Shining my light way down into the crevasse, I could see a microphone hanging from a wire that was running from the pole. The lengths they’d gone to! My educated guess told me the microphone was hanging right behind the ambassador’s desk.
I sat on my behind, legs crossed, and took several deep breaths, the low ceiling reminding me once again that just days ago, Sergei had been bitching and moaning at me as I’d crawled around in the attic just above me. The real one!
I loosened my bow tie as sweat dripped from my nose. Part of me was terrified that I’d perhaps put myself in a trapped position. I couldn’t help but wonder if an NKVD spy was coming up the ladder behind me. Still, my desire to see more was driving me, and though both the ambassador and I had imagined such hidden devices, what I was witnessing sent chills up my spine. The extent to which Stalin had gone to embed this mansion with microphones, as if they were no different than mousetraps, was literally beyond comprehension. Spaso House was an infested spy complex. NKVD practically lived in these recently constructed spaces.
I crawled back to the vertical shaft and pointed the flashlight straight down. No one in sight. Are there more secret shafts on the other side of the house? Will this one disappear when the government decides to “remodel.” Are there hidden microphones in the garage, housekeeping facility, barn, or washhouse? All I knew was I couldn’t touch or remove a single device from this place. All I could do was return to the apartment, replace the ceiling tiles, return everything to its rightful position, place the keys back on Sergei’s belt, and rejoin Loretta, Bobby, and Dorene. But I couldn’t wait to tell the ambassador what I’d seen.
My dotting i’s and crossing t’s regarding what I’d seen at the Christmas Eve Party some four months earlier was interrupted when Bobby finally showed up at the office, just in time for us to make our way over to the Kremlin to meet with the Premier. We were stopped by at least ten different security guards on our way inside Corpus Number One, and when we finally arrived at his office on the second floor, he was sitting at a large desk made of thick, dark wood. He was wearing a brown suit.
The guard who was accompanying us motioned for us to remain still while Molotov finished writing something. It gave me a moment to scan the place. The entire office, with its high ceiling, was full of thick chairs and rugs and bookshelves. It had four windows that overlooked the courtyard. All of the walls were covered with dark, polished, wood paneling. It screamed of the old czarist times, as both the size and quality of the office was fit for a king. But in reality, the only king was encased in a frame behind Molotov’s desk, one Joseph Stalin.
“Your guests have arrived, Comrade Molotov,” the guard finally said.
“Good,” said Molotov, standing while the guard stayed posted inside the open doorway.
He nodded at us and opened his hand in the direction of the available red cushioned chairs in front of his desk. There were no handshakes. We sat and he followed.
“Thank you for meeting with us,” said Bobby, and I translated his words in Russian.
“It is my great pleasure,” said Molotov, expressionless, his squatty build and pudgy yet flat face like that of a certain breed of dog. Perhaps I was thinking of a Pug with eyeglasses and a mustache.
“Before we begin,” he said, “I would like to express something that brings me great pleasure, Comrade Ellington. Your interpreter is black. This is a very good thing. Our Great Stalin has invited… recruited… thousands of Americans to come work in the Soviet Union, or to study at either the University of Toilers or the International Lenin School, and we are happy that hundreds are black. It is a shame how your country treats these people.”
I translated to Bobby and he responded to Molotov with a simple, “I could not agree with you more, Comrade Molotov. I am not of that prejudiced ilk back home. I never have been.”
“The way your America treats its black people is a great symbol, as Lenin himself said, of what is wrong with capitalism. That is why blacks are coming here, many of them skilled laborers. And the whites, too! They can help with our industrialization process. We have no issue with admitting that we need America’s industrial technology.”
I translated, and Bobby said, “We look forward to building on the relationship we’ve only recently reestablished. President Roosevelt is sincere in his desire to open the channels of communication even more.”
“Do people get arrested in the United States?” asked Molotov.
“Of course,” said Bobby.
“And when you see them being arrested, how do you react?”
“I don’t react,” said Bobby. “I assume they’ve committed a crime and are being hauled off to jail for it.”
“Even if a group is arrested on the streets of New York City?” said Molotov.
Bobby waited for me and said, “Even then. I assume they’ve been involved in some type of illegal behavior.”
“So, then,” said Molotov, “why is it that so many foreign men and women seem to be confused when they see people being arrested here for committing crimes? It is no different than your country. People commit crimes… and they get arrested. Simple.”
“It’s eye-opening to look at it from that perspective,” said Bobby.
“Do you follow those arrested men and women back in America to the jails where they are being taken, or to the prisons thereafter?”
“No,” said Bobby.
“People don’t do that here, either. People don’t think seeing someone being arrested is odd. Countries have laws and police officers to enforce them. We are no different.”
“Absolutely,” said Bobby.
“I read in Pravda recently where an American writer named Richard Wright expressed his views on our society. He said, ‘Of all the developments of the Soviet Union, the way scores of backward peoples had been led to unity on a national scale was what had enthralled me.’ This Negro writer is one of your prized possessions. You must read what he said.”
Molotov began sifting through a stack of newspapers before handing me one. “Please, Comrade… what is your name?”
“Prescott Sweet.”
“Please, Comrade Sweet, read and translate this Richard Wright’s words for Comrade Ellington. Maybe he can share it with President Roosevelt so he can see that our government is not this evil machine that so many around the world are suggesting.”
“My pleasure,” I said, flipping the pages and finding the article. “Richard Wright goes on to say, ‘I read in awe how the Communists had sent phonetic experts into the vast regions of Russia to listen to the stammering dialects of people oppressed for centuries by the czars. I had—’”
“Let those words sink in, Comrade Ellington,” said Molotov, cutting me off. “They are important. Continue, Comrade Sweet.”
“He writes further, ‘I had made the first total emotional commitment of my life when I read how the phonetic experts had given these tongueless people a language, newspapers, institutions. I had read how these forgotten folk had been encouraged to keep their old cultures, to see in their ancient customs meaning and satisfactions as deep as those contained in supposedly superior ways of living. And I had exclaimed to myself how different this was from the way in which Negroes were sneered at in America.’”