“There is only one gentleman here,” I said.
Polikarpov chuckled. “Would the great poet’s wife agree?”
“I will not sit,” Borya continued. “This meeting is over. You speak of the people. What do you know about the people?”
“Now look, Boris Leonidovich, this whole business is almost over. You have a chance to make things right with me and with the people. I’ve brought you here to tell you everything will soon be right again as long as you cooperate.” He came around the desk, placing himself between Borya and me. He put a hand on Borya’s shoulder and patted him as one would a good dog. “Goodness me, old fellow. What a mess you’ve landed us in.”
Borya shrugged his hand off. “I am not your underling, some sheep you can direct to pasture.”
“I am not the one who has stuck a knife in the back of my country.”
“Every word I’ve written was truth. Every word. I am not ashamed.”
“Your truth is not our truth. I am only trying to help you rectify things.”
Borya started for the office door.
“Stop him, Olga Vsevolodovna!” Polikarpov’s bravado disappeared. He looked pathetic and desperate. It was clear he’d been ordered to quietly put an end to the whole affair but had wanted to puff out his chest first and was now failing at the task.
“You must first apologize for speaking to him like that,” I said.
“I apologize,” he said. “I do. Please.”
“End this now,” Borya said, still standing in the doorway. “I beg of you.”
* * *
—
The next day, twenty-two letters authored by “real” Russian people appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta under the headline SOVIET PEOPLE CONDEMN B. PASTERNAK’S BEHAVIOR. Each one parroted the party line: Judas! Traitor! Fake! A construction worker from Leningrad penned that she had never heard of this Pasternak before, so why should we pay him any mind at all? A garment worker from Tomsk wrote that Pasternak was on the take from the West, funded by capitalist spies who’d made the writer a very rich man.
Polikarpov decreed that one last letter of apology, addressed to “the people,” was needed. I wrote the first draft, edited it to Polikarpov’s specifications, and persuaded Borya to sign it.
The night the final letter was printed in Pravda, he came to Little House wanting to make love. But the shining brave poet was gone. In his place stood an old man. He touched my waist as I stood at the sink peeling potatoes. And for the first time, I moved away.
WEST
Summer 1959
CHAPTER 27
The Applicant
The Carrier
The Nun
THE STUDENT
Most of it was waiting: waiting for the intel, waiting for the assignment, waiting for the mission to begin. I waited in hotel rooms, apartments, stairwells, train stations, bus stations, bars, restaurants, libraries, museums, laundromats. I waited on park benches and in movie theaters. I once waited for a message at a public swimming pool in Amsterdam for a full day, and left so sunburned I had to wrap aloe-soaked gauze around my shoulders and the tops of my thighs.
Nine months after the World’s Fair, I waited yet again—in a hostel in Vienna, for the seventh World Youth Festival to begin.
Set for late July, the festival would be ten days of rallies, marches, meetings, exhibitions, lectures, seminars, and sporting events. There’d be a Parade of Nations, the release of a thousand white doves, and a grand ball at the end—all dedicated to promoting “peace and friendship” among tomorrow’s leaders. During the fest, the expected twenty thousand international students attending from Saudi Arabia and Ceylon to Cambridge and Fresno could take part in union-led tours of an electrical plant, hear presentations from leaders in the voluntary work camp movement, or attend lectures on the peaceful use of atomic energy.
The Kremlin had invested an estimated $100 million to ensure the festival’s lasting influence on its participants.
But the Agency had other plans.
After Doctor Zhivago popped up across the USSR and Pasternak’s notoriety skyrocketed, the Soviets began searching for the banned book in the luggage of citizens returning to the Motherland after being abroad. It was a propaganda coup for the Agency, and as a result, they decided to double down—to print and disseminate even more copies. This time, instead of the blue-linen-covered edition printed in the Netherlands, we’d made a miniature edition ourselves—printed on thin Bible stock, small enough to fit in a pocket.
I’d gone to Vienna early, to await the arrival of two thousand copies of the tiny book. Animal Farm, The God That Failed, and 1984 were also designated for distribution, and dozens of us awaited the arrival of the books that would fill our “Information Booths” throughout Vienna, ready to hand off to student delegates taking in the sights. It was the Agency’s own way of spreading peace and friendship.
My hair had grown out a bit since Brussels and was dyed back to a brassy shade of its former blond. And I dressed as if on my way to a poetry reading: black turtleneck, black clam diggers, and black ballet flats. I’d become a student again.
My first location was to be the Wurstelprater. I was to scout out the amusement park prior to the start of the festival, to determine the most trafficked spot from which I could hand out the most books before inevitably being asked to leave.
After passing the ghost train, merry-go-round, bumper cars, shooting galleries, and biergartens, I decided the foot of the Wiener Riesenrad would be the most advantageous spot, as I could envision every student tourist wanting to take a ride on the world’s tallest Ferris wheel. Plus, I got a small thrill from standing so close to the ride featured in one of my favorite movies, The Third Man.
With my location set, my next step was to visit a dry cleaner on Tuchlauben, where I would tell the clerk I’d been sent to retrieve a suit for a Mr. Werner Voigt and ask if I could pay in Swiss francs. I’d then be given the bagged suit with a ticket noting the address where the first batch of miniature Zhivagos would be located. Dissemination would begin the following day.
But first, I was hungry. I decided to stop and buy two plate-sized potato pancakes before leaving the park—one for dinner and one for breakfast. The food stand was strategically placed next to the Riesenrad, a trap for everyone waiting in line. It was there, standing in line for food behind an American tourist wearing unflatteringly tight lederhosen, that I saw her.
She was there, in line to ride the Ferris wheel, her back to me.
Sally was wearing a long green coat and white gloves, her red hair cut a bit shorter than I’d last seen it. Even from behind, she was beautiful. It reminded me of the first time I saw her in Ralph’s. How the first thing I saw when I turned around was her hair.