— I want to introduce you all to a friend of mine. She’s a young student from the Soviet Union!
He was forced to raise his voice as the audience roared, some in approval, some in disgust. The audience were scandalized, unable to believe the scene before them. Elena couldn’t help but laugh. Austin lifted her hand, still gripping the flag, into the air.
— We could not be from more different backgrounds. Yet we are united in our desire for equality. We were born on different continents yet we believe n the same things! Fairness! Justice!
Cameras continued to flash. Elena was euphoric with her success. The moment was everything she’d hoped for.
The deafening noise brought Jesse Austin and the entire crowd to silence, a noise like a clap of thunder, so loud and sudden it was as if the entire island of Manhattan had split in two. The crate shook. Vibrations travelled through her leg. Stunned silence remained after the sound stopped and this was as shocking and strange as sunlight breaking through the night sky. The silence lasted no longer than a second, replaced by a painful ringing that seemed to grow louder and louder until her ears hurt. She smelt smoke. She smelt metal. Some of the demonstrators were standing dumbstruck, motionless and frozen. Others had their mouths wide open. Elena slowly lowered her arms – the Soviet flag was gone, it lay on the sidewalk, spread out like a picnic blanket. Austin was standing beside her with one hand on his chest as though the national anthem were playing. He moved nearer to Elena, closer, leaning into her, about to whisper some secret. But he didn’t say a word, falling, knocking into her, toppling like a tree, a giant ancient oak. They both fell to the sidewalk, pushed in different directions. Austin clattered into the steel barriers, while Elena fell into the protestors, her head against someone’s chest, grabbing on to clothes to slow her descent, before hitting the sidewalk.
Elena lay among the demonstrators’ feet, kicked as panic took hold and the crowd stampeded. She wrapped her arms around her head and watched through the feet and legs as Mrs Austin dropped to her husband. The crowd broke free of the confines, pouring onto the street, smashing down more of the barricades. A handmade banner landed on the ground near her. She stood up, only to be kicked down to her knees. She tried again, her ears still ringing, managed to get to her feet. From the opposite direction the police marched forward, batons raised, protestors smashing into them.
Elena limped forward before falling beside Jesse. His white shirt had turned red, the colour spreading at speed, conquering every visible patch of white. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard Mrs Austin cry out:
— Help us!
The police were forming a circle around the scene of the crime. Only a few demonstrators remained.
Someone took hold of Elena’s face, looking into her eyes.
— Elena! Are you hurt?
The woman was speaking Russian.
*
Checking her daughter, Raisa couldn’t see blood on Elena’s shirt or see any sign of injury. She pulled off the red coat she was wearing, a coat Raisa had never seen before. There was something heavy in the pocket. She reached in, taking hold of a cold metal handle. It was a gun.
She knew immediately, and without any doubt, that this was the gun that had shot Jesse Austin.
Manhattan
Bellevue Hospital Center
462 1st Avenue
Same Day
Clutching the sides of the sink, Anna was certain that if she let go she’d fall to the floor. Each breath was snatched, not a natural rhythm, but ripped from the air, as she repeated the six words, unable to recone that they were true.
Jesse is dead.
I am alive.
Tentatively lifting her right hand from the sink, she reached out and turned the tap, running cold water. She cupped her palm under the water – filling it and raising it to her face, water leaking through her fingers. By the time it reached her face her palm was empty save for a few cold drops that she pressed against her forehead. They ran down her face, collecting in her eyes, like tears, had she been able to cry.
She tried speaking the words aloud, wondering if that would make them real to her.
— Jesse is dead. I am alive.
It was impossible to imagine her life without him, impossible to imagine waking up tomorrow without him beside her, going to work and coming home to their empty apartment. They had survived adversities together and enjoyed success together. They’d travelled the entire country together and shared a cramped space in Harlem. No matter what they’d done, they’d done it together.
It had taken the authorities nearly fifty years but finally they’d got him. There might not have been a length of rope tied around his neck, they might not have killed in him on the edge of a forest, and though the killers couldn’t show their faces and proudly pat each other on the back, make no mistake, it was a lynching just the same, complete with photographs and audience. She would not cry, not yet. She would not mourn his death as a widow weeping by his graveside. Jesse had taught her better than that. Jesse deserved better than that.
Feeling her body come under some semblance of control, she straightened up, shutting off the cold water. She walked to the door of the restroom, opened it. In the corridor, in the distance, she saw the police officers waiting to interview her. She turned in the opposite direction, knowing exactly what she had to do.
Manhattan
17th Police Precinct
167 East 51st Street
Same Day
Raisa had foreseen the danger, spoken to Leo, heard his confirmation that the danger was real and then wished the threat away. For many years she’d trusted in nothing, doubted every promise, and presumed that all interactions were based around self-interest and deceit. It had proved an exhausting, corrosive existence but it had worked – she’d survived while the regime had murdered many thousands. However, it was not a state of mind, nor a way of life, that she’d wanted for her daughters. She’d not taught them to lie when asked their name by a stranger. She’d not drilled into them the need for caution and suspicion as a matter of routine. She’d not wanted them to second-guess every display of affection and interrogate every friendship. In so doing she’d failed as a mother and she’d failed as a teacher. Just because Leo had left his past behind did not mean those dark forces no longer existed. He’d changed. But she’d been wrong to believe that the world had changed too.
Watched over by a female police officer, Raisa refused to sit down, standing in the corner of the cell, her back against the wall, her arms crossed. She’d been given no news of Elena. They’d been taken into custody in separate cars, pulled apart in the chaotic aftermath of the murder. In the few seconds that Raisa had been able to hold her daughter, Elena had been a little girl again, the girl she’d adopted twelve years ago – lost and confused and seeking protection from a world she didn’t understand. She’d buried her face in Raisa’s shoulder, hands wet with Jesse Austin’s blood, and wept like a child. Raisa had wanted to say everything was going to be OK but it wasn’t, not this time, and she couldn’t manage even a comforting lie, too stunned at events to tell Elena that she loved her. It would be the first thing she said the moment they next met, even if it was for a second. Raisa didn’t know the details of the plot Elena had become embroiled in. Whatever it was, she could only have been seduced by the promise of a better world. With her quiet optimism, she was like Leo, a dreamer who’d ended up with blood on his hands. Raisa’s heart broke to think that her idealistic young girl would never be the same, no matter what she was told, or how she was reassured. Leo would help her. He had gone through the same process – he would know what to say. They just needed to get home.
The door opened and the agent from the hotel, Yates, stepped into the room. For a man who’d presided over a security disaster, he seemed peculiarly satisfied. There could only be one interpretation: he was involved somehow. An older woman stood beside him – she was not in uniform. She spoke first, in perfect Russian.
— You’re to come wit
h us.
— Where is my daughter?
The woman translated to Yates. He said:
— She’s being questioned.
Raisa followed them out, saying in Russian:
— My daughter did not kill anyone.
The woman translated and Yates listened but offered no response, leading them into the main office – an open space with desks and chairs, and many people, mostly police officers, phones ringing, people shouting over each other, pushing past each other.
— Where am I being taken?
After hearing the translation, Yates said:
— You’re being moved.
— Is my daughter also being moved?
To this question she received no reply. Yates was busy talking to another man.
Waiting, disorientated and afraid, Raisa peered about the room, feeling dizzy. She was about to ask for a glass of water when, among the crowd, she glimpsed a woman – the only black woman in the room. She was wearing civilian clothes. There was a uniformed officer by her side. He was talking to her but she wasn’t paying him any attention. She was concentrated on them, staring towards them with startling intensity. Belatedly, Yates also saw the woman and reacted strongly, shouting orders. The uniformed officer grabbed the woman’s arm, trying to pull her away. She shook him free, raising her other arm. She was holding a gun.
Raisa had seen the woman before, by the body of Jesse Austin, screaming out to the sky for help when no help would come. She recognized love and pain in the woman’s expression, love turned to anger. As the gun flashed explosions of white light, she wished that the last thing she’dtold Elena was that she didn’t blame her for anything and that she loved her very much.
Harlem
Bradhurst
8th Avenue & West 139th Street
Nelson’s Restaurant
Next Day
None of the staff were working, none of the customers were eating, all were turned towards the radio, listening to the news broadcast. Nelson was standing, hand on the volume dial, turned up as loud as it could go. Several of the women were crying. Several of the men were crying. In contrast, the voice on the radio was clipped and without emotion.
— Last night the once-popular singer Jesse Austin was murdered, shot dead in public. The suspect is a Russian woman, a Communist, suspected of being his lover. A source inside the NYPD reports that the Russian woman told police officers after the murder that she shot Mr Austin because he failed to live up to his promise to marry her and rescue her from Soviet Russia. Mr Austin is already married. The tragic affair did not end there. Last night his wife, in revenge for the murder, took a gun and entered the police precinct, where she shot the Russian woman. After killing the suspect Mrs Austin turned the gun on herself . . .
Nelson picked the radio off the counter, pulling it from the power socket, raising it above his head. The customers watched. He reconsidered, put it down. After a moment, he addressed the room.
— Anyone want to listen to those lies, they can do it someplace else.
He walked into his office, returning with a large glass jar that he placed on the counter by the cash register.
— I’m setting up a collection. Not for the funeral, this isn’t a time for flowers and Jesse wouldn’t want them anyway. I’m going to hire someone to figure out who really murdered Jesse and Anna. We need lawyers. Private detectives. I can’t speak for you. But I need to know. I have to know.
He took out his wallet and emptied it into the jar.
By the end of the morning the jar was full, waitresses contributing their tips, customers donating too. As Nelson counted out the collection, noting it down in a ledger, he heard one of Jesse’s songs. He left his office to find his customers and waitresses standing by the window, looking out onto the street where the music was coming from. He crossed the restaurant, opened the door and stepped outside. A young man called William whose parents Nelson knew well was standing on top of a crate, singing one of Jesse’s songs. He didn’t have any music in his hands. He knew the words by heart.
People stopped in the street, gathering around the crate, forming an audience. Men held their hats in their hands. Children paused from their games and stood, listening, staring up at the young man.
I’m only a folk singer
And that’s enough for me
I’m only a folk singer
Dreaming one day we’ll all be free.
Regarding the audience, Nelson knew that with a little effort he could pull together a crowd of thousands – he could address the crowd himself, he had ply to say, maybe not with Jesse’s voice but he’d find his own. Remembering what Jesse used to answer when asked why he’d risked so much, Nelson finally understood. Running a restaurant, even a successful restaurant, just wasn’t enough.
ONE WEEK LATER
USSR
29 Kilometres North-West of Moscow
Sheremetyevo Airport
4 August 1965
Frol Panin watched the heavy rain across the empty runway. The weather had broken and brooding, angry clouds had replaced blue sky and a blazing sun. At the side of the runway the soil had cracked in the weeks of heat, grass turned yellow, so dry that the rain ran off the surface. As the weather deteriorated air-traffic control considered diverting the incoming flight. They were being overly cautious and Panin had pushed back against the idea. Extensive preparations for the passengers had been made. Unless there was an emergency, they would land here.
The returning students couldn’t know the extent to which the murder of Jesse Austin had become news in the Soviet Union and abroad. Internationally the story was a sensation. At home, a less hysterical and more measured approach had been taken, with Pravda casting doubt over the official version of events without actually stating them to be false. All the same, these young men and women needed careful briefing and help adjusting after the shock of the past few days. The airport was busy with KGB agents, psychologists and propaganda officers. Unlike the joyous departure ceremony, there were to be no celebrations for their return, no band, no colourful ribbons, no alcohol and only a very limited number of journalists. Family and friends had not been allowed to come despite their requests. The airport was sealed off.
At sixty-one years old Frol Panin’s hair had turned imperial silver-white, like a well-barbered wizard. His frame was trim. The lines in his face were less like wrinkles and more like victory notches, each carved after one of his many grand career triumphs. His most recent had been acquired after working closely with Chairman Brezhnev to oust the ageing and increasingly erratic Khrushchev. In the end it had proved a quiet accomplishment since Khrushchev had gone without a fight, depressed at his demotion. The former farmer had not lost his life but wisely retired into rural obscurity, an appropriate end since that had been his beginning. Panin was a political kingmaker, one of the most important men in the Kremlin. Even so, he was here, on a seemingly trivial errand, prepared to sit and wait for the return of a airliner and its passengers, becoming personally involved in an operation that he’d had no hand in, or awareness of. As he waited, he made a note to review all the protocols of SERVICE.A, an intelligence department he’d overlooked. Clearly their ability to provoke had been underestimated.
Agents and officials gravitated around him, providing information, answering requests and queries. Even air-traffic-control officers came to him, as though he had some sway with the clouds. His bodyguard and driver stood behind him occasionally asking if there was anything he needed and bringing fresh cups of tea as the plane became increasingly delayed. He was here for the sake of one man – Leo Demidov. They had worked together in the past and, feeling a curious sense of loyalty, perhaps it might even be termed affection – emotions he felt rarely – Panin had decided this par one mar task should fall upon him.
The sky was so dark and the rain so heavy Panin couldn’t see the airliner until it was a few hundred metres above the ground. The wings wobbled as it adjusted position. The landing was uneventful. He stood up as
it taxied to a standstill. His driver, a conscientious young man, was already holding an umbrella.
Standing under the umbrella, Panin surveyed the delegation as they disembarked. One of the first to step down was Mikael Ivanov, the propaganda officer assigned to this ill-thought-out operation. A handsome young man, he seemed nervous as he slowly descended the stairs, perhaps expecting to be arrested as soon as he touched the tarmac. He noticed Panin and though he did not recognize him, he feared the worst. Panin stepped forward.
— Mikael Ivanov?
Rain streaming off his face, he nodded.
— Yes?
— My name is Frol Panin. You’ve been reassigned. You’re to leave the city immediately. I have a car waiting to take you to the train station where there is a departure this evening. I don’t know where you’ll be taken, you’ll find out on the train. A new post has been arranged for you. There is no time to return home, no time to pack. You can buy whatever you need once you arrive.
Mikael Ivanov was afraid and exhausted, unsure whether this was an arrest in other guise, or merely a demotion. Panin explained:
— Ivanov, you do not know me. But I know what you have done and I know Leo Demidov, Elena’s father. When he is told what happened, he will seek you out, and he will kill you. I am quite sure of this. You must leave the city immediately. It is important I do not know where you end up because Demidov will ask me and he will know if I’m lying. For the same reason if you tell anyone, any of your family, he’ll find you. Your only chance is to do as I say and to disappear, without a word. Of course, it is your decision. Good luck.