The Charm School (25 page)

Hollis stopped the car in the middle of the empty street and rolled down his window. An enormous babushka, wrapped in black, was carrying a crate on her shoulder like a man. Hollis asked, “
Vokzal?
”

“Good, good.” She opened the rear door of the Zhiguli, threw the crate in, and piled in after it. The Zhiguli’s rear dropped. Hollis looked at Lisa, smiled, and shrugged. He asked, “
Gde?
”

“There, there. Turn over there. Where are you from?”

Hollis turned down a narrow street and saw the train station, a covered concrete platform. “From Estonia.”

“Yes? Do the police let you drive with dented fenders in Estonia? You must get that fixed here.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Where are your hats and gloves? Do you want to get pneumonia?”

“No.” Hollis pulled up to a small empty parking area beside the concrete platform. He got out and helped the old woman up the platform steps. Lisa followed with his briefcase, and they made their way through the crowd to the wooden ticket shed on the platform. Hollis and Lisa consulted the posted schedule and saw that the next Moscow train would be along in twenty minutes. Hollis knocked on the ticket window, and a wooden panel slid back, revealing a middle-aged woman wearing a grey railroad coat. A fire blazed in an old potbellied stove behind her. Hollis said, “Two one-way tickets to Moscow.”

She looked at him.

Hollis knew she was supposed to ask for an internal passport, but ticket agents rarely did. In his case, however, she might make an exception. Hollis said, “Is it possible to be ticketed on to Leningrad, then to Tallinn?”

“No. You are Estonian?”

“Yes.”

The woman craned her neck to get a look at Lisa, then turned to Hollis. “You must be ticketed in Moscow for Leningrad and Tallinn. Twenty-two and seventy-five.”

Hollis gave her twenty-five rubles and took the tickets and change. “
Spasibo.
”

As they moved away from the ticket booth, Lisa glanced back. “I wonder if she’s going to call the militia.”

Hollis moved around to the rear of the wooden ticket shed, looked around, drew his knife, and severed the telephone line. “No. But if she leaves the ticket booth, we’re back in the Zhiguli.”

Lisa took his arm. “Somehow I feel you’ll get us out of this.” She added, “You got us into it.”

Hollis made no reply.

She asked, “What would you have done if she asked us for passports or identity cards?”

“Are you asking out of curiosity, or are you trying to learn the business?”

“Both.”

“Well, then, I would have . . . you tell me.”

Lisa thought a moment, then said, “I’d pretend I couldn’t find my ID, leave, and pay a peasant to buy two tickets.”

Hollis nodded. “Not bad.”

Lisa and Hollis walked down the cold, grey concrete platform, which looked like a scene out of
Doctor Zhivago
, crowded with black-coated and black-scarved humanity. Old peasants, men and women, with teenage boys to help them, lugged crates, boxes, and suitcases filled with dairy products and the last fresh produce of the year. They were all headed for one place: Moscow, the Center, where eight million mouths had to be fed and could not be fed properly through the government’s distribution system. Some of the peasants would go to the markets, the government’s grudging concession to capitalism, and some of the peasants would get no farther than a side street near the railroad terminal. Hollis had heard from some of the wives in the embassy that by November broccoli and cauliflower could sell for the equivalent of two dollars a pound, tomatoes for twice that, and lettuce was sold by the gram. By December the fresh produce disappeared until May.

The peasant women sat like men, Hollis noticed, their legs spread and their hands dangling in their laps. Not a single man was shaven, and there was not one decent article of clothing among the two hundred or so people. The women wore rubber boots and galoshes, and though the men’s shoes and boots were leather, they were raw and cracked from long, hard use. The few young girls wore plastic boots of garish colors: red, yellow, pale blue. Hollis said softly to Lisa, “You might as well powder your nose again. Everyone’s staring at you anyway.”

“My word, look at that. That man has dead rabbits in that sack.”

The Byelorussian Express came lumbering down the track, and everyone stood and moved their wares to the edge of the platform, forming a veritable wall of boxes and crates. The train stopped, the doors opened, and Hollis vaulted inside followed by Lisa. They took two empty seats by the attendant’s tea cubicle.

Within ten minutes every nook and cranny of the car was packed with bundles, and the train pulled out. Hollis checked his watch. It was nine-thirty. With stops in Mozhaisk and Golitsyno, the train should arrive at the Byelorussian station on Gorky Square well before noon.

The grimness of the platform quickly gave way to animated conversation, jokes, and laughter. It was rough peasant talk, Hollis noted, but there was no profanity, and there seemed to be a bond between these people, though clearly many of them were getting acquainted for the first time. The bond was not only the journey, he thought, but the brotherhood of the downtrodden. How unlike the Moscow metro where you could hear a pin drop at the height of rush hour.

Food was being passed around now, and there was good-natured teasing about the qualities of each person’s wares. Hollis heard a woman say, “Not even a Muscovite would buy these apples of yours.”

Another woman answered, “I tell them they are radishes.”

Everyone laughed.

An old man across the aisle pushed a dripping slice of tomato under Hollis’ nose. Hollis took it from his brown fingers. “Thank you, father.” He passed it to Lisa. “Eat it.”

She hesitated, then popped it into her mouth. “Good. See if anyone has orange juice.”

“Low profile. Feign sleep or simplemindedness.”

Lisa whispered in Russian, “Can I smoke?”

“Not here. In the lav.”

“Do you want another pear? Honey?”

“No, honey.”

“This is nice.”

Hollis looked around the car. It
was
quite nice. Clean, lace curtains on the windows, and little bud vases attached to the windowsills, each with a real rosebud. The more he saw of Russia, he admitted, the less he understood it. The windows, however, were dirty, and this was somehow comforting.

They spoke as little as possible, and Hollis urged Lisa to remain in her seat unless she really had to use the facilities. The conductor, a middle-aged woman, came through, took their tickets, and marked them rather than punching them. She said, “Are you Muscovites?”

Hollis replied, “No. Estonians. From Moscow we go to Leningrad, then home to Tallinn.”

“Ah. Your Russian is good.” She looked Lisa over and observed, “Those are very nice boots.”

“Thank you.”

“They have better things in our Baltic republics. I never understood that.” She handed Hollis the tickets. “Have a safe journey.”

“Thank you.”

The train gathered speed on the straight, flat trackbed. There was piped-in music now. It was not the classical or folk music usually heard in public places, Hollis noted, but soft, easy-listening music, Soviet Muzak.

The train pulled into Mozhaisk, and there was the same crush of humanity on the platform carrying the same bursting cardboard suitcases and ungainly bundles. The train loaded the last two cars only. There were soldiers and militia on the platform. Hollis and Lisa slumped down into their seats and feigned sleep. The train pulled out and continued its journey through the bleak Russian landscape.

Golitsyno was a five-minute stop, and within fifteen minutes of leaving the station they could see the tall spire of Moscow University in the Lenin Hills. “Almost home,” Lisa commented. She added, “No, not really home.”

The train made short stops at suburban stations, Setun, Kuncevo, Fili, then Testovskaya. Lisa said, “Why don’t we get off here? We can walk to the embassy from here.”

“We’re supposed to be going on to Leningrad, so we get off at the Byelorussian terminal.”

“I want to get off
here
. I’ve had it.”

“Sit down.”

Lisa sat back in her seat. “Sorry. Getting edgy. I trust you. You did a magnificent job. Even if something happens and we don’t get into the embassy. . . . How
are
we going to get into the embassy if the watchers are waiting for us near the gate?”

“I’ll show you a spy trick.”

“You’d better.”

The Byelorussian Express from Minsk pulled into Moscow’s Byelorussian Station at ten minutes to noon. Hollis and Lisa left quickly and pushed through the throngs packed into the hundred-year-old station. Hollis noticed that the people returning to the hinterlands had not appreciably lightened their loads, but were burdened now with plastic bags filled with clothing, new shoes, cooking utensils, and all manner of Moscow’s bounty. The most worthless thing they had on them were the leftover rubles in their pockets. A few passing Muscovites, well-dressed by comparison, gave the country folk hard looks to show they didn’t like the competition for consumer goods by peasants.

Hollis and Lisa passed pairs of KGB Border Guards, who were at every transportation hub in the Soviet Union but were nonetheless intimidating to foreigner and native alike.

Hollis and Lisa came out of the station into Gorky Square, dominated by a huge statue of the writer. The sky was the usual grey, and the air seemed filled with fumes compared to the fresh air of the countryside.

They crossed the square and walked down Gorky Street, Moscow’s main street, toward the Kremlin. Hollis led Lisa into the Minsk Hotel, and he entered a phone booth off the lobby. He dialed the embassy, spoke to the Marine watch-stander, then the Sunday duty officer, who turned out to be his own aide, Captain O’Shea. “Ed, this is me. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is a photoflash,” Hollis said, using the word for a personal emergency. “Get a car to me at location delta. Ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll go myself.”

“No, stay there and find me Mr. Nine. I want to see him.”

“Mr. Nine was very worried about you. He’s in his office.”

“Ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Welcome home.”

Hollis hung up the phone and said to Lisa, “Seth is very worried about you.”

Lisa didn’t reply. They left the Minsk Hotel and continued down Gorky Street. She said, “That was neat. Where is location delta?”

“I forgot.”

She looked at him. “Are you jerking me around?”

“Yeah. It’s Gastronom One. You know it?”

“Sure. But we Muscovites still call it Yeliseyevsky’s, its pre-Revolution name. Best gourmet store in Moscow. The
only
one actually.” She added, “We’re going to make it, aren’t we?”

“Looks like it.”

They passed the Stanislavsky Drama Theater, walked through Pushkin Square, and crossed the Garden Ring, which once had been the outer wall of the city. They came to the ornate facade of Gastronom One, then doubled back. Hollis said, “I’m assuming the KGB doesn’t know location delta from Times Square. We change the locations every time we have to use one. So there should be no one here from the KGB to meet us. However, they will have a car or two close behind the embassy car. As soon as the embassy car slows down, you jump in the rear, scoot over quick, and I follow. Okay?”

“I saw this in a movie once.”

They waited. Lisa lit a cigarette. “This is my last one. But I have a pack in my office. Or my room.”

“That’s good news.”

A black Ford came at a good pace up Gorky Street, and Hollis saw two security men in the front and a man who looked like Seth Alevy in the back. Behind the Ford was a black Chaika. The Ford suddenly swerved to the curb and braked hard. The back door flew open, Lisa slipped in beside Alevy, and Hollis got in, then slammed the door as the car accelerated. Lisa said, “Hello, Seth.”

Alevy addressed Hollis directly, “You had better have a good explanation, Colonel.”

Hollis didn’t reply.

“Where is the car?” Alevy asked.

“At the railroad station.”

“
What
railroad station?”

“Gagarin.”

“
Gagarin?
What the hell were you doing there?”

“Getting the train to Moscow.”

Lisa opened her burlap bag. “Seth, do you want a pear?”

“No.” Alevy folded his arms and looked out the side window.

The Chaika got up close behind them, and the security driver sped up until another Chaika appeared in front of the Ford and boxed them in. The American driver pulled out, and the three cars continued their dangerous game, weaving through central Moscow and down Kalinin Prospect.

Within ten minutes the Ford reached the embassy and shot past the militia booth, crossed the sidewalk, and entered the gates. The Chaika behind them sounded its horn, and the man in the passenger side put his arm out the window and extended his middle finger. The security men in the front of the Ford returned the salute of the KGB men in the Chaika, while Hollis returned the salute of the Marine watchstanders. The Ford went around the flagpole and stopped at the entrance to the chancery. Hollis, Lisa, and Alevy piled out. Alevy said, “No offense, but you both smell.”

Lisa said, “I think I’ll go and shower.”

“Not a half-bad idea.”

Hollis said to Alevy, “Get a call through to the Mozhaisk morgue. Tell them not to wait for an escort and have them drive the body to Sheremetyevo airport freight terminal. Send a consular officer to the airport to take charge of the remains.” He took the manila envelope from his briefcase. “Here’s all the paperwork, including the export permit and a charge for the coffin that they want paid before they’ll ship it out.”

“I thought you were
in
the damned coffin. I called the Soviet Foreign Ministry, the KGB—”

“That’s like dialing M for murder, Seth.”

“Where did you spend the night?”

“Is that a professional question?” Hollis inquired.

Lisa interjected. “We hid out in a village called Yablonya—”

“Hid out? From whom?”