by Various
Hank brought himself into character. "Well, lesson number one. Did you notice the teeth in that steward's face? Steel. Bright, gleaming steel, instead of gold."
Loo shrugged hugely. "This is the day of science. Iron rusts, it's true, but I assume that the Soviet dentists utilize some method of preventing corrosion."
"Otherwise," Paco murmured reasonably, "I imagine the Russians expectorate a good deal of rusty spittal."
"I don't know why I keep getting into these arguments," Hank said. "I'm just going for a look-see myself. But frankly, I don't trust a Russian any farther than I can throw one."
"How many Russians have you met?" Loo said mildly. "Or are your opinions formed solely by what you have read in American publications?"
Hank frowned at him. "You seem to be a little on the anti-American side."
"I'm not," Loo said. "But not pro-American either. I find much that is ridiculous in the propaganda of both the Soviets and the West."
"Gentlemen," Paco said, "the conversation is fascinating, but I must leave you. The ladies, crowding the decks above, know not that my presence graces this ship. It shall be necessary that I enlighten them. Adios amigos!"
* * * * *
The Baltika displaced eight thousand four hundred ninety-six tons and had accommodations for three hundred thirty passengers. Of these, Hank Kuran estimated, approximately half were Scandinavians or British being transported between London, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki on the small liner's way to Leningrad.
Of the tourists, some seventy-five or so, Hank estimated that all but half a dozen were convinced that Russian skunks didn't stink, in spite of the fact that thus far they'd never been there to have a whiff. The few such as Loo Motlamelle, who was evidently the son of some African paramount chief, and Paco Rodriquez, had also never been to Russia but at least had open minds.
Far from black bread and borscht, he found the food excellent. The first morning they found caviar by the pound nestled in bowls of ice, as part of breakfast. He said across the table to Paco, "Propaganda. I wonder how many people in Russia eat caviar."
Paco spooned a heavy dip of it onto his bread and grinned back. "This type of propaganda I can appreciate. You Yankees should try it."
Char was also eating at the other side of the community type table. She said, "How many Americans eat as well as the passengers on United States Lines ships?"
It was as good an opportunity as any for Hank to place his character in the eyes of his fellow Progressive Tours pilgrims. His need was to establish himself as a moderately square tourist on his way to take a look-see at highly publicized Russia. Originally, the C.I.A. men had wanted him to be slightly pro-Soviet, but he hadn't been sure he could handle that convincingly enough. More comfortable would be a role as an averagely anti-Russian tourist--not fanatically so, but averagely. If there were any KGB men aboard, he wanted to dissolve into mediocrity so far as they were concerned.
Hank said now, mild indignation in his voice. "Do you contend that the average Russian eats as well as the average American?"
Char took a long moment to finish the bite she had in her mouth. She shrugged prettily. "How would I know? I've never been to the Soviet Union." She paused for a moment before adding, "However, I've done a certain amount of traveling and I can truthfully say that the worst slums I have ever seen in any country that can be considered civilized were in the Harlem district and the lower East Side of New York."
All eyes were turned to him now, so Hank said, "It's a big country and there are exceptions. But on the average the United States has the highest standard of living in the world."
Paco said interestedly, "What do you use for a basis of measurement, my friend? Such things as the number of television sets and movie theaters? To balance such statistics, I understand that per capita your country has the fewest number of legitimate theaters of any of--I use Miss Moore's term--the civilized countries."
A Londoner, two down from Hank, laughed nastily. "Maybe schooling is the way he measures. I read in the Express the other day that even after Yankees get out of college they can't read proper. All they learn is driving cars and dancing and togetherness--wotever that it."
Hank grinned inwardly and thought, You don't sound as though you read any too well yourself, my friend. Aloud he said, "Very well, in a couple of days we'll be in the promised land, I contend that free enterprise performs the greatest good for the greatest number."
"Free enterprise," somebody down the table snorted. "That means the freedom for the capitalists to pry somebody else out of the greatest part of what he produces."
By the time they'd reached Leningrad aside from Paco and Loo, his cabinmates, Hank had built an Iron Curtain all of his own between himself and the other members of the Progressive Tours trip. Which was the way he wanted it. He could foresee a period when having friends might be a handicap when and if he needed to drift away from the main body for any length of time.
Actually, the discussions he ran into were on the juvenile side. Hank Kuran hadn't spent eight years of his life as a field man working against the Soviet countries in the economic sphere without running into every argument both pro and con in the continuing battle between Capitalism and Communism. Now he chuckled to himself at getting into tiffs over the virtues of Russian black bread versus American white, or whether Soviet jets were faster than those of the United States.
With Char Moore, though she tolerated Hank's company, in fact, seemed to prefer it to that of whatever other males were aboard, it was continually a matter of rubbing fur the wrong way. She was ready to battle it out on any phase of politics, international affairs or West versus East.
But it was the visitors from space that actually dominated the conversation of the ship--crew, tourists, business travelers, or whoever. Information was still limited, and Taas the sole source. Daily there were multilingual radio broadcasts tuned in by the Baltika but largely they added little to the actual information on the extraterrestrials. It was mostly Soviet back-patting on the significance of the fact that the Galactic Confederation emissaries had landed in the Soviet complex rather than among the Western countries.
Hank learned little that he hadn't already known. The Kremlin had all but laughingly declined a suggestion on the part of Switzerland that the extraterrestrials be referred to that all but defunct United Nations. The delegates from the Galactic Confederation had chose to land in Moscow. In Moscow they should remain until they desired to go elsewhere. The Soviet implication was that the alien emissaries had no desire, intention nor reason to visit other sections of Earth. They had contacted the dominant world power and could complete their business within the Kremlin walls.
* * * * *
Leningrad came as only a mild surprise to Henry Kuran. With his knowledge of Russian and his position in Morton Twombly's department, he had kept up with the Soviet progress though the years.
As early as the middle 1950s unbiased travelers to the U.S.S.R. had commented in detail upon the explosion of production in the country. By the end of the decade such books as Gunther's "Inside Russia Today" had dwelt upon the ultra-cleanliness of the cities, the mushrooming of apartment houses, the easing of the restrictions of Stalin's day--or at least the beginning of it.
He actually hadn't expected peasant clad, half starved Russians furtively shooting glances at their neighbors for fear of the secret police. Nor a black bread and cabbage diet. Nor long lines of the politically suspect being hauled off to Siberia. But on the other hand he was unprepared for the prosperity he did find.
Not that this was any paradise, worker's or otherwise. But it still came as a mild surprise. Henry Kuran couldn't remember so far back that he hadn't had his daily dose of anti-Russianism. Not unless it was for the brief respite during the Second World War when for a couple of years the Red Army had been composed of heroes and Stalin had overnight become benevolent old Uncle Joe.
There weren't as many cars on the streets as in American cities, but there were more than h
e had expected nor were they 1955 model Packards. So far as he could see, they were approximately the same cars as were being turned out in Western Europe.
Public transportation, he admitted, was superior to that found in the Western capitals. Obviously, it would have to be, without automobiles, buses, streetcars and subways would have to carry the brunt of traffic. However, it was the spotless efficiency of public transportation that set him back.
The shops were still short of the pinnacles touched by Western capitals. They weren't empty of goods, luxury goods as well as necessities, but they weren't overflowing with the endless quantities, the hundred-shadings of quality and fashion that you expected in the States.
But what struck nearest to him was the fact that the people in the streets were not broken spirited depressed, humorless drudges. In fact, why not admit it, they looked about the same as people in the streets anywhere else. Some laughed, some looked troubled. Children ran and played. Lovers held hands and looked into each other's eyes. Some reeled under an overload of vodka. Some hurried along, business bent. Some dawdled, window shopped, or strolled along for the air. Some read books or newspapers as they shuffled, radar directed, and unconscious of the world about them.
They were only a day and half in Leningrad. They saw the Hermitage, comparable to the Louvre and far and above any art museum in America. They saw the famous subway--which deserved its fame. They were ushered through a couple of square miles of the Elektrosile electrical equipment works, claimed ostentatiously by the to be the largest in the world. They ate in restaurants as good as any Hank Kuran had been able to afford at home and stayed one night at the Astoria Hotel.
At least, Hank had the satisfaction of grumbling about the plumbing.
Paco and Loo, the only single bachelors on the tour besides himself, were again quartered with him at the Astoria.
Paco said, "My friend, there I agree with you completely. America has the best plumbing in the world. And the most."
Hank was pulling off his shoes after an arch-breaking day of sightseeing. "Well, I'm glad I've finally found some field where it's agreeable that the West is superior to the Russkies."
Loo was stretched out on his bed, in stocking feet, gazing at the ceiling which towered at least fifteen feet above him. He said "In the town where I was born, there were three bathrooms, one in the home of the missionary, one in the home of the commissioner, and one in my father's palace." He looked up at Hank. "Or is my country considered part of the Western World?"
Paco laughed. "Come to think of it, I doubt if one third the rural homes of Argentina have bathrooms. Hank, my friend, I am afraid Loo is right. You use the word West too broadly. All the capitalist world is not so advanced as the United States. You have been very lucky, you Yankees."
Hank sank into one of the huge, Victorian era armchairs. "Luck has nothing to do with it. America is rich because private enterprise works."
"Of course," Paco pursued humorously, "the fact that your country floats on a sea of oil, has some of the richest forest land in the world, is blessed with some of the greatest mineral deposits anywhere and millions of acres of unbelievably fertile land has nothing to do with it."
"I get your point," Hank said. "The United States was handed the wealth of the world on a platter. But that's only part of it."
"Yes," Loo agreed. "Also to be considered is the fact that for more than a hundred years you have never had a serious war, serious, that is, in that your land was not invaded, your industries destroyed."
"That's to our credit. We're a peace loving people."
Loo laughed abruptly. "You should tell that to the American Indians."
Hank scowled over at him. "What'd you mean by that Loo? That has all the elements of a nasty crack."
"Or tell it to the Mexicans. Isn't that where you got your whole South-west?"
Hank looked from Loo to Paco and back.
* * * * *
Paco brought out cigarettes and tossed one to each of the others. "Aren't these long Russian cigarettes the end? I heard somebody say that by the time the smoke got through all the filter, you'd lost the habit." He looked over at Hank. "Easy my friend, easy. On a trip like this it would be impossible not to continually be comparing East and West, dwelling continually on politics, the pros and cons of both sides. All of us are continually assimilating what we hear and see. Among other things, I note that on the newsstands there are no publications from western lands. Why? Because still, after fifty years, our Communist bureaucracy dare not allow its people to read what they will. I note, too, that the shops on 25th October Avenue are not all directed toward the Russian man on the street, unless he is paid unbelievably more than we have heard. Sable coats? Jewelery? Luxurious furniture? I begin to suspect that our Soviet friends are not quite so classless as Mr. Marx had in mind when he and Mr. Engels worked out the rough framework of the society of the future."
Loo said seriously, "Oh, there are a great many things of that type to notice here in the Soviet Union."
Hank had to grin. "Well, I'm glad you jokers still have open minds."
Paco waggled a finger negatively at him. "We've had open minds all along, my friend. It is yours that seems closed. In spite of the fact that I spent four years in your country I sometimes confess I don't understand you Americans. I think you are too immersed in your TV programs, your movies and your light fiction."
"I can feel myself being saddled up again," Hank complained. "All set for another riding."
Loo laughed softly, his perfect white teeth gleaming in his black face.
Paco said, "You seem to have the fictional good guys and bad guys outlook. And, in this world of controversy, you assume that you are the good guys, the heroes, and since that is so then the Soviets must be the bad guys. And, as in the movies, everything the good guys do is fine and everything the bad guys do, is evil. I sometimes think that if the Russians had developed a cure for cancer first you Americans would have refused to use it."
Hank had had enough. He said, "Look, Paco, there are two hundred million Americans. For you, or anyone else, to come along and try to lump that many people neatly together is pure silliness. You'll find every type of person that exists in the world in any country. The very tops of intelligence, and submorons living in institutions; the most highly educated of scientists, and men who didn't finish grammar school; you'll find saints, and gangsters; infant prodigies and juvenile delinquents; and millions upon millions of just plain ordinary people much like the people of Argentina, or England, or France or whatever. True enough, among all our two hundred million there are some mighty prejudiced people, some mighty backward ones, and some downright foolish ones. But if you think the United States got to the position she's in today through the efforts of a whole people who are foolish, then you're obviously pretty far off the beam yourself."
Paco was looking at him narrowly. "Accepted, friend Hank, and I apologize. That's quite the most effective outburst I've heard from you in this week we've known each other. It occurs to me that perhaps you are other than I first thought."
Oh, oh. Hank backtracked. He said, "Good grief, let's drop it."
Paco said, "Well, just to change the subject, gentlemen, there is one thing above all that I noted here in Leningrad."
"What was that?" Loo said.
"It's the only town I've ever seen where I felt an urge to kiss a cop," Paco said soulfully. "Did you notice? Half the traffic police in town are cute little blondes."
Loo rolled over. "A fascinating observation, but personally I am going to take a nap. Tonight it's the Red Arrow Express to Moscow and rest might be in order, particularly if the train has square wheels, burns wood and stops and repairs bridges all along the way, as I'm sure Hank believes."
Hank reached down, got hold of one of his shoes and heaved it.
"Missed!" Loo grinned.
* * * * *
The Red Arrow Express had round wheels, burned Diesel fuel and made the trip between Leningrad and Moscow overnight.
In one respect, it was the most unique train ride Hank Kuran had ever had. The track contained not a single curve from the one city to the other. Its engineers must have laid the roadbed out with a ruler.
The cars like the rest of public transportation, were as comfortable as any Hank knew. Traveling second class, as the Progressive Tours pilgrims did, involved four people in a compartment for the night, with one exception. At the end of the car was a smaller compartment containing two bunks only.
The Intourist guide who had shepherded them around Leningrad took them to the train, saw them all safely aboard, told them another Intourist employee would pick them up at the station in Moscow.
It was late. Hank was assigned the two-bunk compartment. He put his glasses on the tiny window table, sat on the edge of the lower and began to pull off his shoes. He didn't look up when the door opened until a voice said, icebergs dominating the tone, "Just what are you doing in here?"
Hank blinked up at her. "Hello, Char. What?"
Char Moore snapped, "I said, what are you doing in my compartment?"
"Yours? Sorry, the conductor just assigned me here. Evidently there's been some mistake."
"I suggest you rectify it, Mr. Stevenson."
Out in the corridor a voice, heavy with Britishisms, complained plaintively, "Did you ever hear the loik? They put men and women into the same compartment. Oim expected to sleep with a loidy in the bunk under me."
Hank cleared his throat, didn't allow himself the luxury of a smile. He said, "I'll see what I can do, Char. Seems to me I did read somewhere that the Russkies see nothing wrong in putting strangers in the same sleeping compartment."
Char Moore stood there, saying nothing but breathing deeply enough to express American womanhood insulted.
"All right, all right," he said, retying his shoes and retrieving his glasses. "I didn't engineer this." He went looking for the conductor.
He was back, yawning by this time, fifteen minutes later. Char Moore was sitting on the side of the bottom bunk, sipping a glass of tea that she'd bought for a few kopecks from the portress. She looked up coolly as he entered, but her voice was more pleasant. "Get everything fixed?"