Beautiful Assassin

6

One morning several weeks later, while I was lying in bed reading some of the get-well letters I received, two men showed up at my room. The first was an older man, tall and gaunt and pale as curdled milk, with bushy eyebrows and thick glasses that made the whites of his eyes appear exaggeratedly large and soggy-looking. He looked like death warmed over. The other was much younger, a red-haired man with dark eyes and pimples still on his chin. It was sweltering, and both were sweating profusely. NKVD, I thought as soon as I’d laid eyes on them. Chekisty. You could always tell their sort. They were dressed in those dark, standard-issue, badly tailored suits and wore the unmistakable air of self-importance of the secret police. They strode in and stared around my room, without even bothering to identify themselves.
“May I help you?” I asked.
“Are you Lieutenant Tat’yana Levchenko?” replied the older of the two. He seemed to be the one in charge. He had a brusque demeanor, someone used to giving orders.
“Yes,” I replied.
“You are to come with us.”
“What is this about?” I demanded.
“I am not at liberty to say. You are to get your things together.”
They stood in the room while I packed my soldier’s bag.
“Do you need help?” offered the younger one. He was nicer than the other one, trying to be pleasant.
Though the doctors had taken the cast off my arm, it was still in a sling and I wasn’t much good for anything. Still, I didn’t want these two touching my things.
“No, I can manage,” I replied.
“Here’s a new uniform,” the younger one said, handing me a paper sack.
Even as I dressed the two didn’t leave, so that I had to pull the curtain around my bed for privacy. I wondered what the secret police could want with me. I recalled how I’d spoken out with General Petrov, criticizing him for leaving his troops. Had that something to do with the presence of these two? I thought of all the stories of people who’d been taken away, never to be heard from again. Yet I was now a Hero of the Soviet Union. They wouldn’t dare try anything with me, would they?
“What do you want with me?” I asked through the curtain.
“Move it. We have to be going,” replied the older one impatiently.
The younger one carried my duffel bag as we walked outside into the blistering sunlight. They had me get in the backseat of an automobile. Another one of theirs drove. It was stifling in the car, and the two policemen sat silently on either side of me, pressed so close I couldn’t move. I could smell the sweat on them and the unmistakably sweet tang of gun oil. They drove me to an airbase on the outskirts of the city. They escorted me toward a plane on the runway, its propellers already spinning. As we were about to board, I stopped and turned to the older one. “I demand to know where you’re taking me.”
“It would be better if you just got on the plane, Lieutenant,” he replied.
I wasn’t going to be cowed by these two. After all, I’d fought against the German Eleventh Army.
“I refuse to go unless you tell me.”
“Just get on the plane,” said the older one, growing visibly annoyed.
“No!”
He drew his lips tight over his too-large teeth. I could see he was used to having people obey his orders without question. Finally he said, “We are taking you to Moscow.”
“Why?”
“That is not for us to say.”
“I won’t go unless you tell me,” I repeated.
The older NKVD agent glanced from me to the younger one and back to me again. I think he was considering just grabbing me by the hair and dragging me onto the plane. The Soviet secret police had never been known for their subtlety. Finally, though, he threw his hands in the air, mumbled something to his partner, and headed up into the plane, as if leaving this unpleasantness to his colleague.
“They wanted it to be a surprise,” said the red-haired man.
“What do you mean, ‘surprise’?”
“They want to honor your achievements. We were told to say nothing. Now please, Lieutenant,” he said, extending his hand toward the plane with a kind of elegant bow.
I still wasn’t sure I believed them, but finally I acquiesced and climbed aboard.


At sunset that evening as we approached from the south, I made out the colorful domes and spires of the Kremlin. I gazed out the plane’s window, searching for the massive Palace of the Soviets. I’d read about it and seen sketches of it in newspapers. It was to be the tallest structure in the world, the grand expression of Stalin’s vision for our new country. I thought it would have been finished by now.
“Where is the great palace?” I asked.
“What palace?” replied the younger of the two policemen.
“Why, the Palace of the Soviets, of course.”
The younger one laughed. “See that big ditch down there,” he said, pointing through the window at an excavated area that resembled a massive bomb crater. “That’s what’s left of it. They used the steel for making tank defenses.”
We landed at Kuybyshev military airport and drove into the now-darkened city, where they brought me to a hotel on a narrow out-of-the-way street. I noticed that some of the hotel’s windows had wood covering them, and here and there the bricks were pockmarked, no doubt from the German guns during the previous year’s assault. I’d heard that the krauts had come within a few kilometers of Moscow before being driven back. My room on the third story was cramped and musty-smelling. They dropped my bag on the bed and turned to leave.
“Wait,” I said. “What now?”
“Someone will be by for you in the morning,” instructed the older one. “I hope everything is to your liking,” he added, flatly, without the least sarcasm.
I listened with my ear to the door as they walked away, and when they were gone I turned the lock. In bed that night, I had an odd feeling. I felt naked without my rifle, vulnerable and defenseless. I’d not had it in the hospital, but that was different. For a year in the war I’d kept it with me constantly, when I ate and when I slept, even when I went to the latrines. It had always been within arm’s reach. It had given me a feeling of security. Without my realizing it, my rifle had become a part of me, like an arm or a leg. That’s what war does to one. I lay on the bed, still in my uniform. That night, I slept irregularly, tossing and turning in the strange room. The pipes clanged, and outside in the hall I thought I heard footsteps, though maybe it was just one of several strange dreams I had.
In the morning, a knock on the door woke me. I got up and answered it. There in the hallway stood a heavyset man with ruddy cheeks, his thick neck overflowing his collar. He was wheezing from the climb up to my room. He wore a dark, smartly tailored suit, and sweat beaded on his upper lip. In his hand he held a fedora hat by the brim.
“I am Vasilyev,” he said, and without asking permission strode into my room. He stood there, looking disapprovingly about. “You’d think they could have done a little better than this for someone who has just won the Gold Star.” Then, turning back to me he said, “Your picture doesn’t do you justice, Lieutenant.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
He smiled at me and gave an exaggerated bow, sweeping the fedora in front of him. He had a meaty face, with a dark shadow of a beard, and he was thick through the middle. About the only thing that wasn’t abundant was his mouth, which was thin and severe, a sharp line separating his thick nose from his double chin. Despite his bulk he had a certain grace to him, a delicacy that was almost feminine.
“I told you, I am Vasilyev. I fear it is going to be unbearably hot again,” he said, dabbing his forehead with an embroidered handkerchief. His movements seemed almost theatrical, those exaggerated gestures of a second-rate actor. “Oh, pardon me. Let me welcome you to Moscow,” he said, extending his hand. When I offered my hand, instead of shaking it, he bent and kissed it, as if he were a figure out of some nineteenth-century novel. As he spoke, I caught a faint whiff of alcohol on his breath. “Vasily Vasilyev. At your service, madam.”
“I don’t need your service.”
“Then think of me as your escort.”
“To what?”
“To certain events they have planned for you.” Then turning toward me, he said with disdain, “That uniform looks as if you slept in it, Lieutenant.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
He smiled and walked over to the window, pushed the curtains aside and looked out. “Your wounds,” he asked, “have you recovered fully from them?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I’m fine.”
“I am pleased to hear that.”
“So when can I return to the front?”
At this he smiled, his hands folded beneath his prominent belly, as if it were a basket of clothes he was carrying.
“Have you had breakfast yet, Lieutenant?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. Come,” he said.
We headed down and got into the backseat of a black Citro?n and were chauffeured by a man with a sharp, narrow face like a wood chisel. We drove east along the Moscow River, with the walls of the Kremlin to our left. The day was warm and bright, with a light breeze coming off the water. We wound our way through the city, stopping eventually in front of a small café in an old neighborhood on Tverskaya. “The only good French restaurant left in all of Moscow,” Vasilyev said as the two of us headed in. When the waiter came up, he said, “Ah, bonjour, Monsieur Vasilyev. Comment allez-vous?” The two spoke rapidly and fluently in French. My escort ordered a prodigious breakfast of eggs and sausages, blini cakes and grenki and porridge. Though he ate heartily, his manners were the refined sort of someone who’d come from a cultured background. Now and then he’d daintily wipe the corners of his mouth with his napkin, and once he removed from his coat pocket an expensive-looking silver flask. He offered it to me, but I shook my head.
“Ninety-proof bourbon from America,” he explained. “Munitions can’t get through the German U-boats, but booze can. It is a strange war, no?”
As he took a long draft, I noticed that he had a wedding band that creased the flesh on one fat finger and that his nails were perfectly manicured. His dark brown hair was thinning and combed straight back. His eyes were also dark, and beneath them the flesh was discolored and loose.
“When can I return to the front?” I asked again.
“Ah, the front,” he said, taking a sip from the flask. “Where is it today? I have not read the paper. It keeps changing so fast.”
“I want to get back to fighting.”
“That is a very admirable sentiment, Comrade. But right now we have more important things planned for you. You really ought to try the blini. It is delicious,” he said, eating heartily.
“What sorts of things do you have planned?” I asked.
“A little this and that,” he said, waving his fork about in the air. Now and then he’d take the handkerchief from his coat pocket and wipe his flushed brow. On the one hand, he gave the appearance of a rough-hewn peasant who enjoyed his earthy pleasures. But he was, I would come to know, a complex man of many sides, many contradictions too—erudite, sophisticated, worldly, someone equally well read in Pushkin or Goethe, or in the subtleties of Soviet propaganda, but also someone who could be fiercely cruel. “We want to give a human side to the war,” he explained.
“There is no human side to it,” I snapped. “It’s all brutish and vicious.”
“Then let’s say we wish to show you off.”
“Show me off?”
“Yes. The capitalists call it marketing. We intend to market you as they do one of their motion picture stars.”
He obviously thought this funny, for he smiled broadly. He reached into his pocket and brought out a silver case and offered me a cigarette. I took one, and he lit it for me and laid the case on the table. I noticed it had words engraved on the side: with all my love, o. His wife? I wondered.
Through the café window, I saw a second black sedan across the street from where our car was parked. Two men sat in it. The one behind the steering wheel wore glasses and had bushy eyebrows. I recognized him as one of the two chekisty that had brought me to Moscow.
After breakfast we got back in the car.
“I’m to show you about the city,” Vasilyev said. “Have you ever been to Moscow?”
“No.”
“Good. I shall be your tour guide.”
We visited the Novodevichy convent and its famous cemetery, where we saw the graves of Chekhov and Gogol. Next we went to the Pushkin museum. After a leisurely lunch, where Vasilyev drank an entire bottle of Italian Barbera all by himself, we headed to St. Basil’s Cathedral. After that we proceeded to Lenin’s tomb. As we stood there, staring at the grayish figure of Lenin apparently asleep beneath the glass, Vasilyev leaned toward me and whispered conspiratorially, “Wax.”
“What?” I asked.
“The real thing is in Siberia,” he explained. “When they thought the Germans would take the city, they removed Lenin’s body and replaced it with a wax figure. The NKVD sent an entire lab to keep his body preserved.”
Even now everywhere I saw artillery batteries with Katyushas and howitzers and antiflak weapons, soldiers manning machine guns behind heavily fortified emplacements. Tanks nearly collided with trolley cars and horse-drawn carts.
“It still looks like a city under siege,” I observed.
“They are not taking any chances,” Vasilyev replied. “If that crazy fool in Berlin changes his mind, they’ll be back.”
Vasilyev seemed thoroughly to enjoy his role as tour guide, gesturing at places we passed, pointing out landmarks, laughing heartily at his own jokes. He was chatty, gregarious, making witty comments. He seemed at times even a little flirtatious, though I would come to learn that this was an affectation, him just plying his trade. He had no interest in me in that way. There was, nonetheless, something about Vasilyev that made me wary. Was he, like the other two, NKVD? Everywhere we went we were followed by the black sedan. When we went inside some museum or palace, the two secret police would follow at a distance, never really trying to hide themselves but never coming too close either. Several times, the younger red-headed man made eye contact with me, and once I thought he actually nodded and smiled.
It was late in the afternoon when we arrived back to my hotel. We sat outside in the car for a moment.
“You have a couple of hours in which to freshen up,” Vasilyev told me. “I shall pick you up at seven.”
“Where are we going tonight?” I asked.
“The symphony,” he explained. “There will be a lot of important people there. You’ll want to look smart, Lieutenant.”
“Smart?” I asked.
“Presentable. You will find a dress uniform waiting in your room for you. By the way, do you have lipstick?”
“What?”
“You know,” he said, mimicking the application of it to his own thin lips.
“Why must I wear lipstick?” I asked. “I’m a soldier.”
“You are also a woman. Women wear lipstick.”
“I don’t see the necessity.”
“It has nothing to do with necessity,” said Vasilyev. “Please, just put on a little lipstick. Okay?”
“I don’t have any,” I replied, thinking that would be the end of it.
With this Vasilyev reached into his coat pocket, and like some magician performing a trick, he pulled out a small silver cylinder. “I suspected you would need some. And while you’re at it, rub a little into your cheeks. You’re far too pale,” he said. “And be sure to wear your medals. They’ll want to see them.”
When I got back to my room, I found a vase filled with fresh flowers on the nightstand along with a bowl of fruit and a box of chocolates. I thought of Zoya, how she loved chocolate. Next to the chocolates was a bottle of champagne. And spread out over the bed lay a dress uniform, complete with a visored cap, Sam Browne belt, a skirt, as well as a pair of shiny new boots, none of which I’d gotten during the hasty westward rush to confront the German invasion the previous summer. I went over to the window and peeked through the curtains. Below in the street, I saw the same black car that had been following us all day.
In the bathroom I found a number of toiletries—soap, toothpaste, shampoo, a razor and blades, things I’d almost forgotten existed. I drew a bath, treated myself to some chocolates and an orange. Then I got the bottle of champagne and a glass and slid into the water. It was so hot it took my breath away as I eased myself into the tub. Yet even now in this room so far from the front, I felt the war’s presence. It was as if I could never completely wash away its mark, the smell of it on me, the taste of it in my mouth. I noticed the tattoos of battle: the matching pair of knotted scars on my thigh where I’d been hit by a bullet—entry and exit wounds; the quarter-moon scar from shrapnel along my calf; the pale thinness of my broken arm; various other cuts and scrapes and abrasions, some of which I’d not even been aware of until now. Especially the long, still-pink, still-tender wound over my belly, the one that had robbed me of the ability to have life inside ever again. I thought of my comrades—Zoya off fighting in Stalingrad, Captain Petrenko and the others, either dead or in some German POW camp. Kolya in Leningrad. And here I was, drinking champagne and soaking in a warm bath, about to go to the symphony. Then I thought of my daughter, in an unmarked grave somewhere along the road to Kharkov. Though I knew it was foolish, I worried that she would be lonely there, afraid without me.
But after a while, the hot bath and the champagne eased my mind a little. It had been more than a year since I’d had a real bath. I scoured my skin hard, rubbing it raw, like some religious flagellant, trying to remove the stench of war. I scraped the dirt and gun oil and blood from beneath my nails. It was heaven, let me tell you. I felt like a new woman, like a girl going on her first date. I wanted only to lie there and savor the fact that I was in this warm tub, alive, getting a little tipsy from champagne, about to go to a symphony. It was a strange, strange world, I thought.
I got dressed and put on lipstick, combed my hair. I looked at myself in the mirror. Thinner than I had been, a little older about the eyes and mouth perhaps. But given all that I’d been through, I was pleased with what I saw. I thought I was still an attractive woman, a sentiment I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
That evening when Vasilyev saw me at the door, he stood there for a moment looking me up and down, his hand rubbing his chin in a caricature of appraisal. Finally he gave a smile of approval, his fleshy cheeks pressing his eyes into narrow slits.
“Very nice, Comrade,” he said as he entered the room.
“Thank you,” I replied, with more than a trace of sarcasm, which he decided to ignore.
“The uniform fits well?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t sure what size. I could only go by what my wife wears. And she’s a bit, shall we say, larger than you,” he added with a smile. “Do try to be a bit charming tonight, Lieutenant.”
“Charming?” I said.
“You know, smile a little. Be pleasant. We want to show everyone that our female soldiers can have a feminine side. Come, we mustn’t be late.”
As we drove along, he took out his handkerchief and said, “Turn toward me.” When I did, he reached over and made as if to wipe my mouth with it.
“What are you doing?” I said, fending off his touch.
“You look cheap.”
“Cheap,” I replied, my voice sounding petulant even to me. “You said to wear lipstick.”
“But I didn’t tell you to make yourself look like some five-ruble shlyukha. I don’t want them to get the wrong impression. Come here.” Then he added, “Please.”
I relented finally and let him wipe my mouth, feeling as he did so like a little child when my mother used to wash my face.
“There,” he said. “Much better. And here,” he said, handing me a pair of silk stockings he had removed from somewhere on his person. “Put these on.”
“Now?” I said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t have a garter belt.” I thought this would suffice, but Vasilyev, I would soon learn, did not take no for an answer. He was, if nothing else, resourceful.
“Stop the car,” he called to the driver.
At this, the man put on the brakes. “In the trunk there’s a first aid kit. Bring it to me,” Vasilyev instructed the man. The driver got out and returned in a moment with a military first aid kit and gave it to Vasilyev. He opened it, took out a roll of adhesive gauze, and handed it to me. “Use this to hold up your stockings,” he said.
“You’re joking,” I replied.
“Quickly. We don’t want to be late.” When I hesitated with him sitting there, he said, “Aren’t we the modest one. All right, I shall be outside.”
The entire episode would have struck me as comical if I wasn’t so annoyed by his trying to control my every movement. Even then, I was beginning to chaff under his claustrophobic hand, his Svengali-like manipulation. I longed for the simplicity of battle, the clarity of knowing your role, which side was the foe. I felt I was entering an entirely new and subtle kind of arena, one in which your enemy, as well as your comrade, was much harder to distinguish.
Soon Vasilyev got back into the car.
“Are we all set, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, we are all set,” I replied.
He glanced down at my legs. “You have lovely legs,” he offered.
“Are you with them?”
“With whom?”
“Those two,” I said, nodding my head toward the car that followed us.
“Those idiots!” he replied, indignant. “Hardly. I work in the Ideological Department.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s not important. Your job and mine are similar, though.”
“How so?”
“We are both trying to win this war, Lieutenant. It’s just that you do it with your gun, while I do it with my pen.”
“A pen doesn’t kill a single kraut.”
“That’s rather disappointing to hear from a poet. Don’t you believe the pen is mightier than the sword?”
“I don’t like any of this,” I said, motioning toward my new uniform. “Wearing makeup and silk stockings. Eating enough to feed an entire platoon. When our people are dying. I should be out fighting. That’s where I’m needed.”
“Your way, Lieutenant, is killing one German at a time. But if I write something that inspires a million more to join our cause and they each kill a German, that’s a million dead krauts. Think of it.”
“We’ve already lost a million soldiers in the Ukraine alone. Where are we going to get that many more?”
“That’s where you come in, my dear.”
“But I don’t write. At least not your brand of writing.”
“Yes, that’s true—you are a poet,” he said, his tone sliding toward something like sarcasm. “A poet and a killer in the same lovely person. What a lovely paradox.”
We finally arrived at the Kremlin and pulled up in front of a long, pale-colored, brightly lit building, which Vasilyev explained was Poteshny Palace. Taking my elbow, he led me inside and toward a large room where a crowd of people were milling about. Music drifted from a small string quartet in the corner. There were tables set up with food—more food than I’d ever seen before. Large platters with sturgeon and smoked salmon, sides of beef and hams, pheasant and duck and quail, cheeses and caviar, fresh fruits and small pastries and various delicacies. On one table alone there was an entire suckling pig with an apple stuffed in its mouth. Waiters came through the crowd with trays of appetizers or champagne. I was intoxicated by the heady aroma of it all.
Vasilyev leaned in close and whispered, “Look over there.” He pointed across the room at a group, in the center of which was a tall man with wild, dark hair, thick horn-rimmed glasses, and an expression that betrayed a look at once bored and full of disdain. The others surrounding him appeared to be journalists. Several had cameras, and some were writing on small pads as the man spoke. “That scrawny fellow,” Vasilyev explained, “is Shostakovich.”
“The composer?” I asked.
“Yes. He’s back in the good graces of the Party, don’t ask me how. His problem is he’s all genius and no charm. When those journalists come over and start asking you questions about your experience at the front, be sure to tell them that morale among the troops is very high.”
“But it isn’t,” I countered.
“We must give the people something to hope for.”
“Even if it’s not the truth?”
He scoffed at this. “The truth is, we are fighting for our very lives. If a lie will help us to beat those sons of bitches, then so be it. Wait here.”
He walked over to the bevy of reporters. For a heavy man, he moved with a natural grace, gliding effortlessly across the floor with a dancer’s lightness of foot. As he spoke to the reporters, they glanced over at me, and in a moment they had left the composer and approached me en masse.
“Comrades,” Vasilyev said with the dramatic flare of an impresario, “I would like to present to you Lieutenant Tat’yana Levchenko, Hero of the Soviet Union.” At this, there was applause and several flashbulbs exploded, blinding me for a moment. “The destroyer of over three hundred fascists. Our secret weapon. Our very own la belle dame sans merci.”
One reporter blurted out, “Lieutenant Levchenko, how do you feel about winning the Gold Star?”
I hesitated, nervously staring at the small crowd. “It is…a very great honor,” I replied. “But I can only accept it on behalf of all my comrades in arms.”
“She’s just being modest,” Vasilyev chimed in.
“What do you think makes you such a great marksman?” a second asked.
“Patience. A steady hand.”
They continued to ask questions—what part of fighting I found hardest, did I think women fighters were as capable as men, was I ever frightened, how soon would I return to the front.
“Do you think we are winning the war?” one man called out.
“I am confident that we will, in time, defeat the fascists.”
“What would you like to say to the Soviet people, Comrade?” asked another, his pencil poised for my answer.
I hesitated. It made me nervous to think that what I said would be read by millions of people, those same people who had written letters to me.
“I would tell them that our troops’ fighting spirit remains high,” I said. I saw Vasilyev nod approvingly at this, roll his finger for me to continue, to expand on that. “Our men and women are confident we will soon drive the invaders from our land. I would tell them that we must all be heroes to defeat the enemy. The factory worker making munitions no less than the farmer who feeds our soldiers.”
At this, Vasilyev stepped in. “Thank you, gentlemen. Comrade Levchenko is still recovering from her wounds, and we don’t want to tire her out.”
Taking me aside, he said, “Excellent, Comrade.”
“Was I charming enough?” I asked sarcastically.
“I particularly liked the business about the farmer and the factory worker. Had a certain poetic ring to it. Then again, I would expect no less from a poet.”
I turned toward him. “How did you know I wrote poetry?” I asked.
Smiling obscurely, he said, “We know a great deal about you actually, Lieutenant. You ran the hurdles and threw the javelin in track and field. You used to associate with an undesirable element back in your university days. You published a poem in The Workers’ Voice.”
I stared at him, wondering how he could have known that. Of course I hadn’t signed my name to it.
“For what it’s worth, I think your poetry is quite good. Though I would be more cautious about what I put my pen to from now on. You are a public figure now. Come, I want you to meet some people.”
I noticed some women there. Mostly they stood off by themselves talking in small groups and eating hors d’oeuvres. Arrayed in furs and jewelry, they were the wives, I assumed, of the Party leaders. Stout-bodied women, with soft, flabby arms, they didn’t look as if the war had caused them to miss a single meal. To formal events such as these, the men would bring their wives, leaving their mistresses behind at their dachas.
Vasilyev took me by the elbow and ushered me toward a small group of men who were sipping champagne and smoking cigars. As I walked I could feel the tape pulling uncomfortably against the skin of my thigh.
“Good evening, Comrades,” Vasilyev said to them in his overly grand manner. “It is my great pleasure to present to you Lieutenant Levchenko, Hero of the Soviet Union.”
Smiling, the men applauded politely.
“Over three hundred of the fascists have fallen to her deadly aim,” Vasilyev continued.
Each one kissed me on both cheeks. When they thought I wasn’t looking they stole a quick glimpse at my legs and chest.
“A pleasure to meet you,” said one, an old man with jaundiced eyes.
“With brave soldiers like yourself we will soon have the fascists on the run, eh,” added another, who had a large mustache.
I nodded. “I am grateful I was able to do my duty.”
“And you are even more lovely than your picture,” said the third, a slight, balding man with a large head and wire-rim spectacles. Behind his glasses, his eyes had the rapacious look of a wolf.
When I didn’t reply, Vasilyev answered for me. “Thank you, Commissar General Beria.”
Everyone knew Lavrenty Beria, the head of state security. Stalin’s pit bull. The one who made up the daily lists of names for Stalin’s signature, the ones who were to be shipped off to the camps or tortured in Lubyanka or straightaway taken out and shot. And we’d heard the whispered rumors of Beria’s insatiable appetite for young women.
After we had moved off, Vasilyev said to me, “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“How long do we have to stay?”
“Relax and enjoy yourself. Are you hungry?”
“A little.”
He led me over to the food.
“Oh look, there’s Alexeyev,” Vasilyev said, waving to a man across the room. “I will be right back. Can I get you some more champagne?”
I shook my head. I still had the same glass he’d given me when we arrived. I stood there by myself, feeling awkward, with everyone watching me. I would rather be in a foxhole with Zoya than here with these sycophants and flatterers. I was thinking of her when I heard behind me a low voice, almost a whisper.
“Comrade Levchenko?”
I turned to see a man standing there. Older, wearing a plain khaki uniform without insignia, he was short, slump shouldered, with the thick body of a peasant and a head that was too large for his height. His hair was coarse and black with just a few gray strands in it, his bushy mustache resembling a small furry creature. But it was his eyes that were his most striking feature—small and not quite black, more really a complete absence of color. They were the eyes of something both primitive and yet cunning in its way. Where had I seen them before, I wondered.
“I am she,” I replied.
“It is a great honor to meet you,” he said, shaking my hand and nodding his great shaggy head. He spoke Russian with a thick Georgian accent. Though his hands were large and blunt as bricks, his handshake was surprisingly soft, almost effeminate. As he spoke he continued holding my hand. His gaze ran the length of me, from my calves to the top of my head, but unlike the other men, his interest wasn’t in the least of a carnal nature. He viewed me coldly and dispassionately, more appraisingly, the way a farmer might look at a plow horse. I slowly freed my hand from his grasp.
“Thank you,” I said. I assumed him to be some Party figure of importance with whom I needed not to say the wrong thing or Vasilyev would reprimand me.
“You have meant a great deal to our war effort,” he offered. “You have lifted the spirits of our troops at a time when we most desperately need it.”
“I only try to do my duty, sir.”
He leaned in to me, as if to tell me something in confidence. “You and I know what it is to look into the eyes of a man before we kill him,” he said, the slightest hint of a smile lingering beneath the bushy mustache. “These others”—he gave a wave of his blunt paw—“they chatter like a bunch of old women. But when it comes down to it, they are gutless creatures. You and I, Comrade, we are made of different stuff, are we not?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
At this he turned and left me standing there.
Vasilyev returned shortly after this. “What did he say to you?”
I shrugged. “That he and I knew what it was like to look into a man’s eyes before we killed him.”
Vasilyev frowned, concern lining his face.
“What did he mean by that?”
“I have no idea. Who was that?”
He stared at me as if I had suddenly grown another head. “Surely you’re kidding.”
I shook my head.
“That was him,” Vasilyev said.
“Who?”
“The general secretary.”
I stared at him dumbfounded.
“Stalin,” I blurted out. “You’re joking.”
“I would not joke of such a thing,” Vasilyev said. “That was him. My goodness, you didn’t even know it.”
A shiver passed through me. To think that I’d actually met the man. The man my father revered, the same one my mother detested. I was surprised too that he was not bigger. All of the images we’d seen of him in the newspapers or film reels made him out to be this imposing figure, the Man of Steel. And I recalled the picture in front of the classroom back in school, the same cold, soulless eyes staring down upon us. Eyes that Madame Rudneva had called the devil’s. Old Whiskers.
After a while, we moved off into a large hall where Vasilyev brought me up and had me sit at the front. A few seats away was Stalin, flanked by his toadies, Beria and Molotov. Before us was a stage, with an orchestra tuning their instruments. At the front of which was the man I had seen earlier, the composer Shostakovich. When all had been seated, Shostakovich spoke a few words to the audience. He explained that we were going to hear a new work, something called the Leningrad Symphony, which he had named in honor of the heroic defense being put up by the citizens of that brave city. Then he turned and began to conduct the orchestra. I soon found myself forgetting my objections about coming along. I was swept up by the intensity of the work, its initial martial drumbeat proclaiming that Leningrad was under siege by the Germans. The last movement began quietly, with the strings slowly rising in pitch until they were joined by woodwinds, before picking up the marchlike melody again. Finally, the woodwinds built until violins took over and carried the piece to its final rousing crescendo. I was mesmerized by the music.
Once during the symphony, I happened to look over and catch Stalin staring at me. It was a strangely enigmatic gaze, as indecipherable as that one might receive from a crow or a rat. I averted my own gaze for a moment, and when I looked back at him, he was still staring at me. I felt my blood chill in a way it had never done before, not even when a sniper bullet would pass within inches of me. This was something beyond mortal fear, beyond the potential harm he could do me, something that had to do with an elemental dread, the terror that strikes the heart when one recognizes that the world is run by forces one cannot even begin to fathom.
At the end of the symphony, there was utter silence, a tense, glassy stillness that left one almost breathless. All eyes, I noticed, were directed not at the stage but at Stalin, not the least of which were those of Shostakovich himself, who waited onstage, his baton hanging from his hand, anxiously peering down at the small, mustachioed man in the front row. Slowly, the secretary rose from his seat and directed the same impenetrable stare he’d given me at the composer now. Finally, he brought his blunt hands together in a modest, almost grudging show of appreciation. Only then did the crowd respond with a thunderous ovation.
As we passed out of the hall, Vasilyev suddenly clutched my elbow and said, “He wishes a word with you.”
I was directed over to one side of the stage. Someone held back the curtain, and as I stepped past it, I spotted Stalin standing there, smoking a cigar.
“What did you think of the performance, Lieutenant?” he asked, an odd grin distorting his features.
“I thought it was quite good, Comrade Secretary.”
He nodded, but without conviction, as if that wasn’t the reply he wanted. He took another puff of the cigar, which he held delicately between thumb and forefinger.
“You will get them to fight, no,” he said.
“Pardon me?” I asked.
“Those timid capitalists.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you, sir,” I said.
Through the haze of smoke from his cigar, his eyes narrowed and he squinted at me. Right then a general came up to him and whispered something in his ear. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good news, for his expression changed to one of mild irritation. With a flick of his hand, he dismissed the man, who withdrew a short distance away and waited. Turning back to me, Stalin leaned toward me, so close that I could smell cigar smoke and the rusted-iron breath of a man who habitually dined on rich foods and spicy meat. “Can I trust you, Lieutenant?”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to this statement, what he meant by it, so I said, “Of course, Comrade Secretary.”
“Good. Because you will have a mission of utmost importance to perform for the Motherland. Now you will have to excuse me.”
Then he turned and walked over to where the general waited.
On the ride back to the hotel, we rode mostly in silence. Vasilyev seemed preoccupied. Finally, he said, “You did well tonight, Lieutenant.”
“I’m glad I performed to your expectations,” I said sarcastically.
“What did you and the general secretary talk about?”
“He wanted to know if he could trust me. And he said I would get them to fight. Get whom to fight?”
“Why, the Americans, of course.”
“What are you talking about?”
We had by now reached my hotel. Vasilyev reached over and patted my hand. “It’s late. You’ve had a long evening. We shall talk about this matter later. Get some sleep.”


Over the next several days, Vasilyev would pick me up and show me about the city as if it were his own private amusement park. During the day we visited museums and art galleries and historical sites, while in the evening we attended elegant dinners or went to the theater or to the Bolshoi, where there were always crowds eager to see me. Before one ballet performance, I was asked to come onstage, where I received a bouquet of flowers from a ballerina in a tutu. Beside her, I felt clumsy and unfeminine in my uniform and heavy boots. Nonetheless, I received a standing ovation from the crowd. Wherever we went, Vasilyev paraded me around, often introducing me by some clever pet name—the Ukrainian Lion or the Queen of Fire. But his favorite was Krasavitsa Ubiytsa, which translated roughly to “Beautiful Assassin,” a title that he was quite proud of having coined and one that I wouldn’t be able to shake. One time, we showed up where a large group of people had gathered in the street. It was below Vorobyovy Gory. A small military band composed of old men was playing some martial theme. It turned out they were naming a street after me—ulitsa Levchenko. I toured hospitals, where I shook hands with wounded vets, and old people’s homes and spoke to groups of schoolchildren. They had me go on the radio and tell of my experiences, though not before Vasilyev had coached me to “sound positive,” to put our war effort in a good light.
Another time, accompanied by a man with a camera, we drove south of the city. We stopped at a farm and got out. From the trunk Vasilyev took out a camouflage poncho and a rifle, then we started walking across a field toward a grove of trees.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“We’re going to take your picture,” Vasilyev said gaily. When we reached the trees, he said to the other man with the camera, “The light’s good here, no?” The man nodded. Then Vasilyev turned to me. “Here,” he said, handing me the rifle. “Get up in that tree,” he said, pointing to a spindly looking birch tree.
“What for?”
“We are going to photograph your duel with the German.”
“I would never try to hide in such a tree,” I said.
“Poetic license,” he said with a shrug. “But first put a little lipstick on.”
Though I thought the entire episode utterly ridiculous, as I would so many that would come up in the next several months, I did as I was told. I shimmied up the tree to a small branch that felt far too thin to hold my weight. From below, Vasilyev called instructions, as if he were directing a film. “Now take aim and make believe you’ve got a kraut in your sights.”
“But I didn’t shoot him from the tree.”
“Who’s going to know?” he said. “Now turn this way more. Don’t frown so much. And fix your hair. A strand has come undone. There we go. Perfect,” he added.
Each time I’d bring up the question about what I had to do with getting the Americans to fight, he would somehow manage to elude the subject. Once, as we were driving to the Kremlin, I turned to him and said, “Now that I’m feeling well enough, when can I return to the front?”
Instead of answering, he had the driver stop the car. He jumped out and hurried with that odd nimbleness of his over to a nearby kiosk and purchased a paper. When he returned he showed me a copy of Izvestiya with my picture on the front page. “Female Hero Kills 300 Fascists” the headline read.
“There,” he said, his fat forefinger stabbing the page for emphasis. “That’s how you can best fight the krauts.”
“That’s not fighting. That’s just show.”
“But you are mistaken, Lieutenant. You are a student of history. You ought to know that bullets and bombs and tanks don’t win wars. Wars are won here,” he said, tapping his temple. “Do you know what you have done for the morale of our soldiers, for our people? They read what you have accomplished and you give them hope. What is more, you will buy us time for the West to get involved too.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Trust me, you will,” he said, bringing his fingertips together to form a small globe in front of his face. That phrase—trust me—was one he would often use, and the more he did, the less I felt ready to trust him. “I understand why you want to kill them so badly.”
Glancing over at him, I said, “Yes. They are the enemy.”
“No. For you, it’s quite personal.” He reached across the seat and patted my hand. “You see, I know about your daughter.”
I stared at him in surprise. How had he known that? Save for Zoya and those few people who were there when it had happened, I hadn’t told anyone. Of course, that was not counting the letters I’d written to Kolya. Had they opened them up and read them?
“You have suffered greatly and you want your pound of flesh. But by helping us, you will have many more pounds of flesh than you could have your way. Besides, you will be thought a great patriot. You will go down in history as someone who helped the Motherland in a time of her greatest need.”
After I was in Moscow for about a week, Vasilyev told me I was to meet a group from the West that evening. It was to be held at the Spaso House, the residence of the American ambassador.
“There will be important Amerikosy there,” Vasilyev had told me. I noticed how he had used the demeaning word for Americans.
“What do they want with me?”
“They very much wish to meet you. Lieutenant, you are famous not just in our country, but all over the world now. The Yanks are fascinated by you. They can’t get enough of you.” Here he paused for a moment, brought his knuckle to his mouth in thought. “I must ask you one question, though. Are you a Jew?”
“What?”
“I heard that rumor.”
“Why on earth does it matter if I’m a Jew?”
“It would just be better if you weren’t. The Americans can be quite touchy about such things. But if you are, we can work around that.”
“You mean, change it?”
“You could be a ravishing Georgian. Or a lovely Armenian.”
I was struck by how fluid reality was for Vasilyev. I would find that nothing was so fixed, so permanent and unchangeable that he couldn’t alter to his purpose with a nice turn of phrase, with a catchy line. Even the war—especially the war—was something he could manipulate. He had only to change a headline, reword a few sentences, take a couple of publicity photos, and voilà, the war was swung in our favor, the Germans close to being vanquished.
“I’m not a Jew,” I said.
“Well, that simplifies things.”
That evening when I got in the car, seated up front near the driver was another man I’d not seen before. He was smoking a cigarette.
“This is Radimov,” Vasilyev said, indicating the man in the front seat. “He will act as your interpreter.” The man in front looked over his shoulder and smiled at me, his lips drawing back to show teeth stained from smoking. He was thin, with a ruddy complexion. “I’ve read much about you, Comrade,” Radimov said.
“Hello,” I said, in English.
“So you speak English?”
“A little. Not very much, I’m afraid,” I replied.
The ambassador’s residence was in Spasopeskovskaya Square, not far from the Kremlin. As we pulled up in front of the impressive mansion, Vasilyev put his hand on my wrist and said, “Lieutenant, be mindful of what you say to the reporters. We don’t want to alienate them. They are invaluable to us. Above all, be sure to tell them that we are winning the war. After all, they wouldn’t want to bet on a losing horse.”
Inside the embassy, I was greeted by the ambassador, a tall, gray-haired man named Standley. He wore wire-rim glasses and had about him a slightly distracted, professorial demeanor.
“I’m so pleased you could come, Lieutenant Levchenko,” he told me through the interpreter Radimov. He shook my hand vigorously. “I’ve heard so much about you. I can certainly see why they call you the Beautiful Assassin.”
“I am honored to meet you as well, sir,” I replied.
“They tell me you can shoot the wings off a fly at a hundred meters.”
“I think they exaggerate.”
“And I think you’re just being modest. Three hundred krauts! That’s some shooting, young lady.”
I was led into a palatial hall with a high, domed ceiling from which hung a huge chandelier. The ceiling was painted a pale blue, so that it reminded me of the sky on a clear spring day over the Crimea, before the war and all the smoke. When they spotted me, a small group of journalists, some holding cameras, rushed over, pushing and shoving to get close. Unlike the Soviet reporters, the Americans had little sense of decorum. Like unruly children, all at once they began yelling things out at me in English and waving and trying to catch my attention.
Vasilyev attempted to quiet them. “Gentlemen, please,” he said through the interpreter. “Lieutenant Levchenko will be happy to answer your questions. But one at a time.”
Their hands leapt in the air.
“You,” Vasilyev said, pointing at one reporter.
He stared at my legs, then said something in English.
“He wants to know if you wear stockings while fighting,” the interpreter explained to me.
The reporters guffawed as a group, much like a bunch of raucous boys at a football match. I glanced over at Vasilyev, who offered a smile that was meant to placate me.
“No, I don’t wear stockings to fight,” I replied.
“Is it difficult to sleep in a foxhole beside men?” asked another.
“It is difficult to sleep in war period,” I replied. “There is much noise.”
They asked many questions in a similar vein. If the men flirted with me. If my fellow soldiers treated me like a girl or like a soldier. How did I change in front of the men? What did I think of the sight of blood? At least the Soviet reporters had treated me with the dignity due a soldier. These Americans were fools, I thought to myself.
“We are at war,” I explained. “We don’t think of such things. We think only of defeating the enemy.”
“Let’s get some pictures, sweetheart,” one American called out. He was dark featured, good-looking, with fine white teeth and hair heavily pomaded. He spoke rapidly, the words spilling from his mouth in the self-assured way I thought all Americans spoke, like gangsters in the movies. “Pretend she’s aiming her gun.”
“Smile,” added another.
“Tell him I don’t smile when I shoot my gun,” I replied.
The interpreter, however, looked over to Vasilyev, who gave me a frown, then instructed me simply to go ahead and smile for the picture. Which I did, albeit stiffly.
“Atta girl,” one journalist called out. “By next week, your face will be in every paper in the States.”
“The boys back home are gonna eat you up, sweetheart,” said another.
I felt like saying I didn’t care in the least what those overfed and pampered capitalists who sat back and let my countrymen die while they went to their picture shows and drove their fancy automobiles thought of me.
“What would you like to tell the American people?” one called out.
I paused, then said, “I would encourage your soldiers to fight like men.”
The interpreter again looked to Vasilyev, who sighed, then, turning toward the Americans, replied for me. “Comrade Levchenko said she is delighted to have the full cooperation of all our valued American friends. She desires only complete victory over our mutual enemies, and is sure that with your continued assistance we shall soon defeat the fascists.”
“What does she think of Mrs. Roosevelt’s invitation?” one reporter called out.
When the question was translated, I frowned, then turned to Vasilyev.
“Later,” he whispered to me. Then to the group he replied through the interpreter. “Lieutenant Levchenko is deeply honored by Mrs. Roosevelt’s invitation. She feels that the International Student Conference is a wonderful opportunity for our two countries to create an open dialogue that will ensure a lasting world peace after the hostilities are concluded.” He then turned toward me and smiled, before saying, “She eagerly awaits meeting the First Lady in person.”


As soon as we got into the car to head back to my room, I turned to Vasilyev and asked, “What do you mean, ‘meet the First Lady’?”
“You are going to America,” he replied bluntly.
“America?” I exclaimed. “I cannot go to America. My place is here.”
Before he replied, he told the driver to stop the car.
“Gentlemen,” he said to the two in front. “May I have a moment alone with the lieutenant.”
We happened to have stopped beside the river. The others got out and walked down toward it, where I could see them light up cigarettes in the dark.
“Mrs. Roosevelt,” Vasilyev began, “has heard about you and desires to meet you in person. She is organizing an international student conference convening in Washington and has graciously extended an invitation for you to come as her personal guest. The theme of the conference is peace among nations in the postwar world. You will attend as one of our country’s representatives.”
“But I want to return to fighting.”
“You will do far more good for your country there than at the front.”
“I am a soldier, not a diplomat.”
“We feel it is important for the Americans to see you.”
“Why?”
“You will present the new face of the Soviet Union,” he said. “One that is intelligent, educated, brave.” Smiling, he added, “And attractive too. It is our hope that your presence will inspire the Americans to get off their fat capitalist asses and open that second front they keep promising.”
I suddenly recalled my conversation with Stalin, how he said I would get them to fight. Only now did I understand. They had all known about it. Everyone but me.
“So this isn’t really about my going to a peace conference, is it?” I asked.
“That too. But we are at war now. Winning takes precedence.”
“So let me go back to fighting.”
“This is the best way for you to serve your country right now. You will go to the conference, and then when it’s over, you can return home and go back to shooting Germans to your heart’s delight.”
“What if I refuse to go to America?”
He wagged his head so that his jowls quivered. “I’m afraid you can’t, Lieutenant. This comes from the very top. You will do your duty.”
“My duty is here.”
“Your duty is whatever we say it is, Comrade Levchenko,” he said, his dark eyes flashing with impatience and the muscles in his soft face tensing. It was the first time I’d seen him on the verge of losing his control. Yet in the next instance his face relaxed, and he assumed his usual congenial demeanor. “You will go and enjoy yourself. And as soon as the conference is over, I promise that you can go back to the front lines then. And your country will be deeply grateful for your service.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked.
“Certain details had to be worked out.”
“When do I leave?” I said finally.
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!”
“Yes. Think of it as a little R & R. A much deserved one.”
“How long is the conference?”
“A few days.”
“And then I can return when it’s over?”
“You have my word,” he said.
We drove back to my hotel in silence. I was a loyal soldier and only wanted to do my duty, to do all that I could to defeat the Germans. I loved my country and would gladly have given my life for it. If I could best help in this way, I was determined to do it, despite my own personal disappointment in not returning to the front.
As I was about to get out, Vasilyev placed his big paw on my arm. “Lieutenant,” he said. When I turned to look back at him, I saw that he was holding something in his hand. An envelope.
“Here,” he said, his tone hinting at something ominous. I hesitated taking it, sensing that something was wrong and that by accepting it I’d be authenticating whatever the bad news was that it contained. I glanced down at what he held, then back up at him. “It’s about my husband, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
Reluctantly, I accepted the letter but continued to stare at it for a moment. I thought how until I opened it, Kolya was still alive, still very much in the world with me. He seemed so real, so palpable to me then. I could picture his hands, the color of his eyes, hear his voice. He had been a good man, I thought. A doting father to Masha. Someone who had not only loved me but had done so unconditionally, even though he knew it wasn’t returned. With the deaths of Masha and my parents, he was all that I had left, the only slender thread connecting me to my former life. I thought of what I had secretly wished for when we’d parted at the train station over a year before. Did I really want that?
As soon as I opened it and saw the military letterhead, I knew immediately that it was a pokhoronka letter, one of those formal missives informing next of kin of a death. As I read it, I learned that Kolya had been reported missing in action in the fighting at Leningrad. Not dead, but missing. Still, I knew what that implied. If he wasn’t dead, he was a prisoner, which was just as good as dead. As I stared at the words on the page, tears sprung to my eyes and slid down my cheeks. I hadn’t wanted to cry in front of Vasilyev, but I was helpless to stop. I had never felt so completely alone in the world, so utterly vulnerable. Kolya, I realized as never before, had been there for me, protected me, insulated me from the world. Now I was alone.
Vasilyev reached out and put his hand on my back and rubbed it in small circles. “My deepest sympathies, Comrade,” he said. “Would you prefer company?”
I looked over at him.
“I assure you, my offer is quite benign. Just an ear to listen,” he explained.
“Thank you, Comrade,” I said. It was one of the few times Vasilyev would show a more human side. “But I think I’d rather be alone.”
“Good night then. I shall pick you up at seven, Lieutenant.”
Without bothering to get undressed, I lay on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling. Another part of my life had just come to an end. Some time during the night, sleep finally claimed me.