The Charm School (32 page)

18

Hollis, Alevy, and Lisa stood in the lobby of the chancery.

“Come in for a drink,” Lisa offered. “I need one.”

Alevy replied, “I have to do some night sending before five, D.C. time. See you tomorrow.” He turned and headed for the elevator.

Lisa said to Hollis, “How about you? Night sending?”

“No. I’ll have a quick one.”

“Quick drink?” She smiled.

“Whatever.”

They walked out onto the rear terrace, then along the path to the housing units. She opened her door and put their coats in the hall closet, then showed him upstairs to the living room. “What can I get you?”

“Scotch, neat.”

Lisa made the drinks.

Hollis looked around. The apartment was modern, a living room-dining room combination, and a galley kitchen. Upstairs would be the bedroom. The furniture, like most of the odds and ends, was from Finland, the closest and easiest Western country from which to import quality consumer goods. It was the apartment of a mid-level American government employee, but it would be the envy of any senior Soviet bureaucrat.

Lisa gave him his drink, and she toasted, “Another good date.”

She put Rachmaninoff on the tape deck and they talked. Hollis examined an icon on the wall. “Is that real?”

“Yes. My grandmother’s. I’m going to have a tough time trying to get it back out of the country.”

“I’ll put it in the diplomatic bag.”

“Would you? Thanks, Sam.”

“You planning on leaving?” he asked.

“No . . . but somehow I have the feeling my days here are near an end.”

Hollis nodded.

Lisa sat on the couch, and Hollis sat at the far end. She said, “It’s not just Dodson. There are hundreds of them, aren’t there? That’s what you were saying . . . when we . . . in Pavel’s bedroom.”

Hollis glanced at her. He finally replied, “I might have said too much.”

“I don’t repeat what you tell me.” She asked, “Don’t you and Seth compare notes?”

“We
trade
notes. You don’t get nothin’ for nothin’ in this business. My outfit, Defense Intelligence, is sort of junior to the CIA. So I have to protect my turf. All very petty. But competition is very American.”

“But you do get along. Personally.”

“Yes. He’s my friend too.”

She nodded.

“Can we change the subject?”

She stood and went to the window that looked north over the brick wall. A huge banner had just been strung between two buildings across the street in anticipation of the celebration of the Great October Revolution, whose anniversary was actually November 7 by the Gregorian calendar. She said, “Look at that. ‘Peace-loving Soviet peoples demand an end to American aggression.’ Do I have to look at that?”

“Call the zoning commission.”

She grumbled, “They’re getting all worked up for their big day—those bloody red banners all over the damned place, exhorting, cajoling, boasting—like state-subsidized graffiti, for God’s sake. And you know, Sam, when I first got here, the hammers and sickles all over the place were jarring, almost scary, because we’re so conditioned, like with swastikas, to react to certain symbols. A Party official once told me that the crosses on the Kremlin give him the creeps, and the Great Seal on our embassy wall makes him see red.” She laughed without humor and added, “I wish we could stop pumping adrenaline when we see red stars or Stars of David or whatever. But we’re like Comrade Pavlov’s mutts, Sam. They’ve got us drooling.”

“Who are
they
?”

“They are what we will be twenty years from now. We are in training to be them.”

“You may have something there.”

“Another?”

“Sure. Less glass this time.”

She poured him a triple scotch, then sat close to him. “Can I tell you something? I was damned frightened at Lefortovo. That’s twice you’ve done that to me.”

“Tomorrow night we’ll see the movie. They’re showing
Rambo—Part Eight
.”

She laughed. “Hey, remember when that Russian kid scaled the wall, got into the theater, and watched a whole feature before anyone knew he was there?”

“I remember. The ambassador chopped some heads at Security.”

“The kid wanted to see that movie. What was it?”

“
Rocky Nine.
”

“When are these people going to break loose, Sam? I mean, they need two hundred million of those kids. When’s that going to happen?”

“Probably never, Lisa.”

“Don’t say that. The human spirit—”

“Lighter topic, please. Did you enjoy dinner?”

“We never got dinner.” She jumped up. “I’m starved. I made
rasolnik
the other night. I have some left.”

“What’s that?”

“Pickled vegetable soup.”

“I’ll stick with the scotch.”

“I’m trying to learn traditional Russian cooking.”

“Let me know how you make out.”

She went to the refrigerator and took out a section of cold kolbassa and began eating it. “Do you like garlic? This is loaded with it.”

Hollis stood. “You sleep with your clothes on, and you eat garlic before bed. I think I’ll go home now.”

“No. Stay. Talk to me. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“You’re perfectly safe in the compound.”

“I know that.” She chewed thoughtfully on the sausage, then added, “I’ve smiled at you a dozen times in the damned lobby, in the elevators—”

“Was that you? Was that a smile?”

“You don’t remember, Sam, but I was at that little bon voyage they gave for Katherine. Did you know then that she wasn’t coming back?”

“I suspected when I saw her packing everything she owned.”

“Ah, good intelligence work. Are you divorcing her?”

“I’m trying to figure out who has jurisdiction. I may fly to the States and file or something. But I can’t figure out what state I live in. Probably Siberia, if I don’t watch my step.”

“So you’re in the process of divorce.”

“Yes. But what married couple isn’t?”

“Do you want to know about Seth?”

“Not while you’re gnawing on eight inches of sausage.”

She put the sausage on the breakfast bar. “Do you want to see my photographs?”

“Sure.”

Lisa went to the cabinet beneath the bookshelves and retrieved two albums. She put one on the coffee table, sat beside Hollis, and opened the one in her lap. “This is the first picture I took the day I got to Moscow. Those are the last of the wooden houses that used to line the road to Sheremetyevo Airport. They’re gone now.” She flipped through the pages, and Hollis saw that all the photos had typed captions below them. Most of the pictures were black and white, but there were some color shots taken in the spring and summer. Hollis looked at churches and cathedrals with their dates of destruction noted, and in some cases, pictures of the actual wrecking crew followed by a photograph of the new building on the site. Hollis was no architectural romantic, but the photography made the point jarringly well.

In nearly all the photos of old wooden homes, there were people about, leaning out windows, hanging laundry in the yards, or talking over picket fences. The people seemed weathered like the unpainted wood, and like their homes they seemed to fit in well, to belong to the narrow streets, the tangle of Russian olive trees, and the giant sunflowers hugging the fences. There were dogs and cats in the pictures, though Hollis couldn’t recall ever seeing a dog or cat in his two years in Moscow. Surprisingly, he didn’t recognize any of the locales, and if he hadn’t known it was Moscow, he would have guessed it was some small provincial town out on the steppe. It was as if there were another city lurking among the concrete behemoths that Moscow had become. “This is very good, Lisa. Incredible shots.”

“Thank you.”

“Where are these places?”

“They’re all within the Outer Ring Road, since I can’t get out of the city. Some of these places were villages that are now within the city. Some are old districts in the central city that haven’t been torn down yet, hidden between apartment projects.”

Hollis observed, “Many American cities are undergoing the same sort of ugly growth.”

“Yes,” she replied, “but that’s a debate between aesthetics and profit. Here the goal is to get everyone into apartment blocks where they can be
watched
. And it’s not just the cities; the countryside will one day look like that
sovkhoz
we saw.”

Hollis replied, “It’s not our problem.”

“You probably think I’m obsessed, and maybe I am. But I don’t see what right these bureaucrats have to destroy other people’s homes or cultural and religious monuments that in some ways belong to the world. Look at these shots. The Maly Theater next to the Bolshoi, Stanislavsky’s Moscow Art Theater, St. Nicholas’ Cathedral. They were all slated for destruction, but some Moscow artists and writers got wind of it and actually made a protest. Same with the Arbat district. The wrecking crews are on hold, but no one is really able to stop this onslaught on the past. They’d rip down the Kremlin if they thought they could get away with it.”

“Maybe they could sell it to an American businessman who would make a theme park out of it.” Hollis turned a page of the album and saw a picture of Lisa standing on the veranda of what could have been her own Victorian house in Sea Cliff, except that there was a very Russian-looking family standing around, and the adults were drinking Moskovaya beer from bottles. Also in the picture, his hand for some reason on Lisa’s head, was Seth Alevy, wearing a rare smile. The typed caption read:
Seth and I, house hunting with real estate brokers in Tatarovo.

She said, “Silly,” and flipped the page. She went through the remaining photographs, but Hollis was no longer paying attention. She seemed to sense this and put the book on the coffee table. After a minute or so of silence, she said, “That was a Jewish family. Dissidents.”

Hollis got up and made himself another drink.

Lisa said, “So, do you think a New York publisher would be interested in the theme?”

“Maybe. The pictures are very good. You have a good eye.”

“Thanks. Can I take a picture of you for my book?”

“No.”

“Are you sulking?”

“Quite possibly.”

“Well . . . I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t even tell you this, but he was very interested in my work, in the project. He said he had contacts in a few publishing houses . . . so we went picture taking once in a while.”

“Good.” Hollis could well believe that Alevy had publishing contacts. In fact, the CIA had many such contacts, the purpose of which was to get anti-Soviet books published with mainstream publishers. Hollis didn’t know what kind of incentives the CIA offered or if the publisher actually knew with whom they were dealing, but he’d heard it was a successful program. Lisa, he suspected, had no idea she was the subject of another one of Alevy’s little side schemes. Whether or not the book had merit, Hollis knew that someday he’d see it in a bookstore, courtesy of Seth Alevy and company. The man certainly knew how to mix business with pleasure.

Lisa broke into his uncharitable thoughts. “You
did
say it would be dangerous.”

Hollis looked at her. “What?”

“Whatever is going on. Dangerous.”

“Yes. Dangerous.”

“Can you give me any more facts?”

Hollis had a further uncharitable thought: that Lisa was reporting to Seth Alevy. But if that were true, then everything he thought he knew about people was wrong. He said, “You have the outlines. I’ll brief you on a need-to-know basis.”

She smiled. “I’ll play the game, Sam, but I won’t talk the talk. Talk English.”

He smiled in return, then said, “Whenever you want to quit, just say ‘I quit.’ Nothing further is required.”

“Do you really need me?”

“We’re short on red-blooded Americans here. I know this violates the USIS rules, not to mention Pentagon rules. But yes, I need you.”

She nodded. “Okay. You got me.” She smiled suggestively. “What can I do for you now?”

Hollis ignored the suggestion and said, “I’ll bet
you
know where Gogol’s grave is.”

“Sure.” She laughed. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Not the cultural illiterates I work with, myself included. Where is it?”

“Why do you want to know? Is there a party there?”

“Oh, you’ve been asked that already?”

“Sure have.”

“Well?”

She hooked her finger under his belt. “First things first. I’d feel awful if I thought I was a one-night stand.”

Hollis put his drink on the end table.

“So,” she said, “let’s do it again.”

“Well . . .” He looked at his watch.

She embraced him and kissed him, then ran her fingers over the nape of his neck and felt the scars again. “You could have been in the Charm School.”

“I suppose.”

“But instead you’re here. Your wife is in London. Gregory Fisher is dead, and Major Dodson is God knows where. How will this end?”

“No idea.”

“When do you finish your tour here?”

“Whenever the Pentagon wants. You?”

“Twenty months. Maybe less now. What will we do if one of us leaves before the other?”

Hollis didn’t reply, and she said, “Step at a time.” She motioned to the staircase. “Let’s do those steps first.”

They climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Like the main floor, Hollis noticed, it was Finnish modern, light ashwood, Finlandia crystal, things by Sotka, Furbig, and Aarikka, names that the American community in Moscow had come to appreciate. There was a long-tailed Chinese kite tacked in loops across the ceiling and down the wall over the bed. “Very nice.”

“You’re only the third man who’s been up here.”

“It’s certainly a rare privilege. Look, do you realize I’m nearly twenty years older than you?”

“So were the other two. So what?”

Hollis looked at her. There was something about Lisa Rhodes that appealed to him. She was tomboyish yet feminine, ingenuous but shrewd. And at times she showed great maturity, though there were other times she seemed refreshingly unsophisticated. He said, “I like twenty-nine.”

“I’ve never tried that.”