Red Sparrow

“How wonderful. I did not mean to stare,” he stammered in French. “I was just thinking how fortunate you were to be seated. Have you been waiting long?”

“Not too long,” said Dominika, looking around the restaurant and at the front door. “In any case, it looks like the crowd is less.”

“Well, I’m glad you got a seat,” said Delon, running out of things to say.

Dominika nodded and looked back down at the menu. Fortune had nothing to do with Dominika getting that particular seat in the corner of the room. Every customer that day in Jean Jacques was an SVR officer.

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A second chance encounter at Jean Jacques provided the excuse to introduce herself in alias “Nadia” to the owlish little diplomat. Another bump on the sidewalk outside the brasserie days later somehow gave him nerve enough to suggest that they lunch together. After that they tried another restaurant for lunch. Delon was excruciatingly shy, with courtly good manners. He drank in moderation, spoke haltingly about himself, and furtively mopped at his glistening forehead as he watched Dominika absentmindedly brush a strand of hair behind her ear. Over the space of these contacts, Delon’s reticence began fading, while his azure aura was strengthening. It was what she was looking for.

Delon had accepted without suspicion the legend that Nadia was a language teacher at Liden & Denz in Gruzinsky Street. He studiously did not react when she spoke of an estranged husband, a geologist, working out east in another time zone, and he feigned polite disinterest when Dominika vaguely mentioned her small apartment whose only redeeming feature was that she did not share it with anyone. Privately, Delon’s thoughts raced.

Simyonov wanted to move fast, he wanted Dominika to lure the little man into bed and drop the house on him. Dominika resisted, stalled, pushed back to the limits of insubordination. She knew Simyonov intended to use her as a Sparrow, that his vision in the recruitment attempt stopped at a sex-entrapment operation, that he had no appreciation of the promise in the case. She argued forcefully for a period of careful development of Delon, doubly important because of his daughter’s potential as a stupendous source. He would need to be brought along gently. Simyonov controlled his temper as this curvy Academy graduate lectured him, reported progress, and proposed next steps.

It was a classic razrabotka, developmental, over the following weeks. Dominika took Delon through the stages of casual acquaintance to comfortable friendship, watching how he relaxed with her, grew cautiously more familiar, how he hid his growing longing for her. She anticipated his desires, prompted him, hinted how she was becoming fond of him. He could scarcely believe it. The Frenchman was besotted with her, but Dominika knew he was too timid, too fearful to ever push himself at her. There could be no recruitment of him if he felt deceived or compromised, she decided. The recruitment would come based only on friendship, on Delon’s growing infatuation, on his eventual inability to refuse her anything.

They met once a week, then twice a week, then began meeting on the weekends for walks around town, visits to museums. By mutual inclination they were discreet. They both were married, after all. They talked about his family, a carefree childhood in Brittany, his parents. Dominika had to be soft. Delon was a turtle who would jerk his head back under his shell if startled.

In time, Delon spoke haltingly about a loveless marriage. His wife was several years older than he, tall and patrician, she ran things her way. Her family had money, lots of it, and they had married after a brief courtship. Delon told Dominika that his wife had resolved to make something out of him, grand ideas of position and title, abetted by her family’s influence. When his reticence and mildness revealed themselves, his wife had turned her back on the marriage. She preserved appearances, of course, but she did not mind the separation required by his diplomatic assignment. His standing in the Foreign Service depended on her.

Delon adored Cécile, their only child. A photo of her revealed a slight, dark-haired young woman with a willowy smile. She was a lot like Delon, shy and tentative and reserved. With growing familiarity and trust, he finally revealed to Dominika that his daughter worked at the Defense Ministry. He of course was immensely proud of her young career, which had been arranged by his wife and influential father-in-law. Delon spoke with good humor about his hopes for his daughter. A good marriage, a strong career, a comfortable life. That he was willing to talk about Cécile was an important milestone in the development.