A Single Spy

by William Christie

  Now she leaned forward in her chair as if she were lunging at him with fangs bared. “You came down into the kitchen on the dumbwaiter. You picked the locks and you stole food. Where are your lock picks?”

  Alexsi took that statement like one of his father’s punches to the head. He wondered what his face looked like. He still wasn’t going to give in. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Comrade Director.”

  She tossed his nut and twine onto the top of her desk. “You said you didn’t have a weapon, either. Yet here it is.”

  Well, the time had passed for meekness, and he wasn’t about to beg for mercy. Alexsi just looked her defiantly in the eye and said, “If you remember, Comrade Director, I never said I didn’t have a weapon.”

  She looked past him to the attendants standing behind and said, “Take him away.”

  They locked him in another little room. Not the same one as before, but similar. Yuri sneered at him. “You think you’re tough. You’ll find out in prison.”

  As soon as they locked the door, Alexsi rushed over and put his ear to it. He heard Yuri say to Maxim, “You think anyone will listen to him?”

  “A thief?” Maxim replied. “No. We might have an inspection because of it, but that’s no problem.”

  Alexsi sat down on the bed and looked at his hands. He should have known.

  After two months of weekly trips down to the kitchen, one night he and Aida came upon two padlocks on the secret pantry door instead of one. So the staff had figured out they were being robbed. Alexsi knew if the two of them kept on, it would only be a matter of time before someone would be waiting in the dark to catch the thief. He’d wanted to give it up then, but Aida showed him the attic. It was a huge space full of boxes and old furniture and hiding places. A hiding place had always been the problem, with so many kids and prying eyes in the house. She wanted to do it once more, taking as much food as they could and hiding it in the attic.

  And it worked. They loaded up the dumbwaiter with tins of food and jars of jam until he was afraid the rope would break. After all the trips back and forth up to the attic he could barely move his arms. When they were finished he’d left the pantry door open, the padlocks hanging from their hasps, and the back door of the kitchen unbarred and ajar so they’d think someone had run off with the stuff. And she finally got her chocolate.

  Aida was the only one in the world who knew about his lock picks. He hadn’t told her he’d hidden them up in the attic, realizing that if anyone ever found them in his possession he’d be fingered as the thief for sure.

  His first thought back in the Comrade Director’s office was that she’d been caught doing something and had to tell on him to save herself. But that only showed how stupid he was. Now with the food hidden up in the attic she didn’t need him to pick locks. Or share the food.

  He should have known. He should have known when she told him that she was the one who had informed on her papa. Now she’d be playing with someone else’s cock when she needed something.

  Alexsi reached in his pocket and took out the knife. He unfolded the blade and tested the edge with his thumb.

  * * *

  MAXIM THE attendant flipped through the mass of keys on the ring until he found the one to the room. “Keep your eyes open in case he tries to run past us,” he said to Yuri.

  “I’ll open it,” Yuri said, snatching the ring from him. “You keep watch.”

  He had to go through the ring all over again to find the key. Maxim just watched him and shook his head.

  Yuri inserted the key into the lock. “Ready?”

  Maxim took a short wood truncheon out of his back pocket. “I swear if the little bastard throws something at me I’ll break his head.”

  “You ought to do it anyway,” said Yuri.

  “Yes, I ought to do it,” Maxim replied contemptuously. “Just open the door.”

  “Ready?” said Yuri, turning the key.

  “Just open the fucking door,” Maxim muttered.

  Yuri swung it open, and they both stepped up to block the doorway. Nothing happened. They waited there for a moment, balanced and ready for action, then in unison they both leaned their heads inside to look.

  The room was empty.

  13

  1936 Restaurant Praga, Moscow

  “I had to run away,” Alexsi said. “They were going to send me to prison. So no one would ever find out that they stole the food—”

  “Before we stole it from them,” Aida said, gripping his hand tightly.

  “One of those little rats must have seen me bringing it up to the attic and squealed,” Alexsi said. “That’s the only thing I can think of. I was working so hard that night I must have been careless.”

  “They never caught me,” Aida said.

  “I’m glad,” he said, putting his other hand over hers. “So it had to have been one of the bastards who slept in the same room I did. They must have seen me get up and sneak out.”

  “So you didn’t tell them about me after they got you.”

  “Them? Of course not. I told them nothing.”

  “And you ran away.”

  “I wasn’t waiting around to see what they had in store for me.”

  “I’m so sorry. We were so young then. It must have been very hard for you.”

  “Just as well,” Alexsi said brusquely. “Instead of having to sit there and listen to their shit for a few more years I got out in the world and learned what was what. Apologies for my language.”

  “It doesn’t upset me,” she said, still holding his hand. She looked like she was about to cry.

  “This cake is good, isn’t it?” he said. “Be honest, since I don’t have the most refined tastes.”

  “It’s excellent,” Aida said.

  Alexsi gestured for the waitress, who ignored him.

  “As I said,” Aida muttered.

  “We needed to finish our tea anyway,” Alexsi said.

  When Aida was done with hers, Alexsi gestured to the waitress again, who this time sauntered over slowly.

  Alexsi said, “Comrade, I would like to purchase a whole cake. In a box, please, for me to take away.”

  “It’s only sold by the portion,” the waitress informed him gruffly. “Those are the rules, young fellow.”

  She slapped their bill down on the table. Alexsi caught her hand and pinned it to the tabletop. Alarmed, the waitress tried to pull away but he held her fixed. She opened her mouth but before she could draw breath, Alexsi said quietly, “You would be wise not to make a sound.”

  She froze. Aida was staring in shock.

  Alexsi turned the waitress’s hand over and placed some money in her palm. “This is for the number of portions that make a whole cake.” He added some more rubles to the pile. “This is for your trouble.” And then some more, finally closing her fingers on the money. “And this is for anyone in the kitchen who needs to be taken care of. So go back there and box one up. Right now.”

  The waitress opened her hand slightly, glanced down, and riffled through the notes with her thumb. “Meet me at the kitchen door. It’s in the alley.”

  She went to step back, and Alexsi caught her wrist this time. “The best cake, you understand? If I knock at that door and no one shows up I’ll come back and see you again. And if you were thinking about calling for the police and keeping the money that way, just let that dream pass, because then my friends would come find you. And they’re not as well mannered as I. Right, Comrade?”

  Now the waitress was shaking. “Yes, sir.”

  Alexsi let her go, and she rushed into the kitchen. He counted money onto the table to pay their bill. “Shall we go pick up your cake?”

  “Forget her, you frightened me,” Aida said as he helped her put on her coat.

  “Yes, but she’s much more polite now, isn’t she?” Alexsi said.

  They walked around the corner to the alley and Alexsi knocked on the iron door. It opened almost instantly, and the waitress handed him a box.

/>   She went to close the door but Alexsi easily hooked her arm with his free hand. “Just a moment, Comrade.” He passed the box over to Aida. “Take a look inside and make sure there’s a cake in there.”

  Aida set the box on a garbage bin and untied the string holding it closed.

  Alexsi kept his eyes on the waitress, and his hand on her arm, smiling pleasantly all the time.

  A cook stuck his head in the open doorway. “What’s going on here?”

  “Fuck off if you know what’s good for you,” Alexsi told him.

  The cook vanished.

  “There’s a cake inside,” Aida announced. She looked up at the terrified waitress and added, “It’s very nice.”

  “Excellent,” Alexsi said. He released the waitress and told her, “Thank you for everything, Auntie. Good fortune to you.”

  She gave him a quick jerky bow of the head and slammed the iron door shut.

  Alexsi took the cake from Aida and offered her his other arm. “There, we got you a cake. And had a chance to sit and talk.”

  Aida was examining his face in much the same way Yakushev had. “You must have a very important job.”

  Alexsi stopped in his tracks and turned to her. “Job? Jobs are for suckers. Did you think I’d ever work for them?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “But I do know it’s wonderful to see you again.” She took his hand and looked at the time on his wristwatch, pausing briefly to admire it. “I have a class. But you must come to my friend’s party tonight. After all, you bought the cake. And I thank you for that.”

  Alexsi reached into his coat and passed her a pocket notebook and a fountain pen. “Please write the address for me. I’ve been working hard to learn the streets, but much of Moscow is still a mystery.”

  She wrote it down and slipped the pen and notebook back into his coat herself. Then she threw her arms around his neck again and kissed him hard on the mouth. “When I look at your face I think back on so many things.”

  “It has been a long road from Baku, hasn’t it?” Alexsi said.

  Aida took the cake from him, kissed her gloved finger, and touched it to his lips. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Tonight,” Alexsi said.

  He watched her sway away from him, winter coat snug against her hips. Then he checked the time on his wristwatch. The first Soviet watch they’d given him had broken a day later. This one was very fancy. Someone had left it behind when they entered the Lubyanka.

  14

  1936 Moscow

  Falling snow brought an indelible silence to Moscow’s streets. Even the incessant metal clattering of the streetcars was muted. The clopping of the horses’ hoofs was muffled, and the animals strained their way through the streets with heads bowed under the weight of the ice on their traces.

  It occasionally snowed in Baku when the winter Khazari winds blew in, but it was always gone after a day or two. Nothing like this. Half a meter of snow. Alexsi couldn’t stop reaching down to touch it, soft and fleetingly pure white before it was soiled by the dirt of the city. The snow even seemed to make the frigid air feel a bit warmer.

  Though that may have been because he was finally learning how to dress against the Moscow weather. He had never worn wool long underwear before, but at least now he didn’t feel like the progress of every journey was marked by the number of shops he had to step into to keep from freezing to death.

  He checked the number of the student dormitory against his written directions and went inside. There was a sort of little hall that ran perpendicular to the entrance. The inlaid wooden floor looked like someone had been racing horses over it. Black iron chandeliers hung from a fancy tile ceiling but half the bulbs were out of order. Propaganda posters hung from the walls. Stalin steering the wheel of the ship of state. Lenin pointing in front of a factory smokestack like he was demanding that a bus stop for him. And Alexsi’s favorite: determined peasants marching like soldiers behind their tractor, rakes propped over their shoulders like rifles.

  There was a woman at a desk in front of the stairs, obviously a gatekeeper to keep track of everyone.

  “Name?” she demanded.

  Alexsi smiled at her. Every middle-aged Russian woman he encountered in an official job looked like they belonged on the wicked side of a fairy tale. “Anatoli Romanov.” Still sticking it to Anatoli, but it wouldn’t do to present the same false name someone might know from Baku.

  “Who are you visiting?”

  “I don’t know, Comrade. I was invited to a birthday party.”

  “Room number?”

  He told her. She wrote it all down carefully in her logbook. “May I pass, Comrade?”

  Still writing, as if it were a torturous effort, she didn’t bother to look up but only nodded.

  Alexsi went up the stairs. The place was a thunder of voices and many, many different kinds of music being played loudly and from all directions. And many pretty girls passing and smiling. Very nice. As he stepped off on the correct floor, it looked like a portion of the wall had either flaked away or been pried off, the exposed white brick staring out at him.

  He confirmed the room number one more time before knocking, but based on the volume, that had to be the place. There was a wooden mailbox hanging on the door, which looked like it had been beaten with a wagon whip.

  A pretty blond girl with green eyes answered his knock, laughing at something from behind her. When she saw his stranger’s face and his suit she became serious and looked him up and down carefully. Then, hesitantly, “Are you Alexsi?”

  “I am,” he said, smiling. “Do I wish happy birthday to you?”

  She embraced him and kissed him on both cheeks. “You do. I am Nadia. Thank you so much for my cake. Come in, come in.”

  He handed her a small package. “I am a terrible poet. So please accept this instead of a birthday poem.”

  “But you already gave me a cake,” she said.

  “That was from Aida,” he said.

  Nadia took his arm and called out, “Aida! He’s here!”

  They were in a little alcove, with the doors to two other rooms open. They were packed with people and fogged with cigarette smoke. Four beds that everyone was sitting on hugged every wall, with desks crammed into the only space between them. A boy was playing a guitar and a few people were singing along. The song wasn’t familiar, but then he didn’t know much about music.

  Aida pushed her way through the crowd and kissed him again. She and another girl helped him off with his coat and hat.

  “I’m so glad you came,” Aida said.

  “I brought some vodka,” Alexsi said, handing her the cloth shopping bag full of bottles.

  “I’m not going to say you shouldn’t have,” she told him. “Because we were about to start rationing what we had left by the sip.”

  Nadia rushed up behind him and hugged him hard. “Look at this beautiful silk scarf he gave me,” she said, showing it to Aida.

  Aida examined it and gave him a wry look. “It seems you will have a harem before the night is over.”

  “Aida!” Nadia said.

  “It was all a clever ploy of mine to avoid having to sing or write a poem,” Alexsi said. “There would absolutely be no harem then.”

  Both girls giggled.

  “Let us introduce you around,” said Nadia.

  He met Larissa and Raya, another blonde and a redhead. They all wore their hair short and curled, in the current style. Unlike Aida. “These are my special girlfriends,” Aida said.

  Nadia showed them the scarf, and they gave Alexsi appraising looks.

  “Are all the girls in this university so pretty?” Alexsi asked Nadia. “Or just your friends?”

  “Harem, definitely,” Aida remarked.

  Dmitri was the one playing the guitar. Alexsi marked him as the typical intellectual. Thin and frail, with a wispy moustache he definitely should not have tried to grow. And he played the guitar because he was almost too shy to talk.

&nb
sp; “And this is Yuri,” Aida said of a burly fellow holding court with two girls. Yuri had a thick head of dark hair he obviously spent a great deal of time combing back so it would lay correctly. His shirt was open to show off his mat of chest hair. Alexsi instantly dismissed him. The guy who looked tough only because he always made sure to never enter a room where there was anyone who looked tougher. “Yuri, this is my friend Alexsi.”

  Yuri stuck out his hand. “Aida made you sound like Al Capone.”

  “He’s fat,” Alexsi said blandly.

  Yuri was trying to give him a hard handshake and make him pull back. Alexsi returned it until Yuri dropped his hand like he’d touched a hot radiator. Yuri sat back down. The big man with the girls, Alexsi thought.

  The girlfriend Raya came up with a tray full of glasses. “Here you go, everyone. Alexsi brought a lot of vodka, so we can keep drinking.”

  Aida raised her glass and looked straight at him. “I’ve already toasted the birthday girl, so this one is to friends returning from long journeys.”

  “To friends,” everyone repeated.

  Alexsi touched glasses, then he just touched his lips to the vodka without draining the glass like everyone else.

  Yuri wasn’t about to miss that. “You’re not drinking, Al Capone?”

  “I don’t drink,” Alexsi said.

  “You don’t say. Stomach trouble?”

  “No, I just don’t drink.”

  Yuri said, “I don’t trust a man who doesn’t drink.”

  “Yuri!” the girls said in reproach.

  “Then don’t,” Alexsi replied, as if he could care less. “It’s a good policy these days. As a matter of fact, you have the look of a stool pigeon to me.”

  Yuri came up off his chair with his fists up. “I’m no informer!”

  “That’s what they all say,” Alexsi replied calmly. “And then they act upset when you put the finger on them.”

  “Apologize!” Yuri shouted.

  “Don’t excite yourself,” Alexsi advised. “You might fall on your knife.”

  Yuri was enjoying working himself up to make a scene, but that cut him off like lifting the needle from a gramophone. “I don’t have a knife.”