– No, nothing.
– We feared this would happen. They were intercepted. The American secret police open all your mail.
Jesse had long suspected that his mail was being intercepted though had no idea it was to this extent. He pictured the young FBI agents given the job of reading them all, hundreds of letters by children, analysed and fed through the most sophisticated automated code breakers. Elena continued:
– We also asked members of the American Communist Party to talk to you but they failed to persuade you to attend the concert.
Jesse became annoyed at the mention of the CPUSA.
– American Communists spend all their time bickering among each other. They’ve never achieved a thing worth mentioning. Why would I do anything for them?
We would have tried to call you…
The Russian girl blushed, not meaning to draw attention to their depressed circumstances. They no longer owned a phone. She continued:
– That’s why I had to come in person. But that is not the only reason. I’m here to tell you that regardless of whether you come to the concert tonight, you have not been forgotten in Russia as you have been in the United States. I am seventeen years old and you are a hero of mine. You are a hero for many Russians regardless of their age. You are played on the radio. Your popularity today is greater than ever before. That is the reason I wanted to come here today, Mr Austin, because we have heard your enemies tell you so many lies. We want to tell you the truth. You are admired and you are loved! You will never be forgotten and your music will never stop being played.
Jesse felt as if he’d been unfrozen from a block of ice, warm joy passing through his body. His music wasn’t lost. His songs were being enjoyed in another country even though his library of work had been erased from America’s consciousness. No longer listened to in his own country, his work could still be heard abroad. Overwhelmed, he moved to the table, forced to sit down. Anna moved towards him, taking his hands.
– What is it? What did she say?
– My music is still being played.
It was true that he’d felt abandoned by the nation and the party for which he’d sacrificed so much. To hear that this was not the case was a powerful salve to the many hurts inflicted over the years.
Turning back to the young girl, he asked:
– Who sent you?
Elena answered in Russian:
– My instructions are from the highest levels of the Soviet government. If nothing else comes of this meeting than my message of appreciation then that is enough. However, we are keen for us to do more together. We understand that you can no longer speak onstage or in concert halls because those venues will no longer employ you. When that first happened we were told that you reacted by speaking on street corners, refusing to give in, improvising venues, turning a parking lot into an auditorium. Ye t we have reports that you no longer speak in any capacity.
Jesse dropped his head. He’d initially fought against the FBI’s tactics by taking his words to the streets, standing atop a crate, a fruit box, the hood of a car, calling out to anyone who’d listen. That was the past. He hadn’t given a speech like that for at least two years. It wasn’t merely the frequent interruptions by patrol officers or being arrested for disturbing the peace. The passing audience was often indifferent and some were even abusive. He sighed a response in English.
– That is a young man’s game.
Anna squeezed his hands. There was agitation in her voice:
– Did Yates see her when she came in? Ask her, Jesse. He repeated Anna’s question. Elena replied:
– Yates is an American secret-police officer? I saw him. But I was very careful. That was why I approached the apartment from the back.
Jesse translated. Far from appeasing his wife, it made her angry.
– Do you understand what you’ve done by coming here? Do you understand the danger? What more can you ask from him? What more can he give you? Look around! What is there left to take?
Anna rarely lost her temper. Jesse stood up, putting his hands on his wife’s arms. But that only infuriated her further. She pushed him away, refusing to be silenced, pointing to the pile of albums stacked in the corner, addressing the Russian girl as though she represented the Soviet regime:
– You see this? This is the only way he can sell his records now. He prints them privately because no record company will sign him. He sells them by subscription to the fans that still remember him. Once, he sold millions. Now how many do you sell, Jesse? How many subscribers do you have? Tell her!
With Elena’s limited English, she could piece together only a little of the meaning. She understood the conversation about the albums in the corner of the room. According to Mikael, the CPUSA had offered Mr Austin direct subsidies as soon as the FBI had started undermining his career. He had declined, repeating his stance that he’d never taken any money from the Soviet government – he’d never accepted a bribe or a payment or gift of any kind. Mr Austin crouched by the heap of records, his back to both Anna and Elena. He said in Russian:
– Five hundred. That’s all I have left. I have five hundred subscribers. Five hundred fans…
Elena knew that of the private subscribers who bought his self-produced albums, the CPUSA made up four hundred. It had been the only way to support Austin without him finding out. She ventured off her carefully prepared script:
– May I ask you something? I was not told to ask this. It is a question I would like to put to you. It is a personal question.
– Please, ask me anything.
Elena caught Anna’s eye and switched into broken English.
– Why do you support the Soviet Union? Why do you give so much?
The question had a profound impact on both Mr Austin and his wife. They looked at each other and in that instant their conflict seemed to disappear. They did not answer. And for a moment they seemed to forget that Elena was in the room.
Elena checked her watch: she needed to return to the hotel. It was approaching midday.
– Please, Mrs Austin, I do not have much time. I must speak in Russian again.
She switched back to her native language.
– As you know, tonight we’re performing a concert at the United Nations Headquarters. The world’s press will be there. The most important diplomats will be there. We want you to be there too. We tried to arrange for you and your wife to have official tickets but the organizers blocked us. So I am here to ask you to wait outside, on the street, to give one of your speeches, if you feel up to it, to show that you have not been silenced. When the concert is finished, a few of the Soviet students will exit through the main doors. We will surround you, cheering and clapping. This moment will be the photograph that defines the whole trip. Everyone in the United States will be reminded of the injustice done to you. Please, Mr Austin, tell me you’ll be there. This is our way of doing mething for you.
Carried away with the energy of her plea, Elena placed a hand on his arm.
Same Day
Osip Feinstein crouched on the rooftop of the block opposite Jesse Austin’s apartment. If the Russian girl hadn’t turned up, the job of persuading Jesse would have fallen to him and he doubted very much he would’ve succeeded. With his camera he’d followed the events in the apartment, taking photographs of the two of them together: the young girl and the singer, a man who could’ve been living in a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park instead of this slum. He was doped up on a drug far more toxic and powerful than opium, addicted to righteous ideology. Osip clicked the camera, shooting the scene before him. The last photograph would be the most incriminating – her frail white hand on his big black arm, the rumpled bed sheets in the background.
Manhattan Hotel Grand Metropolitan 44th Street
Same Day
As Raisa entered the lobby, twenty sets of eyes landed on her: American secret-police agents pretending to be guests, lounging on sofas and chairs, sipping coffee, following her – their eyeline sk
imming the rim of their cup and the tops of their newspapers. From the UN Headquarters she’d been driven back to the hotel and left unsupervised for no longer than it took her to step from the car to the revolving doors of the Grand Metropolitan. At the elevator she half expected one of the officers to step in with her. Contemplating the security around the hotel, she found it excessive, so many officers to guard over schoolchildren. The elevator doors closed. Raisa said:
– Twentieth floor, please.
Without turning around the man operating the elevator gave a small nod. She was certain he was an agent despite being dressed in hotel livery. She studied his peculiar uniform, red with white trim down the legs. He was an unlikely looking spy, and she wondered if her anxieties were running away with her. She was seeing spies everywhere.
Trying to focus on what was real, rather than dangers imagined, she told herself that preparations for the concert had gone well. The discussions with her American counterparts had been awkward but not unmanageably so. Raisa’s opposite number was an American teacher with neat grey hair and thick oval glasses. Through an interpreter they’d found much to talk about, not out of polite obligation but genuine curiosity. Raisa sensed that he was forced to maintain an air of subdued hostility in order to prove that he was not a Communist sympathizer. During their discussions key Soviet officials were absent, having expressed no desire to watch the upcoming dress rehearsal, excluding themselves from the preparations despite the degree of worldwide exposure it was going to attract.
The elevator doors opened. The operator turned round.
– Your floor, ma’am.
She nodded, heading out, wishing Leo was by her side. His instincts for subterfuge were acute. Alone, she realized how dependent she’d grown on them.
In the corridor, before Raisa could reach her daughters’ room, one of the propaganda officers stepped out in front of her, blocking her way. It was Mikael Ivanov. He was arrogant, handsome and an entirely unnecessary addition to their team. He asked:
– How were the morning meetings?
As tempting as it was to ignore him, Raisa said:
– A success, the concert should go well.
– Were you photographed? I told them no photographs without me present.
– No, I wasn’t photographed. There was no press.
He raised a finger, keen to correct her.
– But you must be careful of what appear to be amateur photographs. Someone might pretend to be your friend, and claim the photograph is for a personal album, and that is merely a trick in order that you lower your guard.
– No one took my photograph.
Why was Mikael Ivanov delaying her with his unnecessary questions? Raisa moved off before he could say anything else, reaching her daughters’ room and knocking. Zoya opened the door. The television was on in the background. Raisa glanced about the room.
– Where’s Elena?
– She went swimming.
Instinctively Raisa looked over her shoulder only to discover Mikael watching her with inexplicable concentration.
Same Day
Jim Yates entered the lobby, giving a nod to his colleagues stationed around the room, ill disguised as hotel guests. He didn’t care if the Soviets knew they were being watched, their sensitivities were not his concern. He approached the reception and was handed an up-to-date log of movements by the Soviet delegation. According to their records the only person who’d left the premises was a woman called Raisa Demidova, a teacher who’d been taken to the United Nations. She’d returned only a matter of minutes ago. Yates left the log on the receptionist’s desk, heading to the elevator. The young FBI agent working as an operator gave him an embarrassed smile, acknowledging his ridiculous uniform. Yates asked:
– Do you remember a young woman using the elevator?
– Sure, she was just in here.
– No, young as in eighteen years, something like that.
– I’m not sure. I don’t think so. Maybe she used the other elevator.
The doors opened. Yates stepped out, frustrated with the lack of urgency in his colleagues. Their minds were dulled by the fact that they were dealing with cute kids, too angelic to be up to anything. Yates had been adamant fromthe momentthe trip was announced that the Soviets were going to find a way to exploit the opportunity. He approached the ornate double doors to the ballroom. They were closed, a sign claiming the room was undergoing extensive renovation. He took out his key, unlocking the heavy doors, stepping inside the cavernous ballroom.
Over thirty desks were set up, stretching the length of the room, scores of officers seated with headphones scribbling notes. Every room occupied by the Soviet delegation had been bugged with multiple devices in the ceilings of the bedroom and bathroom, the walk-in cupboards – ensuring no area where conversations could take place in private. The televisions had proved divisive. Yates had thought them a risk since the occupants could use the sound to mask their conversations. He didn’t see the value in exposing the students to cartoons, pop music and adverts. He’d been overruled. The televisions had been rigged, providing a bombardment of images projecting a lifestyle that Yates’s superiors wanted to trickle back to the Soviet Union, a message of abundance and comfort. As a concession Yates had managed to ensure that the sets were fixed with a volume control so that they could never be loud enough to hide a conversation.
Each room had been designated two translators working twelve-hour shifts. Dialogue was recorded but to provide immediate feedback the team would translate in real time, jotting in shorthand. Anything of importance was immediately flagged up. Otherwise the translator would type up their notes during the downtime, when the students and teachers were outside, or sleeping. The operation was so large that the FBI had drawn together the highest concentration of Russian linguists in the country.
Yates picked up the folder containing photographs of the Soviet students. He’d already studied them many times. He’d seen them step off the plane, watched them enter the hotel. He wasn’t entirely confident that the young woman he’d spotted on the streets in Harlem could be counted among their number. How did she manage to leave the hotel without being seen? In the bustle he’d only caught her face for a moment and then she’d passed him by before disappearing down another street, apparently not making contact with Jesse Austin, the best-known Communist sympathizer in the area. It had been such an unlikely appearance, and an improbable location for a young white girl. Yates had returned to his car, noting the waiting cab and deciding he was going to wait too. The young woman had not returned. In the end the taxi driver had left without a passenger. It was impossible to see into Jesse’s apartment from the street. After forty minutes Yates had given up too, impatient to check his suspicions back at the hotel.
Flicking through the photographs, he stopped. The woman’s photograph was in black and white. Her name was Elena. She was seventeen years old. She was sharing a room with her older sister. Yates walked to the table where the translator was stationed for that room.
– What are they doing?
The woman translating pulled down her headphones, speaking with a thick Russian accent. Yates hid his disapproval: he was dealing with an immigrant, the least reliable of the linguists.
– The older sister has been watching the television.
– And the younger sister? Elena?
– She went swimming.
– When did she go?
The translator checked the log.
– She left the room at ten a.m.
– Did you report this?
– She was followed to the pool.
– Has she returned?
– No.
– All those hours at a swimming pool? You don’t think it’s strange she hasn’t returned?
Jim picked up the translator’s empty coffee mug, banging it against the table – a startlingly loud noise in the otherwise hushed atmosphere of the room. Everyone looked at him.
– I want to know the location of one of t
he girls, Elena, eighteen years old. She was reported to be in the swimming-pool area.
An agent raised his hand, said nervously:
– The girl was followed into the swimming-pool area. We have an agent outside.
– Is she still there?
– She hasn’t left.
– The agent can see her? Right now – he can see what’s she doing?
There was silence, then a hesitant response.
– The agent isn’t in the pool area. He’s stationed outside. But she hasn’t passed him. She has to be in there.
– You’re willing to bet your career on that, are you?
The man’s confidence fell away. He began to stammer:
– That’s the only way into the pool. If she hasn’t passed him she’s got to be in there.
Yates didn’t bother to reply, hastening towards the doors, running past the elevator, and taking the steps up to the pool two at a time.
Manhattan 5th Avenue
Same Day
Seated in a cab, Elena glanced at her watch. She was late. The students were due to meet up in minutes. Everything had taken longer than she’d expected – far longer to drive to Harlem, longer to get into Mr Austin’s apartment and longer to get out again. Fearful that the American secret police were watching, she’d been guided out of Austin’s building through the back. She’d waved goodbye to Austin unsure whether he would show up tonight. He had not made any promises. She’d done all she could.
The hotel was up ahead, only five hundred metres away, but the traffic wasn’t moving. Not knowing the correct English phrase she said:
– I pay now.
She put some money down, far too much, not waiting for her change. She jumped out and ran down the street. Instead of heading to the main entrance she turned down the hotel service alley. A series of steel ladders were attached to the back wall, leading up to the sun terrace on the fifth floor – a fire escape for those caught outside if the main pool area and corridor were impassable. Before climbing the ladder, Elena took off her clothes. Underneath her blouse and skirt she was wearing a swimsuit. When she’d climbed down this morning a bundle of clothes and a pair of shoes had been left for her, disguised and hidden behind the huge trashcans. Elena had no idea who planted the clothes, a member of the CPUSA perhaps. She threw these temporary clothes into the garbage before climbing the ladder. Red-faced and out of breath, she reached the fifth-floor sun terrace, peering over the edge. It was a sunny day a bunde terrace was crowded. She climbed up, walking determinedly towards the pool, unsure whether anyone had caught sight of her unusual entrance.
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