“Comrades,” he said, “I want to tell you that your dedication and sacrifice on behalf of the Motherland here will be of no less significance to our ultimate victory than that which you made on the field of battle. Much will be asked of you, and you must obey with the same unquestioning loyalty that each of you showed while fighting the Germans. A grateful nation will honor your actions.”
What did all this mean? I wondered.
Before dinner, we were shown to our rooms in order to relax and freshen up. The toilet was down the hall, and as I was heading there, I happened to meet Viktor coming out of his room. He pulled me into his room and shut the door.
“What did I tell you?” he whispered into my ear. “They’re cooking up something.”
“What do you think the ambassador meant by all that?” I asked.
“Who the fuck knows. But whatever it is, it’s a lot more than we’re being told.”
That evening the three of us students had dinner with the ambassador, his wife, and Secretary Bazykin, while the two chekisty and Radimov took their meal in the kitchen. I was seated next to Mrs. Litvinov, an elegant woman who spoke fluent Russian but with a decidedly British accent.
“It’s such a pleasure to have another woman around,” she offered, patting my wrist with a thin, bejeweled hand. She had a long, sharp face, high cheekbones, and a ready smile, and while not beautiful she had that English charm. “All my husband wants to do is prattle on about the war. This battle, that battle,” she said, arching her thin, penciled eyebrows. “Frankly, I find it all quite boring.”
“My dear,” the ambassador said to his wife, “we have Comrade Levchenko to thank for bringing that boring war just a little closer to its conclusion.”
“Can’t we please just give it a rest for one night, dear?”
“Through our friends here in America we’ve set up something called the Soviet War Relief Fund,” the ambassador explained. “We hope to raise enough money to—”
“Maxim! Enough!” Mrs. Litvinov chided with a smile. “These poor students have come all the way from the front. Let them relax and enjoy themselves for one bloody evening.” The woman was not at all like the dour, plain wives of most of the big-shot Party members, no doubt in part because she was British. Then in a whispered aside to me she said, “My hairdresser is coming tomorrow. I could have her do yours if you’d like.”
“Why, does it not look all right?” I asked, touching my hair self-consciously.
“It’s fine for the front. But you’re going to meet the president and First Lady tomorrow. You will want to look your best.”
“I suppose…if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all. It shall be fun, just us girls,” she said, smiling benevolently. Then she reached over and picked up my hand. “And those nails certainly won’t do. We’ll have to get you a manicure too.”
As we sat sipping wine, servants brought out platters of food. The ambassador and his wife proved to be gracious hosts, laughing and chatting easily, drawing each of us into conversation. They talked about the four-day student conference and the sights they wanted to show us around Washington. Vasilyev too was in rare form, swilling down the ambassador’s wine and talking of old times before the revolution.
“This is very good,” Vasilyev said, regarding the wine.
“It’s Château Maresque, thirty-six.”
“There is nothing good to be had anymore back home.”
“That’s the trouble with war,” Litvinov lamented. “Hitler gets all the good French wines now.”
At one point the ambassador stood and proposed a toast. “To our brave young men and women who have defended the Motherland in its darkest hour. And with our dear American friends,” he added, rolling his eyes, “we shall have victory over the fascists.”
When it grew late Ambassdor Litvinov told us, “Tomorrow will be a big day. A press conference at noon. Then meeting the president and First Lady at the White House. I imagine you are all quite tired from your trip. You should get some rest.”
Mrs. Litvinov brought me up to my room.
“If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask. Toiletries. Makeup.” Then smiling confidentially, she added, “Feminine items. Heaven knows, these men wouldn’t think of such things. Do you have a slip to wear for tomorrow, Lieutenant?”
“A slip?” I said. “Why, no.”
“Come with me, dear. They can’t expect you to look your best without a slip.”
She led me down the hall to what must have been her room. She went over to a bureau and removed a slip.
“Here,” she said, handing me the silk undergarment. “I think we are about the same size. You can use this until we have a chance to get you some clothes. I’ll speak to Maxim tomorrow about seeing that we purchase a few necessities for you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Litvinov. You are very kind.”
“We girls have to watch out for each other,” she said with a laugh.
After breakfast the next morning, Mrs. Litvinov showed me upstairs to a small sitting room off her bedroom. There an American woman dressed in a blue uniform arrived to do our hair. She brought her own suitcase filled with scissors and brushes and various other paraphernalia of her trade, and she began with the ambassador’s wife. While I waited, the woman gave me a magazine to peruse, on the cover of which was a pretty, well-dressed woman holding a small white dog. “That’s what they call a fashion magazine,” Mrs. Litvinov told me in Russian. “You might get some ideas for your hair looking through that.” I thumbed through the magazine, gazing at pictures of beautiful women sunning themselves beside pools or riding in large automobiles or seated at some elegant dinner table. It seemed that American women inhabited lives of mindless ease, unconcerned about the stark necessities of life. Like princesses in fairy tales, they never touched a shovel or lifted a single brick.
When it was my turn, I sat in the chair, and the American woman draped a cloth over my uniform. She said something in English, which Mrs. Litvinov translated. “She wants to know how you would like your hair done, my dear.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” I said.
Mrs. Litvinov gave the woman instructions, using her hands to demonstrate how she wanted my hair to be cut.
“I told her to take a little off and put some curls in it. You have such lovely hair, a little curl will look good on you.”
The ambassador’s wife stood there looking on, occasionally giving instructions in English to the woman. We chatted while the hairdresser worked, as dark clumps of my hair fell about my shoulders like ashes in the war.
“Are you married, Lieutenant?” the ambassador’s wife asked me.
I hesitated for moment, recalling Vasilyev’s warning. But then I thought he had meant that only for the Americans. “Yes,” I replied.
“Where is your husband?”
“He is at Leningrad.” I paused before adding, “He’s been reported missing.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, her face wrinkling with empathy. “I’m sure he’ll be found safely.”
“Please don’t tell anyone I’m married, though. Comrade Vasilyev didn’t want—” but then I lowered my voice, thinking how the Americans might be listening to us. “He didn’t want the Americans to know.”
“Why not?”
“He wants them to think, well…that I am unattached,” I replied.
“What!”
Whispering, I explained to her what Vasilyev had said to me.
“That’s absurd. Who does he think he is?” Then, shaking her head, she added, “I’ll speak to my husband.”
“No, please,” I said. “I’d rather you not.”
“Well, if you insist. But watch yourself around Comrade Vasilyev. Beneath the smiles and bonhomie, he’s rather an unpleasant sort of fellow.”
Mrs. Litvinov didn’t ask any more about my personal life, for which I was grateful. She spent the rest of the time telling me about life in Washington, the parties an
d dinners she’d recently been to, the best places to dine, where to buy clothes.
“Do you know Mrs. Roosevelt?” I asked.
“Of course. Ellie and I are good friends.”
“What is she like?”
“She’s something of an acquired taste,” Mrs. Litvinov offered with a smile.
“What do you mean?”
“She marches to her own drummer. The woman wears the most dreadful outfits, especially for the wife of the president. Doesn’t care a fig about her personal appearance. She goes out in public looking like a peasant.” She laughed at her own joke. “But she’s also the most sincere woman I’ve ever known. And completely fearless. Not afraid to speak her mind. Even with her husband. I fancy you and she will hit it off nicely.”
When the hairdresser was finished, the woman held up a mirror for me to see her handiwork. I stared at myself, surprised but pleasantly so, to see the change my new hairstyle made in me. My hair was shorter and swept back in soft waves, framing and highlighting my face. It actually made me look younger, even pretty, like one of the women in the magazine.
“What do you think?” Mrs. Litvinov asked.
“I like it very much.”
“It’s quite flattering on you, my dear. Believe me, you will turn some heads at the White House tonight.”
Later that morning, Vasilyev met me in the hall outside a large room on the first floor of the embassy where the press conference was going to be held.
“What on earth did you do with your hair?” he said, looking me over critically.
“Mrs. Litvinov suggested I have it cut. Why, don’t you like it?”
He leaned in and whispered, “You look…too American.”
“What does that mean?”
“They are expecting a soldier from the Soviet Union. Not Lana Turner.”
I had no idea who Lana Turner was. “It is you, Comrade, who is always harping on the importance of my looking presentable.”
“But I want you to look like a simple country girl. You should have cleared it with me first.”
“I didn’t know I would need your permission to have my hair cut,” I replied crossly.
“Here,” he insisted, taking my cap out of my hands and setting it on my head. He adjusted it, stuffing my hair up under the sweatband. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening, then said, “They are broadcasting the press conference on the radio. Millions of Americans will be listening. This will be their first real contact with a Soviet citizen. Be sure to tell them how pleased you are to be in America. How much you are looking forward to meeting the First Lady. Also, try to work into your responses the importance of America opening a second front.”
We then entered the room, which was crowded with reporters talking and holding cameras and little notepads. We headed up to the front and sat behind a table set up with a bevy of microphones.
“Good morning, Lieutenant,” said Viktor, who was already seated next to Gavrilov. “Are you ready for the show?”
Gavrilov leaned across and said, “You look quite nice this morning, Comrade Levchenko. Have you done something different with your hair?”
“I had it cut.”
“You look radiant.”
After a while, three Americans—two civilians and a soldier who had the insignia of an officer—entered the room and proceeded up to the table. One of the civilians, a gray-haired man with a stern, deeply lined face, greeted Ambassador Litvinov, and the two conversed amiably in English, as if they were old friends. Litvinov, who spoke English fluently, then introduced us to the Americans. The gray-haired man was someone named Charles Bowen, an assistant to President Roosevelt. The other civilian, a slight, mustachioed man in a white linen suit, was Robert Swall, a reporter from CBS Radio, who would act as moderator. The soldier was a Captain Taylor. He was tall and fair, with short, receding hair. The most obvious thing about him, though, was that the left sleeve of his tunic was empty and pinned to the shoulder. He smiled as he shook our hands and welcomed each of us with “Dobro pozhalovat’ v Ameriku.” He spoke Russian fluently.
Mr. Bowen said something to us, and the captain translated for him. “On behalf of the president, Mr. Bowen extends his warmest greetings. The president is very appreciative of your bravery on the field of battle and looks forward to meeting you all.”
After this, the press conference got under way. The ambassador stood and in English briefly introduced the three of us students to those in the room. I watched as the reporters scribbled in their pads. Then Mr. Swall, with Radimov translating for us, explained how the journalists would go up to a microphone they had stationed at one side of the room, state what newspaper they worked for, and then ask their questions, which Radimov would translate for us. We would then make our replies into the microphones in front of us, after which the American captain, who sat on the other side of Vasilyev, would translate for both those in the room and those listening on the radio. It seemed needlessly complicated, and I didn’t quite understand the need for two interpreters, but evidently each side wanted to make sure that they weren’t misquoted.
At first the reporters put questions of a general nature to all of us. About what we thought of America, the upcoming peace conference, the prospect of meeting Mrs. Roosevelt, the war in the East. Gavrilov did most of the talking to start with, making it appear that he’d been in the thick of things. As he spoke, Viktor shot me a sardonic look. Viktor was asked a few questions—where he’d fought, how he’d gotten the scar on his face. I sat back, content to quietly observe the proceedings. After a while, though, I slowly became the focus of their questions. I was, no doubt, a curiosity to them, a woman soldier, a sniper, an oddity as interesting as a bearded lady in a carnival.
“Miss Levchenko,” one reporter said, “can you tell us why you fight?”
The question, of course, struck me as patently absurd, but I did my best to answer it.
“As you Americans do, I fight because of a love for one’s country. And because of my hatred for the enemy.”
“Is it true that you’ve recorded three hundred and fifteen confirmed kills? The most of any Soviet sniper.”
I glanced over at Vasilyev before answering. “I cannot say for certain if that is the most. But that’s what I have been told.”
One man went up to the microphone and asked if it was hard to pull the trigger.
“The key,” I replied, “is to calm your breath and gently kiss the trigger, not pull it.”
“What I mean is, is it hard to kill a man?”
I shrugged. “They are the enemy. It is my duty to kill them. One’s skill at killing is merely a matter of controlling one’s breath. Making the heart go still.”
At this I heard a collective groan, as if I’d said something that offended them.
“But you are a woman,” the reporter persisted.
With a masklike smile, I said, “I am glad you noticed, sir.” This evoked laughter from the crowd. “No one takes pleasure in killing, not even Germans. But I do take pride in my job. In defending my country.”
Another man said, “Some newspapers have called you the Beautiful Assassin. Do you mind being called that?”
“What woman would mind being called ‘beautiful’?” I replied. Before translating my words, the American captain glanced over at me, and I could see that his mouth held a hint of a smile. The reply elicited more scattered laughter from those in the room.
One reporter asked me if I wore makeup or nylons into battle. When he asked this I noticed some of the men looking at my legs beneath the table. I replied, with as much politeness and decorum as I could muster, that such frivolous things did not concern a soldier when he or she was fighting, that all of one’s attention had to be focused on the task at hand, otherwise one could be killed. Another wanted to know if the men in my unit watched their language in front of us women.
“No. We women are not such fragile things as you may think.”
“But doesn’t such coarse languag
e offend the sensibilities of Soviet womanhood?”
“We can hold our own as far as cursing,” I offered with a smile.
More laughter, this time loud and raucous. I could see that they considered me “interesting,” a novelty that might help them sell their newspapers.
“Miss Levchenko, has the war made you any less feminine?” asked another.
“It has certainly toughened me, if that is what you mean. But beneath my uniform, I am still a woman.”
“America doesn’t permit women to participate as combatants,” began one reporter. “What do you think about the Red Army allowing women to fight?”
“It is not a question of allowing us to fight. We must fight. Every available body is needed to defeat the Nazis.”
“But do you think women are cut out for battle?”
“No one is cut out for battle,” I replied. “It is something one has to learn. Both men and women. But I do think women have more patience than men.”
This last comment brought a couple of whistles from the men. Another reporter wanted to know if I was married.
“No,” I replied, again looking at Vasilyev, who gave me an imperceptible nod.
They asked many other questions, many of which were quite foolish. At one point the moderator asked of the three of us students, “What would you like to say to the American people?”
When it was my turn I said, “I would like to thank the Americans for their support. We soldiers in the field greatly appreciate it. But we desperately need more help. Not just guns and trucks. We sometimes feel we are fighting the Germans alone. We need you to open a second front. Not in a year or two. But now.”
When the press conference was over, the captain approached me and offered his hand in greeting. In Russian he said, “I just want you to know how proud America’s fighting men are of your bravery. You are really an inspiration for us.”
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