Document Z (35 page)

When we tried to halt the retreating Petrov, his wife cried out
piteously, ‘Oh, leave him alone—he has suffered enough.'

There Is No Future

She added: ‘Nobody knows us here, but there are some who might
not be sympathetic.'

Gloomily, she spoke of an exile's life.

‘It is very hard for us,' she said.

‘There is no future. There is nothing to live for. I try to live the
life of an ordinary housewife. I do the shopping, go to work and
look after my husband.'

Were the Petrovs happy in the work they were doing?

Mrs Petrov said that it had taken a long time to find suitable
work. Both were now in jobs they liked, but there was always the
fear of their identities being discovered. They might have to leave
their workplaces if the management knew who they really were.

Had they formed many Australian friendships?

‘We have few friends,' Mrs Petrov said. ‘It is not easy for us to
make friends. For one thing, Australians do not like foreigners or
New Australians very much.'

Mrs Petrov continued: ‘I feel Australians think only of themselves.
New Australians feel they are too often left on their
own—in shops, at work, in the streets . . . in fact, everywhere.

‘Some people in this country even laugh at migrants.
'

‘I have many regrets', BUT THIS IS THE ONLY WAY

Mrs Petrov said: ‘Some Australians laugh at foreign accents.
They do not help these people to become assimilated. They are
thoughtless.'

Were the Petrovs lonely?

‘Yes,' said Mrs Petrov, ‘we lead fairly lonely lives. We have few
pleasures or interests.'

‘Do you go to see Russian films?' we asked.

‘No, never,' said Mrs Petrov, ‘but we watch a lot of TV.'

Three times since the Petrovs won political asylum here Mrs
Petrov has undergone serious operations.

‘I would gladly have died,' she said, ‘but I lived.'

‘So I must go on. There is nothing else to do.'

Just a Couple in a Car, Maybe Your Neighbours

Maybe you passed this car out driving last weekend. A grey-haired,
burly man at the wheel, his wife beside him. Two frightened
people trying to forget.

(Car-sick? No fear—I take KWELLS. Kwells prevents all
forms of travel sickness. Completely safe for all the family.
3/9 at Chemists.)

Here are some other questions we put to the Petrovs, and the
replies given by Mrs Petrov.

Have you contacted your relatives in the Soviet since the Royal
Commission, Mrs Petrov?

‘No. What is the use? They are dead.'

Have you had any definite word that they are dead?

‘No, but I know it. The Russian government would not allow
them to live.'

Debt Paid

The pitiful personal dilemma of the Petrovs can be solved only if
the Federal Government in particular and the Australian public
in general are willing to help.

Consider their case. Up to 1954 Vladimir Petrov was engaged
in spying for Russia. He was detected.

From then on events overwhelmed this second-rate spy.
Caught in the maelstrom of international power politics, he was
faced with this choice:

Go home to his native land and face the punishment; or

Confess all to the country on which he was preying and in
return be granted asylum.

The Petrovs chose freedom and stayed in Australia as not very
willing and not very welcome guests. The past six years have been,
in Mrs Petrov's own words, ‘Hell'.

Let those six years be their punishment both for spying on the
land they must now regard as their own and for betraying their
native Russia.

Let the Federal Government now treat them as ordinary
citizens and drop the security mask.

Let the people of this country accept them, not as semi-fugitives
living lonely, fearful lives, but as Mr and Mrs Petrov,
the couple who once made a mistake and now want to live full,
useful lives in the community.

26

1963. She walked home from where she worked, walked through the Melbourne suburb where they lived, walked along the street where they had their house, and saw two men in long coats getting out of a car. The first she didn't recognise. The second was the writer, B2.

‘Hello, Evdokia,' the man said, smiling.

She invited them into the house. They took seats at the kitchen table while her terrier barked from the backyard. The younger man's name, she was informed, was Roy. They looked about the room. Just an ordinary kitchen, she wanted to say.

Roy watched her intently as she boiled the kettle, peering at her as if she might constitute a clue to an important question of some kind.

‘How are things?' B2 asked. ‘Are you having any trouble?'

‘Only the journalists,' she explained. They drove Volodya to madness, sitting in cars on the street like the KGB.

It was usually Colonel Spry who visited for these types of conversations. She hadn't seen B2 in at least two years, despite the fact that he had written their book for them; eighteen months spent interviewing, reading and editing in the safe houses.

‘Evdokia,' the man said eventually, ‘the reason we've come today is to present something to you. I want us to be cautious, however. I think whatever approach we take must be considered. We shouldn't act rashly.'

What was he talking about?

‘Received yesterday morning,' he commented, producing a document, placing it between them on the table.

She read:

Dear Sirs,

At the request of woman citizen Tamara Alexeyevna
KARTSEVA, we are trying to trace her relatives—sister,
PETROVA née KARTSEVA Evdokia Alexeyevna, born 1914
in the village of Lipki, Oblast of Ryazan, and her husband
PETROV Vladimir Mikhailovich, who used to live in the city
of Canberra, Australia.

The last letter from the persons sought was received at the
end of 1953, and there has been no news from them since.

We should be most grateful if you could ascertain, and let
us know of, the whereabouts of the persons sought.

Thanking you in anticipation,

Yours faithfully,

A. Titov

Head of Tracing Bureau

Executive Committee of the Alliance of Red Cross and

Red Crescent, Moscow

Tamara Alexeyevna Kartseva. The words sat on the page with the other words but they might as well have come alone. She picked up the letter from the table. It was typed in English. It took her several minutes to extract the intended meaning.

‘The Tracing Bureau?' she said aloud.

Nine years' silence. Tamara not gone, not dead, but twenty-five years old, existing somewhere, searching for her elder sister.

She agreed with B2 to keep her reply short. She agreed that everything should go through ASIO and afterwards the Red Cross.

Dear Tamara Alexeyevna,

We can hardly believe this letter! Can you confirm that it is
indeed you who has made this enquiry in Moscow? Please tell
what news there is of Mother and Father—I fear greatly for
both of them, such a long time has passed. Have you married?
Do you have children? Please write without delay. Please send
photographs of everybody. I have none.

E. Kartseva

B2 promised to bring any reply to her the moment it came. Each night at dusk or just before, she rounded the corner of her street, willing an ASIO car to be there. Two months passed. It was a Thursday and raining when the telephone finally rang. B2 arrived twenty minutes later.

She recognised the handwriting.
Dear Sister.
This was Tamara. There could be no question.

Her sister was sorry for not writing earlier. They still lived at the old address. Their father had died of cancer in February 1959 and their mother was aging poorly but had been ‘restored to life' by Evdokia's letter.

Tamara explained she was an engineer—a senior industrial engineer, university educated. She asked where Evdokia and Vladimir were living and wanted to know when they were returning home.

I want to visit you on a holiday
, she wrote,
and Mother would
like to visit too.

There were photographs. Evdokia sat on the couch and held them. Her mother looked ancient, smiling from a chair, her hands clasped in front. Her sister looked thirty years old.

She knew there was an oddness to the letter. A gap. Was it possible that, when she and Volodya defected, her family was simply never told? Years of inexplicable silence from your daughter in Australia—was that the punishment Moscow had decided to inflict?

Before I can officially visit you,
Tamara wrote,
I must complete
a request at the local militia office, and it is necessary for you to
complete a questionnaire at the Soviet embassy in Canberra.

Further letters came. The first was from her mother. It was long and joyful. From what Evdokia could glean it seemed there had been no prison, no arrest. Only long-held, heartrending fears about what had happened to her daughter. There was a request again for their home address. The letter's pages were numbered and pages seven and nine were missing.

In reply, Evdokia sent photographs of herself with her dog—photographs vetted by B2 to ensure that nothing hinted at their location. She sent warm clothes: two woollen jumpers and a coat.

Tamara's next letter expressed doubt that she could visit. It was the problem of being an able worker—it would be difficult to gain permission. But their mother still intended to come, as long as the Australian authorities gave their blessing. Evdokia wrote, telling Tamara not to give up hope.
Why not apply
anyway
, she said,
whether or not you have a chance.

Tamara's letter said two photographs had been enclosed within the envelope. Had they fallen out in the post?

The next letters were simply news: talk of the Russian winter, snow falling on rooftops and icy streets. No mention of the holiday. Photographs were again said to be included but only one arrived.

Evdokia sent a Moscow flight schedule from a Sydney travel agent.
You should consider booking early
, she wrote,
so there will
be ample time to prepare.

She pictured them vividly, three women walking through the Brighton Beach Gardens, along the esplanade, a slight breeze playing off the waves and along the sand. Her life in this country exhibited; a recompense, countering any resentments her family might hold, demonstrating that what was received was a world less than what was given up.

In her mother's next letter, she questioned whether things weren't best left as they were. Her health had deteriorated and she didn't believe she could manage such a long trip alone.

Evdokia pleaded. The flight was only thirty-eight hours; there was always someone aboard who spoke Russian; the cost of the ticket could be wired straightaway.

B2 was in the habit of placing the stem of a biro across his lips when deep in thought. He caught himself doing it now— tapping a biro against his mouth while sitting here at his desk. In front of him, in the typewriter, was the half-completed draft of a Cabinet submission.

His fingers on the keys.
Mrs Petrov is convinced that the
letters from her mother and sister are genuine
.
The letters have
aroused in her a keen desire to be re-united with her family. Mr
Petrov, while sympathising with his wife, feels that she is not
being realistic in her appreciation of the situation and is failing
to see the possibility of a KGB plot behind the correspondence
.

The typewriter's ribbon needed to be changed. B2 ignored this and wrote several paragraphs cataloguing the good evidence for Petrov's suspicion: the belated nature of the Kartsevas' contact; the Kartsevas' persistent enquiries about the Petrovs' whereabouts and wellbeing; the absence of any adverse note concerning the Petrovs' defection; the apparent censorship of photographs; the suggestion of a visit by Mrs Petrov's sister (then dropped), followed by the suggestion of a visit by Mrs Petrov's mother (now in doubt), followed by the suggestion that Mrs Petrov may have to be content with correspondence contact only—a sequence likely to provoke a strong emotional reaction.

He wrote the heading ‘Assassination'. He wrote that the KGB's interest was either this, or to discredit the Petrovs by compelling their return to Russia where they would be made to renounce what they had done. The letters could achieve this by creating a determination in Mrs Petrov to visit her family either in Russia or in a second country from which she could be kidnapped. The KGB might also send a professional operator to Australia posing as Tamara. This operator would threaten Mrs Petrov with her family's persecution, forcing her to return to the USSR.

The biro was in his mouth again. He hadn't even realised he'd picked it up.

In consideration,
he wrote,
I have concluded that Mrs Petrov
should on no account leave Australia. However, I recommend
that the Australian Government furnish Mrs Petrov with permission
for her mother and sister to visit her on the condition that the
arrangements for such a visit remain in the hands of ASIO, with
any visit to take place at a specially selected house occupied for
the occasion.