Kunavin brought us together in advance at that same ill-starred Moscow Hotel, where we discussed our plan of action, went over the history of our acquaintance, details of Alla’s biography, etc. Then I called up Maurice at the embassy and said that I’d like to invite him out for a picnic, especially since before she left for France Marie-Claire had asked me not to abandon her husband, to entertain him from time to time. Maurice agreed. I said that Larisa and another friend of mine were coming.
The night before, Kunavin and I went to the village of Kriukovo, within a forty-kilometer radius of Moscow, where the writer Georgii Briantsev and his wife Tonia had their dacha. [Foreigners were restricted to this 40km. radius.] In the past he had been a big man in the KGB and the Ministry of State Security; his wife had also worked for the KGB.
Someone at the Lubianka called Briantsev beforehand. He met us cordially and readily agreed to help. We revealed some of our cards to him and acquainted Tonia with what was going on. Kunavin’s assistants brought fresh food, drinks, and fruit right away. I made sure I remembered the directions, in order not to get lost the next day.
The day after, Lora, Alla, and I drove my new Volga up to the French Embassy. Guarding the Embassy were three militiamen, employees of the KGB First Sector who sullenly looked us over, even though they had been apprised of our coming, as usual. The Chevrolet sat near the entrance, with Boris behind the wheel. De Jean came out exactly at the pre-arranged time. I offered him a ride in my new Volga, but he preferred his Chevrolet. Then we decided that Lora would go with him, and she got into his car. We set off. Later Boris
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said that De Jean got a little nervous when he noticed we were approaching the 40-kilometer mark, since diplomats were forbidden to cross it, but it was then that we turned off onto a side road and soon reached our destination.
We left our cars in the clearing and walked to Briantsev’s dacha, which was about 300 meters away. We went in pairs. Maurice was with Lora, and I was with Alla. I was already pretending that Alla was my girl, since I saw whom Maurice clearly preferred.
At Briantsev’s well-appointed, comfortable dacha, we had dinner, and drank quite a bit. Briantsev, a short, stocky man with sharply defined features, a little crude in conversation, delivered several completely obscene jokes. But Maurice wasn’t embarrassed in the least.
After a short walk and a game of catch, we left for Moscow while it was still light. (Maurice, of course, invited the Briantsevs to visit him, but they never took him up on his offer.) We said good-bye at the center of town. I took Alla home, and Maurice took Lora home.
Home?
Yes, since by that time an apartment had been set up for her in building #2/4 on Ananiev Lane. Her apartment was on the first floor, and next to it on the same level, and with an entrance on the same landing, was a different KGB apartment—the same arrangement as on the Arbat. This system of paired apartments was intended for special operations.
The furnishings in the apartment prepared for Lora were okay—not luxurious, but not cheap, of course. The fact of the matter is that, according to the cover story, Lora’s husband was a geologist, who spent most of the year on faraway expeditions. Could Maurice check up on this? No. And why would he want to check up on something that was so convenient, from his standpoint? Lora had no children (both in real life and according to the cover story), nor did she have any relatives. She lived all alone, poor soul.
And so, Maurice took Lora to Ananiev Lane. She, like Lida Khovanskaia before her, asked the ambassador in for a cup of coffee, and also to see how a common Soviet movie star lived. (Alas, not at all the way Brigitte Bardot lives.) Maurice agreed. In these cases he was amazingly amenable. The ambassador did not spend a long time there. The driver waited in the car for half an hour. And during that time nothing happened between Lora and De Jean.
A few days later, Maurice invited us over for breakfast. Everything was orderly and elegant. Breakfast was served in the reception hall, in the right corner near the window. For an hour-and-a-half we lived among antique tapestries and furniture worthy of a museum.
Later there came another invitation to the Briantsevs’ —not to Kriukovo, but to their Moscow apartment, which was in the Writers Building, on Cher-niakhovskii Street. De Jean accepted the invitation at first, but the next day I
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received a call at home from his interpreter, who asked to move the date of the meeting. Oh, what a fright the call from the French ambassador caused in my communal apartment! I wasn’t at home. When I returned, my neighbor, Valentina Zevakina, told me with wide-open and clearly frightened eyes that I had received a call from the French Embassy, from the ambassador himself, and that they had requested that I call the embassy immediately.
The second meeting at the Briantsevs’, officially a dinner, was only an intermediary step necessary to put Lora and Maurice on a more intimate footing, to bring them closer together smoothly and naturally.
When we left the Briantsevs’ and said good-bye, Maurice got into his car and left alone. Alla set out on foot, since she lived quite close. Lora jumped into my Volga, and ordered me to rush at top speed to Ananiev Lane. On the way Lora told me that De Jean would be visiting her in an hour, and that they had arranged this inconspicuously at dinner (this was what these dinners were for!), and that she didn’t know what to do, since this hadn’t been pre-arranged with Kunavin. When we arrived at the apartment on Ananiev Lane, we called every KGB number we knew: Kunavin, Vera Ivanovna, Melkumov, and even Gribanov himself—that is, his office. Imagine, dear reader, none answered their telephones, or the secretaries didn’t know where their bosses were. This happens sometimes, even in the KGB.
We were forced to make an independent decision, which, of course, is not recommended in KGB practice.
Lora said, “To be or not to be?”
I said, “Almost Hamlet.”
She said, “It’s funny. This is the first time in my life when it depends not on myself, but on the KGB.”
I said, “Babe, you gotta fall.”
And Carthage fell.
The affair between Lora and Maurice continued afterwards. She got ahead of General Gribanov’s schedule. He had to rework everything on the fly. It was obvious that Lora had captivated the ambassador; he was taken with her. And to be snared by her . . .
Getting ready for the dénouement, Gribanov ordered her to hold off. De Jean would call Lora at home, but she wouldn’t answer. And the meetings with Kho-vanskaia had also ceased. The poor ambassador remained without a woman’s attentions. They had barely given him a taste, and all of a sudden—well, there you go. But the predatory wolf from the KGB knew his business. He had planned precisely, taking into account even such factors as physiology.
During this short interlude, the necessary organizational tasks were completed. The first thing Gribanov did was to call Kunavin back from a vacation that had started several days beforehand. From Kazan he summoned Misha,