The Charm School

just have to meet an old Russian friend to say good-bye.”
    “A spy? A dissident?”
    “Sort of.”
    The old lady stood and moved aimlessly down the path.
    Lisa said, “At Gogol’s grave. Was that his idea?”
    “Yes.” Hollis looked at his watch. The service had lasted about two hours, and it was nearly noon. Now he knew why Surikov had picked this hour and place. “I won’t be more than thirty minutes. Where can I meet you?”
    “At the bell tower there. See it? Don’t get lost.”
    Hollis stood. “How do I get into the cemetery?”
    “Just keep on this path. You’ll see another gate church set in the wall like the one we entered through. Go through the gate, and you’ll find yourself in the cemetery.”
    “Thanks. Are you going to walk around?”
    “Yes. I like to walk here.”
    “Don’t walk in the cemetery.”
    “Okay.”
    “Try to walk where there are people.”
    “If they come for you, it doesn’t matter how many people are around. You know that.”
    “Yes, I know that.” He added, “I don’t think they know we’re here. But be careful.”
    “
You
be careful. They might have followed this friend of yours.” She gave him one of the thin brown candles. “Here. To light the way.”
    He kissed her on the cheek. “See you later.” Hollis turned and walked down the path, carrying the candle. Within a few minutes he passed another large church of brick and white stone that looked forlorn among the bramble and bush, unused as either a church or a museum. The path curved around it, and he saw the towering south wall of the convent grounds, then spotted the gate church built into the center of it.
    Hollis looked around. A few people straggled past him, apparently headed for the cemetery. He slid his hands in his overcoat pockets and leaned back against a thick rowan tree. His right hand let go of the candle and found the silenced 9mm Polish Radom automatic, another Colt-Browning knockoff. His left hand slid through his coat to the handle of the knife in his belt sheath. Hollis watched awhile, then fell in behind three young couples and followed them down to the gate church. He passed through the portals into a tunnellike passage and found himself in the quiet cemetery.
    The convent grounds, like the Kremlin, had been built on a rare high spot on the banks of the Moskva, and Hollis could see down the slope out to the south and west over the brick cemetery wall. The Olympic complex and Lenin Stadium were five hundred meters to the south, nestled in the loop of the Moskva on reclaimed bog land. Beyond the stadium was the river, and rising from its south bank were the Lenin Hills and the towers of Moscow University. He could pick out the observation platform where he, Lisa, and Sasha had shared a brief and pleasant moment.
    Hollis followed a brick path into the sloping cemetery. It was heavily treed, and most of the graves were overgrown. The tombstones were higher than a man, in the old Russian style, creating a maze of limestone and granite. The cemetery was as wide as the convent grounds but not as deep, and Hollis estimated it covered about six acres. It would take some time to find Gogol’s grave here.
    There weren’t many people in the cemetery, which was good for privacy, but there were enough so that he and Surikov wouldn’t stand out. Surikov had picked a good Sunday spot.
    The visitors were mostly students apparently looking for the graves of the famous. They stood in knots in front of tombstones, pointing and discussing the man or woman interred there. Hollis saw the graves of Chekhov, Stanislavsky, and the painter Isaac Levitan. Six young men and women, Bohemian types in peasant-chic
vatniks,
baggy corduroys, and high boots, sat on the path and talked in front of the grave of the filmmaker Sergey Eisenstein. Hollis walked around them.
    An old lady in a dirty red coat stood facing the gravestone of Nikita Khruschev. The woman crossed herself, bowed to the stone, and walked off. Hollis wondered if she was a relative.
    He turned up an intersecting path and found himself in a patch of ground mist. A tall, attractive woman, smartly dressed in a long, black leather coat, came out of the mist toward him. As she drew close, Hollis asked her in Russian, “Gogol’s grave?”
    She looked him over, then said in an unusually cultured accent, “You might try over there. Near that very tall pine tree. I think I passed it.”
    “Thank you.” Hollis moved past her.
    She said to him or to