* * *
—
We’d crossed a rough, roiling wintertime Atlantic aboard the USS Europa and then continued by train across the cold, snow-packed European continent, switching in Berlin and then again in Warsaw. Our snow-heaped train rolled through the border town of Negoreloye and, just after the New Year, during the most dismal time of the year, into Moscow. The weak Russian sun shone for just a few hours each day on run-down buildings coated in ice. But it wasn’t just the gray and gloomy weather that I noticed; the people on the street had gray faces as well. Deeply lined skin and gaunt features pulled tight by cold or hunger or worry—probably all of the above.
Inside Spazzo House I decided not to waste too much of my time on moaning about the weather or the city’s general state of disrepair. I couldn’t control those things—so I’d focus instead on what I could. As Joe and I went room by room, unloading luggage and surveying the quarters and directing the household staff in arranging our items, I rolled up my sleeves and looked around the place with my keen hostess’s eye and a fervent determination to scrub and decorate and improve as if our mission depended on it. To my mind, it did.
Spazzo House had been glorious once, that much I could see from its bones. Built before the Bolsheviks, the residence had originally belonged to a favorite of the tsar. Its lemon-yellow fa?ade had probably been cheery and bright at that time, but I made a mental note that it was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint as soon as the snows were done falling. Marble columns gave the place a stately feeling, and the large rooms—once dusted and enlivened with some new décor—would be perfect for our plans to entertain.
But in order to bring the inside of the home up to the grandeur that its original architectural designs deserved, we’d need to overhaul some of its sagging and threadbare features. For this I had also planned ahead: the Sea Cloud hadn’t arrived with only my food; I’d also brought much of my household team—my cook, my butler, my housekeeper, and half a dozen maids to scrub and launder and dust and repair. As Joe and I settled ourselves in, my team got right to work unpacking much of our favorite furniture from Palm Beach and Manhattan, along with rugs, lamps, framed photographs, feather beds, and down blankets, even bathtubs and my favorite porcelain toilet.
* * *
“What do you think? Are the pearls too…”
Joe cocked a grin, scrutinizing my appearance as I searched for the right word.
“I don’t know…excessive?” I asked.
“My dear, you will be a model to these Soviets of the best that America has to offer.” My husband came close and planted a kiss on my rouged cheek. “And anyway, I think they’ll be more stunned by the Jell-O, or perhaps the peaches, than your jewels.”
“Let’s hope,” I said.
Word of our arrival in Moscow had reached the highest levels of the Communist Party, naturally, and our first week had brought with it our first two big diplomatic tests: an invitation to the Kremlin and a party in our own home that evening.
Our first official event as hosts at Spazzo House would, no doubt, prove full of unforeseen excitement, just as our trip to the Kremlin had a few days prior. We’d been invited inside the walls of that sprawling redbrick complex in order to attend a meeting of the leadership of the Communist Party, gathering at that time for their Constitutional Convention. With the American-Soviet relationship so newly restored, we’d been offered a prime seat in a diplomatic box in the balcony of the vast, high-ceilinged hall. Beneath us, nearly three thousand representatives from across the Soviet Union gathered and debated—Cossacks in bright wool tunics, Kazakhs with large brown eyes and ruddy cheeks, Ukrainians in military uniform, even white-shawled women with chic bob haircuts and ripples of finger waves. “Look, Joe!” I pointed at the lively array of delegates. “Women! Serving in government.”
“Yes.” Joe nodded, taking it all in, from the flag-draped walls to the front dais packed with suited, sober-looking men. “They do get that right here.”
“Eleanor Roosevelt would be delighted to see a showing like this in Congress,” I remarked. My eyes continued to comb the packed, cavernous hall. “Who is speaking now?” I asked, my eyes fixing on the front podium, where at that moment a mustached man with small spectacles was holding forth before a massive red Soviet flag emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, gesturing animatedly toward the attentive assembly.
“That is the prime minister,” Joe answered. “Or premier, as they would say. Vyacheslav Molotov.”