To give my days structure, I began visiting every bookstore, bookstall, library, and bouquiniste along the Seine, seeking out copies of Zhivago. Though I longed to read it, I hadn’t brought myself to do it. It was connected to them, to her, and I knew that to read it would bring back memories of things I didn’t want to think of, things that would make my heart pound when I woke up and found myself halfway around the world, alone. Yet I sought it all over Paris, spending the last of my funds accumulating a small tower of copies.
When I could no longer afford books, I developed a new routine: sitting in my room all day, listening to my record, taking baths, and napping. I began subsisting on stale baguettes, apricot preserves, and warm Perrier. I kept the curtains drawn, and days passed without my even looking out the window.
* * *
—
Eventually I ran out of money and began returning my copies of Zhivago one by one. And it was there—waiting in line at Le Mistral—that someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Bonsoir,” said the petite woman with finger-waved hair, dressed in an oyster-shell-pink pencil dress and black velvet pillbox hat. She picked up a copy of Lolita and smiled as if she knew me.
“Do you know where the travel section is?” the woman asked, switching to English.
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“I’m looking for a book. About Beirut. Do you know where that might be?”
She turned and left. I followed her out, tucking Zhivago back into my purse. I followed her past Square René Viviani. I wished I could stop and touch the famed locust tree for good luck, but we continued across la rue du Petit-Pont, past the church of Saint-Séverin, its Gothic gargoyles staring down at me. When we passed the church of Saint-Sulpice, I thought of Irina—what she must have looked like in that nun’s habit.
I followed her into the Jardin du Luxembourg, and as we circumnavigated the octagonal basin, the woman spoke, her voice low and obscured by the fountain.
“He checked in to a hotel in Beirut under the name Winston, as you said he would. Within an hour, he checked back out of the hotel—with help from two of our bellmen.” She paused. “We thought you might want to know.”
What did Henry think when he heard the knock on the door? Did he have any sense of what was coming? Did he feel paralyzed? Did he scream? If so, did anyone hear him? I knew he hadn’t, but I wished, oh how I wished, that he thought of me when they took him.
“That’s all,” the woman finished. She stopped to face me and kissed both my cheeks.
“That’s all,” I said when she had gone.
* * *
—
Back in my hotel room, the dead roses had been replaced by a fresh bouquet. I splashed water on my face and applied my red lipstick. I dressed in black slacks, a black blazer, and black leather kitten heels. I opened the curtains, blotted my lips, and assessed myself in the mirror.
I’d been trained to spot a double. Calm under duress, above average in intelligence, transient, easily bored. Ambitious, but with short-term goals. Unable to form lasting relationships. They often defect because of their own interests—money, power, ideology, revenge. I knew these traits, was trained to look for them. So why had it taken so long for me to recognize them in myself?
EAST
October–December 1958
CHAPTER 24
The Muse
The Rehabilitated Woman
The Emissary
The Mother
THE EMISSARY
He won, he won, he won. My thoughts matched my steps as I paced Little House waiting for Borya to arrive. The Nobel was his. Not Tolstoy’s or Gorky’s, not Dostoyevsky’s: Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was the second Russian writer ever to receive the Prize. His name would be marked in history, his legacy secured.
And yet, should he accept it, I feared what else might come. The Nobel win was already an embarrassment to the State, and Boris’s accepting the Prize would be viewed as an even greater indignity. And the State did not like to be humiliated, especially at the hands of the West. So once the world looked away, once the headlines died down, then what? Who’d protect us? Who’d protect me?
To still my nerves, I went outside to the small garden Borya had helped me plant. The morning rain had ceased and the clouds parted to reveal a light that bathed everything anew. Everything—how the magpies called out to