Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy

by Patrick Trese

“If I write her a note, will you give it to her?”

  “Of course. But be careful what you say. She has no idea who you really are.”

  He shrugged. “It is probably better that she is not here.”

  “I think so.”

  Major Volkova looked toward the open window. “I need not remind you that Anya will remain under my personal protection.”

  She took another sip of vodka and waited for that to register.

  “Let us now talk about Alex Samozvanyetz and his future,” she said. “Going home may be difficult for you at first. So many years have passed, but it is always better to deal with the present and the future. The past is mostly illusion. Memory seldom provides an accurate record. It retains perceptions and impressions of how things seemed to be at the time. Some things vanish from the memory completely. Concern yourself with the present and the future. Lapses of memory should cause you no problems.”

  “Yes,” he said. “A new situation can be dealt with. But it is frightening, nevertheless, to consider how many things must have changed over the years.”

  “They have changed for everybody. You will adapt to changes as you become aware of them. Actually,” she said as she stood up, “there is not much past for you to go home to, I suspect. But you will learn the fate of friends and family when you get there.”

  She walked to the windows, parted the curtains and looked down onto the street. Her sedan was parked beyond the row of taxicabs, as she had ordered.

  “I must leave now,” she said. “I will not be here in the morning to see you off.”

  She turned and directed his eyes to the light fixture in the ceiling. She cupped her ear and he nodded.

  “I thank you for stopping by today, Major. Perhaps you would allow me to escort you to your automobile?”

  “That would be most courteous.”

  They did not speak again until they were outside the hotel, walking along the sidewalk toward her car.

  “There is something you should know before you leave,” she said. “I do not know exactly when, but soon, the Party will denounce Stalin officially and publicly. He will be blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong. How far this public repudiation will go, I have no idea. But the KGB has been spreading rumors of this in the West for some time now. People in the United States already know more about this than people here, I am sure. So when American intelligence officers interrogate you, as they certainly will, do not worry about telling them what you know about Lubianka and the camps. What you say will harm nobody here. Not me and not Anya.”

  “Thank you for telling me that. It makes me less apprehensive.”

  “I thought it would. Well, Father Alex Samozvanyetz, let me wish you a safe journey. Do not worry about the future,” she said with her cold smile. “I will never be far away.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  He returned to his suite and read until his eyes grew tired. He set his book aside and sat quietly in his parlor for a while. Morning would come all too quickly, so he decided to have supper in his rooms and go to bed early. But, before that, he would take one last walk.

  He knocked on the door of the room next to his suite. “I thought I would stroll down to the river,” he said. The youngest of the security men stood up. “I would welcome the exercise,” said the young man.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The sun was leaving the sky and taking the springtime warmth with it, but he was wearing a heavy sweater under his jacket. He leaned on the railing of the embankment and gazed across the river. The city of Moscow murmured in the distance.

  He watched a boat chugging upstream. The reflections of the lights on the bridges shimmered like diamonds in the small craft’s wake. Across the water he could see the flood-lit domes of the churches and the red stars glowing atop the spires of government buildings.

  He watched as Day surrendered to Night. And then there was no color in the sky, only the white and red lights provided by Man and the State. They obscured the lights from God’s stars, so far away. He turned and put Moscow behind him.

  The young man walked with him in silence through the darkness back toward the hotel.

  The glow of a street lamp spilled through the branches of a leafless tree down onto the pavement. He walked through puddles of light, in Limbo so it seemed to him, passing through a long tunnel that ran from the past to a future somewhere up ahead in the dark. His silent companion kept step, but he was alone in the night.

  The fear was familiar. He had felt it often enough though the years. But he had managed to stay alive through everything. One had to stay alive, but at what cost? In surviving, how much of his true self had he lost? Who am I really? he wondered. After all this, who am I now? At this exact moment?

  It was not until he left the darkness of the suburban streets and returned to his lighted rooms that he felt any peace at all. Later, after the maid had cleared away his half eaten supper, he settled into bed.

  Before falling to sleep, he was able to say to himself: “I am Alex Samozvanyetz. I am a Jesuit priest and a citizen of the United States. Tomorrow morning, I am going home.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The security men rapped on his door precisely at six o’clock. He had been up since five. He had bathed and shaved and toyed with the breakfast laid out on the dining room table. The eggs were cold, but the bread and lukewarm tea settled his stomach. He felt less anxious having eaten something.

  He packed his shaving kit, a clean shirt and two sets of clean underwear into his small black satchel, and then he had nothing else to do but sit and wait for the knock at the door. It came at last and the three security men took him down the elevator, through the lobby and out the front door to a brown sedan parked in front of the hotel.

  He sat in the back seat. The young security man sat beside him; the other two sat in front. His escorts were professional men, not given to small talk. He understood that, but the silence deepened his sense of isolation. From the back seat of the car on the way to the airport, he watched sadly as a grove of white birch trees sailed past his window.

  Inside the terminal, while other passengers waited in long lines to have their tickets and passports and luggage examined by uniformed officials, he and his escorts stood apart waiting for the boarding announcement, not looking at each other, shuffling around the small black satchel resting on the floor. Was he an old uncle being seen off on a journey by his dutiful nephews? So it might seem.

  It was finally time to leave. The young man who had walked with him to the river the night before held his hand in a strong grip. “I have enjoyed our walks together,” he said, “and I wish you a safe journey.” The others shook his hand solemnly and muttered formal farewells. They stood there watching him until he boarded the airplane. And they would wait until the plane took off, he knew.

  From the air, as the aircraft rose up along its curving path of departure, he could make out factories, apartment buildings and smaller dwellings, but not the river or the city itself. He could not take the sight of the Kremlin with him, only the white birch trees along the road. Haze soon covered the land below; he could see no ground at all.

  The four engines of the Aeroflot plane were growling in English: “Where-are-you? Where-are-you? Where-are-you?”

  Yes, he thought, where am I? Lost, he feared. Somewhere in the past he had lost himself: in his training for a life of deception, in the interrogation room, in the prison cell or in the labor camp, somewhere his true self had been buried deep underground.

  The airplane continued to climb through the overcast. Gradually, the light outside became brighter, the clouds less dense. Then, suddenly, he was thrust into the brilliance of the cloudless atmosphere. He raised his hand to cut off the sunlight and turned away from the window. The light was so intense, he could not see. He closed his eyes and, finally, fell asleep.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The Aeroflot airplane landed near Paris in a light rain. He had only one glimpse of the city through a break in the clouds. No matter. He s
at with his black satchel in his lap waiting, according to instructions, for the other passengers to disembark. He watched the flight crew leave. They did not even glance in his direction.

  A man entered the door at the front of the cabin. He shook the rain off his hat as he walked deliberately down the aisle. He opened the satchel and looked through its contents.

  “You have left everything else in Moscow? Empty your pockets, just to be sure.” Satisfied, the man led him down the aisle and out the door.

  The air was warm and the rain barely a drizzle. Parked alongside the airplane were two vehicles: an unmarked black sedan and a light gray van with a yellow flasher on its roof. Standing at the bottom of the stairs were two groups of men in hats and raincoats. They waited for him to descend. Once on solid ground, his Russian escort looked at his American counterpart.

  “This is your man,” he said in English.

  “Thank you very much, Boris,” said the leader of the Americans. “You can give me his bag, if you will. We’ll handle it from here. Perhaps I’ll see you in Geneva this summer? At the conference?”

  “Perhaps,” said the Russian. “I do not know if I will be there.”

  “Well, if not there, someplace else, I’m sure. Always nice doing business with you, Boris.”

  The American led him to the van.

  “In you go, if you please,” he said quietly. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Once inside, with the doors closed and the van moving, the man turned and said, “Welcome back, Father Samozvanyetz. We think it’s best to press on to New York, if you’re up to it. We’ll get some rest in New York, then fly on to Cincinnati and drive you to the Jesuit Novitiate in Milford, Ohio. We’ve been told it’s very quiet. Very private.”

  “Unless things have changed, it is extremely quiet. I wonder if I will know anybody there after all these years.”

  “I think you will. Father John Beck is there now. He’s the one who received your letter.”

  “I can’t believe it! John Beck, my old friend, alive and well, waiting for me. I never expected anything so . . .” He searched for a word and chose “miraculous.”

  He spent most of the flight across the Atlantic preparing for Mass, reciting the prayers under his breath. “Introibo ad altare Dei . . .”

  Soon, he thought, he would be standing at the foot of a real altar, clad in proper vestments, holding a shrouded chalice, acolytes by his side, candles flickering. But now, in the darkened cabin, he repeated the Latin prayers over and over again in his mind. By the time the sun overtook the airplane and tinged the clouds with gold and rose, he had recited the Ordinary of the Mass, from Introit to Last Gospel, at least half a dozen times.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The last leg of the journey was the shortest, from New York to Cincinnati where there was a changing of the guard. His new protectors were agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and they were led by a man named Coogan who, he was quick to say, had studied under Father John Beck in high school.

  “He’s really looking forward to seeing you, Father,” Coogan said as they walked out of the terminal. His face was quite open and he looked—what was the expression? Pleased as punch?

  The Cincinnati airport was south of the city on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, so Coogan told him as he helped him into the passenger seat of the blue four-door sedan. The car soon crossed a bridge over the Ohio River near a point on the map where a tributary, the Little Miami River, he remembered, begins to meander in a north easterly direction through the rolling countryside.

  Through the open windows, mild spring air filled the car with the moist scent of freshly plowed earth. The hills were soft and green in the late afternoon sunlight. Coogan took him at moderate speed along a tree lined road. He saw wild flowers in bloom, those yellow flowers called daffodils and those tall purple flowers whose name he could not recall immediately. Flags. Yes, flags. Which he saw through the iris of his eye? No, not the iris. The lens. But the flags were also irises.

  He was driven past small farms whose tidy white houses were enclosed by white wooden fences. Down along the riverside, when the stream could be seen through the trees, he glimpsed dark tar-papered fishing lodges, small shacks really, built on top of wooden poles.

  Then came the houses of the people in the quiet town of Milford, then the rattling iron bridge that spanned the Little Miami, some more tree shaded residences and, finally, at the end of a side street, the two stone cairns marking the entrance to the drive that led up the low hill to the Novitiate.

  He filled his chest with air as the sedan climbed slowly up the narrow roadway through shafts of light that slanted down through breaks in the pine trees. Beyond the tall bare trunks he could see part of the ivy covered brick building.

  And then he saw the novices!

  Cassocks swirling, four abreast, they were walking down the roadway through the pines. Coogan stopped the car to let them march past, almost a hundred of them, more or less in step, heads bowed, eyes downcast, rosary beads held in clasped hands. Not one of them even glanced at the car. He heard the Dux leading the chant:

  “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.” The marching novices chanted their response: “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.”

  The young men wheeled about, cassocks opening to reveal brown trousers and shoes some had brought from home.

  Coogan, keeping a respectful distance, followed the chanting novices up the roadway for a hundred yards or so, then turned left onto the drive that led to the main building. Beyond the Novitiate, rising above the hedges that marked the cloister limits, was the small green hill with its low white markers. Beyond the cemetery stretched the playing fields and, off to one side, the two concrete handball courts.

  The car came to a halt in front of the wide stone stairway that led up to the main entrance. His journey was over.

  He climbed out of the passenger seat and looked at the large white statue of the Sacred Heart that still faced the Novitiate. He stood for a moment, looking up at the statue. The figure of Christ stood humbly, heart exposed, arms opened in acceptance. He remembered another such figure, a man who had suddenly appeared before him many years before. He turned away from the pain. Looking up toward the front doors of the building, he saw the priest standing at the top of the grey stone staircase dressed in black, not robes of white like the statue, but welcoming him with open arms.

  It was John Beck. There could be no doubt.

  He hurried up the stone stairs and cried: “I am home, John!”

  He fell to his knees. “Please, John, may I have your blessing?”

  He waited, eyes closed, while the Sign of the Cross was made above his head and heard John Beck intone: “Pax et benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super te et maneat semper.”

  He felt the priest’s hands on his head and he responded: “Amen.”

  John Beck grasped him by the shoulders and raised him up. “Let me have a look at you, Alex.”

  He saw the tears in John Beck’s eyes.

  “John, my dear friend! I thought I’d never see you again!”

  “I never stopped praying for you, Alex.”

  “And, here I am! Home at last, John!” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “Tell me, John,” he said. “Will there be pie for supper?”

  John Beck stared at him for a moment. Then, remembering the banter of their days as novices, exploded with laughter.

  “You bet there’ll be pie for supper, Alex. And maybe ice cream, too.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  He waited while John Beck opened the front door of the novitiate, but he did not enter immediately.

  Behind him, through the spring air scented with pine and lilac, he heard the voices of the novices, strong in unison, chanting the rosary like some tragic chorus. He turned and looked back over the groun
ds, over the head of the FBI agent Coogan who was carrying his black satchel up the stairs.

  From here, he could see everything, and everything was in its proper place. The cemetery was up the knoll off to the right, the statue of the Sacred Heart directly ahead. On the roadway behind the statue, the marching novices were now chanting the Litany, the chorused responses rhythmic and energetic. “Ora pro nobis, ora pro nobis, ora pro nobis.”

  He took a deep breath. The trees were taller, the hedges higher. Otherwise, everything seemed unchanged by time. He turned and walked confidently into the Novitiate.

  Everything was exactly as Father Alex Samozvanyetz had remembered it.

  C H A P T E R • 8

  Brother Nils Hegstad, the tall balding man who ran the novitiate infirmary, always had trouble remembering names. He served as a medical corpsman in the Pacific during World War II and sometimes, in the night, wounded marines would call out to him. In his dreams, he was always “Corpsman” or “Medic.” They were always “Buddy” or “Sarge” or “Sir.” He never recalled their given names; he recognized them by their wounds. When he awoke, he remembered them in his prayers.

  At Milford, there was no need to call anybody by name. Brother Hegstad liked that. All novices were “Carissime” and all juniors were “Mister.” Priests were “Father,” except for “Father Rector,” the superior of the community, and “Father Minister,” who was a combination treasurer and supply sergeant. The “Misters” who pursued their college studies in the other wing of the H-shaped building, had a Dean in charge of them. But he was just “Father” like the rest of the priests. Ditto the Master of Novices.

  Brother Hegstad’s infirmary, tucked away on the third floor of the novice’s wing, was even more orderly and quiet than the novitiate itself. He had nothing more ghastly to deal with now than minor athletic injuries, common colds and a few cases of homesickness, which he treated with bed, rest, cinnamon toast, Jell-O and ice cream. At the moment, he had only one patient in his infirmary, the visiting Father who had slept twelve hours straight when he arrived.