Never Speak to Strangers
Satter, David
Never Speak to Strangers A memoir of journalism, the Cold War, and the KGB By David Satter February 1977 Ableak, overcast day in Riga had given way to a night that was clear and bitter cold. The...
...The next morning I flew to Riga (the train from Vilnius to Riga was closed to foreigners...
...Here, no one believes in God," she said...
...This would convince no one, but the police could be counted on not to arrest them at the graveside because that would acknowledge their fear of nationalism, which officially did not exist...
...David Satter, correspondent of the London Financial Times in Moscow from 1976 to 1982, is affiliated with the Hoover Institution, the Hudson Institute, and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies...
...The train arrived in Tallinn at 8:30 a.m., and we were met by the police and taken to their headquarters in the station...
...He then returned to his chair and said in Russian but with a thick Estonian accent, "What happened to you...
...Fortunately, the piece of paper where I had also written them was in my wallet...
...Not much," I said, "just trivialities...
...The tall, solemn man seemed demoralized by the hopelessness of the situation...
...I gathered my things and walked to the seventh car, where I handed in my ticket and boarded the train...
...I entered my compartment and was surprised to see a young woman seated on one of the bunks...
...We began to undress, and the boxing coach turned off the overhead lamp so the only light came from the reading light above each berth...
...Glancing back, I turned and saw a man in a silver jacket at the bottom of the steps starting to climb rapidly...
...Masha was sitting on the upper bunk, her breasts and a crucifix visible through the opening of her gown...
...At 5 p.m., it became dark...
...After I checked into my hotel, I realized that my notebook was full and I would need a new one to interview city officials...
...We are very worried," said the man with the sandy hair, ignoring my reaction, "we want to know what happened to you...
...I guessed she was about 28 years old...
...The Estonian nationalists, Udam, Ratas . . . " "They said I never contacted them...
...He said he was a boxing instructor from the Ukraine...
...The point of laying flowers on his grave was to mark the national anniversary...
...that night in front of the Tallinna Kaubamaja...
...The KGB can forge any kind of identification it wants...
...Several weeks after my meeting with Terleckas and Tsalitis, the Financial Times published my report on nationalism in Lithuania under the headline "The Ghost in the Machine...
...At 10 o'clock, I met Ratas at the Tallinna Kaubamaja...
...The drumbeat of dripping water was punctuated by the slamming of the heavy wooden door to the bread store as people left with their purchases...
...Udam asked me to tell him about the theft of my suitcase...
...He put on his coat and went outside with his dog, a large St...
...At exactly 2 P.M., Ratas appeared on the street and led me to a nearby courtyard...
...We traveled by bus to the Old City, the heart of historic Vilnius, a section of weathered stone buildings, winding narrow streets, and gloomy inner courtyards in the shadow of ornate Catholic churches...
...He said Udam could choose the group's members but they would have to be approved by the KGB...
...If the goal had been entrapment, the KGB would have tried something less primitive...
...No, we don't show any identification," said the sandy-haired man, shaking his head firmly...
...The idea that my new friends had been seated in my compartment for no other reason than to compromise me was just too incredible to believe...
...We got into my car and began looking for a place to talk...
...I never did make direct contact with the Estonian dissidents, but in May the real Erik Udam arrived in Moscow and left a statement describing the KGB's reaction to my visit to Tallinn...
...Udam said that such a scheme would quickly be discovered, and Molok offered to make sure that the group was lightly persecuted in order to keep the KGB connection secret...
...It appeared that nothing had been touched...
...Before we got ready to leave, I told Reinart that I was sorry about what had happened...
...But if stopped by the police, they could pretend that it was a personal gesture on the anniversary of Basanavicius's death...
...They are good, sweet, kind people," he replied, "but it doesn't occur to them that the Lithuanians consider Lithuania to be their country and want to be able to live in it without them...
...For the first time, I started to feel like a spectator at a play in which I was also an involuntary participant...
...As I waited, I gradually became aware of a short man in a fur hat and long coat trying to attract my attention...
...The second was another woman in her twenties, who entered the compartment carrying several packages...
...My guide then took up a perch directly opposite me on the windowsill...
...At last, I came to a cul de sac, where I was surprised to see an old woman with a few wisps of scraggly gray hair, a lined face, and a dazed look in her wide-open eyes...
...Just to prevent me from meeting a group of Estonian dissidents...
...I woke up Masha Ivanova and asked her what she knew about the dark-haired girl...
...Look at him," he said to Tsalitis, "a free man...
...I declined politely, trying not to show how uncomfortable I was with the suggestion...
...There was a moment of confusion but the guide agreed that the driver could stop there...
...This puzzled her...
...I began to describe what had happened and, as I told them how I was distracted, pained expressions came over the faces of the four men...
...Udam suggested that the theft was organized by black market operators, but Niklus disagreed...
...She promised to alert the police...
...The tall, mournful-looking man got up, opened the bottle of cognac, and poured me a drink...
...In the end, we spoke for several more hours, and Kes-tutis gave me the address of Ints Tsalitis, a Latvian nationalist in Riga, and the names and addresses of dissidents in Estonia...
...I was with the police," I said, "because my suitcase was stolen in the middle of the night from the train...
...Viktors called me," he said, "and we went to the station to meet you, but we left when we saw you talking to the police...
...We rode silently along the embankment of the Moscow River to Kutuzovsky prospekt and then across the bridge and past the American embassy to the Sadovoye Ring Road...
...It's a virtue, but it's also our tragedy...
...I looked around at my companions...
...As we waited in the corridor, it occurred to me that the women in the compartment, the offer of easy sex, were the standard techniques of entrapment...
...She stood motionless in the rain holding a tin can filled with pencils and made no effort to speak, looking past me as if I weren't there...
...They always try to find out everything they can...
...For the first time, his manner seemed to soften...
...Not only that," said Antanas...
...Yes...
...I plunged into the crowded streets of the Old City and flagged down a cab...
...I went upstairs and asked the floor attendant, but she did not have the key either...
...We agreed on a program for the next day...
...I went with my Novosti guide for an interview with a government official, then in the afternoon for a trip to a collective farm...
...Several of them nodded their heads yes...
...They're following you...
...Can you imagine, a free man...
...I then left the hotel to look for Masha...
...The coach immediately went over to the other bunk and started kissing the dark haired girl, holding her in his arms and pressing her against him...
...It was then I discovered that it was gone...
...His book Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Yale) is being made into a documentary film...
...She said that she had met her that evening for the first time...
...The coach and Masha wrote their statements and then Masha helped me to write mine...
...When my notes were complete, we left the building and went for a ride in my car...
...Were our names in the suitcase that was stolen...
...To my surprise, I did not see him...
...The pale lights of occasional villages appeared and disappeared on the horizon, and the train was soon rolling rhythmically through a landscape of pine forests and snow-blanketed fields...
...I'm not going to participate in your comedy...
...When I returned to the hotel, it was already dark...
...I've been in the camps," Kestutis said...
...When I finished, Reinart said, "I'll call Viktors immediately so he can warn everyone that your notes are missing...
...The red lights on the last car of the Riga to Tallinn overnight train glowed in the frigid air as the train backed into the station...
...He was taken to a police station— the same one where he was taken after his first arrest in 1947—and put in a cell...
...Bernard...
...But it was exactly this that allayed my fears...
...My notes from Lithuania were gone...
...The Soviet Union is a land of miracles, and from time to time the KGB likes to create reality...
...I told myself that if a Russian answered the phone, I had reached the KGB...
...I took off my coat, put my suitcase under the bunk, and sat down opposite her...
...We just can't afford another mistake...
...We finally agreed that they would try to assess the situation, and Ratas would meet me at 10 p.m...
...They didn't ask you any questions...
...When we arrived, Terleckas welcomed us, and we entered a small room crowded with people of all ages who were sitting on worn couches and chairs...
...Some of the accumulated ice on the roofs was beginning to thaw, causing water to drip from the eaves and run down the drainpipes...
...He was then interrogated by a police officer who appeared drunk and spoke in a weird combination of Russian and Lithuanian and told him he was a suspect in the robbery of the state insurance company...
...I was ushered into a dimly lit sitting room...
...In a situation like this, you can't rely on documents...
...During the night, I was troubled by a dream, an indistinct image of the dark-haired girl moving around the compartment as if she were making preparations to leave...
...Molok said that it was his achievement that David Satter of the Financial Times had not met with Udam in February...
...I also don't know anything about any names...
...I left the hotel and went to the department store...
...The voice was Estonian...
...I asked Ratas if he had reached Kal-nins to tell him about the loss of my notes...
...Next to him was the man who had met me in the hotel...
...I pulled the car over to the side of the road...
...Tsalitis said that, in general, the situation was quieter in Latvia...
...An hour passed in increasingly stilted conversation...
...Finally, after driving around for half an hour, we adjourned to the stairwell of a building on Leninsky Prospect...
...You're operating on a false assumption," said the older man whose expression had been the most sympathetic...
...Kestutis," I said, "We have to be careful...
...The girls were asleep in their beds...
...She was thin and birdlike with a petulant expression...
...They're listening...
...I finally left the hotel and walked to the Old City...
...Wait a minute," he said, "my watch is gone...
...When Udam rejected Molok's suggestion, Molok asked him if he could recommend someone else, but Udam said he would not recommend such a gigantic deception to anyone...
...So," I said, "you are trying to tell me that someone arranged for you to meet me in Tallinn...
...Who called you...
...He was the only member of the group with a genuinely humane expression...
...They were more concerned to make sure that I did not lose the opportunity to write about nationalism, particularly in Lithuania...
...A jeep pulled up and a policeman offered us a ride...
...They know there are only a few places for you to go...
...I then cut back through a small park and started to climb the stone steps to the Upper City...
...I called from the central telegraph office, reaching him at the institute where he worked as an archivist...
...The police made clear that they viewed the case with the utmost seriousness...
...We saw you with the police at the station...
...Terleckas gestured toward me as they got ready to leave...
...I drove them to the bridge over Tsvetnoy Boulevard, where we got out of the car and shook hands...
...I told her that I was an American and that I was working in Moscow for the London Financial Times...
...I took the list out of my wallet and gave it to Udam, and he put it in an ashtray and lit it with a match, holding the match to the list until it had been reduced to a wisp of ash...
...There were old, fat women with canes, young women with pallid faces and stringy blonde hair, nondescript men in worn overcoats, and, off to one side, the old woman with the can of pencils whom I had encountered the previous night...
...He said that KGB agents were everywhere and the group had decided it was too dangerous for us to meet in Tallinn...
...One night, about a week after I had gotten back, I decided to call Kes-tutis in Vilnius, although I had no doubt that Udam had already told him what had happened on the Riga to Tallinn train...
...The agronomist said the club contained a Finnish sauna...
...As I got out of the jeep, Masha gave me her address in Tallinn...
...I arrived at Smolkin's apartment at 8:40 p.m...
...The Ukrainian boxing coach poured drinks for all of us, and Masha asked me where I was from...
...The fields and forests looked blue in the early morning light...
...I changed directions and doubled back behind one of the government buildings and made my way to the wall of the Upper City...
...I ended up working five more years for the Financial Times in Moscow and never again fell for a KGB provocation...
...The next morning I went with my guide to an agricultural institute outside Tallinn...
...I put the notebook back into my jacket pocket and caught a cab for Vecmilgravis, outside of Riga, to meet Tsalitis...
...I said that they were better dressed than Soviet women but not necessarily prettier...
...I took the key and went upstairs to my room...
...I finally forced it into my jacket pocket and left for the interview...
...I began going down the steps, watching for my pursuer...
...He said that he had been on his way to meet me in front of the hotel when he'd been surrounded by five plainclothesmen...
...I wrote them on a separate piece of paper, but they were the same names Kestutis had given me in Lithuania...
...A solitary window let in the gray light of an overcast day, and the walls were bare except for a rectangle of barbed wire over the foldout bed, a reminder of the 17 years that Kestutis had spent in the camps...
...I felt relaxed...
...I filled up most of a notebook...
...Besides, I believed that members of my generation had something in common wherever we happened to be...
...As we rode to Moscow, I tried to recreate my notes from memory, adding to them and elaborating on them...
...In the morning, after I opened my eyes, I became concerned about my suitcase...
...They wanted to meet not in Tallinn but in Moscow...
...He said he had little hope that he would live to see an independent Lithuania...
...By the way," Tsalitis said...
...Two other people soon joined us...
...From there, we took a bus to see Antanas Terleckas, another nationalist, who lived outside of Vilnius, on the edge of the Nemencine Forest...
...I spent twelve years in the camps," he said...
...Show me some identification," I said...
...The meeting lasted for several hours...
...I climbed into the upper berth and the coach got into the lower berth...
...Not wanting to take a walk carrying a suitcase, I decided to leave it with the doorman...
...A week passed and there was no word from anyone in the Baltics, until one night I received a frantic call from someone who said he had to meet me and was waiting in front of the Puppet Theater across the street from my apartment on the Ring Road...
...Half an hour later, Viktors Kalnins, another nationalist, joined us, and he and Tsalitis gave me the names and addresses of Estonian nationalists in Tallinn...
...With 15 minutes to go before the scheduled meeting, I arrived at the Tallinna Kaubamaja, where scores of people were stepping through the slush...
...I finally got up, took my coat, and walked out to the car...
...He had a round face and intelligent, gray eyes...
...Do you mean...
...She said her name was Masha Ivanova...
...Suddenly, I recalled a rundown hotel in the Old City called the Hotel Baltika that I had noticed the previous night...
...During the next hour, they repeated to me the information that I had received in the Baltics, much of which I had already reconstructed from memory...
...The small lights were then turned off, leaving nothing to illuminate what went on until several hours later when the first filtering rays of sunlight indicated the break of day...
...It was a cool, foggy morning, and behind us the Upper City of Tallinn, with its medieval walls and spires, was wreathed in mist...
...If you talk about Lithuania, they say that's our Russian land, our country...
...You mean the whole thing, the meetings, the arguments, the discussion of KGB tactics, the small army they had following me, all that was a performance...
...I returned to my hotel where I met my official guide...
...I got out of the car...
...He lived in a single room in a housing block in a new area of the city...
...They may be listening...
...It was only after I'd stood outside for 15 minutes that my guide and the agronomist joined me and we drove back into town...
...The agronomist, the guide, and the manager of the club began chanting, "Finnish bath, Finnish bath...
...The intense, sandy-haired man said, "I am Mart Niklus," and the older man on the left smiled and said, "And I am Erik Udam...
...As I continued, trying to make sense in less than perfect Russian, Masha moved slightly forward, leaning over the small table and resting her chin childishly on the rim of one of the tea glasses...
...In the middle of the table, there were several empty glasses and an unopened bottle of cognac...
...I entered the hotel and got in line to register...
...Antanas smiled...
...Indeed, I became convinced that Terleckas was right and the whole point of the Soviet system was to create reality and then impose this world of illusions on a helpless population by force...
...Rivers and the skeletons of bridges passed by in the moonlight...
...I caught a cab, and we turned down one of the side streets, where I saw the scene the nationalists had predicted the previous night...
...My pursuer appeared from around a corner...
...Two men and two women in one compartment," he said, his voice trailing off thoughtfully...
...He looked down at the bunk where the dark haired girl was sleeping, curled up facing the wall...
...We left the collective farm in the late afternoon, and the agronomist proposed that we take tea at a nearby club...
...Shortly before 10 p.m...
...I nodded and took a sip...
...Nothing special...
...What can you do," he said reflectively, "a young man, a beautiful woman . . . " Udam said he had one request before I left...
...A light snow began to fall, and the snowflakes seemed to hang immobile in the arcs of light cast by the streetlamps...
...I arrived in Vilnius at 7:30 p.m., but there was no sign of Kestutis...
...The next day in Riga I visited another collective farm courtesy of Novosti...
...Most of the other passengers in the car had retired for the night...
...Kestutis poured me a cup of tea...
...What was happening in the republic became known in both the Soviet Union and the West...
...Life assumed its previous rhythm...
...A week later, a reply came that showed he had finally forgiven me for my mistakes in the Baltics...
...When I tried to ask another question, he hung up...
...Several days after the article appeared, I wrote to Kes-tutis and enclosed a copy...
...The snow was coming down harder now, and it was getting late...
...Looking back again, I saw that my pursuer had reached the top of the steps...
...I'm expecting them to meet me here...
...When we parted, I agreed to meet Kestutis in front of my hotel at 7 the following night...
...I said that I did...
...Did either of you get a telephone call from Estonia telling you that my suitcase with the notes on Latvia and Lithuania had been stolen...
...I arrived in Vilnius by train on February 15 shortly after dawn, and met Kestutis at my hotel...
...At each corner, uniformed police surrounded by milling crowds of obvious plainclothesmen were stopping passersby and checking their documents...
...When I turned to look, the only person I noticed was a young man with a mustache and goatee who was holding a square attache case...
...I said that I knew who I was supposed to see...
...He welcomed me, and as we sat in his kitchen I told him about the events in Vilnius and warned him that I was probably being followed...
...Iregistered and took the elevator to my room...
...Being new to the Soviet Union, I also asked the Soviet news agency, Novosti, for help in setting up official interviews...
...I called the attendant and asked her if she had noticed anyone leaving the train in the middle of the night...
...It saves them time and energy...
...I called Valery Smolkin, one of his friends...
...The tall, solemn man on my right said, "I am Valdo Reinart...
...Finally, I walked to the door and glanced behind me...
...I arrived at his home at 9 p.m...
...But she looked and said she could not find it...
...I told Antanas that I liked the Russian people...
...He referred to the sauna several more times and then, elbowing me gently, asked, "How would you like to try it out...
...Ints, I spent two days in Tallinn with Udam and Ratas...
...Ihad decided to travel to the Baltics at the suggestion of Kestutis Jokubynas, a former Lithuanian political prisoner I had met in Moscow...
...He hesitated and then added gently, "You have to believe what is in your heart...
...This was the KGB," he said...
...Reinart asked me what we talked about...
...Everything appeared untouched...
...The door opened for him, and as soon as I followed him into the small apartment, it was quickly closed and locked behind me...
...The light of the street lamps cast a pale glow in the darkness through the room's nylon curtains...
...She complied, and although I tried to continue what I was saying, she put her arms around me and began kissing me...
...The man who met me in the hotel lobby said, "I am Endel Ratas...
...There were no active dissident groups or samizdat journals...
...But I soon discovered that the address she had given me did not exist...
...That doesn't sound like the KGB," Reinart said...
...Kestutis and I agreed to meet in Vilnius, where he lived, and he promised to give me the names of contacts in Riga and Tallinn...
...As the train began moving, the attendant gave us back our tickets and brought us glasses of tea...
...I remembered my promise to keep my notes with me, but the notebook was an awkward size...
...They are brilliant actors," Antanas said...
...I published an article based on this testimony on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal...
...But I decided to go...
...They're clever...
...He then turned and walked quickly through the lobby and out the front door of the hotel...
...As we rode back to Tallinn, I tried to imagine how I could meet the dissidents without being followed...
...That afternoon, however, I put the notebook in my suitcase and locked the suitcase in my room, leaving the key with the room clerk downstairs...
...I asked the girl at the reception desk for the key to my room...
...I then began to explain my views...
...The dark haired girl also fixed her eyes on me...
...I didn't recognize the caller's voice, and after the affair in the Baltics, I was wary of provocation...
...Be here tomorrow, 2 P.M...
...The Latvians find it easier to get along with others," he said...
...A little bit further down the same street, I passed a dimly lit cafe where, through a gauze curtain, I could see pensioners carrying their tin trays to metal tables and an old crone mopping up the broken tiles on the floor...
...You've got to hand them that...
...I'm glad to hear that," I said, "because for a moment it occurred to me that you might actually be the dissidents, but if you won't identify yourselves, it only proves to me that you're the KGB...
...They don't have to follow you...
...The train for Moscow left as darkness fell, and I was relieved to see that my companion in the compartment was a woman engineer in her 50s with a dark mustache...
...If they were dissidents, they were entitled to know, and if they were KGB agents, what I said would come as no surprise...
...Reinart got up, a little less obviously distressed, and filled my glass with cognac and then poured drinks for the others around the table, who also began to relax...
...I explained that I had lost my suitcase and the boxing coach had lost his watch...
...I was away and received a copy of the statement only several weeks later...
...I now faced a dilemma of my own making...
...They called me and wanted to know why you never contacted them...
...What happened," Jokubynas asked, "were you drunk...
...he said, his face completely contorted...
...I hesitated for a moment and then decided to tell them what had happened...
...Joking with the coach, I reached for my suitcase...
...We took a bus to his apartment...
...He said "our friends" had been informed...
...The dissidents described the Lithuanian national activity in recent months—underground journals, the raising of the old Lithuanian flag over the Ministry of Internal Affairs, arrests...
...If the voice was Estonian, it might be the Estonian dissidents...
...I returned to the hotel, where a group of Finnish tourists were showing the effects of heavy drinking...
...Oh, yes," Kestutis said, and then his voice began to tremble...
...Factories and railroad lines, the yellow cranes of Tallinn harbor, and rows of brown and grey Soviet apartment blocks spread out before me...
...I got to the top and hurried along a narrow path between the stone houses...
...According to Udam, Major Albert Molok of the Estonian KGB met with Udam in April at Molok's request and suggested he organize a dissident group to give false information to Western correspondents...
...Finally, ignoring the agronomist and addressing the guide, I said I wanted to leave...
...If I didn't spend those two days with Udam and Ratas," I said, "then who did I spend them with...
...On the upper mezzanine, I saw the man with the attache case...
...I returned to the Viru, went to my room, then went to the lobby where I stopped to buy a postcard...
...He then stepped into an entryway and up a flight of steps...
...My friends have spent six, seven, and eight years in the camps...
...I agreed, and at that moment, I certainly intended to keep my promise...
...The cab driver, a Russian, said a policeman had been shot in a robbery of the state insurance company...
...No," Tsalitis said, "we heard about it from Kestutis...
...Yes," I said, "but these were Estonians...
...There had been a slight break in the weather and a fine rain was falling...
...This situation did not last long because the two girls almost immediately told us to go into the corridor so they could make the beds and get undressed...
...I suddenly had the feeling that someone was watching me...
...With that I broke off the conversation and promised to call him again...
...Suddenly, the coach began feeling the pockets of his jacket...
...I turned down one of the side streets, and through the window of a gabled stone building, I could see people queuing, waiting to test loaves in the bread racks for freshness...
...He also made one request...
...Of course, they're listening...
...It was too dangerous to talk in an apartment, and we would have had to queue for hours to get into a cafe...
...I entered a quiet alleyway that ran along the city wall...
...On my left, the fourth member of the group sat in a large armchair...
...You're not going to treat us like a bunch of niggers...
...Here it is," she said, reaching into a slot in the key rack, "it was here all along...
...The coach was already dressed and sitting on the opposite lower berth...
...Kestutis had succeeded in leaving Lithuania and was working for the Lithuanian service of Radio Liberty in Munich...
...After I described the loss of my suitcase, there was silence at the other end of the line...
...I pulled on my pants and climbed down from the upper bunk...
...Below us, Moscow was a carpet of apartment lights broken by the shadows of gothic government skyscrapers...
...Why don't you tell me where it is...
...He asked me to make sure my notes from Lithuania never left my hands...
...When he realized that I was coming toward him, he quickly turned his back...
...I excused myself from the lunch that had been prepared and left the institute at 1 P.M...
...I then removed the paper with the names and addresses from my wallet...
...But I decided that this compartment on a train between two Baltic capitals on a quiet Saturday night—which the KGB was undoubtedly taking off anyway—was a sanctuary...
...I opened my suitcase and saw that the notebook from Vilnius was still there...
...Udam then asked if there were addresses written on my note...
...The Estonian KGB," Tsalitis said...
...In early 1983, I testified before the U.S...
...As we approached the Old City, I asked the driver to let me off at this hotel...
...Reading the statements, the officer in charge began to wonder...
...In the streetlamps' hazy light, the paint peeling from the fagades of the buildings made them look particularly shabby...
...I don't know who you are...
...I think you know the answer to that question better than I do," I said...
...We left the station and got in a line at the taxi stand...
...Several of the teenagers said that they would try to put flowers on the grave of Jonas Basanavicius, the father of the Lithuanian national movement, who, by an odd coincidence, had died on February 16...
...Once again, I put the notebook in my suitcase...
...This brought an angry response from the agronomist, who insisted the time had come to try out the Finnish bath...
...When I returned, I asked the girl at the desk to check again for my key...
...When I returned, I opened the suitcase...
...Neither Terleckas nor Tsalitis appeared upset about the consequences for them of the loss of my suitcase...
...Although we had supposedly come for tea, the table was set for an elaborate meal...
...They've probably been there for several hours," he said...
...When I pulled up in my car, I saw Antanas Terleckas and Ints Tsalitis...
...It said: "You did not spend your years in the Soviet Union in vain...
...I was anxious to return to Vilnius but agreed, and we drove for 20 minutes before arriving at an isolated house...
...It occurred to me that it might be more than just a coincidence that a man and two attractive women my own age were riding in the same compartment with me...
...Inexplicably relaxed, I motioned to Masha to sit beside me...
...A detailed summary of the article was broadcast back to the Soviet Union by the Russian service of the BBC, so in the end the Lithuanian dissidents got their wish...
...Now seriously worried, I went out for a walk...
...Now, tell me," I said, "who are you...
...They insisted that we write detailed statements and stressed that any omission could impair the investigation...
...When he came back, he said there was a black car parked at the end of the street with four men in it...
...In heavily accented Russian, a man asked me to wait in front of the Tallinna Kaub-amaja, the city's main department store, at exactly 1 p.m...
...Why didn't you meet our friends in Estonia...
...The tall, solemn member of the group leaned over the table...
...I left the church, turned down a cobbled path between two stone walls, and then hurried across a broad square...
...The first was a tall, sandy-haired man with broad shoulders who was wearing a heavy coat and a double-breasted jacket...
...As I put the piece of paper in my pocket, a change came over me...
...The next person was also short with a sheaf of sandy-colored hair over his forehead...
...Udam was the leader of the Estonian dissidents...
...It was urgent that I find the Estonian dissidents whose names and addresses were in my suitcase...
...He finally cleared his throat, walked up to me, and shook hands, leaving a tiny piece of paper that had been folded over several times in my hand...
...In spite of myself, I began to look forward to the next act...
...Three hours later, there was a knock at the door and Smolkin opened it to Kestutis, who took off his coat, wet with new-fallen snow...
...He wanted me to leave the list with the dissidents' addresses and names with them...
...I turned into the entryway of a Lutheran church, where an official Soviet guide, mistaking me for a tourist, began to describe the torture of heretics that had been performed there...
...They then began to argue among themselves...
...The man who had given me the note would meet me there...
...Masha asked if I believed in God...
...It was only on the night train to Tallinn that I began to feel at ease...
...The superficial politeness that had prevailed up until that point disappeared...
...The man on my right was tall and thin with a mournful expression...
...At one o'clock, I was met by the man from the hotel lobby...
...But what was the point of it...
...She had red hair and wore bright red lipstick...
...There was silence in the car...
...The man who had brought me to the apartment motioned for me to take a chair at the head of the table, and the others—three men of about middle age—gathered in chairs around the table in a rough semicircle...
...Congress on "Stopping Communism without War," and argued that the Soviet Union's false ideology compelled it to create illusions and, as a result, the most effective weapon against communism was not arms but the truth...
...Once in my room, I read the note...
...I turned to look at Tsalitis and Terleckas who were sitting in the back seat...
...The coach asked what women were like in the United States...
...When we went back into the compartment, the women were in their nightgowns...
...On the way, our car stopped to pick up a man who said he was an agronomist...
...He signaled to me to follow him, and we proceeded in single file down a diagonal street between five-story housing blocks to an archway and entered a courtyard...
...He asked me if I had the names and addresses of the people I was to see...
...Our movement may be in danger because of you," the sandy-haired man continued...
...The conversation shifted to whether or not it was safe for us to meet later...
...The dark-haired girl was lying on her side on the bottom bunk...
...I said there were, and each man gave his correct address...
...He then mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that the next day, February 16, was the anniversary of Lithuanian independence...
...For some reason, I suddenly was convinced that I was in the presence of the KGB...
...It's not that we don't trust you," he said...
...Finally, in desperation, I turned and began to advance on him...
...He pulled back the top blanket and under it found other blankets tightly rolled and arranged to create the impression of a sleeping person...
...This remark took me completely by surprise...
...He said Kestutis had probably been arrested, and suggested I come to his apartment to wait...
...They're listening to every word...
...the sandy haired man persisted...
...Planting women in an overnight train compartment was too obvious...
...I began to think that the events in the Baltics were an aberration and maybe even, to some extent, the product of my imagination...
...Could it be that I was accusing them unfairly...
...That evening I checked out of the hotel and prepared to go for a walk...
...Did Viktors Kalnins give you our names...
...The one thing you'll never find," Terleckas said as we turned into the Lenin Hills, "or at least almost never find is a Russian who is willing to recognize a small people's right to its own country...
...He took us to the Viru Hotel...
...The next few days in Moscow were uneventful...
...I went downstairs and dialed the number...
...The conversation was about what would happen the next day, with nearly everyone predicting a show of force on the streets as in past years on February 16...
...She had black hair, which was freshly set, a heart-shaped face, pale complexion, and lovely dark eyes...
...The next morning was cold and overcast...
...It asked me to call a telephone number in Tallinn from a pay phone...
Vol. 12 • August 2007 • No. 44
