Our Woman in Moscow(51)
“Of course she does.” I’m now filled only with pity for Orlovsky’s wife. Still, I can’t resist adding, “But at least she had the new baby to comfort her.”
He looks at me in surprise. “But you did not know this? Baby died two days after he was born. His heart, doctors said to us. He had weak heart.”
“Oh, God. What a heel I am.”
“No, it is I who am heel, bambina. It is I who am brought to learn humility before will of fate. I thought I was tremendous man. I have wife and children and beautiful mistress, all because I am great fellow, I am like God. Whole world moves in magnificent circle around me. I am immortal!” He pulls on the cigarette. “So fate strikes me down. One by one, my children die. Is greatest agony man can endure. Why not kill me instead? No, fate tortures me first, because I am proud, because I play with hearts of women like you play with cards.”
“That’s not true. That has nothing to do with it. Your children didn’t deserve to die because of you. You didn’t deserve for them to die.”
“Ah, you are generous with me, bambina cara. Always you are generous.”
The conversation’s become morbid, and the wine turns sour in my mouth. “What about your daughters? Are any of them married?”
“Yes, Elvira and Renata, they marry nice Italian boys. I have two grandchildren, girl and boy.”
I lift my glass. “Cheers to that, anyway.”
“And my little Donna, she is spending summer in Russia with my parents, near Sochi. You know Sochi?”
“It’s by the Black Sea, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Is beautiful there, like resort. She will come home tanned and happy, with Russian boyfriend.” He shakes his head. “Is terrible burden, children. Always they take your heart with them, wherever they go.”
“I wouldn’t know. But my sister has a fourth on the way, I hear.”
“Ah, yes.” He stubs out the cigarette. “Let us talk about your sister for a minute.”
The waiter returns at that instant and refills the wine. Orlovsky orders fish; I order lamb. When he departs, Orlovsky lights another cigarette and says, in an undertone, “I have spoken to person who can help you.”
“Someone at the embassy?”
“You understand, you cannot simply dance into Moscow and find your sister and dance home again. Do you know what is the KGB?”
“It’s the Soviet spy agency, isn’t it?”
“Is more than that. Is everywhere. When you step off airplane—no, before. When you buy ticket to Moscow, they are watching. Listening. You go nowhere, see nothing, say nothing that KGB does not know.”
“Then I’ll just have to find a way around them.”
Orlovsky lays his palm on the table. His eyes blaze, although he keeps his voice at the same low monotone, so we might be speaking of the weather. “Oh, you are so clever! Like me, you believe you can outsmart fate—you can outsmart KGB. You know nothing! They will kill anybody—innocents—because to KGB man, all is in service to revolution, to world communism. So you find sister—by some miracle of God—so you visit sister? They take sister to Moscow Centre. They do interrogation—KGB interrogation, they study how to do this, they are scientific—they maybe even torture her, if they want confession. Maybe they take her son, they say we will kill your son unless you confess.”
“That won’t happen. I’m an American citizen, I’ll go to the US consulate and kick up such a fuss—”
“This is your plan? Your plan to cause major diplomatic incident? You think Soviets care what American newspapers think? I tell you now, they will lie. They will say, oh, this woman is spy—she is agent of American intelligence. They will insist on their lies until gullible people of America—yes, gullible people of entire world believe them. Ruth Macallister, she is terrible spy, she is guilty one. Then what happens? You disappear. Nobody ever know what happen to you.”
“That’s not true. The United States would never let that happen to one of its citizens.”
“Bambina. Bambina cara. Let me explain to you. United States government cannot help you if you do this idiot thing and go to Moscow. You are too small—Soviet Union too big. Soviet Union will kill anybody—it will kill millions brazenly. Stalin killed millions in Ukraine, did you know this?”
“Millions? That’s impossible.”
“Not impossible. Starvation. He creates famine so people starve, so they have nothing left but Soviet state.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because I listen.” He touches his ear. “Friends. Family. They have to whisper, they cannot shout this or some nosy neighbor denounce them, their own children denounce them. If you are not good little Communist, if you do not recite daily catechism—and catechism sometimes change with no warning, so you must pay attention—then comes knock on your door.” He knocks twice on the table with the hand holding the cigarette, which by now has burned almost to a stub. “Do you see? In this terrible war—this war between communism and liberal democracy—communism will win, because it does not care how many lives it devours.”
I make a hushing movement with my hand, because the waiter has just arrived with our lunch. Anyway, Orlovsky’s become overwrought with his daily catechisms and his starving millions. I already know what evil looks like; I’ve seen the photographs out of Dachau and Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.