as you’re so good with the American soldiers, you will report to us about every contact that you have with any of them. You’re pretty close with that John. We know him—John Biconish. He’s a nice guy. But we need to know more about him, what he’s doing in the American Embassy. This would be your job. We don’t care how you persuade him to give you information—while you’re dancing with him—or in bed.” Andrei looked at her piercingly and smiled, then told her that they would see her again.
Immediately many disconcerting thoughts struck her mind. “I am in their trap,” she thought. “I need to be very careful with him or else I won’t see John, and I won’t see any of my family again.” She had heard many accounts of the Siberian concentration camps. She knew that she would never survive in those conditions. Perhaps they would torture her? The thought tore at her. She had also heard that many innocent Russian people were tortured by the KGB so cruelly that they confessed to crimes they never committed—just to stop the pain.
That whole day Galina had been in high spirits. Everything had been so good in her world, and now everything was collapsing. After the conversation with Andrei, she wanted to throw up. She was on the edge of panic. Galina choked back the tears on the way up to her apartment and didn’t sleep a minute the whole night. She couldn’t function at work and told her supervisor that she was sick. They let her go home but the hollow pit in her stomach didn’t go away. In the evening, she called Nina and asked her to meet. They met each other in the street and the chat was short.
“Nina,” Galina said. “I was approached by secret service men who ordered me to work for them and to report on American soldiers whom we meet in American House.”
Nina stopped Galina with her hand. “Galya,” she said, “I don’t want to hear about it. Just forget that you said anything about it to me. In fact, I don’t have time to talk to you. I need to go home.”
Galina faced the second betrayal in her life since she revealed her pregnancy to Nickolai. Nina stopped being her friend.
The rest of the week after her confrontation with Andrei, Galina felt really sick. She didn’t want to do anything. She put aside all her English textbooks and considered not going to American House anymore. She also noticed a change in her dad’s behavior. He had become serious all the time; he stopped smiling and talking to his daughter.
“He knows something,” Galina thought. “I don’t want him to be in trouble.”
And the knowing, smiling face of that guy Andrei—it followed her everywhere.
* * *
Andrei Gruzdev grew up in a small Siberian village. His dad was the leader of the local communist organization and participated in the civil war, where according to him, his father was ruthless in his support of the new regime. Andrei was proud of him and always wanted to be like him.
He was drafted in the army in 1943 when he was eighteen. He, like his dad, ruthlessly fought the enemies of the Soviet state. His commanders noticed his loyalty, and he was sent to a school where he was taught to be an internal special agent.
He was sent back to the western front where his task was to discover German spies. A proud member of the communist party and an officer in the NKVD’s special department, after the war, Andrei moved to live in Moscow where he shared a two bedroom apartment with his coworker. His task now was to keep an eye on Americans who lived in Moscow. His supervisors told him the U.S. Embassy held the most important nest of American spies in the Soviet Union.
One of his duties was to watch what was going on in American House. Almost all the Russian girls who spent time there worked for the NKVD. They were trying to get information from the American soldiers about activities inside the U.S. Embassy, but that wasn’t enough. The NKVD needed a big fish, somebody who could tell them something besides drunken rumors. Andrei had noticed a new girl there, one who wasn’t working for them, one he liked.
“Such a beautiful woman and she wants to spend time with our enemies,” he thought to himself. “This is a disgrace, she will put herself in danger. I will need to teach her.”
When he reported on her to his supervisors—he already knew her name—his bosses didn’t seem happy at first. They detected a note of caring in Andrei’s tone as he relayed his information about Galina.
“Her father works with us. He’s a good worker. It is a pity he has such a daughter,” said one of them.
“We need to talk to him about that. Maybe something will come out of this. Andrei, you have a big task in front of you. I know she’s a stubborn person. It makes your assignment difficult, but I’m sure you can do it. Let’s make Galina our Mata Hari. I hope her father will understand the importance of this case. If Galina won’t understand what we’re doing, well, we always need workers in our Siberian concentration camps.”
At these words everybody in the room smiled—except Andrei.
At home, Galina was thinking—thinking hard about what she could do with her future. She hated everything around her. She wanted to do something with her life. She wanted to breathe freely, walk wherever she wanted, and not be afraid that a man was following her. How could she do it?
She made a decision, one so important to her that she forgot about her family, about her responsibility to her daughter, Lyudmila.
Galina hadn’t seen John for several days. The day before the next party at American House she called him. She knew that secret service agents were listening to all her calls, so she was very precise.
“John,” she said, “let’s meet tomorrow at three o’clock at our usual place, the entrance of subway station at Gorky Park. I need to talk to you about something important.”
He answered, “Yes, of course.”
When they met the next day, Galina looked John straight in the face and asked him, “Do you love me?”
He said, “Yes.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “John, I will explain to you everything later. But now we need to marry as soon as possible. Will you be able to take me back to your country?”
He said, “Of course.”
Galina grabbed John’s hand and they jumped on the nearest bus. It was an unexpected move for John and she hoped it was equally unexpected for the guys following her. She felt safe in the bus and pressed herself to John. After they were married, she would leave this rotten country for good.
“Where are we going?” he asked her.
“We’re going to be married. Do you have your passport with you?” Galina asked him.
“I always keep it with me,” John said.
“I have mine too. We’re going to the local state office where they will register our marriage. A friend of mine works there and she will help us to do it quickly. I already told her about us. She’s waiting. We’re breaking the Soviet law, which forbids to Russian citizens to marry foreigners. But she’ll help us keep it quiet. She will give us an official document that we’re married, and after that we need to leave the country as soon as possible.”
John was a twenty-two-year-old kid, and he, like Galina, didn’t realize the danger of such a decision. But he agreed to her plan. “I will explain everything to my supervisors and ask them to send us to the U.S. as soon as possible,” he said to Galina.
