Siro

by David Ignatius

  Anna was fortunately seated by a window in an otherwise empty row, which meant that she didn’t have to talk to anyone. She took a sleeping pill after dinner, in the hope that she might get some rest. But all it brought her was the Bosporus nightmare. She didn’t sleep at all after that. She listened to the hum of the engine against the bulkhead and thought about Aram, and his cart-horse body, and the way he had held her at the door of her room at the Bristol Hotel in Paris. She tried to read one of her magazines; then a Graham Greene novel about a leper clinic in Africa, which did her no good at all. Eventually they served breakfast, but the coffee was weak and the roll was stale. Moscow couldn’t be far away.

  She was fortunate, in a way, that she hadn’t slept much. The fatigue dulled her anxiety as she approached her first encounter with Soviet officialdom at passport control. She didn’t feel nervous until the last moment, when she moved into the booth and the KGB border guard gazed up at her with steely blue eyes. Anna looked away, certain that her own eyes would betray her, and handed the man her passport and visa. Then she waited. The booth, like so many things in the Soviet Union, had been designed to intimidate the individual. It was lit by an unforgiving neon tube, which made even the most robust person look pale and haunted. Overhead, across from the passport officer, was a long mirror. It was tilted downward so that the officer could observe his supplicants from behind—could see their hands shaking, or their knees quivering, or their feet tapping nervously.

  Anna’s hands were at her side, clenched in tight and sweaty fists. The officer was taking his time, examining her passport, then her face, then her visa. She caught his eye again, involuntarily, and she could feel her head twitch, even as she tried to hold it steady. The KGB officer looked at her passport one more time, studied another sheet in front of him, and then rose from his seat.

  Oh, dear God, thought Anna. They’ve made me. I’m on a watch list. She felt a sensation of pure terror, and a sudden surge in her metabolism—like a kettle boiling over. Stone had warned her about this moment. There would be no way to know whether the Soviets had identified her as an intelligence officer until she was on their doorstep, standing in the passport line at Sheremetievo Airport. The young, blue-eyed officer returned, accompanied by an older man. He looked at Anna’s visa and passport, then at Anna, and then whispered something. Please, let it all happen quickly, thought Anna. Let the older one tell me in Radio Moscow English: Excuse me, Miss Barnes, would you come with me, please? That way, at least, it would be over.

  But it was only beginning. The young clerk fixed his eyes on Anna a final time, closed them like a shutter, and stamped the visa. He handed it back to Anna. His face showed no emotion whatsoever. Anna was relieved, almost giddy, as she walked toward the baggage-claim area. It was only when she had retrieved her suitcase and was heading for customs that she realized her relief was premature. Of course they would clear her through passport control, even if they had a firm identification of her. Now that she was in their country, they owned her.

  The first real harbinger of disaster came at the Intourist desk at the airport. Anna was supposed to go there on arrival, to arrange a transfer to Vnukovo Airport for her Aeroflot flight that evening to Yerevan. She handed her book of Intourist vouchers to the woman at the desk, who studied it for a long while, checked a list, and then looked up at her. Why am I on all these lists? wondered Anna. She felt the surge of anxiety welling up again.

  “Well, I guess I have good news for you,” said the Intourist lady, in that strange, too colloquial English that is taught in Soviet language schools.

  “What’s that?” asked Anna.

  “I think you will have an extra night in Moscow, at Intourist Hotel across from Red Square, with no charge.”

  “What do you mean?” Anna was numb from fatigue and stress, but she could tell that something bad was happening.

  “That was a joke, I guess. What I mean is that we have a problem with your flight from Vnukovo to Yerevan. Flight 837 has been delayed.”

  “How long?”

  “Until tomorrow.”

  Calm down, Anna told herself. Keep cool. “What time tomorrow?”

  “Maybe it will be in the morning.”

  “What time?”

  “Nine, ten, eleven. I don’t know. Maybe it will be in the afternoon.”

  “What’s wrong? Isn’t there another flight? I have to get to Yerevan. I’m really looking forward to Yerevan.”

  “I am sorry, but it is not convenient.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not convenient’? I have a reservation for a flight tonight.”

  “That flight has been delayed,” repeated the woman blandly.

  “Could I please speak to the manager?”

  Anna realized immediately that she had made a mistake. Russians have a huge chip on their shoulder in dealing with Americans, and are just waiting for someone to try to pull rank, demand special privileges, or otherwise embody the Soviet propaganda image of the pushy, grasping American capitalist. It is a losing game. The only thing that makes anyone special in the Soviet Union is the blessing of the Soviet government. And that, Anna certainly did not have.

  “Well,” said the offended Intourist lady, “I think probably you can talk to me, because I am the manager. And so I will tell you your program. You are going to Intourist Hotel tonight. Tomorrow morning, an Intourist car will take you to Vnukovo for your flight to Yerevan, which has been delayed. Now an Intourist car will take you to the hotel.” The woman nodded in the direction of a burly driver, who did not offer to carry her bag. Anna realized there was absolutely no point in arguing further. She would leave for Yerevan the next day, November 9.

  Anna settled into her room on the seventeenth floor of the Intourist Hotel, overlooking Gorky Street. The desk light didn’t work; the window wouldn’t open; there was a television set, but it was broken. She unpacked her bag and took a long shower. There wasn’t any shower curtain, so the water sprayed all over the floor. Anna dutifully mopped it up. The city was like that; it reduced you to peonage in a few hours’ time. As Stone had once observed, Moscow was a vast Skinner box that had been created to condition behavior—among foreigners and Soviet citizens alike.

  Anna wrapped herself in a towel and waited for her hair to dry. She thought seriously of giving up. From the scene at the airport, it seemed possible that her identity had been compromised. A worse problem, in some ways, was the delay in her flight to Yerevan. Unless she arrived in time to find Dr. Antoyan, the whole trip would be useless. She decided to take a walk, to clear her head. It was midafternoon by now, and there was a November chill in the air.

  She walked across Marx Prospect, watched the guards at the Lenin Mausoleum in the dying afternoon sun. A Soviet couple—just married, the bride in a white wedding dress—had come to have their picture taken in front of the Mausoleum. What a pathetic way to start a marriage, thought Anna. They must be party members. She followed them out of the square, toward a subway stop. On a whim, she entered the subway station, paid her five kopecks, and rode to Komsomolskaya. She changed trains and took the circle line all the way to Culture Park, on the other side of town, and then rode the red line back toward Marx Prospect. She wasn’t looking for surveillance or trying to avoid it. She was simply trying to get a feel for a new city, the way any tourist might. Still, she had a pleasant sensation, sitting in some of the nearly empty cars, that she was not being followed. And that was enough to allow her to sleep, fitfully, the night of November 8.

  Anna awoke early the next morning and took her assigned car to Vnukovo Airport, southwest of the city. She went to the Intourist desk there and confronted another stone-faced matron. No, there was no word yet when the delayed flight to Yerevan would be leaving. Yes, there was another flight for Yerevan leaving in fifty minutes, but there were no seats. It was a special flight. “Fully booked, fully booked,” the woman repeated. She suggested that Anna go to the café and have something to eat; she would come and collect her when the flight was ready.
That at least sounded like a plan of action. But an hour passed, with several cups of tea and a gooey chocolate éclair but no sign of the woman. Anna returned to the small wooden door of the Intourist office.

  “Not time, not time,” said the matronly clerk. Seeing Anna’s distress, she took pity on her and motioned for her to sit on the couch in the office. Two other Americans were already camped there—Dickran and Marj Kazanjian from Glendale. They were also waiting for the delayed flight to Yerevan.

  “Call me Dick,” said Dickran Kazanjian. He lowered his voice. “They say this happens all the time with Aeroflot.”

  “They say there’s nothing you can do except wait,” added Marj Kazanjian. She, at least, had brought along some knitting.

  So they waited through the morning and early afternoon. It was eleven o’clock, then noon, then one. Dick and Marj suggested lunch, but Anna wasn’t hungry. A little after two, the Intourist lady announced that she had good news. Flight 837 would be leaving for Yerevan soon.

  “What time?” asked Anna.

  “Five o’clock.”

  “But that’s when Flight 837 was supposed to leave yesterday,” said Anna. “Why didn’t you just tell us yesterday’s flight had been canceled?”

  “Flight 837 has been delayed,” said the Intourist lady, and there was obviously no point in arguing.

  Anna now began worrying in earnest about how to cope with the delay. The flight from Moscow was scheduled to take just over three hours; Yerevan was an additional hour behind Moscow, so they would arrive, at the earliest, a little after 9 p.m., Yerevan time. It would take at least an hour to get to the hotel and check in. So it would be ten o’clock before she could begin to look for Dr. Antoyan. By that time, his office would undoubtedly be closed. She had his parents’ home address, but that was all.

  The flight finally left at five-twenty. It seemed to Anna to take forever. She was wedged in a middle seat, between a gentle Armenian lady in her mid-fifties and a garrulous old Armenian man who kept dispensing loud opinions to his seatmates—including Anna, who didn’t understand a word. She tried to pass the time by reading her Graham Greene novel about the leper colony, but she kept reading the same page over and over again. A Russian flight attendant came by, handing out pieces of chicken wrapped in cellophane. Anna passed up the chicken; the Armenians on either side devoured theirs and handed the greasy bones back to the stewardess.

  Anna’s first sense that they were nearing Yerevan came when people began crowding over to her side of the plane. The Armenian woman had her nose up against the window, but she backed away so that Anna could see. To the left of the plane, visible in the moonlight, was a ridge of snowcapped mountains.

  “Ararat?” asked Anna. The woman shook her head. Not yet. But several minutes later, Anna saw the woman peer out the window again, and then put her palms together and say a quiet prayer in Armenian. “Ararat,” she said, pointing out the window to a snowy moonlit peak, rising eerily out of a flat plain toward the heavens. Anna could see that there were tears in the corners of the woman’s eyes as she gazed on this symbol of Armenia and its tortured existence. So here I am, thought Anna. I have arrived in the nation of victims, where people grieve even on airplanes.

  Anna shared a car in from the airport with the Kazanjians, who chattered away with the enthusiasm of diasporan Armenians coming home. They were all staying at the Armenia Hotel on Lenin Square in the center of town. Anna stared out the window while the Kazanjians talked about Cousin Simpad and Uncle Garabed. It was a high, dusty city; most of the buildings had been constructed of the same pinkish stone. The city had a recurring architectural motif as well—a high, rounded arch with the graceful curves of the Armenian alphabet, which looked as if it was all “U”s and “M”s.

  It was ten o’clock when they reached the hotel; the Kazanjians invited Anna to join them for dinner in the hotel dining room, but she begged off. By the time she had taken her bag up to her room, a depressing little cubbyhole with mildew stains on the walls, it was ten-twenty. Her best bet to reach Aram, she decided, would be to go directly to his parents’ place and try to find out from them where he lived. But how? It would be folly to take a taxi from the hotel at this hour. Any hotel driver would undoubtedly also be a part-time police informer. She looked out the window of her room and saw the play of lights and fountains in Lenin Square. People were out strolling, which meant there might be a few taxis on the streets.

  Move, Anna told herself. Don’t waste another minute. She put the address of Aram’s parents in her purse and headed for the square. There was a seedy-looking group of men by the door, and as Anna left the hotel, one of them came after her. He wasn’t even subtle about it. When he called out something that sounded like “I love you, baby,” Anna was relieved. He was just a hustler, trying to pick up a Western woman. Anna got more catcalls from the Armenian teenage boys who were sitting astride the fountains, smoking cigarettes. Fortunately, she also attracted the attention of a taxi driver. Anna handed him the address, which Aram had written out for her in Armenian characters. The driver nodded and began chattering away in Armenian as he drove up the hill. He left Anna off at an apartment complex near the radio tower, overlooking the city. She asked him to wait, in halting Russian, but when she gave him the money, he sped off.

  It was just after eleven when Anna knocked on the door of the Antoyans’ second-floor apartment. A white-haired man shuffled to the door in his bathrobe. He had to be Aram’s father. The eyes gave him away. He looked at the American woman standing on his doorstep as if she were a creature from another planet.

  “Vot Antoyan Aram?” she asked. Is Aram Antoyan here?

  “Nyet,” said the father. He might have closed the door on her if his wife hadn’t padded up behind. She had a gentle, studious look that also reminded Anna of Aram. Neither of them spoke English, and Anna’s Russian wasn’t up to the task. But Aram’s mother spoke passable French, so they conversed in that language.

  “I met your son in Paris,” said Anna. “We are friends.”

  Mrs. Antoyan smiled, as if she knew exactly what that meant.

  “I have come to Yerevan on a visit. I would like to see your son while I am here.”

  “I am sure he will be very happy to see you,” said the Armenian woman. “He talks often of his time in Paris and the friends he met there.”

  “Does he live here? He gave me this address in Paris.”

  “Oh no. He is a grown-up man now,” she said with another motherly smile. “Too old to live with his mother and father.”

  “I would like to see him soon,” said Anna.

  “Very well. You can visit him tomorrow at the hospital. I will give you the address.”

  “No. I have that address. Actually, I would like to see him tonight if that is possible.”

  This request was a bit forward for Mrs. Antoyan. She blushed. Here it was, nearly midnight, and a complete stranger was trying to get in bed with her son. Evidently it was true what they said about American women.

  “Perhaps it is too late tonight,” said the Armenian lady, trying to preserve a measure of decency.

  All things considered, Anna was pleased that Mrs. Antoyan had her pegged as a woman of loose morals. She did her best to reinforce that impression.

  “Please,” said Anna breathily. “I want to see him very much. Won’t you give me the address?”

  At this point, old Mr. Antoyan broke in and mumbled something in Armenian—which Anna suspected translated roughly as “Give the bitch Aram’s address so I can get some sleep.”

  “I can give you his address,” said the old woman. “But I don’t think he’s there now.”

  “Why not? Where is he?”

  “With friends. You should not ask about these things. You should try tomorrow.”

  “I would like the address,” said Anna.

  Aram’s mother rolled her eyes. She wrote out the address on two sides of the paper, in Russian and Armenian characters, and gave it to Anna.

  �
�Thank you so very much,” said Anna. “I have missed him terribly, and I can’t wait to see him again. Perhaps we can all meet for dinner.”

  “Perhaps so,” said Mrs. Antoyan. But she looked dubious. It was all right for her son to sleep with this loose American woman, but dinner was a different matter. In an Armenian household, dinner was a sacrament.

  “Good night,” said Anna, waving goodbye. Old Mr. Antoyan scanned her legs and gave her a wink before closing the door.

  Anna walked back to the main road. Finding a taxi at this hour in a suburban neighborhood would be next to impossible. But she suspected that in Yerevan, as in most Soviet and Eastern European cities, a private car might be willing to take her for a few rubles. She walked downhill, toward a large petrol station a few hundred yards away, gesturing with her outstretched hand for a car to slow down and pick her up. She waved off the first driver who stopped. He was a heavyset man, obviously intoxicated, who looked as if he wanted to screw her. The next car contained a young couple. They were passing Anna by, but she gestured frantically and they pulled over. She handed the address to the woman, with a desperate look on her face.

  “Pazhalusta!” implored Anna. The woman whispered something to her husband, who thought a moment and then nodded. Aram’s flat was back toward the center of town, near the Opera House. The couple sat in silence in the front seat, evidently wondering what on earth a foreign woman could be doing, alone, in a Yerevan suburb at midnight. Anna worried, for a moment, that they might be taking her to a police station. But after fifteen minutes, they pulled up to a four-story building on a narrow side street.