Beautiful Assassin (35 page)

I smiled shyly to Mrs. Roosevelt. “Yes,” I said.

“
Simpatichny,
” she replied. Meaning
nice
.

Instead of heading back to the city, Mrs. Roosevelt drove us to a parklike cemetery on the outskirts of the city—Rock Creek Cemetery, the captain explained to me.

“I want to show you a place that’s very special to me,” Mrs. Roosevelt said as we parked and got out. We made our way to a secluded, leafy grove. We sat on stone benches, Miss Hickok on one end, I on the other with Mrs. Roosevelt and Captain Taylor in the middle. Opposite us was a granite slab atop which sat a large statue of what appeared to be a woman. She was shrouded in a long cape, her eyes closed, in sleep or death, I couldn’t tell. Even so, her expression conveyed a profound sadness.

“I come here when I want to be alone,” Mrs. Roosevelt told me. “I find it very peaceful.”

“The place gives me the willies,” said Miss Hickok, only half in jest.

Mrs. Roosevelt told me that the statue was called
Grief
. That it was commissioned by Henry Adams, a famous American writer, she explained, and grandson and great-grandson of presidents, for his wife, Clover, after her death.

“The poor woman killed herself when she learned that her husband was in love with another woman,” Mrs. Roosevelt said to me.

“That’s so sad,” I replied.

“Indeed,” said the First Lady, her mouth crinkling into a frown.

“You ask me, I think she was a dumb Dora,” Miss Hickok offered blithely.

“But, Hick, she was in love, and her heart was broken,” countered Mrs. Roosevelt.

“To kill yourself for some two-timing bastard?” Miss Hickok replied. “No matter how much he broke my heart, I wouldn’t kill myself. I might kill him, though,” she added with a hoarse laugh.

“You’re not a romantic, Hick,” the First Lady said with a wistful smile.

Miss Hickok gave the First Lady a critical look. “And you’re too much of one, Ellie.”

As they spoke, I almost got the sense that they were having a private conversation, one that wasn’t about the statue or the Adamses, nor was it one meant for the captain and myself.

After a while, Mrs. Roosevelt said, “There was a poem written about the statue. Let’s see if I can remember it.

“Don’t you think that’s true, Tat’yana?” Mrs. Roosevelt asked me. “That we live in a world of passion and lies.”

“I’m not sure, Mrs. Roosevelt,” I said. “I think the world is filled with many who lie. But passion is something that springs from the heart.”

Mrs. Roosevelt stared across at the statue. Her normally cheerful
demeanor turned suddenly despondent, her countenance as sad and forlorn as if mirroring the face of
Grief
. Her eyes watered, and I thought for a moment she might actually begin to cry. I felt so sad for this kind and strong woman, a woman who’d momentarily let her guard down. Miss Hickok reached out and took one of her hands, the one that had the sapphire ring. Then she uttered something, something that was, I assumed, meant to comfort. When I glanced at the captain for his translation, he gave a faint shake of his head, as if to say this was something not meant for our ears. I sensed at that moment what should have been obvious all along regarding the First Lady and Miss Hickok—that they were much more than friends.

“Would you look at me now,” said Mrs. Roosevelt, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief that the captain had handed her. “Acting like a damn fool over a silly statue I’ve seen a hundred times. I suppose you’re right, Hick, I’m too much of a romantic.” She stood then, extended a hand to Miss Hickok, and said, “Let’s take a walk, shall we? Captain, would you keep Miss Levchenko amused?”

When they were gone, the captain and I were silent for a while, uncomfortable with our having just been a witness to this scene. Even the afternoon had turned melancholy. What had started out as a beautiful autumn day had now become overcast. Dark clouds were gathering, mushrooming into one another like smoke from a bomb, and the air had gotten cooler.

“Looks like we’re going to get some rain,” he said, looking toward the sky. It was something to fill the awkward silence.

“Mrs. Roosevelt seems rather sad to me,” I offered.

“Sometimes. Usually she manages to put up a good front. She was brought up with that British stiff upper lip.”

“It must be hard being the wife of the president.”

“Yes,” he said.

I hesitated for a moment, thinking of what Vasilyev had asked me to do. Then I went ahead and inquired, “Do people know?”

He glanced over at me. “Know what?” he replied, either not getting my point or at least pretending not to.

“About them. Mrs. Roosevelt and her friend.”

He sighed. “A few, I suppose. Of course, if it got out it would ruin her. Probably the president too. All she ever wanted to do is help people. That’s her whole life, helping people.”

“Yes, I can see that. Does her husband know?”

“I’m not sure. But it’s no secret that he’s had other women. I can only imagine it’s been very hard for her. Keeping up her public front as his wife.”

“She is a woman who feels things deeply,” I said. “And yet, I assume she and her husband are not happily married then?”

“It’s what we call a marriage of convenience,” he said.

“In my country many get married for such a reason.”

“She thinks the world of you, you know,” he said.

“And I am very fond of her as well.”

He stared at me very strangely then, deep into my eyes in a way I don’t think I’d ever been looked at before.

“If her secret got out it would ruin her,” he repeated, his stare implying something whose import wasn’t quite clear to me.

“What do you mean, Captain?”

“Only that I wouldn’t want to see her hurt.”

He turned and looked off in the direction of the statue, pursing his full lips. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. Did he worry that I might say something about Mrs. Roosevelt and her friend? I had the strangest sense that he somehow knew about what Vasilyev had asked me to do. I don’t know why, but I did. As I stared at his profile, I thought of what Mrs. Roosevelt had said about him. That he was handsome. He was, I thought, and I felt a sudden clutching feeling in my chest, as if a chill wind had blown across my heart. I shivered.

I followed his stare toward the shrouded and mysterious figure
Grief
. Despite the undeniable sadness that the place exuded, I could suddenly understand why Mrs. Roosevelt liked to come here. There was something profoundly calming about it. Though I wasn’t particularly religious, I felt a deep spiritual connection to the place. I thought of my daughter, buried in an unknown field half a world away, alone, without so much as a marker to note the spot. Instead of feeling, as I usually did, a sense of panic and guilt and helplessness, I felt oddly at peace
right then. I couldn’t say whether she was in heaven or not. Didn’t even know whether I believed in heaven. I only knew that she was at peace, and because of that, so was I.

“May I ask you something, Captain?” I began.

“Please, call me Jack. We don’t need to be so formal. At least when no one’s around.”

“If you prefer. And you may call me Tat’yana. The other night, when we were talking out on the terrace, you were going to ask me something.”

He frowned; then his expression changed as he remembered what it was.

“Oh. I was going to ask you about your husband.”

“My husband?”

“Yes. I never hear you speak of him.”

“There is nothing to say. He was my husband.”

“What was he like?”

“He was a good man. A wonderful father to our daughter.”

“You must have loved him very much.”

I paused, looked over at him. I recalled the time in the trenches that Zoya said the same thing to me.

“Why do you say that, Captain?”

“Jack,” he corrected.

“Sorry, Jack.”

“I don’t know. I guess because I see you as someone of great passion.”

“But you hardly know me,” I said

“I’m a pretty good judge of character. You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just curious,” he said.

“We Soviets don’t always talk about our feelings like you Americans. We don’t wear our emotions on our shirtsleeve, as you put it.”

“I didn’t mean to pry,” he said.

“In my country, things are very different. Life is harder there, and people marry for different reasons besides love.”

Even as I said these empty platitudes, I could hear my parents’ voices telling me why I should have married Kolya.

The captain smiled condescendingly.

“What?” I said. “You think that is foolish?”

“It just seems wrong to me.”

“It has nothing to do with right and wrong,” I snapped at him. “It’s simply the way things are. Love is a bourgeois Western concept.”

“Do you really believe that, Tat’yana?”

“Of course I do,” I replied. “Marx said that religion was the opiate of the people. Perhaps in the West, your opiate is love. You sell the notion of love in all of your advertisements so that people buy more automobiles and perfume and pretty clothes. Love is the capitalist engine that drives your economy.”

He smiled, shook his head. “I think that’s very sad. I feel sorry for you.”

“I don’t want your pity, Captain,” I explained, my pretense of anger trying to hide my insincerity of belief. “Just because one faces the truth doesn’t mean one deserves to be pitied. Your fiancée, this Becky, did she want to marry you for love? Or was it simply because she wanted a nice bourgeois life with a big house and fancy things, a washing machine and a vacuum cleaner, and thought you could provide those for her?”

“She loved me,” he blurted out, his tone bordering on childish petulance. My question, I could see, stung him, and I immediately regretted having said it.

“Forgive me. I had no right to say that,” I offered. “Did you love her?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Then you should consider yourself very fortunate.”

“Why?”

“I think it is more important to love than be loved. More painful perhaps, but more life-affirming.”

“But I thought you just said that love was just a bourgeois concept.”

“Even we Communists must have our illusions,” I said, smiling.

When I returned to the embassy that day, Vasilyev brought me out into the shed behind the building and “interrogated” me as he had on other occasions regarding my meetings with Mrs. Roosevelt. He wanted to
know in the minutest detail what we had talked about: did she say anything about her husband’s attitudes regarding the war, did she happen to bring up anything about the president’s health, his election plans, whether or not he was planning on traveling overseas. If she mentioned Mr. Churchill at all.

“No. She didn’t talk about any of that,” I replied.

“Did she say anything whatsoever about her husband?” Vasilyev wanted to know.

“She said he liked duck.”

“Duck,” Vasilyev said, frowning.

“To eat,” I explained.

“What of her and Miss Hickok? What did they talk about?”

“Nothing.”

“Surely they talked about something?”

“Nothing you would consider important, Comrade.”

“I’ll decide if it’s important or not,” he said.

“Miss Hickok thinks Mrs. Roosevelt is a romantic.”

“Romantic in what manner?” Vasilyev said, his interest piqued.

“In her views of love.”

“And the captain. Did you get a chance to talk to him?”

“A bit,” I replied.

“Did he tell you anything about Mrs. Roosevelt?”

I hesitated, with Vasilyev staring at me, waiting. I knew that whatever choice I made, whether I told him the truth or whether I lied, I would be heading down a path from which I could not return. Yet I didn’t feel I could betray Mrs. Roosevelt’s trust in me.

“He avoided talking about Mrs. Roosevelt.”

“Did you ask about her?”

“Yes. But he either didn’t know anything or didn’t want to share it with me.”

“I see,” Vasilyev said. “We will have to find a way.”

“A way?” I asked.

“To get him to talk.”

That evening we had dinner at the embassy, Ambassdor Litvinov and his wife, as well as Vasilyev, Gavrilov, and myself. We talked about
the upcoming tour. It was to take six weeks and cover some forty cities across America. They’d obviously been planning it out for some time, all without my knowledge. It was an event, said the ambassador, that would change the course of the war. Afterward, as we were drinking our brandies, Litvinov turned to his wife and said, “My dear, why don’t you take Comrade Gavrilov and show him our library? I think he would find it of interest.” It was a polite way of getting rid of Gavrilov. When they were gone, Litvinov said to Vasilyev and me, “Come.”

We headed down the hall, through the kitchen and outside into the cool autumn night. We marched over to the shed and entered it. The ambassador put a finger to his lips to tell us we were to be quiet. Once we were inside, he shut the door and fumbled for a moment, trying to find the light switch. Waiting in the darkness, I distinctly felt the presence of a fourth person, of someone besides Ambassador Litvinov and Vasilyev and myself. I don’t know if it was his body heat or a vaguely metallic smell that reminded me of iodine, but I knew that we weren’t alone. Finally the light came on.

“Hello, Ambassador,” came another voice from directly behind me in the shed. The voice was raspy, and I jerked at the sound. With the sudden illumination, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust.

“How are you, Comrade Zarubin,” Litvinov said. “I’d like you to meet Senior Lieutenant Levchenko.”

Still squinting, I turned to see a stocky man of medium height, his reddish brown hair plastered down with oil. His nose was blunt and broad, his mouth sullen-looking. He had gray pupils that were dull and lusterless, so that looking into them was like looking into a fog. There was about him something familiar, although I couldn’t place him at first.