It must surely by destiny that brought me here to my career and to my future wife. I am sure of it.
It was during one of my espionage training sessions that I met Inge Paul, the most delightful creature I've ever met in all my 24 years of life. I had never felt this way before.
The KGB has always taught me to be ruthless, emotionless, unfeeling. But this feeling when I look at her face is contradicting all the notions the KGB has taught me.
I will start from the beginning now.
It was 1954, and I was training intensively in Kiev, learning - and mastering - German and Polish, two languages the KGB thought were necessary for me to learn as well as accquainting myself with the intelligence case of the USSR.
After I finally graduated from these studies, the KGB honored me with medals and a banquet, and sent me to Poland to see if I could retained what I had learned.
Medal I received from KGB as honorary member
Image Courtesy of Google Images
It was through this that I received my new name, new history, and new future from the Main Department of Intelligence in Moscow.
My new alias was John Leman. I was not Bohdan Stashynsky anymore.
Yet, it was through my graduation in these studies that I met Inge Paul.
There was a dance held amidst one of the banquets the KGB held when I graduated from my espionage training. The KGB surely had great plans for me, my future, and the future of the Soviet Union.
It was then, in 1954, that I met Inge Paul, although she knew me as Joseph Leman, not Bohdan Stashynsky. It irritated me that she didn't know, and could never know without jeapordizing my career, my true identity. But it was of little consequence. With my fake name and history, I could be with the one I loved.
Others haved called her plain, even quirky or strange at times, and certainly unremarkable. But I was in love. She was the most interesting creature I had ever seen, and nobody in the USSR, even the higher-ups, could change my opinion of her.
I desperately wanted to make her my wife. But complications from the KGB prolonged the wedding. When I announced to my fellow spies that I had plans to marry Inge, their reactions were full of horror. I had expected at the very least tolerance of my marriage to Inge, and congratulations if not, but horror was completely unexpected.
I understood the KGB's reason. Inge was a German, and marrying her would seem like a betrayal to the KGB, the organization I had been serving so faithfully for so many years. Yet I could not fault myself for falling in love with her. Inge was beautiful. She had no criminal record. Of course, she did not have the best of table manners, and she was a little clumsy at times, but I loved her all the more for it. Nothing the KGB said or did would convince me otherwise.
This was my second betrayal. But the KGB eventually allowed us to marry, and I was allowed to continue my career and marry the most wondrous woman in Europe. The wedding day is set for March 23rd, and I absolutely cannot wait.
This happiness lasted for many long years. But not long enough.
Confessions: Log 3 - end
- Joseph Leman
aka Bohdan Stashynsky
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