The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons
“So—you got married in 1942?”
“Correct,” Alexander said tersely. He hated being questioned about Tatiana. Slonko had inferred that well, which is why he kept pushing. A little too far, as it turned out.
“And your son—what is his name?”
Alexander thought he had misheard. “You want to know my son’s name?”
“Objection! Relevance!” Levine rattled the windows yelling out that one.
“Withdrawn,” said the man from State. “How old is your son?”
“Five.” Alexander said through his teeth.
“Born in 1943?”
“Correct.”
“But Mr. Barrington, you just told us you didn’t return to this country until 1946.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s only two years ago. And your son is five?”
“Objection!” exclaimed Levine. “How is this relevant?”
“I’ll tell you how it’s relevant,” said the man from State. “Things are not quite adding up. Am I the only one who can count? Mr. Gulotta, are Mr. Barrington’s wife and son American citizens?”
“Yes, they are,” said Sam, his eyes steady on Alexander, as if to say, it’s all right. But remember? Yes, sir, absolutely, sir. I’m sorry, sir.
“So where could Mr. Barrington, a soldier in the Red Army, have possibly married a U.S. citizen in 1942 to have a child by in 1943?” A mulling silence fell over the room. “This is why I was inquiring as to the name of the boy. Pardon me for the indelicacy of my next question, Mr. Barrington, but...is it your child?”
Alexander was frigid. “My wife and child are none of your business, Mr.—”
“Burck,” said the man. “Dennis Burck. Foreign Service. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Eastern European and Soviet Affairs. Where in the world did you marry your American wife, Mr. Barrington, that she could have become with child in 1942?”
Alexander pushed away from the table, but Levine, elbowing him, jumped up. “Objection! The wife and child are not under a subpoena from this committee. They do not fall under the jurisdiction of these proceedings, therefore I ask that all questions regarding them are to be excised from the record! I request a recess. If the hearing members want to learn more about Mr. Barrington’s wife, they are welcome to subpoena her!”
“All I’m trying to ascertain here, Counsel,” said Burck, “is the veracity of Mr. Barrington’s statements. After all, the man has been in hiding for two years. Perhaps he has reasons to hide.”
“Mr. Burck,” said Levine, “if you have proof regarding my client’s veracity, or lack thereof, by all means, bring it to the attention of this hearing. But until then, I request that no more scurrilous aspersions be made and that we move forward.”
“Why can’t Mr. Barrington answer my simple question?” Burck persisted. “I know where I married my wife. Why can’t he tell me where he married his—in 1942?”
Alexander had to hide his clenching hands under the table. He had to protect himself. He didn’t understand this man Burck, he didn’t know the man, and perhaps these questions were harmless and just the normal order of operations. Perhaps. But he understood himself, and he knew himself. And he had spent too long being interrogated along these lines when it wasn’t normal and it wasn’t harmless, when her name, her safety, her security, her life was flung over his neck like a noose. Tell us who you are, Major Belov, because your pregnant wife is in our custody. She is not safe, she is not in Stockholm, she is with us, and we have ways of making her talk. And now here—did he hear Burck correctly, or was he just paranoid: We know who your wife is. We know how she got here. She is here on our privilege. There was simply nothing that could make Alexander lose reason quicker than explicit or implicit threats against Tatiana. He had to protect himself—for her sake. He didn’t want Burck to know she was his Achilles heel. He sat up square-shouldered and with a force of his will placed his hands flat down on the table.
“My wife is not here to defend herself, Mr. Burck,” Alexander said in a low voice. “Nor is she being debriefed. I will not answer any further questions regarding her.”
Lieutenant Richter, sitting erect and unperspiring in his uniform, leaned into his microphone. “With all due respect to the other members, we’re not here to assess the length and quality of Captain Barrington’s marriage. This is not one of the questions put before this committee. This is an executive closed session to assess the security risk this man poses to the United States. I second the counsel’s request for a recess.”
The members took recess to confer. While waiting, Matt Levine whispered to Alexander, “I thought you said you weren’t going to get riled?”
“That was riled?” said Alexander, taking a long drink. That wasn’t riled.
“Don’t you understand, I want them to subpoena your wife,” Levine said.
“Not me.”
“Yes. She’ll plead spousal privilege to every single fucking question and we’ll be out of here in an hour.”
“I need to smoke. Can I smoke now?”
“They told you no.”
The seven men returned to the order of business. They concurred with counsel, and Dennis Burck was forced to move on.
But he didn’t move far.
“Let’s return to your record then, Mr. Barrington,” said Burck. Didn’t anyone else have any questions for Alexander? “I had a chance to review your Military Tribunal papers from Berlin in 1946. Fascinating bit of business.”
“If you say so.”
“So then, just to assert, as per the record, Alexander Barrington and Major Alexander Belov are one and the same man?”
“They are.”
“Why then did you describe yourself as a civilian man, Mr. Barrington, when your record clearly states that you were a Red Army major who escaped a military prison and killed a number of Soviet soldiers after a protracted battle? Are you aware that the Soviets want you extradited?”
“Objection!” yelled Levine. “This meeting is not concerned with the demands of Soviet Russia. This is a U.S. committee.”
“The Soviet Government says this man falls under their jurisdiction, and that this is a military matter. Now, once again—Mr. Barrington, are you or are you not aware that the Soviets want you extradited?”
Alexander was silent. “I am aware,” he said at last, “that the Red Army stripped me of my rank and title in 1945 when they sentenced me to twenty-five years in prison for surrendering to German forces.”
Richter whistled. Twenty-five years, he mouthed.
“No,” said Burck. “Your record states that you were sentenced for desertion.”
“I understand. But the rank and title is removed upon conviction for desertion or surrender.”
“Well, perhaps the title was not removed,” said Burck with a gentle expression, “because there was no conviction.”
Alexander paused. “Pardon me, but then why was I in the Soviet prison, if there was no conviction?”
Burck’s demeanor stiffened.
“My point is,” said Alexander, “I cannot be a deserter in 1945 and a major in 1946.” He took a breath, not wanting to leave his name besmirched with desertion. “Just for the record,” he said, “I was neither.”
“Your record says you are a Red Army major. Are you saying your record is wrong, Mr. Barrington?” said Burck. “Incomplete? Perhaps less than truthful?”
“I’ve already explained I was a major for only a few weeks in 1943. My direct statement to the tribunal in Berlin regarding my years in the Red Army is clear and unequivocal. Perhaps we need to go over it.”
“I move to go over the commander’s record,” joined in Richter, opening his notes, and then proceeded to ask two hours of questions about Alexander’s years in the Red Army. He was single-minded and relentless. He was interested in Alexander’s war experience, in the weapons the Soviets used, in their military campaigns in and around Leningrad, and through Latvia, Estonia, Byelorussia and Poland. He asked about Alexand
“This is our order of business,” said Richter.
“I just don’t see how these alleged Soviet activities in Berlin are relevant to the assessment of the man before us,” said Burck. “I thought we were trying to determine if this man is a communist. When do you think we could begin determining that?”
That was when John Rankin from HUAC finally leaned into his microphone and spoke for the first time. He was a tall stiff gentleman in his sixties, who spoke with a deep Southern accent. A Democrat, Rankin had been a member of Congress since the twenties. He was grave, purposeful, and humorless. Alexander thought Rankin was a military man himself, something about his no nonsense demeanor as he had sat and listened.
“I’ll answer Mr. Burck,” Rankin said, addressing the whole committee. “The looting of atomic laboratories, the Soviet rampage in a closed Berlin for eight days, the transformation of Nazi concentration camps into Soviet concentration camps, forced repatriation—in light of the blockade of Berlin by the Soviet Union that is going on even as we speak, does the gentleman from State really think that Soviet activities in Berlin are irrelevant to this hearing?” He smiled.
Alexander looked down at his hands. Rankin was definitely military—and perhaps not so humorless.
“Alleged activities,” corrected Burck. “It’s all hearsay—from a man who the honorable Congressman suspects of being a loyalty risk.”
“I have not asked Mr. Barrington a single question,” said Rankin. “The gentleman from State should not postulate what I’m suspecting.”
Clearing his throat, Richter interjected. “Just for the record, there is nothing alleged about the Soviet blockade of Berlin.” He changed the subject back to the POW camp at Catowice and at Colditz. During Alexander’s recounting of the escape from Sachsenhausen, the entire room full of men and one female stenographer, fell mute. The only thing Alexander omitted from this version was Tatiana. He didn’t know if it was perjury, but he figured if they weren’t meticulous enough to sift through his tribunal transcript and ask, he certainly wasn’t going to volunteer.
“Well, well, Captain Barrington,” said Rankin when Alexander had finished. “I agree with Lieutenant Richter—as a former soldier in WWI, I don’t know what to call you myself after what we’ve just heard. I think perhaps ‘mister’ is not entirely appropriate. But we do need to go a little further back in your history than Sachsenhausen.”
Alexander held his breath. Perhaps they sifted through his record more meticulously than he had hoped.
“Do you have Communist sympathies, Captain Barrington?”
“No,” he replied.
“What about your mother and father?” Rankin wanted to know. “Harold and Jane Barrington? Would you say they had Communist sympathies?”
“I don’t know if they had sympathies,” said Alexander. “But they were Communists.”
A chill ran through the long room. Alexander knew his parents were fair game, but he noticed that Burck clammed up.
Rankin fixed his gaze on Alexander. “Please continue. You were about to tell us about your Communist background, I believe.”
He was? “We moved to the Soviet Union in 1930, when I was eleven,” he said. “My parents and I were ultimately arrested during the Great Purge of 1937-38.”
“Well, hold on here,” said Burck, unclamming. “Let’s not use the term the Great Purge the same way we use the term the Great Depression. It’s just propagandistic words, meant to scare and confuse. Often what is a purge to one is simply the execution of applicable laws to another. The record on whether or not there was something called a ‘purge’ is extremely unclear.” He paused. “Much like your record, Mr. Barrington.”
Alexander silently narrowed his eyes at Burck. “And may I point out,” continued Burck, “that, since you are sitting before us, you are actual proof that you were not purged.”
“I wasn’t purged because I escaped on the way to Vladivostok,” said Alexander. “What does that prove?”
“Which escape was this, Mr. Barrington?” said Burck pleasantly. “There seem to be so many.”
Drake, from Justice, took the opportunity to intervene. “When you escaped were you already a Soviet citizen?”
Here it was. More murkiness. “Yes,” said Alexander. “When I was conscripted at age sixteen, I automatically became a Soviet citizen.”
“Ah! And when you became a Soviet citizen, your American citizenship was automatically revoked,” said Drake with cooped-up delight, finally given the chance to uphold the immigration and naturalization laws of the United States.
“Objection!” said Levine, “Mr. Drake, I will repeat again, my client is an American citizen.”
“But, Counsel, your client just stated for the record that he was a Soviet citizen. He cannot be a citizen of both the United States and the Soviet Union,” Drake said. “Not then—and certainly not now.”
“Yes,” said Matt Levine. “But his American citizenship cannot be revoked if he became the citizen of the Soviet Union involuntarily. And I would posit that conscription, by its very definition, infers involuntary citizenship. Once again, my client is a natural-born citizen of the United States.”
“Unlike someone who was a naturalized citizen after, say, receiving asylum?” said Burck, looking only at Alexander. “Like a refugee coming into one of our ports—oh, say, Ellis Island, during war?”
Alexander’s hands did not move from the table this time; he had had a chance to prepare himself. Only his teeth ground in his mouth. He had been right to be on guard. It was exactly as he had suspected.
Matt Levine said, “That’s right, nothing like that. Can we move on?” They moved on—to Harold and Jane Barrington.
For another hour, maybe longer, the man from FBI, along with Congressman Rankin kept on and on.
“Objection! Already asked. Eight times.”
“Objection. Already asked. Ten times.”
“Objection.”
“Objection.”
“Objection.”
“His parents’ history and his own seditionary activities speak to relevancy here, Counsel,” said Rankin.
“What seditionary activities? He was a minor! And his parents are not here to defend themselves. We really need to move on.”
“It says here that Anthony Alexander Barrington was arrested at the age of ten in Washington DC during unrest at a pro-revolutionary radical demonstration,” said Rankin. “That’s his history. So did he or did he not have some Communist sympathies of his own? He went to the Soviet Union? Lived there, went to school there? Joined the Red Army? Did he become a member of the Communist Party to be in the officer corps? My understanding was that all officers had to be card-carrying party members.”
“That is not true,” said Alexander. “I wasn’t. Which was fortunate for me because almost all card-carrying officers of the Red Army were shot in 1938 during”—he paused, coldly staring at Burck—“the execution of applicable laws.”
There was stiffness on Burck’s face and satisfaction on Rankin’s. “Answer my question, Captain,” he said.
Levine started to object, but Alexander cut him off. “There were many questions, Congressman Rankin. Starting with the first, you are right, I had been many times by my father’s side when I was a boy.” Alexander took a small breath. “I participated in a number of demonstrations with him. I was arrested three times during some turbulence. He was a Communist, but he was also my father. None of this is in dispute.”
“Mr. Barrington, at the very crux of what is in dispute,” said Rankin in his Mississippi drawl, “is whether or not you’re a Communist.”
“And I have answered you a number of times, Congressman,” said Alexander. “I said I was not.”
“And is this something in this day and age that the honorable gentleman from State would like to go on record as disputing?” said Rankin with his own unconstrained derision.
Alexander looked from one man to the other and said nothing. He wasn’t being asked a question. Tania was right. He needed to be very careful. Talk about dueling agendas. His head was swimming. The Immigration Department wanted him to be a Soviet citizen without asylum, whom they could deport. The FBI wanted him to be a spy, Soviet or American, they weren’t choosy. Rankin wanted him to be a Communist and an American, so he could be charged with treason. Burck, Alexander thought, wanted him to be a Communist and a Russian so he could be deported. And Richter just wanted him to be a soldier with a fuckload of information about the enemy. That’s how the forces were lined up at the frontline across from Alexander’s trench.
“Was your father part of any underground espionage network?” asked Rankin.
“Objection,” Levine said in a tired voice.
“Popular Front perhaps? Comintern? The Red Brigade?” Rankin continued.
“Perhaps,” replied Alexander. “I really don’t know.”
“Was Harold Barrington involved in espionage activities for the Soviet Union when he was still in America?”
“Objection, objection, objection...”
“Objection noted. Please answer the question, Captain Barrington.”
“I don’t know. I doubt it,” said Alexander.
Rankin said, “Did your father run to the Soviet Union because his cover as a spy for them was blown in his own country and he feared for his safety?”
“My father didn’t run to the Soviet Union,” said Alexander slowly. “We moved to the Soviet Union with the full knowledge and assent of the U.S. Government.”
“He didn’t run to escape arrest on espionage charges?”