us.”
“They’re killing Germans so as not to get killed by Germans,” said the admiral. “They’re not doing it for us.”
Pug said to Slote, “Look here, Leslie, if we’re going to plan for convoys to Murmansk and Archangel, and for possible joint operations, we’ve
“Russians are obsessed with secrecy,” Slote said. “Be persistent and patient.”
The cars, having made a wide circuit of streets around the Kremlin, were stopping at a tall gateway under a red stone tower topped by a star.
“That won’t ,help,” said the admiral. “I think these birds just haven’t gotten the green light from Mr. Big and until they do, no dice.”
At this stream of slang, the NKVD escort turned and squinted narrow Tartar eyes at the admiral, before saying to Slote in Russian, with a polite smile, that they would stay in the car on passing through the gate. The limousines, checked one at a time by big, fierce-looking, gun-bearing sentries in faultless uniform, drove into the citadel, stopped at an inner gate for another check, then passed among bizarre old churches to a long building with a majestic stone facade.
The visitors, with Russian officers mingling among them, left the cars, mounted the steps, and stood talking outside the great closed doors, their breaths smoking in the chilly air. A light blue sky, puffy with pink sunset clouds, arched from wall to wall of the fortress. Suddenly the palace doors opened, and the foreigners were blinking at dazzling light from globed chandeliers in a very long high-ceilinged hall, ending in a cascade of vermilion carpet on a far-off white marble staircase. As they walked in, warm air enveloped them, a novelty in Moscow, where all building heat had been forbidden until mid-October. Inside, a musty smell of old stone walls and old furnishings was mixed with an almost flowery odor. White-gloved attendants in military livery helped the visitors off with their coats and hats. Along the mirrored walls, on dark tables, dozens of combs and brushes were neatly laid out.
“Thoughtful touch, this,” Victor Henry said to Slote, as they stood side by side, brushing their hair. “Say, what did the ambassador think of that stuff from Minsk? Did you get it to him?”
Slote nodded at Pug’s mirror image. “I wanted it to go to Secretary Hull, high priority. The ambassador quashed that. The stuff’s to be forwarded through channels to our east European desk.”
Pug wrinkled his nose. “That’ll be the end of it. Your department always drags its feet on the Jews. Better show the papers to some American newspaperman here.”
“The boss directly ordered me not to, in case it’s evaluated as fake atrocity propaganda.”
Young army officers, handsome clear-eyed giants in brown uniforms with scarlet collar tabs, appeared through side doors, and began shepherding the visitors toward the staircase. Walking beside Slote, Pug said, “Suppose I have Fred Fearing up for a drink, and he accidentally on purpose reads the material? A reporter will steal a scoop from his old blind grandmother, you know.”
“Are you suggesting that I disobey orders?”
“I don’t think that story should get buried.”
The admiral came and hooked elbows with them on the staircase, cackling, “Say, how’s this for socialist austerity? Can’t you just see ghosts of Czarist nobles and the beautiful ladies on this red carpet? This is right out of the movies.”
The company passed through a bleak modernist room full of desks with microphones, and the army officers explained that here the Supreme Soviet met. They straggled through one vast room after another, apparently unaltered since Czarist days, richly furnished in French or Italian or English styles, crammed with paintings and statuary, with no visible purpose except to overawe. The effect mounted of wasteful magnificence displayed helter-skelter with a heavy hand. In one room grander and richer than the rest, pillared in marble, with a vaulted gilt ceiling and red damask-covered walls, the company of about eighty men halted. The chamber seemed not at all crowded by them.
Mirrored doors opened and a party of Russian civilians came in, wearing unpressed flopping trousers and ill- fitting double-breasted jackets. Slote at once recognized several faces that lined Lenin’s tomb at the May Day parades: Molotov, Kaganovitch, Suslov, Mikoyan.
“Look at those guys come on, will you?” Victor Henry said. “They make you feel like the revolution happened last week.”
Slote gave him a quick glance. The apparition of these inelegant Communist bosses in the gorgeous Grand Palace had jarred him too, and the Navy man had crystallized this feeling in one sentence. Henry was sizing up the approaching Communists through half-closed eyes, as though he were peering at a horizon.
“That’s the Politburo, Captain,” Slote said. “Very big cheeses.”
Henry nodded. “They don’t look like big cheeses, do they?”
“Well, it’s those terrible clothes,” Slote said.
Introductions began. Liveried waiters passed with trays of vodka in little tulip-shaped glasses and plates of pastry sticks. Slote ate a stick, for research purposes; it was far too sugary. A little man walked alone into the room, smoking a cigarette. No ceremony was made of it, nobody stopped conversing, but the grand state chamber and all the people in it polarized toward this man, for he was Stalin. It was a matter of side-glances, of shoulders and faces turned, of small moves in the crowd, of a rounding of eyes. So Leslie Slote saw for the first time in the flesh the man whose busts, photographs, statues, and paintings filled the Soviet Union like images of Christ in a Catholic land.
The Communist dictator, a surprisingly short man with a small paunch, moved through the room shaking hands and chatting. The subtle focus travelled with him like a spotlight. He came to the two American naval officers, put out his hand to the admiral, and said, “Stalyin.” He looked like his pictures, except that his pallid skin was very coarse and pitted, as though he had once had bad acne. His slanted eyes, thick back-swept grizzled hair, and arching moustache and eyebrows, gave him a genial leonine look. Unlike the other Communists, he wore a uniform of simple beige cloth superbly tailored, with sharply creased trousers tucked into soft gleaming brown boots.
Leslie Slote made introductions. Captain Henry said in slow Russian, with a bad American accent, “Sir, I will tell this story to my grandchildren.”
Raising a thick eyebrow, Stalin said in a low pleasant voice, “Yes? Do you have any?”
“Two boys.”
“And your children? Do you have sons?” The dictator appeared diverted by Victor Henry’s slow, carefully drilled, mechanical speech.
“I have two, Mr. Chairman. My older son flies for the Navy. My younger one is in a submarine.”
Stalin looked at Victor Henry through cigarette smoke with vague interest.
Pug said, “Forgive my poor Russian. I had Russian playmates once. But that was long ago.”
“Where did you have Russian playmates?”
“I was born near the Russian River, in California. Some of those early families still remain there.”
Stalin smiled a real smile, showing tobacco stained teeth. “Ah, yes, yes. Fort Ross. Not many people know that we Russians settled California before you did. Maybe it’s time we claimed California back.”
“They say your policy is to fight on one front at a time, Comrade Chairman -”
With a smiling grunt, Stalin said, “
“Now what the hell was all that about California, Pug?” The admiral had been listening with a baffled look. “By thunder, you’ve really picked up that lingo.”
Victor Henry recounted the chat, and the admiral laughed out loud. “By God, write down every word of that, Pug. You hear? I intend to put it in my report. One fighting front at a time! Well done.”
“I must compliment you,” Slote said. “You spoke with presence of mind, and he enjoyed it.”
“He puts you at your ease,” Pug said. “I knew I was murdering the grammar, but he never let on. Did you see his hands? Beautifully manicured.”
“Say, I didn’t notice that,” said the admiral. “How about that, Slote? Lots of us decadent capitalists don’t bother with manicures, but the Head Red does. Makes you stop and think, hey?”
Slote hadn’t noticed the manicure, and was vexed at having missed the detail.
Soon the large company was moving again, this time into a stupendous banquet hall of white marble, red
