“What is … waylaid?” he asked, his brow furrowing. His pale blue eyes were set in a slightly rounded face so youthful it looked as though it had never known a razor. And yet Patsy had assured me on the ride over that most of the Russians she had met were battle hardened. Surely not this one, who five years earlier could not have been more than fourteen or fifteen.
“Kidnapped,” she ventured. And when that didn’t work, “Ambushed.”
“Ah, ambushed. That word I know from war. Bad. Are you all right from ambush?”
“Fine,” she said. “It was a friendly ambush.”
“Friendly ambush? No, that I do not understand.”
“I met a friend from Paris,” she said, nodding toward me, “and we had dinner together.”
“Ah. Then that is not ambush, really.”
She laughed. “You’re right,” she said. “Now you’re correcting my English, Sergei. Bravo!”
“Who you want to see, Patricia? Where is your guitar?”
By this time the three other guards, wooden stiff, were following, if only with their wary eyes, the conversation between Sergei and this pretty Westerner and her nondescript male friend. Sergei, sensing their interest, launched at rocket speed a series of Russian phrases that brought grins to all three faces.
Patsy explained my mission, assuring Sergei I was a “good guy” and to be trusted not to twist the truth. He heard her out, stared at me for a long moment, then nodded. “You must see Comrade Timofeyev,” he said. “Or perhaps Comrade Smirnov.” He muttered something to his colleague, then walked us over to the compound door, hard beneath the broad banner, and explained our presence to the guard there, who escorted us inside. The silent corridor seemed endless, all doors on either side shut tight. No sign of anyone working; in fact, no sign of anyone, period. “Pretty lugubrious,” I whispered to Patsy, who did not react. At the next-to-last door on the left, our guard knocked and announced himself, and a moment or two later the door swung open to reveal a short, bulky man with a Stalinesque mustache, whose epaulets proclaimed him an officer of middle rank, who listened impassively as the guard explained our mission. The name Patsy was dropped two or three times, which was almost all I could glean despite my valiant year at the Institute of Oriental Languages in Paris learning—no, wrestling with—the Russian language. I picked up a khorosho, or two, plus an Amerikanka, but not much more.
“I’m not sure I’m needed here,” she whispered. “Maybe I should wait outside.”
“No, no, for God’s sake, stay.”
Comrade Timofeyev stepped aside and said, in almost unaccented English, “Do please come in.”
The room was spare: an antique wooden desk that doubtless dated from Franz Josef’s time, in front of it two random wooden chairs, and beneath the solitary window a long wooden bench. Timofeyev gestured us to the chairs, then circled the desk and took his seat, garnished with a generous pillow, the better to elevate his stubby person, I presumed. The only light was a green-shaded desk lamp, which cast a weary, unconvincing glow. After a few perfunctory but probing questions—What paper do you work for? Are you here in any official capacity? Do you have any ties to OSS or another government agency?—he seemed satisfied enough to launch into a long monologue about the efforts of the Western powers to undermine the peace. We Soviets fail to understand this growing schism between us former allies, especially on the part of the Americans. The notion of rearming Germany strikes us as not only dangerous but absurd. Haven’t we learned from history? Twice in this century Germany has led the world into war, to unprecedented death and destruction. What makes us think, if they are rearmed, they will not strike again? You Americans were great: you supplied us with important matériel, you sent us through Al-Sib, more than eight thousand aircraft from your factories. We still wonder why it took you so long to mount the second front, we expected it to happen a year earlier, which would have saved us Russians maybe two million lives. Still, we were grateful when you came, you forced the Germans to divert troops from us to the western front. Without you we would still have won the war, but it would have taken much longer, cost many more lives. Your casualties were fewer than half a million dead. We lost at least twenty million. Neither you nor the English knew the utter devastation, the untold numbers not just of our brave soldiers but of innocent civilians who died at the hands of the Nazis. We should be friends, not enemies. Brothers! I was at the Elbe in April 1945. We embraced, we drank toasts to the future, we sang American songs, you sang ours. What has happened?
I said that I agreed, adding that many Americans were against rearming Germany, that we were indeed aware of the immense losses, both military and civilian, the Russians had suffered.
“Soviets,” he corrected.
“And here in Vienna, but even more in Berlin, how is the four-power occupation working? How—”
“It’s not,” he cut in. “We used to meet and discuss. Now no longer. ‘Suspicion’—that is the word. Everyone is suspicious of us. Even France, with whom we had close ties. But we realize France is beholden to America for aid, so it cannot express its own views. The British, too. But then, the Americans and the British always make common cause.”
I started to demur but thought better of it, and asked about the mechanics of the four-power occupation.
“Mechanics,” he blurted. “No mechanics. It is dead.”
He went on to explain that earlier the occupying forces had met regularly, but no more. “Once in a while, when there is a major issue,” he said. “Sporadically, is that the right term?”
I told him it was indeed, and beneath his mustache he smiled, clearly pleased.
“Tell the American people they should not fear us,” he concluded. “Tell them to extend a hand and we will grasp it.”
I thanked him for his time and his thoughts. I got up and extended my hand. Across the desk he reached over and grasped it.
“You see,” he said, “we do as we say.”
Outside the office, the guard who had escorted us in was still waiting, and walked us back down the endless corridor into welcome daylight. Sergei was still at his post, and before leaving, Patsy promised to bring her guitar to their next get-together. When will that be? Sergei said with a grin. “Tonight,” she said. “This time,” he said, “careful not be waylaid.”
“How would it be if I bring my waylayer?” she asked, pointing to me.
“He welcome,” Sergei said. “Tonight, then. Same place.”
That evening we returned to the Soviet sector, armed with the pass Sergei had given us, and headed toward a building again decorated with a Soviet banner, beneath which floated a smaller banner announcing it as the Red Army Club. After a time, the soldiers egged Patsy up onto the stage, where she shook hands with each of the accordionists. Someone brought out a mike, while a self-appointed emcee announced that “Miss Hartley from America” was going to play. Without hesitation, Patsy immediately broke into “Kalinka,” which elicited a roaring round of applause, as the entire audience belted out the words. I stood beside the stage, hedged round by a gently swaying horde in pale khaki—arms locked as they hummed or sang the familiar lyrics, totally ignoring this Western-clad outsider, mesmerized as they were by the Amerikanka onstage. When she climbed down, slightly flushed and with faint beads of moisture dotting her forehead, she was mobbed.
“Where did you learn all those Russian songs?” I managed amid the chaos.
“Mostly Paul Robeson,” she said. “Also some Russians I know in California.”
“Well,” I said, “you have a career in Moscow if you want to pursue it.”
“I might,” she said. Then, after a pause, she looked me dead in the eye and added: “If I did, would you come with me?”
* * *
I knew just enough Russian so that I was able to get by for the rest of the evening, which went on till almost midnight. Mine was a stiff, textbook Russian, and I saw more than one indulgent smile as I misused a word, but when they corrected me, always gently, I neve
r felt put down. Unremarkably, my Russian got better and better as the evening wore on, doubtless due to the increasing intake of vodka. As for Patsy, she babbled on, never having cracked a Russian textbook, with what looked like consummate ease. The average age of those to whom I talked that night was roughly my own, perhaps a year or two younger. Some had seen war, many had not, and I could tell the difference, for in the eyes of those who had, there was a hint of darkness, with the dim candles of fear lit behind their eyeballs. Without exception, they wanted to know why America had turned so suddenly and so virulently against them, why the term “Communism” had suddenly become anathema over there. From where did this strange man Senator McCarthy derive his power? Was it true he was running America? Is it true America is looking under people’s beds hunting for Communists? If anything, one said, we should be terrified of you, with your atom bomb. At least now, another put in, we have the bomb, too. Virtually every family in the country had suffered at least one dead or wounded, often more. No one there wanted war, just the opposite.
Though the questions were pointed and often emotional, I did not feel in the least under attack. “Not all Americans believe in Senator McCarthy,” I said. “In fact, I’ll warrant that most do not.” It was too difficult to try to explain the politics of anti-Communism in America just now, but I did get across that many politicians use fear as a weapon for advancement. Since elections, and the notion of political parties, were beyond their ken, when I tried to explain how often cynical politicians adopted positions without regard to personal convictions, eyes glazed, not in disbelief, but in incomprehension. Back in our bunker, weary but inspired, over a glass of white wine Patsy and I ruminated on the evening’s events. Half of the young Soviets, I observed, had fallen in love with her that night. How could they not have?
“No question you changed their opinion of American womanhood,” I said. “You don’t have a very high opinion of American womanhood, do you?” Patsy said.
From the depths of recent memory, the image of Jeanne Theis suddenly appeared on my mindscreen. “Let’s just say that after living in Europe for the past two years, I find American women—how can I put it?—one-dimensional.”
“You speak from vast experience, of course.”
“Very limited, I admit. But still…”
“Am I one-dimensional?”
“You! With the full knowledge of less than two days, I can state unequivocally that you are the most multidimensional woman I’ve ever met.”
“Yet I’m true-blue American, I swear.”
“So, Patsy, you are clearly the exception that proves the rule.”
Next morning, I still abed slowly working the vodka cobwebs from my brain, Patsy burst in waving a fuzzy green something that slowly turned into a passport.
“Finally made it,” she said. “I told you I was true-blue American, and now I can prove it.
“As I told you the night before last, I’m off to Italy in a few hours.”
I said nothing, but apparently my expression betrayed me.
“There you go,” she said, “that puppy-dog look again.”
“Where in Italy?”
“First Genoa, then Rome. I have friends in both places. And my girlfriend Ruth Roman is making a movie at Cinecittà. I promised her I’d take some still shots of her on the set.”
It took me all of three minutes to pack: my one change of clothes, my dirty laundry stashed in a paper bag, my copiously covered notebooks, my copies of Dante and Dostoyevsky, of Eliot and Pound, of Hemingway’s disappointing latest, plus my two dictionaries, English-German and English-Russian, secured by a sturdy rubber band.
In the taxi to the station—a rare indulgence for me, an accepted practice for Patsy apparently—she reached over, took my hand, and squeezed it tight. “For God’s sake, don’t fall in love with me. Remember, I’m the world’s worst wanderer. One day you’ll look up and I’ll be gone.”
* * *
In Genoa, while Patsy caught up with her friends, I managed to finish my article on four-power Vienna and post it airmail to New York. At night, we dined in tiny, intimate trattorias Patsy’s friends had discovered, each more delicious than the other. By day, I explored the city, redolent of history, its narrow streets and bustling thoroughfares, its churches and palaces. The only writing that came of those brief hours was a parody of Pound, a canto of my own, that seemed to come almost automatically, without variation, and whose merits were probably commensurate with its ease of birth.
In Rome, we stayed at a small, exceedingly modest hotel near the Tiber, which proved a major disappointment. The history of Rome had filled me with the belief that this storied river was as consequential as its magnificent city, yet its muddied banks and the thin rivulets trickling through its bed made me pine for the fast-flowing Seine, along whose stony quays I had so often wandered. But having minored in Latin and taught it at Pomfret, I marveled at the imposing Roman ruins, reconstructing them daily in my mind’s eye, roaming all seven of the city’s hills for hours on end, while Patsy spent most of her time on the set of her friend’s movie.
Mid-September found us back in Paris. Before leaving, Patsy had given up her hotel room and stored her belongings with a friend. I was sure that my top-floor room at the rue Jacob, with its roller-coaster floor, inclined roof, and restricted square footage, would never suffice for two, but Patsy insisted she at least have a look. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll find something bigger,” she said, which seemed to settle the issue of our staying together once back in Paris, something we had never discussed.
When she reached the top floor, with its skylight overlooking the St. Germain des Prés church, still enshrouded in its eternal scaffolding, she laughed out loud. “How in the world did you find such a place?” she said. “Don’t you need roller skates to navigate?”
“It’s pretty rudimentary,” I agreed. In fact, until that minute I had never realized how unlivable the damn room was, even for one. Like most of the top-floor rooms in Paris, this had once been a maid’s room. One look at the size and placement of these maid’s quarters said more about class distinctions at the time than all the weighty tomes written on the subject over the years.
“Ridiculous,” she added, opening the doors of the one generous piece of furniture, the armoire. Gazing inside at its near-empty state, she gave a quiet “hmmm” and nodded in approval.
“We’ll have to get a larger bed,” she said. “There’s plenty of room if we put it under the skylight.”
The only problem was, I pointed out, how the hell did you get a double bed up those colimaçon stairs?
“How did you get the single bed up here?” she wanted to know.
“It was here when I arrived.”
That afternoon, I and my friend and next-door neighbor Jean Toulet wrestled a single bedspring and mattress up to my aerie. We arrived at my door only to find, twist and turn as we might, the damn bed would not go through.
“Unscrew the hinges,” Patsy said. “Once the door’s removed, you’ll be fine.”
A tad irritated that she, not I, or Toulet for that matter, had come up with the thought, we lowly workers nonetheless did as she had bid, and—of course—the bed slid through. We placed as she had suggested the now double bed beneath the skylight, snug against the wall, moved the table and chair to bottom center, just to the left of the door, found at the Salle Drouot an easy chair and lamp, ridiculously inexpensive, which miraculously fit neatly in the corner to the right of the door, added a red-and-white-checkered tablecloth to the table, hung a couple of paintings on the bare walls—one Ellsworth Kelly, one Youngerman—and, voilà, my miserable garçonnière was suddenly transformed into a welcoming studio, most, if not all, of its inadequacies concealed, within days hardly remembered.
There was of course Madame Germaine still to be reckoned with.
In mounting or descending the stairs, one had to pass the frosted glass of the first—not ground, but first—floor, where Madame Germaine held sway, which contained he
r own quarters and also the ample but antiquated kitchen and the dining room, where the boarders met daily in sullen convergence. Most days I could enter and leave the house without being perceived from beyond the frosted glass, but there were times in summer or when the fancy struck her when she would leave the door ajar, even fully open. At these times, from her perch deep in an ancient, flower-embroidered chair that, she claimed, was descended from her grandfather, therefore dearly beloved, she would acknowledge my presence, or rather my passing, with a desultory wave, which meant all was well, the rent had been paid, the auditory effects of my ambulatory, amatory guests had been judged to be at an acceptable level. Once in a while, however, a vigorous gesture of her right arm, the good one, signaled that my immediate presence was required.
Eight days after Jean and I had wrestled my new bed up the unforgiving stairs, as I was returning from my prebreakfast foray to the carrefour de Buci, laden with fresh warm croissants, a pound of butter, and a copy of both Combat, which offered me the world from the French viewpoint, and the Herald Tribune, which connected me to what was happening at home, feeling a tad more than on top of the world, happy to be back in Paris, breathing in the special odors of the town, a mixture of bread baking and coffee brewing, spiced with a hint, emanating from the well-polished zinc café counters, of early-morning rouge as blue-clad workers steeled themselves for the workday to come, I arrived to find Madame Germaine’s door wide open and she gesticulating as if the world, or at least the rue Jacob, were coming to an end.
I gave her my broadest smile, waved in return, and prepared to ascend to my aerie as if I had misunderstood the frantic movements of her arm as simply a friendly greeting.
“Monsieur Richard!” she thundered, in an amazingly low, almost baritone voice. And, as if I were deaf, a second time: “Monsieur Richard!”
I turned, bowed, and entered her lair. Without preamble, she demanded to know if my new friend was transient or permanent. I was tempted to say only time would tell, but caught myself. With that question, I knew I was in jeopardy. Please, not expelled, I thought, not after all that stalwart stairway effort and magic domestication.
The Tender Hour of Twilight Page 16
