Swimming to Antarctica (23 page)

It looked like it would be an easy landing, but the current along the shore suddenly increased, and there was a cluster of icebergs and huge boulders clogging the entrance to the shore. We tried, but the ice pack was so tight we couldn’t get through them. Fritz shouted at Dena, directing her to paddle to the right, to a smaller cove. I was hitting icebergs with each arm stroke; it was like swimming through an ice maze. Suddenly I felt waves of cold rippling through my body. Something had broken. Some defense mechanism that had kept me warm had been breached. Tremors were surging through my body, radiating out across my back and shoulders.
You’ve got to sprint now. Now, with all you have. Don’t let up for anything. I can’t. I can’t find a place for my arms to move. Then push off that berg with your feet, cut left, no, right—that way you won’t have to swim against the current. Go around the berg. But Dena’s on my left; we’ll get separated. It’s okay. It doesn’t matter now. You’re only ten yards from shore. Keep going. Fast. Okay, careful. There are rocks below your feet. And rocks between the bergs. At least there’s no surf.

Put your feet down carefully. You’re not going to be able to feel them at all. They are dead numb. So watch them when you put them down. Don’t step on anything that can hurt them. You’re fine. Oh my God, we’re almost there.

Turning back for one last second, I looked at all of the Muir Inlet. I wanted to hold that image in my head forever. When things got difficult in life, I would pull it up and remember how amazing it was to be there, to push the limits with the crew, and remember how inspiring the entire experience was.

When my body cleared the water, I could hear the crew cheering.
Remember, you’re going to have a big blood-pressure shift when you go from lying down to standing up. It’s going to make you feel dizzy. Whoa, wow, the world feels very unsteady. Whoa, I think I’m going to fall on my face. Stick your arms out, just get your balance. Ah, there’s Dena. Oh, she’s putting a blanket over your shoulders. She’s holding your shoulder, helping you balance. Smile. Your hand, it’s bleeding—just a superficial cut, and water always makes it look worse. You’re okay, right? Your entire body’s numb and you’re shaking so hard your head’s bouncing, but you’re okay, right? Yes. Okay, then, get back into the boat. Look, Fritz is pulling onshore. Debbie has the hot-water bottles to put under your arms, the back of your neck, and your groin area to start rewarming.

You can crawl into the sleeping bag now with the hot-water bottles and a blanket. Won’t that feel great?

Oh, yes, I’m so cold. It will feel wonderful. I’m breathing so fast and hard. My body is shivering hard; my muscles are instinctively working to make heat. Okay, stop thinking and just get into that bag and get warm. The air temperature now has to be below freezing. Ah, they have the heat on belowdecks. Wow, how wonderful it feels to be immersed in swirls of heat. Fritz must have put the heater on full force. I can feel my body thawing. It’s going to feel like pins and needles all over, but it won’t be that way for long, and then you’ll be warm and you can rest. Hot chocolate. That would taste so good, once I can feel my lips and tongue. Dena and Debbie are all smiles. They did so well. What an incredible team. Jeffrey must be on deck with Fritz. I can feel the boat turning; he’s probably helping Fritz spot ice. Hope that we can get out of here okay.

“Dena, did anyone get my time for the swim?”

“Yes, you were in the water for twenty-eight minutes. You’ve changed a lot of minds about people’s ability to handle the cold,” she said, her voice high with excitement.

I felt so fortunate that I had been able to find a group of people who thought of what could be instead of being stuck on what was. That’s where progress came from, imagining the possibilities. Alaskans were like that, though. Maybe because of the openness of their
environment or maybe because of the danger of it, they had to find new ways to work together to survive. They lived a lot on the outer edge, so I think that’s what made it easier for them to understand what I wanted to do and then to embrace it.

After the swim, Dena told me that I had swum in thirty-eight-degree water. It took me at least two hours of shivering to get my body temperature back to normal. We took it immediately after I got out of the water, and it was the same as when I’d started the swim. I’m sure it dropped once the swim was over, but I wasn’t interested in trying to get a temperature by that point; all I wanted to do was to get warm.

When we reached Gustavus, we celebrated with a great Alaskan salmon dinner—you are what you eat. All of us were happy and satisfied. A day later, Jeffrey Cardenas and I flew to San Francisco so I could finish my around-the-world swim with a crossing of the Golden Gate. It was a fun, current-filled swim. It was challenging, and it was so beautiful to swim through San Francisco Bay.

When I got home to southern California I knew that the Bering Strait might be possible. I knew that I could swim one mile in thirty-eight-degree water. Could I swim five times as far in water that cold? Could I swim if the water temperature was colder? I wasn’t sure, but I
was
sure that the only way I would ever know was if I tried.

Pulling my hood over my head, zipping my raincoat, and stepping out of the taxi, I ran across Green Street through a series of puddles and gutter spray, to the black wrought-iron fence rimming the perimeter of the Soviet consulate in San Francisco. It was the spring of 1986, and for ten years I had been working, nearly every day, on trying to obtain permission from the Soviets to swim across the Bering Strait.

I had written to Brezhnev, Chernenko, Andropov, and Gorbachev, as well as ambassadors and other diplomats. No one in the Soviet Union, at the Soviet embassy in Washington, or at our embassy in Moscow had responded to my inquiries. At the time, there was only one man at the State Department who believed that I had any chance of getting permission. But then a friend put me in touch with Armand Hammer.

During our meeting, Dr. Hammer agreed to contact Alexander Terehkin, the cultural attaché at the Soviet consulate in San Francisco. After six phone calls, I finally reached him, and we set a time to meet.

When I heard the gate at the Soviet consulate, and then the heavy metal door, clang shut and lock behind me like a prison door, I began to perspire and shake. Deep down, I was scared to death of the Soviets.
When I was a child, we’d be drilled by our teachers to duck under our desks and cover our heads. This, we were told, would protect us from nuclear missiles. Even then, I knew we weren’t being told the truth, that my teacher was lying. It was a lie she wanted to believe, one she wanted everyone to believe, but I didn’t. My father was a radiologist, and he used to let me accompany him to the office, where he put on a heavy lead jacket to take X rays. X rays and radiation were dangerous; they could kill people.

I knew my parents were just as afraid of the Soviets as everyone else was. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, my parents had the radio or television on throughout the day and night. They tried not to show their fear, but people were talking about the end of the earth, how if the Soviet Union dropped a bomb on us, all of us would die. Everything, all the animals and plants, would die too. I didn’t want that to happen to me or my family or friends or my dog, Beth. Why did Khrushchev want to drop a bomb on us? Why was Castro letting him put nuclear missiles in Cuba? Watching Walter Cronkite on television and listening to him, and seeing President Kennedy’s face blank of emotion, his voice filled with controlled tension, as if he were really angry or frightened or both, made me really scared. At night, when I heard the engine sounds of an airplane flying above, I wondered if it would be my last night on earth, and I would hug my dog, Beth, praying that it was just another airplane. Why did they want to hurt us? Why couldn’t we be friends with them?

Standing in a narrow, stark-white waiting room inside the Soviet consulate, I felt like I was alone. I was now in Soviet territory and I was nervous about being there.

Somehow I got my feet to start moving again. Stepping carefully across the wooden floor in my high heels, afraid I would slip and fall, I walked over to a bulletproof window and smiled at a Soviet man in uniform sitting behind the glass. I asked if I could please meet with Mr. Terehkin. Unsmiling, the Soviet guard picked up the phone and dialed an extension. I really wanted to turn around and leave. In the Soviet consulate, I knew I was standing on Soviet soil, and it was just frightening. None of these thoughts were helpful at all. But more
than anything, I wanted to believe that the Soviet Union wasn’t the evil empire. Soviet citizens were people like us. Why did they have to be enemies? Why did we have to fear them?

For at least five minutes the man behind the bulletproof glass memorized my passport, noting every stamp and visa. He wrote the information into a ledger. Then he picked up the passport again and compared it with my face. Staring directly at me, it seemed as if he were memorizing every feature. Finally he asked for my handbag. He poured everything out on his desk and went through it item by item. I offered him one of the wintergreen Life Savers, but he declined, shaking his head as if to say, Don’t bother me.

Nothing could have prepared me for the moment when I met a real live Soviet official. My impression of Alexander Terehkin was:
This man looks like a thin Santa Claus.
He had beautiful white hair, bright blue eyes, a rosy complexion, and a wonderful smile. When he extended his hand and enthusiastically shook mine, my fear was almost completely converted to excitement. Mr. Terehkin led me into a small, musty room with heavy red drapes, opulent dark wooden furniture, and a plush Oriental carpet, and offered me a chair. The room was dim, the drapes were drawn so no one could see into or out of the room, and high in the right-hand corner of the room, near the ceiling, was a tiny, almost imperceptible red light. It was blinking. Beneath the light was a video camera, and it was focused on us.

Instead of being afraid or paranoid, I decided, this was my chance to take full advantage of the situation, to be bold and explain concisely to Mr. Terehkin, and whoever would see the video, what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it. Mostly, this was my chance to let the Soviets know that my motives were straightforward and genuine.

Mr. Terehkin offered me a chair directly below the camera, and then sat down behind a large, imposing desk. For a moment he excused himself; he put on his reading glasses and glanced at a letter from Dr. Hammer. He asked me if I had been in touch with Mr. Potemkin, the cultural attaché at the Soviet embassy in Washington. I explained that I’d tried to reach him by letter and by phone at least
five times. In fact, I told him I had begun writing to Soviet officials in 1976, beginning with Brezhnev, then Chernenko, Andropov, and finally Gorbachev. When there was no response, I wrote to Anatoliy Fedorovich Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States. At the same time I wrote letters to President Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz, Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne Ridgway, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Arthur Hartman, and the Soviet desk at the State Department. When there was no response, I wrote to Senators Frank Murkowski and Ted Stevens from Alaska, and Steve Cowper, the governor of Alaska. When I couldn’t get through to them, I contacted Congressman Dan Lungren, the pianist Vladimir Horowitz, the astronauts involved in the joint Soviet-U.S. space mission, and other people who were known for having some contact with the Soviet Union.

I did get a call from Congressman Lungren’s office saying that they would like to help, but I hadn’t heard back from them yet. And Vladimir Horowitz had called me from New York City and told me that I was on the right track. He couldn’t suggest anything further I could do. But his call had given me confidence that it was a good idea to pursue the Bering Strait crossing.

As I spoke, Mr. Terehkin’s interest increased; he smiled and nodded, and I could tell he was impressed with the time I’d spent and the number of contacts I had made. He asked me a number of questions about where and when I wanted to swim, and now my heart was pounding in my chest from sheer excitement. For so many years I had tried to get someone who could do something to listen, to understand, and Mr. Terehkin was perched upright in his chair, listening to every word.

He asked me about my background and what I had done to prepare, and he looked astonished when he found out I had swum the English Channel. Oh, but that was just the start of it all. The more questions he asked, the more excited I became. He was really interested. I spoke faster and faster, and sometimes had to slow myself down to make sure he understood. Then I got to the most important point, the part I hoped he would understand more than anything else.

“This swim is meant to be a gesture of goodwill between the United States and the Soviet Union, to open the border between the two countries,” I said.

Mr. Terehkin jumped as if he had been struck by a lightning bolt. He drew in a deep breath, rocked back in his chair, and grinned like a Cheshire cat. He loved the idea; I could just tell. I was so scared he would say no, but I had to ask; that was why I was here, that was the whole point of going through all of this for so many years. So I asked, “Do you think your government will give me permission to make this swim?”

Slowly he sat up and leaned forward in his chair. He removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, set his glasses on the desk, and let out a deep, long breath. “It’s a very complicated situation. Where you intend to land, it is a very sensitive area,” he said. But I could tell he was contemplating the idea.

“I know it is. But we can work with your government and we can find an area on Big Diomede that is less sensitive,” I said, trying to show that I was willing to work with him any way I could.

Mr. Terehkin nodded, but he was looking far away, into some open space.

I waited until I couldn’t hold back any longer, and then I nearly whispered, because I was afraid he might say no and I didn’t want to hear that. “Do you think it’s possible?”

He brought his eyes back and looked at me. A smile came to his lips, and he nodded slowly.

“Yes, yes, I do. It’s a very good idea. I will forward this information on to Moscow today,” he said emphatically.

We stood up to shake hands and I gave him a bear hug instead—I couldn’t help myself. “Thank you. Thank you!” I said.

He held on to me and we laughed together. He was grinning. The idea was growing on him. “This is a very good idea. I will call you as soon as I hear from Moscow. But if you don’t hear back from me this week, please call me. Here’s my card. And please call me Alexander.” He handed me his card with a big smile.

It was amazing. I felt like I was starting a friendship with a man from the Soviet Union. And I didn’t want to lose contact with him.
He was really the only person who now believed in this. “Alexander, if I have difficulty reaching you, is there a second number I can call?”

“I’ve given you my direct line. You will have no problem,” he said. Then he opened the door, collected my passport and bag, and handed them to me. “It was a great pleasure meeting you. I will call you as soon as I hear anything. But don’t forget, you can call me too.”

We shook hands again. I was so excited, I don’t even remember how I got out of the consulate. All I heard was the door shutting behind me with a metallic thud. I stood on the street corner, a little dazed. And then I looked up and let the cold rain splatter on my hot face. I smiled; I loved rainstorms. So much happened during rainstorms. Pulling up my hood, zipping my rain jacket, I jogged down the stairs and opened the second gate. It clicked behind me.

I had no idea what to do next. There was no way I could get into a cab; I had too much energy. Instead, I decided to walk around; eventually I would find somewhere to have lunch. I walked up and down the hills, winding my way through the city, with no idea of where I was or where I was going, just wandering, feeling the wind gusting around me and the rain splattering across my face. It was so good. Somewhere near the Embarcadero, I spotted a large puddle. It was a little crazy, but I couldn’t help myself. No one was looking; I kicked off my shoes and danced in the puddle. How can you contain happiness like that?

With three hours to fill before my flight home, I decided to have lunch at a small family-owned café. I sat in a far corner so I could watch people coming and going and ordered quiche with some fruit. While I waited I went over the details of the conversation in my mind, making sure that I hadn’t misinterpreted anything. And I noticed a man sitting at the opposite corner of the room carrying a newspaper. He ordered coffee, and he glanced up at me a couple of times and smiled. He didn’t really seem to be reading the paper.

After lunch, I randomly toured the city, getting on and off city buses until I reached the Transamerican Pyramid building. With an hour remaining before my flight, I wandered through downtown, window-shopping. In one store was a pair of Ferragamo shoes, and I
strained to see the price tag. Someone bumped into me so hard my hood flew off, and I nearly landed on the ground. Someone caught me by an arm. Something dropped. A man—tall, athletic-looking, with short, light brown hair and hazel eyes, wearing a navy blue rain jacket and a beige rain hat—was the one holding my arm.

“Oh, sorry. Did you twist your ankle?” he asked, studying my face.

“No, I’m okay,” I said.

“Good. I must have slipped on some mud—so clumsy of me. You’re really all right? Have a nice day,” he said, releasing my arm and collecting his umbrella.

It didn’t occur to me then that this was anything but an accidental meeting—not until later that day, at the airport. Before my flight home, I went into the rest room and noticed a heavyset, kind-looking blond woman following closely behind me. As I headed for the gates, I suddenly realized I had left my book on the sink and returned to retrieve it. When I entered the rest room, the blonde was just leaving. A look of shock crossed her face, and she turned quickly and walked the other way.

On December 22, 1986, a man who identified himself as Dave Beiter called me. He said he was with the FBI and asked if he could come to my home that afternoon to talk with me. He said because of security concerns, he could not discuss on the phone why he wanted to meet with me.

Before he entered the house, Beiter, a compact man with very short salt-and-pepper hair, showed me his identification card. He followed me inside and sat down in a chair beside me, and for the next twenty minutes we talked about everything from dogs to scuba diving. All the while I kept thinking,
What’s this all about?
Finally I just asked.

He cleared his throat, shifted forward in the chair, then leaned back in a practiced relaxed and open position and said, “We understand that you visited the Soviet consulate. Could you tell me the purpose of this visit?”

This surprised me. It had been more than six months since I’d been to San Francisco. So I explained the Bering Strait project to him.
He listened, although it seemed as if he already knew about it. He began asking a series of questions: Whom did you meet with? How did you contact Mr. Terehkin? What did you discuss? He asked if I had any friends, family, or other contacts in the Soviet Union. Then he asked a question that perplexed me. He wanted to know if I had visited the Soviet Union or if I had any Soviet friends. No, I told him. And then I asked him if I could ask him some questions. He seemed surprised, but he nodded and smiled.