A sub-plot concerns Hale 's on-off romance with Spaniard Elena Teresa Ceniza-Bendiga . A devoted Comintern agent and lapsed Catholic when she first meets Hale , Ceniza-Bendiga eventually rejects communism . While imprisoned in Moscow 's notorious Lubyanka prison , she returns to her faith upon discovering the horrible motivation behind the deliberate mass starvation and violent political purges of Stalinist Russia : the placation of an entity called Zat al-Dawahi ( " Mistress of Misfortunes " ) or Machikha Nash ( " our stepmother " ) , a demonic being who demanded human sacrifice in exchange for protecting the nation from foreign invasion
violent political purges
Great Purge
Declare