Beautiful Assassin (38 page)

“Just that war is won by fighting, not by talking. I believe it is high time your troops stood shoulder to shoulder with me rather than behind me.”

After Radimov translated this, like a beehive struck with a stone, it stirred the group of reporters into an agitated frenzy. They frantically scribbled in their notebooks and chattered excitedly among themselves. Soon they were calling out more questions, faster than Radimov or I could possibly field them. One yelled something about me saying the Americans were hiding behind my skirt.

Right then, however, Mrs. Roosevelt, as she would do many times over the course of our trip, stepped in to rescue me. Smiling, she said something to the reporters that seemed to appease them, for they all laughed amiably.

As our group left the stage and made our way to the waiting limousines, Mrs. Roosevelt came up to me and said through the captain, “I think you may have struck a nerve, my dear. You assaulted the fragile male ego.” Then she laughed.

Just before we reached the street, Captain Taylor leaned in to me and asked, “So how are you?”

I had been so busy for the past several days with appearances and speeches, with running here and there for photos and interviews, I hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with him, at least not privately. The last real conversation we’d had had taken place at the cemetery. What time we did spend together involved him mostly translating for Mrs. Roosevelt or for reporters slinging questions at me, or teaching me English. Nonetheless, now and then he’d shoot me a wink when some reporter would ask me an absurd question.

I turned to him and said, “I’m fine, Captain.”

“Maybe we can talk later,” he said.

On the ride back to our hotel, I sat between Dmitri and Viktor and across from Vasilyev, Gavrilov, and the Corpse. Viktor, I noticed, stared indifferently out the window, his gaze vacuous.

“I think you went a bit too far by saying the Americans were hiding behind your skirt.”

“That’s not what I said,” I replied.

“We want to motivate them, not offend them. Don’t stray from what I’ve written for you,” Vasilyev said.

“He asked a question and I answered it. I’m doing my best!” I suddenly snapped at him. My nerves had been frayed from having to be on my toes constantly, having to fawn and smile, say this, avoid saying that, not to mention having to pass on to him whatever Mrs. Roosevelt told me. I had been worn to a frazzle. “If you don’t like me doing it, let your lapdog Gavrilov do it.”

“There, there,” he said, patting my knee. “I think you’re just tired. Perhaps you deserve some time off, Lieutenant.”

We finally reached the hotel a little after noon. The building was on the West Side overlooking the Hudson, just around the corner from where Mrs. Roosevelt and her group were staying. As we were heading up on the elevator, Vasilyev whispered he wished a word with me and so followed me to my room. I thought he wanted to continue haranguing about my mistakes with the reporters.

In my room, Vasilyev walked over to the window and gazed out. My room was on the fifty-seventh floor, and I got a terrible sense of vertigo every time I looked out, so I usually avoided it.

“It is quite the view from here. Come look.”

“I’d rather not,” I said.

Vasilyev headed over to a nearby table where there were a bottle of champagne on ice, a fresh bouquet of flowers, a platter of food, and some new correspondence. Each day there appeared various gifts from people I didn’t know, as well as letters and cards and cables. Most were from Americans, average people who’d read about me in the newspapers. But there were some from around the world. One was a handwritten letter signed by Charles de Gaulle. Vasilyev picked up a sandwich,
looked it over, and sniffed it before taking a bite. He scooped up the packet of mail, began riffling through it. One caught his attention. He opened the envelope and began perusing it, though for what reason, I couldn’t fathom, as most were in English. Usually, Radimov would translate those.

“I have to use the bathroom,” I said. I went in and shut the door. I turned on the faucet, washed my face. I felt exhausted. In the mirror I saw that my face was drawn, my eyes fatigued. I hadn’t been sleeping well, all the moving about, trying to rest in a berth on a train, in strange hotel rooms. I had found all these public appearances and interviews much more draining than I had ever found war to be. Most of all I had grown tired of my role of spying on Mrs. Roosevelt, and trying to avoid passing on to Vasilyev anything that might hurt her.

I stalled in the bathroom, hoping he’d eventually leave. I was exhausted and I wanted to get some rest before whatever it was they had planned for me that evening. When I realized he wasn’t going to leave, I finally opened the door. I found Vasilyev seated comfortably in a corner chair, drinking a glass of champagne. He was reading a cable.

“I believe you will find this one of particular interest,” he said. He handed me the telegram. In Russian, it said:

S
, I thought.
Stalin
. I felt something like a piece of ice slide down my spine, the same sort of feeling I’d had back in Moscow on meeting The Man of Steel.

“You’ve caught his attention, Lieutenant. That’s a very good thing.”

“Is it?” I said. I glanced at the cable again. Now I was another name in some vast book somewhere, a book that held thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of names just like mine, whose fates were controlled by him, the master puppeteer. “I think I would prefer he not know who I am.”

Vasilyev looked up from his reading, frowned, then let out with a dry cackle. “It is far too late for that, I’m afraid,” he said. “Champagne, Lieutenant?”

“You said you wanted to talk.”

“Have a seat. You look a little tired.”

“I am tired,” I said, walking over and sitting on the bed. “I would like to get some rest.”

“Indeed, I think you deserve a little R & R,” he offered. “Mrs. Roosevelt has invited you to the opera this evening. I think it’s a splendid idea. I want you to relax and have a good time. You won’t have to wear your uniform.”

“What will I wear then?”

“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering some new things for you. They’ll be delivered to your room this afternoon.”

“Civilian clothes?” I asked.

“Yes. I thought this way those foolish reporters won’t pester you as much. And besides, you are attending the opera, you ought to dress up.”

I hadn’t worn civilian clothes in well over a year. Of course I had worn my country’s uniform with pride. But regular clothes? I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Will you be accompanying me tonight?” I asked Vasilyev.

“No,” he replied, downing the rest of his glass. “I have some other business to attend to.”

“And Radimov?”

“I will need his services. Our Captain Taylor can translate for you.”

Our Captain Taylor, I thought. What was he implying by that? Vasilyev poured himself another glass of champagne. He seemed in an odd mood, distracted, content just to sit there.

“You ought to try the champagne. It’s not half bad.”

“I’d think I would like to rest a little before tonight,” I reminded him again.

But he didn’t budge. Instead he said, “I believe Captain Taylor may prove to be the key.”

“The key?” I asked, looking over at him.

“To unlocking the secrets of Mrs. Roosevelt. I’m sure he knows a great deal about her…activities.”

I thought of that meeting in the shed behind the embassy, what they had asked me regarding Mrs. Roosevelt. Then I thought of my conversation with the captain at the cemetery, how he’d said that if Mrs. Roosevelt’s relationship with Miss Hickok were to be made public, she would be ruined.

“Even if there was something to know about her ‘activities,’” I said, “the captain is not a fool. Nor is he disloyal.”

“I’m sure you’re right. I believe it will take some cleverness on your part to get him to part with what he knows.”

“Cleverness?” I said.

“Women have ways of getting men to talk,” he said. “Particularly attractive women like yourself.”

“What are you suggesting, Comrade?” I hurled at him.

“Just that the captain is quite taken by you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Am I? You would have to be blind not to have noticed, Lieutenant?”

I thought of Captain Taylor touching my face that night on the terrace, our conversation at the cemetery, all the times he had stared at me and smiled. The way he would sometimes look at me as he translated Mrs. Roosevelt’s words. I knew Vasilyev was right, even if I hadn’t wanted to admit it.

“And what is it you wish me to do?”

Vasilyev inspected his nails. “Nothing really. Just don’t discourage his attentions.”

“You would have me play a whore to get what you want?” I said angrily.

“Relax, Lieutenant,” Vasilyev said.

“Don’t tell me to relax. I won’t do it. I won’t!”

I got up and stormed over to the door. I stood there for a moment, debating my next move.

“Just where do you think you would go?”

I stood there, seething, but I knew he was right. Where
would
I go? And even if I managed to escape, I knew they would hunt me down, just
as they had Trotsky, Erwin Wolf, Rudolf Klement. I knew they wouldn’t let me go, not now, not ever. I was theirs. I belonged to them in the same way as a tractor or a tank, or the fields back in the Ukraine they had taken from the kulaks. It struck me then, in a way it had never quite done before, that I owned nothing, not the clothes on my back, not my medals, not my body or my mind, not even my soul. Everything I was and had was theirs to do with as they pleased. I was just a pawn, to be used and sacrificed when they thought best. Still, I continued standing there for a moment, frozen between anger and fear—fear not so much of what Vasilyev and his bunch of thugs could do to me, but of the unknown, of what lay on the other side of the door, the great, unfathomable gulf that I would be crossing if I made that choice.

“Lieutenant,” came Vasilyev’s voice from behind me, his tone having softened. “No one’s asking you to compromise your precious morals.”

“No?” I said.

“No. In fact, I respect your integrity. Please, come and sit down.”

Stubbornly, I stood there for another moment or two, staring at the door, knowing that I had already capitulated though not wanting to admit it to myself. Finally I turned and headed over and sat on the bed again.

Vasilyev got up and came over and sat down beside me. The springs groaned under his bulk, and I found myself unwillingly leaning into him. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, “My dear Tat’yana.” It was the first and only time I could recall him calling me by my first name. “I can’t tell you just how proud I am of you.”

I turned toward him, looked into his blood-dark eyes. This close I could actually see my reflection there. Then he leaned toward me and planted a fatherly kiss on my forehead.

“In some ways I look upon you as a daughter,” he said. “Do you really think I would ask you to compromise yourself? I’m merely suggesting that you let the captain believe what he wants.”

“You mean, lead him on.”

“Call it what you will. It won’t hurt to be nice to him,” he replied, with an ironic smile forming on his lips. “Act as if his feelings are reciprocated.”

“And you think this will make him confide in me about Mrs. Roosevelt?”

“It certainly can’t hurt. In the presence of a pretty woman men have been known to be less than discreet. There are, shall we say, certain pressures being put on me.” I thought of Zarubin, of the ambassador, Vasilyev’s bosses. “Are we in agreement on this, Lieutenant?” he said, squeezing my shoulder.

I just stared silently at him.

“Good,” he said, standing. “I ought to let you get some rest. You will be picked up around six. Remember: keep your eyes and ears open.”

After he left, I paced the room, angry with Vasilyev, with all of them, those dark forces I felt tightening around me, biting into my flesh like barbed wire on a battlefield. Angry too with myself, for having gone along with all of this, for not having opened that door. I desperately wanted someone to talk to, and the only one I could think of was Viktor. Besides a few words in passing, I hadn’t really talked with him since that time in Washington. He was on the floor below mine, so I headed down and knocked on his door. He opened it just wearing his trousers, without shoes or socks, his chest bare. I noticed that the bruises along his ribs were beginning to fade.

“Can I talk with you?” I asked.

“About what?” he replied, a wariness to his voice.

“In private.”

Before letting me in his room, he glanced out into the hallway to make sure I was alone. He offered me the only chair while he sat on his bed. I noticed there was a half-filled bottle of vodka on the nightstand.

“How are you, Viktor?” I asked.

“How should I be?” he replied evasively.

“Are you feeling better?”

“I probably shouldn’t even be talking with you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, as if it were too obvious to need an answer.

“You believe me when I told you I had nothing to do with what they did to you.”

“If you say so.”

“I didn’t. I swear I didn’t, Viktor. You have to believe me. Please, I have no one else to turn to.”

He stared blankly across at me; then he leaned over and grabbed hold of the bottle on the nightstand. He uncapped it and took a drink. “You look like shit. Here,” he said, handing the bottle to me. I accepted it as a kind of peace offering and took a sip.

“So what do you want to talk about?” he asked.

“They’ve been having me spy on Mrs. Roosevelt.”

He pursed his lips, as if he wasn’t any longer surprised by anything they did. “And you’ve agreed?”

“What else could I do?”

“I told you what you could do, but you let them bully you around. What is it they want?”