Beautiful Assassin (19 page)

Smiling, the men applauded politely.

“Over three hundred of the fascists have fallen to her deadly aim,” Vasilyev continued.

Each one kissed me on both cheeks. When they thought I wasn’t looking they stole a quick glimpse at my legs and chest.

“A pleasure to meet you,” said one, an old man with jaundiced eyes.

“With brave soldiers like yourself we will soon have the fascists on the run, eh,” added another, who had a large mustache.

I nodded. “I am grateful I was able to do my duty.”

“And you are even more lovely than your picture,” said the third, a slight, balding man with a large head and wire-rim spectacles. Behind his glasses, his eyes had the rapacious look of a wolf.

When I didn’t reply, Vasilyev answered for me. “Thank you, Commissar General Beria.”

Everyone knew Lavrenty Beria, the head of state security. Stalin’s pit bull. The one who made up the daily lists of names for Stalin’s signature, the ones who were to be shipped off to the camps or tortured in Lubyanka or straightaway taken out and shot. And we’d heard the whispered rumors of Beria’s insatiable appetite for young women.

After we had moved off, Vasilyev said to me, “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“How long do we have to stay?”

“Relax and enjoy yourself. Are you hungry?”

“A little.”

He led me over to the food.

“Oh look, there’s Alexeyev,” Vasilyev said, waving to a man across the room. “I will be right back. Can I get you some more champagne?”

I shook my head. I still had the same glass he’d given me when we arrived. I stood there by myself, feeling awkward, with everyone watching me. I would rather be in a foxhole with Zoya than here with these sycophants and flatterers. I was thinking of her when I heard behind me a low voice, almost a whisper.

“Comrade Levchenko?”

I turned to see a man standing there. Older, wearing a plain khaki uniform without insignia, he was short, slump shouldered, with the thick body of a peasant and a head that was too large for his height. His hair was coarse and black with just a few gray strands in it, his bushy mustache resembling a small furry creature. But it was his eyes that were his most striking feature—small and not quite black, more really a complete absence of color. They were the eyes of something both primitive and yet cunning in its way. Where had I seen them before, I wondered.

“I am she,” I replied.

“It is a great honor to meet you,” he said, shaking my hand and nodding his great shaggy head. He spoke Russian with a thick Georgian accent. Though his hands were large and blunt as bricks, his handshake was surprisingly soft, almost effeminate. As he spoke he continued holding my hand. His gaze ran the length of me, from my calves to the top of my head, but unlike the other men, his interest wasn’t in the least of a carnal nature. He viewed me coldly and dispassionately, more appraisingly, the way a farmer might look at a plow horse. I slowly freed my hand from his grasp.

“Thank you,” I said. I assumed him to be some Party figure of importance with whom I needed not to say the wrong thing or Vasilyev would reprimand me.

“You have meant a great deal to our war effort,” he offered. “You have lifted the spirits of our troops at a time when we most desperately need it.”

“I only try to do my duty, sir.”

He leaned in to me, as if to tell me something in confidence. “You and I know what it is to look into the eyes of a man before we kill him,” he said, the slightest hint of a smile lingering beneath the bushy mustache. “These others”—he gave a wave of his blunt paw—“they chatter like a bunch of old women. But when it comes down to it, they are gutless creatures. You and I, Comrade, we are made of different stuff, are we not?”

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.

At this he turned and left me standing there.

Vasilyev returned shortly after this. “What did he say to you?”

I shrugged. “That he and I knew what it was like to look into a man’s eyes before we killed him.”

Vasilyev frowned, concern lining his face.

“What did he mean by that?”

“I have no idea. Who was that?”

He stared at me as if I had suddenly grown another head. “Surely you’re kidding.”

I shook my head.

“That was
him,
” Vasilyev said.

“Who?”

“The general secretary.”

I stared at him dumbfounded.

“Stalin,” I blurted out. “You’re joking.”

“I would not joke of such a thing,” Vasilyev said. “That was him. My goodness, you didn’t even know it.”

A shiver passed through me. To think that I’d actually met the man. The man my father revered, the same one my mother detested. I was surprised too that he was not bigger. All of the images we’d seen of him in the newspapers or film reels made him out to be this imposing figure, the Man of Steel. And I recalled the picture in front of the classroom back in school, the same cold, soulless eyes staring down upon us. Eyes that Madame Rudneva had called the devil’s. Old Whiskers.

After a while, we moved off into a large hall where Vasilyev brought me up and had me sit at the front. A few seats away was Stalin, flanked by his toadies, Beria and Molotov. Before us was a stage, with an or
chestra tuning their instruments. At the front of which was the man I had seen earlier, the composer Shostakovich. When all had been seated, Shostakovich spoke a few words to the audience. He explained that we were going to hear a new work, something called the Leningrad Symphony, which he had named in honor of the heroic defense being put up by the citizens of that brave city. Then he turned and began to conduct the orchestra. I soon found myself forgetting my objections about coming along. I was swept up by the intensity of the work, its initial martial drumbeat proclaiming that Leningrad was under siege by the Germans. The last movement began quietly, with the strings slowly rising in pitch until they were joined by woodwinds, before picking up the marchlike melody again. Finally, the woodwinds built until violins took over and carried the piece to its final rousing crescendo. I was mesmerized by the music.

Once during the symphony, I happened to look over and catch Stalin staring at me. It was a strangely enigmatic gaze, as indecipherable as that one might receive from a crow or a rat. I averted my own gaze for a moment, and when I looked back at him, he was still staring at me. I felt my blood chill in a way it had never done before, not even when a sniper bullet would pass within inches of me. This was something beyond mortal fear, beyond the potential harm he could do me, something that had to do with an elemental dread, the terror that strikes the heart when one recognizes that the world is run by forces one cannot even begin to fathom.

At the end of the symphony, there was utter silence, a tense, glassy stillness that left one almost breathless. All eyes, I noticed, were directed not at the stage but at Stalin, not the least of which were those of Shostakovich himself, who waited onstage, his baton hanging from his hand, anxiously peering down at the small, mustachioed man in the front row. Slowly, the secretary rose from his seat and directed the same impenetrable stare he’d given me at the composer now. Finally, he brought his blunt hands together in a modest, almost grudging show of appreciation. Only then did the crowd respond with a thunderous ovation.

As we passed out of the hall, Vasilyev suddenly clutched my elbow and said, “He wishes a word with you.”

I was directed over to one side of the stage. Someone held back the curtain, and as I stepped past it, I spotted Stalin standing there, smoking a cigar.

“What did you think of the performance, Lieutenant?” he asked, an odd grin distorting his features.

“I thought it was quite good, Comrade Secretary.”

He nodded, but without conviction, as if that wasn’t the reply he wanted. He took another puff of the cigar, which he held delicately between thumb and forefinger.

“You will get them to fight, no,” he said.

“Pardon me?” I asked.

“Those timid capitalists.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow you, sir,” I said.

Through the haze of smoke from his cigar, his eyes narrowed and he squinted at me. Right then a general came up to him and whispered something in his ear. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good news, for his expression changed to one of mild irritation. With a flick of his hand, he dismissed the man, who withdrew a short distance away and waited. Turning back to me, Stalin leaned toward me, so close that I could smell cigar smoke and the rusted-iron breath of a man who habitually dined on rich foods and spicy meat. “Can I trust you, Lieutenant?”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to this statement, what he meant by it, so I said, “Of course, Comrade Secretary.”

“Good. Because you will have a mission of utmost importance to perform for the Motherland. Now you will have to excuse me.”

Then he turned and walked over to where the general waited.

On the ride back to the hotel, we rode mostly in silence. Vasilyev seemed preoccupied. Finally, he said, “You did well tonight, Lieutenant.”

“I’m glad I performed to your expectations,” I said sarcastically.

“What did you and the general secretary talk about?”

“He wanted to know if he could trust me. And he said I would get them to fight. Get whom to fight?”

“Why, the Americans, of course.”

“What are you talking about?”

We had by now reached my hotel. Vasilyev reached over and patted
my hand. “It’s late. You’ve had a long evening. We shall talk about this matter later. Get some sleep.”

Over the next several days, Vasilyev would pick me up and show me about the city as if it were his own private amusement park. During the day we visited museums and art galleries and historical sites, while in the evening we attended elegant dinners or went to the theater or to the Bolshoi, where there were always crowds eager to see me. Before one ballet performance, I was asked to come onstage, where I received a bouquet of flowers from a ballerina in a tutu. Beside her, I felt clumsy and unfeminine in my uniform and heavy boots. Nonetheless, I received a standing ovation from the crowd. Wherever we went, Vasilyev paraded me around, often introducing me by some clever pet name—the Ukrainian Lion or the Queen of Fire. But his favorite was Krasavitsa Ubiytsa, which translated roughly to “Beautiful Assassin,” a title that he was quite proud of having coined and one that I wouldn’t be able to shake. One time, we showed up where a large group of people had gathered in the street. It was below Vorobyovy Gory. A small military band composed of old men was playing some martial theme. It turned out they were naming a street after me—
ulitsa Levchenko
. I toured hospitals, where I shook hands with wounded vets, and old people’s homes and spoke to groups of schoolchildren. They had me go on the radio and tell of my experiences, though not before Vasilyev had coached me to “sound positive,” to put our war effort in a good light.

Another time, accompanied by a man with a camera, we drove south of the city. We stopped at a farm and got out. From the trunk Vasilyev took out a camouflage poncho and a rifle, then we started walking across a field toward a grove of trees.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“We’re going to take your picture,” Vasilyev said gaily. When we reached the trees, he said to the other man with the camera, “The light’s good here, no?” The man nodded. Then Vasilyev turned to me. “Here,” he said, handing me the rifle. “Get up in that tree,” he said, pointing to a spindly looking birch tree.

“What for?”

“We are going to photograph your duel with the German.”

“I would never try to hide in such a tree,” I said.

“Poetic license,” he said with a shrug. “But first put a little lipstick on.”

Though I thought the entire episode utterly ridiculous, as I would so many that would come up in the next several months, I did as I was told. I shimmied up the tree to a small branch that felt far too thin to hold my weight. From below, Vasilyev called instructions, as if he were directing a film. “Now take aim and make believe you’ve got a kraut in your sights.”

“But I didn’t shoot him
from
the tree.”

“Who’s going to know?” he said. “Now turn this way more. Don’t frown so much. And fix your hair. A strand has come undone. There we go. Perfect,” he added.

Each time I’d bring up the question about what I had to do with getting the Americans to fight, he would somehow manage to elude the subject. Once, as we were driving to the Kremlin, I turned to him and said, “Now that I’m feeling well enough, when can I return to the front?”

Instead of answering, he had the driver stop the car. He jumped out and hurried with that odd nimbleness of his over to a nearby kiosk and purchased a paper. When he returned he showed me a copy of
Izvestiya
with my picture on the front page. “Female Hero Kills 300 Fascists” the headline read.

“
There,
” he said, his fat forefinger stabbing the page for emphasis. “That’s how you can best fight the krauts.”

“That’s not fighting. That’s just show.”

“But you are mistaken, Lieutenant. You are a student of history. You ought to know that bullets and bombs and tanks don’t win wars. Wars are won here,” he said, tapping his temple. “Do you know what you have done for the morale of our soldiers, for our people? They read what you have accomplished and you give them hope. What is more, you will buy us time for the West to get involved too.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Trust me, you will,” he said, bringing his fingertips together to
form a small globe in front of his face. That phrase—
trust me
—was one he would often use, and the more he did, the less I felt ready to trust him. “I understand why you want to kill them so badly.”

Glancing over at him, I said, “Yes. They are the enemy.”

“No. For you, it’s quite personal.” He reached across the seat and patted my hand. “You see, I know about your daughter.”

I stared at him in surprise. How had he known that? Save for Zoya and those few people who were there when it had happened, I hadn’t told anyone. Of course, that was not counting the letters I’d written to Kolya. Had they opened them up and read them?