The Charm School

about flying?”
    “I don’t think the decision is mine to make.”
    “But would you go back if you could?”
    “I don’t know. I know that the last aircraft I piloted came down without me in it. Yet… sometimes I can still feel the controls in my hands and feel the engines spooling up, and the vibrations through the airframe, full power, then the dash down the runway, rotate, climb out… you understand?”
    “I guess if you put it that way, I do.” Lisa went back to her magazine, then looked up again. “I always feel like a stranger in my own country when I go home on leave.”
    Hollis replied, “It takes a few weeks to get into sync with any country, including your own.”
    “I know.” She added, “You know, Sam, I almost feel like Moscow and the embassy was home and I’m heading to a strange country. I miss my apartment and my office, my friends. I miss Moscow. I think I’m going to cry again.”
    “I understand.” And he did, because he felt an inexplicable twinge of nostalgia himself. Though why he should feel that for a country that had almost killed him was a mystery. But he’d felt that for Vietnam too. He supposed there were some countries that in a perverse way alerted your senses and put you on full throttle every day. And whatever came afterward was just cruise control. “It’s a common emotion. You make good friends on hardship tours. Sort it out.”
    She wiped her eyes with a tissue. “Sorry.”
    The passengers started to board, and Hollis could hear footsteps on the stairs. Mike Salerno was the first person up the stairs, and he sat in one of the seats facing them. He said, “You guys get boarded before first class.”
    “One of the lesser perks,” Hollis replied. “How did you get up here so fast?”
    “Pushed and shoved. I’m a reporter.”
    Lisa asked, “Are you going home for good?”
    “No, I put in for two weeks’ therapeutic leave.”
    On the tarmac below, Hollis saw two men in brown overcoats standing in the snow, speaking to two armed men who wore the green overcoats of the KGB Border Guards.
    Lisa looked at her watch. “I hope this snow doesn’t delay the takeoff.”
    Hollis noticed that only six more people had come into the Clipper Class section, which could hold about fourteen passengers. There was a middle-aged couple sitting near the staircase whom Hollis could hear speaking with British accents and four German businessmen sitting across the aisle in the other facing seats. One of them had spoken to Jo in English.
    Jo went to the front of the cabin and announced without a PA microphone, “There’ll be a few minutes’ delay until we get clearance. The weather is slowing up takeoffs. Soon’s we get airborne, we’ll get the free drinks moving.” She turned to the four Germans. “Okay, gentlemen?”
    The one who spoke English nodded to her and translated for the other three.
    Hollis stood, went to the back of the small dome, and looked out the window. Their bus was still there, and Bert Mills was leaning against it. One of the men in a brown coat walked over with an armed Border Guardsman and had some words with Mills. Mills pulled out his diplomatic passport and shook it at the KGB men. Hollis could see that the bus driver was getting agitated, probably never having seen anyone argue with a gentleman of the
Komitet.
Mills didn’t speak much Russian, which was probably an advantage in that situation, Hollis thought. Mills was pointing to the ground at his feet, and Hollis could imagine him saying, “I’m staying right fucking here until that plane leaves.”
    Finally the KGB man in the brown coat said something to the bus driver, and the bus moved off, leaving Mills on the snowy taxiway, a half kilometer from the terminal. The KGB man smirked, turned, and went back to his car. Mills made an uncomplimentary gesture with his middle finger, then stood with his hands in his pockets. The KGB man watched him from the car. Hollis went back to his seat.
    Lisa asked, “Everything all right?”
    “Yes.”
    Salerno commented, “You guys jumpy? Don’t blame you.”
    Hollis read that morning’s
International Herald Tribune.
Salerno read a pulp detective novel featuring a character named Joe Ryker, NYPD, and Lisa had exchanged her
Time
for
Vogue.
She said to Hollis, “If we’re going to live in the States, I’ll need clothes like this.”
    He glanced at her magazine. “Maybe we should live someplace else.”
    She commented, “I could have bought a black