Operation White Birch – Part 8
This is your life now
Hello there, dear old and new subscribers! I won’t mention this Summer’s third heatwave, but please, let us all make it to the Equinox, the gentle, the mild-tempered Equinox!
ICYMI, read Part 7:
I soon got used to our new routine. In the early morning, the Brit and I would sit each in our room, read one of the books and take notes, while Maria Moiseevna would prepare food for our lunch and dinner. In the afternoon, the Brit and I would meet in the living room to browse the magazines and newspapers together, also taking notes, exchanging comments, and thinking out loud about the strategy we’d have to deploy for our mission’s accomplishment. The boys would stay in their quarters, Misha was on call whenever Baranov needed the car – which was much more often than he actually needed it – while Yura held the fort, filing reports on our activities and the visitors we had (mostly, staff sent from the Big House), answering the phone, taking care of our new house’s inner core.
Baranov used to sleep till lunch hour, after lunch would go for a stroll in the city, often on mysterious trips, from where he’d come back with more or less exotic foodstuffs, electronic gadgets, cigars, bottles of spirits, and once, even a pair of gorgeous silver fox fur pillow hats, one for Miss Lebedev and one for me. “Even though you don’t deserve it, but I don’t want you to be jealous and make a scene. You know me, my heart runneth over with love”, he explained.
In the evening, we all would sit around the samovar for tea. The boys tried to teach me how to play chess, but my brain refused to memorise the moves, to Baranov’s great amusement, who thought himself a grand master, although the boys used to cheat to make him win most of the times. Sometimes, they would go with me to ballets and concerts, or to ice hockey games and the movies. In one of his shopping tours, Baranov managed to get hold of a VHS player and a recording of Seventeen Moments of Spring, an immensely popular Soviet spy thriller TV series they all loved, so that I could watch it too. The boys could play the guitar, and we had quite a few singalongs.
I loved working with the Brit. He wasn’t so demanding and sarcastic as he used to be during my training classes. He wouldn’t patronise me, but would listen to my insights, ask for my thoughts on what I was reading. I’d grown up without parents, and I’d have loved to call him my father, such were the respect and affection I was starting to feel for him.
On an unusually sunny afternoon in February, he asked me to join him for a walk to the Summer Garden. I put on my new fur hat, and we strolled alongside the canal toward the park, my arm under his, chatting merrily and looking comfortable with each other. We got there after 15 minutes, the Summer Garden was holding its own in winter, soberly elegant in a black and white monochrome.
“Let’s sit down, we need to have a serious conversation. Oh look, the snow is dry, the bench isn’t even damp. How nice! Now, there’s never been a right moment this last month to talk things through with you, but I’ve been thinking long and hard about the bombshell Lisitsyn had dropped at the Big House, the strangeness of not having the house bugged, and the unreadability of the whole situation.”
“Does anyone else in the house know about the bugs, well, the lack of them?”
“I don’t think Baranov could be bothered to check it himself but, if he did, he’s keeping schtum about it. As for the boys, they’re employed by the Leningrad division, their loyalty lies here, presumably, ditto Maria Moiseevna. I’m pretty sure they know way more than we do. Bugs or no bugs, the boys have control on the telephone and all the other devices.”
“But shouldn’t we all be working for the same organisation? Aren’t we all devoted to the same cause? I can’t believe Maria Moiseevna or the boys could act against HQ’s orders, or us”, I said, loosening the shawl tightly wrapped around my neck, to let the crisp air cool me down.
“The other divisions, theoretically, should strictly follow Moscow’s orders, but Leningrad has been known to operate according to its own guidelines, and this must be true about other centres as well. God only knows what happens the further they are from Moscow, say in Sverdlovsk or Vladivostok.”
“But what puzzles me – and worries me, because I can’t make heads or tails of it – is the purpose, nay, the real meaning behind our operation. It smacks of utter ignorance and incompetence, of total cluelessness. Or, and this is perhaps the worst-case scenario of all, of desperation. They sense the USSR might be over soon, the experiment has failed. Finita la commedia, as you eyeties used to say.”
“But what about the reforms, sir, isn’t that what perestroika and glasnost’ are meant for? Making improvements, injecting new energies, being finally open to discuss and work toward change?”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that, my dear. The right time for reforms and change, if there ever had been one, was in the early 1960s, and it was already too late by then, anyway. It’s pointless to redecorate a house, when its foundations are rotten. Therefore, what matters most to me right now is, how the two of us can leave it, before it collapses over our heads?”
“Leave!? But this is my country now, I can’t imagine to leave, ever. There must be a way…”
“Oh, how I long for a way, believe me, I do. But there isn’t one. I’m going to sniff around over here, and try to be sent back to Moscow for a while. You can also help gather information.”
“Count on me, sir, I’m ready to play my part.”
“I’m glad you’re keen. Let’s start with the easy one. Baranov must know something, even though he seems oblivious. He may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’s less of a moron than he looks. Next time he asks you to join him in his bedroom, go, let him drink and loosen up, work your magic. Don’t be too obvious, though, put on your innocent little woman mask and, well, you know what to do.”
I gasped for air, but I had yet to hear the worst.
“And then the boys. Yura can’t look at you or Maria Moiseevna without blushing, so it probably won’t work with him, but it could well with Misha. He’s smart, and possibly cunning, but he’s still a young man after all, and I’ve caught him looking at you more than once, and you at him. Bedding him doesn’t sound that difficult or unpleasant, right? The making him talk part is, but I’m sure you’ll be able to melt his heart in no time.”
There are many good reasons to have sex with someone: love, lust, friendship, curiosity, aerobic workout, and a bad one: as part of a business transaction. Even worse, it’s to have it for a mercenary reason with someone you love and who loves you.
I realised then that I was in love with Misha. I had tried to tell myself that I liked him and that was all, but the signs were all there: I always found excuses to go to the boys’ quarter, hoping to see him; the painful happiness I felt, whenever I saw him or heard his voice; my overwhelming joy, whenever he talked to me and smiled.
If I had to sleep with Baranov again, I would become tainted. How corrupt would sleeping with the man I loved make me, if I had to do it for the most wrong reason of all?
My inner turmoil didn’t escape the Brit’s watchful eyes.
“Listen, young lady, this is the career you chose, this is your life now. You didn’t get that expensive hat on your head for the sake of your eyes, as bright and lovely as they are. You know the rules of the game. Women in this organisation must deploy their nature-given weapons, if and when needed. Let’s look it from another angle: when we need to extract information, we have to resort to ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, or torture to you and me. At least, you won’t have to physically hurt anyone, just give them a bit of a good time. Apparently, it gets easier the more often you do it. Take these, protect yourself, but we have access to the best doctors, should you need medical help.”
He handed me over three packs of condoms, smuggled somehow without Baranov knowing.
We left the park. I couldn’t enjoy the spectacular sunset on the city, as though its beauty wasn’t meant for me anymore. On the way home, the Brit took my arm again, and tried to joke: “So it’s true that you can take the girl out of the Catholic church, but you can’t take the Catholic church out of the girl. I know everything about grappling with guilt, my dear, I’m Irish. I’ve betrayed my birthland, though admittedly I didn’t love it that much, but, most unforgivably, my mother and other people whom I dearly loved and cared for. I’m an ungrateful, heartless scoundrel.”
“You’re Irish!? I didn’t know that about you, sir. As a matter of fact, I know nothing about you”, I stopped in my tracks, jolted out of my torpor.
“Well, I might tell you all about me, someday, if you’re interested. Or even if you’re not. I’m getting old, and I feel like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, with an albatross around my neck. It’d be good to talk to someone like you.”
“Then I’ll be your Wedding-Guest, sir.”
We shared a knowing look and shook hands.
Once home, we found Baranov, all excited with the news he’d just received: “Miss Lebedev will come next week for a poetry recital, and then we’ll have a gala evening worthy of the czars at the Grand Hotel Europe!”
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very cool! thank you as always, dear Portia
(I would make a very lousy spy. it's a pity, in a way, but maybe not. I have a funny story of 15 min of being "undercover". That's when it became glaringly obvious.)
The Summer Gardens look beautiful. Hope you're going to give a twist for our heroine in her glamorous fur hat...