Nick grunted his contempt of that opinion. "This camera doesn't need flash," he said condescendingly.
"It's the new model Mikoyan. It doesn't need light. It supplies its own light. Not the kind we use. I'm not up on the technical angles, but you could take a picture of a bullet in flight, in a pitch dark room. It also takes either 3-D or ordinary pictures. Has immediate development and either color or black and white, of course."
Mike stared at him. "No light?"
The Russkie nodded. "That's right, no light. It's coming out in the Fall. We're going to sell them for ten dollars apiece."
Nick Galushko pulled" a picture from the back of the camera and held it over to Mike Edwards. He said, "Immediate development."
Mike looked at it. It was beautifully done. A shot of Vovo, the Cossack, which captured him perfectly.
The big man was perfectly centered, champagne bottle in hand, the background faded a bit so that only he stood out. It could have been submitted most successfully to any photography contest.
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The American had to say, "You're quite a photographer, Nick. This is beautifully composed and you haven't even had it in a dark room to be touched up."
"In the first place, you don't need to work in a dark room with a Mikoyan photo," Nick told him. "If there's any touching up you want to do, you can do it in ordinary light. Enlarging, all that sort of thing. But it's seldom there's any cause to. However, I'm no photographer. I don't have to be. With this camera all you have to do is point it at the subject and press the trigger. Everything else is taken care of."
Mike said, "Well, I was talking about the composition and so forth."
"The composition is taken care of too. A child can operate this."
Mike stared at him, uncomprehending.
The Russian said condescendingly, "The West is way behind in photography. When you press the trigger-is that what you call it?-the lens checks back to the computer banks in Leningrad-"
"Computer banks," Mike said weakly.
"… and they size up the situation and swivel the lens about for the best composition possible, adjust the shutter and light-the camera's light, not the kind we know- and flick the shutter when the subject is in an interesting pose. The tight beam back to Leningrad is instantaneous, of course, and so are the computers, so everything happens immediately."
Mike closed his eyes in anguish.
Nick laughed. "Where the real profit will come in is when the camera owners have to buy all their film from us. We're the only source of this new light emulsion arrangement. Oh, we'll clean up."
Inwardly, Mike Edwards groaned again. There went the photo industry of the West. The United States with its Kodaks, and Polaroids, Germany with its Leicas, Japan with its Nikons. All down the drain. No photographer in his right mind would do without one of these practically free Mikoyans. Not only that but every professional photographer would overnight become unemployed. Who'd be silly enough to hire a professional, when the computer banks in Leningrad guaranteed a perfect shot?
Galushko, with his maddening condescension, was saying, "It all goes back a generation or so. When you Americans, and the others, were allowing their best brains to go into advertising, entertainment and sales, and whatever, we were devoting our best brains to science, engineering and technology. When your young people had Bing Crosby and Rita Hayworth as their pinups, or some football hero, we had scientists for ours. Now we reap the results."
It was practically the same thing Mike had said to Jones earlier in the evening, which didn't make it any easier to take.
"Holy smokes," Mike said, meaninglessly.
The waiter came up with the three bottles Nick had ordered, three champagne glasses and three large shot glasses for the vodka, on a tray. But before he could put it down on the table, the Russian had grabbed up one of the bottles of bubbly wine and was working away at the cork. He let fly with it at some friends at a nearby table and they yelled laughter. Two of them grabbed up champagne bottles in Page 30
turn, and popped the corks back.
Within moments, the whole nightclub was at it, the Russkies calling demandingly at the suffering waiters for more bottles of champagne.
At this rate, Mike Edwards decided, La Manana would be completely out of champagne within a half hour. Not that Pepe, the manager, would mind. However, the cleanup women in the morning undoubtedly would. Half of the wine was foaming out of the bottles onto the floor. But there was enough remaining that if the revelers drank it all-and he'd never seen a Russkie yet who left a part emptied bottle-there wouldn't be a one able to get back to his hotel on his own feet.
The battle was ended by the arrival of the orchestra, which began to set up on the dais provided for musicians at the far end of the bar. Mike realized, unhappily, that he'd made a mistake in placing Vovo Chernozov in that vicinity. Already the big Cossack was eyeing the drums with happy interest. Mike would have bet a dollar to a subway slug that before the evening was out, Vovo would be up there, ignoring the protests of the professional drummer and pounding away at the skins.
Ana Chekova entered the conversation for the first time since Mike had come in. She said to him, "You Americans have a very strange sense of humor."
He said reasonably, "Well, I suppose that every nationality has its own type of humor. I've never been able to understand the British, for instance."
She wasn't having any of that. She downed her glass of champagne and said, "I heard a joke today, told by one American to two others. And they laughed and laughed. But it made no sense at all."
Mike said, "Well, do you remember it? Perhaps I could explain. Possibly translate it into Russian for you. It's sometimes difficult to understand humor in a language other than your own."
She looked at him coldly. "I teached advanced English in Kiev. I remember the story very well. I have an excellent memory."
"All right," Mike said agreeably. "Let's hear it."
Ana launched into the joke. "Cinderella wanted to go to a ball and her fairy godmother——"
"What's a fairy godmother?" Catherina said to Mike.
"Something like an elf. Supposedly, when each child is born, it is given a fairy godmother who watches over it all its life."
Ana ignored the interruption and went on. "Her fairy godmother said that, all right, she could go to the ball but she would have to return home by midnight, or her pussy would turn into a pumpkin."
Mike Edwards winced, realizing what kind of joke must be coming up.
She went on. "So Cinderella went to the ball and her fairy godmother waited up for her, ominously.
Midnight came but there was no Cinderella. So the fairy godmother picked up the telephone and called the place where the ball was being held and demanded to talk to Cinderella. When Cinderella came to the phone the fairy godmother said, 'You know what I told you, don't you? If you didn't return by midnight, your pussy would turn into a pumpkin.' And Cinderella said, "Yes, I remember." And the fairy Page 31
godmother said, in surprise, 'Well, what happened?, Why aren't you home?" And Cinderella said, 'Oh, I met the most wonderful man.' And the fairy godmother said, "Man! What's his name?' And Cinderella said, 'His name is Peter, Peter… something or other."
Nick poured more champagne and a slug of vodka for each of them. "Is that all?" It doesn't sound very funny to me, either."
Once again, Mike's eyes were closed wearily.
Catherina had two faint lines above her eyes. She said to Mike, "What's a pussy?"
He cleared his throat and said, "American idiom for a small cat." The orchestra had begun to play. He said, "Would you like to dance?"
"Oh, yes, of course." She was on her feet immediately, her breasts jiggling prettily at the motion.
Mike had noticed in the past that Russkies didn't usually shine at ballroom dancing, no matter what their reputation in ballet. Oh, they were enthusiastic enough, especially after a few drinks, and expended endless energy, but the Slavs evidently didn't have the flare for it that the young people of the West did.