“Are you legally separated?”
“Illegally.”
Lisa seemed about to pursue this but poured more wine instead.
The proprietress came to the table, and she and Lisa discussed the day’s fare. Lisa ordered for both herself and Hollis. Lisa said to Hollis, “It’s a fixed price. Only three rubles. The menu changes by the hour. Better that than the big restaurants where they keep telling you they’re out of everything you order.” She tore a piece of pita bread and put half of it on his plate. She remarked, “Bulgarian? I thought your Russian was odd. I don’t mean American-accented or anything, but not Russian-accented either.”
“I speak a little Polish too.”
“You’ve been around the Bloc.” She laughed at her own pun.
Hollis smiled. “It’s an article of faith with the Russians that only a Russian can speak Russian Russian. Yet Seth Alevy is nearly perfect. If he were trying to pass, a Muscovite would think he was probably a Leningrader and vice versa.”
“Perhaps on the telephone. But there’s more to being a Russian than the language. It’s like that with any nationality, but the Russians are different in unique ways. Did you ever notice that Russian men walk from the shoulders down? American men use their legs.”
“I’ve noticed.”
She continued, “And their facial expressions are different, their mannerisms. To be a Russian is the sum total of the national and cultural experience. Neither you nor I nor Seth could pass for a Russian any more than we could pass for an Oriental.”
“I detect some Russian mysticism there, Ms. Putyatova.”
Lisa smiled.
Hollis said, “Yet I wonder if it could be done? I mean, given the right training, cultural immersion, and so forth, could an American pass for a Russian in a group of Russians? Could a Russian pass for an American at a backyard barbecue?”
Lisa thought a moment before replying. “Perhaps for a while, if no one was looking for a counterfeit. But not under close examination. Something would betray the person.”
“Would it? What if a Russian who already knew English went to a special school? A school with an American instructor? A sort of… finishing school? A total immersion in Americana for, let’s say, a year or more. Would you get a perfect copy of the American instructor?”
Lisa considered a moment, then replied, “The instructor and the student would have to be very dedicated…. There would have to be a very good reason for an American to go along with that—” She added, “We’re talking about spies, aren’t we?”
“You are. I’m not. You’re very bright.” Hollis changed the subject. “Your Russian is grammatically perfect. Your colloquialisms are good. But I noticed your accent, rhythm, and speech patterns are not Muscovite, nor do you sound as if you learned Russian at Monterey or Wiesbaden.”
“No, I didn’t go to our language schools. My grandmother taught me Russian.”
“Evelina Vasileva Putyatova?”
“So, you were paying attention. Odd for a man.”
“I’m a spy. I listen.”
“And look and file things away. Anyway, my grandmother was a wonderful woman.” Lisa stubbed out her cigarette and continued, “I was born and raised in Sea Cliff, a neat sort of village of Victorian houses on Long Island’s north shore. Sea Cliff has a large Russian community that goes back to czarist times. Then the Revolution and civil war brought a second wave of immigrants, among whom were my grandmother and grandfather. They were in their early twenties and recently married. My grandfather’s father was a czarist officer, and he was killed fighting the Germans, so my grandfather, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Putyatov, inherited the estate and title, which by this time had become a distinct liability. My grandmother’s parents had already been arrested by the local Bolsheviks and shot, and Mikhail’s mother, my great-grandmother, shot herself. Relatives on both sides of the family were scattered all over Russia or were at the front or already in exile. So sensing the party was over, Mikhail and Evelina grabbed the jewels and the gold and got out. They didn’t arrive in America broke. Anyway, Mikhail and Evelina wound up in Sea Cliff, a long way from the Volga.”
“And your grandmother told you all this?”
“Yes. Russians are perhaps the last of the Europeans to put so much emphasis on oral history. In a country where there has always been censorship, who can you go to for the facts if not the old people?
“They’re not always the most reliable witnesses to the past.”
“Perhaps not in the sense of the larger issues. But they can tell you who was hanged for hoarding food and who was shot for owning land.”
“Yes, that’s true. Go on.”
“Well, in the parlor of our nice old Victorian house in Sea Cliff, we had a silver samovar, and when I was a child, Evelina would sit me by the samovar and tell me Russian folktales, then when I got older, about her life on her parents’ estate and about my grandfather. When I was about sixteen, she told me about the Revolution, the civil war, the epidemics, and the famine. It affected me very deeply, but I suppose her stories were colored by her hate of the communists, and I suppose, too, that I was influenced by her hate, though I don’t know if that was her purpose.”
Hollis made no comment.
Lisa continued, “But she taught me love, too, love of old Russia, the people, the language, the Orthodox church….” Lisa stared off into space for a few seconds, then continued, “In my grandmother’s room there were three beautiful icons on the wall and a curio cabinet that held folk art and miniature portraits on porcelain of her family and of Nicholas and Alexandra. The atmosphere in our community, even as late as when I grew up, was vaguely anticommunist — anti-Bolshevik, I suppose you’d say. There is a Russian Orthodox church close by, and ironically the Soviet mission to the United Nations has an old estate that they use as a weekend retreat a few miles from the church. Sundays my grandmother and I would go to church, and sometimes we’d walk with the priests and the congregation to the gates of the Soviet estate and pray. Our Holy Saturday candlelight procession would always march past the Soviet place. Today we’d call that a demonstration. Then, we called it bringing light to the anti-Christs. So you see, Sam, Evelina Vasileva Putyatova had a deep and lasting influence on me. She died when I was away at college.”
Neither spoke for some time, then Lisa said, “I went to the University of Virginia and got my degree in Soviet studies. I took the Foreign Service Entrance Exam, went through the oral assessment, the background investigation, and was vetted for a top secret clearance. I placed high on the USIS list but had to wait a year for an appointment. I did my year of consular service in Medan, Indonesia. There were six of us in a run-down two-story house, and I couldn’t figure out what we were supposed to do to further American interests there. Mostly we drank beer and played cards. I almost went nuts. Then I got my first real USIS job at the American library in Madras, India, and spent two years there. Then I came back to Washington for a year of extra training and staff work with the USIS in D.C. Then off to East Berlin for two years, where I finally used my Russian. That was a good embassy — exciting, mysterious, spies all over the place, and a ten-minute car ride to the West. After Berlin, I finally got what I wanted. Moscow. And here I am. With another spy.”
“You like spies.”
“I’m a spy groupie.”
Hollis smiled.
She added, “I’ve never married and never been engaged. I’m turning twenty-nine next month.”
“Invite me to your office birthday party.”
“Sure will.”
He asked, “And your parents?”
“They both still live in that house in Sea Cliff. My father is a banker; my mother, a teacher. They can see the harbor from their porch, and in the summer they sit out there and watch the boats. It’s very lovely, and they’re very happy together. Maybe someday you can stop by.”