The Lesson

The memoirs of a spy.
  January 4, 2007

I remember when I first met Major Voropaev.  We were sitting in a brightly lit classroom of a secret KGB training facility disguised as the Moscow Paleontology Museum: fifteen promising young men and women pulled out of various colleges around the country to take part in the adventure of their lives.  We were the cream of the crop, hand-picked for our wits, our thirst for knowledge, our loyalty to the motherland, and overall excellence.  We brimmed with confidence and enthisiasm. We wanted to get out there and stick it so far up the ass of the bourgeooy capitalist pigs that they’d taste it.  Now, as I hunker down in the cold heart of a hostile continent, I sometimes remember those days and smile.  Our energy and bravado were naive, to be sure, but they were sincere.  Of course, it’s not bravado that wins the day in this line of work.  It’s cunning, and versatility, and patience.  There is never too much knowledge you can have about your enemy if you are to keep your cover intact.  All of this and more we have learned in that school, surrounded by life-sized plastic replicas of dinosaurs.  All of this Major Voropaev had taught us.

As he walked into the room, all conversation ceased.  We turned to size him up.  He was a legend, a spy extraordinaire who scored many victories against the shady foe across the ocean.  As it often happens, the first glimpse of a legend was disappointing.  We beheld a trim, agile man of medium height, nondescript and well-poised.  He had a sharp chin; he had pale blue eyes. Could this be the man who had once crawled into the embassy of an unfriendly state through the drain pipes and memorized, with perfect recall, the contents of their entire secret archives before slipping back out unnoticed two and a half hours later?  This, the man who infiltrated the palace of a South American dictator disguised as a Collie?  This, the hero who could inhabit at the drop of a hat one of a myriad assumed identities, from Bantu chief to Swedish shopkeeper, each of them flawlessly conceived and perfectly executed?

He looked back at us.  His dull eyes betrayed no emotion but he must have felt our distrust stoked by youthful hubris.  For a moment, the room was silent; then he opened his mouth and, without any introduction, fired at us a question in English:

“What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs?”

We exchanged puzzled looks.  What did he mean?

“Anyone?” he persisted.

Lena, a pretty blonde who later paid with her life for that debacle in Beirut, ventured: “Cats?”

Major Voropaev winced and shook his head.

“Dogs?” she tried again.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he advised drily and Lena shut up.  The major slowly looked over the entire class.

“You don’t know,” he stated.  His words hung over our heads, pregnant with import.  The major sighed.

“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.

Suddenly, a remote control appeared in his hand.  With a push of a button, a white screen descended over the blackboard from somewhere under the ceiling.  Another button summoned to life a hidden projector.  Cheerful children’s voices singing a catchy tune filled the air.  The beam of light splashed across the screen and resolved into—

“This is what will make or break you one day,” the major said.  “A spring, a spring, a wonderful thing; everyone knows it’s a Slinky.  Everyone except a Russian spy posing as an American, that is.  Such a little thing; and yet it could get you into a world of trouble.”

The room was still silent, but now the silence took on the tinge of awe.  He had shown us something new.

“I will teach you all the useless junk that people against whom we’re fighting must know to be considered normal.  Armed with it, you will become invisible.  And once invisible, you will become our perfect weapon.  Only then can you serve your motherland to your full potential.”

Something welled up in my throat.  I jumped up from my chair and yelled: “Long live the Soviet state!”

“Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!” the classroom around me thundered in unison.

Major Voropaev winced again, but his eyes weren’t dull anymore.  I thought I saw a smile flit across his face before he raised a stern interdictory hand.

“Please!” he said.  “This is not a Party meeting.  Your enthusiasm is commendable but I’d rather you applied it to you studies.”

Then, regarded by fifteen pairs of eyes grown newly respectful, Major Voropaev lead us in a chorus of still-accented but earnest imitation of the enemy anthem: “A Sleenky, a Sleenky, for fun iz a vanderfool toy!  A Sleenky, a Sleenky, iz fun for a girl and a boy.”

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