The unnamed narrator describes the work of the women in the typing pool for SR, the CIA’s Soviet Russia Division. The women are college graduates with skills beyond typing, such as shooting a gun, flying planes, or speaking other languages; however, the men in the Agency do not acknowledge or care about the women’s skills and often share confidential information in their presence. Among the highly experienced and capable women doing desk jobs at the Agency are former OSS operatives Betty McIntosh and Virginia Hall.

Olga Ivinskaya’s home in Moscow is raided by government agents looking for evidence of her involvement in Boris Pasternak’s anti-Soviet sentiments. They arrest her, taking her away from her daughter, Ira, her son, Mitya, and her mother. At Lubyanka, the building of the Ministry of State Security, Olga is interrogated by Semionov, who wants her to write her confession and give information to condemn Pasternak. Instead, Olga reflects on how she first saw Pasternak at one of his readings, then again when he toured Novy Mir, the literary journal where she worked. As Olga is pregnant with his child, she is initially treated well, but night after night Semionov grills her about Doctor Zhivago, the novel Pasternak is writing.