One day, Russ Zeleny remained after class, pretending to be slow in gathering up his books and bag.
"Russ," Yulia said to him, "is there anything you need to tell me?"
"No."
"Is everything okay in your life?"
Russ broke into tears when she asked. She went to him, age six, and wrapped her arms around him, patting his back. "What is it, sweetheart?"
"Papa hits my mama!" the boy cried out, bursting into sobs that no amount of patting and hugging would help.
"Did you see this happen?"
"Every night. He drinks and drinks and gets angry. He tells her he hates her and hates me! I don't want my papa to hate me! I told him I’m sorry!"
She continued holding him close and patting his back. "There, there, we'll see what we can do about this, okay?"
"O-o-okay," he said, stuttering now.
She had noticed how sometimes he couldn't finish his sentences in class.
"Does it make it difficult for you to say words?"
"Yes, it scares me! I'm scared, teacher!"
It was the children's mothers' job to pick them up from the embassy after Yulia's class. She decided that day she would speak with Mrs. Zeleny. She pulled in through the embassy gates at 3:45 that afternoon, driving her red MGA coupe. Yulia stood in the driveway, Russell's hand in hers, as the car came to a stop. Yulia approached with Russell and pulled open the passenger door.
"I'm wondering if I might tell you something," Yulia said.
Mrs. Zeleny was wearing sunglasses though the day was cloudy and had been raining. She pulled them down on her nose. "See?" she said as she revealed two black eyes. "Is this what Russell said?
"It is. He's such a good student, but he's having trouble."
Russell trembled beside Yulia, and she couldn’t get herself to hand over the child. "Maybe we could go inside and talk and let Russell play in my classroom? I have the toys he likes."
Mrs. Zeleny parked and came inside. She followed Yulia down the hall to her classroom. Yulia induced Russell to play with the toy cars at one end of the room. Yulia and Mrs. Zeleny talked at the other end while Russell was distracted.
"Russell told me about the hitting."
Mrs. Zeleny burst into tears, then abruptly stopped, pulling herself together using willpower. "I cannot let this be known. They'll send us back to Russia where there's no help at all. Here, I am saving up to divorce him."
"What does he do?"
"He's KGB."
"He's Mitkov Zeleny?"
"Yes."
"We know him. He's been at meetings with my husband. He's a top officer."
"I don't agree with that. I only know he's a hitter. He drinks."
"What are your plans? Have you thought about talking to the rezident?"
"No! No rezident. That would only put him in a rage. He would kill me!"
"It seems to me he's slowly killing you anyway."
Mrs. Zeleny cast her eyes down to the desktop. "It seems he is."
"You want to divorce him. All right. Do you need money?"
"I need fifty pounds more. Then I have enough."
Yulia pulled open her desk drawer and removed her purse.
"What are you doing?"
"Wait, please."
She pulled out two twenty and one ten-pound note and pushed them across the desk. "Take the money and get away from this bastard. Now, what comes next?"
Mrs. Zeleny brushed away tears that filled her eyes.
"I—I'm a nurse working the midnight shift. I've talked to Immigration. They said I could stay in England because of my trade. I'm going to divorce him and get a flat of my own. Then Russell can grow up safely without violence. His mother will see to that."
"I couldn't be happier. When does this happen? You're not holding back?"
"The divorce papers are waiting for me to sign. I have enough money to rent my own flat now. I will skip work tonight and look in the morning early. Then I'll take only what we can carry and leave him. The rest of my belongings will be returned in the divorce."
"I'm happy for you. Do you mind if I tell my husband about Colonel Zeleny?"
"Why would you do that?"
"KGB will expel him. They will return him to Moscow in shame."
"I wouldn't mind, no. As long as he doesn't hit me for it."
"No, Nikolai will make sure of that, I promise."
And Nikolai did, confronting Colonel Zeleny about his abuse and telling him he was on report, that Nikolai had spoken to the rezident and his wife, Rina Zeleny. The next day, Colonel Zeleny was sent home to Moscow, discharged from his career at KGB. KGB not only wouldn't keep a KGB officer guilty of violence in the home, but there was also the possibility his rage would involve local authorities, the last thing KGB would abide. They wasted no time shipping him off.
Russell stuttered no more and cried after class no more.
The Soviet Embassy would allow Mrs. Zeleny to stay in her flat for a full year without rent. But she moved anyway, preferring to begin again with Russell in new surroundings without old memories.
Shortly after this incident, in October of 1959, Yulia announced she was pregnant. They began shopping for baby clothes. They decided to remain in the same flat; the baby would sleep in their room at first. Embassy friends threw a shower. Gifts poured in.
She delivered mid-summer 1960 on one of the hottest days of the year with no complications. The baby was named Sasha, Yulia’s mother’s name. She was a happy baby and started sleeping through the nights at six weeks—much to everyone’s amazement.
“She’s so easy,” said Yulia.
“She is that,” Nikolai agreed. “We are blessed.”
12
Sergei Makov’s KGB career was collapsing in on him like all spies who leave British fighter aircraft specs on double-decker bus seats or throw up their dinner on the table of the Brazilian deputy ambassador. Or make a pass at the rezident’s wife at the United Day party just past. Makov had done all this and more, every day more. He drank too much and talked too much, and his batting average at recruiting British spies in London was all but non-existent.
Makov was married to a twit of woman who wanted only to return to Kyiv and take up her place in blue-blood society there, such as it was. Worst of all, it was a sexless marriage, and Makov was at the age when some middle-aged men began keeping score. Zenda, his wife, was someone he had decided to scrap in favor of someone younger and sexually ravenous if such a one existed and had an eye for him besides.
Makov lived more in his head and his imagined future than he ever lived in his present reality. Late to work, he was so hungover he wore sunglasses to hide the bloodshot, was unable to concentrate, and threw up in the men’s room. Leaving “for the field” after lunch, Makov failed to produce any intelligence of any value. His rezident, Anatoly Anchev, was distant, hated Makov, and wanted to replace him with someone whose numbers made him look better to Moscow where promotions were issued.
That winter, Makov was slipping into a rut: disgruntled, lonely, peevish, and disappointed, but too lazy and boozy to do anything to arrest the slide. Then Dona Maria came into his life, and the lights came on.