Her eyes were so sad then that I felt a sudden urge to embrace her. But I’d never been given toward outward displays of emotion, and I wasn’t about to start now.
Instead, I changed the subject.
We chatted about the war—briefly—then the warnings of gasoline rationing and electricity shortages that were planned as American factories began to convert to military production. I tried to imagine Mary Tenney in coveralls with her angelic halo of hair hidden beneath an olive-drab kerchief, drilling rivets or pounding nails. And failed miserably.
In the background, a radio newscaster informed us that Britain was making appeals for Americans to conserve food, the better to export more to support the Allied war effort. It seemed we were tiptoeing closer and closer to the war with each passing week.
Finally, Mary and I yawned our way to bed.
“There’s an extra pair of pajamas in the bureau,” she said when I’d turned out my valise and realized I’d forgotten mine. Mary had already changed into a billowy candy floss–pink nightgown, her arms and shoulders bare. She’d taken off her coral-red bracelets from earlier, revealing bracelets of an entirely different sort. Slashed across her wrists were scars that spoke of loneliness and veins opened—one raw mark on her left wrist looked only days old. I suddenly understood Yasha’s warning that Mary was delicate, and wanted to curse him for his obtuseness. Instead, I caught her watching me and found my throat dry and my tongue a knotted mess. Fumbling for words, I instead opened the bureau’s oak drawer to find a pair of men’s silk pajamas in deep burgundy. And atop them, a whole package of French letters, the same brand that Yasha used without fail.
I grabbed the pajamas and slammed the drawer as if burned, found Mary studying me with a sad little smile on her face. “Timmy didn’t tell you, did he? That I’m a honey trap?”
I recalled Yasha asking at Earl Browder’s summer cottage whether I wanted to sleep with the visiting Canadian Party member, how he had mentioned his lone contact who had chosen that line of work. The subject had been dropped and had never rematerialized.
Because I’m with Yasha? Does he shield me?
And I knew then that the answer was a resounding yes. I felt a sudden sunspot of anger at Yasha, for no, he hadn’t told me, and yes, that seemed like an important detail. One he must have known I’d ferret out for myself.
“You must be very valuable.” I managed to recover my aplomb, setting aside my ethical pangs about the situation. If Yasha knew of this, there must be a reason why he allowed it. And why Mary did it. Who was I to judge her or the Center’s methods, which I knew served the higher cause of defeating Fascism? “To the Center, I mean.”
She gave me a silver screen smirk. “I might know more than the rezident himself. I’ve been with virtually every spy and Party member since the crash of ’29—I could write a book on their secrets, weaknesses, and fetishes: who had a hand in Trotsky’s death, which agent needs a triple shot of Stolichnaya to loosen his tongue, who prefers to rough up his women before he has them. Of course, that makes me dangerous, which is why Timmy keeps me his secret—to protect me.”
“Is it your choice?” I asked her. Her answer was critical. “The men, I mean?”
“There’s a saying my father often said: Sinners make the best saints. I know what I’m doing isn’t strictly right, but it’s not wrong either. Because it’s for a good cause.” The ruffled strap of her pink negligee slipped off her shoulder when she shrugged. The rest of the peignoir draped her every curve like she was a fleshy Renaissance model, so it was easy to imagine eager-to-please lovers spilling their secrets in an attempt to impress her. “My father lost everything in the crash of ’29, made himself a sinner when he put a revolver to his head and left me alone. I didn’t have a lot of options, joined the Party out of youthful optimism, and then a government official I was seeing boasted of intercepting a memo about the failure of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff over cigarettes one night. I thought the information might be valuable to the Party, further proof that America needed to change her ways. Timmy intercepted me—it was my choice to join his underground—and he created an entire legend for me.”
(Catherine, a legend is a sophisticated, artificial life story meant to hide a spy’s true identity, although it’s usually used for illegals operating without diplomatic immunity. Those of us who operated without legends were more exposed, but also had less to hide.)
Mary continued. “I’m two women, you see: Mary Tenney, who works in Walter Lippmann’s office, and also glamorous Helen Price, who meets with high-placed international Communists and convinces them to part with their best-kept secrets. All to help my country.” A shy smile. “Timmy tells me all the time that I’m his most important asset.”
I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Which means that now you’re my most important asset. I’ll run things just as Timmy did, with one exception: I don’t want you doing anything you don’t want to do.”
She removed the silk throw pillows from the bed, turned down the coverlet. “Don’t worry about me. Timmy always let me turn down jobs—men—I didn’t want, no questions asked. And he let me take time off when I need to take care of certain things.” She gave the French letters a meaningful look, and I caught the way she touched her wrist. “My precautions aren’t always fail-safe, you know.”
Certain things. God above . . . she means abortions.
I knew such things happened—illegally and often in back-alley operations—but suddenly I felt very sheltered from the harsher realities of the world.
Were these choices, those of Lee’s mind-numbing factory work and Mary’s pillow jobs, really the only options open to regular salt-of-the-earth women? Did it even matter what type of government was in charge?
I was proof that there were other choices, but I was also proof that such exceptions were a rarity. It didn’t seem fair that some of us had to get down in the mud and wallow in it in order to build a new world, that we couldn’t all stay in the open Party, where the air was clean and wholesome.
Mary planted her hands on her hips and gave me a Hollywood starlet sort of smile. Only this one didn’t fool me. “It’s a good gig, Myrna, for a woman like me. Plus, it pays for this fabulous apartment.”
She was beautiful and broken. No wonder the men flocked to her.
“Call me Elizabeth.” It was an utter breach of the rules, but I didn’t care. I wanted Mary to have something—one thing—she knew was real and trustworthy. “Please.”
“My bed’s big enough for the two of us, Elizabeth,” Mary said breezily as she slipped beneath the lavender-scented coverlet. “The bathroom is down the hall if you want to change.”
When I returned, I was in the borrowed pajamas—smelling of detergent and not men’s cologne as I’d feared—and Mary’s hair was in pink foam curlers that made her look ten years younger. Like the little sister I’d once hoped for. “I have a present for you,” she said. “It’s not my color, but it’s perfect for you.”
She surprised me by tossing a small gold cylinder from her bedside drawer my way. The Bésame lipstick I caught gleamed dully in the lamplight, delicate flowers vining their way up the lid.
“Victory Red,” she said when I uncapped it to reveal an eye-numbing shade of scarlet. “Men have their army camouflage and their suits of armor, but lipstick is women’s war paint, you know.”
Actually, I didn’t know. “That color looks like sin itself.”
She laughed. “It might be. But repeat after me: Sinners make the best saints.”
I did as I was told, prompting Mary’s glorious smile. On the surface, I may not have agreed with Mary’s line of work, but she was a perfect example of how the world refused to operate strictly in black and white. It was becoming clearer to me that everyone who wanted a better world had to sacrifice something in the name of that higher good, be it their morals, their friendships, or their rose-colored view of huma
nity. (Or maybe that’s just what I told myself back then so I could sleep at night?) “Excellent,” she said. “Remember to wear that the next time you have to do something that isn’t strictly right. So long as the ends justify the means, you’re on the proper side of the war.”
I was touched by the gift, even if I doubted whether I could really wear so shocking a color. I preferred dull raisin tones or nothing at all, but perhaps I’d use this to become a new, bolder version of Elizabeth Bentley. “Thank you.”
Mary lay on her side, pillowed her head with its awkward bunch of curlers on her hands. “You know, there’s a new secretarial position opening at OSS. I was thinking of applying.”
OSS. The Office of Strategic Services, the new wartime intelligence agency here in America. Also sometimes sneeringly called Oh So Secret or Oh So Social, especially by our Soviet contacts.
“Is that what you’d like to do?” I asked. “Work at OSS?”
Mary gave a little nod. “Is that all right?”
It was typical to run an asset in place—spy speak for remaining in their current position to continue passing information—for years and years. Having a spy in Walter Lippmann’s office was like gold in the bank. However, planting a spy in the OSS would be better than printing money from inside the federal mint.
A surge of worry temporarily overwhelmed my giddiness. Having such a strategically placed asset would also mean it would be harder for me to shield Mary or to preserve her legend. But neither would I shut the door of opportunity in the face of this woman who had already sacrificed much in the name of patriotism.
I reached over, turned off the bedside table lamp, and plunged the room into darkness. “Mary, I think whatever you want would be perfect.”
* * *
* * *
Things progressed fast and furious after that, like a snowball careening down the Swiss Alps.
I’d come home from Washington, DC, sporting the new Victory Red lipstick Mary had gifted me, along with papers from Walter Lippmann’s stuffed into both my knitting bag and a Bloomingdale’s hatbox Mary had given me for the job, and even tucked a couple documents into my brassiere when it became apparent that I needed more space.
“What treasures did you bring home today?” Yasha asked when I’d returned. This was, unfortunately, after I’d asked about putting William Remington out to pasture and he’d gently reminded me that Remington’s work often corroborated intelligence from other sources, which meant we couldn’t siphon Bill back to the open Party. And who knew, Yasha said, but maybe one day he might catch something big for us.
(He’d catch something big, all right, but not quite what Yasha was hoping for.)
In response to Yasha’s question, I merely turned the radio to the jazz station and upended my knitting bag. There were political reports from the Treasury, the State Department, and even limited data from the Department of Justice, enough to keep us up all night encrypting everything with one-time pads before transmitting it all to Russia. I doubted if there were many people who were quite as well-informed as we were on what was happening in Washington. “Oh, you know,” I answered Yasha with an impish grin. “Just the entire Pentagon.”
In response, I received a rather enthusiastic kiss and the warm glow of Yasha’s appreciation.
Well. I suppose we didn’t spend the whole night encrypting documents.
* * *
* * *
“Earl Browder has a new contact for you. Nathan Silvermaster,” Yasha said the following morning over bacon and coffee he’d made us for breakfast. “Code name Robert.”
“Russian-born economist,” I remembered. “Member of the Maritime Labor Board and the Department of Agriculture who recently asked to be assigned to the United States Treasury. The weekend parties and musical salons that he and his wife host are the talk of DC.” I reached over and snagged an extra piece of bacon from Yasha’s plate. All this spying really worked up an appetite for some cured meats. “Has he informed for us before?”
The invasion of Russia by three million Axis troops suddenly meant that all sorts of patriotic Americans were interested in doing anything and everything they could to help the Allies, especially since the United States was still dragging her heels about entering the war. We’d had a sudden influx of informers willing to share American secrets if it would help take down Hitler.
“Silvermaster has been with the Party since 1920 and worked closely with Browder before.” Yasha picked up both our empty plates and took them to the sink to wash up. He was more animated than usual today—I’d planned to ambush him with a doctor’s checkup by preparing a white lie that I had a sinus appointment and needed him to accompany me—but perhaps his health was turning a corner. “This is a big job, Elizabeth, one that must go off without a hitch if Nathan is to trust you.”
“I have Mary Tenney in my pocket, don’t I? I don’t see why Silvermaster will be any different.”
“That’s because you haven’t had to deal with Silvermaster’s wife.” Yasha’s lips drew into a tight line as he glanced back at me. “Helen comes from a family tradition of Communism. Her father was known as the Red Baron back in Russia for his support of the Bolsheviks. She and Nathan have a rather . . . interesting relationship.”
I waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, I only stood and wrapped my arms around his middle, leaned my cheek against the solid wall of his back while he scrubbed the frying pan. Sometimes, at moments like this, I could pretend that we were any normal couple, rather than two spies living double lives.
“I’m sure I can handle the Silvermasters,” I finally said.
“Nathan is the hub of a huge network of informers, with access to potentially critical information to help Russia deliver Germany’s death knell.” Yasha set down the frying pan, planted his thumb in the middle of it before fanning out his fingers one by one as he ticked off Silvermaster’s list of contacts. “He has Treasury agents in China, men in the Department of Justice, even contacts in the Air Force. There are rumors he has placed people in the Pentagon. They all report to him.”
“And he’ll report to us.” Recent accounts of Hitler’s war of annihilation against Russia included hushed reports of special Einsatzgruppen, killing units deployed behind the lines in mass-murder operations targeting all of Russia’s Jews and Communists, no matter their age or gender. Such atrocities had to be stopped, no matter the means. “I’ll take care of it, Yasha.”
“I know you will.” He touched his nose to mine. “You are going to need a bigger bag this time.”
* * *
* * *
“You must be Miss Wise.” Helen Silvermaster’s voice still held a delicious hint of the Old Country, richer and deeper somehow than any Yankee drawl. She immediately made direct eye contact with me, and held it. A direct challenge after I’ve known her for all of five seconds. Impressive. “Do come in.”
It’s no secret that women scrutinize every aspect of each other upon first meeting, searching for the slightest blemish or fashion faux pas to determine our ranking in some invisible but all-important feminine hierarchy. This woman I needed to win over wasn’t classically beautiful, but her face constantly enticed the eyes back for a second look. With a profile like an Italian greyhound, Helen Silvermaster—code name Dora—might have passed for a statuesque version of Katharine Hepburn, so tall and stately it wasn’t difficult to imagine the branches of her family tree reaching out to Baltic barons and counselors of the czar. Just the tilt of her head screamed the fact that, had she been born a hundred years earlier, this woman would have been feting kings and dukes in her drawing room. I could feel Helen Silvermaster passing judgment on my sensible one-inch heels, my bulky floral knitting bag, and even the feathers of my Sunday hat. There was no doubt from the way her nostrils flared ever so slightly that she outranked me.
I should have at least worn my Victory Red lipstick, I thought with an inward wince as
she offered to take my wool jacket. Let’s hope her spouse is a different case.
“This is my husband, Nathan Silvermaster.” Helen gestured to a dapper-looking gentleman with a Charlie Chaplin mustache, then toward a second, sallow-faced man in his mid-thirties who entered the foyer. “And this is Lud Ullmann, who lives with us.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Silvermaster offered, speaking slowly and with a pronounced British accent, which made sense given that he’d attended an English school in China in his youth.
“I’m at the Treasury Department.” Lud Ullmann offered a dead fish sort of handshake that made me instinctively recoil. He was of average height with receding brown hair and no distinctive features—the perfect face for a spy. (Much like my own, Catherine—I didn’t even have this damnable scar on my chin back then.) “Although I’m hoping the Party can maneuver me into the Pentagon.”
I avoided wiping my palm on my dress. “I appreciate a man who knows what he wants.”
“I assure you, I do.” It wasn’t my imagination when Lud’s gaze flicked to Helen and lingered there a beat too long. How had Nathan Silvermaster not noticed the way his friend looked at his wife as if she were on tonight’s menu?
“Please, make yourself comfortable.” Nathan gestured toward the spacious living room that was tastefully appointed with chintz lounges and perfectly polished oak end tables.
“So.” Helen crossed one slim ankle over the other after Nathan had shaken up martinis for everyone else, a plain tonic water for me. “Miss Wise?”
I waited for the question that didn’t come and sipped my drink to have something to do. Her tone told me to be on guard. “Yes?”
“Is that the best you could do for a code name? You don’t think it seems too much like a tasteless sort of pun?”
And don’t you think you might have learned some manners in the overpriced boarding schools you surely attended?
A Most Clever Girl Page 17