion to the War Production Board paid, but apparently, he had never learned how to write a simple budget when taking his fancy economics classes at Columbia. He held up a finger. “But I do have this for you.”
I only pursed my lips. Bill had refused to make a carbon copy of the document, had instead scrawled something or other on the scrap of paper he now pressed into my hand. “It’s a formula for making synthetic rubber out of garbage,” he whispered. “Please make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
I have no idea how I managed to keep a straight face. We’d asked Bill to report on aircraft production, and instead he gave me a fantastical, nonsensical formula for rubber? Made from garbage?
Still, I waved to Ann and thanked Bill, admonished him to pay his dues in full next month, plus this month’s shortage. Made a mental reminder to suggest to Yasha that we return Bill to the open Party. The man was more trouble than he was worth.
That out of the way, I took several taxis to get to my next destination. The roundabout journey made getting there more laborious, but it meant that I’d be more difficult to track, although I didn’t spot anyone surveilling me. A frisson of excitement rolled up my spine when I left my final taxi two blocks away from the brick office building and walked to the rendezvous point on the second floor.
My knock was quick—four hard raps followed by two taps.
The woman who greeted me was a wintery sort of beauty with a figure to make Claudette Colbert weep with despair and cause men to step off a curb into oncoming traffic, an angelic halo of soft blond curls framing her pale heart of a face, with lively blue eyes and a complexion fresher than newly fallen snow on Christmas Eve. And, yes, her looks were exactly the reason why I had taken extra care with my own outfit this morning—a black-and-white houndstooth day dress with a Valentine-red belt and matching hat—before meeting her. Not that it mattered—I still felt like a back-alley mongrel next to her pedigree. (The bit of mud and slobber on my hem gifted by Vlad didn’t help.)
“Come in, Myrna. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” Even though we’d met once before, Mary Tenney enunciated her prearranged verbal bona fides to reconfirm her identity as she pulled me inside the office, although no one else was currently in the hallway of the building. Our cover, should anyone come knocking, was that Mary and I were old school friends. I’d come to visit her during work—which would never have been allowed if her boss were present, a fact that added a little clandestine verisimilitude to our story—and was staying the night with her to catch up on old times. I didn’t miss the way she glanced down both directions of the corridor before she pushed the door closed. And locked it.
Tightly wound, this one.
Yasha had warned me that the NKVD’s greatest fear was that an agent would crack and land in a psychiatrist’s office, where they would spill all their secrets; if there was even the slightest hint of this, then he—or she—was dropped like a hotcake.
However, in Mary’s defense, I might also be high-strung if I’d just opened the door to the woman who was going to help me pilfer my boss’s office for interesting tidbits on Anglo-American relations and the war effort. Mary Tenney worked as the personal secretary to the indomitable powerhouse that was political commentator Walter Lippmann, the lone wolf who maintained an office in Washington, DC, and wrote the syndicated “Today and Tomorrow” newspaper column and who seemed to know everything about international politics. In the past, she’d memorized data and then rushed home to write it in shorthand before she’d passed it off to Yasha. This week, however, Lippmann was out of town, and I was here to help Mary avail herself of anything the Center might make use of.
“Gorgeous pocketbook.” I gestured to a coral-red ruched scallop bag—its calfskin was the exact same shade as her impossibly high heels and the fashionably thick bracelets at her wrists—in an effort to put her at ease. “Is it Dior?”
“Louis Vuitton.” She fingered the bag like some women would a small child. “I have a weakness for purses.”
“I’m jealous.” I laughed, held up my unwieldly floral knitting bag. “Hazard of the job, I suppose.”
One glance at the office told me I might need an even bigger bag. Papers and files formed several snow-covered Matterhorns on every surface that would hold them.
“Where do we begin?” I asked.
“I started pulling everything Mr. Lippmann has on Operation Barbarossa.” Mary thumbed through several yellow files. “Stalin gave a radio address on July 3 regarding Germany’s plan to restore czarism and the rule of landlords. Do you really think they plan to obtain slaves for German princes and barons?”
I thought for a moment. “If by princes and barons he means Nazi officials, then yes, I think so.”
“And this memo claims that Stalin plans to move Lenin’s body from Red Square and put it into storage.”
I read over her shoulder and between the lines of the terse message. “That’s not good. In fact, that’s really bad.”
“That they still have Lenin’s body on display seventeen years after he died?” Mary blew at a perfectly coiffed curl that had fallen over her forehead. Her breath was tinged with the delicate scent of mint. “I’ll say. Can you imagine how bad he must smell?”
“Lenin is mummified,” I murmured, deep in thought. “No, it means that Stalin believes Germany will take Moscow.”
Mary and I took turns hunched over the typewriter making copies of Lippmann’s papers until our backs ached, furiously transcribing any and all documents that looked even minorly interesting. (At least all those mind-numbing typing classes of mine hadn’t gone to waste.) Into my knitting bag each paper went; I only paused to smile at Yasha’s latest linguistic love note hidden within—Je t’aime—before I tucked our treasures deep beneath several skeins of woolen yarn and my latest scarf for Yasha.
But the job wasn’t done.
“Had enough for today?” Mary asked once the sun had hit the horizon.
I glanced around at the trove that was Lippmann’s office. The opportunity to plunder its secret depths wouldn’t come again for a long time—the man rarely took a vacation. “We can come back tomorrow.”
“Agreed. After a good night’s sleep,” Mary said. “My apartment isn’t far from here.”
Of course, I already knew that: she lived on Olive Street in the Georgetown area. I wished I could go home to New York tonight and off-load the scalding-hot intelligence now burning a hole in the bottom of my bag, but it was too far, plus I couldn’t risk registering at a Washington hotel (which Yasha had warned me always to avoid since the FBI kept a strict watch on them). So, I followed Mary, both of us laughing when our stomachs grumbled loudly as we stopped off to pick up cartons of Chinese food. A chicken egg roll and roast pork fried rice for me, chop suey chow mein for Mary.
Her apartment was spacious and well-appointed; the oil paintings of Moscow and Paris that framed an ormolu timepiece and matching candelabra on the mantel screamed of easy money. I glanced at the leather sofa, gave it a poke with my finger. Soft on the eyes, but harder than a park bench. So, Mary cared about appearances.
Which meant she shocked the hell out of me when she sat and pried off her fashionable slingbacks, gave a groan better suited to a sweaty bricklayer after a hard day’s work. “I call these my fuck-me shoes.” Her grin was mischievous when she caught my look. “Not because they compel men to such action, but because that’s what I say every night after I take them off.”
I didn’t bother quashing my smile. I had a feeling I was going to like Mary Tenney. She reminded me of Lee, except without strings attached to her camaraderie.
“It must be nice having this lovely home to settle into after a long day,” I said. In pride of place in the curio cabinet was a beautifully carved wooden cross, breathtaking with its intricate floral design. “It’s so peaceful.”
Mary followed the direction of my gaze and smiled as she rubbed her stockinged feet. “My father made that—he liked to dabble in woodworking when he wasn’t at the office. He didn’t survive Black Tuesday—took his own life after we lost everything.” She poured me a glass of merlot that I pretended to sip before setting it aside and opening our cartons of Chinese food. “It is a lovely apartment, but I always wanted a home full of children with toys everywhere and handprints on the walls. Someone to give that cross to.”
That image was so at odds with this luxurious suite of hers that
I almost laughed. But this was my first time with a new contact, and I didn’t want to offend her.
“What about you?” Mary pointed her chopsticks at me, chow mein noodles pinched tight in their grip. “Do you want the typical American family? Husband, two kids, a dog?”
“Just the dog part, I think.” I chewed my egg roll, felt like a bit of a troll at the grease that slicked my fingers and lips. Somehow, Mary was eating her chow mein without even mussing her coral lipstick. “I’ve spent plenty of time being alone.”
“But not anymore.”
I cocked my head in question.
“You and Timmy, I mean.” Mary gave an elegant wave of her hand. “It was obvious when I met you both in New York that you were . . . together. And I saw the love note he left in your bag before you hid it away.”
I shouldn’t have startled at her perceptiveness—Mary was a spy after all—but I hadn’t anticipated that she could discern people as well as her boss’s memos.
(No good ever comes of underestimating people, Catherine. Take it from someone who knows.)
“Timmy and I trust each other,” was all I said. “That’s important in this line of work.”
“Well, I think it’s nice,” Mary said. “Everyone should have someone special in their lives. A parent, lover, child . . . We’re not engineered to be alone.”
A Most Clever Girl Page 16