Beautiful Assassin
Page 48
“Because of the Soviet agents?”
“Yes. I was told they were getting close,” replied Tat’yana Levchenko. “The Americans were afraid they would find me. Finally they moved me out here.”
“Did you fear they would find you?”
The old woman stared at Elizabeth. “I was certain they would.”
“Even after all these years?”
“You don’t know those people. They were not the sort to give up. They were…” Here she paused, searching for the right words, and, not finding them in English, she fell back on her mother tongue. “Bezdushnye. How you say, without a soul.”
“What was it like to feel yourself hunted all those years?”
“Like an animal, I suppose. Each time I see stranger in town, I fear it’s one of them. That they find me at last. Once these two young men come to my door. They are dressed in suits. Strangers don’t come here. I was home alone, so I went and got Walter’s rifle. I open door with gun in my hands, ask them what they wanted. It turned out they were those religious people. Mormons. I scared those poor boys half to death.”
With this the old woman let out a dry cackle, which made Elizabeth laugh too.
“And you thought I was KGB?”
“Yes. But…” Here the old woman paused, waving her hand before her face. “Does not matter anymore.”
“Did you ever hear from Mrs. Roosevelt?”
“I received letter. Many years ago. After her husband had died. After the war too.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked how I was. But she spoke mostly of her husband. How surprised she was at the pain she felt at losing him. That she cared for him much more than she ever realized.”
“Did you ever write back?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“And your husband?”
“You mean, my first husband?”
“Yes. Did you ever find out if he had lived or not?”
“No, I never find out.”
“Do you think they were trying to trick you into returning to the Soviet Union?”
“Who can say?”
“Did you ever hear from anyone else from home? Zoya?”
“No. It wasn’t permitted. I could have no contact with anyone from my past. It was as if my previous life had never happened. It was suddenly gone—like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.
“That must have been hard.”
The old woman shrugged. She seemed to be distracted again, stared vacantly out the window.
“What happened to Vasilyev?”
Tat’yana Levchenko pursed her lips in thought. “I do not know. But I owe him my life.”
“Why do you think he helped you?”
The old woman shrugged. “I think he was good man at heart. Like many of us who suffered through those times, he lived two lives. The one he needed to survive and the private one. The private one finally won out.”
Glancing at the photo on the wall, Elizabeth asked, “Did you tell your husband about your past?”
“No.”
“He knew nothing about what you did during the war?”
“He knew it was something I didn’t want to talk about. And he respected my wishes. Only because he’s dead I am talking to you now.”
“Did he know about your daughter Masha?”
“He knew I had been married before. That I lost my family in war.”
“And what of the captain?”
Elizabeth saw the old woman’s mouth harden, as if she’d just jabbed herself with a needle while sewing. Even after all these years it was evident that his memory was still very much with her.
“He died.”
“Oh, no,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “How?”
“He had to fly to Moscow for meeting. As interpreter. The war was almost over. On the return trip plane he was in ran into bad weather. They think it crashed into the sea. They never found any bodies.”
“But you had a chance to spend some time together?”
“Not very much, unfortunately. I had to go into hiding and he had his work. We did have one night, though.”
“Would you mind telling me about it? If it’s not too personal.”
The old woman smiled ruefully. “Everything I’ve told you is personal. What can one do that is more personal than to kill another human being? Back in Washington I was interrogated by American agents. They want to know what I knew, about Soviet spy network, about project called Manhattan and how much our side knew about it. I was shuttled from place to place, trying to keep one step ahead of chekist agents, who, it was known, had orders directly from Stalin himself that I was to be silenced. The last night Charlie and I had together was in hotel room in Washington. Mrs. Roosevelt had arranged for us to spend night together. We made love and later we lay in each other’s arms. We spoke of our future together, our life after the war. How we would get married. The places we would go, things we would do. He spoke of children again as he had that one time, and I just smiled and pretended it was something that would happen. I could not bring myself to tell him the truth.”
“Do you think if he’d lived you would have gotten married?”
“Who can say?”
“Oh, how very sad,” Elizabeth exclaimed.
The old woman nodded. “But it was long time ago.”
“And Walter? Did you love him?”
“We had a good life together.”
“That’s not the same as loving someone.”
“My mother was right when she said one can learn to love.”
“So you were happy?”
Tat’yana Levchenko smiled. “You Americans and your happiness. Let’s say that I was as happy as one can be who has seen so much sorrow. I consider myself very fortunate. America has been good to me. I had full life. I have no complaints.” She paused and glanced over at the photo of the young blond woman on the bookshelf. “I have wonderful daughter too.”
Elizabeth followed her gaze over to the photo. She assumed it had to be her husband’s daughter.
“Was that his child?”
“His?” she said, frowning. “No. Both of ours.”
Elizabeth frowned. “But I thought—”
“We adopted her.”
“I see. What is her name?”
The dog happened to wander in then, its nails clicking on the floor. It put its muzzle on the old woman’s lap and stared expectantly up at her.
“Do you have to go out, old girl?” the woman asked, petting the dog. With difficulty the old woman got to her feet and shuffled off toward the front of the house, the dog following on her heels.
She was gone for a while. Elizabeth stood, stretched, her muscles aching from sitting so long. She went over and picked up the photo of the young woman and stared at it.
When the woman finally returned, she was carrying something. She handed it to Elizabeth. It was a small black leather book, frayed with age. Opening it, Elizabeth saw that it was a notebook, the yellowed, brittle pages filled with words and numbers. There were what looked like poems and random thoughts and journal entries separated by dates. As she read along, she realized it was Tat’yana’s private notebook from the war, which included the log of her kills. At the back there was a single photograph wedged among the pages. Elizabeth removed it and stared at it closely. It showed three people, two adults and a child standing between them. The man was thin, with a serious expression, the woman pretty, dark-haired, the girl blond, perhaps two years old.
“That was us before war,” Tat’yana Levchenko said. “Kolya and Masha and me.”
“Your daughter was a very pretty child.”
“Yes, she was.”
Elizabeth turned back to the photo on the shelf.
“And your other daughter. What is her name?”
“Raisa,” the woman replied.
Elizabeth stared at her in surprise. “Raisa? Not—”
“Yes. That Raisa.”
“Oh, my God. How did you find her?”
; “Why don’t I make us some tea and I shall tell you all about it,” the old woman offered.
“Yes. That would be nice.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel is, first and foremost, a work a fiction. However, like almost all historical fiction, it combines the work of the imagination with real people and real events. In the novel, much of the fighting that is reported as having taken place during the siege of Sevastopol is based on fact. I tried to remain faithful to what is known not only about the fighting on the Eastern Front, but also to what was taking place in America during this early part of the war. My main character, Tat’yana Levchenko, does bear some striking similarities to an actual female Russian sniper of World War II, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, and yet, despite those similarities, Tat’yana is solely a creation of my imagination. Her thoughts, feelings, and actions are independent of any actual people.
Regarding Eleanor Roosevelt, I tried to remain faithful to what is known—or at least to what can be reasonably inferred by those more knowledgeable than I—about her personal life. At times I did consciously telescope or rearrange time sequences in her life as well as in the larger historical context of America during the war. For example, exactly when Enormous—the Soviet term for the Manhattan Project—was known to Soviet operatives working in America may have been premature by a few months, but certainly by late 1942 Soviet agents were on the trail of our atomic bomb project and already infiltrating it with spies. Also, I eliminated or combined some of the Soviet agents that were heavily involved in spying for atomic secrets.
The following books proved to be invaluable for research regarding the war on the Eastern Front: Russia’s Heroes by Albert Axell; Heroines of the Soviet Union, 1941–45 by Henry Sakaida; War of the Rats, by David L. Robbins; Stalin’s Other War, by Albert L. Weeks; Treasonable Doubt, by R. Bruce Craig; The Sword and the Shield, by Christopher M. Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin; WW2 People’s War: An Archive of World War Two Memories, developed by the BBC; and Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies of Soviet Women Soldiers, by Kazimiera J. Cottam. Regarding the extensive network of Soviet spying in America before, during, and after the war, The Venona Secrets by Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel was of enormous help to me in understanding just how extensive the Soviet spy network was in America. Regarding the life of Eleanor Roosevelt I am indebted to Blanche Wiesen Cook’s wonderfully frank but impressive portrait of Mrs. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. I, 1884–1933, and her relationship not only with Franklin but also with her lifelong friend Lorena Hickok.
I would also like to thank several organizations and individuals for their help in writing this book: the staff of the library at Fairfield University, who provided me with much-needed research materials, in particular Jonathan Hodge; Eastern Frontier Society and Steve Dunn for allowing me the time and quiet on Norton Island to work on the book; and Linda Miller, in the Department of English, dear friend and supporter in everything I do. I would like to thank my neighbors and good friends, Rita and Art, who often fed my body and nourished my soul when I most needed it.
My editor at William Morrow, David Highfill, is a writer’s dream of an editor and advocate, who not only supported and encouraged me in the writing of this book but also pressed me again and again to make it better.
Finally, and most important, I wish to acknowledge my ongoing gratitude to two dear friends and longtime supporters of my writing, my agents, Nat Sobel and Judith Weber, who continually amaze me with their penetrating insights into my writing, both when it works and when it doesn’t, and with their emotional support to help me carry on with it. Thanks for more than a quarter of a century.
About the Author
MICHAEL WHITE’s previous novels include the New York Times Notable Book A Brother’s Blood and two Connecticut Book of the Year finalists, The Garden of Martyrs and Soul Catcher. He is the director of Fairfield University’s MFA program in creative writing and lives in Connecticut.
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ALSO BY MICHAEL WHITE
Soul Catcher
The Garden of Martyrs
A Dream of Wolves
Marked Men
The Blind Side of the Heart
A Brother’s Blood
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
BEAUTIFUL ASSASSIN. Copyright © 2010 by Michael C. White. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
White, Michael C.
Beautiful assassin : a novel / Michael White—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-169121-8
1. Snipers—Fiction. 2. Women spies—Fiction. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Fiction. 4. Russians—United States—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.H47447B43 2010
813’.54—dc22
2009023911
EPub Edition © February 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-198698-7
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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