“Please, Ms. Rhodes, we don’t need graphic descriptions. Also, your moral outrage is getting tiresome.”
“You said we could say what’s on our minds. Don’t you want to learn about Western moral outrage?”
“No, and there are limits to my patience.”
“And mine.”
Burov seemed literally to bite his lip, and Hollis thought he was having second thoughts about releasing them from the cells.
They crossed the soccer field again and came back to the main road near the headquarters building. Burov turned left, west toward the main gate. About a hundred meters down the road they saw the long wooden building with the pleasant front porch and the Coke machine. They stepped onto the porch, and Burov said, “You both look rather tired.” Burov put a fifty-kopek piece in the machine. “It takes our money.” He handed a can of Coke to Lisa, then the next one to Hollis, and kept the third for himself. “It’s the real thing.” He laughed.
Hollis and Lisa sipped at the cola drink and discovered that indeed it was the real thing.
At Burov’s invitation they sat in rockers and looked out across the road at the pine trees. Hollis had once sat on a similar porch in a hunting lodge in North Carolina, sipping a soft drink from a can, smelling the pine, and talking to his wife.
Burov stared off into the distance and rocked slowly, giving Hollis the impression that he too was nostalgic for something, though Hollis could not imagine what. Perhaps his days in Scandinavia as an assassin.
Burov said, “In this country there is only one master. Us. The KGB. We are known as the sword and shield of the Party, but in reality, we serve neither the Party nor the State, and certainly not the people. We serve ourselves. Even the military fears us, and they have guns too. But we’ve discovered that the ultimate weapon is illusion. We give the illusion that we are everywhere, so people dare not even whisper our name. And what you see here”—he waved his arm—“is illusion.” He asked Hollis, “What did your photo analysts think this was?”
Hollis replied, “They thought it was probably the Russians’ idea of a desert training school.”
Lisa stifled a laugh.
Burov’s lips puckered as he stared at Hollis. His fingers tapped rhythmically on the arm of the rocker. “You might as well have your fun.” Burov stood. “Let’s go inside.”
Burov showed them into the building called VFW Post 000. To the right of the lobby was a large recreation room, and they stood at the door of it apart from the twenty or so people in the brightly lit room.
On the opposite wall was the large American flag that Hollis had seen through the window. Also on the walls, hung randomly, and Hollis thought without much care, were cardboard decorations of the season: pumpkins, scarecrows, a black cat, a few turkeys, and a Pilgrim couple. They all looked like good quality party goods, probably, Hollis guessed, made in the States.
Lisa scanned the autumnal display and said, “That’s depressing.”
Hollis was reminded of the Christmas tree in the rec room at Phu Bai air base. Some seasons didn’t travel well.
Hollis noticed a magazine rack on the wall in which were dozens of American periodicals, from Time to Road and Track, Playboy to Ladies’ Home Journal. In the rear corner was a reading area with shelves stocked with hundreds of books. There were game tables for cards and board games, a pool table, and even a video game. Burov said, “The older men, of course, are your compatriots. They keep up-to-date with American life through videotapes that are sent to us in diplomatic pouches by our embassy and consulate staffs in Washington, New York, and San Francisco. Books, magazines, and newspapers come daily through normal flights to Moscow.”
A few of the middle-aged men glanced at Hollis and Lisa, but Hollis noticed none of them even looked at Burov, and no one made a move toward them.
Hollis focused on a man in his middle fifties, a handsome, well-groomed man wearing corduroy pants, a button-down shirt, and cardigan sweater. He sat with a younger man, and both were watching television. Hollis could see the screen; Tony Randall and Jack Klugman were having an argument in the kitchen of their apartment. Hollis couldn’t hear the sound, but he recognized the segment from The Odd Couple.
The young man howled with laughter at something, then turned to the middle-aged man and spoke in New York-accented English. “I still don’t understand if these guys are supposed to be Jewish or not.”
The American instructor replied, “It’s a little vague.”
“Unger is a Jewish name, right?”
“Right.”
“So Unger is maybe a white Jew.”
“What’s a white Jew?” the American asked.
“You never heard that expression? That’s a Jew who acts like a gentile.”
“Never heard it,” the instructor said.
The student thought a moment. “Bill told it to me. He said it was a compliment. But I heard from someone else it was a slur. Now you say you never even heard it.”
The American shrugged. “I don’t know everything.”
Burov turned to Hollis. “Is it a slur? Or a compliment?”
Hollis replied, “It’s a rather nice compliment.”
Burov smiled. “I think you’re lying.” He added, “There is some lying here. That has always been a problem. But we can usually check these things.”
Hollis looked at the Americans in the room, his brother fliers from long ago, and his heart went out to them. He took Lisa’s arm and moved her out the door. Burov hurried out behind them, and they stood on the covered porch in front of the building. Burov continued his previous thought. “You see, the lies of omission are the most difficult. Our instructors do not volunteer a great deal, so—” He looked at Hollis. “Is something bothering you?”
“No.”
“Oh, yes, those men. How insensitive of me. They’re all right, Hollis. They’ve adjusted.”
Lisa put her hand on his shoulder, and Hollis nodded. “All right.”
Burov placed his can on top of the Coke machine. He waited a minute, then said to Hollis, “A man named Feliks Vasilevich called me from Minsk. He was upset over something you said about him, though he was somewhat vague on the details. I wonder, perhaps, if you know what and whom I am talking about.”
“You’re talking about Mike Salerno.”
“Yes, that’s right. How did you catch on to him?”
“He stood to attention and saluted every time a Soviet officer went past.”
“Come now, Colonel Hollis. I’ll let you be sarcastic, but this is lying, and I told you about lying.”
Hollis replied, “The way he smoked a cigarette.” Hollis explained perfunctorily.
Burov nodded. “I see.”
Lisa looked from one to the other. She asked Hollis, “Mike…?”
Burov answered, “Yes. Were you fooled, Ms. Rhodes? Good.” He looked at Hollis. “But you know, Colonel, if someone wasn’t aware, as you were, of wolves in sheep’s clothing, that minor mistake would have passed unnoticed. Oh, I don’t belittle your intelligence. But smarter men than you have been completely fooled by my graduates. Ms. Rhodes’ good friend Seth Alevy for one has been fooled several times by some of our Americans. The Kellums, to name but two.”
“The Kellums?” Lisa said. “Dick and Ann?” She looked at Hollis.
Hollis nodded.
Lisa shook her head. “My God… my God… I don’t believe this.”
Burov smiled in pure delight. “And there are three thousand more in America, in your embassies, in your overseas military bases. Fantastic, isn’t it?”
Lisa stared at Burov.
Hollis glanced from one to the other. He hoped that Burov understood and believed how little Lisa knew. He hoped too that Lisa understood why she wasn’t kept as informed as she wished to be.