The Charm School

satellite-map reading. You can see everything, but it’s not like being on the ground. You have to put your feet into a country and smell its air and listen to its rhythm to really know it.”
    Lisa asked, “And what if you come to know it and love it?”
    “That,” Burov replied, “can be a problem. But we’ve worked that out. Again, it’s illusion. Our graduates are loyal, but we create the feeling within them that they are always being watched over in America. They know too that their families here are being well taken care of. You understand?”
    Hollis remarked, “You, Colonel, certainly know the nuances of our language.”
    “Thank you.”
    They crossed the main road again and took a path that ran behind the VFW hall, into the woods, and down a gentle slope. Burov said, “We are trying something new. Graduates who have spent at least six years in America are returning as instructors. This program must continue and expand; we can’t rely on foreign instructors forever.” Burov added, “Peter the Great finally realized that. He imported too many foreigners at first. That is the history of my country: trying to graft Western learning and culture onto this rough land. But eventually we have to take what we need from the West and perpetuate that learning here. This school will not die because the foreign teachers die, as happened to Peter. No, we will teach teachers to teach, and they will teach others. One day this school will put out two thousand Americans a year. By the end of the century, you will have a fifth column in your country whose size and influence will be sufficient for the Soviet Union to consider itself a minority shareholder in America, albeit a silent one. One day we might be chairmen of the board.”
    Neither Hollis nor Lisa responded.
    Burov showed them toward a small clapboard cottage built in a Cape Cod style, with green shutters and a cedar shingle roof. “This was Major Dodson’s quarters. You may use it for the week you need to make up your minds. Come in.” Burov opened the door and invited them to take off their coats, then turned on several portable electric heaters. At Burov’s urging, Hollis lit the kindling in the fireplace.
    Hollis looked around the room. It was rustic but comfortable. He examined the books on the shelves beside the fireplace and saw that Dodson’s taste ran to inspirational literature and British whodunits.
    Burov said to Lisa, “Through that door is a small kitchen. You’ll find glasses and something to drink.”
    “Really?”
    Burov hesitated, then said, “Would you be kind enough to make drinks?”
    Lisa gave him a nasty look, then went into the kitchen.
    Burov said to Hollis in a low voice, “That woman is very… independent.” He added, “American women. How do you put up with them?”
    “They’re interesting,” Hollis said.
    “They’re spoiled bitches.” Burov sat in an armchair near the fire. “The winter is here. Have you adjusted well to Russian winters?”
    “Quite well. I have the Joel Barlow award.”
    Burov nodded. “I heard that tape, you know.”
    Hollis didn’t reply.
    “One couldn’t make out everything, but I have to tell you I was enraged. It was insulting, vile, and hateful.”
    “It
was
in rather bad taste,” Hollis agreed. “Perhaps you shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations.”
    “Your friend in there likes Russia.”
    “But not the people who run Russia now.”
    “Now and forever.”
    “I think not, Colonel Burov.”
    “Be realistic, Colonel Hollis.”
    “I try to be.”
    Burov shrugged. He said, “A word of advice: try to keep her mouth shut. We’re very lenient here, because that’s the only way we can suck your brains year after year. But a few instructors have gone too far.”
    “And you shot them.”
    Burov replied, “Only as a last resort. Have a seat. You don’t look your old self.
Sit.
”
    Hollis sat on a love seat facing the fire.
    Lisa came back with three glasses on a small metal tray and passed a glass to Hollis. “Brandy.” She took a glass for herself and put the tray on an end table. Burov took his glass and raised it. “To your new home.” He drank alone. “So, do you find this preferable to torture, starvation, and death?”
    Lisa replied, “Not yet.”
    Burov stared at her awhile, then said, “Sex. You both wondered about that. You saw some women. Some were students, and there are those six American female instructors whom you haven’t met yet. Also