The story so far: My gay secret, part I

…How often had I had sex with her? Who had initiated it? Had we taken our clothes off? Every time? Or just sometimes? Was I drunk when we had sex? Had we ever had sex when I was sober? Had I ever had sex with other women? Had I ever wanted to?

I was astonished. It had never entered my consciousness that a scene like this could possibly take place. With every answer I gave, I found myself sliding deeper into embarrassment and shame – yet I was afraid not to answer. And the questions were tinged with threat; very often, my interrogator interjected comments like, “We know this is true, so don’t make it harder on yourself by lying.”

I was trapped. The questions continued, now moving into new territory. Had I ever been alone with a Russian woman? Had I ever been drunk with one? Had I ever kissed one? Had I ever wanted to?

I don’t know how long this went on, but it felt like hours. I ended up in a kind of catatonic haze: I was answering questions, but in as detached a way as I could. I just could not acknowledge what has happening, even as I continued to answer questions, slumped like a teenager in my chair.

Then, my questioner said to me, “We know you’re having a relationship with N____,” who was a young American working at the U.S. ambassador’s residence. “How long has that been going on?”

I immediately snapped out of my agonized torpor. I wasn’t having a relationship with N_____! She and I had often gone to visit Russian friends together, as we both spoke Russian and preferred to spend as many evenings off the embassy compound as possible. Because embassy security rules forbade us from meeting Russians alone, we naturally spent a lot of time together. And we’d dutifully filled out our forms after each visit, reporting on our Russian friends.

The agent now riffled a stack of these forms in front of me. He called out dates that N_____ and I gone to meet Russians together, and began reading aloud from what I’d reported. “‘Met with: Igor and Pavel. Discussed: Love, relationships, life.’ What does that mean, exactly?” he asked me. “Don’t lie to us about this, because it will only make it worse for you – and for N_____.”

This was the worst moment – the moment of greatest clarity, and thereby of the greatest horror – of the whole interview. I suddenly realized that these agents had never known anything concrete about me at all. They’d acted like they did, but it was just a tactic to scare me into admitting things. When they’d been right – when they implied they knew I was gay, and that my college girlfriend was more than just a fling – I did exactly what they’d hoped; I admitted it. But now that they were wrong, I understood that I’d been had. I felt like I’d been punched.

I remember the exact words I said next. “I know what you’re trying to do,” I said slowly, “but believe me, you are barking up the wrong tree here.” At this point, I was less concerned about myself (it was clearly too late for me) than I was about N_____ – who had no idea I was gay, much less that the embassy security officers now thought she and I were lovers. I was desperate to disabuse them of this idea, if only to save her the pain of possibly enduring a similar interrogation on my account.

The interview ended shortly after that. I suppose they agents had gotten what they’d come for, and once they’d pushed it too far, they knew it was time to finish. I walked out of the conference room shaking, and went immediately to see my friend M_____, who was working at the U.S. Commercial Office nearby. She was one of the few in Moscow who knew I was gay, and I’d told her I had an interview with security that morning. When I walked into her office, she knew at once things had gone badly.

But I was afraid to tell her so – afraid that our conversation would be overheard, or that her office was bugged. I started scribbling on a piece of paper, trying to explain what had happened. I believe I wrote the words “I’m fucked.” I can’t remember now. But that’s how I felt.

And I was, too. One of the last things the agents told me was that one of three things would happen after they reported the results of our “interview” back to the State Department. Either (1) nothing would change, and I could continue working as a nanny (highly unlikely, they said); (2) I’d be asked to leave the embassy immediately (unlikely, but possible); or (3) I would be required to out myself to everyone – parents, friends, employers – as a condition of being allowed to stay (the most likely option).

In the case of the embassy family I worked for, this wouldn’t have been a problem, because we’d recently agreed to part ways. The original nannying gig hadn’t worked out so well, so I’d made arrangements with a laid-back young embassy couple to hire me as their part-time dog walker – a position that would have allowed me to keep my embassy-sponsored visa through them. This would have been the perfect situation, allowing me to continue living in Moscow while seeking work on the side as a stringer for news organizations. But the security interview had changed everything.

I suspected the young couple wouldn’t care if I told them I was gay. But I wasn’t yet ready to come out to my parents and grandparents – and more importantly, I resented the idea that I’d have to tell them just because the State Department instructed me to. So I made a decision that, even if it meant I had to leave Moscow, I wouldn’t reveal my sexual orientation to my family, friends, or anyone else under duress.

I went to my boss at the newsmagazine, a flamboyant Austrian who was famous for having once put a prostitute on his expense account. “I’m going to get kicked out of this country,” I said, “unless you can get me a temporary visa.” There was nothing he loved more than a challenge, so with a bribe of a bucket-sized tin of Beluga caviar and some liquor then unobtainable in Russia – Amaretto, I believe – he secured me a six-week visa from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I received my new visa within a week, and immediately called the security guy who’d interviewed me. “I need to meet with you,” I told him, “to put an end to all this.”

We made an appointment and met on a weekday morning in the embassy’s lobby. “I want the security clearance investigation to stop,” I told him. “I hereby separate myself from the embassy. Here’s my badge.” I thrust the laminated card into his hand. He asked me two questions – did I have another valid visa? Did I have a place to stay that was unconnected to embassy personnel? I told him I had both (though I was actually staying with J, my “beard,” who by now knew my whole story), and he wished me luck. I turned and walked out of the embassy, proud of having taken control of the situation. Six weeks later, I tearfully bid farewell to my friends, both Russian and American, and left Moscow.

When I think about this story now, I feel conflicting emotions. There’s no doubt that, for a naïve 21-year-old who had no legal representation and didn’t know her rights, the experience was brutal. I still cringe thinking about being in that room and answering those questions, and watching the beads of sweat form on the brow of my interrogator, who looked as uncomfortable as I felt. I still get angry thinking about his insistent implication that I was involved with N____, and remembering the stab of fear I felt for her.

But I’m not angry about the fact that the security officers tried to ascertain whether I was a closeted homosexual or not. It would have been be easy for me to declare that, even though I was in the closet, I’d have never allowed myself to be blackmailed. But how could the embassy know that for sure? And more importantly, how could I? Especially in light of some of the stupid things I did while I was there?

I can remember one drunken evening with my friend D_______ – who was also, coincidentally, gay and in the closet. We stood on the balcony of his apartment in the embassy compound, having polished off a bottle or two of red wine. We thought it would be funny to get one of the Soviet guards posted outside the compound walls to chat with us. “Hey!” we screamed drunkenly across the 50 yards or so that separated us. “Hey, Ivan Ivanovich! Come have a drink with us!” When he ignored us, we hurled an empty wine bottle toward his little guard shack; it fell harmlessly in the snow, but this was hardly the act of people who were in control of their behavior at all times.

I have no doubt that the Russian agents who targeted Americans had an arsenal of psychological tricks that I couldn’t begin to understand. I even suspect I was being targeted, just before I left the embassy, by a young Russian woman who suddenly started appearing at parties I went to – even when the hosts were from different social circles and didn’t know each other. She was very friendly, in an obviously flirtatious way, and even though I – like everyone else at the embassy – had been made paranoid enough to be wary of her, that was certainly no guarantee of unerring behavior on my part. The art of blackmail starts small; one tiny indiscretion is enough to start a cycle that gets wider and more damaging. So, I can’t blame the embassy for being wary of a loose cannon of a 21-year-old who was still struggling to deal with her “lesbian” label.

Many people who I’ve told this story to over the years have expressed outrage, but even though I remember the humiliation I felt, I still understand why it happened. In fact, even though I thought at the time it was a life-changing event, I hardly ever think about it now. But it all came back to me when I saw the recent news about the Bush administration quietly changing the rules of the security-clearance game.

In 1997, the Clinton administration took pains to codify protection for gays; as the AP put it in a March 17, 2006 story, the Clinton-era regulation “stated that sexual orientation ‘may not be used as a basis for or a disqualifying factor in determining a person’s eligibility for a security clearance.’” But in a stealth move many months ago that has only recently been discovered, the Bush administration removed that categorical protection, saying instead that security clearances cannot be denied ‘solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual.’” Meaning, of course, that sexual orientation can be used as one factor among several for denying a clearance.

What’s the purpose of this change? How can sexual orientation, in and of itself, be an indicator of fitness for government service? Who benefits from altering the wording in the way the Bush administration has done? President Bush might simply be pandering to his religious right wing again – but in 2001 he also bucked the religious right, appointing an openly gay diplomat, Michael Guest, to be ambassador to Romania. (Guest, by the way, was posted at the Moscow embassy when I was there in 1988-89. He was closeted then.)

Anyway, when I see these kinds of headlines, I wonder why this all continues to be such a big damn deal. But I will admit – in the final epilogue to my gay secret – that when I eventually ran across my friend N______ in Moscow in 1995, I got some idea of how powerful the issue continued to be.

She’d long since left her job as an aide at the ambassador’s residence, and now was working as a banker. I hadn’t seen her since the day in 1989 I’d told her I was leaving Moscow. I’d met her that afternoon in the courtyard of the ambassador’s residence, and with snow falling gently around us, I’d simply said, “I’m leaving the embassy and Moscow, and I can’t tell you why.” At that point, she still didn’t know I was gay, and she certainly didn’t know she was suspected of being my lover. I thought she’d be better off knowing absolutely nothing, rather than part – or god forbid, all – of what had happened.

But in 1995, when I saw her again, I decided enough time had passed to tell her the story. She made dinner for me in her stylishly appointed apartment, and the two of us sat drinking red wine and reminiscing about our experiences in those “bad old Soviet days.” As she served dessert, I told her about my security clearance problem. And about the interview. And about the suspicions my interrogators raised about her and me.

To say she was stunned would be an understatement. She was absolutely dumbfounded. And more importantly, she was worried. Did I think this was still in a file on her somewhere? Did the government think she was gay? Was this going to come back to haunt her?

I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. There was nothing I could say to reassure her. I told her I’d insisted to the agents that they were wrong – but did that really mean anything to them? How would we ever know? We probably wouldn’t, unless she eventually got some job that required a security clearance of her own.

If she ever did, I don’t know about it. My revelation was, I think, ultimately too weird for her. We emailed a couple of times after that dinner, but we haven’t been in touch since. I wonder sometimes how she is, and whether her work life has ever become complicated because of my experience. I can’t help but feel kind of guilty, even though it’s not really my fault. And that, too, is a byproduct of the strange and terrible experience of feeling accused simply for who you are.