Louise was hurrying to Natalya’s apartment building when the big Chevy Fleetmaster slowly came up behind her. It slowed. She saw Pulkkinen nod his head sideways, his face stoic as usual. The car picked up speed. It turned into a side street. What did he want?
She looked around. For once, no one in sight. She rounded the corner of the side street and saw the car’s exhaust barely reflecting light from one of the feeble streetlights on the street she’d just left. The passenger door opened, and she slipped in.
Pulkkinen was smoking, the red light on his face glowing a bit when he drew on the cigarette. He put the cigarette out in the ashtray. “You’re up to something,” he said quietly.
“No.”
“I heard Colonel Koski in Hamilton’s office.”
“So?”
“What are you planning?”
Once again, the icy fear that saying the truth would get you or someone you loved killed. If she told Pulkkinen her plan, who would he tell?
“I can help you,” he said. “The Russians will be all over the place tonight. They won’t look inside an American legation car driven by someone they know well.”
Yes, she thought darkly to herself, know well because you work for them and not us. Still, she asked, “You are proposing?”
“If you want to get Mrs. Bobrova somewhere tonight, she cannot go on foot with two small children.”
Louise knew this to be totally true. However, if she told Pulkkinen she was trying to get Natalya and the children to the orphanage, it could be the end of Natalya and her children. But Pulkkinen already knew something was up. He could already have informed his masters, whether Finnish secret police or MGB.
She sifted through every memory of every conversation she’d ever had with Pulkkinen. Every flicker of his eyes. Every minute hand gesture. She drew on all her years of reading people, a skill that had gotten her far in college, as an army wife, but here, now, seemed so inadequate. It was a skill based on ephemerals, on nuances, without solid evidence. Hunches. What her mother called women’s intuition. It wasn’t magic. It was skill, honed over years. But could she trust it now when it was a matter of life or death? Even Arnie and Hamilton didn’t know who Pulkkinen really worked for.
She swallowed. She looked into this man’s eyes as deeply and as carefully as she’d ever looked into a man’s eyes in her life.
Then she told Pulkkinen what she had in mind.
She watched Pulkkinen drive off, still not knowing for sure if he’d joined her plan or was about to reveal it to the MGB. Hoping for a reprieve from the problem of how to get Natalya to safety, she walked a second time to the orphanage to see if she’d already made it there. She had not. They still had to be in the apartment.
She hurried to Natalya’s building, stopping behind the corner of a building just before Natalya’s. She quickly looked toward the front door and pulled back. There was now a man outside the building in the usual long overcoat and hat. Still not sure what to do, unable to get into the building to reach Natalya, she did what she could; she waited, bouncing up and down, flapping her arms in the cold alley. She needed a clear sign confirming that Natalya was indeed trapped in her flat. She had a good idea she was. Why else would there be a guard at the door in addition to the usual man at the desk? But she also needed some sort of opening to get into the building. None appeared and she was running out of time.
Just before midnight, a Soviet legation car pulled up. A young, probably not yet twenty, uniformed MGB soldier got out. He had what looked to Louise like one of those guns she’d seen in gangster movies slung over his shoulder. Clearly, this was the changing of the guard and just as in the army, the crummy guard duty and graveyard shifts went to the lowest ranks.
She recognized the “clerk” as he came out the door. A good sign. The reception desk wasn’t manned after midnight, probably relying on the outside guard to report any rare exit from the building. The clerk and the man with the overcoat got in the car and it drove off. The young soldier stamped his feet, beat his arms against his thick overcoat, and then started to walk back and forth. Then, the plan crystalized.
She hurried back to her apartment. Off went the heavy clothes and out came the lipstick, heels, dangling earrings, her tightest dress, and the perfume that Arnie would breathe in from those places she shared only with him. Taking a chance that a young Russian soldier couldn’t read the Latin alphabet, she took out several of her old Oklahoma identification cards: the ornate scrolly one that identified her as a member of Alpha Iota chapter of Delta Gamma sorority. The rather plain but very official-looking Oklahoma driver’s license. Neither had a photograph. She then slipped several barbital sleeping pills into her purse. She looked up at the ceiling. “Oh God, let this work. Please let this work.”
She put on her heavy coat and again returned to her vigil across from Natalya’s building. The fact that the overcoat hid the tight dress would have to be negotiated somehow. She’d improvise. She took in a deep breath and let it out. Then, somehow, it was like Arnie had said about the war. The worst fear is before the battle. Once the battle starts, you’re too busy trying to win it to be afraid. She felt calm and powerful. She was calm and powerful. She had been designed to wield this power and by God she would.
She deliberately waited another hour, her feet gradually going numb because of the thin, leather soles. If she was cold, so was the young soldier.
She watched him make a turn at the end of the block and come slowly back to the front door. She took a deep breath against the cold as she opened her coat to reveal the dress. Then she hurried across the street, the tight dress and heels limiting her stride, but she knew that if that young guard was typical, he’d be totally focused on her and not on his job. One thing she knew well was how lonely and needy young soldiers were.
He stopped her just as she was going through the door. “Net,” he said, and something else in Russian. Louise turned to him and spoke rapidly in French. The soldier couldn’t have been twenty. His cheeks glowed with both the cold and youth. His eyes were the color of pale-blue forget-me-nots. She steeled herself. She was going to hurt this child.
He looked concerned, but still shook his head and said, “Net,” then more Russian. Louise gave her best seductive smile, then finished it with touching one of his coat buttons and looking up at him, imploring him with everything she had. She pulled the identification cards from her purse. Pointing to them she said, “Frantsuzkaya. Frantsuzkaya zhenshchina.” French woman.
He shook his head. “Net.” She smiled again, her mouth just slightly open. She leaned her head toward the door, tilting her head, questioning.
“Ne dopuskayetsya,” he said, almost apologetically.
She didn’t know the word, but it clearly meant some kind of no as well, but the no was losing force. Louise did a little wiggle, putting her hand lightly on her mouth, then put one finger on the boy’s lips. She put it back onto her own lips in the universal sign to keep something quiet. She rolled her eyes and looked up at the upper windows of the building. Then she made the other universal sign, forming a circle with her left thumb and forefinger and plunging her right index finger in and out of it. She knew the young soldier knew that only high-ranking legation people lived in the building. He wouldn’t risk messing up a powerful man’s sexual liaison.
The boy laughed. He made a sign like he knew the score. Then he made an inquiring face and nodded toward the side of the building, pursing his lips as if kissing. Louise smiled, then shook her head sadly. She touched her wristwatch and looked back up at the building. Then she made the face of an angry man and slapped the back of her hand, followed by her own sad face. Then she pointed her finger at the boy and wagged it. He looked up at the window, doubt on his face—and anxiety. There was no way he’d get in trouble messing with some big hat’s big night, but clearly he had orders not to let anyone pass.
This was it. She leaned in close to him, and said, in French, “If you let me up, then afterwards …” She glanced meaningfully at the alley and pursed her lips in return. She knew he didn’t understand the French, but she also knew he could hope he understood her promise of reward. Louise then pointed again to the upper floor and made a sign that she hoped would keep his hopes up.
“OK,” he said very loudly, as if proud to know the universal “it’s alright.”
“OK,” she said, beaming back at him. She opened the door and slipped through.
Natalya opened the door to her flat and peered through the narrow opening, fear on her face. Seeing it was Louise, she gasped, threw the door wide, and pulled her into the apartment. There, she started to cry, hugging her.
“The children?” Louise asked.
“Asleep.”
“Fanya?”
“Gone. Work done.” She hesitated. “How did you get in?”
Louise told her. Normally, such a story would elicit a giggle or two. This telling was done with clinical sobriety. Then Louise told Natalya the plan. Natalya nodded soberly, understanding everything. They both knew that success depended on a teenaged boy’s hormones.
Natalya gently lifted each child’s head and slipped half of the barbital sleeping pill Louise had taken with her into each mouth. Both mumbled, swallowed, and fell back asleep. Louise sighed with relief. Phase one accomplished.
She helped Natalya dress the children and they laid them in Grisha’s old baby buggy along with several blankets. Natalya and Louise got into their coats.
“Ready?” Louise asked.
Natalya nodded.
Louise opened the apartment’s door and looked up and down the hallway. She simply nodded and Natalya pushed the buggy into the hall. She grabbed the sleeping Grisha, snuggling him against her side with her left hand. Louise did the same with Alina, grunting with the effort. Together they grabbed the front and rear of the buggy and managed to get down the stairs. On the ground level they put both children in the buggy, covering them with the blankets.
Natalya slipped the buggy behind the reception desk, ducking down behind it herself at the end near the door where she could peek around the desk and see the street.
Louise looked at her squatting there with the buggy and her children. She realized this might be the last time she saw her if the plan failed and Natalya didn’t make it to the orphanage. She wanted to hug her goodbye, but that couldn’t be. She did something totally silly. She winked. Natalya smiled at that, shaking her head. She then blew Louise a kiss. Louise, about to do something that might cost her and her friend their lives, launched into Phase two wondering why she hadn’t thought about blowing a kiss rather than giving a stupid wink.
The night air instantly made her legs cold. She saw the young soldier who was at the end of his beat perk up and come almost jogging up to her. Well, Phase two was starting off well.
“OK!” he said excitedly.
“OK,” she answered as heartily as she could.
He looked up at the top floor and made a questioning face. Louise made the universal sign for intercourse followed by the one for sleep. The soldier grinned. He put a fist on his chest. “Ne budu spat,” he said, lightly hitting his chest. She looked at him quizzically. “Net …” and he made the sign for sleeping. Louise laughed, trying to convey she thought the joke was hilarious. She then repeated “net,” followed by the sleep sign. She took him by his gloved hand and gently started him toward the alley.
He started unbuckling the belt around his coat. She put her hand on the buckle, and smiling up at him warmly, shook her head. His blue eyes were shining with excitement and, could it be trepidation? Uncertainty? Oh, my God. He’s a virgin.
Once off the street, she pulled him into her, getting his back to the street, and started to slowly kiss him. He grabbed at her, his submachine gun falling off his shoulder and dangling by the strap. She smiled, looking into his eyes, gently lowering the gun to the pavement with her right hand while touching the front of his trousers with her left. His breath smelled and he had serious body odor, but everything else was in total working order. She saw Natalya slip by the alley, pushing the buggy. Then she saw the American legation’s Fleetmaster glide slowly by.
She continued gently rubbing her hand against the soldier’s erection. He erupted in an orgasm, barely twenty seconds after she’d started rubbing him. Thank God for nineteen-year-old boys, she thought.
The boy looked stricken. Ashamed. Oh, my God. She touched his cheek. “C’est bon,” she murmured. She held both cheeks and kissed him full on the mouth, breathing, “C’est bon.” Then she whispered again, nuzzling his lips with her hair. “OK. OK.”
He embraced her as if he’d never been loved before. Perhaps he hadn’t. She tried to relax up against him, letting him feel that indeed everything was OK. She held him for a bit longer, then pulled back smiling, again making the sign for secrecy. He leaned back against the side of a building. She planted a kiss on her fingers and transferred it to his lips, then moved as quickly as she could back to the street. It was deserted.
Natalya and the children were gone.