“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.
They got married that day. With determination in their eyes, they kissed and parted. John returned to the Embassy and told his superiors of his marriage to Galina. They were thunderstruck with John and Galina’s plan. They were appalled at the illegal action the couple had taken. John’s superiors were naturally concerned that this Russian woman was working for the USSR Secret Service—the KGB. The only logical thing to do was sever ties immediately. Biconish was put under house arrest, threatened with court marshal and immediately sent back to the United States. The young man’s short military career ended at that moment.
Galina tried to call him, but nobody answered the phone. She had just gotten married, John was gone, and facing this third disappointment in her young life, she felt like a widow. Her dream to go to America slipped away. She started to think she would not survive the disappointment, never see the free world, never breathe free. Galina never saw John again.
The next day, Andrei met a defeated Galina outside the doors of her apartment house.
“I cannot believe you did that without our permission. Did you forget that you just started to work for the internal secret service? You accepted the job, didn’t you?” He was extremely angry at her and confused by his desire to protect her, yet he did not wish to jeopardize his hope for promotion in the organization.
Galina began to show her frustration. She countered in a demanding voice, “What happened to John?”
Her tone puzzled Andrei. To his own surprise, his voice started to be softer. “He was sent home.” With anger returning to his voice he continued, “All because of you. The Americans were probably suspicious of you. What do we have now? We lost a valuable person of interest. You could be sentenced to life in prison. You’re supposed to be sent to some Siberian concentration camp. But you’re lucky, and you know why? You’re a beautiful girl and we need you. To bring a new girl to American House isn’t very smart now. Everybody there knows about your situation, they’ll feel sorry for you. You’ll go there as usual, be a little bit sad, play the role of the abandoned wife. He betrayed you; you didn’t betray him. There are still a couple of guys there who are of great interest to us. We’ll show them to you. It will be your new task to get acquainted with one of them, carry things further, and then we’ll see what will happen. I’ll see you tomorrow and show you a picture of an American we really want working for us.”
Galina was caught. The secret service was already angry but thankfully, they didn’t suspect that she wanted to leave the country. “If they knew that,” she thought, “I would be already dead.”
This was a turning point in Galina’s life that changed everything in her little world. She understood that the only way for her to survive would be to be obedient