The Charm School

sure if that’s Russian decadence or American decadence.” Burov thought a moment, then observed, “I’ll tell you something I’ve discovered. In America, as in Russia, there is a puritanical streak in the people, a high public morality, but privately there is a good deal of looseness. I think, as great empires we associate spiritual and moral decay with political decline and fall. We think of Rome. What do you think?”
    Hollis thought that Burov had been forced into some independent thinking in his capacity here. He was not overly bright, but he was cunning, a survivor, and therefore open to outside reality.
    Lisa said, “There are better examples of the similarities between Russians and Americans.”
    “Yes, but none so interesting as their attitudes toward sex. Follow me, please.”
    They toured the remainder of the underground sports complex, and Hollis realized this place was at least a partial reason for Burov’s not wanting to break camp and move the whole operation elsewhere. When the Charm School was in its cruder, more Russian form, it could easily be relocated. But with the introduction of good housing and this spa, Burov was bogged down in what he would call American decadence, if he thought about it.
    They left the underground complex by way of the elevator, which brought them back up into the concrete bunker. Burov led them outside the bunker and pointed to the south. “That barbed wire is the compound of the KGB Border Guard Directorate. They man the watchtowers and patrol the perimeter. There are a few of them inside the camp, mostly at headquarters. You have no reason to ever go near that compound nor to speak to any of them.” Burov added, “They don’t like you anyway, as you murdered two of their comrades. Is that clear?”
    “Perfectly,” Hollis replied. Beyond the barbed wire and watchtowers of this camp and all the other camps in this country, he reflected, was the larger Gulag called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And every meter of those all-encompassing prison walls was watched by the elite paramilitary arm of the KGB, called the Border Guards Directorate. Over a half million strong, they were often better trained and equipped than the Red Army, and their existence gave the KGB the means to bully not only the populace, but the military and the very party they were sworn to defend. As they walked along a path, Hollis asked, “And you are not in the Border Guard Directorate?”
    “You asked me about that once on the telephone, didn’t you? Well, I can answer you now. I’m in the Executive Action Department. You know us, of course.”
    “Of course. Political murderers, saboteurs, kidnappers, and blackmailers.”
    “We don’t define ourselves quite that way. But that’s about what we do. I started my career in that department, working for some years in Scandinavia. But I’ve been at this camp ten years, as I said, five as deputy commandant and five as commandant. Like everyone here, I’m assigned for life. The Center does not encourage transfers out of this place. Many of the Russians who work here, including the entire medical staff, are political prisoners who have been assigned here from the Gulag.” He added, “So, I heard on the Fisher tape that the American instructors call this place Mrs. Ivanova’s Charm School. Is sarcasm a trait peculiar to American pilots, or does it permeate your whole society?”
    “It’s endemic in American society,” Hollis replied. “There are night classes on sarcasm.”
    “Now
you’re
being sarcastic.”
    The three of them continued their walk through the woods, and to an outside observer, it would have looked like a companionable scene. Hollis questioned Burov on some things, and Burov answered easily, remarking several times that there were few secrets inside the perimeter of the camp. Burov pointed out, “The real deficiency of this school is that all the male instructors are former pilots. Their premilitary backgrounds are somewhat varied, which is good, but their job experiences and adult lives are naturally too similar and limited for us to get a good cross section of American society.” Burov added, “To have two people like you with some variables in your backgrounds would make excellent additions to the faculty.”
    “Please,” Hollis said, “spare me the college jargon.”
    “But we use it here.”
    “What do you call the guys with the submachine guns? Campus security personnel?”
    “No, they are