Tag: espionage

Jazz with Ella

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of his report to Department Chairman Hoefert, so it was important to convey just the right tone. For example, he would make much of the fact that this particular tour of western students had been allowed in to the philological library at the State Institute in Leningrad—a great honour usually requiring a permit from the Ministry of Education. He, Professor Chopyk, was actually allowed right into the stacks, to be surrounded by a rich storehouse of scholarly literature. So much for Professor Hoefert and his boast that he had been allowed into the stacks at the Lenin Library. This was a feather in Chopyk’s cap. Of course, he would not include in the notes that he had bribed the lowly assistant librarian (American dollars), the attendant (bottle of brandy) and even the security guard (flattery and a Cadbury’s bar) to allow him the brief two hours in the library’s inner sanctum. And that those two hours were ones in which the chief librarian was on her extended lunch hour or he would have stood no chance at all.
He set his pen down for a moment to relish the memory once more. The porthole was open a crack and a fresh morning breeze played across his face. Other wonderful events had crowded in since his time in the library: touring the art treasures of the Hermitage, attending the Kirov ballet, seeing the monumental statue of Mother Russia at the former Stalingrad, and cruising a stretch of the Volga where no other westerners had been allowed. Russia—no, the Soviet Union—was full of such grand experiences, though none could compare with those two hours spent among the ancient tomes of his linguistic mentors. The journal was filling up.
He supposed he would have to write something about the progress of the students—they would receive a grade, after all—and something about the leadership qualities of his second in command, Jennifer White. Chopyk frowned. It was difficult to write about Jennifer. On the one hand, she had done a miraculous job in bringing some of the younger students up to scratch with their Russian. Their verbal abilities had improved greatly during the trip. Of course, total immersion always did that. But they seemed to have more facility with the language, more interest in it. Their written skills had improved, too, if he could believe the mini-essays that Jennifer was assigning them. Even Linda Appleton, whose grammar was superb but who couldn’t string together a simple sentence, had improved. Last night she had actually delivered a brief oral report in Russian on the subject of architecture.

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The Qliphoth

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A grainy monochrome archive snapshot: Nick, in tiny heptagonal smoked
glasses, poses proudly under a giant pop art sign. Pauline, his smiling fellow-
conspirator, is putting up a poster inside the sunlit shop window. Lucas
suddenly feels wildly protective towards these funny silly people—and simultaneously
enraged. All that rich energy. How could they blow it? What went
wrong?
Outside there’s a distant rumble. The picture wobbles for an instant, as if
there’s a glitch in the power supply, the sudden gust of breeze smells oddly
saline—Abbotsburton is miles from the coast—but Lucas mustn’t lose anything,
even the pontifications of the commentary.
“. . . less than a decade later was permanently hospitalised. How did Pauline’s
nightmare begin?”
His mother’s face fills the screen, against a background of bookshelves.
She’s backlit, face in shadow, but he can discern her sharp nose, firm lips, large
anxious eyes. Her chin was more cleary defined then. And she’s wearing one of
those red t-shirts with a message. She’s staring through the screen, waiting for
the right words to form. Lucas can confirm now that he was, indeed, almost
there himself, off-camera, in his little bedroom at the end of the corridor,
Uncle Larry minding him, and special new cars and trains to play with.
This has always been puzzle corner, this dazzling fragment of memory.
How old was he? He’d blundered into the beginning of the shoot, had flinched
from the heat of the lights, had walked right into the anxious squint of the
cameraman, until women with smooth voices and clipboards had steered him
back, promising sweeties, better than grown-ups’ boring chat.
No sweeties for him now. He pauses the tape for a second, kneels with his
face only inches from the curve of the screen. He has to go through with this
ritual, there’s no going back . . .
Playback. Yes, that’s her voice, bright, edgy, slightly nasal, like a soprano
sax, solo: “It’s hard to pin-point the beginning of the end . . . Nick had always
been a little obsessive, a bit impulsive, his moods swung on a big pendulum, as
it were. You had to anticipate the motion. Either I was a fairy princess or a hag
fit to die in a garbage bin. In the first few years I was mostly the do-good fairy
on the Christmas tree, as long as I stayed in the confines of that role it was
fine . . . And believe it or not, I think I wanted to please . . .”
She’s almost managing a bitter smile, as the take fades. This nuance matters
to Lucas but the presenter, off-screen, brisk as a toothpaste advert, has left the
rest of it on a cutting-room floor and sticks to the rhetoric of his script.
“Did Pauline recognise those all-important early warning signs of mental
disorder?”
Pauline leans forward into the camera. It’s confession time.

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Jazz with Ella

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“What do you mean by that?”
“Look, it doesn’t have your name on it.” She had the sensation of the floor moving away from her and decided to run for the door while her dignity was still intact.
Back in her cabin tears overwhelmed her. You give me hope. She missed Volodya more than ever. She sat on the bed and smoothed the crumpled paper, studying it, trying to understand what Chopyk had meant. True, it was not addressed to her but had been sent in care of Natasha Kuchkov as tour guide. A number followed—presumably that represented the bureaucratic Intourist agency’s official designation for the tour. If it had not been intended for her, then who? Did he really send it? Volodya was a very common name—and there was no last name. So how did Natasha know whom to check? And how did Natasha know the telegram was meant for her?
Her class that afternoon was conducted in a pall of discomfort. Most of the students had overheard the dispute in the dining room without knowing exactly what had transpired. She thought of having Paul lead the class instead of her but she couldn’t find him anywhere. The mood stayed with her through the formal dinner that evening, well into the hour of entertainment—several of the students had learned Russian poems or ditties and were amusing the Americans by reciting the translations—and it lasted on into the evening.
As she lay awake, she began to have doubts about her behaviour. Maybe Chopyk was only being a good guy, after all—meddlesome but showing genuine concern. Maybe Volodya was a dead loss. After some agonizing, she realized that Volodya must know Natasha. Of course. He must have known her when he had worked for Intourist. She had even said she was from Leningrad. They would have been colleagues. That would explain a lot. So maybe Natasha had known about Volodya and her all along. Could he have wanted Natasha to see the telegram—maybe to let her know that he was attempting to leave the country? Could it be that Natasha was helping? As Jennifer rolled on to her back in the cabin berth she felt the increased pressure from Volodya as if it were some live thing pressing on her chest. What a day! Even the strange comment from Hank in the hallway that morning. It all fit into the stew. She fervently hoped that sleep would give her some respite from her muddled thoughts.

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Jazz with Ella

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VOLGA RIVER, JULY 17, 1974
“She’s madder than a hornet, and she’s calling for your blood,” teased Marty. He ducked out of Hank’s way. It was lunch time on the morning after Hank had found Lona’s mysterious black book. “I guess she tortured your waitress friend until she confessed.”
“I’ll go find her,” Hank muttered. “I don’t want Chopyk or Jennifer to find out. Don’t say anything, okay?”
He didn’t have far to look. They smacked into one another at the door to the dining room.
“You…creep,” Lona growled at Hank, her usual Cheshire cat smile missing. “Now, give me back my book!”
He couldn’t resist one last stand. “Uh…whatcha talking about?” She was about to raise her voice again, when he hustled her down the hall, one hand firmly on her back, until they were out of earshot of the passengers.
“Okay, so I took it. It was a stupid thing to do, but I wanted to know why you’re on this trip—and don’t give me that line about being a student.”
Lona drew herself up to her full height and bristled like an alley cat prepared to do battle. She thrust out her hand imperiously. “It’s none of your business, you thief. I want my book back right now!”
Hank knew when he was licked. “I just …heck, I’d still like to know. I’ll get it for you.” He walked her to his cabin, and she waited at the door, tapping her toe, until he placed the worn black book in her hand. “Come on, Lona. I just wanted to get to know you. Maybe we could still be friends.”
In fact, the book had been a big disappointment—besides a list of Russian names and addresses there were only a few other notes on icons

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Jazz with Ella

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Elizabeth and the other a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. The two laughing women that accompanied Slava looked on with interest.
“Let me give you something in return.” A dignified Slava reciprocated with two artistically decorated stamps from his album, which he had brought along for this purpose. Lona, who was seated at the next table, apparently took her cue from Jennifer because she also rummaged in her purse for a gift, pulled out an American nickel, and began explaining the significance of the buffalo to a group of enraptured young men.
By the time the party broke up, some two hours later, the students and visitors had warmed to each other. Jennifer had learned something about their lives: their brothers and sisters, their schools, their music and their anxiety that they would somehow discredit themselves in front of their superiors on the day’s visit—this last concern added in a whisper. She glanced around. But their commissar was still engrossed in conversation with Chopyk and both Ivan Nikolaevich and Natasha had disappeared—presumably leaving the group in good hands. What a relief, Jennifer thought. Finally, Nadezdha brayed her goodbyes to Chopyk, while Lona exchanged addresses with at least four of the panting youths.
Just before he left the dining room, Slava turned to Jennifer. “Stay with us, Zhennifer, please. You can have a good life here. Stay with us.” She was stunned by the request and could only smile and shake her head. Good god, were any of the others asked to stay?
As she walked the trio down to the wharf and waved them goodbye, she did not notice that Paul had also walked his new friend, Vera, to the bus and was now standing behind a copse of rowan trees on the footpath. And if she had not been so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she would have overheard Vera explain to Nadezhda that she would not take the bus back with the others, but instead walk to her father’s farm, only one kilometre down the road.
“On your way, then, Vera Fyodorovna,” the political commissar called out to her. “Get there before dark.”
“See you later, Nadezhda Ivanova,” she called out happily as she ran toward the rowan trees.

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Jazz with Ella

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bristles of his moustache into neat, serried rows. Once, when he had been due for a Russian department evaluation involving an interview with Chairman Hoefert, he had arrived early at his department head’s office. The door was open and there was no one about so he had wedged himself into a seat in the crowded study, his legs straddling boxes of books and papers, to await Hoefert’s return. A file lay open on the desk and without too much twisting of his neck he could see that it was his own confidential personnel file. Leaning out from the chair at an acute angle, he could even read the text upside down and he quickly did so without any attack of conscience. The chairman had written a number of congratulatory things, Chopyk was gratified to see. He could read that he was a stellar professor, thorough and devoted to his publishing schedule. True. It was a bit lacklustre on the subject of his teaching abilities, but certainly adequate. But there, at the bottom of the report, was what Chopyk considered to be a damning bit of character assassination. Neatly penned in the director’s handwriting were the words: “Chopyk’s flaw is vanity.” The subsequent interview was more tense than usual.
Ever since that day Chopyk had pondered this revelation, especially when he glanced at his trim appearance in a mirror. Later, he realized that Hoefert was not talking about superficial vanity, though he was deemed a snappy dresser; instead, Hoefert had locked onto a deeper quality: Chopyk’s self-absorption. He took magnificent pleasure in his successes, however small. He took a positive delight in outsmarting Professor Hoefert, preferably in front of colleagues at the Learned Societies conference. But it was only friendly rivalry, Chopyk told himself. Where was the harm? It was the word “flaw” that niggled. He didn’t like to admit to flaws; didn’t think he had any. But there were moments—like today with Lona Rabinovitch—that he would consider his vanity to be a genuine weakness. She was playing him, flattering him—no doubt about it. And he had fallen for it.
She had come up to him in the dining room after lunch, when the others had drifted away, to ask his clarification on a small question of verb tense. Somehow, within minutes, she had managed to turn the conversation to their departure from the Soviet Union, and she complained that she was running out of room in her luggage. Before he knew it he had gallantly agreed to pack some of her “valuable gifts and souvenirs” in his own luggage. She was quite appealing, gazing up at him softly with those large green eyes—he couldn’t refuse. She was hypnotic. Dammit.

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Jazz with Ella

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It was to one of these, the park on Mamaev Hill, scene of a prolonged battle, that the combined tour group, accompanied by Natasha, arrived by bus. This time Natasha was quiet; there was no need for her to whip up enthusiasm. The spectacle of Mother Russia—a behemoth of a statue brandishing her sword and poised on the hill overlooking the city—excited the visitors.
“That’s got to be taller than the Statue of Liberty,” exclaimed one of the Americans to Jennifer as they shuffled along with crowds of Russians winding their way through a memorial park up to the statue’s base. “It’s really impressive.”
She smiled. “It’s a commemoration of a siege that no one here has forgotten; nothing could be too big or too dramatic for that.” So far the Americans had not admitted that anything about the Soviet Union was bigger or better than the good old US of A. This was a first, she reflected.
“Where are you from?” the man asked her, and when she replied, he nodded. “Y’know, that’s near Seattle where I’m from,” he said. “I’m Bert, by the way.” He extended his hand and Jennifer introduced herself. “You Canadians know all about Russia, don’t you?” Although she began to protest, he continued. “See, we weren’t told much before we came. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the cold war… yes? Well, it’s pretty hard to visit this country right now without everyone at home thinking we’re reds. We’re probably being investigated by the CIA for even coming here.”
“Wow, that’s frightening,” Jennifer said, amused at his naïveté—an attitude she might have shared just a few short weeks ago. Little does he know that he’s probably being investigated by the KGB at the same time.
“You know, the people in our group just want to find out more about the real Russia,” Bert went on. “We don’t want to believe everything we read in the papers about the ‘evil commies.’ You think that way too, don’tcha?” Jennifer nodded agreement.
“This is all real swell,” he continued, marvelling at the faces of warriors etched in marble around him. The slowly moving line of visitors advanced up the hill towards the statue and then indoors into a tomb-like memorial chamber at the top of the hill. Once inside, an illuminated path spiralled downward around the chamber, and they gazed at the names of the fallen soldiers and citizens inscribed on every available inch of the walls. Jennifer noticed that Bert had tears in his eyes.
“It’s very moving,” he told her. “All these people…” He shook his head. “It makes you think about the ugliness of war.

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Jazz with Ella

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That idea began to grow within him. He wanted to try being Montreal Paul. Maybe it wasn’t too late. In Canada, he could also study Russian, he thought. By that time it was 1963—the Berlin Wall had been constructed two years earlier, and the fear of Communists had driven many Russian speakers to deny their heritage. Yvonne’s home, on the other hand, had become a safe haven for Russian emigres, a place where they could speak freely, down brandy, and discourse on Russian art without being accused of being bolsheviks.
“Surely this is the time to be learning the language of our enemies—not being afraid of it,” he announced to Yvonne, with the earnestness of a 17-year-old. Although he truly believed his own words, he was also restless. He wanted to get out on his own and see Canada again so he kept at this theme as a possible reason for why he must attend university there. It worked. Yvonne had put aside a trust fund for his university studies, and she turned it over to him on his eighteenth birthday. At the same time she also told him that she would leave the bulk of her estate to him on her death.
He was selected for the University of Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada, far from Montreal but not so much of a culture shock for a kid raised in California. For seven years, he lived in Vancouver and was convinced that the Russian language department was all he wanted. He was torn from his academic shell by the news that grandmother Yvonne had died suddenly of a heart attack. At age 75, she had taken a new young lover who, it was whispered at the memorial service, had exhausted her. The gossip was malicious, Paul thought, but if only half of it were true, he couldn’t help but admire Yvonne’s love of life and her ability to take emotional risks even into her seventies.
Why couldn’t he find a woman who exhausted him? Most of the women he met were not serious students so there was no meaningful conversation. They knew how to have a good time, kind of like the old days at Shakey’s Pizza, and he badly wanted to bed one of them—it didn’t matter which one—but it seemed dishonest because he knew it was purely to alleviate his own carnal desires.
Now, on this warm summer evening in the heart of the Soviet Union, some latent urge was manifesting itself. Unscholarly thoughts filled his mind: ice cold beer in the university pub, a woman’s browned skin in a white summer top. Sensual things, hands-on things. Music moved him.

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Jazz with Ella

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David smiled. “You know, I don’t know when Gorky wrote that, but it’s the utterly perfect story for this country in 1974. Don’t you find that so much that’s told to us is a beautiful illusion when the truth is really ‘bitter’?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Paul continued. “The Soviets are like the old man—they just ignore the failures. The elevators that don’t work. The trucks that break down. The harvests that don’t yield what they expect. We visitors are like the father—we have to put a name to it, admire the beauty, then we point out that it’s not the truth. It’s no wonder they don’t really like our visits.”
“This is great philosophizing,” Maria cut in, “but I hear the truth right now.” She leaned over the railing. “I’m sure I hear a real nightingale singing.” The notes were pure and true, haunting. The group was quiet for a long time, listening, delighted.
Finally Paul got up from his deck chair. “Nah, it was just a scrubby little village lad.”
★
Paul Mercier returned to his cabin with the intention of diving into the definitive biography of the Sentimentalist period writer Karamzin that he had been trying to finish before the end of the trip. It had been difficult to find any study time because of their rigorous sightseeing schedule, though his conversations in Chopyk’s advanced class had been informative. That’s one thing about the guy, he is a serious scholar. He wondered if academia was truly his own calling. Did he really want to end up like Chopyk—an old lady, unloved by students and women alike? When they started out on this trip, he had found it easier to read the Sentimentalist view of nature in literature than to be out in the streets of Moscow actually viewing the real thing. But while they were in Leningrad something new had been emerging, something not found in books. He had been taking enjoyment from the scenery; it was refreshing. And he had even been moved by the rich, barbaric Russian history he saw depicted in paintings and church frescoes. For amusement, Paul had been keeping an informal list of the countless statues of Lenin they had seen to date, the endless art galleries, museums, and palaces of culture they had visited, but now he threw down these lists in disgust.

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Jazz with Ella

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ROSTOV-NA-DONU, JULY 13, 1974
The Canadian student tour group were old hands at Soviet travel by the time their plane left Leningrad bound for Rostov-na-Donu in the Ukraine. The usual plump stewardesses, more relaxed on this domestic flight, handed out the usual sticky candy. The students played the now familiar game of who had the functioning seatbelts. David had no seatbelt, and he threatened to hang on to Paul’s leg for the duration of the flight should they meet turbulence.
Despite the gloom of parting from Volodya, Jennifer’s spirits lifted slightly. The plane was full of Ukrainians returning home—women in harem pants, swarthy men with metallic, toothy grins carrying bundles, carpets and, in one case, something alive in a cage that screeched at intervals. The passengers moved around the plane freely, paying no attention to the attendant yelling at them.
Jennifer wasn’t the only one who was mourning the loss of a friend in Leningrad. Ted had ended his stay there at a party with students from the institute. He had met them on the street, and over some powerful moonshine liquor they had discoursed heavily on the problems of the cold war and had resolved to bring peace to their various countries. Unfortunately, Ted couldn’t quite recall how they had proposed achieving this lofty aim. Lona had also found some friends in Moscow, it seemed, and was only now telling the group about them. Jennifer wondered if Lona would have admitted the liaison if she had not been spotted outside the hotel with a group of sharp and eager young men whom everyone suspected of being some kind of confidence tricksters. If anyone can take care of herself, it’s Lona, thought Jennifer, and she wondered if Lona’s swains had asked her to help them leave the country. Then, in an attempt to shake off…

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