The Charm School (15 page)

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Authors: NELSON DEMILLE

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BOOK: The Charm School
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Hollis did not respond.
“Was that disloyal of me?”
“Do you owe him loyalty?”
She shrugged. “In some areas. Anyway, I told you, so you wouldn’t think I was a complete bubble brain. I was under orders to buy the box.”
Hollis nodded, then said, “That did seem out of character.”
“Out of character and out of my price range.” She asked, “So you don’t know
anything
about the antique shop?”
“No.” But Hollis thought he might look into it.
They walked on, and Hollis watched the people sitting on the benches and planters, eating ice cream and small meat pies. Most people gave them a passing glance, and some stared. Westerners were still rare enough in Moscow to attract attention, and a Muscovite could pick out a Westerner as easily as a Westerner could pick out a Cossack on horseback. The sun, Hollis thought, had the unfortunate effect of putting Moscow and its citizens in the most unfavorable light; somehow the drabness was not so drab under an overcast sky.
Lisa had taken his arm again, and Hollis gave her a sidelong glance. Now that she’d mentioned it, there was something vaguely Russian about her. But perhaps it was only the power of suggestion, as when he’d seen Julie Christie as Pasternak’s Lara against the background of Hollywood’s Moscow.
Hollis thought Lisa was quite pretty, and he noticed she had the high cheekbones and sharp features of some Slavic women. But her complexion was light, and her eyes were big and blue. Her auburn hair was cut in a shag-pixie style that Hollis noticed was popular with many younger Moscow women. Her lips, he saw, had the capability of being pouty, though he hadn’t seen that so far. Mostly she smiled or bit her bottom lip in thought.
She said without looking at him, “Do I have a fly on my nose?”
“No . . . I . . . I was just looking for Russian features.”
“Not in the face. Feet and legs. Short, stubby legs and big feet. Fat thighs.”
“I doubt that.”
“Want to bet?”
“Well . . . sure.”
She smiled and led him down a side street called Kalachny, or pastrycook. The streets in the Arbat recalled the names of the sixteenth-century court purveyors who once lived and worked there: Plotnikov—carpenter, Serebryany—silversmith, and so on. The names had been changed after the Revolution but had recently been changed back again. It was, Hollis thought, as if the country was on a nostalgia trip, like in America, a sure sign that the twentieth century had gotten out of hand. Hollis said, “Where are you taking me now? To see your Russian features?”
“No. To lunch. Didn’t you invite me to lunch?”
“Yes, but I called in a favor to get a reservation at the Prague.”
“Oh, I thought I could pick.”
“All right, but there aren’t any restaurants this way.”
“There’s one.”
“What’s it called?”
“I don’t think it has a name.” She crossed Pastrycook Street, and he followed her up the steps of an old stucco building that looked like the former residence of a wealthy merchant. They entered the large foyer, and Hollis smelled cabbage and old fish. She said, “That’s not the restaurant you smell. That’s the tenants.” She motioned him to a door under a sweeping staircase, and they descended into the basement.
Lisa opened another door at the end of the stairs, and Hollis could see a large dimly lit room with a low wooden ceiling. The floors and walls were covered with Oriental carpets, and a layer of aromatic tobacco smoke hung in the air. An old woman approached and smiled widely, giving Hollis the impression she was wearing someone else’s dentures. The woman said, “
Salaam aleihum.
”
Lisa returned the greeting and followed the woman to a low table laid with a dirty red cloth and mismatched flatware. Lisa and Hollis sat, and Lisa exchanged pleasantries with the woman, who spoke flawed Russian. The woman asked Lisa, “Does your friend like our food?”
“He loves it. Could you bring us a bottle of that plum wine?”
The woman moved off.
Hollis looked at his surroundings. “Is this place in the Blue Guide?”
“No, sir. But it ought to be. The food is great.”
“Is it Jewish?”
“No. Azerbaijanian. I said
salaam aleihum,
not
sholom aleichem.
Close, but it’s sort of Arabic.”
“I see.” Hollis noticed the room was full, and the other diners, mostly men, were obviously not ethnic Russians, and in fact he heard no Russian being spoken. Moscow, Hollis had observed, was becoming ethnically diverse as more of the Soviet minorities found their way to the center of the empire. The regime discouraged this immigration, and the Russian Muscovites were appalled by it. Though the Soviet government claimed they had no figures on ethnic breakdown, Seth Alevy had done a report in which he estimated nearly twenty percent of Moscow’s population was now non-Russian. The city had become home to Uzbeks, Armenians, Georgians, Tartars, Turks, and a dozen other Soviet minority groups. Alevy had concluded that Moscow was becoming more cosmopolitan and sophisticated because of this ethnic diversity. He also concluded that it was becoming the sewer of the empire, like former imperial capitals, filled with wheeler-dealers, men on the make, profiteers, and parasites. Such as Misha. Where the Russians saw a problem, Seth Alevy and Sam Hollis saw an opportunity.
Hollis noticed that most of the patrons were glancing at them. Hollis asked, “Is this place safe?”
“I guess.”
“This doesn’t appear to be a government-owned restaurant.”
“It’s a catering establishment. Almost a private club. It’s owned and operated by an Azerbaijanian produce cooperative. It’s legal.”
“Okay.”
“Have you ever eaten in a catering co-op?”
“No.”
“The food is better than in the best restaurants. Especially the co-ops with access to fresh produce such as this one.”
“Okay.”
A young boy came to the table and set down a bowl of small white grapes and another bowl of tangerines.
Lisa said, “See? When was the last time you saw a tangerine?”
“In a dream last week.” Hollis took a sharp knife and peeled a tangerine. He pulled the sections apart, and he and Lisa ate in silence, picking at the sweet white grapes between bites of tangerine. Lisa said, “Do you believe this?”
“You saved me from scurvy.”
Lisa wiped her mouth with her handkerchief as there were no napkins. “All the Azerbaijanians who live in Moscow come here. The food is genuinely ethnic.”
Hollis nodded. In Moscow’s other so-called ethnic restaurants, the Prague, the Berlin, the Bucharest, and the Budapest, the food was distinctly Russian. And in the Havana the only thing Cuban was the sugar on the table. The Peking served borscht. He asked, “How did you find this place?”
“Long story.”
Hollis thought it could be told in one word:
Seth.
She said, “We’re allowed to patronize these places. Most Westerners don’t know about them, or if they do, won’t eat in them.”
“Can’t guess why.”
“Do you smell those spices?”
“Sort of. But the tobacco smoke is filled with air.”
Lisa sat back and lit her own cigarette. “Restaurants,” she said, “are a sort of barometer of what is wrong with this country.”
“How is that?”
“I mean there are eight million Muscovites, and half of them are trying to get reservations in the twenty passable restaurants.”
“Seating is tight,” Hollis agreed. “But they may be holding our table at the Prague.”
“You see, if private individuals were allowed to open restaurants, five hundred would spring up overnight. Same with shops and everything else.”
“That would be a threat to the system.”
“What sort of threat?”
“A very formidable threat. It would be like lighting a candle in the dark. Everyone would converge on it and light their own candles from it. Then the dimly perceived flaws in the system would be seen. Then who knows what would happen.”
Lisa studied him for a moment before observing, “You’re rather profound for a military man.”
“I thank you, I think. Read any good Gogol lately?”
She smiled. “Actually, I’m a great fan of his. Have you read
Dead Souls
?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“He’s not that widely read in the West, and I think that’s because his characters are hard to appreciate outside a Russian context. Don’t you think so?”
“Absolutely.”
“Gogol’s statue is actually at the end of this street, you know. In the Arbat Square. Have you seen it?”
“Hard to miss it.”
The plum wine came, and Lisa poured. Hollis touched glasses with her and toasted. “As the peasants say, ‘To a short winter, ample meat, and dry wood for the fire.’”
“You forgot the last line.”
“Yes. ‘And a warm woman for my bed.’”
They drank.
Lisa looked at him over the rim of her glass. She asked, “Sam, where are you from originally?”
“All over. I’m an Air Force brat.”
“Is this going to be like pulling teeth?”
He smiled. “All right, let me tell you about myself. I was born at Travis Air Force Base during the Second World War. I moved all over the globe until I was eighteen. Then I spent four years at the Air Force Academy. I graduated and went on to fighter school. I did a tour in ’Nam in 1968, then another in 1972. That’s when I was shot down over Haiphong. I got the craft out to sea, bailed out, and was picked up by air-sea rescue. I was banged up a bit, and the flight surgeons said no more flying. My father was a brigadier general by this time and got me a temporary posting in the Pentagon until I was able to be more active. Somehow I wound up taking a language course in Bulgarian. As you might know, Bulgarian is the root Slavic language, sort of like Latin is to the Romance languages. So anyway, I did three years in Sofia as an air attaché, then did stints in a couple of other Warsaw Pact countries, then before I knew it, I was too involved with this business for them to let me go back to the line.” Hollis took a drink of his wine. “I always suspected my father was behind this embassy attaché business.”
“So you’re a reluctant spy.”
“No, not reluctant. But not enthusiastic either. Just sort of . . . I don’t know. And I’m not a spy.”
“Okay. And then about two years ago, they sent you here. The big leagues.”
“The only league in this business.”
“And how about your family?”
“My father retired some years ago. He and my mother live in Japan. I’m not sure why. They’re rather odd. I think they’re into Zen. Too much traveling around. They don’t even know America, and what they know they don’t like. Reminds me of the Roman centurions or British colonial officers. You know? Since World War Two, America has developed a whole class of people like that.”
“Like us.”
“Yes, like us. The emissaries of empire.”
“Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“A younger sister who married a jet jockey and is currently living in the Philippines. No children. One older brother who works on Wall Street, wears a yellow tie, and makes too much money. He’s married, two children. He’s the only real American in the family.” Hollis smiled. “He developed travel burnout as a kid after the fifteenth transfer. His philosophy is that a man should never leave his time zone.”
“Time zone?”
“Yes. You know. He lives in the Eastern time zone. He won’t leave it and in fact confines himself to twenty degrees of latitude within the zone. He’ll cross zip codes freely but tries to stay within his telephone area code. He’s in two one two.”
Lisa stifled a laugh. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“What an interesting family. Are you all close?”
“There is a bond. How about you? Tell me about Lisa.”
She gave no indication of having heard him and said, “I seem to remember a wife.”
“Wife? Oh, yes, Katherine. She went to London to shop.”
“I think she’s been gone about half a year.”
“Has it been that long?”
“Are you legally separated?”
“Illegally.”
Lisa seemed about to pursue this but poured more wine instead.
The proprietress came to the table, and she and Lisa discussed the day’s fare. Lisa ordered for both herself and Hollis. Lisa said to Hollis, “It’s a fixed price. Only three rubles. The menu changes by the hour. Better that than the big restaurants where they keep telling you they’re out of everything you order.” She tore a piece of pita bread and put half of it on his plate. She remarked, “Bulgarian? I thought your Russian was odd. I don’t mean American-accented or anything, but not Russian-accented either.”

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