A Shadow in Moscow, page 10
I sit straight. It’s the new lightweight radar my lab is developing to fit within the MiG-23 fighter jets—a pulse radar that can “look down and shoot down” any target. And considering America’s President Reagan’s increasingly vitriolic and anti-Soviet rhetoric, many are eager to get their hands on it. The gossip among the scientists is that some Politburo members are so terrified of the US and its nuclear capabilities, they relish the idea of employing this technology in a first-strike capacity.
My stomach drops and I set to work. This is the system Minister of Defense Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov has been waiting for. His office has sent daily update requests for the past two weeks, making everyone on this project twitchy for today’s hard deadline. Because finished or not, I fly to Vienna tomorrow for my first face-to-face meeting with Petrov. Everyone is terrified something will go wrong.
Rumor is the minister of defense doesn’t care how the radar is wired or about the intricacies of the circuitry, technology, or aviation, though I still need those answers. He wants the details as to how high and low it captures enemy aircraft, its coverage and range capabilities, who has the technology to detect it or stop it, and—if all those answers please him—how much it will cost and how quickly it can be produced.
And lest I forget—as his last request outlined in detail—I need to report on how many lives it can save and, most important, how many enemies it can kill.
Petrov sees a new weapon to use against the United States of America.
I see Scott.
* * *
“Nyet.” I spread my feet shoulder-width apart as if preparing to withstand a blow. The leather soles of my loafers slip on the linoleum. I shift, center myself, and repeat my one word. “No.”
“No?” Comrade First Lieutenant Wadim Rogov stares at me. He didn’t misunderstand either word; he’s simply shocked.
I’m shocked, too, but for entirely different reasons. “You can have no reason to ask this of me.”
This afternoon I handed my drawings and notes for the RP-23 radar to our lab’s KGB officer. He’s the one who will arrange their secure transport to tomorrow’s meeting. Yet Rogov seems convinced I’m spiriting State secrets away to Vienna on my person. In front of everyone lining up to go home, he has basically ordered me to submit to a strip search.
“You are carrying confidential material out of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This is standard procedure.” He waves his hand at me as if I am no more than a bug to him. A pesky one. “You will comply.”
“But I’m not. I’m simply getting on a plane, as ordered, and walking Minister Petrov through the work your superior, Comrade Captain Stanslych, took from me earlier today. There is nothing on me.” I pat my arms, my hips, my thighs. I hold my palms out. Nothing here.
“Remove your coat. Untuck your blouse. Take off your shoes.” He narrows his eyes. “I will not ask again.”
He didn’t ask the first time, but I keep my mouth shut. His tone tells me I’m not going to win this one. It’s a direct order and you obey direct orders. I remove my coat, untuck my blouse, slip off my loafers, and stand stock-still. The line behind me has silenced. Every eye and ear are focused on the two of us.
Rogov takes his time. He starts at my neck, right behind my ears, and pats me down from head to toe. Thoroughly. No floppy disk, piece of paper, scrap of tissue, or errant strand of hair could evade his hands.
Halfway down my body, my mind drifts back to a meeting with Sasha and I hear my words, as if spoken in this moment rather than a year and a half ago. “They’re Americans, Sasha. They have constitutional rights against that kind of stuff.”
The memory is bright and convicting, blinding me with truth. That’s the difference, I think. Forget the bedazzled clothes, the neon colors, the malls, the plentiful vegetables. Forget it all. It’s window dressing hiding the truth. None of that matters because only one thing counts.
Rights.
And I have none.
I glance behind me. Now each person in line is staring at the floor, the wall, the back of someone else’s head—anywhere and everywhere but at me. They are all scared they could be next. And they might be.
When Rogov reaches my feet, he gestures to my waist and waits for me to tuck my blouse back into my skirt. He then waves his hand to my shoes. I slip on my second shoe and he tosses me my coat, after running it through his hands like wringing water from a dishrag.
Beyond humiliated but unwilling to let him see a glimmer of it in my eyes, I snatch my coat and march out of the building. A gust of wind hits and fills my eyes with tears. That’s what I tell myself.
I dash them away with a single swipe of my hand. Wind or no wind, no one is going to see me cry. Ever.
I march straight home. I’d planned to meet friends out, but I call Dmitri and tell him I can’t make it. I lie and say I don’t feel well. “It was something I ate at lunch today.”
“You can eat anything.”
“I’m not coming out,” I whine. “I’ll see you when I get back from Vienna.”
I can tell he doesn’t believe me, but I throw down my lie once more with conviction and hang up. I can’t tell him the truth, not on an open phone line. Besides I’m not sure he wouldn’t side with Rogov. His education at MGIMO was very different from mine at Georgetown.
I crawl into bed until a pounding at my door drags me out. “Stop that banging!”
Dmitri fills the doorway. He says nothing as he steps past me into my apartment. “You’re coming out for dinner. Something comforting and easy on that delicate stomach of yours. Get dressed.”
I don’t argue. I don’t want to. I leave him in my tiny anteroom and go pull on a pair of jeans and a sweater. He’s holding out my coat for me when I return.
“Bully,” I whisper, but there’s no bite to it.
“Wimp.”
Within minutes we’re seated at a little place down my street that serves dishes that remind you of an ideal home—a home in the country where your babushka has fresh produce from her garden and all the time in the world to cook it to slow perfection. An imaginary home.
I try to tell him about Rogov, but I can’t. Halfway through my kundiumy—dumplings made with mushrooms, greens, eggs, and buckwheat—my anger morphs to shame. Because I should have known better.
“You go to Vienna tomorrow?”
“Yes. But unfortunately, I’ll be back tomorrow night. I was hoping to stay and see the city. Have you been?”
“If I have I can’t tell you.” He winks, but his voice feels forced rather than light.
When I first got home over a year ago, Dmitri brought his MGIMO buddies out with us all the time. They were shiny and bright—newly minted from the State’s top school—and they “owned” the atmosphere. They exuded secrets, power, and a slick arrogance that drew everyone to them. Dmitri was the shiniest of them all, calling for shots and wooing a handful of girls each night.
He wasn’t interested in any of them. He was simply trying to have fun—frantic fun, yes, but still fun. It was contagious. We’d laugh, dance, and drink, and he made me feel shiny too. I could put away my day and my dreams and, sitting or dancing with him, believe that everything we imagined as kids was coming true for both of us.
Recently, though, he’s been wanting to hang out, just the two of us, rather than join our friends at the clubs. He’s been wanting to talk. It’s in these moments we break through our cynical and glossy veneers and I realize what liars we both are.
I finally open my mouth to tell him about Rogov. I need him to chastise me, to commiserate with me, or to simply hug me. I’m not sure which will make me feel better. He cuts me off, however, before I can begin.
“You and me, Anya? I need to tell you something.”
I pause, spoon midway to my mouth. He’s invoked our phrase we started the day we met at age six. In one day I saved him from disciplinary action by helping him memorize our Little Octobrist oath, and he saved me from a couple of bullies. After I got knocked down and he’d chased them away, Dmitri reached down to lift me from the dirt and asked, “You and me?” I nodded and we’ve been best friends ever since. We still invoke it to remind each other of our first loyalty: our friendship. I nod.
“Have you heard of the new movement in Poland?”
“What movement?”
He leans forward. “It’s called Solidarity . . .”
* * *
I feel more hopeful today.
Maybe it’s the cool, clear sunshine. Maybe it’s the distance from last evening’s humiliation. Maybe it’s because I spent all night trying to justify Rogov’s actions, reminding myself he had authority to do what he did. Maybe it’s Dmitri. That he came for me last night. That he didn’t accept the lie that I was sick. Maybe it’s that hopeful movement he told me about that’s growing in Poland, Solidarity. Maybe it’s because I’m heading to Vienna.
The feeling only grows as the plane descends. I watch as buildings and open green spaces come into view. Vienna is not like Moscow—grey, industrial, cement, and imposing. And it’s nothing like America, all shiny and new. It’s old. Empire old. I can see the layout from above as streets circle palaces, parks, and churches. There are so many steeples I lose count.
After my meeting this morning, I have nothing planned until my flight home tonight. I’m going to spend the whole day exploring the city: cafés, museums, and maybe I’ll even find a church and listen to music. I loved doing that at Georgetown. The organist at one of the campus chapels practiced every Thursday afternoon, and Scott and I rarely missed one. He played Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, and other composers, along with hymns I can’t even name. The music wove tonal tapestries that lifted my soul to places it had never soared.
I step off the plane and immediately see a man in a dark suit waiting at the end of the Jetway. Even without a placard, I sense he’s here for me. He’s short, muscular, and focused. KGB. I sigh, then feel my breath catch in hope as his focus shifts beyond me. My heartbeat of relief vanishes when he nods to someone behind me and includes me in the gesture. I turn my head. His counterpart—equally stocky but tall—stands at my left shoulder.
“You were on my flight? You’re following me?” I pull back, bumping into a man trying to walk around us.
“I’m your escort.”
I turn to the dark suit facing us both. “And you are?”
“Your guide.”
Without another word, even to each other, the two men flank me and we proceed out of the terminal to a black ZiL sedan waiting curbside.
Within a half hour, I’m at our embassy spreading out the packets of materials I find waiting for me on a large mahogany meeting table.
Within two hours, I have walked Comrade Minister of Defense Petrov, who is in Vienna for preliminary Warsaw Pact–NATO discussions, through the costs and capabilities of the RP-23 radar.
Within three hours, he has signed off on all forms, in triplicate, authorizing further development and funding, culminating in a live test scheduled for next January.
Within an hour of organizing, then handing all the papers back to a KGB officer for secure transport to Moscow, I’m given a sandwich-to-go and find myself sitting in a hard plastic chair back at the airport. My still unnamed “escort” sits silent and obdurate by my side. He says we will remain here the full seven hours until our flight boards.
So much for exploring and sightseeing, so much for enjoying a walk, sitting in a café, stepping into a church, or listening to a little music. So much for posting the letter to Scott I’ve been carrying around, wishing to mail it outside the Soviet Union. So much for that feeling of hope that fizzled away a good four hours ago.
I’m so mad I could cry. But I won’t.
Ever.
Nine
Ingrid
Moscow
May 16, 1955
Ingrid pulled the pie pan from the oven and cringed. Again.
In ten months of marriage she had tried to learn to cook. Her mother had been an excellent cook and an outstanding host, but the ingredients were strange in Ingrid’s new country, the traditions different, and each night she felt lost in her own small kitchen.
Her thoughts drifted to the dishes of her childhood. Wiener schnitzel so light the breading elevated the veal encased therein; Paprikahendl, her favorite paprika-roasted chicken; Martinigansl, her mother’s signature dish, a goose cooked to perfection and sauced with a heady mixture of wine, orange juice, lingonberries, and juniper berries.
In those last years she recalled that Mutti only made that expensive delicacy for the top echelon of the Nazi leadership. Now she understood why—how else was one going to loosen their tongues?
At first Ingrid thought the more soup-based dishes of the Russian countryside would be easier to master. But there were so many variations, she seemed to miss them all rather than land on one that struck the right note.
Borscht could be a cold, smooth, bright pink soup or a hot stew filled with vegetables and meat. It should not, as she commented to Leo after her first attempt, land somewhere between lukewarm and oddly thick, as if all the ingredients simply dissolved.
Her Ukha was no better. Certain she could master the fish soup, she stood in line for hours and garnered angry stares as she bought three different types of fish—cod, halibut, and salmon, along with cod liver—at the shop last February.
“How did the broth get cloudy?” Leo pushed at the chunks within his opaque bowl.
“I have no idea. Vada, next door, said it was a clear soup.”
“Usually it is.”
If it weren’t for her early discovery that smetana—sour cream—covered a variety of culinary sins, she wasn’t sure Leo would not have divorced her already.
Ingrid was so focused on pulling dinner from the oven, she didn’t hear her husband enter the apartment.
“Is something burning? It smells like piroshkis.”
Ingrid startled, dropped the pie onto the stovetop, and poked at it. “Yes.”
“Piroshkis are puff pastries rather than a dished pie.”
“I didn’t make enough dough. I thought if I put it all together in a pie and cooked it longer, it might work out.” Ingrid wiped her hands down her apron and noted the beet stain she left behind. She would have to let it soak in the sink, then take it to the building’s laundry room in the morning.
“Stop laughing.” She dabbed at the stain with a dish towel. “It’s ruined. I can smell that the bottom’s burned . . . And I wanted to surprise you tonight. I wanted to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?” Leo leaned against the counter. “Are you?” His voice lifted, as it had with the same anticipation each month of their marriage.
Ingrid shook her head, both in answer to his question and to dispel her growing fears. Her hand reflexively reached to soothe her perpetually sore shoulder. She had begun to wonder over the past few months if the bomb had shaken her more than she’d thought all those years ago.
Ingrid rushed on with her news. “Austria. Vienna. Didn’t you hear? We were granted independence yesterday. There will be a treaty signed and all the troops will leave. No more dividing the city.”
Unable to share her excitement with anyone else, Ingrid allowed the words to pour out of her in a torrent. “Can we go visit? Can we go see? The barricades will be torn down. They will rebuild now and—”
“Where did you hear this?” Leo’s voice emerged tight and low.
“At the butcher. Two women stood whispering in line behind me . . . Isn’t it common knowledge?” Ingrid laid down the dish towel.
“Did you talk to them? Did you share that it was your home?”
“No. Of course not. I didn’t say a word. I thought—”
Leo pushed off the counter and raised a hand to stop her words. “It won’t be in the papers until tomorrow.”
“But they talked about it today?” As soon as Ingrid asked the question, she stumbled upon the answer. The samizdats. The illegal papers passed from friend to friend and printed at any hour of the day. She had never seen one, but she had heard of them. From Leo. He repeatedly warned her not to accept one, read one, and certainly never get caught with one.
“Did they notice your interest?”
At her soft “no” he wrapped his arms around her. “Good. While someone from Vienna might welcome this news, it comes at a high price for the Soviet Union.”
Ingrid nodded her promise of silence. She knew he was right.
Ten months had proved him right.
Within days of moving into their apartment, Ingrid had found that even the slightest comment could raise an eyebrow, generate a probing question, and leave one doubting. Even worse, any comment might get reported and a knock on the door could come at night, with a “request” for an interview. It happened to Vada.
Ingrid met her next-door neighbor the week they moved into their apartment. Young and effulgent, Vada invited her into her home for tea and welcomed Ingrid with genuine warmth. For months, Ingrid would have named Vada as her only true friend.
Then a few weeks ago, sitting in her apartment folding laundry, Vada congratulated Ingrid on Leo’s most recent promotion.
“He hasn’t told me this. How—?” Ingrid blinked. “Do you work with him at the Administrative Office?”
“Yes . . . No . . . I merely handle travel for government officials, but I have heard his name mentioned.”
“Does he travel?” Ingrid thought back to the nights Leo worked late, even into the next day. “Where does he go?”
Vada’s face reddened and her hands fluttered over the socks, underwear, and towels still unfolded between them. Within moments she shooed Ingrid out her door. Two days later she disappeared—for an entire day.
Now she avoided Ingrid. Vada was no longer curious and kind. She was quiet and contained, keeping to herself. She only left her apartment for work or for necessary shopping. And of that day, no one said a word. It was as if it never happened.
“Let’s open a bottle of wine to drink with your pie.” Leo’s suggestion drew Ingrid back to the present. She followed him with plates and the pie to the round table in the corner of their living room.
