There were so many things I might have said as our breath fogged up the windows, but what was there that could convince a self-sacrificing, disciplined, and revolutionary man like Levin to want a woman like me—selfish, undisciplined, and mostly inexperienced?
When he finally broke the silence, his words brought me teetering to the precipice of breathless exhilaration. “I need you, Elizabeth.” His voice sounded unused, speckled with rust. As if each word was difficult to shape.
But his next words pushed me off the edge, plunged me deep into the frigid waters of despair. They were a bucket of cold water over the fire in my chest, so I was left with only its charred remains.
“You’re young and idealistic, the perfect compatriot and a true comrade. Essentially, you are the perfect apprentice.”
I dug my fingernails into my palm to focus on that pain instead of the one being carved into my heart. Levin parked the car and let the engine idle. We were facing east, the Hudson at our backs and the weak winter light barely bruising the horizon.
“I know what you feel for me, Elizabeth.” I startled at his bluntness and opened my mouth to explain, stopped when I saw his raised hand, the anguish clear in his eyes. “I feel it too.”
I turned to face him, feigned insouciance with one leg tucked underneath me as I gestured between us. “Boy likes girl, girl likes boy . . . This should be simple. Instead, I feel as if I’m about to be lectured by a professor who caught me cheating on an exam.”
He almost smiled—his lips moved, but the expression didn’t meet his eyes. “And did you ever? Cheat on an exam?”
“A woman can’t tell all her secrets.”
(Of course I never cheated on a test, Catherine. I’d never done anything remotely interesting in my life. Until I’d joined the Party and met Levin.)
He sighed, ran his hands through his hair, the red gone nearly black in the dim lamplight. “This is not just boy meets girl, Elizabeth. I am your handler. We are not simply two comrades looking to have a good time; we are undercover agents. Emotions are liabilities, and they make this”—he gestured between the two of us—“whatever this is, very complicated.”
“You’re making things more complicated than they need to be.” Please, I wanted to plead. Don’t push me away.
“Elizabeth, I can’t even tell you my real name. I’ve done things . . . things I can never tell you.” Something in his face shuttered at that. “I swore an oath to the Party, I’ve made promises—”
“I don’t care about any of that. All I care about is . . . you.”
He shook his head, eyes tight and those lips I desperately wanted to kiss drawn into a firm line. “I should assign you another handler. Immediately.”
“Don’t you dare.” I forced him to look at me. “I gave up everything to work with you. I turned my back on everyone, even Lee, who was the only friend I’ve ever had. You don’t get to dump me like a bag of midweek trash just because your feelings have become inconvenient.”
“Cheeky girl.” His voice was rough as his thumb traced the line of my jaw. I caught the scent of him, a Siberian pine on a cold winter’s night. “Assets are not supposed to reprimand their handlers, you know.” God, it was such a small thing—that tiny connection, skin to skin—but I leaned into the touch until he was cradling my face between both his hands, his blue eyes ablaze.
“I must have missed that lesson,” I murmured. “But perhaps you can teach me a thing or two.” (Who was this daring woman who spoke with my voice, Catherine? I have no idea, but I’m forever grateful to her.) I luxuriated in the glorious heat of him, the way both our breaths hitched when he looked at me.
Closer. I leaned ever so slightly closer . . .
“I want you so badly, you have no idea,” he murmured, his voice anguished. “This is a mistake . . .”
“Indeed.” We were so close. “The best kind of mistake.”
That first kiss was a bonfire, no gentle teasing or calm testing, just a riot of heat that ignited my entire body. Suddenly, I understood what all the fuss was about, why operas had been sung and masterpieces sculpted and poetry written, all odes to this glorious hot-honey feeling that spread from the crown of my head to the tips of my curling toes. I moved to brush a hair from my cheek, and his strong hands framed the sides of my head in a convincing argument. Stay here, they said. Stay right here where you belong.
“This will lead us nowhere good,” Levin managed to say once we’d finally parted, our foreheads touching and both our chests heaving. His hands were still fisted in my hair, and mine had found their way inside his jacket, seeking more. “I am the last man on this earth you should get involved with. I should walk out of your life forever. But I cannot.”
“Then don’t.” I touched his lower lip with my thumb, reveling in his shiver. A thrill ran down my spine—he wanted me and I wanted him; it was that simple. “All I care about is that you’re mine. No one ever got anywhere by following all the rules.”
Levin groaned, tugged me close for another kiss. One that felt like I was being told a secret.
* * *
* * *
Levin and I danced the most delicate of dances in the months that followed.
We could never live together—Levin insisted for my own safety that I not even know his address—but there were no chaperones, no steady progression of approved dinner dates and dancing venues, only the undeniable, magnetic attraction that we gave in to.
We were breaking every rule—written and unwritten—in the Communist underground playbook. No close friendships and no unnecessary emotional connections, certainly no falling in love.
Were we falling in love? I had no frame of reference, at least not for romantic love. And I didn’t dare ask Levin for fear that I was merely an excuse to indulge in loose morals, like the men I’d once allowed to kiss me. Perhaps Lee could have told me the answer, but I’d kept my word to Levin and had ceased contact with her.
(In case you’re wondering why Lee didn’t visit me again, demanding answers, that would have been difficult since I’d upgraded to my own tiny apartment in the three months since that snowy December night. Levin said I was too well-known to the Communists in the Columbia University area, so I was happy for the change of scenery to Greenwich Village.)
Sometimes Levin visited my apartment on Grove Street. It wasn’t much, what with its constant smell of fried onions from Mrs. Vitkus’s Lithuanian kugela, pipes that banged relentlessly, and the stain of black mold that ran down the ceiling in the kitchen. But none of that mattered when Levin was there, even if he never stayed the night. Vlad adored him, would wag his tiny tail and give an eager bark as soon as Levin’s signature knock sounded on the door. Red cheeked in front of the radiator that clanged, and sometimes dressed only in our underclothes, we played card games while he sipped Hennessy cognac—fine brandy and the LaSalle were Levin’s only extravagances in life—and sometimes we’d listen to Roosevelt’s latest address on the radio.
Other times we escaped the city—and the rest of the collapsing world—in Levin’s freshly waxed car, wending our way upstate while I concocted fanciful stories about the people and houses we saw along the way. A yellow clapboard with a spotty yard packed with rusting bikes housed a woman who had taken in children abandoned during the Great Depression, a mansion in Oyster Bay with peeling paint contained an old Dutch pair of spinster sisters fallen on hard times, and a haggard woman towing four children behind her had once had dreams of being a Hollywood actress. Sometimes we laughed together; other times we grew somber, realizing how difficult it was for many Americans to make ends meet.
Sitting next to Levin on those car rides, I realized I was one of the lucky ones. Which only made me more resolute that the work I did would count for something. That I could help bring America one step closer to realizing Levin’s—and the Party’s—dreams of equality and a good life for everyone.
With al
l the time Levin and I spent together, bit by bit, I was putting together a picture of who he really was. Intensely knowledgeable and generous, with obsidian-sharp attention to the details of any situation. His favorite color was an unassuming navy blue, and he harbored a secret passion for listening to opera. He loathed mushrooms in any form and preferred to sleep on the right side of the bed. I could know these current preferences and dislikes, but those wonderfully expressive lips of his turned downcast whenever I nosed about his past: his favorite childhood memory, whether he’d spent any time in Russia, how he’d gotten the lightning-shaped scar on his right forearm that I so loved to kiss. “You know I cannot talk about these things, Elizabeth,” he would say.
“For my own safety,” I would grumble. “So you keep telling me.”
“It is better that you do not know me. At least not that part of me, anyway.”
My consolation prize of stepping on those conversational land mines was always worth the frustration: as many greedy kisses as I wanted, plus far more when we’d stumble our way back to my apartment, drunk on lust. (Levin’s generosity and knowledge continued all the way into my bedroom.)
Not that his name was even Levin, of course. The irony of that fact wasn’t lost on me. I’d asked again for that one little gift, but he’d only shaken his head. “To hear a man’s name is to truly know him, Elizabeth. And there are parts of me I hope you never know.”
“I’m not scared. Of your secrets.”
He’d merely brushed a thumb against my lips, his eyes infinitely sad. “You should be.”
* * *
* * *
I walked in for my shift at the Italian Library one sunny morning with my brown-bag lunch in hand and a little extra joie de vivre in my step, my curls still in disarray after parting from Levin with plans to see him again tonight.
There was nothing in my journal on human behavior to explain the way my heart stuttered whenever I heard Levin’s voice on the other end of the telephone, how—no matter the number of people between us—I could hone in on his steady approach from the far end of a New York City block before we met outside another new restaurant.
I found myself wanting to impress him, planned to bring home more items than usual from the Italian Library. Except today, I rounded the corner to find the library’s main secretary standing at my desk.
Not standing, per se. More like rifling through my desk.
I watched her as I’d watched so many people over the years. That’s the one good thing about being invisible—you become an excellent spectator of all aspects of humanity.
First, she inspected my planner, followed by my pencil cup, and then my top drawer. My heart stuttered as I racked my brain to remember if I’d left anything important there, but of course I hadn’t. That was the first rule Levin had hammered into my head—never write sensitive information down and never, ever throw away anything that might be incriminating. It went without saying that important documents shouldn’t be left in desk drawers for busybody secretaries to discover.
That same busybody secretary scowled through her horn-rimmed glasses with such heat that I thought perhaps my spare steno pad might go up in flames.
I walked on silent feet behind her, set my lunch down with a thud. The woman would make a terrible spy, given the way she jumped halfway out of her skin. “Can I help you?” I asked.
“Oh, Miss Bentley.” At least she had the decency to look chagrined. Until she sniffed and squinted through her thick lenses at me. “The library director wishes to see you. Immediately.”
So much for joie de vivre.
I’d only met the library director—a bookish man (imagine that) with a disdainful, high-nosed manner like one of the pope’s guards—when I’d interviewed for the position; the rest of the time he remained closeted inside his office, probably memorizing verses from Dante and waxing poetic about Castiglione’s Courtier in scholarly journals. The fact that he wanted to see me meant one of two things: either my work had caught his attention or the steady stream of paperwork that left the library each night tucked in my knitting bag had been noticed.
I bit my lip and knocked at his office door, straightened at his terse, “Enter, Miss Bentley.”
I waited for him to offer me a chair or perhaps even a coffee, but he merely sniffed and folded his hands over the aging manuscript he’d been reading. “I’m afraid it has been brought to my attention that you entered into employment here at the Italian Library under fictitious circumstances.”
That, at least, was unexpected.
“Pardon me?”
He removed a folder from beneath the manuscript. “This article from the Columbia University student newspaper discusses scholarships awarded by the college for that semester.” He removed the offending article and passed it my way. “You are mentioned in the article.” Using two fingers, he pulled the article back toward him. “And I quote, ‘I’m attempting to complete my master’s degree in Italian, but the college denied me because of my affiliation with the American League Against War and Fascism.’ ” The glare he leveled at me might have frozen the Hudson. “You are anti-Fascist, Miss Bentley, which means you are no friend of Italy or this library.”
I vaguely remembered being interviewed for Columbia’s paper, couldn’t recall ever actually reading the article itself. My mind raced. I had to keep this job, for Levin, for the Party, for myself. “That was written in 1935, four years ago. Things change—”
“Please pack your personal belongings, Miss Bentley, and leave the premises immediately.”
“You can’t fire me.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew how wrong they were. Of course he was within his rights to fire me. Any argument I might have made stood on ground less stable than quicksand. Worse, if he knew what I’d been doing during my time at the library, he would be justified in pressing charges.
“Ms. Smith has your wages ready. Please do not cause a scene.”
Instead of further argument, I made a rude gesture as I left his office, stopping only to fling my steno pad, some paper clips, and my meager salary check that Ms. Smith handed me into my lunch bag before storming out the main entrance and back into the balmy spring air.
“What am I going to do now?” I asked myself. My sole purpose in supporting the Party had been supplying Fascist documents. Without that position, I’d never have met Levin.
I served no purpose now. There was nothing I could offer the Party.
And Levin?
What use would he have for me now, unemployed and without a single connection that would benefit him or the Party?
Maybe he just wants me.
I knew better than to trust that quiet voice that whispered in my mind. After all, I’d lived long enough to realize that people only tended to keep you around as long as you were useful to them.
* * *
* * *
“I’m not feeling well—I might have the flu.” I coughed dramatically for emphasis over the telephone line once I’d finally returned to my building and had the operator connect me. I was looking forward to the day when I might have a phone in my own room—Levin and I no longer communicated through a go-between—instead of having to use the shared one in the hallway, especially as wizened Mrs. Vitkus from downstairs gave me a hand motion to hurry my conversation. “I’ll let you know tomorrow if I can meet as planned.”
Tomorrow would give me an entire day to formulate an idea for where I was going to find gainful employment and a way to benefit the Party and Levin. Not enough time, but better than the few hours I had now.
I must have paced at least a mile back and forth across my apartment but still hadn’t come up with any solutions, when there was a vehement knock on my door. I thought at first it was Mrs. Vitkus, come to borrow another egg for her Lithuanian kugela (which I was convinced was the only recipe she knew), or perhaps my landlady, although rent wasn’t due for another few da
ys.
Either would have been preferable to reality.
“Open the door, Elizabeth,” Levin said from the other side. “Arguing will only waste your breath.”
I considered pretending I wasn’t home, but that seemed childish. Especially as Vlad gave an excited yip from his sentry position at the door, his head cocked in question: Why aren’t you letting him in? “Don’t you ever listen?” I asked Levin as I undid the latch. “I told you I was sick.”
Levin stepped inside and refastened the latch behind him. “I always listen; I did not believe you.” He held up a brown sack. “I did bring chicken soup, just in case. Perhaps you can tell me the real story while we eat.”
I crossed my arms in front of me and perched on the couch with a scowl. Normally, I wanted to spend every moment with Levin, but not when I hadn’t had time to concoct a plan. “The story is I’m sick.”
He pressed a dry hand to my forehead. “There is no fever. And you did not sound sick on the phone.”
“Really? With all that coughing?”
“Yes, your performance would have put Vivien Leigh to shame.” He sat opposite me, leaned forward with elbows on his knees even as Vlad hopped up next to him. “Never fib to a spy. What is going through that head of yours?”
A dozen tall tales unspooled through my mind—that a maiden aunt of mine had died, that I had female troubles, that I’d been tailed on my way home from the library—but I didn’t want to lie to Levin.
Not anymore. Perhaps I could lie to others, but I wanted him to be the one person who knew all there was of me, the good and the ugly. Who knew it and still accepted me in spite of it.
A Most Clever Girl Page 9
