The Secrets We Kept

Olga Ivinskaya’s home in Moscow is raided by government agents looking for evidence of her involvement in Boris Pasternak’s anti-Soviet sentiments. They arrest her, taking her away from her daughter, Ira, her son, Mitya, and her mother. At Lubyanka, the building of the Ministry of State Security, Olga is interrogated by Semionov, who wants her to write her confession and give information to condemn Pasternak. Instead, Olga reflects on how she first saw Pasternak at one of his readings, then again when he toured Novy Mir, the literary journal where she worked. As Olga is pregnant with his child, she is initially treated well, but night after night Semionov grills her about Doctor Zhivago, the novel Pasternak is writing. She recalls how she was his companion at readings in Moscow, but his wife held sway in Peredelkino, his dacha in a writers’ colony in the country. One night, Semionov tells her that she will be allowed to see Pasternak at another building. When she arrives, however, her daughter’s English teacher, Sergei, testifies against her, and she is roughly handled by the guards. She loses the baby and is sentenced to five years in the Gulag.

On a hot day, Irina heads to the Agency to apply for a typing job that her ex-boyfriend told her about. She regrets her choice of wool skirt and ducks into a diner to check for sweat stains, encountering a man impatient to get into the restroom. At the Agency inspection line, another man bumps into her, causing her to drop her résumé and smudge it. After, in the elevator, a woman named Lonnie tells her that the man was Dulles. While waiting her turn, Irina reflects on why she is there: Her mother works as a seamstress, which is the only income source they have. Her mother was pregnant with her when she emigrated. Irina’s father was a professor but was arrested while they were in line to board a steamship bound for the US. When Irina was eight, they learned that he died in the Gulag. Her mother funneled her grief into making dresses and became known for her work in the District (Washington, DC). The man Irina encounters outside the bathroom is Walter Anderson, the boss in charge of giving the typing test. Irina despairs when she doesn’t perform well, but a while later, Anderson calls her to come in for another interview. At the interview, he asks about her father and reveals that he didn’t die in the Gulag but during interrogations in Moscow. Anderson then tells Irina that she can work at the Agency because they believe that she, as a woman, has Female Soft Power and Hidden Talent.

The typists congregate at Ralph’s, a coffee shop far enough from headquarters that it usually protects them from being overheard by any Agency officers. The women share their grievances. There’s Norma, who wanted to be a poet and work at The New Yorker until she realized the men there were more interested in sleeping with her than in what she wrote. There’s Linda, who complains that the Kotex dispenser hasn’t been refilled in a long time. Gail, then, who has an engineering degree, is frustrated about being singled out for being Black. Linda reports how the dentist she once worked for used an offer of discounted dental work to make advances on her. When they return to the office, Irina is there for her first day. The others largely ignore her, as she is replacing a coworker who moved away. Eventually, Irina asks where the ladies’ room is, and the women make introductions. The women become suspicious when Irina is called away for a meeting with Frank Wisner, the leader of the Agency’s clandestine operations. That fall, tensions in the Agency are high since the CIA-backed Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union fails and many people die. After Thanksgiving, Teddy Helms and Henry Rennet stop by the typing pool and meet Irina. The women do not like Henry, and he previously assaulted Norma.

Sally Forrester attends a reunion party on the ship Miss Christin with other former OSS members. She served in Kandy, Ceylon, during World War II with Walter Anderson, and the two have a congenial relationship. Though some of the people there could have made more money in other jobs, many of them missed the thrill of espionage and, thus, sought work for the CIA. After Anderson regales the gathering with the story of bagging a large snake in Ceylon, Sally reflects on why she opted to attend the party: Though she had been a good OSS agent, after the war, she was relegated to being a records sorter, which she hated. After she quit, she paid her rent by seducing wealthy men, but she tired of that, too, so she went to the party at the invitation of former colleague Bev. Sally recalls her time in Kandy with fondness, for the close friendships she had with the other women and for discovering that she could make powerful men reveal information. After the party on the boat, Frank offers to walk Sally home. He makes an offer of work involving a book.

In the Gulag, Olga continues to write her story addressed to Semionov. She recounts how, after a long and uncomfortable train ride to Potma, the guards forced them to walk through the snow the rest of the way to the Gulag. She writes of the invasive inspections, the cold, and the back-breaking work of digging. If she didn’t succeed in breaking enough ground, her rations were withheld. As a “bourgeois Muscovite” (78), Olga’s sentence is shorter than that of others, including a Ukrainian woman named Buinaya who was imprisoned for stealing some flour. Buinaya targets her for harassment, making Olga wash her clothes. She gets through the days by reciting Pasternak’s poems in her mind. One day, Olga is called to the office of a man nicknamed the Godfather who shows her a letter Pasternak (whom she calls Borya) wrote to her about his attempts to get her out. He demands proof that she is still alive, so she signs the letter to prove this. The night before Stalin dies, Olga dreams of black crows. Following his death, her sentence is reduced to three years. Buinaya, whose sentence is not reduced, pushes her face into a mirror. After getting out of prison, she takes the train to Moscow, where Boris said he’d be waiting for her.

Boris wakes on the morning Olga is due to arrive in Moscow. He plans to join her family to welcome her home. The last time he saw her, he was dismissive of her worry that a man was following them. At his dacha in Peredelkino, Boris takes a walk and plans to write for a while before meeting Olga’s family. He tells his wife, Zinaida, that he has business in Moscow. The desk at which he writes belonged to his friend Titsian Tabidze, a Georgian poet who was arrested and who died during the Great Purge. Tabidze’s widow gave Boris the desk, urging him to write his novel. Boris thinks about how Stalin was an admirer of his poetry and called him the Cloud Dweller, which afforded him some measure of protection. He started writing Doctor Zhivago 10 years earlier, but the current political climate in Russia makes him more focused on it. He had a heart attack while Olga was imprisoned. Boris considers how, since Olga’s absence, his life is quieter. He plans on breaking off their relationship when she returns. A week before that happens, he meets with Ira, her daughter, and asks her to let her mother know it’s over, but Ira refuses, insisting that he tell her himself. The day Olga returns, Boris keeps writing, missing the reunion. The next morning, however, he takes the train to Moscow and goes to Olga’s apartment.

After Olga and Boris reunite, she demands more from him as recompense for what’s she’s been through. She essentially becomes his literary agent, handling all aspects of his writing business. They meet at a cemetery near Peredelkino. Olga rents a house near his dacha. Mitya loves being in the country, but Ira misses her friends in Moscow. When the school year starts again, Olga sends the children back to Moscow to stay with her mother. She moves to another house they call Little House, while Boris’s house is called Big House. With Doctor Zhivago almost complete, they host readings in Moscow. The characters Yuri and Lara are like real people for Boris. Olga admits to having some jealousy that Boris still spends most of his time at Big House with his wife. She arranges to have the novel printed when it’s finished and meets with potential publishers on his behalf. However, none of the publishers are willing to commit to publishing it. Boris fears the government will never let him publish his novel. Olga suspects that they are being followed.