“A wife,” he said. “A friend.” He sniffed up a tear. “You.”
“What do you think I am?”
He bowed his head. “Be honest with me.”
I told him I was, and he asked that we sleep on it, to give it time before making any decisions. I had agreed, mostly to get away from seeing him like that, and we parted—him to the couch and me to my bed, where I spent the night listening to him tossing and turning in the other room.
* * *
—
The following day, a storm knocked out half the power in the District. As Teddy drove us to the office, we didn’t speak or turn on the radio. The only sound was the windshield wipers battling the driving rain. When we pulled into the parking lot, I slid off his grandmother’s ring and put it on the dash. He slumped forward, and I left him like that. I had nothing else to say, and I feared anything else would either hurt him more or stop me from getting out of the car. I’d been the one to end it, but it felt as if I was breaking my own heart—not the way Sally had, but in a way that made me feel even more adrift, as though I’d cut the one tether still holding me to the ground.
Teddy didn’t come in to the office that day, and I didn’t see him before I left. He’d retrieved his suitcase and was gone before I returned to the apartment. The next day, I was called into Anderson’s office and questioned about my relationship with Sally. I was told she’d been fired and that my relationship with her had been suspect, which I denied convincingly enough for Anderson to say he believed me. They were the ones who had taught me to become someone else, after all, to lie about who I was. And turning my new power back onto them felt good.
It was all too much to think about. And yet there in Brussels, looking at myself in a mirror halfway across the world, I still couldn’t put it out of my mind. But I needed to. There was no turning back. The mission had begun.
* * *
I wrapped my hair under a scarf and set out for the rendezvous point. Brussels was buzzing, the moon a half disc above the city. The streets were packed with fairgoers from around the world. Passing a crowded café, I overheard people speaking French, English, Spanish, Italian, Dutch. As I cut through La Grand-Place, a group of Chinese men and women stood in the square’s center, gazing at the top of Hôtel de Ville while passing around a box of chocolates. Two Russian men passed so close that one brushed my shoulder. Did the one in the fur cap look at me a moment too long? I didn’t turn around or quicken my pace. I just kept my gaze straight ahead and kept walking.
I arrived at the address my handler had given me on rue Lanfray, just off Ixelles Ponds. Standing in front of the grand Art Nouveau building, I was awed by its five stories of intricate inlaid wood and the swirling mint-green iron that climbed its façade like ivy. The entire house belonged inside an art museum. Ascending the curved cement staircase to the double front doors, I told myself I belonged there; or rather, the person I had become did. I pressed the gold buzzer once, counted to sixteen, then pressed again. I felt a light flush of perspiration at the nape of my neck. A man dressed as a priest opened the door. “Father Pierre?” I asked, in Russian.
“Sister Alyona. Welcome.” The sound of my new name caused my chest to loosen.
I shook his hand firmly, as Sally had taught me. “Pleasure.”
“We started without you.” I didn’t know his real name, nor did I know if Father Pierre was even Catholic. He wore the collar but had an ivory cashmere sweater draped over his shoulders as though he’d just returned from playing golf. In his early thirties, Father Pierre was blandly handsome with thinning blond hair, cerulean blue eyes, and a reddish beard. He ushered me in, and I followed him upstairs.
The flat was furnished with the luxurious but eclectic décor of someone who was new to money and had hired someone to give him taste. The mix of modern Danish furniture, seventeenth-century tapestries, and folk pottery gave the effect of wandering into a museum that had been shaken up inside a snow globe.
I was on time to the minute but the last member of our team to arrive. A man and a woman were already seated on a kidney-shaped couch, sipping cognac in front of a barely lit fireplace. The man known as Father David was the agent in charge of our mission. The woman, Ivanna—her real name—was the daughter of an exiled Russian Orthodox theologian and the owner of a Belgian publishing house that printed religious material. She was also the founder of Life with God, an underground organization that smuggled banned religious material behind the Iron Curtain. Her group had been working in conjunction with the Vatican since the fair had opened, and we were to follow her lead in how to most effectively distribute Zhivago.
Ivanna and Father David looked up when we entered but did not smile or stand. There was no need for introductions: they already knew who I was, just as I already knew who they were. I sat on the edge of a white linen lounge chair and they continued.
On the sleek black coffee table in front of them was an exact model of Expo 58, complete with blue-tinted mirrors representing fountains and pools of water, miniature trees, sculptures, flags of every nation, and the Holy See’s ski-sloped, white-roofed City of God pavilion—the location where the mission would take place.
It had been Ivanna’s idea to use the fair as a means of proselytizing, but it was Father David who took the idea and made it the Agency’s own. He believed Expo 58 would be the perfect location to get the book back to the USSR, and with it, to incite an international uproar over why it was banned.
Father David was soft-spoken but commanded attention, steady and confident as Chet Huntley on the nightly news. He also looked more like a priest than Father Pierre did, with his Boy Scout haircut, delicate pink mouth, and long fingers that one could picture holding up the Host.
Father David pointed to the model, showing us the separate routes we’d take in and out of the fair each day. If we suspected we were being tailed, we were to duck into the Atomium—the fair’s centerpiece, which stood a hundred meters tall and depicted the unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. We were to take the lift to the top of the aluminum structure, where there was a restaurant boasting a panoramic view of Brussels and a waiter ready to assist.
After giving us the overhead view, Father David moved the model to the floor and unrolled blueprints of the City of God. He pointed to the spot where Rodin’s The Thinker stood. “Father Pierre will be stationed here, circulating within the crowd to evaluate any Soviets who might make for potential targets,” he said. “Once they are identified, he will signal Ivanna by scratching his chin with his left hand.” He traced a path from The Thinker to the Chapel of Silence, his long fingernail scraping across the paper. “Ivanna will then usher them to the Chapel of Silence, where she’ll screen them for propaganda interest. If a target is receptive”—his finger moved around the Chapel’s altar to a small, unnamed square room—“she will escort them here, into the library, where I’ll be waiting with Sister Alyona.” He looked at me, then continued. “After a final assessment, the handoff will occur.” He pulled his hand back from the blueprints. “Oh, and one more thing: from here on out, we will only refer to Zhivago as the Good Book.” He sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Any questions?” When no one answered, he took us through the plan again from start to finish. Then he took us through it again.
With the plan cemented in our minds, we sat and talked, drinking red wine from teacups and smoking. Only then did I ask it: “The Good Book—is it here?” Ivanna looked at Father David and Father David nodded. “They were taken directly to the fair earlier today, but we have one here.” She walked to the foyer closet and pulled out a small wooden crate covered by an old mat. She removed the mat and picked up a book. “Here,” she said, handing it to me.
I was expecting it to feel illicit. I was expecting to itch with dissidence. But I felt nothing. The banned novel looked and felt like any other novel. I opened it and read aloud in Russian: “They loved eac
h other, not driven by necessity, by the ‘blaze of passion’ often falsely ascribed to love. They loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet.” I shut the book. I didn’t want to think of her. I couldn’t.
“Have you read it?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Ivanna said. Father David and Father Pierre shook their heads.
Opening the novel again and turning to the title page, I noticed an error. “His name.”
“What about it?” Father David asked.
“It should not be written as Boris Leonidovich Pasternak. Russians wouldn’t include his patronymic. They’d only write Boris Pasternak.”
Father Pierre puffed on his Cuban cigar. “Too late now,” he said, and held his hands in prayer.
* * *
The following morning, I carefully dressed in my padded brassiere and underpants, then slipped on the shapeless black habit and veil with a stiff white band that framed my forehead. I was forbidden to wear makeup of any sort; the woman from Hollywood said I’d have to make do with a dab of Vaseline rubbed onto my lips and the tops of my cheekbones for shine. But I didn’t even do that. Looking in the mirror, I liked how my face looked: raw, pale, maybe a little older. Stepping back to take in the full look, I felt sexless—and powerful.
At precisely 0630, I left the flat for my first day at the fair. If we did our jobs correctly, we’d have given out the last of the three hundred sixty-five copies of Doctor Zhivago by the end of the third day.
On the tram built to shuttle fair visitors from the city center to the Heizel Paleis, I spotted the Atomium. It was far larger than the model had prepared me for. The official symbol of the fair—printed on every poster, every pamphlet, and almost every postcard and souvenir—the nine-sphered Atomium was supposed to represent the new atomic age. To me, it looked more like a leftover set from The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The fair would not open for an hour, but throngs of people had already lined up outside the large iron gates. Impatient children pulled at their mothers’ purses; American high school students stuck their hands and heads through the fence, one almost getting stuck; a young French couple necked in public without regard to anyone’s stares; an elderly German woman took a photograph of her husband standing next to a woman dressed in the black skirt, black jacket, black tie, and black hat of a fair guide. It was a thrill to be surrounded by so many people while still feeling unseen. No one paid attention to the nun.
I joined the line of fair workers at the Porte du Parc gate, which led directly into the International Section. As I approached the guard, I took a deep breath and pulled out my Expo 58 badge. He barely looked at me as he waved me in.
It was extraordinary. The model hadn’t come close to depicting the enormity of it all. It was the first World’s Fair since the war, and an estimated forty million tourists from every corner of the globe were expected.
Except for the fair workers hustling to their positions and a brigade of broom-wielding women sweeping debris from the street, I had the main thoroughfare to myself. I passed the Thai pavilion and its multiple tiered roofs resembling a temple atop a gleaming white marble staircase. The U.K. pavilion bore a striking similarity to three white pope’s hats. The French pavilion was an enormous modern basket woven of steel and glass. West Germany’s was modern and simple, like something Frank Lloyd Wright might’ve dreamed up. Italy’s resembled a beautiful Tuscan villa.
I quickly located the American pavilion, and I couldn’t decide whether the building, surrounded with state flags, looked more like an overturned wagon wheel or a UFO. Immediately to its left was the Soviet Union’s behemoth—the largest pavilion by far in the International Section. It looked as if it could eat the American pavilion. Inside there were facsimiles of Sputnik I and II, which I longed to see. I’d never admit it aloud, but when Sputnik was launched, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride. I’d never been to the Motherland, but as I looked up at the sky the night the satellite was shot into space, I felt a connection to the place of my parents’ birth in a way I hadn’t before. That night in D.C. was cloudy, and I knew you couldn’t see it with the naked eye, but still I looked to the heavens, hoping to see a flash of silver streaking across the sky. So there, standing so close to the thing—or at least, a replica of it—I wanted so much to go inside Russia’s pavilion and see it, touch it.
But I couldn’t deviate from Father David’s plan.
On the other side of the American pavilion was my destination: the City of God. The Holy See’s white building, simple and sloping, appeared small enough to fit within the lobby of the USSR’s pavilion. I walked inside the quiet building, the clacking of my cheap black leather shoes echoing off the marble floors. Vatican workers scurried about, preparing to open. They mopped the floors, set out pamphlets, and refilled the basins with holy water. They said Hello, Sister as I passed, and I smiled the way I thought a nun might: with just the corners of my mouth.
Father Pierre was already in position—standing next to The Thinker, his hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. As I passed, his gaze didn’t break from the famous sculpture.
Down the vaulted corridor and into the Chapel of Silence, two nuns were readying the small altar facing the pews. They looked me over, then continued lighting the candles. Had I passed the test? If I hadn’t, the nuns revealed nothing. Nor did they react when I circled the altar and walked through the parting in the heavy blue curtains behind it.
“You’re here,” Father David said as I entered the secret library. He looked at his watch. “The public gates are open. You ready?”
I took my place on a wooden stool in front of the bookshelf filled with copies of the Good Book, each in its crisp blue linen cover. I was calmer than I’d expected, but Father David radiated nervous tension as he paced the small room. Four steps to the right, four steps back. I later discovered that it’d been two years since Father David had been in the field, the last time in Hungary, where he’d helped rouse the partisans to revolt against their Soviet occupiers.
We heard the first muted footsteps and whispers of visitors entering the City of God. I slowed my breath to see if I could hear what language the people were speaking. Was it Russian? Father David appeared to be listening too, his head cocked toward the opening in the curtains.
We waited on edge for our first targets to arrive, and I could feel small knots form between my shoulder blades.
Ivanna opened the curtain. Behind her stood a Russian couple, looking as if the Wizard of Oz’s curtain had been pulled back only to reveal a priest, a nun, and some books instead of a man pulling levers. I hesitated, but Father David didn’t. He greeted them warmly, in flawless Muscovite Russian. All nervousness gone, he’d transformed into the perfect priest—charming with a hint of power—whom upper-class parishioners would want to invite to Sunday dinner.
Father David asked the couple questions about their visit to the fair. How are you enjoying it? What sights have you seen? Did you come to see the Rodin? Have you visited the model of an atomic icebreaker? An astonishing feat of science. There’s a line to view it, but it’s well worth the wait. Have you tried the waffles?
In no time, Father David quickly ascertained the couple’s story. The woman, Yekaterina, was a ballerina with the Bolshoi performing nightly at the Soviet pavilion; the older man, Eduard, simply described himself as a “patron of the arts.” Eduard boasted of the woman’s performance the night before. “She left the audience breathless. Even from the corps.”
Father David jumped on this, telling the couple he had recently seen Galína Sergéyevna Ulánova dance in London. “It was life-affirming,” he said. “As if the Madonna herself had kissed the soles of Galína’s feet. She was the physical embodiment of poetry.” The couple agreed wholeheartedly, and with that momentum, Father David seamlessly transitioned into a more general
conversation about art and beauty—and the importance of sharing it.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Yekaterina said. From the rosy tint in her cheeks, it was obvious she was quite taken with the young priest and his passionate speech.
“Do you like poetry?” he asked her.
“We’re Russian, aren’t we?” Eduard answered.
The couple had come into the library only minutes earlier, and Father David was already turning to me to hand him a copy of the Good Book—which he in turn gave to the man. “Beauty should be celebrated,” he said with a holy smile. The man took the book and looked at its spine. He knew immediately what it was. Instead of giving Zhivago back to Father David, he licked his lips and handed the book to Yekaterina. She frowned, but at his nod, she put the book inside her purse. “I believe you’re right, Father,” Eduard said.
When it was done, the couple had taken the book and Eduard had invited Father David to sit with him in his box for Yekaterina’s evening performance. Father David said he would do his best to make it.
“It worked,” I said when they were gone.
“Of course it did,” Father David said, his voice steady.
Our targets came fast after that. An accordion player in the Red Army Choir hid the novel in his empty instrument case. A clown in the Moscow State Circus stowed it away in his makeup case. A mechanical engineer who’d grown up hearing her mother recite Pasternak’s early poems said she desperately wanted to read it but would likely do so only while at the fair. A translator who’d worked on the Soviet pavilion’s brochure in multiple languages told us he’d always admired Pasternak’s translations, especially his Shakespearean plays, and had dreamed of meeting him. Once, he’d seen the author dining at Tsentralny Dom Literatorov but had been much too shy to approach him. “I missed my chance,” he said. “But I’m making up for my cowardice by having this.” He held up Zhivago. Before he left, he gave me a copy of one of the Soviet brochures he’d translated. Inside was a map of the entire fairgrounds spanning two pages. I laughed as I noticed that the American and Vatican pavilions were markedly absent.
The Secrets We Kept Page 25