On the morning of October 23, 1983, three weeks before the London International Piano Competition, General Tamerlan Jabrailov invited Farhad and me to his office.
He sat across the desk from us in his deep-buttoned leather chair. Behind him, dressed in a traditional Russian linen rubakha, Vladimir Lenin smiled at me from an oil painting encased in a gilded frame. Another Lenin—this one in formal coat and tie—surveyed me suspiciously from a black-and-white photograph standing on the General’s ebony desk, alongside a wooden bust of Comrade Andropov—General Jabrailov’s mentor.
Thick damask draped over two casement windows kept the room dark. The only source of light was a small dormer window with a white lace curtain fluttering in the wind, dispersing jaunty patterns of sunshine throughout the otherwise austere office of the head of Department A—the code title of the Department of Psychological Warfare of the Azerbaijani KGB.
The General, like Farhad, was a self-made man with a humble upbringing who had graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in ancient African civilizations. Later, he added a doctorate in psychology and a general’s rank in the KGB, presented to him by Comrade Andropov himself.
“I hate these yearly reports. Damn waste of my valuable time.” The General slammed the book closed and hurled his pen across the desk in frustration. Farhad leaped out of his chair and, with perfect timing, caught the pen in midair, ink splattering across his hand onto the edge of his starched white cuff, protecting the expensive leather inlay on the desk.
“That’s why I keep him around. Always on the alert.” The General winked at me and picked up a phone. “Olga, come here and get the files.”
A young woman in a tight floral dress with long, blond hair and blue eyes glided over to his desk.
“Sweetheart, make sure everything is typed and labeled by ten tomorrow, will you?” The General smiled slyly.
“I’ll work until midnight if I have to, Rafig Nazimovich,” Olga replied, her voice unexpectedly low and husky, her false eyelashes flapping flirtatiously.
The General nodded, his eyes glued to Olga’s back, reflecting every swing of her hips as she danced her way across the office and out the door.
“I need to talk to you, Leila darling.” The General clasped his hands together on top of his desk. “It’s a matter of our future. Our country’s future. And for that reason, I’m going to let you in a bit on what your husband and I are doing here. Contrary to what everyone thinks of the KGB, only a small segment of our work focuses on espionage. James Bond is pure Hollywood whimsy, which, as a matter of fact, I’m a big fan of.
“But what we’re really doing here is building the future of civilization, bringing the Western world to the cataclysmic point at which a Marxist insurrection can finally commence. And, thanks to Comrade Andropov, who’s leading us forward and out of the Brezhnev era of stagnation, changing the old, rusty, bent rails under the fast-moving train of Communism before it falls off the track, we work on the ideological subversion of the West. Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head.
“I’ll explain.” General Jabrailov grinned boyishly, his gray eyes shining. “We’re in the business of mind control, Leila. We are the champions of social conditioning. The moral corruption of the West—their counterculture of the 1960s with its sex revolution, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, feminism—has been the work of our unnamed heroes. Over the past twenty-five years they have been demoralizing Western society, preparing it for the next phase of our psychological warfare—the destabilization and indoctrination of young Western generations with the ideals of Marxism–Leninism.”
The General took a pencil and tapped it on the desk, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, the corruption of the West backfired. Our country is flooded with their Western music, their decadent ideals, their damned youth culture. I can’t stop my own son from listening to their Beatles or buying their cowboy jeans on the black market.
“That’s why we need to create our own stars—sex symbols—to attract the young generation. As you know, socially, our Bolshevik fathers ‘eradicated’ sex by substituting both male and female gender with a single hybrid label called ‘comrade.’ And the sex symbol cultivated by the KGB-controlled Novosti news agency for the last fifty years has been the same broad-shouldered, mannish milkwoman, whose breasts are decked with so many shining orders and medals that she looks as if struck by lightning.”
The General laughed at his own joke.
“But it doesn’t work anymore. We have to give our youth a new image. You know, Leila, what image I see? Marilyn Monroe. In her explicit gown. Walking across the stage into the spotlight, luscious as a peach, sparkling like a jewel, singing”—General Jabrailov closed his eyes and crooned in a low voice—“happy birthday, Mr. President…” He smirked. “Who can withstand the temptation? No one. And I’ll tell you this—I saw you performing for that old buffoon Mark Slavkin, when you switched from Khrennikov to ‘Body and Soul.’ That’s when I knew that you were the one.”
General Jabrailov leaned against the back of his chair, stretching out his long limbs. “I see you, Leila, winning the London competition, playing for Ronald Reagan, for that bitch Thatcher, making the West fall in love with you, and becoming a spokesperson for our young Soviet generations. Someone they can look up to as their role model—for the girls wanting to be like you, for the boys wanting to be with you.” He winked. “You’ll be our own sex symbol—beautiful, intelligent, and internationally recognized. Well, not only do you combine all those qualities, but you’re also one of us.”
“But, Comrade Jabrailov.” Farhad sprang out of his chair and leaned over the desk, his hands nervously rubbing its edges. “I can’t allow it. Leila is not like some shameless model. She is a married woman. She is my wife—”
“Sit!” the General said in a low voice.
Farhad fell back into the chair and lowered his head, a flood of burgundy spreading across his face. I could only imagine what was going through his mind. To start with, he hated my success. Despised my music career. All he wanted was to lock the door of my golden cage, to keep me to himself and perpetually pregnant, but thanks to midwife Renata’s deficient skills—or perhaps to sheer providence—I had been pronounced barren. And now more help was coming from this most unexpected source.
“Who do you think you are?” The General propped his body forward over the desk, staring at Farhad, an angry eagle eyeing his prey. “What do you think you are? Zeus? You think you can throw lightning? No. You have a long way to go before you can even light a small fire. So sit quietly, bite your tongue, and listen with your big ears. Do you realize the responsibility you have to the whole country? Your wife is a national treasure. And how do you treat her?”
A week earlier, for Farhad’s twenty-third birthday, we had a party in the courtyard of Villa Anneliese. At one point, the General noticed me washing dishes and ordered me out of the kitchen. Later, Professor Sultan-zade, sitting at the table next to him, took the opportunity to complain that I had missed an orchestral rehearsal over the weekend. Why? Because Farhad, in a jealous fit, had locked me in the flat and gone to a KGB retreat.
“What do you say about all this, Leila?” the General asked, holding my entire being with mesmerizing power of his eyes.
By now, I had become well acquainted with KGB games. Like Johann Sebastian Bach’s most elaborate fugues, they had layers and layers of counterpointed messages and traps. I had to think fast. The first thing to consider: the General had been grooming Farhad as his future successor. Second, and probably most important: the General had made up his mind about me as a sex symbol a long time ago.
“I love my husband with all my heart,” I said earnestly, reaching out and touching Farhad’s hand, “and as much, or even more, I love my country. With all my heart. And I will do whatever it takes to be—and to continue to be—her loyal daughter.”
The General grinned, pleased, then narrowed his eyes and stuck his finger in my face playfully. “Go practice your piano and win that London competition. Don’t let me down, Leila. You hear me? Don’t. Let. Me. Down. I’ve got everything in place—no money spared and all our overseas manpower available—to put you on the covers of their Vogues. I’ve even pushed our Hollywood contacts to get you into the right circles. So. You must deliver the win. Period!”
He got up. “You can go now. Your husband and I have work to do. And by the way”—he hesitated—“not my business of course, but you two are like my own children so…” Pause. “No sexual intercourse before the competition. You know, in case Leila gets pregnant and doesn’t perform at her full capacity. Anyway, that’s my order!”
As Farhad and the General returned to work, I galloped down the grand marble stairway, out of the KGB headquarters, and into purifying, early autumn air spiced by a light rain. Little rainbows chased each other, and the sun sprinkled its gold stars on a blue polyphony of waves. I sat on a bench to gather my thoughts, shielded from the drizzle by the mane of a chestnut tree. A few droplets snuck through and landed on my head. If I could only shake my shackles off as easily as the rain from my hair.
I had three weeks left before the London competition. And the General had made it clear it wasn’t about just music anymore. I had to win. Just like in the old kelam—“A winner sits at the lion’s table; a loser sits on the lion’s plate.”