Martyn Burke

The Commissar's Report Martyn Burke

Originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company. THE COMMISSAR?S REPORT begins deep in the doldrums of the 1950?s. Stalin?s in the Kremlin shooting intellectuals, Ike?s on the golf course shooting above par, the KGB and CIA are shooting each other, the Cold War is getting hot, and Dimitri is in love with Enemy Number One. He?s simply bonkers about all the things that make America great; the Brooklyn Dodgers, Cadillac convertibles, Bloomingdale?s, ?Life,? ?Time,? ?Fortune,? and pink flamingos. His first problem is that, as a Russian spy, he?s supposed to bee hatching plots to conquer the good old U. S. A. Worse still, he?s becoming, through no fault of his own, one of the wealthiest capitalists in the world.

Dimitri?s dilemma is rooted in the dark, deadly days of post-war Stalinist Russia when his father, a member of the secret police, smuggled home contraband copies of ?Life? magazine. While Dad was at the office liquidating his rivals, Dimitri and his brother were furtively reading ?Life? at home in the Worker?s Paradise.

?From every photograph, Enemy Number One drew us into its secrets and mysteries and its power. We soared in its planes and raced in its Buicks?Suddenly we were in Florida, where the nightclub echoed to Latin music and gangsters with blondes sat in velvet chairs?It was the women of Enemy Number One that sent us into ecstasy. The brassiere ads totally wiped us out, as they say. We sat there gaping at these nearly naked creatures with their two white shiny cones beckoning us to illicit thrills. There was nothing like them in our city. All the women were like our mother. Shaped like wood stoves.?