A few blocks away, in an alley, we came upon a disheveled man in a tattered military coat. He sat on a kind of mechanical creeper, in one grubby paw a tin can with a few coins sprinkled in the bottom, which he shook at passersby like a newborn’s rattle. Both of his pant legs were rolled back, exposing the outlines of stumps.
“Do you think he’s a real veteran?” Viktor asked me.
I shrugged. His uniform looked old, perhaps from the Great War. Viktor reached into his pocket and withdrew a couple of kopeks, and dropped them into the can.
“What’s he going to do with kopeks?”
“Buy some vodka,” he joked.
As we walked along, we saw similar examples of terrible poverty side by side with grand displays of unbelievable wealth. The poverty I well understood. It was the wealth I found hard to comprehend. I saw hungry-looking men gathered in alleys right beside fancy restaurants. The homeless sleeping on the sidewalk near elegant apartment buildings. No one seemed to notice, however, or if they did, to care. America, I was quickly realizing, was a land of glaring extremes, a vast spectrum of humanity.
Passing a fruit stand in front of a store, Viktor reached out and casually snatched an apple, slipping it into his coat pocket.
“Are you trying to get us arrested?” I whispered to him.
“They call it the Big Apple,” he explained.
“Did you make that up?”
“No, it’s true. A sailor aboard ship told me.” When we were a ways away, he removed the stolen fruit from his pocket, rubbed the apple against his sleeve, then tore a bite from it. “Look around, Lieutenant. I think they can spare one stinking apple for one of their allies.”
I had to admit, the sheer abundance of the city was astonishing. Everywhere there was food and more food, food beyond one’s wildest imaginings—on street vendors’ carts, in store windows, in displays before markets, on the plates of people eating in restaurants, hanging in butchers’ and greengrocers’ stalls, displayed on signs, in the hands of people passing by. Nowhere did I see long lines waiting for a loaf a bread, a piece of meat. In the garbage cans on the street I saw enough food to feed entire families back in Kiev. I recalled suddenly how hungry I had been at the front. Yet here there was such a dizzying profusion of food, more even than on the tables of the Party big shots back home. Where did it come from? I wondered. Who had the money to buy it all?
And everywhere, I saw people going about their business with such seeming nonchalance. No, it was more than that. Contempt. An utter contempt for the rest of the world, for the past or the future, for anything but right here and now. All else didn’t matter in the least to these people. As I walked along I saw two well-dressed women my own age conversing in a small patisserie, someone waiting for a bus reading the newspaper, a man whistling as he made deliveries, a couple strolling happily arm in arm, a teenage boy bobbing his head to loud music that wafted out of a store. These Americans didn’t seem to have a care in the world. It was as if for them there were no Kharkov and Kiev, no Smolensk and Sevastopol, no Babi Yar or Nikolaev. It was as if they hadn’t heard about the millions already dead or starving in German POW camps. They were at war themselves, but it was as if it were just a distant rumor, something that didn’t really affect them in any tangible way. Suddenly I felt such a righteous wave of anger rise up in me like bile. They are fools, I thought. Someone must tell them the truth. Someone must make them aware.
“Look at them,” I said to Viktor as we walked along.
“What?”
“It’s as if they don’t know there was a war going on.”
“What do you expect?” he replied, taking a final bite of his apple and tossing the half-eaten core into a garbage can. “They’re spoiled capitalists.”
“Then what the hell are we doing here?”
“Having a little fun.”
“No, Viktor. I’m serious.”
We had stopped at a busy street corner. A rush of traffic surged past us like an attack of Panzers, tires screeching, motors roaring.
Turning toward me, Viktor said, “That’s your problem, Lieutenant. You take everything too seriously. Why not try to enjoy yourself a little?”
“It’s hard to forget the war.”
“No one’s asking you to forget it. Just let yourself live a bit.”
“But doesn’t it anger you?”
“What?”
“That these people are so ignorant of what’s going on in the rest of the world. The suffering. The danger we are all in.”
“You think too much.”
“That’s what my mother told me.”
“She was right.”
At that moment, the light changed and the crowd surged forward. Viktor grabbed my hand and pulled me along.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“A little,” I replied. “Perhaps we should be getting back though.”
But we continued walking and soon found ourselves ensnared by the tantalizing smells of a bakery. We stopped and peered in the window at breads and pastries, frosted cakes and torts, strudel and puddings, something flat that looked like blini but was rolled and filled with some sort of cream. I felt my mouth water.
“Those look delicious,” I said, pointing at the cream-filled dessert.
“Do you want one?” Viktor asked me.
“We don’t have any American money, remember.”
Viktor slipped by me and entered the store.
“Viktor,” I said, following him. “Don’t.”
He ignored me.
“That’s an order, Sergeant,” I told him.
He looked back over his shoulder and said, “We’re no longer on the battlefield, Lieutenant. I don’t take orders from you anymore.”
The store was crowded with people. Viktor got in line and slowly worked his way toward the front, a glass case behind which were more baked goods. A wide-hipped young woman in a filthy apron waited on him, saying in English something like “Can I help you?”
Viktor pointed at one of the cream-filled pastries behind the glass. When the woman reached to pick up something else, he shook his head and pointed again at the item he wanted. Once more she reached for a pastry, and once more Viktor had to shake his head. This went on several times. Finally, her hands on her hips, the woman straightened and said something harshly in English, which I didn’t understand.
“Zdes’,” Viktor said, meaning “here.” He pointed again at the one he wanted.
The woman shrugged in annoyance.
“Zdes’, zdes’,” Viktor insisted, pointing into the case. Then he held up two fingers.
At last the woman picked up the right one and put two in a bag. She thrust the bag brusquely at Viktor and said something in English.
Viktor removed a fifty-kopek coin from his pocket and placed it on the counter. “Keep the change,” he said in Russian, then turned to leave, grabbing me by the elbow and leading me quickly toward the door.
The woman called after us.
“Keep going,” Viktor told me. I hesitated, so he gently shoved me ahead of him.
Outside, we hurried down the street. I turned back once and saw the woman standing in front of the store, shouting, waving a hand at us. At this we broke into a run and continued down the street for a ways before turning onto a side street. We ran down it for a while, and then Viktor pulled me into an alleyway. I felt suddenly winded from the exertion, the wound in my stomach aching dully. I didn’t realize how out of shape I’d become since being hospitalized. And I couldn’t believe what Viktor had just pulled.
“You’re mad!” I growled at him.
“We’re just having a little fun.”
“Our first day in America, we end up in prison. Vasilyev would love that.”
But Viktor had that disarming, lopsided grin on his face, like a mischievous boy who’d played a trick on his teacher.
I couldn’t help smiling back at him. Here we were, standing in some alley in a foreign land, having already broken the law. More than
that, I worried about Vasilyev’s reaction to our going AWOL. Still, I had to admit that I felt an odd and exhilarating sense of…what? Limitless possibility? Of unbridled hope? The irresponsibility of hope. It was what I’d witnessed in the crowds of Americans that day. It was as if the feeling had somehow rubbed off on me.
“Here,” Viktor told me, handing me the bag. “Enjoy.”
I removed one of the pastries and took a bite. The outside shell was brittle and cracked as I bit into it. The cream inside was delicious, such sweetness as I had never tasted. My first meal in America.
“Delicious,” I said.
We devoured our treats, laughing as we stuffed our mouths full of the sweet delight. After a while, I said, “Now we need to get back to the station.”
We got lost and had to stop and ask a police officer in a blue uniform the directions. “Train station,” was all I was able to tell him. Through gestures and pointing, he was able to show us where to go.
We finally made it back and hurried down into the station lobby. Vasilyev spotted me and came rushing over. He was followed by the others. Vasilyev’s face was red, his mouth tightly pinched in annoyance. “Where the hell were you?” he cried suddenly. “We were looking all over for the two of you.”
Viktor started to mumble something about being sick, but Vasilyev turned on him and struck him with the side of his hand. The gesture startled even me.
“I warned you, you idiot.”
Then Victor did a foolish thing. He smiled at Vasilyev.
Vasilyev grabbed him roughly by the collar and shoved a finger under his nose. “Wipe that smile off your face, Sergeant,” he hissed at Viktor. “Or you’ll be sorry.” Though Vasilyev’s face was flushed and sweaty from the heat, his dark eyes held a strange glow to them, a razor-edged coldness, something as deadly as a bayonet sharpened on a whetstone. I recalled that time in the automobile returning from the American embassy, that sudden change that had come over Vasilyev. Yet I had never seen anything from him quite like this before, and frankly, this darker side disturbed me a great deal. Then again, I wondered if this side wasn’t the real Vasilyev, and the other, the one who smiled and was jovial and charming, who enjoyed his food and drink—if that side wasn’t just part of the façade he put on, part of his carefully constructed image.
“Don’t blame Viktor,” I interjected. “It was all my fault.”
“What happened?” he asked me.
“You see, when I came out of the lavatory, I mistakenly went the wrong way and I got lost. It was Viktor who found me.”
“We could have missed our train because of you two idiots.”
Over his shoulder I could see Gavrilov enjoying this. He had a smug expression on his narrow face. “Comrades,” he offered prissily, “you should behave yourselves.”
“I am sorry,” I said to Vasilyev, who glanced from Viktor to me.
“We will continue this conversation later,” Vasilyev said. “Now we must hurry.”
9
On the ride down to Washington, we shared a private compartment. We were all tired and irritable from the long journey, and rode mostly in silence. Once Dmitri fell asleep with his head on the shoulder of the Corpse, who woke and shoved him rudely off. For his part, Vasilyev seemed preoccupied with correspondence and perusing papers he took from his briefcase. Occasionally, though, he would glance over the tops of his spectacles and give me a look that suggested we hadn’t heard the last of this.
I stared out the window as America raced by in the late afternoon sunlight. My last train ride had been a far different affair—a cramped and smelly cattle car hurtling toward the German advance. Now I sat comfortably in a spacious seat gazing out as cities gradually gave way to neat and orderly suburbs and then to long stretches of rural areas, with small towns congregated around a couple of church steeples, followed by farms and rolling fields, then scattered forests and lakes and swampy tidal flats followed by more cities. Used as I was to the Ukraine’s flat, open expanses, there were more trees than I could have imagined, and all was green and lush, even in the summer heat. America too seemed far more crowded than I had pictured it. Every few minutes we passed another town or city, with people scurrying here or there. Save for a few squalid areas in the cities, the extravagant wealth I had witnessed back in New York continued unabated. Everyone, it seemed, had a house and an automobile, everyone had good clothes and shoes on their feet as they walked along. There were restaurants and petrol stations, markets and stores, parks and swimming pools and carefree children riding bicycles. Along the way, I saw the ubiquitous capitalist signs hung everywhere, displaying this or that product—cigarettes or shaving cream, liquor or washing machines, clothes or milk or cereal. All had happy, smiling people in them, presumably made happy by the product they used. I even saw one sign showing a happy dog eating food that came right from a can.
It was late in the evening when our train finally arrived at the station in Washington. A chauffeur in a large black automobile met us and drove us to the Soviet embassy. There we were greeted by two men, one older, stout, with gray hair, a wide affable face, and wire-rim glasses whose side pieces dug sharply into his fleshy temples. The other man was in his forties, brown haired, with sleepy-looking eyes.
“Vasily, you old scoundrel,” said the older man, hugging Vasilyev heartily. He had a booming voice and an accent that was decidedly British. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“There’s a little more of me,” Vasilyev joked, patting his stomach.
“Nonsense. You look well. How’s Elena and the children?”
“Fine, fine,” he said.
“Brilliant,” the ambassador cried. “I assume you received my telegram?”
“I did, yes,” replied Vasilyev.
“We shall talk about the matter later.” Turning to the rest of us, he said, “Welcome. I am Ambassador Litvinov. This is Secretary Bazykin.”
I had, of course, heard of Maxim Litvinov. He was a well-known figure in Soviet history. We had read about him in school. A close friend of Lenin’s, he had been an early revolutionary and noted Bolshevik, and it was he who was largely responsible for getting Great Britain to become our ally (he’d even married a British woman), as well as for playing a role in the lend-lease program with America. As the ambassador spoke, his gray eyes lit up and his face broke into a broad smile, giving him an avuncular demeanor rather than that of a seasoned diplomat who could more than hold his own with the world powers. He warmly greeted each of us in turn. When he came to me, he glanced at the Gold Star medal on my chest and said, “Lieutenant Levchenko, your reputation precedes you. It is indeed a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied.
“Secretary Stalin sends you his warmest regards,” he said. “So tell me, how do you like America so far?”
I hesitated, not knowing quite how to answer, and also without alluding to Viktor and my little jaunt in the streets of New York.
“What I have seen of it appears…very wealthy.”
He let out a booming laugh, his substantial belly quivering.
“Yes, our dear American friends are blessed with many resources,” he said in an overly loud voice, as if he were speaking to a large audience. The reason for this would very shortly become apparent. “But they are generous with their resources and wonderful allies in our fight against Hitler. Yet enough of that. Come in.”
He led us down a hallway of the large mansion. We made a couple of turns and found ourselves in the kitchen, where a young, dark-haired girl wearing a maid’s uniform stood at a stove preparing something. I noticed Viktor giving her the eye. The ambassador opened a door and led us out into a small garden area behind the embassy. We followed him over to a shed at the rear of the property, in front of which was a tall stone wall that surrounded the entire backyard. He took out a key and unlocked the door to the shed, then stepped inside and bade us enter. I wondered what we were doing, if perhaps he was planning on showing us something of interest. Once inside
the cramped shed, I realized it was a place where various tools were kept. Shovels and rakes and saws hung from the walls, and on the floor rested a curious little contraption with wheels and curved blades that I would later learn was a machine to cut one’s grass. The room smelled of new-mown hay. In one corner, however, there was a chair and desk. Upon the desk sat a telegraph machine with headphones. When we’d all managed to crowd into the confined space, bunched tightly shoulder to shoulder, the ambassador closed the door and turned on a light, a bulb that hung loosely from the ceiling. I found myself shoved against the far wall, perilously close to the tines of a rake, with Gavrilov’s elbow pressed, I thought, needlessly hard against my breasts, his overpowering cologne making me almost nauseated. What on earth was going on? I wondered. In a whisper, Ambassador Litvinov answered my unspoken question.
“We have good reason to believe the Americans have put listening devices throughout the embassy. This,” he said, with a smile, “is the only place we can speak reasonably freely. During your stay here, it is important that you take care. Remember, the Amerikosy can hear everything you say.”
I pictured an enormous ear into which everything we said flowed. I wondered why the Americans would want to know what we talked about. Was I being naïve to think that Germany was the enemy, not us? But this was just the beginning of what I would come to think of as my “American” education.
“And how are things in Carthage?” Vasilyev asked the ambassador.
“As always, filled with petty intrigues,” Litvinov said with a smile.
Carthage? Though I didn’t know it then, I would soon learn that it was a code word for Washington, just as I would learn a number of other code words that the Soviets had devised in their language of secrecy and deception. The ambassador and Vasilyev spoke for a time, about things of which I had little understanding. Before we headed back into the main house, Ambassdor Litvinov turned to the three of us students.
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