FRIEND AND A MENTOR

My room in our tiny cottage was obviously similarly small.

As such it concerned me - something that you really cannot train for - that when I awoke, I did not notice that Elizabeth had been standing in the open doorway, arms crossed, looking at me.

"You're Mischa, from Tobolsk, aren't you?" she said noting that I was now clearing my eyes.

I still had presence of mind to correct her, "Elizabeth, that is a major security breach. We have to stop that, right now."

"I'm not Elizabeth," she said softly. I pulled myself up on to an elbow, and just faced the silence. She was right. She was not the Elizabeth that I had wanted, that's for sure.

Eventually she broke through what was separating us. She announced, "I'm Nadezhda, from Smolensk, a hero city of the Soviet Union. The collective action of our comrades there - that won The Great Patriotic War for our Union." She stopped, then continued, "since then it has just been me and my mother."

After having warned her about her breach - to this day perhaps the only one I'd ever observed in the woman, I said, "Elizabeth, we're due out on the course in 90 minutes. If you need to talk plainly for a minute, just take this time to get it out of your system." I then said, practising American sarcasm, "then we can get back to standard operating procedure, a system of rules designed to bring us home alive in 5 years."

Maintaining her silent voice, she continued, "you weren't my first, Mischa."

"Don't call me that, Elizabeth!" I quietly urged with some frustration. Then I wondered, 'I'm not her first? That's a laugh! We've not done anything, and we're married!'

"Can I tell you who was my first?" she continued.

"Sure, but when we leave for the course, all this stops, okay?"

Her face turned to stone, but her voice remained low. "Emmett was."

'Okay', I thought. Her first 'what'!? Instead, I said, "okay, you should probably leave it at that, but I sense you're telling me this for a reason."

She continued not making eye-contact, talking to the space directly in front of her. She said, "Emmett had been recruited by comrade-trainer Nikolai Timoshev. I'd first been paired with him. I refused."

I'd always known how Emmett had got here. How could anyone not, what with his bragging. Emmett had always lorded it over the rest of us that one of the best known trainers in the Directorate S program was a friend and mentor of his. None of us knew the reasons why, but Timoshev was eventually transferred out to another KGB Directorate. We, none of us were on a 'need to know' basis on those sorts of senior intrigues - unless General Zhukov chose to do it.

It had been Timoshev to whom Emmett had referred, when Emmett accused me of not being 'Russian enough'. I never knew when he was either kidding or joking, but he'd said, 'I don't know if I should report you, Philip. You, you are actually the most 'American' of us all. You treat your women too well. They won't respect you if you treat them with kid gloves…'

Maybe it was my training, but women just did not need to be treated like Russian men treat them.

"Emmett and I shared a cottage," she continued. "Like with you, we kept to ourselves. We didn't particularly mesh as a team in the other parts of the training either. I used that as an excuse to get rid of him."

She paused, then continued, "I guess no one has ever told you, Mischa. The week you arrived, I told the General Comrade that I could not continue with Emmett, that I'd rather myself be transferred out of the program."

So, Elizabeth's dedication to the Directorate S illegals program was not total, it had limits. That was a first. She paused, then made the first eye-contact of the early morning, now that I was wide awake.

"When we, you and me, were paired, Mischa," she continued, still flaunting procedure, "I told the General Comrade that I'd give you a week. Do you know what? You had two things going for you. One was that you'd back then, had never heard of either Timoshev or Emmett. Second was that first day out on the course. Everyone could see it. You and me, we worked as a team. Both you and me, Mischa, we were remarkable. It was then that I knew I could fulfill my commitment to The Party."

"Look, Elizabeth. I'm 'Philip' from now on, okay!? Both those men are out of your hair," I said trying out still another Americanism. "There's little possibility we'll even run into Emmett and Leanne when we get posted."

Turning to leave and ready herself, she said, "Emmett is a pig, but he's a good agent, that's what counts."

I thought, 'and Timoshev?' I was to wait almost two decades before I got any inkling what that was about.

When Elizabeth and I did the course later that morning, we finished with perfect marks, finishing a good 30 minutes before any of the other teams. Back at the cottage for dinner, she simply disappeared to her tiny enclave for the night.

She was never to call me 'Mischa' again.

ONLY DUTY AND HONOUR

Of all the dreams I'd had about Irina, the 'duty and honour' one was the most frequent.

I'd told her that I'd only be away at 'the academy' for a year, and that turned out not to be true. It was longer, but more to the point permanent. There was no going back. I was not to know it at the time, but we were both subsequently trained for Directorate S work, she'd ended up in Montreal.

Both of us had been promised 5-years before being exfiltrated back home. That was always part of the dream, that by 1970 we would be returned to a modern Russia - a cosmopolitan Moscow, and our 'duty' would have been 'honoured'. And I'd be with her.

In the dream, I'd never known about her marriage, nor her son. In the dream, we never had sex. We talked until all hours, about our visions for the future. I guess that's why Emmett never considered me to be a Russian, not really. A naked Irina and me, lying in bed. Talking. About things.

As it was, the dream would end with her saying that the two of us were poor candidates for work in the West. That the West would change us. That as her training tuned her eye to such things, she could see that I was the most 'American' of them all.

Which, so the dream went, was what she loved about me. It was in the dream that she first propositioned me - that both of us disappear, but in the West where we could 'be ourselves' and raise our family… which, she seemed convinced that we already had.

When I had this dream in training, I'd sometimes refer to her as 'Elizabeth'. When I would wake, it would always be 'Nadezhda' who was Elizabeth. It was strange, even in the dream, Irina and I would refer to each other by our Russian names.

And then we'd correct ourselves. She'd call me Philip, even though she'd never known me as that.

But with Irina, no physical intimacy in the dreams. The 'intimacy training' leading up to our deployment in 1965, I think that that ruined me as a Russian. I was only then somewhat aware of what Directorate S work would do to me.

As I was later to say, 'most days, I feel like shit'. All for the sake of duty and honour.

THE LETTER

We'd finally got our infiltration date. It was to be next year, in 1965. We also got our destination. Washington, D.C. Initially we were to live in the city, but it would then be up to us to position ourselves near to NASA facilities in the U.S. Capital region - either in nearby Virginia or otherwise as necessary.

What had delayed us until that year?

Twofold. Two things, both emanating from Elizabeth.

First, it had been a note from Emmett and Leanne, themselves in southern Virginia, right by the North Carolina border.

I knew nothing about the mechanics of them getting their correspondence through from the West. That seemed risky - it most certainly had not come via shortwave radio, coded from them. You could just tell.

(One last Americanism.) It took a while for me to 'cotton on' about it, but it was the first I'd seen Elizabeth let something get to her. Really get to her, I mean. That letter got to her to the point where she skipped the next training day. That was a first. No matter her moods which I had witnessed in the cottage - she had never, not once missed out on where she had excelled - her training.

The news from the West?

Leanne was pregnant, Emmett was going to be a dad.

Had they thought that through?

General Zhukov and the Directorate S leadership, they had never, not once, broached the obvious 'operational challenges' that parenthood would bring. The only thing I could think of was that their offspring would still be young enough to acclimatize back to the Soviet Union, once their 5-year tour was concluded.

Elizabeth? She became despondent. Indeed, General Zhukov himself was the first to notice her absence that day. He asked me about it, and I was truthful - I had no idea.

The Comrade General then sighed, said, "I knew it was a mistake to expose you to an operational letter. Live and learn." He then put his hand on my shoulder, "for what it's worth, these things might happen in the field, things that mean you'll be on your own. So, complete today's work. It is what it is."

For the first time in a long time, I finished my solo efforts in the bottom third of the class.

THE STRIKE

Second, it had been a delegation of female comrades who had withdrawn from a days' training - they had gone 'on strike' until they could get an audience with General Zhukov. On a matter that they would not discuss with us men. On a matter that some claimed had already been 'solved'. Apparently, it hadn't. On a matter that they'd said that none other than cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova had inspired in them.

One night in our cottage, a rare night when Elizabeth had not retired early to her room, I asked her if she was part of it - she did not seem to be, because she had been one of the few women to continue the training uninterrupted.

At my questioning, she froze. Elizabeth Korman, perhaps the top candidate within the Directorate S illegals program - she froze solid. (Operationally, I took note. One needed to know the things which paralyzed one's team member. One's life in the field would depend on it.)

(Me, I never did freeze. On the 'freeze, fold, or flee department', I did something else. I let it eat at me.)

But the strike.

The women eventually did return to training. There was only one female comrade who would talk about it, to me at least. All she would say was to relate how Tereshkova had made it into space, the only woman ever to fly solo in orbit - Russian or American. My comrade related Tereshkova's story of having had to take on the space program's version of 'the old boys network'. She said, "you don't just transfer your problems. To respect women comrades, you deal with the problem."

My comrade then related with a smile, "Tereshkova even made the concession to pee on the rock, that Yuri Gagarin had pee'd on, on the way to the launchpad. She proved she could do anything the men could do."

But the strike, it wasn't about that, not specifically. In Directorate S illegals work, the need for women was obvious.

She said that their strike was averted by General Zhukov himself - he'd promised to personally deal with even senior trainers, those who had 'disrespected' the women trainees.

There were no names. There was no definition of how 'women had been disrespected'.

But this was something that Elizabeth did not wish to talk about. Certainly not with me. From my view, not even with the other women.

THE MISSUS

As our departure date approached, we heard a knock on our cottage door. Opening it, I almost fell over - standing there by himself was Comrade General Zhukov.

"Philip," he said, rescuing me when my own voice had gone silent. "I'm actually here for a word with Elizabeth. I'm going to need you to head to the canteen - it is open late tonight."

Without hesitation, I put on my boots and coat.

As I was leaving, the Comrade General said, "by the way, Philip, from now on, your Elizabeth has a new name, an American name."

He must have seen the look of confusion on my face.

"When I come for you at the canteen, Philip, and you return here, Elizabeth Korman will be gone…. you'll meet for the first time, Mrs. Elizabeth Jennings." He then told me I had to go. That he wouldn't be long.

He then said, "I need to apologize to Nadezhda."