“No, he did not.”
“But wasn’t his U.S. citizenship revoked?”
“It was not revoked as punishment. It was revoked when he became a Soviet citizen.”
“So the answer would be yes?” said Rankin politely. “It was revoked?”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “It was revoked.” He almost wanted to voice his own objection.
“Captain Barrington, did your father commit treason,” asked Rankin, “against his own country, the United States, by spying on it for the Soviet Union?”
“No, Congressman,” said Alexander. “He did not.” He forced his hands to remain steady. Oh, Dad, look what you’ve left behind for me.
They stopped questioning him to take another short recess.
“What happened to Harold and Jane Barrington after they were arrested in 1936 in Leningrad?” asked Rankin when the meeting resumed.
“They were executed in 1937.” Alexander gave Burck a look that said, this is what I think of your “record is unclear,” gentleman from State.
“On what charges?”
“Treason. They were convicted of being American spies.”
There was a pause. “Convicted, you say?” said Rankin. “Of being American spies?”
“Yes. Arrested, tried, convicted, shot.”
“Well, we know for a fact,” said Rankin, “that they were not spying for the United States Government.”
“With all due respect, Congressman,” said Burck, “there is nothing in Mr. Barrington’s record that shows the details of his parents’ alleged conviction. There is only his account of it, and he, by his own admission, was not present at their trial. And the Soviet Government exercises the privilege of not releasing information about its own citizens.”
“Well, they released plenty of information about a certain Alexander Belov, Mr. Burck,” said Mr. Rankin.
“As is also their privilege with regard to their own citizens,” said Burck and quickly went on before Levine could object. “I think we must keep perspective on why we’re here, which is not—despite the Congressman’s best efforts—to re-examine the Soviet Union’s role in world conflict, but simply to ascertain whether Mr. Barrington is who he says he is and whether he poses security concerns for us here in the United States. There are two vital questions of order before this hearing. One, is Mr. Barrington an American citizen? Two, is Mr. Barrington a Communist? I, for one,” Burck went on, “think that we should look a little more closely at the former and not the latter, for I think it is very easy to see witches every-where”—he paused and coughed—“particularly in today’s political climate. However, as to the first point of order, Mr. Barrington does not deny that he was a Soviet citizen. The Soviets to this day are maintaining that he is still a Soviet citizen. Perhaps we should rely on concurring information.”
“The gentleman’s own State Department established Mr. Barrington’s American birthright two years ago when they granted him safe passage from Berlin,” said Rankin. “Is this something the gentleman would like to dispute with his own department?”
“All I’m saying,” said Burck, “is that the Soviet Union is disputing it. That is all.”
“The Soviet Union that executed his parents?” said Rankin. “His parents who surrendered their U.S. citizenship, became Soviet citizens and then were tried and shot? I am not in complete agreement with the gentleman from State with regard to the Soviet Union’s reliability on matters of Captain Barrington’s lineage.”
“We don’t know for a fact his parents were executed, Congressman,” retorted Burck. “Was Captain Barrington present at their execution? It’s just speculation, frankly.”
“Mr. Burck is correct,” said Alexander. “I was not present at their execution. However, I was present at my own arrest. I am not speculating on my own ten-year sentence to hard labor.”
“Wait, wait,” said Thomas Richter, looking into his notes. “Captain, you said before you were sentenced to twenty-five years.”
“That was the third time, Lieutenant,” said Alexander. “The second time, I was sentenced to the penal battalion command. The first time it was to ten years. I was seventeen.”
There was silence in the room.
“I think,” Richter said slowly, “that it’s probably safe to conclude that Captain Barrington is not a Communist spy.”
“Only according to the words of Captain Barrington himself,” said Burck. “We have no way of verifying the truth of his statements, except to check it against the records of the country where he lived, where he maintained his citizenship, and in whose army he served for eight years.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Rankin incredulously, “but is the gentleman from State contending to the chairman of HUAC that Captain Barrington is a Communist?”
“No, no, a Soviet citizen,” rejoined Burck hastily.
Sam and Alexander exchanged glances. Matt Levine, dumbfounded, asked in a slow voice if anyone had any further questions for his client.
“I’m wondering, Captain Barrington,” said Rankin, “if you would be so kind as to answer two questions for me, please, sua sponte, two questions that I had posed to William Bullitt, this country’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union.”
“Objection!” And that was Burck!
Alexander didn’t know what was going on. Sua sponte? He stared questioningly at Sam, who waved his hand slightly, to say, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir.
Rankin turned slowly to face the man from State. “I believe only counsel is allowed to object.” Turning back to Levine, he said, “Do you have any objections to my asking your client two questions, Counsel?”
“Well,” Levine replied, “my client hasn’t heard the sua sponte questions. I would rather not object in principle.”
“Except I know the questions the honorable Congressman posed to Ambassador Bullitt last year in a public session,” said Burck. “We all know them, everyone in this room knows them, and they are completely irrelevant to these proceedings. Are they going to help you determine if this man is a loyalty risk, Congressman?”
“I don’t know them,” said Alexander.
“The answers will tell me where his heart is,” said Rankin. “After all, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”
Congressman Rankin was right. Tania fully believed that.
Levine said quietly to Alexander, “Sua sponte means of your own accord. Choose to answer or not answer.”
“I’d like to answer the congressman,” said Alexander.
“Captain Barrington,” said Rankin, lowering his drawling voice, “is it true what we heard—that they eat human bodies over there in Russia?”
Not expecting it, Alexander flinched. It was a good ten seconds before he opened his mouth to answer. “I think, Congressman,” he said slowly, “that we don’t need to invent horrors about the Soviet Union. What is true is that during the great famine in the Ukraine in 1934, and during the blockade of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944, there have been instances of people killed for their flesh.”
“As compared, say, with the ongoing blockade of the American sector of Berlin,” said Rankin, “during which no one is eating anyone’s flesh?”
“Because the U.S. Government is air-dropping all the food and supplies its citizens need.” Alexander sat stiffly. His voice was curt. “The instances you heard about are in no way a reflection of the Russian people. These are extenuating circumstances. After all the horses and rats are gone, there is nothing left. It’s impossible to fully represent to this hearing what it is like for three million people in a large, civilized, modern, cosmopolitan city to starve to death. Really, it cannot bear any more discussion.” He lowered his head momentarily, looking at his balled-up hands.
Burck stared at Rankin with unconcealed glee. “Oh, please,” he drew out, “can the Congressman from Mississippi proceed with his next question to Captain Barrington, who obviously knows a great deal about the Soviet Union.”
After pausing gravely, Ra
nkin spoke. “On further consideration,” he said, “I have no more questions for Captain Barrington.” Looking thoughtfully at Alexander, he closed his notebook.
Burck’s smile was irrepressible. “Does anyone else have any more sua sponte questions for Captain Barrington? Anyone? No? Then does counsel wish to conclude?”
After looking in his notes for a couple of minutes, Levine stood up. “Yes. Our stipulation is that Captain Alexander Barrington is a man who went to the Soviet Union as a minor, changed his name to save his life, joined the Red Army because he had no choice, and is now back home as an American citizen. His two-year absence from a debriefing, while troubling, is not sufficient evidence of any espionage activities or communist sympathies. And since there is no other evidence against him, I motion that these proceedings be called to end and that my client’s name be cleared of all charges.” He sat down.
Rankin moved to adjourn and the seven men got up and left the room.
Alexander and Levine were left alone.
“What did Rankin ask Bullitt last year?” Alexander wanted to know. “What was his second question?”
“Rankin asked the ambassador if people were just like slaves in Russia,” Levine said. “Bullitt apparently replied that they were.”
Alexander said nothing.
“So how do you think it went?” he asked Levine after a short silence. “As good as can be expected,” Levine said, closing his notes. “But perhaps we should have gone with plan A.”
“I’m beginning to think so myself,” said Alexander.
“Richter quite liked you. Is that a soldier thing? You have Sam’s vote. That’s two. All you need is two more. Probably won’t be getting Burck’s. Maybe the mute colonel’s? That’s three right there. And Rankin? I think he would’ve been happier if you had told him publicly and for the record that mothers eat their little children with glee in that live slave beast pit, the Soviet Union. But there you go.”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “But you did very well, Counsel. No one could have done better. Thank you.”
“Thank you, Captain. Thank you very much.” Levine beamed and left to go get Alexander more cigarettes.
As Alexander remained alone in the executive room, waiting for seven strangers to decide on his life, he tried to focus on things from which he could draw sustenance at a time like this: Sundays on Nantucket, sitting on boats, smelling the ocean, picking sea shells, playing with his friends. Memories of himself as a happy American boy, just a few years older than Ant. But he couldn’t drum up any of those memories now, that breath of sunshine he needed as he drummed tensely on the table.
Levine came back with cigarettes, asked him to stop drumming. Alexander walked to the open window, sat on the ledge and smoked instead; o mercy. He inhaled deeply, held the smoke in his throat, the cymbals of nicotine clanging into his lungs.
All things considering, he couldn’t complain. Many times the vicissitudes of life had gone in his column. When he jumped off a moving train into the Volga River, he did not hit boulders and smash his head open. His column. When he got typhus, he did not die. His column. When a shell exploded and ripped open his back, an angel flew over him and poured her blood into him. His column.
But he was not thinking of his column. Night had long fallen.
He was thinking of the other column.
He thought about Tatiana’s brother, Pasha, about carrying him on his back for three days, Pasha so hot he couldn’t breathe.
Alexander held snow to Pasha’s head, bandaged his oozing leg wound, pleading, praying, disbelieving. I didn’t find him in the mountains of Holy Cross to watch him die. Find him, save him, perform a frontline tracheotomy on him—
“Pasha. Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you.”
“What’s wrong? What’s hurting? I cleaned your leg. What’s the matter?”
“I’m burning up.”
“No, you’re fine.”
“I can’t feel my legs.”
“No, you’re fine.”
“Alexander, I’m not . . . dying, am I?”
“No. You’re fine.” Alexander looks right at him. He doesn’t blink. If he can look straight and narrow, brave and indifferent, into Tatiana’s pregnant face and lie to send her forever away, to give her her only dim chance of survival, he can find the strength to look at her brother before he is forever away. Though he must admit, he doesn’t feel quite as strong. Pasha is half lying, half sitting on the ground, propped up against Alexander.
“Why do I feel like I’m dying?” says Pasha, his breathing lower, more shallow. He is rasping. Alexander has heard this rattle a thousand times, the rattle of a dying man. But this is Pasha! He cannot die!
“You’re not, you’ll be fine.”
Pasha whispers, “You’re lying to me, you bastard.”
“I’m not.”
“Alexander,” he rasps, “I can see her!”
“Who?” Alexander nearly drops Pasha to the ground.
Tears trickle down Pasha’s face “Tania!” Pasha cries, extending his hand. “Tania. Come, swim with me one more time. Just once more across the Luga. Run with me across the meadow to the river, just like you did when we were kids. You are my sister.” He stretches out his arm to something near Alexander, who is like an apparition himself, shell-shocked and ashen. He actually turns to look. Pasha is smiling. “We are in the Lake Ilmen boat. She is sitting by my side,” he whispers.
That’s when Alexander knows—the impossible is true.
Alexander carries Pasha dead on his back for one more day in winter Germany, refusing to believe what could not be believed, refusing to bury him in the frozen ground.
Now, sitting on the windowsill in the Old Executive Building, Alexander admitted that a world in which Tatiana’s vanished brother could die because he got his trouser leg caught on a rusty nail, was a world in which armed forces sometimes did not go into your column.
Inhaling the nicotine, Alexander closed his eyes. He did not see her by his own side—at least that was something. Tatiana, who always sat by the dying, was not here with him.
At Catowice, a supervisor had died, and was buried in a casket! Some of the men complained, including Ouspensky, including Pasha. Alexander had been digging one or two mass graves a day for the last several weeks, and here was a man buried by himself in a casket. Grumbling over his bowl of oats and boiled carrot shavings, Pasha said to Alexander that maybe they should complain. “Yes, you go ahead,” Alexander said. “But I tell you what— you’re not working hard enough. That man has been here for three years. He was a respected work supervisor and a favorite of all the prison chiefs because he made their jobs easier.”
That evening, Pasha drew up twenty leaflets by hand regarding the man buried in the coffin. “REMEMBER! WORK HARD!” his leaflet said. “IF YOU WORK HARD ENOUGH, YOU TOO CAN BE BURIED IN A WOODEN CASKET!”
“Now isn’t that encouraging?” said Pasha with a big grin as he distributed the handmade leaflets. And Alexander agreed with a smile of his own that it was.
The seven men came back. Alexander stood at attention.
The vote on the questions put before the committee was four to three, with Rankin casting the deciding vote—that Alexander Barrington be cleared of all suspicion against him.
It had taken Alexander seven hours with two breaks to sing for his freedom.
When Sam came over, he looked nearly happier than Alexander. “John Rankin, chairman of HUAC, voted to clear you of communist conspiracy charges!” he exclaimed. “Is Tania going to think that’s fantastic, or what?”
“Ironic is more like it.” Alexander didn’t notice the deep tension in his shoulders until he breathed out when the gavel struck. He shook Sam’s hand.
“I swear, if Rankin asked one more question about your parents, I was going to become a communist myself just to spite him,” Levine said.
“Oh, that would spite him,” Sam said. “He lives for that. You know what he said, Alexander? It was the
question about the cannibals that decided it for him.”
“Really?” That was surprising.
Sam shook his head. “That’s what I said. But Rankin said, out of the abundance of your heart, the mouth spoke.”
Sam introduced Tom Richter to Alexander. Richter saluted him. The lieutenant was tall, good-looking in that athletic, light-haired American sort of way, well-built, brash. He had a strong handshake, and in the hall, he laughed. “So what did you think? A nail-biter or what? Walked into a den of wolves, didn’t you?”
“No shit.”
“What you don’t know,” said Richter, “is that the graying graceful Southern gentleman John Rankin is second in popularity only to Satan among the members of State. Isn’t it true, Mr. Gulotta?” He was loud and unapologetic.
“Not true, Lieutenant Richter,” said Sam, only a little quieter. “Satan is much more popular.” You could tell Sam and Richter were friends.
The four men stood in the hall and had a nice long smoke. Richter was thirty, a year older than Alexander. He had been with MacArthur in Japan during the war, and was likely to be joining him again now that certain troubles were brewing at the 38th parallel between North and South Korea.
Richter said he only came to the hearing because he had heard so much about Alexander from Sam. “Defense is very interested in the mechanics and hierarchy of the Red Army, and your command of Russian and knowledge and understanding of Soviet activities.” He smiled. “Nice touch there, keeping quiet about your wife.”
“Yes,” said Alexander. “I do not speak about my wife to her enemies.”
“Well, that Sachsenhausen story was pretty remarkable even without her. I think if you mentioned that your unarmed Donut Dolly of a wife was in the trees with you and had helped you escape, those men would have had a fucking heart attack.”
Alexander laughed then, comfortable with Richter, and relieved.
“You might not know about us,” said Richter, “but we at Defense know quite a bit about you.” He asked if Alexander would be interested in getting a security clearance so he could do some limited military intelligence analysis for the U.S. Army. “Very rare to find a fluent bilingual speaker.” Richter said there was so much rapid-fire international activity going on—the Communist insurgencies in Greece, in Yugoslavia, the ongoing near-collapsed negotiations with Mao in China, and the acquisitions of classified documents from the USSR regarding their atomic program, that to get periodic analysis on raw data from someone like Alexander would be a tremendous boon to the Armed Services Committee, and the Military Intelligence arm of the U.S. Army. “Consider the last eight hours part of your security interview.” Richter grinned.
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