The Prince of the Soviets

7. THE SECRET POLICE AGENT

Galina Dorina was a dentist’s daughter. For as long as she could remember, her family’s large apartment had been a meeting place for the revolutionaries welcomed into the house by Galina’s mother, who was keen to be thought of as a progressive social reformer.

The badly dressed guests would eat and drink their fill before they began to give speeches declaring that the Tsar, the landowners, and the capitalists were bleeding the life out of the Russian people.

Galina’s parents encouraged her to read books in which the idea of freedom was lauded to the skies; her own life, however, proceeded according to a strict and unvarying schedule from the moment she greeted her parents each morning to the moment she lay down to sleep at night in the position considered most conducive to healthy breathing.

When Galina turned sixteen, her mother made her a wardrobe of new clothes and started taking her daughter out to social engagements to make the acquaintance of important gentlemen with stout figures and gleaming bald heads. The family had run up debts, and Galina’s parents were hoping to arrange a good marriage for her.

“You’ll find her a very obliging girl,” Galina’s mother would assure them.

Galina had a keen instinct for what was required of her and generally lived up to her parents’ expectations, whether it was a question of achieving good grades at school or disappearing into her room when she was not wanted.

If she fell short in any way, her father would hiss in her ear, “You’re in for it this evening.” Later, he would thrash her with a dog leash.

Her mother was given to periodic fits of rage, during which she would often pick up the first thing she could lay her hands on and hurl it at her daughter. The scar on Galina’s neck had been caused by a pair of red-hot curling irons—the story about the fire was her own invention.

One day, Galina’s mother had invited over to the house a revolutionary, Comrade Alov, who was under surveillance by the Tsarist police. He was twelve years older than Galina and wore a ridiculous pince-nez on a greasy ribbon. The cook took one look at him and dubbed him the Stick.

Comrade Alov’s passionate speeches had a profound effect on Galina. He spoke of how, in the present cruel age, the country needed not men and women but “superhumans” free of the doubt, fear, and petty vices of ordinary mortals. This, he argued, was the only way to retain dignity and not to demean oneself before those in power.

Whenever Alov was invited to dinner by Galina’s mother, he would criticize his hostess for her sentimental books and deplore her husband’s desire to live “as well as the next man.”

“We only live once on this earth,” Alov said passionately. “And look at how you’re wasting your lives! Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Is that really all you want—to be narrow-minded, bourgeois conformists?”

“Oh, dear, I am ashamed,” Galina’s mother sighed, dabbing away a tear with a scented handkerchief.

“Hear, hear! Spoken like a true man!” her father exclaimed and scribbled down phrases from Alov’s speech in the special notebook he used to note down words of wisdom.

A romance grew up between Galina and Alov, but when her parents found out, they threatened to take their daughter’s young man to the police. Alov was not the son-in-law they had been hoping for.

He took Galina away with him to Paris, where the Bolshevik party had assigned him to go, and that was the last time she saw her parents. Many years later, she found out that they had died of hunger during the civil war.

Galina did everything Alov asked or even hinted, cooking and cleaning for him, typing out his articles and translating materials from English and French into Russian. Alov had no intention of marrying Galina, so he informed her that she was an emancipated woman and that marriage was a bourgeois institution, unthinkable for one who held his convictions.

In 1914, war broke out. As a foreigner, Alov was not required to sign up, but he went to the front nevertheless as a volunteer to spread revolutionary propaganda among the French troops.

Galina was convinced that he would be killed. Soon after Alov had come back for a few days’ leave, she found herself pregnant and resolved to keep the child. Seven months later, her daughter Tata was born.

But despite Galina’s fears, Alov survived the war. He was gassed in the trenches, and as a result, suffered periodical attacks of a mysterious, dreadful sickness that would leave him doubled up with pain, struggling for breath. He took to wearing amber beads on his wrist, saying that they helped when he had an attack.

Early in 1919, Alov returned to Moscow with his “family,” found work with the political police, and was given a room in the ancient Select Hotel, which was now horribly dirty and run-down.

The revolution had rid the country not only of exploitation but also of all creature comforts: everyday essentials—screws for spectacles, costume hooks and eyes, or nail scissors—had become unattainable luxuries. But Galina did not complain: what was a little discomfort when they were fighting for a bright future for all mankind?

She was desperate to believe that their efforts would not be in vain. She wanted to think that soon she would have her own divan covered by a plaid blanket and her own painted porcelain cup from which to drink hot chocolate, a private kitchen and sink, and her own lavatory where she could leave the commode without worrying that it would be stolen by her neighbors.

But week followed week, year followed year, and nothing changed.

Galina was a useful addition to Alov’s life; not only did she carry out his every wish without a word of complaint but she was also able to take care of herself. But little Tata and her screaming got on his nerves. The three of them were all cooped up together in one small room where there was nowhere to hide from the baby’s cries. He would shoot accusing glances at Galina as if to say, “Because you took it into your head to have a baby, now we all have to suffer!”

The neighbors would knock on the wall and shout, “Keep your little pest quiet!”

Galina, flushed and hectic, would often slap Tata, which only made the little girl cry louder.

“Are you a complete fool, woman?” Alov would hiss miserably.

He would go out for a cigarette, and Galina would hug Tata and cry bitterly, “Forgive me, please, for God’s sake!”

Alov had been charged with keeping an eye on what the foreign press was writing about the USSR. He carried out his work so well that finally he was given a room in an apartment on Bolshoi Kiselny Lane.

“We need to have a serious talk,” he told Galina when he received the official warrant.

He began by thanking her profusely for having been such a faithful comrade and for her devoted work in the fight for communism.

Galina listened, wondering where all this was leading.

At last, Alov drew himself up and, unable to meet her eye, informed her that he was marrying an actress.

Galina was speechless. She could not imagine how Alov could have fallen in love with another woman, still less decide to get married. After all, he had always told her he was against marriage.

“I would like to do the right thing by you,” added Alov, “so I am proposing that you and Tata take my new room. After all, I’m much in debt to you.”

“But what about you?” blurted out Galina, still reeling from the shock. “They’ll take away the room at the Select Hotel now, won’t they?”

“I’ll manage. Don’t worry.”

So, Galina and her daughter moved into Bolshoi Kiselny Lane, and Alov moved in with a friend, an OGPU agent, who had extra living space. Galina did not know whether to be pleased about her new situation or to weep with the humiliation of it all.

True to his word, Alov married his actress, and Galina decided to have a look at her rival.

This rising star was called Dunya Odesskaya. She had no permanent job and found work here and there as an understudy in the theaters. She was a pretty girl with huge, watery eyes and short blonde curls but had no talent to speak of. Galina wondered if while at the front, Alov might have received a serious blow to the head that had affected his judgment.

Tata soon forgot all about her father, who never even showed his face in Bolshoi Kiselny Lane, and Galina had made up the story about the commissar who had died in the fire so that Tata would not feel that her father had abandoned her.

Tata would tell the story to everyone she met with great pride before showing them an important family relic—a crystal ashtray with a broken corner, which Galina had bought at a street market.

“This was my father’s,” Tata would say. “He gave it to me on my third birthday.”

To Galina’s surprise, her relations with Alov did not come to an end. Once or twice a month, he would invite her to his office to “drink tea.” Those visits would end with passionate sessions on the office divan, after which Galina would leave deeply satisfied, not so much by Alov’s prowess as a lover but by the thought of having taken revenge on her cow-eyed rival.

She had three abortions, the last of which, to her relief, had made her blessedly infertile. This, at least, put an end to the twice a year visits to the midwife to be “cleaned out.”

Galina was twenty-nine, and her face was already etched with the first faint lines of suffering. If anyone ever asked her what she liked to do best, she would answer, “Smoking.”

Alov ordered Galina to go to work with the American journalist as an assistant. “We need someone to keep an eye on that character. Try to work your charms on him.”

Now, they had been reduced to Alov acting as if he were Galina’s pimp.

Every day, when she came home, she would complain of him to her imaginary partner, who she thought of as her man. She had lived side by side with this man for years now; falling asleep by his side, having breakfast together, going out for walks, and sharing her most precious and secret thoughts with him. Galina’s man had strong hands, thick, dark eyebrows, and a long fringe that fell over his forehead. He was reliable and generous, able to laugh at himself, and quite incapable of displaying greed, selfishness, cruelty, or dull indifference to the troubles of others.

Galina had become resigned to the thought that she would never have such a man. Her lot in life was to scurry about like a mouse, trying to find a crumb to eat, to build her little nest, and bring up her daughter.

And yet all of a sudden, here he was, a man who appeared to have been created from her own dreams. A man too marvelous to be real—her new employer. This foreigner who spoke Russian with a slight accent; this man whom she was obliged to betray.

Nobody treated Galina like him before. Klim would offer her real coffee or sweets. From sheer force of habit, he would pull out a chair for Galina or open the door for her. When he gave her a parcel to take to the post office, his fingers brushed her own, and the mere touch of his hand would send waves of heat through her body that made her weak at the knees.

Alov asked her to tell him in detail what Klim got up to and what he thought about the politics of the Soviet government.

“He calls the revolution an experiment,” she reported, her eyes lowered. “But he enjoys working here, and he likes Soviet people. He was born in Moscow, you see, but he left Russia as a child.”

There was much more that Galina chose not to tell Alov. Sometimes, when she heard Klim talking about the USSR, she wanted to cover her ears.

“To hear the Bolsheviks speak, they’re waging war on the capitalists,” he told her once. “But they are actually at each other’s throats. They produce nothing but hatred and are obliged to consume it themselves.”

If Alov had found out about these conversations, he would immediately have included Klim on the list of enemy journalists and demanded that the Press Department deport him.

“Where’s Rogov’s wife?” asked Alov, making a note in the official file.

Galina herself would have liked to know. “He never talks about her. I tried to ask Kitty, but she told me that he had forbidden her to say anything about her mother. I didn’t like to insist.”

“You did the right thing,” Alov nodded. “We don’t want Rogov to get suspicious. Well, congratulations. You’ve done a good job, and you’ll get a bonus this month. Come to the Trade Union Committee, and you can pick up a free ticket for a lecture on ‘The Question of Rejuvenation and Immortality.’”

At night, Galina would lie in bed, eyes wide open, horrified at what she was doing.

I’m betraying the man I love—and not even for thirty pieces of silver but for tickets to lectures I don’t want to go to.

But the next day, back she would go to Chistye Prudy, say good morning to Klim, and sit down at the typewriter to take dictation of the next article. Klim would walk to and fro, thinking aloud, and Galina would stare at him. Everything inside her would seem to contract into a single point of brilliant light.

“Dearest one,” she would repeat to herself, “God give you happiness—that’s all I ask.”

Afrikan came in from the street, dragging in some fragrant pine logs after him, and began to lay a fire in the fireplace.

“The law courts are saying that sharing a primus stove counts as having a family with this person,” he muttered. “Along comes some woman with a can full of paraffin, fries eggs for you, and you’re done for.”

Afrikan shot a glance toward the door to see if Galina was coming. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “You listen to me, sir,” he said. “Don’t let Galina near the primus, or she’ll make mincemeat of you.”

Klim laughed. “And what about Kapitolina? Can I trust her to use the stove?

Afrikan sighed. “Sorry, sir, but you don’t understand anything.” He shuffled about for a minute, tending to the fire, and then went off to the gatekeeper’s lodge.

In fact, Galina had become indispensable to Klim. She was now his secretary, housekeeper, courier and, most importantly, a nanny to Kitty. Kapitolina had taken to calling her the “deputy mistress.”

Klim handed over all the housekeeping money to Galina with a sense of relief. Before long, his apartment was utterly transformed. Every week, Galina would go to an auction at the Church of St. Pimen where goods left over from second-hand stores were put up for sale.

Soon, Klim was the owner of a wind-up gramophone, a pair of oriental jugs, and a bronze figurine of a shepherdess that served as an inkwell. His living room was furnished with elegant chairs and an enormous mirror that stretched from floor to ceiling while the holes in the plaster were covered with cinema posters featuring Pola Negri and Clara Bow. The table was laid properly for every meal, and a full dinner service with gold trim stood in the display cabinet. The general effect, while strange, was very comfortable and convivial.

Galina and Kitty hit it off almost immediately, but Klim wasn’t sure how to act with Galina. He felt guilty to see her doing so much for him for the salary he paid. As a sign of his gratitude, he took her to a shoemaker who served the city’s foreign embassy staff and had some elegant shoes and smart, fur-lined boots specially made for her.

Kapitolina gasped when she saw the new purchases.

“Don’t let anyone see them!” she exclaimed. “You might get them pinched. Hide them in the trunk, quick!”

But Klim insisted Galina wore the boots. “A woman should give the impression of elegance at all times.”

When Afrikan found out about the presents, he told Klim he was a dead man.

I’ve given several interviews to newspapers and even gone on the radio talking about life in China in the hope that my wife will hear about me and get in touch. But there are so few radio sets in Moscow, and what are the chances of Nina passing a loudspeaker on the street at exactly the right moment?

I’ve tried going to the police to find out if anyone has heard anything about a Chinese coat decorated with embroidered dragons, but it’s no use. The women in the offices are either too lazy to take on any extra work or don’t want anything do with me.

Without connections in high places, it’s impossible to fight your way through the red tape of Soviet bureaucracy, so I’ve decided to go to some high society functions in the hope of finding new friends.

These banquets are held in palaces confiscated from the Tsar and always attended by the same crowd: ambassadors and diplomats, senior officials, and People’s Commissars with their wives. By way of entertainment, they invite along certain pet poets, actors, and musicians. We foreign correspondents have taken the place of the aristocracy and are now the embodiment of “polite society.”

So far, things have not been going too well. I only have to mention the word “China” to be met by strange looks and vague mutterings: “I don’t know,” “I’ve never been there,” or “Sorry. I haven’t the time right now.” Nobody wants to be associated with the Soviets’ debacle in the Far East. Strange, as only a few months ago, every loyal Party member thought it his duty to support the Chinese revolution.

Duplicity is, in my opinion, the chief characteristic of the Soviet official. In public, the Party leaders try to look as much like workers as possible: they dress like workers, behave like workers, and even curse every time they open their mouths. But in private, in their own circle, they indulge in every extravagance imaginable.

Almost all the Soviet leaders have left their wives (old Bolshevik party members) and found themselves new girlfriends. Any respectable man these days, it seems, has to have a charming young lady on his arm.

If the masses only knew how their leaders amuse themselves! The functions I’ve been to have nothing in common with the workers’ leisure activities praised in Party leaflets. Glittering chandeliers, the delicate tinkle of china bearing the royal monogram, and imperious waiters, who once served in the household of the emperor, slipping between the tables. These old servants go about their duties with a fastidious sense of detachment as if to announce that their new clients are not fit to use plates previously owned by grand dukes.

A jazz band, the only one in the whole of the city, plays popular western tunes—all this is to make a good impression on foreigners. But once they have a drink inside them, all the foreign guests want to hear something more exotic: revolutionary songs and gypsy romances.

Often at these banquets, I am approached by beautiful ladies who come up and sit beside me. The interesting thing is that these women are all different—some are blondes, some brunettes, some slim, some voluptuous. The same thing happens to all the foreign correspondents. The OGPU is clearly trying to work out what our tastes are.

Seibert laughs at me. “Stop being so difficult,” he tells me. “The OGPU are at their wit’s end. If you keep being so stubborn, they’ll send you a handsome young boy one of these days.”

He’s quite happy to get acquainted with every last one of these women.

The cult of love has entirely vanished from the USSR. All the knights in shining armor have been killed or driven out of the country, and traditional patriarchal customs reign supreme. For those at the top, a woman is a symbol of success, rather like a medal or a ceremonial weapon, and among the workers, she is regarded as a “unit of labor”—and so has to be healthy, sturdy, and politically educated.

Sometimes, coming back from yet another of these Soviet society events, I feel so weary and sick at heart that I wonder what on earth I am doing here.

Galina always meets me at the door and gives me a full account of everything she has done for the household that day. Then she proudly shows me some decorated bottle or picture frame she has bought at auction and says, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

We stand there in the middle of the room. I wait for Galina to go, and she waits for me to ask her to stay.

Naturally, I am the first to lose patience: I tell her I need to do some work. Galina nods, sighs, and leaves, closing the door quietly behind her.

In my native land, it is now quite forbidden to write the truth. If I am caught in the criminal act of doing so, everybody will be held to account—Galina, Weinstein, the women at the telegraph office, and all the other kind people who help me every day.

The worst of it is that even if I did write the truth, it would not interest anybody outside Russia. Statistics indicate that Americans are showing less and less interest in foreign news. If, a few years ago, nine percent of newspaper columns were devoted to reports from abroad, now it is only two and a half percent. And that’s for all foreign countries, including Britain, Germany, Japan, and China—countries of far more interest to America than the USSR.

It’s a vicious circle. Readers have no interest in Russia because they know nothing about it, and meanwhile, I can’t tell them anything meaningful. What can foreign readers hope to find out from my censored reports? That far, far away in a snow-covered realm called the Soviet Union live strange people who like to torment themselves and others? “Well, why should we care as long as they stay away from us?” they might answer.

My reports lack a human face—they don’t reflect what life is like in the USSR. And it’s not only censorship that’s to blame. A telegram to London costs fifteen cents a word, and everything I put in my bulletin has to fit the budget. It’s useless to ask for more expenses: the only thing United Press is prepared to pay for without hesitation is an interview with Stalin.

When I asked to organize a meeting with Stalin, Weinstein looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

“Why on earth would Comrade Stalin be interested in speaking to you?”

“It would be good to hear about his views and his future plans,” I said.

Weinstein began to lose his temper. “Can you imagine some correspondent from a Russian news agency going to Washington and, as soon as he gets there, asking for a meeting with President Coolidge?” he asked.

I told him that President Coolidge had press conferences with journalists twice a week, but it was no use.

“I expect the American president hasn’t got much to do, and that’s why he can chat to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who comes along,” he said. “But Comrade Stalin has got enough on his hands without having to think about you.”

I told Owen about our conversation, and he asked me to think of how I might be able to lure Stalin to an interview.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can offer that might interest Stalin. The man isn’t looking for fame: he keeps to himself, only appearing in public twice a year at the Revolution anniversaries and Worker’s Day parades. He’s rather like some phantom living in an ancient castle. All his portraits are carefully retouched. The only people who see him close up are the Kremlin domestic staff and a dozen or so close confidants.

I decided in any case that twice a month, I’ll send an official request for an interview. I figure if I keep knocking at the same door for long enough, maybe somebody will open it up—at least to have a look at the tiresome pest outside and find out what he wants.

Seibert tells me he’s been doing exactly the same for three years. The two of us now have a bet to see which of us will be the first to get an interview.

I’ve had a daring idea. If I do manage to get a meeting with Stalin, I’ll ask for his help in finding Nina. One word from him will be enough to set all the Moscow bureaucrats in action.

Sometimes, I think it’s my only hope.