‘You lied to us yesterday,’ he said, ‘so today we have to start again. We have now established that the spy Anderson was running you as an agent and fucking you as well. In my considerable experience this adds a whole new dynamic; agents in this type of relationship strive particularly hard to please their spymasters.’
The following day she was confronted by the same interrogator, on account of whose short stature and dark hair she had christened ‘Blackberry’, Stalin’s nickname for the ‘bloody dwarf’ Yezhov, a notorious torturer and Beria’s predecessor as head of the NKVD. ‘Blackberry’ repeatedly asked her about people she had never heard of, and when for the third or fourth time she had denied any knowledge of the individuals mentioned, he said: ‘Mrs Davenport, while you may be spared more robust interrogation methods, non-cooperation will only lead to a longer sentence. Your pretty little daughter may be quite grown up before you see her again.’ Sentence, she thought, that’s the first time anyone has mentioned a prison sentence, and gradually, what little confidence she had left began to turn to genuine fear. Until then she had assumed that after two or three days they would simply let her go, but perhaps she was wrong. Technically she was probably guilty of offences under Soviet law. What sort of sentence might she get?
As the interview came to an end Marianne asked, ‘I would like to see someone from my embassy.’
‘They know you are here,’ replied her interrogator without looking up from the desk.
As if to confirm her worst fears, the next day she was not summoned for questioning. Nor the day after, nor the day after that. As the days passed Marianne’s anxiety turned into serious depression. Time, like a watched pot, refused to perform its required function. Each day stretched like an eternity; she tried to sleep but fear had crept into her consciousness and kept her wakeful. And then there were the noises. Coming from the air-brick below the window. A man crying – then a scream, and another voice raised in anger. Every night she was kept awake by a noise like an electric drill. She became obsessed with the sounds seeping into her room and even when there was silence she listened intently, expecting at any moment to hear another scream and imagining what horrors might be unfolding below her.
Without word from the embassy, or any news of Edward and Izzy, Marianne was lonely and scared. Wrapped up in my world of literature, I have tried to pretend to myself that this is just like any other country, she thought. The truth is they can keep me here indefinitely. I am completely at their mercy. Who knows where I could end up next – at the mercy of thugs and torturers? She felt nauseous at the thought of what might be in store for her.
In addition to all her other anxieties, Marianne was worried about her own health. She had expected to be flying home for a check-up in an English hospital. She was still suffering from pain in her pelvis and so she decided to ask to see a doctor. Her jailor with the crooked nose had nodded in a noncommittal way but somewhat to her surprise, the next morning she came into her room followed by a young blonde woman in a white coat. Introducing herself as Doctor Sorokina, she took Marianne’s temperature, examined her, and discussed her symptoms in a sympathetic way. ‘Everything seems to be healing satisfactorily,’ she said. Marianne asked if she could have more pain killers and sleeping pills. ‘I am afraid I am not permitted to give you any,’ the doctor said.
After ten days of seeing no one except her jailor and the doctor, Marianne was finally led back on her crutches to the office where the blond colonel was working at his desk. He greeted her courteously and enquired after her health. ‘I understand that you have seen a doctor?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have any complaints about the way you have been treated here?’
Marianne considered the question. ‘No. Although the other questioner hit me in the face and threatened me.’
‘Did he indeed. I suppose that would never happen in America.’ Looking across the desk, he studied her. ‘No harm done, I think. But we do get frustrated, especially when our time is wasted by lies.’
‘I am sorry about that – it was somehow instinctive…’ As she spoke the colonel was examining a brown folder which he had opened and which he was looking at intently. Marianne paid no attention; she was just happy that someone was talking to her and that it was the blond colonel and not the thuggish ‘Blackberry’. The colonel then took out a large A4-sized photograph and stared at it.
Afterwards, when Marianne would replay to herself that moment when he flung the photograph across the desk to her, that half second when her brain was trying to process the information, she would have to admit that she had still not understood what was happening. It was as if someone had launched a bucket of ice-cold water at her head and yet, despite every appearance to the contrary, despite the imminence of her icy drenching, she had continued to believe that the contents must be aimed at someone else.
‘Good quality, I think you will agree.’
Marianne looked in horror at the picture.
‘What about this one?’ he said, throwing down another photograph. ‘Amazing flexibility. And this one? Quite the deep-throat specialist. How will your husband feel about that?’
Marianne had never felt so humiliated in her life. She felt a hot flush of shame rising up from her neck and spreading across her face and into the roots of her hair.
‘I don’t think he would like to see these pictures, would he?’ said the colonel. ‘Although I have enjoyed looking at them myself. As did my colleagues. In fact, they’ve been greatly admired.’ Marianne could think of nothing to say. She looked away from the photographs. ‘Come come, Mrs Davenport, you mustn’t be shy about this. My colleague was wondering if you could perform some of these tricks with him? But yes, I do understand, the esteemed doctor, your husband, wouldn’t like it. It’s all in the detail you see. A husband can accept that his wife has been unfaithful. Perhaps it’s not so bad, he may think, and anyway, it’s over now – but that’s because he hasn’t seen it; the reality hasn’t been imprinted on his retina, not the detail. What they actually did together, how she felt about it. Look at this one. I think this is my favourite.’ The colonel threw another photograph across the table to Marianne. ‘That smile on your face – pure ecstasy. He’d find that difficult to forget, wouldn’t he?’
Crushed and mortified, Marianne cursed herself for not seeing it coming and she cursed Larry yet again for allowing this to happen to her. So much for his confidence in the security at the hotel. It was almost as if she’d been the victim of an American honey trap – except that was absurd. Anyway, she had nothing useful to offer the authorities in either country and she couldn’t see what blackmailing her was likely to achieve.
‘What do you want from me?’ she said.
‘You’ve already been very helpful to us,’ said the colonel, smiling. ‘But we’ll need your continuing cooperation.’
Two days after she had been shown the photographs she received a surprise visit from a young woman from the US embassy. ‘Thank God,’ said Marianne, ‘please tell me you are going to get me out of here?’ The woman looked at her then looked around the room and made a gesture towards her ear. Yes, of course, thought Marianne, the room is certain to be bugged. The woman introduced herself as Mary Fitzgerald. She told Marianne that the embassy had been advised of her arrest soon after her departure from the hospital but they had not been permitted to visit her. Then she took out a notebook. ‘OK physically?’ she wrote, then pushed the notebook and pencil over to Marianne.