Charm School v1_0

by Nelson DeMille

  “No.”

  “Why not? You could in subtle ways—”

  “Miss Rhodes, they told me that if they discovered I was doing that, they would kill the boy. Not take him away, but kill him. And kill my wife too.”

  “My God… I'm sorry…”

  Landis shrugged. “It's all velvet gloves over steel fists here.” He looked at Hollis. “Say, Sam, did you ever happen to hear anything about my wife? I mean my American wife? Maggie?”

  “No, I don't think so. I'll try to remember.”

  “Would you? I'd appreciate that. I had two boys. Timothy… my other Timothy… and Josh. They'd be grown men now. Tim would be thirty, and Josh would be twenty-four. I sure hope they did all right. Hope Maggie remarried too.” Landis passed his hand over his face.

  Hollis had a strangely empty feeling in his stomach. He said, “Look, Tim, I think my presence is a little upsetting, so we'll—”

  “No, no. Hey, I won't ask any more of those kinds of questions. You two are probably a little disoriented yourselves. Come on in and meet Jane. That's my wife. She's Russian but likes the name Jane.”

  “No, thanks—”

  “Come on. You'll like her. She's apolitical. Real anti-Red. She got thirty years, but that's like a death sentence in the camps. She did two years and then got offered the job here because she had some school English. I'd like you to meet her.”

  Lisa and Hollis exchanged glances, and Lisa said, “We'd like to meet her.”

  “Great.” They walked around to the front of the house, and Landis went on, “She got here about, let's see… fifteen years ago. She dated around for about two years—we all did then. Wild time. Then most of us sort of paired off over the years.”

  Landis opened the front door of the house and called in, “Honey, we got company.”

  A voice called out in accented English, “Oh… Tim, the house is a mess.”

  Hollis and Lisa looked at each other and didn't know whether to laugh or leave.

  Landis indicated the way toward the kitchen. Hollis noticed that the living room furniture was rather shabby and not particularly American-looking. It was blondewood, sort of 1950s, and may have been Scandinavian. The floor was Russian parquet, larch not oak, and the rug was an Oriental from one of the Soviet near-Eastern republics. Hollis saw a modern Sony TV with VCR and an audio system in a stack unit.

  They entered the kitchen, and Hollis felt that here indeed was little America. It was a well-equipped and fairly modern kitchen, with breakfast nook. The only thing that seemed to be lacking was a dishwasher. A General Electric coffeepot was perking on the white plastic counter. Mrs. Landis was scrubbing beets at the sink.

  Landis said, “Jane, these are our new neighbors, Lisa Rhodes, and an old comrade-in-arms, Captain—no, Colonel Sam Hollis.”

  Jane Landis wiped her hands on her apron and looked at both of them, then took Lisa's hand. “Hello.”

  Hollis thought she was about forty. She was rather attractive and well-kept with grey-streaked black hair, cut in a pageboy style. She wore a turtleneck sweater, plaid skirt, and penny loafers. Hollis momentarily pictured a late fall day, somewhere in the Northeast. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the man of the house was stacking firewood, and his wife, still rather preppy despite her years, was brewing coffee. Through the bay window of the breakfast nook, their son could be seen playing among the pine trees. Illusions.

  Jane Landis took his hand and said, “So the bastards kidnapped you both?”

  Hollis smiled at her. For a moment he felt like hugging her. “Yes, the bastards kidnapped us.”

  “What for? Ah, they don't need a fucking reason. Sit down. Have some coffee.” She banged four mugs on the table that extended into the bay window area and busied herself with sugar and cream. “So, what does your presence bode for us? Are we saved, or are we doomed?”

  “Neither, I think,” Hollis answered as he sat. He jerked his thumb at the ceiling in a gesture he thought she'd understand immediately.

  “Oh,” Jane Landis said, “I don't think that after fifteen years they care what we say anymore. We don't know anything they don't know. But maybe with you two here, they'll start listening again. So answer me another time.” She poured four cups of coffee. “It's not American, it's Ethiopian. Every time they grab another country, they ship out arms to it and get some crap in return. Starting to get bananas from Nicaragua now. The only thing they get from Afghanistan is body bags.”

  Landis sat across from Hollis and said to him, “I told you she was antiRed. She's going to get into trouble one of these days. Right, Jane?”

  “Fuck them. I hope they're listening.” She said to Lisa, “I spent two years in the Kandalaksha Camp in the Murmansk region, up near the Arctic Circle. And for what? For writing a letter to that pig Brezhnev protesting the use of Soviet troops in Poland to put down the riots there. That was December of 1970. I have a husband and two daughters. They were notified that I died in Kandalaksha. I'll never see them again.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Yeah. We're all sorry. I'm sorry I came here. If I'd stayed in Kandalaksha, I'd be dead now. It turns my stomach to think I'm still working for them. The Americans here, Tim included, hate them, but they hate in an American way—part-time and with idiotic gallows humor. They don't understand how a Russian can hate them.”

  Lisa replied in Russian, “My grandmother was Russian. I think I understand.”

  Jane's eyes lit up. “Ah,” she replied in English, “we're going to be friends.”

  Hollis said in English, “Lisa has aristocratic blood.” Jane made a face. “Well, I'll forgive that.” They all smiled. Hollis always marveled at how even the anti-Soviet Russians had been conditioned to hate the Romanovs and the old aristocracy. That was perhaps the one solid success the Soviets had in creating the new Soviet citizen. And without a past that they wanted to return to and with their innate fear of the future, the Russian was controllable. No one seemed to have any idea of who or what should replace the communists. It was a country of failed imagination.

  Tim Landis said to Lisa, “You shouldn't speak Russian. That's a serious offense.”

  “That's rather ironic,” Lisa replied.

  Jane Landis said, “I'm not allowed to teach Tim Russian. That's one of the ways they keep the Border Guards isolated from the Americans. They fear Western contamination.” Lisa asked, “But do they trust the students?” Jane replied, “They have to, up to a point. And they must have a way of controlling them in the States.” She added, “I understand that they polygraph the hell out of these guys before they ever leave here. If they see one glitch, the student gets washed out.”

  Tim Landis tapped the table and pointed at the ceiling.

  Jane Landis shrugged. “Screw them.”

  They drank coffee in silence awhile, then Lisa asked, “This house… is it just for you, or do they use it as a training… what would you call it?”

  Jane Landis replied, “Yes, that's it. It's for training. Not just for our comfort. We have two boarders at the moment. We're supposed to call them boarders. Two young swine who live here. We get them a few months before they ship out, so we don't have people here all the time, thank God. But when we have them, I'm a bitch to live with. Right, Tim?”

  “Right.”

  Hollis asked, “And you housebreak them?”

  She smiled. “That's it. Teach them how to use a flush toilet.” She laughed.

  Tim Landis added helpfully, “Jane does their cooking and laundry. They help me with house repairs and heavy cleaning chores. It teaches them a little about domestic life, handiwork, and all.”

  Jane said, “These two are real assholes. One of them made a pass at me, then was ball-less enough to say it was only training.”

  Lisa smiled and asked, “Where are they now?”

  Landis looked at his watch. “They had a driving class today. They go up and down the main road. The Soviets buy your old embassy cars and bring them here.”

  Holli
s nodded. “I always wondered what they did with them. I never saw one around Moscow.”

  “Well,” Landis said, “now you know why. Most Soviets, as you know, can't drive. Even young guys like these two, most of whom were going to become pilots, for Christ's sake. So anyway, these two—Sonny and Marty—should be here in a few minutes, if you want to meet them.”

  “All right,” Hollis replied.

  Jane Landis said to Lisa, “Sonny is the one who wants to get in my pants. Keep an eye on that pig. He has a hormone problem.”

  “Okay.”

  Hollis drank his coffee and stared out the bay window. He tried to put himself in Tim Landis' life, tried to imagine how it would have been in a North Vietnamese POW camp, then to be transferred to a Red Air Force POW camp to train pilots, then the evolution of the POW camp to the Charm School. Then a wife, a son. Nearly two decades. Who was Tim Landis now? Even Tim Landis didn't know. Did they want to go home? How would Maggie Landis react? She had remarried about ten years ago. Hollis knew that because he'd known an officer who'd flown to San Diego for the wedding. And if these people got out of here, were their new wives and children supposed to go with them? With every hour that passed in this place, Hollis had more questions and fewer answers. The final answer, however, might be that they would all simply die here of old age.

  Tim Landis got up from the table, found a pencil and pad, and wrote on it, then handed it to Hollis. Hollis read: Do you know about Major Dodson? Did he make it to the embassy?

  Hollis wrote in reply: We know about him, indirectly, through Gregory Fisher. Fisher story in American newspapers. Dodson still MIA.

  Landis read it, nodded, and turned away. Hollis thought he was crying. Hollis crumpled the paper and put it in his pocket.

  Jane Landis was about to say something when the back kitchen door opened and two men in their mid-twenties came in. One of them said, “Hi. Who's this?”

  Tim Landis seemed to have gotten control of himself and made the introductions. Hollis looked the two over. Marty was a bit chunky, dressed in grey sweats and a ski parka. He had a pleasant, smiley face, and Hollis thought he looked rather innocuous. Sonny was uncommonly handsome, with curly black hair, dark eyes, and a sneering mouth that Hollis thought some women would find sensuous.

  Sonny smiled at Lisa. “Glad to meet you. Everyone here is talking about you.”

  “Is that so?”

  Sonny's eyes held hers. “Yes, it is. There are only six other real American women here.”

  “Why don't you just photostat them?”

  Sonny laughed. “Say, are you and Sam involved, as they say, or just friends?”

  Marty interjected, “Lay off, Sonny.”

  Lisa stared hard at Sonny. “That's none of your damned business.”

  “Sure it is. I want to date at least one real American before I cross over.” He smiled.

  Hollis' swing caught Sonny in the abdomen, doubling him over. Sonny staggered around the floor, odd noises coming from his mouth, then he sank to his knees, trying to catch his breath.

  Hollis said to the Landises, “Will there be any trouble for you?”

  Tim Landis shook his head. “He had it coming. I'll square it with his Russian control officer.”

  Jane Landis added, “Good training for him. He doesn't seem to comprehend the etiquette of putting the moves on a woman.”

  Marty added as he helped Sonny out of the kitchen, “This guy's gonna get himself killed in the States by some hot-headed boyfriend.”

  Hollis said to the Landises, “Thank you for coffee.” Tim Landis got an electric lantern from the cupboard. “You'll need this to find your way.”

  Lisa said to Jane Landis, “We'll speak again.” She replied, “I like you two already.”

  Tim Landis walked out with them and handed Hollis the lantern. He said, “Thanks for stopping by. We'll have you both for dinner one night. Jane cooks American.” Hollis said, “Lisa cooks Russian.”

  Landis smiled. “Good night.” He turned away, then came back. “Oh, I remembered something, Sam. What Simms said. He didn't say that he didn't know what happened to you. That was somebody else I was thinking about.”

  Hollis stood silently in the dark, holding the lantern. Landis moved closer to him. “Simms said you both hit the drink together. He said the Zips sent boats out, and they got him, but you got fished out by the Jolly Green Giant. Fate, isn't it?”

  “Yes.”

  Landis moved still closer and spoke in a soft voice. “Ernie Simms said you were swimming toward him, yelling to him to come to you. He said he kept waving you off because he figured he was a goner, but you kept coming, calling to him. He said he was glad when he saw the chopper rescue you, glad for you and glad there was a witness that he'd been captured alive.” Landis added, “He spoke highly of you, Sam.”

  Hollis nodded. “Thank you.” He turned and walked with Lisa away from the house.

  Lisa squeezed his hand. “All right?”

  He nodded again. And so, he thought, I make the final entry in the pilot's log and close the book.

  They walked for a while in silence, then Lisa said, “Do you want to be alone?”

  “No, walk with me. Talk to me.”

  “Okay… question: Did you hit Sonny because he was a Russian or because he was hitting on me?”

  “Oh, I don't know. Mostly male ego, I guess. I'm actually having trouble perceiving these people as Russians. All I saw was a young punk being a boor.”

  “He wasn't bad-looking.”

  “Bitch.”

  She smiled and grabbed his arm. They embraced and kissed. She said, “Sam… Sam…”

  “Yes?”

  “Don't leave me. I'd die if you left me. If we stay here, don't take a Russian wife.”

  “How about a girlfriend?”

  “Dont tease.”

  “Sorry.”

  They walked down the path and headed home. Lisa said, “How do people marry here?”

  “I think they just announce it.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “Yes. Does that mean you'll work here?”

  “I'll live here. I'll work against them. We'll be free someday. I know we will.”

  He took her arm. “I feel free. Poor Tim Landis just gave me my freedom.”

  “I know.”

  They continued on the dark path toward their cottage. Hollis saw other lights moving along other paths, like aircraft, he thought, lost in the night, looking for their home base. He suddenly recalled a sign that had hung in the chapel at Phu Bai air base. It was a New Year's message from Britain's King George to his embattled people at the beginning of the Second World War, and Hollis found he could recall it clearly: I said to the man at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may go forth into the unknown.” And the man replied, “Put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, safer than a known way.”

  * * *

  34

  Sam Hollis knelt by the fireplace in the small living room of the cottage and lit the kindling under the logs.

  Lisa said, “I used to love a fire on a cold winter night. That's one of the things I missed in Moscow and my other assignments.”

  She looked at the growing flames, then said, “I suppose one can pretend. I mean, here in this room, just you and I. We can pretend we're home, instead of sixty miles from Moscow. Maybe that's how these prisoners have kept their sanity.”

  Hollis wasn't sure they had kept their sanity. And he recalled, too, what Tim Landis had said about those sad early-morning hours. “Could you turn on the VCR?”

  She went to the bookshelves beside the fireplace and examined the videotapes. “Anything in particular?”

  “Something noisy.”

  She selected Rocky IV and fast-forwarded it to the fight scene with the Russian, then sat down on the love seat with Hollis.

  He put his arm around her and spoke in a low voice. “How was tea with Suzie and her friends?”

  “A
wful. I had to get up and leave. I'm sorry.”

  “That's all right.”

  “Sam, there are six other American women here. Two were kidnapped in Finland on ski trips, and a woman named Samantha was kidnapped while she was hiking in the Carpathian mountains in Romania. The other three were supposedly lost in swimming accidents, two in the Black Sea, one in the Baltic off East Germany. There used to be two others, but they committed suicide.”

  Hollis made no comment.

  “Sam, it almost broke my heart. How can these bastards do that to people? Rip them away from their families… their lives…?”

  Hollis looked into the fire awhile, then said, “They call us the Main Enemy. In caps. They believe that they are locked in a life-or-death struggle with us. They're right. They know that if the Main Enemy is defeated, most of their problems will be over. Meanwhile, America gives the Soviets about ten percent of its attention.”

  Lisa looked at the television. Rocky and the Russian were going at it, and the crowd was nearly hysterical. “That movie is inane. I know it's inane. But why isn't it as idiotic as it was the first time I saw it?”

  Hollis smiled. “I know what you mean.”

  She said, “Do you think of them as the Main Enemy?”

  Hollis put his feet on the coffee table. “You know, sometimes I like to think that I'm doing something for them too. Not the party people of course or the KGB. But the narod, the Russian masses, and the other nationalities imprisoned outside our prison. My mind keeps returning to Yablonya, Lisa. The way it was when we were there, the way I saw it from the helicopter, and the way it could have been if the people in Moscow were different.”

  She looked at him, then put her head on his shoulder and after a while asked, “How did Major Dodson get out of here?”

  “I don't know yet.”

  “What did you do while I was gone?”

  “Burov stopped by.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He just wanted to see how we were getting on.”

  “That bastard?”

  “Don't let these people get to you, Lisa.”

  “It's him. He… he hit you, he slapped me… he…”