One has to
be adventurous to date a Soviet defector.
Add the letters KGB to the mix, and intrigue and mystery take over. Sergei often told me he was being watched and
followed. I accepted that. There was also a part of me that didn’t want
to believe him.
Ruggedly
handsome and tall with huge broad shoulders, Sergei Kourdakov had a weight
lifters build. By the age of twenty he’d
already lived a life that most could not imagine. The physical scars, bullet and knife wounds
from tough-guy fights and bad decisions in the Soviet Union were hidden under
his shirt. The unseen scars, the ones
that make us who we are, were the reasons for defecting. He dreamed of freedom and a new life in the
United States.
Sergei was
an ex-KGB Soviet defector who, through the strangest turn of events, showed up
in my Federal Government office in the fall of 1972—a year after his
defection. Me…I was twenty-one, petite,
and worked as a secretary. I was known
as “Sam” at my office. It was a nickname
that was hard for the Russian to comprehend.
“But you are girl,” Sergei noted when he shook my hand. I noted that he didn’t release my hand when
he held onto it.
We saw
each other as often as possible over the next few months. I quickly learned that Sergei had to “sweep”
my apartment in Arlington, Virginia each time he entered. He wouldn’t be able to sit down and relax if he
hadn’t inspected every possible hiding place for unwelcome intruders. There were other safety checks, tricks of the
trade, or as the intelligence community called it…“tradecraft.” In response to my questioning looks, Sergei
always simply stated…“Even you could be spy.”
Our plans
to spend the Christmas holidays with my family fell apart due to unforeseen
circumstances. My parents were living on
a restricted U.S. Air Force base and Sergei would be denied access. Not wanting to keep me from family, Sergei
made arrangements to visit friends on the West coast. Broken hearted, Sergei and I said our
goodbyes and planned to meet up after the New Year.
The phone
call came on New Year’s Day. But it was
not from Sergei.
What
really happened? Those three simple
words have haunted me for the better part of forty years. It wasn’t a dream. He existed.
We existed. This I know for a fact. But what actually happened in the end leaves
me wishing it were nothing more than a dream…for this is a mystery that needs to
be resolved.
Sometimes,
when I try to put the pieces together it comes out more like a game of Clue—it
was Colonel Mustard, with the candlestick, in the library.
In reality
it goes more like this. There was a
body. There was a gun. There was an unlikely accident.
* * * * *
This short story (nonfiction) about Sergei Kourdakov is one I wrote for a local writing contest. Since the contest is over, I’m free to publish it on my blog.
