Charm School v1_0

by Nelson DeMille

  “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 svedabnya” 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 poedesl 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.”

  Lisa stayed silent for some time, then said, “I should have realized the trouble they'd be in… it just seemed like a solution to our problem.”

 
; “Don't worry about it. I just hope the KGB doesn't go snooping around there this morning. We need a few hours' head start.” Hollis could feel the road getting soft and heard mud splashing against the wheel wells. The muffler was thumping. Ahead he saw a horse-drawn potato wagon plodding along the narrow road. “Damn it.” He knew he couldn't slow down behind the wagon without getting mired in the muck. “Hold on.” Hollis came up behind the wagon, angled the car to the left, and cut back so that the Zhiguli's right side was inches from the horse and wagon while its left wheels were off the road into the drainage ditch. The car started to flip over, then settled down and flopped back onto the road in front of the horse, who got splattered with mud and reared up. The car fishtailed in the mud but kept its traction.

  Lisa took a deep breath. “Wow.”

  Within five minutes they came to an intersecting road of gravel, and Hollis cut north on it. He nudged the Zhiguli up to fifty kph and listened to the muffler working itself loose.

  Lisa asked, “Do you want a pear?”

  “Sure.”

  She got a pear from the bag and wiped it on her sleeve before she handed it to him.

  Hollis saw the main utility poles of the old Minsk—Moscow road ahead. He bit into the pear. “Good grusha” He turned onto the paved road and headed west. “About twenty minutes to Gagarin.” Hollis saw no traffic on the road in either direction. He pressed on the accelerator and got the Zhiguli up to ninety kph. The engine whined, and the transmission whined back, but the car held steady. The muffler had quieted down on the level surface.

  Hollis saw a black car in his rearview mirror. The car was gaining on him fast and had to be doing over a hundred kph. As the car drew closer he recognized the grillwork of a Chaika. He looked at his dashboard and saw that his tachometer was already in the red line. “Don't look now, but…”

  She turned her head. “Oh, shit! Is that them?”

  “Don't know.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Bluff and bluster. Tell them we've already called our embassy and so on. If I think it's necessary and if I get a chance, I'll try to kill them.” He slid his knife out of his boot and slipped it inside his leather coat.

  “Sam… I'm frightened.”

  “You'll be fine. Be a bitch.”

  The Chaika was fifty meters behind them now and swung out into the oncoming lane. Lisa looked straight ahead. Hollis glanced in his sideview mirror and smiled. “Wave.”

  “What?”

  The Chaika drew abreast and honked its horn. Two young couples waved from the car. Hollis smiled and waved back. The woman in the front passenger side pointed to the crushed fender and pantomimed swigging from a bottle and jerking on a steering wheel. The young man in the back was blowing kisses to Lisa. His female companion punched his arm playfully. The Chaika accelerated and passed them. Hollis said, “Crazy Muscovite kids. What's this country coming to?”

  Lisa drew a long breath. She opened her bag, took out a compact, and brushed her face with blush, then carefully put on lip gloss. “I'll do my eyes when you stop for a light.” She ran a brush through her hair. “Want me to do your hair? It's messy.”

  “Okay.”

  She brushed his hair as he drove. She said, “We need a toothbrush.” She added, “I want us to look good for them.”

  “For whom?”

  “The people in Gagarin or the KGB or Burov. Whoever we meet first.”

  Hollis said, “You look good. Too good. Tone it down a bit.”

  “We're not going to pass for Russians anyway, Sam.”

  “We'll try to pass as something other than American embassy staff”

  She shrugged and blotted the blush and lip gloss with a handkerchief. “At least I'm wearing a vatnik. You look like Indiana Jones with your boots and leather jacket.” She tousled his hair. “Well, we didn't shower.”

  Hollis said, “Standard procedure is try to pass as a socialist comrade from one of the Baltic states. They don't dress half bad, look Western, and speak un-Russian Russian. How about Lithuanian? Or do you feel like a Latvian?”

  “I want to be an Estonian.”

  “You got it.”

  Ten minutes later they saw squat izbas on either side of the road, then buildings with painted wood siding. Hollis slowed down. “Gagarin.”

  “Named after the cosmonaut?”

  “Yes. He was born in a village near here. From a squalid izba to a space capsule—log cabin to the stars. You have to give these people credit where it's due.”

  They came into the middle of Gagarin, the district center for the region, situated on both banks of the Bolshaya Gzhat River. It was a town of about ten thousand people, big enough, Hollis thought, so that neither the Zhiguli nor its occupants stood out. Like Mozhaisk, it looked as if everyone had gone to the moon for the weekend. The town boasted a restaurant and a memorial museum to their famous native son.

  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 Zhivagp, 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 attendants 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 persons wares. Hollis heard a woman say, “Not even a Muscovite would buy these apples of yours.”