Beautiful Assassin

by Michael C. White

  Through the door, I said in English, “Yes?”

  A familiar voice replied in Russian, “It’s me.”

  I quickly opened the door, and without thinking threw my arms around Jack Taylor. I was never so happy to see anyone.

  Surprised, he said, “I came as soon as I could. Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I replied, then changed my mind and said, “No.”

  “Your note sounded urgent. What’s the matter?”

  “I have been doing a lot of thinking. There is something…what I mean is…” I paused for a moment, wondering why exactly I had asked him here. I started to say something about Viktor, stopped, started again, this time about Vasilyev and what he had warned me about the captain, then, before I knew it, I began to cry. Soon I was sobbing.

  The captain came over, put his arm around me, and held me.

  “It’s all right,” he said soothingly, rubbing my back.

  “I’m so…sorry,” I blurted out. “I’m so terribly sorry.”

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “For what I’ve done to Mrs. Roosevelt. To you.”

  “It’s all right,” he said, stroking my hair. “Everything will be all right.”

  “No, it…won’t be all right,” I uttered between sobs.

  “Tat’yana, whatever it is it can’t be that bad.”

  “It is.”

  He lifted my chin so that I was looking up into his face. His hazel eyes shone with such tenderness and concern.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Instead of saying anything, though, I kissed him on the mouth. I kissed him with all of the pent-up sadness and frustration, anger and bitterness and heartache that the war had filled me with. Kissed him too with the desperation of one who had feared that there was nothing left inside her soul save hatred. But mostly I kissed him because I knew then, as I had never known in my life, that I loved someone. That line from Tsvetaeva that Madame Rudneva had read to me so long ago appeared suddenly in my mind: Ah! is the heart that bursts with rapture. My heart then did seem to burst with a kind of rapture I had never known.

  “I love you, Jack,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything at first. Just smiled that soft, rumpled smile of his. Then he kissed me back.

  I don’t know who made the first gesture after that, but in a moment our uniforms were shed, and we stood naked before the other, as innocent and yet as frightened as children. When I looked at the stump of his left arm, he frowned, embarrassed, and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you mustn’t think that,” I told him, recalling the young burned soldier back in the hospital in Baku, who had been so worried that his beloved would no longer think of him as handsome. And how I had lied to him and said she would. Now though I wasn’t so sure it was a lie. I touched the stump gently, ran my fingers along its bumpy knots, its sharp recesses and contours. When I put my lips to it and kissed it, he shivered like a little boy who is ticklish. “Look,” I said, showing him my own scars. He kneeled before me. With his fingertips he traced the long, rough scar that sliced across my stomach.

  “I love you, Tat’yana,” he said, looking up at me. When he placed his warm, soft mouth against the scar and kissed my skin, I trembled and clutched his head so that I wouldn’t fall, pressing him tightly against me. I thought of telling him what the scar meant—that I could never have children—but right then it didn’t seem to matter. He was all that mattered, and I was all that mattered to him. We existed in our own little world, a world where nothing else mattered. He kissed me again, lower, and I cried out his name, the passion blooming in me like a flower lifting its head toward the sun. When we made love, he gazed deeply into my eyes, a murmur resounding in his throat as he entered me. “I love you, Tat’yana,” he said.

  “I love you, Jack.”

  Afterward, we lay in bed, spent, indulging in that sweet drowsiness following lovemaking, when the body is emptied of passion but the heart is even more filled with love. We lay side by side, touching each other, gazing into each other’s eyes. I wanted never to leave that bed, that room, that moment, for I knew a security I had never known before.

  “So did you really want to tell me something?” he asked. “Or was that just a ruse to get me up here and seduce me.”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But how do I know I can?”

  “I love you. And you love me. That should be enough of a reason.”

  “What I tell you might place you in an awkward position.”

  “I told you, you can trust me. Whatever it is. I promise.”

  So I went ahead and told him about Viktor, that I feared something terrible had happened to him.

  “Remember you asked me what order he had refused, and I said I didn’t know. Well, that wasn’t true. They wanted him to do certain things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “To act as a spy.”

  “A spy?” he said.

  “Yes. They wanted him to carry information between Soviet agents.”

  “What happened?”

  “He refused. I think Viktor was planning to defect. He even wanted me to come with him. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps they found out about him. I am worried about what will happen to him.”

  “I could make some inquiries. See what I can find out.”

  “But only if you can do it discreetly.”

  “I’ll talk to my friend in the State Department.” He looked at me, waiting. “And what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You said you were sorry. For what you did to Mrs. Roosevelt. To me.”

  I hesitated, still wondering if I should tell him everything, every last despicable secret I had been witholding. You see, I had gotten so used to lying—to Vasilyev, to Semyonov, to Mrs. Roosevelt, to the captain, but most especially to myself, I suppose that it had become almost second nature to me. I realized that it was what the Soviet system had fostered in the hearts and minds of its people: that deception, if practiced long enough, becomes its own truth.

  “It is very complicated, Jack. They lied to me. Vasilyev and the others. About why they wanted me to come to the States. They told me I was here to promote the war. But their real reason was that they wished for me to spy too.”

  “What did they want you to do?”

  Though I was still suspicious of who Jack Taylor was, I decided to trust him. I explained everything to him. How they wanted me to find out things about Mrs. Roosevelt, hoping to use it to blackmail her.

  “That’s crazy,” Jack cried.

  “Yes, I know. These men are very crazy. But also very dangerous.”

  I went on to tell him that they had taken pictures not only of us but also of Mrs. Roosevelt and Miss Hickok, how they were prepared to use them to “persuade” her to cooperate.

  “What did they expect to get from her?” Jack asked.

  “Many things. Whether her husband was going to run for office again. If he was planning on meeting with Churchill. Most important, they hoped to obtain information about a secret American project.”

  “What sort of project?”

  “A new weapon which you Americans are evidently working on. It’s called Manhattan. Have you heard of such a project?”

  “No,” he said, frowning. “But then again, why would I?” As he stared at me, his expression slowly changed, and there came over his eyes what I thought of as a certain glimmer of understanding. He smiled. “So that’s why you asked about those scientists?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought it was odd. So just what do you have to do with all this?” he asked.

  “I told them nothing of consequence. I swear. And nothing about her and Miss Hickok. She is my friend. I would never hurt her. But to keep them off my back, I decided I would have to give them things, lies, half-truths, something that would occupy them. For instance, I told Vasilyev that Mrs. Roosevelt said her husband had met with one of those scientists.”r />
  He laughed at that. “Very clever. And how did I figure into your plans?”

  “You?”

  “Yes. Isn’t that what this is all about?” He said this with a wave of his hand, indicating us, our relationship, what we had just done.

  “No. No, of course not. I mean, they wanted me to but…”

  “But what?”

  His face took on an aggrieved, almost pouty look.

  “Is that why you slept with me?” he asked, his tone turning petulant.

  “No,” I replied, reaching out and touching his face. “I did so because I wanted to. Because I love you.”

  “Am I supposed to believe that?”

  “Yes. You must believe me. I never wanted to do any of this. I wanted only to help defeat the Germans. That’s why I agreed to come. The rest…well, they lied to me. They lied about everything.”

  He was silent for a moment, pondering all I’d confessed to him. Finally he said, “Well, we have to do something then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t let them get away with this. They’re stealing military secrets. I’m a soldier too. I have my own loyalties.”

  “But you promised. You said I could trust you, Jack.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know it was this. My God. They’re spying on us.”

  “If you tell them, you could be putting me in danger.”

  “What would you have me do? I can’t sit back and do nothing.”

  I shook my head.

  He rolled onto his back, put his hand behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. “What do you want to do, Tat’yana?”

  “I don’t know. As I said, Viktor had tried to talk me into defecting.”

  “Do you want to defect?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s all so sudden. I can’t even think straight.”

  “It would be very tricky because of your position. You’re too well known. And our government might not want the trouble it would cause with your government. But, on the other hand, if your life was in danger, they might consider that. Or if Mrs. Roosevelt knew about this, she could pull some strings, I’m sure.”

  “But she would be very disappointed in me. For what I did.”

  “You didn’t mean to. They forced you. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

  “Don’t do anything just yet,” I said to him. “I need time to think about it.”

  “All right. But we will have to come up with a plan, and soon too.”

  We lay quietly there for a while. Finally I asked, “Were you always called Jack?”

  “Since I was a kid.”

  “Who were you named after?”

  He stared at me, knitting his brows in confusion.

  “What’s this about my name?” he said.

  “Nothing,” I replied. But then I found myself saying, “Vasilyev said that you weren’t who you say you are.”

  “Who did he say I was?”

  “He didn’t. Just that I needed to be careful with you.”

  He turned toward me and touched my cheek. “You don’t believe him, do you?”

  “No.” Then for emphasis, I added, “No, of course not.”

  “Because if you can’t trust me, who else are you going to trust?”

  “I do trust you,” I said.

  “Good. Because we’re going to have to trust each other. I should probably go.” Before he left, he leaned over the bed and kissed me. “I love you,” he said.

  I was going to say something like how being in love with me wasn’t a good idea, that he shouldn’t count on me, that I wasn’t free to give myself completely to him. But instead, I said the only thing that seemed to matter at that moment. “I love you too.”

  21

  Over the next week, before everything was to collapse like a house of cards, I gave myself over completely to being in love with Jack Taylor. I say “gave,” as if I had some actual choice over the matter. The fact is, I fell in love so fully, so wholly and unconditionally, I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d wanted to. And I didn’t want to. Despite still not trusting him completely, I surrendered to my feelings. I was inexperienced in the ways of love, a novice when it came to the intricacies of passion and touch, of the way the gaze of a lover seemed to ignite one’s soul. Whereas with Kolya, my choice had seemed a surrender, with Jack it felt like liberation, the way a prisoner must feel whose cell door was suddenly thrown open after years of confinement. I loved his hazel eyes, the soft fullness of his lips, his earlobes, the boyish cowlick at the top of his head, the hard plane of his stomach. I loved the way his missing arm made him appear so vulnerable, so delicate and fragile. I loved the way he would whimper when he entered me, and the way afterward he would run his long fingers through my hair. We made love with the lights on, savoring the other’s naked body. Jack touched me in ways I had never been touched.

  We pursued our passion with a recklessness that both startled and yet made me feel, for the first time ever, alive, vibrant, like the woman I was always meant to be. We behaved rashly. We threw caution to the wind. We ran to each other’s embrace every moment we could, this despite being always in the reflected glow of the First Lady, as well as the fact that Jack and I were both conscious of being spied upon by Soviet agents. (Besides Dmitri, there were now two other chekisty who suddenly appeared, sinister-looking men we first took notice of in Chicago and later on the train. The two lurked at the periphery, pretending to read an American newspaper but eyeing us clumsily from a distance.) But knowing they were there, we were usually able to elude them. We conspired to find moments alone and capitalized on those. Late at night on the train Jack would slip into my berth. Or if we were staying somewhere, he would come to my room after everyone was asleep, take me in his arms, and make love to me. Once, after giving a speech at the University of Chicago, I excused myself to use the bathroom. Jack followed me and we slipped into an empty science classroom for our tryst. Giggling like children, aroused by the fear of being caught, we tore at each other’s clothing and made frenzied love behind a table filled with beakers and Bunsen burners. Afterward, I had to appear at a press conference. Vasilyev leaned toward me and indicated that one of the buttons was missing on my tunic: “You’re getting rather careless, Lieutenant,” he said, but more a caution rather than an admonishment.

  In restaurants we held hands beneath the table. With my boot, I would rub his leg, and over dinner our gazes would meet as I found myself counting the seconds before we could be together again. Whenever we were standing in an elevator his hand would brush my leg, and I’d feel a tremor of desire ripple through me. We sent each other missives declaring our love for each other. In one letter he wrote, “To my precious beloved, always and forever, J.” In bed we would talk about our “future,” as if we actually had one. The things we would do, the places we would go, conjuring a distant, faraway place on the horizon in which we were together. Though, of course, I think we sensed on some level that we didn’t have a future. We had only now, these few stolen moments to share, but this fact seemed only to kindle our passion.

  For her part, Mrs. Roosevelt seemed to know about the captain and me, and implicitly gave us her blessing, with a wink or nod of understanding. Occasionally she even arranged for us to be together, like some matchmaking aunt. She would send us off under the pretense of Captain Taylor continuing my tutelage of English. “You need to work on those irregular verbs, young lady,” she’d say, giving Miss Hickok a knowing look. Or sometimes she would glance at me and smile that crooked, adorable smile of hers. Once at a dinner for a veterans group in Des Moines, she leaned toward me, squeezed my hand, and said, “Ya rada za vas” (“I’m so happy for you”).

  And I was never more happy in all my life, and yet, never more afraid. Yes, I was afraid. I had not been afraid in the war, not of German bullets or bombs, but I was afraid now. Before, you see, I had nothing to lose. Now I had everything to lose. I was happy. I was in love, and love makes a person very vulnerable. It made me want to cling
to life with a fierce determination. I didn’t want to lose this feeling, one I had been waiting for all my life. I worried constantly. I felt every moment, most especially during those glorious ones in which I was in his embrace, that something bad would befall us, felt this looming sense of impending disaster. That Vasilyev or Semyonov would find out that I had been lying to them, that they would realize I was no longer their pawn to be manipulated as they saw fit, and have me sent back home. I feared they would view me no longer as a Hero of the Soviet Union, but as an Enemy of the People.

  Several times, Jack tried to convince me I should defect, that it was my only choice.

  “I contacted my friend at the State Department,” he told me once as we were having coffee in the dining car. Outside the window, the overcast day lay suspended over the bare, ocher-colored plains unfurling to the hazy gray of the autumnal horizon. At the other end of the dining car I spotted those two men, the new chekisty who had begun to watch us. One was squat and powerfully built, with a broad face; the other thin and wiry, with a small, sharp nose like a chicken’s beak. “I told him about your case.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He spoke to some people in the OSS.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They deal with this sort of thing,” was how he explained it. “There’s a chance my government could offer you political asylum.”

  “But I’m not sure yet.”

  “What are you not sure about? It’s not as if you have a lot of options, Tat’yana,” he said, his hazel eyes fixing me in their stare.

  “It’s just that I’ll be leaving everything I know—my home, my country.”

  “You’re tired of doing their dirty work, right?”

  “You know that I am.”

  “And you don’t want to end up like Viktor.”