The Charm School

it’s tomorrow.”
    Hollis made no response.
    “Who is Simms?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I think I know.” Burov looked at his watch and said, “Well, Hollis, do you want to see your slut?”
    Hollis nodded.
    Burov opened the door to his office and said something to the guard, then turned to Hollis. “You may take your hands down. Get out.”
    Hollis walked to the door, and Burov said, “You may have sex if you wish.”
    “Thank you.”
    Burov smiled and closed the door.
    The guard marched Hollis down the stairs. The man opened the door of Lisa’s cell and shoved Hollis in. The door closed behind him.
    Lisa sat in a sleeping bag, curled up in the corner. She looked at him but said nothing.
    Hollis knelt near her and examined her face. Her cheeks were drawn, and her eyes seemed sunken. He noticed her lips were dry and cracked, and there was a bruise on her neck. On her left cheek there was still a smudge of blush, and this somehow caused him more pain than the rest of her appearance. “How are you?”
    She didn’t reply.
    “Do you need a doctor?”
    She shook her head.
    Hollis felt weak and sat down beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t move toward him or move away. She sat still, staring straight ahead.
    They sat in silence for a long time, then Lisa put her face in her hands and wept.
    Hollis drifted off from time to time, but the numbing cold and his empty stomach woke him every fifteen minutes or so.
    The lights went on and off, and there were bootsteps in the corridor that stopped outside the cell door, then continued. Now and then someone slid the bolt back, but the door never opened. A few minutes later, the bolt would slide closed again.
    Lisa stared at the ceiling and spoke in a barely audible voice. “I was sentenced to death.”
    Hollis didn’t reply.
    She reached her arm out along the wall, then held her hand out in front of Hollis.
    He didn’t know at first what she was holding, then recognized a heap of ash and charred pieces of paper. Photographs. Her photographs of Moscow. He turned her hand so the ash spilled out, and wiped her palm on his knee.
    She said, “It doesn’t matter.”
    Hollis knew the room was wired to pick up the slightest whisper, and even in the dark, the fiber-optic device could see them. He wanted to comfort her but thought it best to say nothing that Burov could use. In fact, he knew he should not have even told Burov he wanted to see her.
    She asked, “Why did you tell them about Yablonya?”
    “I’m sorry.”
    She stood unsteadily and went to the waste drain in the floor and used it. The guard picked that moment to come in, confirming Hollis’ belief that they could see as well as hear. Lisa stood and pulled her sweat pants up as the guard leered at her. The Russian looked at Hollis, then threw a piece of black bread in the center of the floor. He said to Hollis, “I told you that you wouldn’t feel much like fucking.” He laughed and closed the door.
    Lisa washed in cold water, then put her mouth under the spigot and drank. She picked the bread up off the floor and carried it back to her sleeping bag. She slid into the bag and took a bite of bread, chewing it slowly, Hollis noticed, more like a person who is starving than merely hungry.
    Hollis estimated they were getting about three hundred grams of bread a day, about four hundred calories. They’d been here about eight days, though it could have been longer. There were enough calories to stay alive, but as the guard suggested, he didn’t feel much like doing anything but breathing. He suspected, too, that the food was drugged, probably with sodium pentothal or a similar truth serum, which, along with the sensory deprivation and numbing cold, would account for their extreme lethargy.
    Lisa stared at the black bread awhile, then offered him the piece. He broke off about a third and handed the rest back to her.
    After they’d finished the bread, Hollis said, “Feeling better?”
    She shrugged. After a few minutes she reached out and took his hand. “You must be cold. Didn’t they give you a bag?”
    “I’m all right.”
    “Come in here. There’s room.”
    He slipped into the sleeping bag beside her.
    She said, “I don’t blame you for this. You warned me.”
    Hollis made no reply.
    They slept fitfully. Lisa cried out in her sleep several times, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying.
    Hollis got up to get water. The water pressure was low, and he knew from