The Charm School (24 page)

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Authors: NELSON DEMILLE

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BOOK: The Charm School
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“Oh, yes. I’ve read it,” Lisa answered.
“They put him in jail?” Zina asked.
“No. They gave him a big royalty check.
Komissiya
.”
Mikhail said, “Our teacher say they put him in jail.”
“No.”
Zina said to her brother in Russian, “You see? Last year an instructor told us he was arrested after the book was published. This year another instructor told us he wasn’t allowed to publish the book and fled to France.”
Hollis cracked his boiled egg. He wondered why the government made English so available to school children. A paranoid would say, “So that they can run America someday.” But there had to be more to it than that. He’d actually heard Moscow school children speaking English to one another. Whatever the government’s reasoning was, the students considered it the height of chic.
Maybe, just maybe
, he thought,
there is hope
.
Zina asked in English, “Americans learn Russian?”
“No,” Lisa replied. “Not many.”
“You speak Russian very good. But what region is your accent?”
“Maybe a little bit Kazan, Volga region. A little Moscow. My grandmother’s Russian was old-fashioned, and maybe I still use her accent.”
“A very nice accent,” Zina said. “
Kulturny.
”
Hollis noticed that Pavel and Ida beamed every time one of their children used English. Hollis opened his briefcase to see if his staff had packed any reading material as was customary whenever anyone had to travel in the USSR. He found a
Time
magazine and put it in front of Mikhail and Zina. “This may help you with your English.” He added, “Don’t let it come to the attention of the authorities.”
They both looked at him with an expression that he’d seen before in these situations. There was first a suppressed excitement, then a sort of affected indifference, as though the contraband literature meant nothing to them. Then there was a look almost of shame, a quiet acknowledgment that their government controlled them. It
was
humiliating, Hollis thought.
Mikhail and Zina examined the magazine right down to the staples holding it together. They opened it at random and spread out a two-page color ad for Buick. The next page had an ad for Lincoln. In fact, the magazine was packed with ads for the new car models. There were sexually suggestive ads for perfumes, lingerie, and designer jeans that seemed to hold Mikhail’s interest. Pavel leaned over to get a better look, and Ida stopped what she was doing and stood behind her children.
It was general embassy policy to distribute into the population every Western periodical that came into the embassy. Even if it was mistakenly thrown in the trash, it eventually wound up in the hands of a thousand Muscovites before it fell apart. And though most Muscovites and Leningraders had seen at least one English language publication, Hollis doubted if anyone in Yablonya or the Red Flame collective had.
Hollis noticed that Mikhail and Zina were reading a story about the upcoming elections. Hollis looked at his watch and saw it was just seven. “It’s time for us to go.” He stood.
Mikhail stood also. “It’s my turn to gather the eggs. Excuse me. Thank you.” He left.
Zina helped her mother with the dishes. Lisa tried to help, but Ida told her to have another cup of tea.
Hollis followed Pavel outside. The peasant walked to the far end of his private plot where a small pen held three pigs. He said to Hollis, “The trough leaks water, and I’m tired of carrying buckets from the well.”
“Can you fix the trough?”
“I need some pine pitch or tar. But I can’t get the fools to give me any.”
“What fools?”
“The fools at the collective office. They say they have none. Well, maybe they don’t.” He added, “It’s difficult to get anything for the private plots.”
“Sometimes a hollowed-out log works better for a trough.”
“Yes, that’s true. I’ll need a big log though. I have a good pickax.” He added, “It would be easier if they gave me the tar.”
Hollis asked, “Do you go to church today?”
“Church? There’s no church here. Only in the big cities. I saw an old church once in Mozhaisk, but it’s a museum. I didn’t go in.”
“Did you ever want to go to church?”
Pavel scratched his head. “I don’t know. Maybe if I could talk to a priest I could answer you. I’ve never seen a priest, but I know what they look like from books. Do American farmers go to church?”
“Yes. I’d say most of them do.”
Pavel looked into the sky. “Rain. But maybe snow. See those clouds? When they get soft grey like that instead of white or black, it could be snow.”
Pavel looked out across the brown fields behind his plot. He spoke in that faraway, heavy tone that Hollis had come to associate with their so-called fatalism. Pavel said, “The snow becomes so deep that the children can’t go to school and we can’t leave the house. They are supposed to keep the roads plowed, but they don’t. I sit in the house and drink too much. Sometimes I beat my wife and the children for no reason. I had another daughter, Katya, but she died one winter of a burst appendix. Someday they say they will move us to a
sovkhoz
. Maybe. But I don’t know if I want to leave this house. What do American farmers do in winter?”
“Fix things. Clean their barns, hunt. Some take jobs. It’s not so cold in the winter in America.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“How long has Yablonya been here?”
“Who can say? I came here as a child after the war with my mother. My father died in the war. The government sent my mother here from a bigger village that the Germans burned. A man once told me Yablonya was within the Romanov lands. Another man said it was on the estate of a rich count. Everyone says it was bigger once. There were barns and stables where people had their own horses, troikas, and plows. There were two more wells. But no pumps. Now we have a pump. Some say there was even a church between here and the next village. But that village is gone too. Typhoid. So they burned it. I think the church was burned too. The Germans or maybe the commissars. Who knows?” He asked Hollis, “Do you miss your home?”
“I have no home.”
“No home?”
“I’ve lived in many places.” They spoke casually for a while, then Hollis said, “We must be going.” He added, “I’m afraid if someone here—the children, the babushkas—speak of our visit, it will not be good for Yablonya.”
“I know that. We will discuss it after you leave.”
Hollis took Pavel’s hand and pressed a ten-ruble note into it.
Pavel looked at the note and shoved it into his pocket. “Bring your car around, and I’ll give you five kilos of butter. They’ll give you twenty rubles for it in Moscow.”
“We’re going to Leningrad. Anyway, the money was for your hospitality.
Da svedahnya
.” Hollis turned and walked back to the house. Lisa was ready to go and had a burlap bag in her hand. She said, “Ida gave me some honey and a bag of pears.”
Hollis retrieved his briefcase from under the table. “Thank you, Ida. Good-bye, Zina.” He took Lisa’s arm, and they left. As they walked down the road, they heard an old man singing:
Govorila baba dedu
Chto v Ameriku poyedu.
Akh, ty staraya pizda
Ne poedesh nikuda.
—Grandma says to Grandpa:
I’m going to America, you hear?
Oh, you old pussy,
You ain’t goin’ nowhere.
They went behind the hayrick, and standing near the Zhiguli was the young girl named Lidiya. Lisa smiled at her and said in Russian, “Good morning, Lidiya. I wondered if I’d see you.”
The girl did not return the smile, but said in Russian, “There is a boy here, Anatoly, who is a member of the Komsomol. You know what that is—the Young Communist League? I think this boy will tell the authorities of your visit.”
Lisa took the girl’s arm. “Perhaps the other children can talk to Anatoly.”
The girl shook her head. “Anatoly speaks to no one and listens to no one. No one in Yablonya.”
Hollis said to Lidiya, “Is Pavel Fedorovich the head man here?”
“They don’t let us have a head man. But yes, it is Pavel Fedorovich.”
“Then tell him what you told us. And be certain Anatoly does not leave this village today.”
She nodded.
Lisa said, “Thank you. I’m sorry we couldn’t speak longer.”
Lidiya said, “I want to know more about America.”
Lisa hesitated, then took her card from her bag and gave it to Lidiya. “If you should ever get to Moscow, with your school or on holiday, call that number. From a phone booth only, and only give your first name. Ask for me. Lisa Rhodes.”
Lidiya stared at the card with the Great Seal on it and pronounced, “Lee-za Rhodes.”
Lisa gave the girl a kiss on the cheek.
Lidiya stepped back, looked from Lisa to Hollis, then turned and ran off.
Hollis said, “I shouldn’t have left that magazine here, and you shouldn’t have given her that card.”
Lisa replied, “You told me not so long ago that you can’t let
them
dictate how you are going to live. They create fear and suspicion, and it comes between people.”
Hollis nodded. “Let’s go.” They got into the car, and Hollis started the engine. He let it warm up while the defroster ran.
Lisa said, “I left ten rubles in the bedroom.”
“For me?”
She laughed. “You get hard currency. Very hard.”
Hollis smiled. “I gave Pavel a tenner. So, do you think we can get away with just dinner, or do we have to have them for the weekend?”
“I think they were nice.”
“He beats his wife.” Hollis tried to put the car into gear, but the linkage was stuck again. “A nuclear power. I don’t get it.” He played with the clutch and stick shift, finally forcing it into second gear. “Okay.”
Hollis pulled out onto the dirt road and turned in the opposite direction from which they had come.
“Are we going to find that telephone?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t chance that.”
“Where are we going? Mozhaisk is the other way.”
“We are not going to Mozhaisk. We’re going to Gagarin.” Hollis honked his horn and waved to Pavel, Ida, Mikhail, Zina, and the others who were waving from their front gardens. “Yablonya,” he said. “This place will sit on my mind for some time.”
“Mine too.”
Hollis passed the last
izba
in the village and sped up. The Zhiguli bounced badly on the rutted and frozen mud. “
Chornaya gryazi
,” Hollis said. “The black mud. This stuff will turn to pudding when the sun warms it. The panzers used to sink up to their turrets.”
“Why Gagarin?”
“Well, there are people between Mozhaisk and Moscow who are looking for Major Dodson and maybe for us. So we’re heading west to Gagarin, where I hope there’s not an all points out for stray Americans. We’ll ditch the car, then take the train to Moscow. Okay?”
“What are my choices?”
“You can ride in the backseat. Left or right side.”
Lisa lit a cigarette. “You’re a pretty smart guy.”
“Foreign travel is educational. And we’ll see how smart I am. Could you crack the window?”
Lisa rolled down the window. “Can we stop for a pack of cigarettes?”
“Next Seven-Eleven you see.”
“Thanks.”
Hollis headed west along the straight dirt road. He couldn’t imagine that the Soviet state did not have the wherewithal to pave or even gravel back roads. Perhaps, he thought, it was just another subtle means of keeping the peasants where they belonged and making their miserable lives more miserable. He knew he had to get the Zhiguli onto blacktop before the mud thawed.
“Do you know the way?” Lisa asked.
“It’s about fifty K west of here on the old Minsk–Moscow road. And yes, I’m afraid this is—”
“Another fucking itinerary violation.”
“What happened to that sweet girl who was so obsequious toward me?”
She laughed. “I
was
awed by you. That’s how you talked me into bed.”
Hollis thought it best to leave that one alone. He said, “I need a shower.”
“You sure do.”
Hollis pushed the Zhiguli hard. It was a few minutes past eight, and he could see water in the ruts now instead of ice. He figured they had about fifteen minutes left on this road before it swallowed the Zhiguli.
Lisa said, “Do you think those people in Yablonya will be all right?”
“Well, if they don’t report their contact with foreigners, and the authorities find out on their own, or if the little Komsomol shit tells them, it will be bad. In the intelligence business we talk about the average Ivan’s attitudinal loyalty to the state. Some say he’s got it, others don’t think so. In America, if Joe Smith had a Russian knocking on his door asking to be put up on the sly, Joe would be on the horn to the FBI in a flash. Joe does that because he thinks it’s right, not because he thinks the FBI will torture him if he doesn’t. Ivan, on the other hand, is about half patriotic and half terrorized. That’s my professional analysis. Personally I think Yablonya is fucked.”

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