Beautiful Assassin (40 page)

“Nothing,” I said, sighing. But clearly he could see that there was something wrong. Then I added, “At least nothing having to do with you. It’s very hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

I shook my head.

“You can trust me. Whatever you tell me goes no further. I promise.”

Trust him, I thought. The captain and I held each other’s gaze for several seconds. As I stared up at him, though, I thought about what Mrs. Roosevelt had said about him, that he was a good-looking man—tall and lean, with a sinewy, athletic build despite the missing limb. Those pale lashes, the smattering of freckles. His hazel eyes shimmering with both intelligence and a certain boyish innocence. And he seemed so kind. I wanted to believe I could trust this man, and I felt a wild, almost ungovernable impulse, this desperate desire to unburden myself to him, to seek comfort in his kind aspect. But I said only, “It’s just that my life is not my own. What I say or do is not necessarily how I feel. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Jack?”

“I think so, yes,” he replied, with an awkward grin. Then before I knew it, he leaned down in to me and kissed me on the mouth. The gesture so startled me that I quickly turned and headed toward my room. “Tat’yana,” he called after me. He rushed after me and grabbed me by the arm. “Tat’yana, please forgive me.”

“It’s all right,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Good night, Lieutenant.”

My room was dark when I entered, and I had to fumble for the bathroom light switch. Exhausted from the long day, I quickly undressed down to my slip and underwear. I hung the mink coat and the dress in the closet, then returned to the bathroom to wash before bed. I stood looking at myself in the mirror for a moment, my thoughts in complete disarray. You mustn’t lead him on, I warned myself. It would only hurt him. And you as well. Then I glanced down at my belly, lowered my slip and underpants, and inspected the knotted scar slithering across the pale skin of my abdomen. I was empty now, a dried-out husk that no longer held even the possibility of life within her. What man would want such a woman as I?

As I walked into the darkened bedroom, I froze. I sensed the unmistakable presence of someone. The corner of the room near the window was dark. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a darker lump seated in the chair. I reached for the lamp beside my bed, intending to use it as a weapon.

“Who’s there?” I asked, trying to sound formidable.

Silence for a moment, my breath clawing in my throat. Then a voice said matter-of-factly, “It is I.”

Vasilyev. He flicked on the light near the chair.

I set the lamp down. “What are you doing here?” I cried.

“I think you had better put some clothes on, don’t you?”

I quickly retrieved the mink coat from the closet and threw it around my shoulders.

“Be careful with that coat or my goose is cooked,” Vasilyev joked lightheartedly. On the end table beside him was a half-empty bottle of what looked like vodka. He was holding a glass, and his voice sounded unctuous with drink, his words slurred.

“How did you get in?” I asked.

He held up a key in reply. “Would you care for a drink?”

“I don’t want a drink.”

“How was your evening?”

“It was fine. I’m very tired. I’d like to go to bed.”

“I heard voices out in the hall. Was that Captain Taylor?”

“Yes,” I said. “He escorted me up to my room.”

“Quite the gentleman. What did you and he talk about?”

“Nothing,” I replied.

“You spent a long time talking about nothing,” he said. I didn’t reply. “This might actually be a golden opportunity.”

“For what?”

“If you’re alone with the captain all day, he might let something interesting slip about Mrs. Roosevelt.”

“I told you already, he’s not like that.”

“Like what?”

“Disloyal.”

“If he brings her name into the conversation, let him talk. Even try to coax him along.”

“He’s not a fool,” I said. “He’ll see through what I’m doing.”

“Not if you distract him,” he said.

“Distract him?”

Vasilyev gave me a look of complicity. “With your looks and charm.”

“I told you already, I’m not to prostitute myself for you or anybody else.”

“I’m fully aware of your high moral ideals, Lieutenant. But you already have the captain wrapped around your little finger. Simply use it to get him to talk about her. Inquire about her friend Hickok.”

He lifted his glass and downed it. Picking up the bottle, he poured himself another.

“Is that all you wanted?” I asked.

“What did you and Mrs. Roosevelt discuss tonight?”

“We talked about the opera.”

“The opera? How nice. And Miss Hickok?”

I shrugged. “She seemed to enjoy herself.”

I was struck suddenly by the absurdity of the situation I found myself in. Here I was sitting in a strange room in my underwear wearing a mink coat, talking to a drunken man about whether or not the wife of the president of the United States had a female lover. While the world was going up in flames.

“Did you happen to bring up what I asked you to?” he said to me.

I wanted to give him something, a small tidbit so that he felt I was cooperating and wouldn’t push me further regarding Mrs. Roosevelt and Miss Hickok.

“Yes,” I replied. “She said her husband didn’t like foreign food, and when I said that I hoped he wouldn’t have to leave the country soon, she said she wished that were the case.”

Vasilyev’s interest perked up at this.

“Did she say anything else? Such as where he was going?”

“No. Though she seemed to suggest that her husband would have to travel overseas in the near future.”

“Doubtless a reference to his upcoming conference with the Boar at Casablanca,” he said.

“The Boar?” I asked, thinking of course of my old comrade and nemesis, the Wild Boar, Sergeant Gasdanov.

“That fat little Brit, Churchill,” he replied. “He and the president plan to keep us in the dark about it.”

“How did you know about it then?” I asked.

“Our sources in the White House.”

“That man I gave the packet to?”

“Yes. The conference, of course, is quite secret. They didn’t want the Nazis finding out and having Rommel show up unannounced. But we are supposed to be their allies and yet they make plans behind our back. Do you see why we can’t trust the Amerikosy?”

“One might well ask what have we done to deserve their trust,” I countered.

“The only reason they consider us allies now is that we are fodder for the German Panzers. If it were not for us, Hitler would be having tea right now in Buckingham Palace. Besides, the Brits and Americans have big plans for after the war, plans from which we are excluded.” He took another sip of his drink and gazed out the window at the city. There was a certain wistful look in Vasilyev’s eyes. “By the way, where did you say Captain Taylor studied in the Soviet Union?”

“I didn’t say. But he told me he spent time in Leningrad before the war.”

“His name seems vaguely familiar to me. Did he ever say that he worked at the embassy in Moscow?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

He shrugged. “I thought I recall that name. Tomorrow, if you get a chance, ask him if he ever worked at the embassy.”

He then lifted his glass in the air.

“Here’s to my son,” he said. “He has been awarded the Red Banner for bravery.”

“Congratulations, Comrade,” I offered. “You must be very proud.”

He nodded absently. Then he finished the drink in one gulp and with difficulty got to his feet.

“Good night, Lieutenant,” he said, giving me a little bow. Grabbing the bottle, he made a wobbly line for the door, using his free hand against the wall to steady himself. He opened the door and started out but half turned before leaving. Over his shoulder he said, “Unfortunately, the medal was awarded posthumously.”

“Comrade, I—”

But Vasilyev was already out the door.

T
he next morning, before I was to accompany Captain Taylor, I was interviewed by a reporter from the
Saturday Evening Post
. With Radimov translating, we spoke over breakfast in the hotel dining room. The reporter was a woman just a few years older than I, a delicate creature with lovely red hair and fine porcelain features. She wore a dark tilt hat with netting over her blue eyes and a polka-dotted chiffon dress. She was quite pretty. She hadn’t done her research, though, and didn’t know much about me. She asked the same familiar questions I’d been asked a dozen times already: did I find killing hard, did I mind getting dirty, did I think women were cut out for being soldiers. She wanted me to tell her the story about my duel with the German sniper.

“Weren’t you afraid?” she asked.

A photographer accompanied her and took several pictures afterward.

When the interview concluded, I found Captain Taylor waiting for me in the lobby. He had a newspaper in his hand.

“Here,” he said, handing it to me. On the front page of the
Times
was my picture, with a headline that he translated for me: “Soviet Sniper Chides Americans: Don’t Hide Behind My Skirt.”

“Mrs. Roosevelt has already gotten a number of complaints,” he explained. “One was from a general at the Pentagon.”

“I didn’t mean to cause her any problems.”

“Don’t worry about it. She actually thinks it’s funny.”

He glanced over at me, a pensive look shading his eyes. The previous night was obviously on both of our minds—the kiss outside of my room. Yet we both tried to avoid it.

“And how are you this morning?” he asked.

“Fine,” I replied.

He hesitated, seemed about to say one thing, then changed his mind and said, “I thought we’d start by seeing the Statue of Liberty.”

The autumn day was overcast, coolish but pleasant. The city was already teeming with a frenetic activity I was just beginning to get used to. We took a ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty. Up close she was even more impressive than that first time I’d seen her through the mist, her presence more commanding, her visage even more determined. Later we visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Center with its Radio City Music Hall, then the long ride up in the elevator of the Empire State Building. From the observation deck of the latter, Captain Taylor pointed out sites below.

“You see that island over there? That’s Staten Island,” he explained, pointing toward the south. “There’s Brooklyn and Queens. North, that’s the Bronx. And do you see that way off in the distance?” he said, pointing toward the northeast, where a small strip of bluish gray ocean was ringed by land on either side.

“Yes?”

“That’s Moscow right over there,” he offered with a smile.

“You have very good eyesight, Captain,” I said. This made me think of what Vasilyev wanted me to ask him. “Did you ever work at the American embassy there?”

“No. Why?”

“Vasilyev thought he remembered the name Taylor.”

“I never made it to Moscow, unfortunately. He must have me confused with another Taylor.”

When we were back down in the street, he asked, “Have you heard of the Yankees?”

“It’s what they call you Americans, is it not?”

“No. I meant the baseball team. You should see at least one game of America’s pastime.”

Instead of a taxi, we descended down into the city’s subterranean world and got on a subway. Once we were in the stadium, he bought me a hot dog and we sat in the crowded and noisy stands and I watched my first baseball game. The grass was greener and lusher than that of the gardens of Livadia Palace, which had been the czar’s summer palace. My father had once taken me to see it when I was a girl.

“Do you see that man out there with the number five on his jersey?” the captain said, pointing to a player running out toward the middle of the green expanse. “That’s Joe DiMaggio.”

“Is he a good player?”

“The best.”

The captain tried, patiently but I must admit unsuccessfully, to explain the game to me. However, the more he tried, the more confused I became. I was used to the simplicity of football, where one had only to kick a ball into a net. Baseball was more confusing than mathematics.

Despite my not understanding the game, I enjoyed myself immensely—the raucous cheering of the crowds, the popcorn and hot dogs, the striking beauty of the fields beneath a gray autumn sky, the way men ran about so carefree and yet with such intensity, chasing the little white ball and sliding along the dirt. I had forgotten that life could offer such innocent pursuits, that everything was not deadly serious. That one could run over a field for no other purpose than the sheer joy of it.

“May I ask you a question about your Mr. Vasilyev?” the captain said.

I looked over at him. “I suppose.”

“What’s his role here?”

“His role?” I repeated, surprised by the question. “As I told you, to watch over me. To make sure I don’t make mistakes.”

The captain’s hazel eyes bored into me. “Is he with the NKVD?”

Startled by his sudden directness, I didn’t quite know how to answer, in part because I wasn’t sure myself. But also partly because I wasn’t sure what he knew and why he was asking me. Which brought me back to both Viktor’s and Vasilyev’s warnings about the captain.

“Why would you suggest that?”

“From things I’ve heard him say.”

Trying to remain composed, I replied, “I am a mere soldier. That’s beyond my scope.”

“But surely you must have your suspicions.”

“I’ve found it’s safer for one to keep his suspicions to himself.”

After the game was over, we left in the crush of people. The captain grasped my hand, and we rode the surge of humanity exiting the stadium.

“Hold on tight,” Captain Taylor called to me over the clamor. “Your Mr. Vasilyev would have my neck if I lost you.”

We headed down into the subway again and got on and were propelled into the darkness. The subway car was packed, and we stood pressed against each other. It was only then that I realized he was still holding my hand. His hand was warm and moist, the fingertips, for some reason, smooth as a pianist’s. I looked up at him and he released my hand.

“Did you enjoy the game?” he asked, as if to cover his embarrassment.

“Yes. But it’s very complicated.”

“It takes some time to pick up the nuances,” he said.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have much time for nuances,” I replied.

He glanced at me and smiled. “Well, I’ll just have to give you a crash course.”

We ended up back where I had spoken the previous day—Central Park. It was late in the afternoon now, the air turning brisk, the sky growing darker with the promise of rain. We spotted a line of horse-drawn carriages parked on the street.

“Have you ever ridden in a carriage before?” the captain asked.

“What, do you think I am royalty?” I said playfully.

He paid one of the drivers, and we climbed up into the elegant carriage. As we rode through the park I thought of those old grainy photos my father had shown me of the czar and czarina riding in a gilded coach to some royal function. We saw couples strolling arm in arm, mothers pushing their prams, people walking dogs, men in suitclothes with their ties loosened, smoking cigarettes after a day’s work in one of the city’s gleaming skyscapers. It seemed a perfect bucolic setting, like something out of a painting by Constable. As we rode deeper into
the park, however, here and there I began noticing these disheveled-looking figures sprawled under bushes or beneath overpasses. Some were riffling through garbage cans looking for food. One fellow in a filthy coat pulled a small wagon filled with what appeared to be rags. They reminded me of those Sevastopolians eking out an existence during the German siege.

“Who are all those people?” I asked.

“The homeless. Those who can’t find work,” he replied.

“But you are such a wealthy country.”

He shrugged. “Yes, it’s unfortunate. One of the side effects of capitalism.”

“Side effects,” I scoffed, thinking of our argument that night back in Washington. “There are those in my country who would point to this as proof that your society is decadent. That capitalism is doomed.”

“Things were even worse just a few years back during the Depression. Men who’d lost everything were jumping from the windows down in Wall Street. We had Hoovervilles all over the country.”

“Hoovervilles?”

“Ramshackle settlements where the poor lived,” the captain explained. “Every city and town had soup lines. People standing on corners looking for a handout. Sleeping under bridges. Many thought capitalism was finished. When President Roosevelt came in he started to put people back to work. Created programs for farmers and young people. Of course, there were those who thought his New Deal just another form of socialism.”

“The rest of the world looks at you Americans with great envy,” I said. “They don’t see this side of your society.”

“We have our problems, all right.”

“As do we. When I was a a girl, a terrible famine swept across my native Ukraine. People starved to death by the hundreds of thousands. We would see bodies lying in the street. The government tried to blame it on bad weather or on the greed of the kulaks, who they said sold their grain on the black market. Yet the truth is, the leaders were to blame. They secretly wanted to break the spirit of us Ukrainians because we have always been fiercely independent. More than a million died.”

“That’s awful,” the captain said.

“Yes, it was. And we could not even speak about it for fear of being arrested,” I explained. “That is one advantage you Americans have over us, that you are free to speak out when you think something is wrong. What did Mrs. Roosevelt call the law that protects your right to speak?”

“The First Amendment. It’s part of our Constitution.”

“That is a very wise law. To be able to say and write what is in your hearts.”

“Somehow I can’t imagine you not speaking your mind,” he said, a wry smile parting his lips.

“I’m not as fearless as you make me out,” I said. “I haven’t always spoken up, even when I knew something was wrong.”

I paused then, worried that I had already said too much. I thought of all the warnings I’d been given about the Amerikosy. How they weren’t to be trusted. How they and the British were working behind our backs. How they were dangerous and would eventually betray us. How in time they, and not the Germans, would be our mortal enemies.

“Mrs. Roosevelt said that you should do one thing every day that scares you.”

“That is a very wise idea,” I replied. “And what is it that scares you, Captain?”

He smiled at me. “Growing old.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I never want to grow old.”

“The alternative isn’t so good either,” I offered, to which he laughed.

“I suppose not. And what of you, Tat’yana? What scares you?”

“Many things.”

“I don’t believe that for a moment,” the captain said.

I thought then of what Vasilyev had wanted me to do—get him to talk about Mrs. Roosevelt. “Why have some called the president’s wife a Communist?”

“I guess because of all the work she’s done for the poor. She helped workers unionize. Pressured companies for better working conditions. She’s been a member of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union for more than twenty years.”

“But she’s not a Communist, no?”

“Of course she isn’t. She’s as loyal an American as there is. She’s dedicated her life to helping people.”

“Then why are they allowed to say such lies about her?”

“Our freedom of speech works both ways,” he said with a bitter laugh. “They’ve said some pretty nasty things about her.”

“Being such a sensitive person, these lies must hurt her feelings.”

“She doesn’t let on. She’s a very private person really. But underneath I think what they say and write about her takes a toll.”

“Is she very different in private?”

“A little. She has a temper sometimes. Especially when she thinks something isn’t fair.”

“But how does she manage to keep her…her private affairs private?”

“It’s hard sometimes,” he said. “As you can imagine she has to be very discreet.”

“In your position, you must also have to be very discreet.”

The captain turned to look at me directly. He had a partial smile on his face, but his stare was probing, one that made me uncomfortable. “Is that what your Vasilyev wanted you to ask me?”

I stared at him for a moment, speechless.

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know.”

He smiled knowingly at me. I tried to overcome my surprise that he had caught me out in a lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?”

We rode in an awkward silence for a time.

Who was this man? I wondered. And what did he know about me? About Vasilyev and the others?

After a while he said, “You’re a very brave woman, Tat’yana. What I don’t understand is how you can let that man manipulate you like he does.”

It reminded me of what Viktor had said to me.

“I am a soldier. I follow orders.”

“That’s an excuse. Not a reason.”

A light mist started to drift down from the gray sky. It smelled of
metal and of smoke, but it left a pleasantly cool sensation on the skin. I could recall in the hot days of fighting, being trapped in a sniper cell for hours, when a rain would suddenly begin. How I loved the cooling touch of rain on my face. The driver stopped the carriage and got down, came around and pulled up the top to keep us from getting wet. Then we started up again.

I sensed the captain’s gaze on me.

“Is something the matter?” I asked.

“I wasn’t sure I should share this with you or not,” he offered, his tone guarded. “But your comrade told me something rather disturbing.”

“What did Vasilyev tell you?” I nervously asked him.

“No, not him. Viktor.”

“Viktor?” I replied.

He nodded. “If I tell you, though, you must keep this in strictest confidence, Tat’yana. I wouldn’t want to get him in trouble.”

“Of course. Viktor’s my friend.” I worried that he had told the captain about his plan to defect. If he had, I knew there would be no turning back for him. “What did he tell you?”