DO YOU HAVE A RAINCOAT

My heart and stomach had switched places as the taxi stopped in front of a small, nondescript house in a residential neighborhood. I steeled myself. Then, I paid the driver, climbed out of the cab, and started up the walkway to the front door. I rang the doorbell.

The man who answered had sand colored hair and a friendly, all-American, open face with even white teeth and a welcoming smile. His looks put me at ease somewhat; he seemed so normal. He sized me up discreetly as he swung open the door. What he saw was a petite, elf-like woman in her early twenties with medium-length, blondish hair. I trained my kohl-lined brown eyes on the man and waited for him to motion me inside.  

He must have introduced himself and given me a name, but I’ve since blocked it out. It would have been an alias anyway.  He showed me into the kitchen. The place was sparsely furnished, and I realized it must be a safehouse. The polygraph gear was set up on a small table. He indicated that I should sit in the chair alongside the length of it, placed so I would be facing away, unable to see what was happening behind my back.

Before taking my seat, I rummaged around in my leather black hole of a handbag for my favorite velvet barette to pull the hair off my face and into a half pony-tail. I then deposited the purse onto an empty chair along with my black leather jacket. 

“Would you like a glass of water? I’m afraid I don’t have anything else to offer.”

I accepted the glass of water. It didn’t matter, since I figured I would not be there that long, maybe an hour or two, tops? 

“I need you to take off all your jewelry, please.”

I glanced at the time as I pulled off the gold and silver bracelet-watch my father had gifted me recently as a reconciliation gesture. It was 7:05 in the evening. After some tugging, I was finally able to remove my silver Morrocan bangles, worn ever since my mother had given them to me for my send off to college. I placed them on on the table next to my watch.

He indicated that all the measurements would be recorded on graphs and showed me the device with drums of paper for the readings. He strapped various attachments to me: a clip on my finger to measure pulse, a cuff around my forearm for blood pressure, something around my chest for breathing and heart rate. He explained each piece as he went along, constraining me one by one. He settled into his seat behind me, with his machines, graphs, and other paraphernalia on the table in front of him and me with my back to him him, facing away from it all.  I figured it was better not to see them and be distracted. I could not have been more mistaken, but I would not understand the truth of the lie-detector test until much later. 

The tech explained that he would start with some very basic questions to get a baseline read on my body functions, and then we would proceed with more substantive ones. He instructed that I could not answer with any words other than a simple “yes” or “no.”

“Are you ready?” he asked.

 “Yes.” I sighed.

“Is your name Sam Marie Anders?”

 “Yes.”

 “Were you born in August of 1962?”

 “Yes.”

“Hold on a minute please, I need to check something.”

As the guy fiddled with some last minute adjustments to the machine or whatever he was doing behind me, I sat willing my body not to be nervous. I waited, reflecting on how I had landed in this predicament and how the CIA had grafted itself onto my family through my father. And then I remembered how it all had started, in Paris.

One night, after dinner, he summoned me into the living room of our Paris townhouse. My first thought was: What did I do?  I sat down on the faded green loveseat across from him and tried to read the light in his eyes. My father had always seemed larger than life to me, in part due to his personality and presence, and in part due to his physique. Of medium height, he was a hirsuit man with broad shoulders, a thick neck from high school football, and a large torso over tree-trunk legs. When he was telling a tall tale or a joke, his blue eyes would twinkle under bushy eyebrows. At that moment, he was just sitting there, pondering.  

My hand smoothed the velvet of the chair’s arm as my gaze flickered up to his face, waiting for him to speak.  Heavy furniture crowded us in the shadows of evening, and behind the baby grand piano hung a dark tapestry, which served as backdrop to the many textures and shades of green in the overstuffed chairs and sofa. I liked the old-fashioned, rather formal comfort of the room, which felt safe and time-worn.  I spent most of my time there, sitting and reading in a Marie Antoinette-era chair upholstered in asparagus-green satin, with my feet propped up on the radiator for warmth. Years later, I would realize that the décor was typical of a bourgeois Parisian home.  At the time, however, it never occurred to me to wonder why we lived in a furnished place or why we hadn’t unpacked all our boxes in the basement.

I waited. I thought about the French word patienter. To wait in French is to exercise patience, which has never been my strong suit.  I tried to guess what my father wanted to talk about and why it was taking longer than usual for him to get to the point. I was not getting into trouble as often now and could not remember the last time my father had spanked me with the “paddle,” a flat wooden memento from my mother’s college sorority. Maybe it had gotten lost in one of the moves. Normally my father would call me to the living room for a lecture, or to talk about something serious, like telling me that we would be moving again soon. But typically, when we were moving, my parents would tell me together. So it couldn’t be about that. My father and I had always been close, and I knew that he loved me more than anything in the world. Whatever he wanted to tell me, it couldn’t be that bad. I just wished he would get on with it.

I perched at the edge of the seat with my hands face down on the cushion on either side of my thighs, my arms holding me up. I began to swing my legs back and forth, away from each other and then back to meet in the center until my ankles collided and my legs swung away again. As I watched this motion, I could hear my father’s voice in my head: “Sam, turn off your motor, please.” I glanced up at him. He stared off into space and then looked back at me. He sighed. I heard my brother fussing upstairs while my mother changed his diaper. An antsy feeling permeated my body, washing away all the fear of anticipation. 

“Sam, your mother tells me that you’ve been asking a lot of questions lately, and I understand that you’re a little worried.” He paused.

Despite my young age, I noticed things. Neither of my parents appeared to have been working. “Well,” I said, “I have been a little worried about money…”  My voice trailed off.

My father acknowledged my concern and reassured me that there was money coming in. “Sam, honey, you don’t have to worry. I’m going to try and explain all this, but it might not be easy to understand. You can ask me any questions you need to.”

I wondered what on earth he was talking about.

“But there is one thing first,” he continued. “I need you to make me a promise. It is a very big promise, and it might be hard for you. Do you think you can try?”

“Sure.” What else could I say? There seemed to be no choice and no turning back.

“You must promise that what I am about to tell you will be a secret just in our family. You can’t tell anyone. And I mean anyone. Do you understand, Pumpkin?”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone.” I swallowed hard.

Then he told me about his job. He droned on and on, at turtle speed, using lots of big and boring words. A few I recognized, like “country” and “government,” but I didn’t really understand their meaning. At that age, I had no real concept of nationality or patriotism. I didn’t know that the United States was engaged in a Cold War. I heard the word “intelligence.” What did being smart have to do with anything? My attention flickered. I concentrated on seeming like I was listening; I wanted to look like an adult paying careful attention. But I did not understand how any of it concerned my family.

And then my mind cut through to what he was not saying. As if by magic, I knew what he was trying to hide. I waited for him to finish.

“So, you’re a spy?”

His eyes flashed briefly, and he took a deep breath. “Well, I wouldn’t call it spying.” He started again with more complicated words.

“Do you have a raincoat?” I interrupted.

“Yes, but lots of people…” He began talking again, but it didn’t matter, and I think he knew that.  As far as I was concerned, he could avoid the word all he wanted, but if he had a raincoat, then he was most definitely a spy.

I trailed up to my bedroom afterwards, relieved that my father did have a job and there was money coming in after all. I was excited that he had entrusted me with a grown-up secret, but still struggled to puzzle out what it all meant. At the time, I didn’t even know that the word we used in my family, “raincoat,” was not the term generally used, when referring to the outer garment stereotypically worn by spies. Most people call it a “trench coat.”

I was ten years old when I became the guardian of my father’s secrets. It took years to understand that my father had done more than reveal a confidence about his work. My father’s spy-identity would color our family’s world view and even his parenting style.  Without knowing it, I had been inducted into a whole way of life, with the CIA as my extended family, bound by secrecy, loyalty, a belief system, and a common enemy.  Over time, I would learn that truth sometimes gets lost in the cover story. 

The tech’s voice startled me out of my review of  life in a CIA family, returning me to the ordeal at hand, getting “boxed”.

“Are you ready, Sam?”