Mia chuckled. “Funny, scientists would say the stars are proof God doesn’t exist. In any case, when you see this many, you can’t help but feel connected. Even the ancients gave them identities. Right up there is Orion, for example.” She pointed upward more or less in the right direction, gripping Alexia’s shoulder to keep her balance.

“You can identify the constellations?”

“Na, just showing off. Orion’s easy because of the three stars that make his belt. Then you can look for the stars that make his shoulders and feet.”

Alexia held her collar up under her chin. “I don’t see a man in the sky. I see—I don’t know—some great force, unfathomably vast and wholly indifferent, that has no face. There’s a majesty in that.”

“I know what you mean. It has no interest in comforting us, yet we are comforted. As by the sunrise.” Mia smiled, pleased to have produced such poetry from an alcohol-soaked brain.

The embassy car pulled up in front of them, and she tumbled into it. Once inside, she rambled on about the mysteries of the universe and the beauty of the human spirit. Alexia agreed in each case, seemingly amused.

When they reached the embassy, Mia realized that her Russian Christmas was over and in just a few minutes she would be alone.

“Will you guard me all the way to my room?” She snickered. “You know, so that I don’t do something anti-Soviet on the way.”

Alexia laughed softly. “All right, I’ll go, to protect the motherland from you until the very last moment.” The embassy guard admitted them both, and, gripping Mia’s arm, Alexia strode beside her up the stairs and along the corridor.

Mia fumbled for her key and opened the door to her room, then drew Alexia by the arm in with her, delaying separation. “A shame I have to leave tomorrow. A shame there’s a war. A shame you’ll be on the battlefield soon and I’ll never see you again. Here we’ve just met, and now… poof! Gone to fight for the motherland.”

“I’ll think of you while I’m fighting.” Alexia laughed and brushed Mia’s hair out of her face, her first intimate touch. “And if I survive the war, and you return to Russia, perhaps you can find me. I am Alexia Vassilievna Mazarova. My grandmother lives in Arkhangelsk, and the priest Father Zosima will know how to find her, if he, too, is still alive.”

“Those are a lot of ‘ifs,’ my dear Alexia. I don’t think I will ever be able to remember enough to follow that trail. But I will always remember this.”

She grasped Alexia’s head with both hands, and pausing just long enough to look into the startled gray eyes, she pressed her lips hard against Alexia’s mouth.

Alexia stood rigid in her grip but did not pull away, and the awkward kiss lasted scarcely more than a few seconds. Then Mia herself stepped back, realizing the magnitude of what she had done. Surely it was an offense: against diplomatic protocol, against the decorum of the United States Embassy, and against the innocent person of the guard herself.

It was the worst mistake she’d made since arriving in the Soviet Union.

“I… I’m sorry. It was the vodka and… well…”

Alexia’s face showed no expression at all. “Good night, Demetria Fyodorovna Kaminskaya,” she said, and let herself out.

* * *

The next morning Mia was awakened by a firm rap on the door. Struggling up to full consciousness, she called out, “What is it?”

A man’s voice sounded through the closed door. “Mr. Harriman requests your presence at breakfast.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll be down right away,” she stammered, noting that it was already ten o’clock. God, what a headache she had.

She dressed quickly, brushed her teeth to lose the foul taste in her mouth, combed her hair, and rushed down to the breakfast room. Harriman and Hopkins both sat over coffee cups, though only the ambassador looked alert. Hopkins slouched in his chair, his skin an odd gray color.

“How are you feeling, sir?” she asked, in spite of her own malaise. Someone from the kitchen set down a cup of coffee in front of her, and she warmed her hands on it before taking the first comforting swallow.

“Better, thank you,” Hopkins said, “but I don’t think I’ll be doing many more of Mr. Stalin’s dinners. What about you?”

“I held up pretty well, in spite of half a dozen more toasts. However, they forced me to tell a White House story.”

A shadow passed over his face, and Harriman set down his cup. “Good heavens, what?”

“I told them about the First Lady and the Marian Anderson concert at the Lincoln Memorial. I thought since several million Americans knew the story, it wouldn’t hurt if the Kremlin did, too. Did I overstep?”

Hopkins waved feebly. “No, not if that’s all you said. As long as you didn’t make Mr. Roosevelt seem weak.”

“Oh, I’d never do that.” She noticed a few triangles of cold toast on a rack near her cup and helped herself to one. “I’m aware of the delicate position we’re in. Which brings up the question, do we have all the documents we need for the investigation of the lost goods?”

“Yes, they’re packed, and I’ve given all the parties our assurances. I believe we’ve left them with a good impression. Don’t you think, Miss Kramer?”

Mia recalled her awkward molestation of a Kremlin guard.

“Uh, yes. I think so.”

Chapter Ten

Washington, DC, Winter 1944


Mia continued to plow through the documentation of deliveries via the Arctic and the Persian routes, trying to determine where the losses were occurring. Nothing stood out enough to account for the Russian complaint. Nonetheless, at Hopkins’s behest, she sent out orders for duplicate shipments of the small arms, clothing, fuel, and foodstuffs that had mysteriously disappeared.

A month passed, then another, rainy blustery days and nights in Washington, DC, and she tried to keep track of where the front line in the East was. The last news on the radio was that the Leningrad siege was lifted, which removed the vague guilt of knowing she had relatives there whom she could not help. A great battle still raged at Narva, in what was once Estonia, but that was far from Moscow, which Hitler’s troops would never see again.

And Alexia Vassilievna Mazarova? Was she still standing statuesque guard at the Kremlin? Or had she in fact transferred and was slogging through the snow and mud of the Eastern Front?

The Washington winter made Mia lethargic, and even the comings and goings of high-ranking military in the White House halls did nothing to excite her. Until one morning at the beginning of March, a light, ladylike rap came from the First Lady’s study. Mia called out “Come in!” and Mrs. Roosevelt entered. She wore a wool business suit and hat, and held small leather gloves in one hand.

“How have you been, dear?” she asked. “I’ve been on the lecture trail for the president and never seem to have any time these days. I’m afraid I’ve neglected you. I thought I’d catch you before I went out again.”

“How kind of you to say that, but I haven’t felt at all neglected.”

“I’m glad. But I confess, I’m here because I have a little request.”

“Anything you wish, Mrs. Roosevelt?” Mia said, pushing her papers aside.

The First Lady drew on one of the gloves. “You see, the president and I have invited someone to the White House, both as a good-will gesture and to increase public support for our entry into Europe.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“But we need someone who speaks Russian, and the president is loath to use his official interpreter.”

“I’ll be happy to help, but who is the guest?” Mia imagined one of the pasty men she’d met in Moscow and wondered if this one too would travel with a sausage and a pistol.

“Major Lyudmila Pavlichenko. A female sniper who has just received the Hero of the Soviet Union medal and whom the Kremlin is quite keen for the West to meet.”

“Oh, that sounds intriguing. When does she arrive?”

The First Lady clasped her hands, her gesture of satisfaction. “Tomorrow afternoon. I shall ask Mr. Hopkins to give you the day off to join the welcoming committee.”

* * *

According to the printed biography forwarded by the Soviet Press Department, Lyudmila Pavlichenko was twenty-five years old and already a major. A photo that had come with the press material showed a dark-haired woman with a simple, open face and slightly heavy brows, in a three-quarter pose. She held a rifle across her chest, of which only the scope and the bolt handle were visible. What stood out was her atrociously cut hair, for a large, straight tuft of it jutted out from under her field cap as if it had been blunt cut in a hurry with a bayonet.

When she arrived at the White House, President and Mrs. Roosevelt met her at the entrance while Mia acted as interpreter. After certain pleasantries, the Roosevelts invited their guest to luncheon along with the Russian ambassador and his wife, and while the group ate chicken à la king, Mia had a chance to study her.

She looked older than her years, though at certain angles she was attractive in a matronly sort of way. When she removed her enormous officer’s cap, she revealed a slightly tidier though still uninspired haircut, but her eyes seemed kind, and the fact that she had no feminine vanity was in its way appealing. Most importantly, she spoke intelligently, a welcome but unnecessary skill for a sniper. She was also adept at concealing what surely must have been shock at seeing the president of the United States in a wheelchair.

“You must be glad to get away from the battlefield,” Eleanor said, cutting her chicken into tiny pieces that needed only a few nibbles before they could be swallowed.

Pavlichenko ingested the big chunks with no reservation and wiped her mouth. “I hate to leave my colleagues in the struggle, but my visit here was also a military duty.”

“Where were you engaged for the most part?” Roosevelt asked.

“In the Crimea, defending Sebastopol,” she said with obvious pride.

The president frowned slightly with paternal concern. “Where you ever wounded? It seems so much more terrible for a young woman.”

Pavlichenko straightened slightly. “Twice, in fact. Shrapnel wounds from shells exploding close by. Sometimes the Fritzes would put up so much noise blasting away at me, it was a real concert. Bullets whistling over me and hitting all around me.” She swept her fork in imaginary trajectories past her head. “Wounded or not, all I could do was stay down and not move for three hours.”

“How dreadful for you,” Eleanor exclaimed, with polite horror.

The luncheon conversation continued in such fashion for an hour, and at its conclusion, the president announced, “Miss Kramer will take you on a brief tour around the White House. After that, the press will arrive for some photographs, and then at four, we’ll have a reception. Miss Kramer, would you also be so kind as to escort Major Pavlichenko to her hotel after the reception?”

“I’ll be happy to,” Mia replied, pleased to be away from her cubicle for a couple of hours.

While President and Mrs. Roosevelt returned to their duties, Mia guided the guest through the main staterooms, explaining what little she knew about their functions. As they strolled, Mia noted that Pavlichenko was slightly plump, as a woman would be who simply did not care about her appearance. Her indifference to style was also evident in the way she wore her uniform. The man’s tunic, amply decorated with medals, was cinched with a Sam Browne belt high over her rounded hips and directly under her breasts. She wore a skirt that hung in a formless column to mid-calf over leather boots.

“I understand you were in Moscow,” Pavlichenko said as they left the last of the staterooms.

“Yes, in January. Bitter cold, of course, but I got to see the Grand Kremlin Palace. I was tremendously impressed, as you can imagine.”

“Yes, it is impressive. But the tsars built their palaces on the blood and toil of the people.”

Their arrival at the press conference removed the need for Mia to reply to such cynicism. A butler stepped in front of them and opened the door to a room full of reporters. Camera bulbs flashed and shutters clicked as they entered and took seats behind a lectern.

Eleanor Roosevelt spoke first, lauding the courage and forbearance of the female Russian soldiers and the importance of the alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union in fighting for freedom.

“We have American women in all branches of our military service, I am pleased to say. WACs, WAVEs, air force service pilots called WASPs, and women serve even in the marines and coast guard. We can be proud of these, our sisters, wives, and daughters, but we cannot say, and I dearly hope we never have to say, that our women give their lives in the trenches.”