Cold War

“Galyna? Is that you?” the woman on the other end of the telephone spoke Ukrainian, but it wasn’t Galyna’s friend Mila. The former partisan had a low, slightly raw and almost manly voice. Mila also spoke very fast. This voice, in contrast, was high pitched, almost unnaturally so, and each word was enunciated.

“Yes,” Galyna answered warily. “This is Corporal Galyna Borisenko.”

A high-pitched cry answered her — as if the woman on the other end of the line had been stabbed. Then the woman gasped out, “My puppet! My lamb!”

Galyna’s blood ran cold. Those were the endearments her mother had used with her when she was little. It was eleven years since she’d last seen or heard from her mother. Then she had been an enraged and resentful fifteen-year-old, and her mother had been a semi-hysterical woman. They’d clashed almost continuously, and her mother had often declared that Galyna would “be the death of her”. Their escalating fights had climaxed in the one in which her mother slapped her, and Galyna had retaliated by trying to scratch out her mother’s eyes. Three weeks later, she’d been on a train bound for Helsinki and a grandmother she’d never met.

“Anastasia Sergeiovna?” Galyna asked into the phone, using her mother’s first name and patronymic.

“Yes, my lamb! Yes! Don’t you recognise your mother’s voice?”

The longer she talked, the more familiar it sounded. How could she forget those high-pitched screams loaded with insults, recriminations and insults? Coldly, as if she were speaking to a repairman, Galyna replied, “Yes, I recognise it now. Where are you?”

“Potsdam!” Her mother answered in evident delight, but Galyna’s hands started to sweat. Potsdam was where the NKVD had their headquarters and interrogation centre.

Her mother exclaimed in a tone of inane happiness, “Less than twenty miles away! Can you imagine that? We’re just twenty miles apart!”

“What are you doing there and how did you get this number?”

“It’s so wonderful! I’m working as an artist again!” Anastasia ignored the latter question, and Galyna recognised her mother’s rapture at belonging to the exalted category “artist”. Her mother viewed artists as a different species of being inherently superior to mere mortals. But no legitimate artist had any reason to live in Potsdam, and Galyna made no attempt to disguise her opinion when she asked back sarcastically, “What work is there for an artist in Potsdam?”

“I’m a freelance artist now,” Anastasia assured her airily, as if her greatest pride hadn’t been working for the State and the Party, as if she hadn’t painted the great murals at the University at Kyiv and the railway station in Kharkiv — the murals they had covered with plaster and new paintings as soon as Galyna’s father had been found guilty of treason.

“Maxim Dimitrivich is stationed here,” her mother tittered. At least she had the decency to sound nervous at the mention of Galyna’s stepfather. Galyna refused to answer, so her mother was forced to continue, “And you, my puppet? How are you? I’ve thought of you every day since we were separated.”

Galyna didn’t believe that. She’d seen her mother turn on her father, condemn him along with the others, and finally marry one of the men who had destroyed him. She did not believe her mother loved anyone but herself.

“Galyna?” her mother pleaded. “Talk to me, lamb! Are you well? You aren’t married yet, are you?”

“No, but you haven’t answered my question. How did you get this number? How did you know I was here?” As the shock of hearing her mother’s voice wore off, the implications were becoming clearer. Her cover was blown! The Soviets knew who and where she was!

“Maxim Dimitrivich heard it somewhere,” her mother answered vaguely and hastened to change the subject., “Are you happy?” She didn’t let Galyna answer. “How can you be? The English are so cold! So arrogant and lifeless! You must miss being among your own people — people who are passionate and idealistic and artistic.”

“I miss nothing. I have many English friends,” Galyna insisted stubbornly, although it wasn’t strictly true. She worked well with the British. She felt safe and respected among her colleagues, but she had found it difficult to connect on an emotional level. Her best friend was Mila Mikhailivna — or was she? The fact that her mother had tracked her down and knew she went under the false name of Borisenko meant that someone had betrayed her. The thought that it might be Mila sent chills down Galyna’s spine.

“Lamb, now that we’ve found each other again, we must meet. I want to see how pretty you are! I want to hold you! I want to show you my latest paintings.” Of course, Galyna thought bitterly. Her mother had always craved praise for her art.

“I’m sorry, mother, but I don’t want to meet you and hear how happy you are while my father rots in Siberia — if he isn’t already dead.”

“Galyna!” It was a cry of pain — or a good imitation. Galyna cut it short by hanging up. She just sat staring at the telephone until she became aware of the routine noises in the mess around her. Her mother’s call had been taken by the central switchboard. She had been paged and had taken it at one of the four public phones. Another corporal was patiently lighting up a cigarette as he waited his turn to use the public phone.

Galyna pushed open the door, cast him a brief smile of apology for taking so long, and made her way to the bar. There were several other WAAFs here, but they were recent arrivals whom Galyna did not know well. Before the blockade, when they had been barely a half dozen WAAFs, they had been a close-knit and congenial group under Kathleen’s leadership. Parsons’ regime had fragmented the group into little cliques, leaving Galyna feeling left out.

Galyna needed time to sort out her thoughts and emotions, and decided she needed a solitary walk around the perimeter of the field. As she walked alone beside the dark forest beyond the runways, she knew one thing was certain: she did not forgive her mother anything! The call had reawakened her grief for her father; like a deep, pervasive ache, it dimmed the sun in the sky and drained her of energy. Yet, more ominously, the call threatened her future. If they knew who she was and where she worked, they might strike at any time, and why should MI6 trust her under the circumstances?