After his couple of visits to the incompetent doctor, I was finding it heartwrenching to have to begin telling James, “Try not to show your sickness, son, because if they suspect that you’ve developed something chronic, God knows what they might do. Close your mouth, grit your teeth, and cough into the back of your throat and the air will expel through your nose. If you feel dizzy, get on your knees and at least act like you’re hammering nails into the floor or lower wall. But always remain looking busy. You can cough freely once we get into our bunks tonight.”
It was on this last Sunday of August 1938 that I looked at my son convulsing, struggling to hold his cough while helping me frame a wall, that I knew I had to do the impossible and get us out of here. I knew it was a long shot, but I was forced to broach a specific topic with Koskinen during our meeting.
“I need to ask you a very important question, Commander Koskinen,” I said about halfway through our conversation in his office.
“The answer is yes, Comrade Sweet,” he said. “They are going to execute me before year’s end.”
My face must have looked confused to him. “Say again, Commander!”
“I make a joke,” he said, not smiling, but lighting his cigar. “Ask me.”
“I want to spy for Stalin in exchange for my family’s release.” He slowly took a puff and leaned back in his chair, a look of deep thought on his face as he blew smoke, for he knew of my serious nature and was already preparing to hear something that would both intrigue and surprise him. I eyed his favorite book, which was lying on his desk, The Communist Manifesto. What he didn’t know was that at this very second, I had put the final period on my personal manifesto. I wasn’t about to make some public declaration to Koskinen or anyone else, but I’d written this in my mind:
I declare, from this moment forward, that I will do any and everything required to get my family out of Stalin’s abattoir, even with the resolute knowledge that I could very well die in the process. I say today, To hell with Communism, Capitalism, or any other ‘ism’! I say To hell with concerning myself with global society, the various races therein—black, white, brown, red, yellow—for I must be wholly selfish in my thinking now. I declare, right here in this Commander Koskinen’s office, that I will outmaneuver Stalin and his complicit comrades at every turn. I will summon and utilize every resource within my being to save my family, and I don’t care if it is God or the devil who helps me do it.
“Proceed,” said Koskinen.
“Based on the last letter I received in Moscow from my diplomat friend, Bobby Ellington, months before I was arrested, I believe he will be leaving his post in Argentina by this December.”
“Why is that significant?”
“Because,” I said, “his post will be in Berlin. We both know all too well how significant Germany is in the mind of Stalin. And, you see, I was afraid to mention something to you before. I had only been teaching at the Anglo-American School in Moscow for a little over a year when I was arrested. Before that, I had been Bobby’s interpreter and assistant for about four years, two of those at the embassy in Haiti, the other two, at the embassy in Moscow.”
Koskinen put his cigar out in the ashtray and sat up straight. His intrigue was obvious. Perhaps because he wanted to be the man who got credit for suggesting such an idea to Stalin, as it might be just the kind of offering that would put him on the dictator’s “Good List,” even though he claimed a Trotskyist takeover was on the horizon. Or, maybe he just wanted to do this because he actually thought it might help me. Either reason suited me.
“But you worked for this Ellington,” said Koskinen. “Therefore, you are loyal to him.”
“No! He is a friend, but I would cut his throat to save my family.”
Koskinen squinted at me a bit and began pinching his chin with his right thumb and index finger. “Cut his throat you say! You would?”
“Yes,” I firmly said, lying through my teeth. “He is loyal to America, and I am loyal to my family. And, as I previously said, I was stunned to have been arrested in a country I love more than the United States. If my family and I were to be released, them before the mission commences and me upon its conclusion, we could easily forgive the arrests and remain loyal expatriates, completely at ease with living out the remainder of our lives in Russia.”
“Stalin would never agree to release your family prior to any spy mission having been completed. I know nothing of this sort of thing, but I can guess. Your family would be leverage. They’d have to remain imprisoned until you’d gathered any type of intelligence at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, intelligence that one hundred percent fulfilled Stalin’s appetite. And even then, he might kill you all. He might tell you, ‘Mission complete. Come back to the Soviet Union and join your just-released family.’ But when you arrive… bang, bang, bang, bang! A bullet to each of your heads from one of his most trusted NKVD men.”
“Then I’ll take on the assignment while they remain imprisoned,” I said. “All I ask is that the assignment has a specified time length, one that would assure all of our releases in no more than one year. Otherwise Stalin must certainly know they will die in here if kept much longer than that. I can gather plenty of intelligence in twelve months.”
“Do you speak German?” he said, busily writing everything I said now.
“Ja! I speak German, Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, and, of course, English.”
He looked up from his pen with slight surprise. Then he continued writing, as if preparing a report he’d later type, one that listed the details of my history, the proposed mission, etcetera. It was like he knew such a suggestion of espionage would not fall upon deaf ears. I was reminded of just how seemingly orgasmic this whole spy business was to them.
He stopped writing and leaned back, lost in thought for a while. After about a minute passed, I wondered if he’d decided not to consider my proposal, perhaps realizing that taking such a risk could cost him his life.
“Your ability to speak Spanish could be good for us both,” he finally said, leaning forward. “I will help you under one condition. And it involves testing your… how do you say in America… your character. You see, I can’t make you do what I’m about to ask, but you can give me your word. Can you give me that, comrade?”
“Of course,” I said. “I am going to die in here like the others; my family as well. I’ll promise you anything.”
“Assuming you are magically able to get out of Russia, you are going to need a job, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, watching him take a small slip of paper and jot something down.
“You’re going to memorize this name and address because you can’t walk around with this paper. Go to this place and see this man.” He handed the slip to me and continued. “He is part of the Trotskyist movement. Tell him I sent you and that you speak Spanish and Russian. Then tell him why you hate Stalin. Because of your color, zek background, and rare language ability, he may have a good job for you, or he may not. But find out, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, handing the paper back to him.
“Is it stuck already?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got it memorized.”
“I have your word that you will go see this man if you get out?”
“You have my word,” I said, meaning it to my core.
“Then it is between you and your God now. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“I will send this letter I’m writing about you to the proper man at the Kremlin,” he said, pen scribbling again. “It will likely be relayed to Stalin. But the next phase, assuming it’s not him ordering all of you immediately executed, will likely be a serious interrogation of you from some top NKVD men, along with them having you, in some way, confirm that your friend is indeed posted in Berlin and is willing to hire you. Are you sure you want me to send this?”