***
Later that evening in the hotel restaurant, she found a table to eat by herself. She wasn’t feeling very friendly towards anyone, particularly men. About herself, she felt like a fraud, especially when Matthews thanked her for, as he put it, “running interference for him” against that overbearing jerk with the medals. “Keep up the good work,” he'd said with a noxious wink.
And so she felt trapped when Suslov, whom she'd conscientiously been not noticing, left his table and walked to hers. Most of the men were showing the effects of serious drinking during dinner. He appeared quite sober.
“I know you are being exclusive, but I would like to talk with you, if I may.”
“I can’t stop you.”
He angled the chair before sitting down, in order to be able to look her in the eye while still monitoring the rest of the room. “You need not stop me. If you like, you may tell me to leave and I will.”
She decided to confront the issue squarely. “No, don't. You probably can guess that I am expected to chat you up and, pardon the idiocy of what I’m about to say, seduce you. The latter is Doctor Matthews’ idea, suggested to me in his usual moronic way of ‘I’m maybe joking but I maybe mean it, or do I?’ So please stay. This way, I can tell my boss it didn't work, not that I've avoided you.”
Suslov’s smile was not unkind. “You have not considered that I may be under orders to seduce you and then we do our best to compromise each other. I do not flatter myself on my attractiveness to you. I also do not underestimate how much some people enjoy being cruel to others. Your Doctor Matthews is not a good human being.”
“And you are?” She heard what came out of her mouth with astonishment. Between her growing disgust with too many things and her growing inability to hide that disgust, her future as a Foreign Service officer was looking dimmer all the time. Then it hit her. She no longer cared.
He sipped at his tea. “Contrary to what you may have heard, under Communism, we Spetsnaz officers”—he allowed her a second to blanch at the word, then went on—“were not ordered to kill close family members in order to earn our commissions. We are merely advised to, in order to impress the State with our dedication and our instructors with our motivation.” A pause. “In comparison, your Marine Corps officers are required to kill their mothers to earn their commissions, or any random female over sixty, if their mothers are unavailable. Or so we were told. We were also told that your Special Forces men have to kill and eat their immediate families. This I choose not to believe. If I did, it might bring me to question the contents of your very kind food packages.”
She realized that what she heard in his quiet voice was mischief and she felt herself flooded with both relief and embarrassment. “Thank you for changing the subject. At the moment, I am feeling about as seductive as a wet sheep in a muddy field.”
“I understand. I hope you understand that I do not do such things. To women or to sheep.” She found herself looking at him, for the first time seeing beyond his uniform and decorations, beyond the scar and the elegance, to his humanity. His eyes were not kind, she realized, but there was a world of kindness in them, and it did not conflict with the rest of him. “It is no part of my profession,” he went on, “to help your superiors reduce you to the status of a whore. People meet at conferences to say things privately that cannot be said publicly. These things are not always attractive. Still, the games of nations can be played with at least a little dignity and integrity. So let us find a quiet corner for tea and dessert and conversation.”
Suslov beckoned to a waiter and asked him to bring their tea and cakes into the atrium. They left and found two empty chairs with a lamp table between them. When they were settled in with their desserts, Suslov handed Taylor a business card. “Do not believe everything on that card. I am not a staff officer from the Northern Caucasian District. Nevertheless, the contact information is correct.”
Taylor put down his card. “Are you authorized to tell me this?”
“Yes, although I find it difficult. I command 22 Brigade. A Spetsnaz unit. In some ways the equivalent of your American Special Forces. In some ways, not.” Taylor’s eyes widened. Suslov went quietly on. “We rarely announce ourselves. We usually wear the uniforms of the units we support.”
“So that much of Suvorov is correct,” she said.
Suslov raised an eyebrow. “You've read him?”
“Yes. Prior to my first Russian posting. Required reading. We were expected to know what monsters Spetsnaz were.”
“I hope that as a defector, he was well-paid, to write of his former comrades that way. When I finished his book, I was sure I dined regularly on Afghan children after raping their mothers in front of their fathers, then murdering both the parents before the eyes of the children.” His voice was tight. Rebecca Taylor could not help but look into his eyes. Even his anger was…humane.
“I've heard that tone before,” she found herself saying. “You almost sound like some of the dissidents I've met or heard.”
“I am not. Some of our dissidents, our former dissidents, are thoughtful and serious, admirable; others, fools; and a few, mad. Exiles, like Solzhenitsyn or Brodsky, are patriots wronged by their government. Defectors like Nureyev and Baryshnikov fall into another category. I greatly enjoy ballet, but it is not important where they dance, so long as they dance where the world can see them dance. One might say the same about Horowitz and his music, but he left so long ago, that hardly counts. Defectors like Suvorov are traitors and it is an act of mercy and grace that we do not hunt them down and execute them as such.”
“You make clear your opinion,” Taylor said. “May I ask your current duty station?”
“Chechnya.”
“I...see.”
Suslov let out his breath in a long sigh. “Do you?”
“I see that you didn't learn your lesson in Afghanistan.”
“What lesson was that?”
“Not to get involved in long wars with Muslim fanatics.”
“Afghanistan was our Vietnam. Like America in Vietnam, it mattered only because we thought it did. Like America in Vietnam, we did what we did because we could. Like America in Vietnam, when we decided that the country no longer mattered, we left. Then we realized, as did America about Vietnam, that it had never really mattered, except for the suffering and death. Those mattered. Chechnya is different. The Caucasus is part of Russia, Miss Rebecca Taylor. We are staying in Chechnya and we are going to do whatever it takes to restore Federal control over Chechnya. Because if we don’t, we encourage more of the same in other places.”
“You have been asked to pass this along?”
“No, Miss Taylor. I am under orders to do so. We want your government to know these things. I expect conversations like this are taking place at many levels right now, and will continue as the years and operations progress. My brigade is already operating in Chechnya. I came to Moscow for a commanders' conference that ended early, so my superiors asked me to attend this conference. I would have preferred to return to my duties.”
“I believe you. Is there any way Russia will let Chechnya go?”
“None. Regardless of the time and the cost. Quite a few of the former Soviet Socialist Republics, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, have taken as much sovereignty as they could handle, as Yeltsin advised and contrived, and declared independence. But they know that Russia is still and will always be, Russia. Of the former Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, only Chechnya has declared independence, which cannot be accepted when Dzhokar Dudayev says in public such things as, Yeltsin and his cabinet are dogs wrapped in pork fat. Dudayev is a political corpse and probably a physical one as well. Maskhadov appears sane. For now.”
“Will you let them drag your nation into civil war?”
“They are not the issue. What matters is that if Chechnya is allowed to defy central authority, where does it end? Does the whole Caucasus go up in flames? Do we let every nationality who wants to, secede? If their exa
mple spreads across the Caucasus, there will be many people killed who do not need to be.”
“Go on,” Taylor pressed.
“Slav means slave. We have fought for more than a thousand years to liberate and unify Slav lands against endless enemies from the East and the West, so that we might change the meaning of the word Slav. A thousand years, Miss Taylor. Both my parents fought in the Great Patriotic War, which you call World War II, which we understand as only the last of Europe’s many attempts to enslave us. My father was one of Marshal Zhukov’s good young generals. My mother…” he paused a moment, “was a sniper of considerable accomplishment who accomplished even more as a trainer of snipers. Once again, we are fighting for survival. Russia is weak now but we will not forever tolerate instability on our borders. Or the rule of criminals inside them. We will do what is necessary to become masters in our own home and protect ourselves on our borders. And it is to be hoped that you Americans understand why our success will be to your benefit. We have enemies in common. It was not Sov—Russian special operations personnel who so ineptly tried and failed to bring down the World Trade Center last month by parking a van loaded with explosives in one of the garages. It was not Spetsnaz who blew up your Marines in Beirut or hijacked your airplanes or kidnapped and tortured and killed your military advisers and CIA officers. It will not be us who will do such things…whatever else will happen.”
She found his sophistication and dignity so jarring, so utterly unexpected, that she felt well out of her depth, realizing that this man, this soldier, was in no way out of his. This was not how military officers, especially Russians, were supposed to behave. Instinctively, she wanted to restore some sort of balance to their conversation. Instinctively, she reached for one of the standard accusations.
“Afghanistan,” she said softly. “What you did came very close to genocide, if only out of stupidity rather than cruelty.” And those who fought it were monsters. She did not say, but it showed clearly on her face.
Suslov gave her a sharp look before offering her his gentle, bitter smile, a reflex, she realized, of genuine pain, and speaking in his low, cultured voice. “I served three tours in Afghanistan. I was there as a young Airborne lieutenant right at the beginning at Kabul airport. I left very close to the end. Between, I escorted home the body of my younger brother. I had the misfortune of seeing what the mujahedin had done to him before we sealed the casket. In our Army, as in yours, a sealed casket means that, legally, the family has no right to look inside and may well be punished for so doing. Sometimes there are only rocks or sand bags in the casket because no body, or not enough of a body, can be found. And I assure you, Miss Taylor, the Afghans kill and torture their own, especially women and girls, as least as zestfully as we were reputed to do.”
Suslov was silent for a long time, drinking tea. Then, “In Chechnya we are going to kill people, Chechens, who do not need to be killed. Given the state of training and discipline in much of the Russian Army, many more Chechens will die than strictly need be. For this I blame our senior leadership, military and civilian. I will not shock you by describing some of them in words that have no place in civilized conversation. So, as you Americans say, that’s the way it is, Miss Taylor. We who are going to carry this burden have no heart for doing so. But we know what is at stake, so we do our duty.”
“Why are you telling me this? Why me?”
“Because although you are extremely naïve in an American sort of way, I have come to believe that you are fundamentally a decent and intelligent person. Your Doctor Matthews thinks my country exists to prove the superiority of his country. You are different.”
They were sitting in the silence of those last words when a man in civilian clothes, trim and clearly military, came down the corridor and looked anxiously at them.
“Colonel Suslov…” he began.
“Excuse us, Miss Taylor,” he said abruptly.
“Of course.” She rose, taking her tea with her, to pace at the far end of the atrium while Suslov read the message he had been handed, his face going a ghostly white before the whole man hardened dauntingly. “What happened?” she asked after the messenger departed and she returned to him.
“I’ve lost people. Unnecessarily and stupidly.”
Rebecca Taylor realized she was no longer afraid of him. But she still surprised herself when she put his hand on his shoulder and said words she never expected to say to any Russian officer. “As an officer of the United States Foreign Service, I offer condolences on behalf of my country. Please accept my personal sympathies, also.”
Astonished, Suslov looked at her for a long time, then nodded. “Thank you for that. Human kindness that is both spontaneous and dignified is uncommon.” He paused. “I hope we will each remember this for the sake of our countries as this war…” He found himself having no words left to say.
After a few seconds, Taylor nodded back, and removed her hand. Then, “Are we friends, Colonel?”
“I do not know. It is certainly an odd idea. Perhaps someday we will be. When our countries become friends. Or perhaps before. Your country places much value on what you call ‘people-to-people exchanges.’ ‘Building bridges,’ I believe you also call it. Perhaps there is some value in the attempt. Perhaps it is merely one more American self-delusion, something you indulge because you can afford it.”
“Perhaps. But some good may come of it someday.”
“Perhaps.”
They returned to the dining room, where she had to endure her boss leering at them both. Suslov returned his glance with a contempt that spoke for Taylor also, then left.
Later that evening, dressed in a dark blue track suit, grateful he had skipped the farewell drinking—there needed to be at least one sober man in the hotel—Suslov sat at the desk in his room. He had written one letter. He had two more still to write, plus his contact report on Rebecca Taylor. He decided the report would be less painful and started on that. Then he stopped, realizing that he did not know what to say. There was a knock on his door. He was expecting no one. “Who is it?” he called, silently taking up the pistol he’d placed on his night stand.
“Rebecca Taylor.”
He opened the door. “Remember who we are,” he warned.
“I do,” she said, noticing the pistol pointed downwards. She moved past him into the room.
He yielded to her, avoiding physical contact, as she shut the door behind her. “Sit down, then.” He pointed to a chair and she did, abruptly. He returned to his desk, politely placing the pistol in a drawer, and sat. “How did you learn my room number?”
“Bribed the desk clerk.”
“Then you know that the FSB will know.”
She looked at him, taking in his unnerving steadiness. He was, she realized, younger than she had thought, at most in his late thirties, certainly not forty. “I do.” She shrugged. “My boss already thinks I fucked you. Or at least tried.”
“Why have you come here?”
“To continue our conversation. It ended too soon.”
“So may your career. How much longer will you work for him?”
“Well, I thought about getting him fired for sexual harassment.” Suslov's brows arched. “I suppose I could, but it wouldn’t matter. There are thousands more just like him. I can do this for thirty years, end up as an ambassador somewhere—not a terribly important somewhere because important positions are reserved for political contributors—and our Foreign Service will still be hopeless.”
“Why?”
“Bureaucracy. Politics.”
“And because you Americans will not have a serious Foreign Service so long as you think the world is and should be a reflection of yourselves.”
“Agreed.”
“Wise woman. If you leave, what will you do?”
“In my less lucid moments, I consider journalism. I know several people at the Washington Post who have indicated that they could use me. Female Russian experts, experienced but young and maybe even pretty,
are rare. I would fill several quotas at once while giving them very good work. If I want an offer, all I have to do is ask. I think I will, provided the offer includes keeping me in Russia for at least three years.”
“What would you do here?”
“Washington Post Moscow bureau. Go to clandestine official receptions, meet with dissidents out in the open, avoid American businessmen whenever possible. Maybe go to…”
“Yes?”
“Chechnya.”
Suslov chose to postpone for a moment the obvious next issue. “So,” he said slowly, “would I be correct that you were thinking it over when the swine you work for, with apologies to real pigs, helped you make your decision for you today?”
“Yes.” She handed him her business card. “The information on the front of my business card may soon be overtaken by events. On the back is my personal contact data, here and in the United States.”
He laid it down atop the letter he’d written. “So have you come here as a future journalist? Looking for sources in the military, perhaps? Something to start your new career, as you Americans like to say, with a bang?”
She smiled. “Something like that.”
“And you would be interested in covering the fighting in Chechnya, not as part of a shepherded flock of journalists, but a guest of a particular Russian Army unit?”
“Yours?”
He was genuinely amused. “I have no intention of taking glasnost' that far. But I do believe we should stay in touch and if you ask me to help you with such an endeavor at some point in the future, you may find me willing. But you must tell me one thing now. Why would you wish to go to Chechnya? Beyond the obvious aspects, why?”
“Because I would wish to see for myself whether or not you are right.”
“And if I am?”
“Then the United States must accept that the Russian future will hold violence without end and we have to find a way to work together to lessen it.”
“Or win it?”
“That, too.”
“And if I am wrong?”
“Then the United States must accept that the Russian future will hold violence without end and it’s none of our business how it plays out.”
“I see.”
Rebecca Taylor started to say something. Suslov shook his head, a curt, precise gesture. “Good evening, Miss Taylor. We will be in contact. You may tell Doctor Matthews that you slept with me, if you wish, and that I gave you all the strategic plans for our imminent reconquest of Alaska. It was Russian once, you know.”