The Summer Garden (31 page)

“If you say so.”

“So then, just to assert, as per the record, Alexander Barrington and Major Alexander Belov are one and the same man?”

“They are.”

“Why then did you describe yourself as a civilian man, Mr. Barrington, when your record clearly states that you were a Red Army major who escaped a military prison and killed a number of Soviet soldiers after a protracted battle? Are you aware that the Soviets want you extradited?”

“Objection!” yelled Levine. “This meeting is not concerned with the demands of Soviet Russia. This is a U.S. committee.”

“The Soviet Government says this man falls under their jurisdiction, and that this is a military matter. Now, once again—Mr. Barrington, are you or are you not aware that the Soviets want you extradited?”

Alexander was silent. “I am aware,” he said at last, “that the Red Army stripped me of my rank and title in 1945 when they sentenced me to twenty-five years in prison for surrendering to German forces.”

Richter whistled.
Twenty-five years,
he mouthed.

“No,” said Burck. “Your record states that you were sentenced for desertion.”

“I understand. But the rank and title is removed upon conviction for desertion
or
surrender.”

“Well, perhaps the title was not removed,” said Burck with a gentle expression, “because there was no conviction.”

Alexander paused. “Pardon me, but then why was I in the Soviet prison, if there was no conviction?”

Burck’s demeanor stiffened.

“My point is,” said Alexander, “I cannot be a deserter in 1945 and a major in 1946.” He took a breath, not wanting to leave his name besmirched with desertion. “Just for the record,” he said, “I was neither.”

“Your record says you are a Red Army major. Are you saying your record is wrong, Mr. Barrington?” said Burck. “Incomplete? Perhaps less than truthful?”

“I’ve already explained I was a major for only a few weeks in 1943. My direct statement to the tribunal in Berlin regarding my years in the Red Army is clear and unequivocal. Perhaps we need to go over it.”

“I move to go over the commander’s record,” joined in Richter, opening his notes, and then proceeded to ask
two hours
of questions about Alexander’s years in the Red Army. He was single-minded and relentless. He was interested in Alexander’s war experience, in the weapons the Soviets used, in their military campaigns in and around Leningrad, and through Latvia, Estonia, Byelorussia and Poland. He asked about Alexander’s arrests, interrogations, and years in the penal battalion without supplies or trained soldiers. He asked so many questions about the Soviet activities in Berlin that Burck, who was otherwise quiet, finally piped up with an exasperated request that they move on to the order of business.

“This
is
our order of business,” said Richter.

“I just don’t see how these alleged Soviet activities in Berlin are relevant to the assessment of the man before us,” said Burck. “I thought we were trying to determine if this man is a communist. When do you think we could begin determining that?”

That was when John Rankin from HUAC finally leaned into his microphone and spoke for the first time. He was a tall stiff gentleman in his sixties, who spoke with a deep Southern accent. A Democrat, Rankin had been a member of Congress since the twenties. He was grave, purposeful, and humorless. Alexander thought Rankin was a military man himself, something about his no nonsense demeanor as he had sat and listened.

“I’ll answer Mr. Burck,” Rankin said, addressing the whole committee. “The looting of atomic laboratories, the Soviet rampage in a closed Berlin for eight days, the transformation of Nazi concentration camps into Soviet concentration camps, forced repatriation—in light of the blockade of Berlin by the Soviet Union that is going on even as we speak, does the gentleman from State really think that Soviet activities in Berlin are
irrelevant
to this hearing?” He smiled.

Alexander looked down at his hands. Rankin was definitely military—and perhaps not so humorless.

“
Alleged
activities,” corrected Burck. “It’s all hearsay—from a man who the honorable Congressman suspects of being a loyalty risk.”

“I have not asked Mr. Barrington a single question,” said Rankin. “The gentleman from State should not postulate what I’m suspecting.”

Clearing his throat, Richter interjected. “Just for the record, there is nothing alleged about the Soviet blockade of Berlin.” He changed the subject back to the POW camp at Catowice and at Colditz. During Alexander’s recounting of the escape from Sachsenhausen, the entire room full of men and one female stenographer, fell mute. The only thing Alexander omitted from this version was Tatiana. He didn’t know if it was perjury, but he figured if they weren’t meticulous enough to sift through his tribunal transcript and ask, he certainly wasn’t going to volunteer.

“Well, well, Captain Barrington,” said Rankin when Alexander had finished. “I agree with Lieutenant Richter—as a former soldier in WWI, I don’t know what to call you myself after what we’ve just heard. I think perhaps ‘mister’ is not entirely appropriate. But we do need to go a little further back in your history than Sachsenhausen.”

Alexander held his breath. Perhaps they sifted through his record more meticulously than he had hoped.

“Do you have Communist sympathies, Captain Barrington?”

“No,” he replied.

“What about your mother and father?” Rankin wanted to know. “Harold and Jane Barrington? Would you say
they
had Communist sympathies?”

“I don’t know if they had sympathies,” said Alexander. “But they
were
Communists.”

A chill ran through the long room. Alexander knew his parents were fair game, but he noticed that Burck clammed up.

Rankin fixed his gaze on Alexander. “Please continue. You were about to tell us about your Communist background, I believe.”

He was? “We moved to the Soviet Union in 1930, when I was eleven,” he said. “My parents and I were ultimately arrested during the Great Purge of 1937–38.”

“Well, hold
on
here,” said Burck,
un
clamming. “Let’s not use the term the Great
Purge
the same way we use the term the Great Depression. It’s just propagandistic words, meant to scare and confuse. Often what is a purge to one is simply the execution of applicable laws to another. The record on whether or not there was something called a ‘purge’ is extremely unclear.” He paused. “Much like
your
record, Mr. Barrington.”

Alexander silently narrowed his eyes at Burck.

“And may I point out,” continued Burck, “that, since you are sitting before us, you are actual proof that you were not purged.”

“I wasn’t purged because I escaped on the way to Vladivostok,” said Alexander. “What does that prove?”

“Which escape was this, Mr. Barrington?” said Burck pleasantly. “There seem to be so many.”

Drake, from Justice, took the opportunity to intervene. “When you escaped were you already a Soviet citizen?”

Here it was. More murkiness. “Yes,” said Alexander. “When I was conscripted at age sixteen, I automatically became a Soviet citizen.”

“Ah! And when you became a Soviet citizen, your American citizenship was automatically revoked,” said Drake with cooped-up delight, finally given the chance to uphold the immigration and naturalization laws of the United States.

“Objection!” said Levine, “Mr. Drake, I will repeat again, my client
is
an American citizen.”

“But, Counsel, your client just stated for the record that he was a Soviet citizen. He cannot be a citizen of both the United States and the Soviet Union,” Drake said. “Not then—and
certainly
not now.”

“Yes,” said Matt Levine. “But his American citizenship cannot be revoked if he became the citizen of the Soviet Union involuntarily. And I would posit that
conscription
, by its very definition, infers
involuntary
citizenship. Once again, my client is a natural-born citizen of the United States.”

“Unlike someone who was a naturalized citizen after, say, receiving asylum?” said Burck, looking only at Alexander. “Like a refugee coming into one of our ports—oh, say, Ellis Island, during war?”

Alexander’s hands did not move from the table this time; he had had a chance to prepare himself. Only his teeth ground in his mouth. He had been right to be on guard. It was exactly as he had suspected.

Matt Levine said, “That’s right, nothing like that. Can we move on?”

They moved on—to Harold and Jane Barrington.

For another hour, maybe longer, the man from FBI, along with Congressman Rankin kept on and on.

“Objection! Already asked. Eight times.”

“Objection. Already asked. Ten times.”

“Objection.”

“Objection.”

“Objection.”

“His parents’ history and his own seditionary activities speak to relevancy here, Counsel,” said Rankin.

“What seditionary activities? He was a minor! And his parents are not here to defend themselves. We
really
need to move on.”

“It says here that Anthony Alexander Barrington was arrested at the age of ten in Washington DC during unrest at a pro-revolutionary radical demonstration,” said Rankin. “That’s
his
history. So did he or did he not have some Communist sympathies of his own? He went to the Soviet Union? Lived there, went to school there? Joined the Red Army? Did he become a member of the Communist Party to be in the officer corps? My understanding was that all officers had to be card-carrying party members.”

“That is not true,” said Alexander. “
I
wasn’t. Which was fortunate for me because almost all card-carrying officers of the Red Army were shot in 1938 during”—he paused, coldly staring at Burck—“the
execution of applicable laws
.”

There was stiffness on Burck’s face and satisfaction on Rankin’s. “Answer my question, Captain,” he said.

Levine started to object, but Alexander cut him off. “There were many questions, Congressman Rankin. Starting with the first, you are right, I had been many times by my father’s side when I was a boy.” Alexander took a small breath. “I participated in a number of demonstrations with him. I was arrested three times during some turbulence. He was a Communist, but he was also my father. None of this is in dispute.”

“Mr. Barrington, at the very crux of what is in dispute,” said Rankin in his Mississippi drawl, “is whether or not
you’re
a Communist.”

“And I have answered you a number of times, Congressman,” said Alexander. “I said I was not.”

“Just so you’re clear about the Congressman’s line of questioning, Mr. Barrington,” said Burck with unrestrained derision, “in the now famous opinion of John Rankin, and I quote, ‘the real enemy of the United States all along has been not the Axis Powers but the Soviet Union.’”

“And is this something in
this
day and age that the honorable gentleman from State would like to go on record as
disputing
?” said Rankin with his own unconstrained derision.

Alexander looked from one man to the other and said nothing. He wasn’t being asked a question. Tania was right. He needed to be very careful. Talk about dueling agendas. His head was swimming. The Immigration Department wanted him to be a Soviet citizen without asylum, whom they could deport. The FBI wanted him to be a spy, Soviet or American, they weren’t choosy. Rankin wanted him to be a Communist
and
an American, so he could be charged with treason. Burck, Alexander thought, wanted him to be a Communist
and
a Russian so he could be deported. And Richter just wanted him to be a soldier with a fuckload of information about the enemy. That’s how the forces were lined up at the frontline across from Alexander’s trench.

“Was your father part of any underground espionage network?” asked Rankin.

“Objection,” Levine said in a tired voice.

“Popular Front perhaps? Comintern? The Red Brigade?” Rankin continued.

“Perhaps,” replied Alexander. “I really don’t know.”

“Was Harold Barrington involved in espionage activities for the Soviet Union when he was still in America?”

“Objection, objection, objection…”

“Objection noted. Please answer the question, Captain Barrington.”

“I don’t know. I doubt it,” said Alexander.

Rankin said, “Did your father run to the Soviet Union because his cover as a spy for them was blown in his own country and he feared for his safety?”

“My father didn’t run to the Soviet Union,” said Alexander slowly. “We moved to the Soviet Union with the full knowledge and assent of the U.S. Government.”

“He didn’t run to escape arrest on espionage charges?”

“No, he did not.”

“But wasn’t his U.S. citizenship revoked?”

“It was not revoked as punishment. It was revoked when he became a Soviet citizen.”

“So the answer would be yes?” said Rankin politely. “It was revoked?”

“Yes,” said Alexander. “It was revoked.” He almost wanted to voice his own objection.

“Captain Barrington, did your father commit treason,” asked Rankin, “against his own country, the United States, by spying on it for the Soviet Union?”

“No, Congressman,” said Alexander. “He did not.” He forced his hands to remain steady. Oh, Dad, look what you’ve left behind for me.

They stopped questioning him to take another short recess.

“What happened to Harold and Jane Barrington after they were arrested in 1936 in Leningrad?” asked Rankin when the meeting resumed.

“They were executed in 1937.” Alexander gave Burck a look that said,
this is what I think of your “record is unclear,” gentleman from State.

“On what charges?”

“Treason. They were convicted of being American spies.”

There was a pause. “
Convicted
, you say?” said Rankin. “Of being American spies?”

“Yes. Arrested, tried, convicted, shot.”

“Well, we know for a fact,” said Rankin, “that they were not spying for the
United States
Government.”