A Shadow in Moscow, page 24
“I’m presenting new technology to the Ministry of Defense again next week. Nothing earth-shattering, but it’s got broad applicability.”
“Oh?” My non sequitur surprises him. It surprises me, too, but I had to say something. Father absorbs my comment and sighs with little humor. “Are you trying to make my life hard too?”
“Who else is?”
“Who isn’t?” He takes a sip of his drink. “You’d be surprised the wrangling required to reappropriate funds. Everyone wants something.”
That’s as close as my father has ever gotten to telling me what he does. And to be fair, my comment is as close as I’ve gotten as well. Discussing work or “bringing it home” is not something we do. Not something anyone does.
“It’s hard to wrangle through red tape and get things done around here?” I raise a brow, feeling something close to happy for the first time in days. It’s rare my father lets me in, and here is a tiny crack. “Yes, that is surprising.”
He dips his head, and I can tell he’s trying to decide if my comment was made with snide humor or if it cuts too close to criticism. He lands on the former and raises his glass again. We salute and we drink.
Later, long after dinner, dishes, and my parents’ retreat to their bedroom, I hear a soft knock on my door. Mother, backlit by the hall light, crosses into my room and sits on the edge of my bed.
She strokes her fingers through my hair, sweeping down the full length of it, spreading it loose and long across my shoulder. She did this when, as a young child, I couldn’t sleep. I feel my eyes drift shut in the darkness.
“Anya? What happened today?”
“How do you do that?”
“A mother knows.”
I shake my head. I can’t tell her the truth and I don’t want to lie again. What happened to me is no different from what happens to many people on any given day. We get searched, we get questioned, we go on with life. The only thing that made it terrifying is that I wasn’t checking up on some guy at the Hotel Metropol Wednesday night; I was committing treason. I certainly can’t tell her that.
“Did you love him terribly?”
“Who? Dmitri?”
“We all loved Dmitri.” She threads her fingers through another curl. “I’m asking about Scott O’Neill.”
“What made you—? How do you know about him?”
“Darling.” She laughs. It’s light and warm and wraps me up within the aura of safety she’s always provided. “You wrote about him for four years. Silly stories. Fun stories. Tender stories. Your letters were full of him. Yet you never mentioned him after you came home. Not once. It’s been over three years. I’ve been waiting . . . And something has changed. Something is different now.”
Tears flood my eyes. “Oh . . . Mother.” I can’t tell her our past, three years ago or three weeks ago. Even if I could, where would I begin?
I don’t need to. Without words she bends over me and gathers me into her arms.
“It can hurt so much,” she whispers. After I quiet, she asks her next question. “Do you keep in touch?”
I tell the most basic truth. The one I would tell anyone who asked. “We did. We do. Sort of. Generic letters that say nothing and mean less. When I left, I warned him everything would be read, so there never was much real either of us could say. A relationship can’t live on that.” I think of our meeting. His presence in Vienna and the fact that Peter still hasn’t told me what Ames said. Is Scott in the CIA?
Feeling safe, I share the one thing I told myself not to. “I saw him in Vienna. He was at that meeting I told you about.”
My mother straightens. “Were you seen talking with him?”
“No . . . We didn’t speak.” I’m disappointed that’s the first thing that comes to her mind, but I can’t blame her. I really can’t. Especially not after my day.
She shifts on the bed. “What about your body language? That meeting will have been recorded. They’ll watch for everything.”
“Come on . . . I hide what I think and feel every single day, Mother. Don’t you think I’m an expert by now?” I push back on the bed to rise to her level. Disappointment transforms to anger. It’s such a short, easy step.
“You do?”
“Of course I do. And in a moment of weakness, I almost got Sonya in trouble because she asked about America. I answered a simple question, and the KGB broke into my apartment. Three years of silence and one conversation about sweaters and choices gets me on their radar. But I have all these thoughts in my head all the time. None of them I can talk about. I shouldn’t even think them because they make everything around here so much worse. I can’t talk about it. There’s no one to trust with all this . . . If I’d known it was going to be this hard, that I wouldn’t belong in my own country anymore, that’d I’d have to live here knowing all I do now, I never would have gone to the US.”
I stop. I’ve upset her and it’s not true. Even if I never say another true word to a living soul, I wouldn’t change all I’ve learned and how I’ve grown. I just wish I didn’t feel so alone and so divided all the time.
“When you came to me that night and talked with me about the art and paintings you’d always wanted to see and the things you’d heard about America, did you know how it would change me?”
“Never. I was selfish. I was curious. There’s so much I read at work, so much I’ll never see. I wanted that chance for you, and you earned it. It was such an honor, but the rest? No. I never realized the cost could be this high.”
“Some days it’s too high.” I think about Scott and wish my heart wouldn’t go there anymore.
My mother shifts closer and holds my hands within my lap. “Anya, listen to me. You must accept what you learned and how you changed. All that is real. But also accept you are here now and you cannot change what is. This is real too. By rejecting it, wanting it to be different, you add anger, rebellion, and resentment to your heart.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You need to accept reality for what it is. And make peace in your heart with that.”
“Mom, reality sucks. This country is falling apart.”
“True.” She shakes her head. “I’m not saying be resigned to it. There is much that’s wrong here. I’m saying to willingly allow yourself to accept it as reality, while you strive every moment, if you choose, to change it. There is no visible difference on the outside. You will still get pulled from the line by Rogov and you will still have to report quarterly to Stanslych for your KGB interviews. But inside? That’s where the difference lies.” She lays a hand on my heart. “You transform the strictures into your free choice; you transform resentment into love and loss into gain. Only then can you survive in here”—she presses down, and I sense she can feel my heart beating as clearly as I myself can—“while trying to change the world out there.”
I sit speechless. I can’t rage and argue because there is something true in what she says. It feels like my thoughts from a few nights ago, when I struck upon the conviction that even in the most challenging and restrictive places, freedom is possible by the meaning we give to each moment.
I thought I was alone in those musings and wonder how my mother ever got to them first. It’s almost as if I don’t know her, haven’t seen her clearly, like she—rather than those ideas—has been dancing out of reach.
Her head dips, and even without seeing it in the darkness of my room, I sense the soft look she’s giving me. She’s given it a thousand times before when I resisted, either willingly or not, the wisdom she shared with me.
“Duc in altum,” she whispers.
It’s Latin and means “put out into the deep.” My mother has said this to me only a few times in my life. At turning points. In tough times. I’ve never truly understood it, but I’ve always paid attention, knowing it’s for me in every sense. It calls me to stand when I want to crumble.
“What am I to do?” I ask, sure she holds the answer to everything.
“Live.” Without another word, she leans over me and kisses my forehead.
I lie in the dark and let her words dance over me. They remind me of another’s. Words I have read and pondered, unable to understand.
Just as I’m drifting to sleep, the words come to me in that final falling moment. Konstantin Dmitrich Levin from Anna Karenina. He was the character who always drew me in the most. He reminded me of myself, struggling—always struggling—wishing, debating, wrestling with himself, yearning for greater purpose and meaning. And only when he stopped struggling did he find they had been there all along. He found peace and love, not by chasing them or even focusing directly on them but by seeing all else through their lens and light. The love and peace I just heard in my mother’s voice. The love and peace that pervade all her actions and all her care.
But how do I get there? The answer comes as quickly as the question. A line I oddly remember from long ago, but truth does that—it lodges within you.
“When Levin thought about what he was and what he lived for, he found no answer and fell into despair; but when he stopped asking himself about it, he seemed to know what he was and what he lived for, because he acted and lived firmly and definitely.”
* * *
The next morning I’m up early. My commute to work will be longer from here, and I want to leave enough time for my old routine. I want to stop at my favorite bakery, if the line is long and the vatrushkis are hot. I want to hop on the next bus and enjoy the bun while reading my book, glancing up as we pass the Kremlin and the embassies and the Moskva River. I want to go back to the beginning and enjoy my “beastly long” combination of bus rides and stretches of walking to the Kapotnya District. I want to be outside the system again, anonymous again. Because if I’m not where I’m supposed to be—I’m nowhere at all.
I find my mother sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper. I don’t comment. I simply reach for a cup, pour the last from the carafe into it, and join her.
“Your father has already left.” She watches me a moment. “Do you feel better this morning?”
“I do. Thank you.” I don’t say anything more, unsure where to begin or where words would lead. It’s all still a jumble. Like Tolstoy’s Levin, I’m still pondering, wrestling, struggling, and resisting.
She folds up the paper and stretches her hand across the table. It is only then I notice the radio is on. It’s not loud, but loud enough.
Once my hand is within hers, she speaks. “You must also remember that while your generation thinks it’s ‘cool’ to be angry and protest for change, my generation remains firmly in charge. I’m not saying things can’t or won’t change in the future, but at this moment we make the rules. We are the great advancers of the Marxist-Leninist dream, pushing us into space and building a military-industrial complex second to none, and we pride ourselves on forging new and, in many ways, more diabolical ways to fight. We can be ruthless.” She nods as if I’ve answered her and we sit in agreement.
“I’m sorry.” She squeezes my hand one last time before standing. “I never wanted this for you.”
“What?”
“Any of this.” She carries her cup to the sink. “Especially heartbreak.” She walks out of the kitchen.
“Mother?” I call her back. “Have you ever heard of Rose Beuret?”
Juliet came from a play. Terry McKay from a movie. Perhaps Rose is from art? It’s the one area, the one sector of life, I never considered. And despite all that is now tarnished between Scott and me, I want the final piece of our puzzle firmly in place so I can put it away forever.
“Who?” Mom rounds the corner.
“No one. I just—”
“Where did you learn about Rose Beuret?”
I set down my coffee cup. “Who is she?”
“She was Auguste Rodin’s most famous muse, his lover, and finally his wife. But you’ve never been interested in my work.” Mother steps to the table and sits again. “He’s not an artist I’ve been able to bring here. ‘Too sensual,’ I’ve been told. But I suspect it’s Le Penseur the minister of culture worries about. He’d rather us not get any ideas about thinking.”
She smiles playfully. My mother always glows when she talks about her work. I chastise myself for never showing interest, for never letting her share that joy with me before. Peter’s indictment from yesterday crashes through me. “You can’t be that selfish or that stupid.”
My mother continues. “Rose was the love of Rodin’s life. She finally married him or he finally married her—there’s debate as to which one kept them from the altar—sixteen days before her death when she was seventy-four years old and he was seventy-six. It’s a beautiful story in some ways. Come to the museum. I have a couple books of his work in my office. One is French and the other English. You can help me with some of the translations, and I can show you her picture. Did you take an art class?”
The translations. Working in a museum, my mother is exposed to a variety of languages. It always bothered her that she didn’t know them well. She made sure, growing up, I had extra tutors so that I could.
“Sure, I’d love to help. I’ll come by after work tonight.” I shrug and lie to her. “No class. I simply heard Rose’s name and have wondered about her. I couldn’t find her in any books.”
Her head tilts and I can tell she doesn’t believe me. But she doesn’t press. I’ll give her that—my mother has always respected one’s right to keep secrets. She rises and, without words, kisses me on the forehead and leaves the kitchen.
I sit stunned. Of all the people to ask—my mother held the answer.
Twenty
Ingrid
Moscow
June 27, 1973
“How did it go?” Ingrid stood in the doorway. She raised her hand in acknowledgment that she should have been polite and said hello, but that was all she could give to niceties. She’d been waiting over a month for this meeting. She didn’t want a salutation. She wanted an answer.
Reginald drew her within the apartment and shut the door behind her. “It couldn’t have gone better.”
Ingrid let out a deep sigh and tears filled her eyes. She reached for Reginald’s hand and pulled it against her heart.
Titled the Washington Summit, the meetings started on June 18 and had ended only two days earlier. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had welcomed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin to the White House in Washington, DC.
It was Ingrid who had advised, through Reginald, for the US to broaden the discussions from armaments exclusively and to start them with topics such as oceanography, transportation, agricultural research, and cultural enhancements and exchanges. In no uncertain terms she told Reginald to impress upon the US that by not focusing on nuclear disarmament they’d get closer to achieving it.
“Comrade Brezhnev expects and is prepared for a frontal attack,” she had explained. “But he needs the cultural concessions from the US just as badly. So advise your ‘cousins’ to tell their president to offer generously first on a variety of cultural, social, and scientific fronts. To save face, Brezhnev will need to match his generosity later when the only issues left are weapons and disarmament.”
Reginald had parsed her advice, sent it around the world, and managed to land it in the CIA’s lap in a variety of small bites just as talking points were being devised. Bites that, when put together, made a most satisfying meal.
He gave Ingrid a quick hug. “We did it. You did it. It’s just so good. It’s a high point for the détente, Ingrid, and it’s beyond anything the West could have hoped for. Britain’s aglow too. Prime Minister Heath is thrilled.”
Ingrid raised a brow.
Reginald shook his head. “Your identity is safe. He’s simply grateful we received some of the best bits.” He winked. “After all, those American ‘cousins’ can be awfully arrogant. It’s nice for us to have the upper hand occasionally.”
“So it’s over . . . No nuclear weapons?” Only in asking the question did Ingrid realize how much she hoped for it.
“Oh . . . Ingrid.” Reg dropped into a chair. He gestured for her to sit as well. “We still live in the real world, and that’s not possible. But it’s close, closer than we’ve been in years. They titled it the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War. It’s not an original title, but leaders on both sides signed it, and it outlines emergency measures and diplomatic procedures in case of conflict . . . Smile. It’s a true win for all of us.” He offered one himself, trying to convince Ingrid to do the same.
“And you were right,” Reginald continued. “Brezhnev jumped at the geology programs and your Foreign Studies Initiative idea. He also agreed to increased cultural exchanges.”
“Of course he did.” Ingrid rolled her eyes. “It means more KGB operatives on US and British soil.”
“True, but we can handle that. Besides, it means we can get more of ours here too.” Reg leaned forward. “This détente is as close to peace as these countries have been in forty years, longer even. All thanks to you. I can’t imagine what will shake it . . . Feel proud, or at least pleased.”
Ingrid sank back into the armchair. “I am. Truly. I’ve just been waiting for so long. I forget how important small steps can be.”
“These aren’t small steps.”
Ingrid conceded his point with her first smile. “Was it as beautiful . . . Were you there?”
He had been. In thanks for the intel received, the US allowed a couple of operatives from Britain and the Netherlands to attend the Summit. They were hoping LUMEN himself might show up, but word soon circulated he hadn’t.
As Reginald described the meetings, the dinners, and the ball following the final day of negotiations, Ingrid felt her mind slip away. Nothing he described matched what she’d seen the year before.
In May the year before, the summit meetings had been held in Moscow—and they were far grander than anything Reginald was describing. She couldn’t envision it, but the White House sounded like a small and relatively uninteresting place. The Great Kremlin Palace, however, had been spectacular. Leo had been invited to the final dinner and ball for the Moscow Summit, and President Nixon, his wife, Pat, and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had been the guests of honor. It was the first time a US president had visited Moscow—only President Franklin Roosevelt had visited the Soviet Union—and Nixon’s visit was declared a national cause for celebration.
