A Spy's Daughter: A Life Upside Down

Chapter 1

Kishinev, May 1999

She was what? Hannah asked, for the second time.

She’d just learned her first name was also Hannah. Not only Victoria, as she always took herself for, Vica, Vic, as her sister used to abbreviate her name, or as her mother used to call her, my greatest Victory.

The news about the two first names was immense, but what her father revealed to her a few minutes ago about her mother’s past had eclipsed everything.

She was what? Hannah asked, for the third time, oblivious to the fact that Ion had already answered.

Vic, he told you already. Her sister leaned forward. And keep your voice down. You must realize this information isn’t safe to speak out loud. Svetlana, Sveta, or just Svet, as Hannah usually called her, opened her eyes widely and while looking pointedly at Hannah, moved her head in a circle as if pointing with her chin at the people around them.

Yes, her father said. That’s why we couldn’t talk about this at home.

You mean, our flat is wired? When Ion didn’t answer, Hannah threw her hands up. "And I thought we had something special to celebrate. When was the last time we went out to a restaurant or a cafe? Ah, yes, correct. Never!"

Please, calm down. Her father shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. I’m sorry you had to find out like this.

Vic, let him tell you the whole story, her sister urged. It doesn’t make sense to be angry now.

It doesn’t? Really? How can you be so calm about it? And why are you defending him? Hannah glared at her sister. "You’re sitting on his side of the table. You never normally do that. How long have you known about this? Have you been keeping it from me, too? Do you all keep secrets from me?"

Hey, calm down! her sister said. I’ve only known about it since this morning. Papa got a call today and had to talk to you. He told me about it before you, because he was afraid that you might react…well, like you did.

So, now you’ve changed sides completely, I see. Hannah glared at her sister. And not only at the table. Then her eyes widened and she turned to her father. Wait a minute! What call?

The American Embassy called, he said. They know that you are going to the German Embassy for a visa tomorrow. And they think it would be better for you to pay them a visit first.

Hannah frowned. Why? Her mind, ready for war, now ignited a thought that made her eyes narrow. To turn me into a spy as well?

Quiet! This hiss from her sister, and a barely audible No from their father, mixed into one sound.

Her father glanced at her, then at his hands lying on the table. The napkin he’d been holding didn’t resemble a napkin anymore. They want to give you your passport.

Her eyes were round again. What? Hannah pushed herself back in the chair. But I have a passport.

You have dual citizenship, Ion said. Soviet citizenship – well, Moldovan now – and American. They’ve asked that you collect your American passport. Now that you need to travel abroad, it might make things easier for you.

Hannah stared at him.

Her father sat forward. I guess it’s best that I tell you about the whole thing now.

He began with how he fell in love with their mother.

Hannah knew this story already and raised her hand to make him skip it. But the glare from her little sister stopped her.

When had Svet become more of an adult than I am?

Hannah recalled how glad she had been when her parents told her she would finally no longer be the only child at home, that she would be getting a little brother or a sister. And how happy she was when she and her father got the phone call from the hospital informing them that mother and baby girl were doing well. Baby girl.

She even remembered what they had for dinner that night before the phone call. How they had spread a blanket in the hallway, close to the table where the phone was.

Bread, egg salad, sausages and homemade soft cheese, which was only soft in name since it had become hard and dry from being overcooked. They didn’t have her mom’s ability to judge when the cheese was ready, and they had totally forgotten about it.

Then plates and forks. And small chocolate bars for dessert.

A picnic in the hallway.

She remembered how they’d sat by the phone, how they’d eaten, talked, laughed and waited. She wasn’t sure who was more excited, her father or herself.

And then a few days later, they had gone to pick up her mom and her baby sister from the hospital.

Hannah loved being a ten-year old surrogate mom. She told this to everyone she met. That her sister had two mamas to take care of her: her mama and herself, the big sister Vica, the assistant mama.

Two years later, when her sister started to annoy her — as all the toddlers she knew seemed to do — and the boys in her class simultaneously stopped annoying her and started appearing cute, her mama died.

Just like that.

She simply didn’t wake up in the morning after bringing Hannah and Svetlana to bed the night before.

Suddenly, Hannah wasn’t the one calling herself her sister’s mother. Everyone around her was saying it.

Hannah drew a deep breath trying to lift the burden of those heavy memories.

A kick against her shin replaced the oppressive pain with a sharp one. When she glanced above the table, she saw her sister glaring at her and nodding sideways toward their father.

Hannah glared back.

They had never argued like this before. Svetlana always seemed to know straight away how to win people over with her calm and reasoning speeches.

For a year, Svetlana stopped speaking, swallowing the few words, she knew, at their mom’s funeral. Then, at the memorial dinner twelve months later, Svetlana started talking again, asking every guest if they needed anything else from the kitchen. Hannah had to smile, recalling how the guests needed to look under the table in order to answer her little sister’s inquiries.

Another kick.

Hey! I’m listening, Hannah said. Okay?

Their father raised his head and looked from one daughter to the other. I’m sorry. I know I’ve told you the story before. It’s just so hard for me…to talk about the time they discovered who she was. Especially with you girls. Ion attempted a smile, but failed. So I guess I got carried away into safer waters.

Hannah couldn’t remember seeing this kind of blush on her father’s face before, even though he did blush often.

Svetlana put both hands on her father’s arm. What happened, Papa?

This seemed to be what Ion needed in order to continue. He drew a deep breath.

But, as he was preparing to answer, Hannah felt another push, this time inside her, somewhere in the middle of her chest. And it was sharp. Was it jealousy? And if so, toward whom? Suppressing the urge to analyze herself, she narrowed her eyes at her father. "When did you find out?"

Now she’d gone too far. Or so it seemed. Her sister turned, her face hard and unreadable. Was it hatred? No, not hatred. Something else. Fury? Yes. Yet again, Svetlana interrupted Hannah’s inner dialogue. If you’d listened, she said. You’d have heard that it was before your birth.

Before my birth?

Yes. Ion nodded. "She told me after discovering that she was pregnant. And they… He lowered his voice. They found out five or six months before your birth and just two weeks after she left for the United States."

Hannah gasped. She was in the States with me, in her? What for?

Officially, on a long business trip. But actually she went to give birth to you. She wanted you to be protected, in a way. By being a U.S. citizen.

Wait! What are you talking about? Hannah demanded, then softened in response to her sister’s glare. Please, explain it a bit more.

Just like today, if someone is born within the borders of the USA—

Hannah’s vibrating knee bounced against the table. Yes, yes! I know that — but why did she go so early?

She thought it would be too suspicious to go with the pregnancy visible. At that time, she just told everyone that she’d gained a little weight. Tasting all those wonderful meat products at work.

What?

It was her cover. Working at the meat factory—

I thought she was a seamstress at Krasnoie Plamia? No, no, I am sure of it! She used to take me with her. She taught me how to sew underpants with an overlock sewing machine. A stab pierced her right temple. What meat factory?

I think it's the same one as today. I don’t remember its name. She worked there in the export department and she was responsible for the capitalist, um, Western countries, her father explained. After she was found out, and after the whole process of…of what they did with her, they made her work at Krasnoie Plamia.

Hannah’s eyebrows rose so high her forehead ached. Again, she was at a loss for words. She’d never been stumped for something to say so often in one day. She stared at her father who now seemed to be somewhere far away. When he spoke again, his words were so distant, his gaze so glazed, that Hannah wasn’t sure to whom he was speaking.

I was afraid that her staying in the United States for so long would become suspicious and she’d be discovered. But they’d already found out two weeks after she left.

Hannah looked at her father’s hands and saw how he was rolling the napkin like a piece of dough. She felt an impulse to cover his hands with hers. She had never seen him so sad before. Hannah wanted to ask, just as Svetlana had a few minutes ago, what had happened then and how her parents had got through those difficult times.

But Hannah reminded herself that the baby mentioned by her father so peripherally was herself, and the stupid behavior on her mother’s part was why her own life was now such a mess.

As she was contemplating how to formulate her next attack, her sister did exactly what Hannah’s initial urge had been.

Svetlana moved her hands from her father’s arm to cover his hands and asked again, almost in a whisper. What happened?

Their father shrank in size and lowered his head.

I was taken by them, he lowered his voice again. By the KGB. I was interrogated for several days.

Svetlana’s face mirrored the shock Hannah tried to hide. Days?!

Ion nodded. I think so. I don’t know precisely how many. Interrogators sat with me for long hours, then changed, and I remained in the same room.

Didn’t they let you sleep or eat or go to the bathroom?

Hannah glared at her sister. However interesting her father’s story was, it was irrelevant to the matter at hand. She had to find out as much as possible about the facts in her mother’s dark past, in order to be prepared for her Embassy appointments the following day.

But her sister was oblivious to her glare. She held their father with a warm, empathetic gaze.

No, no sleep. They kept me awake by making me stand during interrogation. At one point I fell asleep standing against one of the walls. A smile flitted over Ion’s face and disappeared. They did give me a bit to eat, drink and also let me go to the bathroom. Although, they did use these a few times to get as much information from me as they could.

Hannah forgot her anger for a second. About mom?

Her father and sister turned to face her. Something surprised them both. But what? She had shown an interest and now they were acting as if she was disturbing them and not supposed to be asking questions.

What? Am I not supposed to ask anything?

Ion looked at Svetlana as if in search of help.

Svetlana shot a reproachful look at Hannah, turned to her father and shook her head, accompanied by a shrug as if to say Don’t pay her any attention. Then she asked Ion, Did Mama know that she’d been found out? I mean, before coming back?

No, she didn’t. They took me to the airport, arrested her, gave the baby to me and sent me home. And they took your Mom with them.

Ion looked hesitantly at Hannah. It was you they gave me.

She glared at her father suppressing tears. I’m not stupid. Now she was glad of her anger. It helped her to keep those gathering tears at bay.

But only for a moment.

In the next, she ran out of the cafe.

Chapter 2

Hannah shuffled in her narrow lab chair and stared at the birth certificate in her hands.

Hannah Victoria Ickin.

To her right, the scanning tunneling microscope buzzed quietly, spreading across the half-lit lab the sound of measurement that Hannah had just started.

She knew she shouldn’t have taken the new semiconductor samples for these measurements, in the state she was today. These samples were too precious and too expensive. They were from the latest test line for production of high-speed memory chips that she and her colleagues got in frames of a project with a German university.

But she did it nonetheless.

Hannah spent more than an hour to prepare the tiny needle for the scan. Usually, it took her less than ten minutes. She was known as the queen of nanometer tips among her colleagues, because nine out of ten of the tungsten tips, she electro-polished in a natrium hydroxide solution, were simply perfect. Her colleagues jokingly bet that she ruined every tenth tip deliberately to make them feel better for failing so miserably at preparing theirs. She joked back that she needed some bad tips for research and calibration. The retort always came with a smile and the same phrase, and often in a chorus of voices — Yes, ego calibration.

But this morning she had ruined four tips. In fact five, but she resigned and used the last one to perform the scan with anyway. She didn’t care right now if her sample would be damaged.

What was that damage worth, the size of a few tenths of atoms, in comparison to her entire life?!

Her boss would disagree, having paid $23,000 for the last batch. He never bothered to convert the sum into Lei. The value of this play money (as he called Lei, or any other currency except USD) changes too often. And he didn’t just say, Dollars. He always said, Actual dollars. Were there non-actual dollars?

And how much was this booklet in her hands worth?

Hannah realized that many would love to be in her shoes. Who in Moldova — or any former Soviet Republic, for that matter — wouldn’t want to become a citizen of