Our Woman in Moscow

by Beatriz Williams

  Lyudmila has to conclude—provisionally, at least—that he doesn’t know anything about the ASCOT operation, including its existence.

  Which only goes to support her hypothesis. This operation, after all, seems to have as its objective the systematic exposure of Soviet moles burrowed within the most secret inner corridors of Western intelligence—all those Burgesses and Macleans and Philbys and Hisses, so carefully recruited and managed over years and even decades.

  It stands to reason, therefore, that it’s being conducted from outside the formal intelligence service, by some renegade officer or officers who—like her—have finally learned to trust nobody.

  A man code-named ASCOT.

  And the agent whom ASCOT has boldly sent into Moscow, into the heart of the Soviet state, to uncover the traitors, one by one.

  Ruth

  June 1952

  New York City

  From the perspective of my desk, parked outside the deluxe private office of our president and chief executive officer, Mr. Herbert Henry Hudson, you can see just about everything that goes on within the premises of the world-famous Hudson Modeling Agency.

  This is no coincidence, believe me. I like to keep an eye on everything, always have.

  On the day Sumner Fox walks past the glass double doors—an ordinary hot afternoon in late June, a steady stream of fresh new-mint high school graduates eager to commence their modeling careers, God bless them—I’ve been running the agency for about four years, depending on your definition of the term, and I have no intention of going anywhere. I like my job. I like my way of life, more or less. I wear my usual uniform of white button-down shirt and black gabardine slacks, hair pulled back in a neat gold knot, red lipstick and nothing else. I prop my feet on my desk and drink my seventh cup of strong black coffee while I flip through the portfolio of some vampy fifteen-year-old from Elizabeth, New Jersey—claims eighteen, the pretty liar, but I’m a better judge of age than a horse trader—and God knows I have no time at all for the bull-shouldered fellow who stands at the reception desk like a heavyweight boxer who’s taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

  My telephone rings. Reception.

  I direct an eyebrow of disapproval toward Miss Simmons from above the frame of my reading glasses. She shrugs and tilts her head toward the beef standing in front of her desk.

  I lift the receiver. “Macallister.”

  “Miss Macallister, Mr. Sumner Fox from the FBI is here to see you.” She says FBI in a hushed, secret voice, enunciating each letter separately.

  I open my mouth to tell Miss Simmons to tell the so-called FBI to get lost, but she tacks on another sentence before I get the words out.

  “He says it’s about your sister.”

  As I said, I like to keep everything at the agency within view—with one exception, to which Mr. Fox and I repair now.

  He’s impressed, I believe, as most people are when they step inside the boardroom of the Hudson Modeling Agency. The room itself is nothing—just a big old committee table, the usual chairs of dubious comfort—but the view, my word. There’s this particular corner of the twenty-sixth floor that opens out unobstructed across the East River and all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge, if you don’t mind a kink in your neck, and that wall is made of nothing but glass, glass, glass, cleaned regularly by a well-trained team of daredevils. Now, Sumner Fox isn’t the kind of man who betrays anything so vulnerable as an emotion. (In this, we are equals.) But he does walk across the width of the room and smash his fists into the pockets of his trousers and sort of roll up and down on his big flipper feet as he stares upon that stupefying expanse of metropolis.

  I take the opportunity to stare him up and down. As I said, he’s a large fellow, not exceptionally tall but built like an Angus steer, all shoulders, square rawboned head on which a bare half inch of extremely pale hair bristles up like a field of mowed hay. No residual tail, thank God, but the position of his fists in his pockets strains the back flap of his jacket upward just enough to reveal a fine muscular bottom, which pleases me. You don’t go into my line of business without some appreciation for the aesthetics of the human form. Now that I consider the matter, I wonder if he allows me to inspect him on purpose.

  Whether he means to impress me or to warn me, I don’t pretend to guess.

  I know enough about these sorts of encounters to allow the other person to introduce the conversation. After I’ve looked my fill, I fold my arms across my chest and wait for him to address me. Which he does, after a minute. Pivots in a military manner and says—gravelly midsouthern baritone—“Miss Macallister. I do appreciate your taking the time to meet me like this, without a prior appointment.”

  “I’m just a secretary, Mr. Fox. You don’t need an appointment to meet with me.”

  “Just a secretary?” He actually smiles, displaying a set of neat white teeth. “That’s not the word on the street.”

  “Oh? Which street is that?”

  “Why, the street that says you run the whole show. That poor old Mr. Hudson is what you might call a puppet, and you’re what might be called a puppeteer.”

  “Now, that’s just slander,” I reply. “But as it happens, I am a busy woman, and I like a man who gets right to the point. You were saying something about my sister? Has she perhaps made her whereabouts known to the world at last?”

  “That’s an excellent question, Miss Macallister. Maybe you could answer it for me.”

  “Me? I don’t think you know the facts of the case. Do you smoke, Mr. Fox?”

  He blinks his pale eyes. “No, thank you.”

  “Then I hope I don’t offend you.” I stalk around the other side of the table to the console, where the agency keeps a selection of cigarettes for the refreshment of the august members of the board of directors. I light one with a match, old-fashioned damsel that I am. By the time I turn back to face Mr. Fox, I feel I have the situation in hand.

  “I must confess, I’m mystified. Why come to me now, after all these years? I mean, I haven’t heard a word from the FBI, not since that first week after they disappeared.”

  “And yet most families would be beating down our door, demanding an explanation, when a diplomat goes missing on a foreign posting with his wife and children.”

  “Well, we aren’t most families.” I blow out a stream of smoke. “To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t seen or heard from my sister in years. Long before the State Department lost track of her.”

  “How many years?”

  I stare at the ceiling and count my fingers. “Twelve. Why, it’s June, isn’t it? That makes twelve years exactly. I ought to bake a cake or something.”

  His frown is not a frown of disapproval or of sadness or anything subjective like that. I think he’s just pondering the meaning of it all—twin sisters estranged for a dozen years—what could possibly have caused such an unnatural divorce? He might also be disappointed. Clearly there’s not much you can learn about a woman from a sister who’s better acquainted with her dry cleaner.

  “So you see,” I continue, hoping to shut down the entire conversation, “you’re barking up the wrong tree, if you want the lowdown on whatshername.”

  “Iris.”

  I snap my fingers. “That’s it.”

  “Do you mind if we sit down?”

  “Yes, I do, rather. Stack of work sitting on my desk. Dictation to type up, telephone messages to deliver.”

  He cracks the smallest smile. “Now I know you’re just pulling my leg. Have a seat, Miss Macallister, and I’ll do the same. The sooner we finish this conversation, the sooner you can get back to your secretarial duties.”

  I suppose I realize I’ve met my match, when it comes to stubbornness of character. And really, I’m not offended. After all, we want our FBI men to be tough, stubborn, unrelenting sons of bitches, don’t we? At least when they’re not after us.

  I take the chair he gallantly pulls out for me and wait for him to take the seat opposite. Drag an ashtray from the center of the t
able and make myself comfortable with it.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I study your face,” I say. “It’s an occupational habit.”

  “Not much to study. I’ve been told I’m no picture portrait.”

  “That’s true. You look as if somebody carved you from a tree with a blunt axe. But beauty isn’t everything when it comes to photographs. If you’ve been in this business long enough, why, beauty’s sort of boring. Like Tolstoy. Beautiful people are all alike, but the ugly . . .”

  “Now, that’s an interesting observation, coming from a beautiful woman.”

  “Pshaw.” I tap a little ash into the tray. “I thought you intended to move things along?”

  “As you like. You don’t mind if I take notes, do you?” He pulls a small leather notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “Be my guest. I do take shorthand, if you need a break or something.”

  “That would be against protocol, I’m afraid. You say you last saw your sister in June of 1940?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And since then you haven’t spoken at all? Letters, telegrams?”

  “Not a word.”

  He set down his pen. “You don’t have any idea of her whereabouts, from June of 1940 until November of 1948? What she was doing? Husband and children and any of that?”

  “Of course I do. Our aunt kept me filled in, from time to time.”

  “That would be Mrs. Charles Schuyler, wouldn’t it?”

  “My stars, you have done your homework, haven’t you? We know her as Aunt Vivian, of course.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. So Mrs. Schuyler represents your only source of information on Mrs. Digby’s whereabouts—”

  “And our brother, Harry. I believe he dropped in on them, from time to time, at whatever diplomatic post they’d been sent to.”

  He casts me a sharp look, as if there’s some hidden meaning in this. “Until November of 1948, of course, when Mrs. Digby and her family vanished from their flat in London.”

  “That’s right. I read all about it in the papers.”

  “Just the papers?”

  “Well, it was a sensational case, wasn’t it? Once the press got their hands on it. No signs of struggle or burglary or anything like that. They just packed their suitcases and left, and nobody’s heard from them since. Isn’t that right, Mr. Fox?”

  “Not necessarily. Don’t you think Mrs. Digby might have tried to find some way to send word to those she loves?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I don’t believe I fall inside that category, I’m afraid. All I’ve heard is what’s been reported in the press. One outlandish theory after another.”

  “And do you have an opinion on any of them, Miss Macallister?”

  “They all seem a little farfetched to me.” I tap some ash into the brass ashtray. “I’m sure you’d know much more about that kind of thing than I do. What do you think? I’m dying to know. Was Digby really a spy for the Soviets? Were they killed, or did they defect?”

  If he’s shocked, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t even blink. “I don’t deal in speculation, Miss Macallister. I deal only in facts.”

  I lean a little closer. “Come on, now. I promise I won’t spill the beans to the papers or anything. She is my sister, after all.”

  You must understand that my heart’s beating like a dynamo. I hope he’s not the kind of fellow who looks at your neck to determine your pulse. I think I manage to keep the cigarette from shaking between my fingers, but it’s a question of mind over matter, believe me—of a self-control honed over years spent sitting across from men at desks and restaurant tables and boardrooms like this one. I raise the cigarette to my lips and stare inquisitively at the dent between Mr. Fox’s thick, straight eyebrows while I wait for him to speak. That’s harder than it sounds, by the way. Most human beings would rather swallow a live goldfish than a lump of silence.

  Mr. Fox leans back in his chair. He wears a dark suit and a dark, plain tie, just in case you can’t guess what he does for a living. His shirt collar is white and crisp around his thick pink neck. “Let’s return to the known facts,” he says. “Mr. and Mrs. Digby lived overseas almost without pause since their marriage in June of 1940. Mr. Digby’s work took them to various US embassies and consulates around the world. Their last leave stateside occurred in 1947, just before Mr. Digby took up the post in London.”

  “Is that so? I must have missed her. Shame.”

  “But you did say that Mrs. Schuyler gave you regular reports on Mrs. Digby’s whereabouts and style of life, didn’t you?”

  I shrug. “I didn’t always listen.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “It’s true. Anyway, they were always moving from country to country, those two, mingling with princes and popping out babies. How many was it? Three?”

  He glances at his notebook. “She was expecting her third when she disappeared.”

  “How lovely. Say.” I lean forward and frown. “If they’re in some kind of trouble, you’re not going to make me adopt the offspring, are you? I don’t get along well with children.”

  “I’m happy to say that’s not a matter within the scope of our powers at the FBI, Miss Macallister. Returning to the matter at hand. You say you haven’t had any communication with her at all? Nothing recent, for example? Letters? Postcards?”

  “Why should I? After all these years?”

  “You tell me.”

  I lean back again and cross one leg over the other. The chair squeaks agreeably. “You should talk to Aunt Vivian. She’s the one who used to get all the letters.”

  “I already have.”

  “Harry? Our brother? He’s out in Alaska somewhere, last I heard.”

  “I’ve spoken to Mr. Macallister, yes.”

  “What about her husband’s family? He’s got a mother or something, I seem to remember. And the father’s a real piece of work, from what I hear. Mr. Digby Senior, some kind of bigwig in oil.”

  “Miss Macallister, you might be surprised to know that the FBI actually knows how to conduct a thorough investigation without recourse to any of your useful suggestions.”

  “Touched a nerve, did I? Everything coming up dry? You’ve come to the end of the line?” I stub out the cigarette. “The end of the line being me, of course. Deadest of dead ends. I’m so sorry I couldn’t be of more use to you.”

  “Yes, I can see the regret in your eyes, Miss Macallister.” He closes the notebook and replaces it in the inside pocket of his jacket. As he does so, I catch a glimpse of a mammoth chest.

  I snap my fingers.

  “Sumner Fox! Of course. Football. You were all the rage for a few years. Some college or another, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Some college or another. Here’s my card, Miss Macallister. I urge you to contact me at the earliest possible instant, should you receive any word at all from your sister.”

  I take the card from his meaty fingers and slip it into the pocket of my slacks. “Life or death, is it?”

  He squints at me carefully, as if my head’s turned into a sun. “Just call that number, please, as a matter of urgency. And Miss Macallister? You’ll understand this conversation should be kept strictly confidential.”

  I zip my lips. “You can trust me, Mr. Fox.”

  “Thank you,” he says. “I’ll show myself out.”

  After he leaves, I light another cigarette and take my time settling my vital humors. I stand right before that great wall of glass and stare between the monoliths toward my narrow section of the East River—all the miniature boats inching along the glittering summer water, all the acres of close-packed buildings stretching out beyond them. I think about how many people live inside those buildings. I think about the buildings beyond those buildings, the buildings beyond those, the parks and yards and nice suburban houses of Long Island, old Roosevelt Field where Lindbergh took off for Paris early one morning. It took him thirty-six hours to get there, which is perseverance, if you ask me.
I admire perseverance. You find yourself some purpose and you stick to it, like a dog with a bone, no matter how many times the world tries to yank that bone away.

  Now, was Lindbergh right to do it? Well, of course he was. But only because he made it to Paris.

  By the time the cigarette burns out, my heart’s resumed its ordinary cadence. I no longer feel the twinge of every nerve. I return to my desk and flip through the stack of telephone messages left there by Miss Simmons, ignoring all the beady sideways appraisals from every direction. I mean, I can’t blame them. Wouldn’t you be curious, too?

  One by one, everyone returns to work. Herbert and I conduct a couple of interviews in his office, brand-new girls who show some real promise, maybe, even if the poor bunnies are hopelessly naïve in their brave red lipstick and their enthusiasm. We offer contracts to both, which they want to sign right away, God bless them. I tell them to take the paperwork home and read it carefully first. Don’t sign anything you haven’t read, I tell them, and they nod earnestly and stick the contracts in their pocketbooks.

  By six o’clock, the office has cleared out. I help Herbert with his hat and coat and shuffle him out the door to the limousine waiting for him outside. While waiting for the elevator, I remind him of his dinner engagement and kiss his soft cheek good night.

  The elevator arrives, Herbert steps inside, and I’m alone at last.

  I return to the reception area and switch off the lights. The glow of an early summer evening pours through the windows. I’m due for dinner in forty-five minutes, and under ordinary circumstances I’d take the opportunity to walk the twenty-two blocks through this golden light. I’d set aside the worries of the day and enjoy the hubbub, the hurry, the joy of people headed home in weather like this—the way a summer evening can transform even dirty old Manhattan into a city of translucent wonder. Instead I duck into Herbert’s office and help myself to a glass of twenty-year-old single-malt scotch, no ice.

  There are those who claim that I slept my way to my current position, just outside the office of Mr. Herbert Hudson of the Hudson Modeling Agency, and I will allow there’s a grain of truth to that rumor, as there are to most.