The Charm School

bastards
do
that to people? Rip them away from their families… their lives…?”
    Hollis looked into the fire awhile, then said, “They call us the Main Enemy. In caps. They believe that they are locked in a life-or-death struggle with us. They’re right. They know that if the Main Enemy is defeated, most of their problems will be over. Meanwhile, America gives the Soviets about ten percent of its attention.”
    Lisa looked at the television. Rocky and the Russian were going at it, and the crowd was nearly hysterical. “That movie is inane. I
know
it’s inane. But why isn’t it as idiotic as it was the first time I saw it?”
    Hollis smiled. “I know what you mean.”
    She said, “Do you think of
them
as the Main Enemy?”
    Hollis put his feet on the coffee table. “You know, sometimes I like to think that I’m doing something for
them
too. Not the party people of course or the KGB. But the
narod,
the Russian masses, and the other nationalities imprisoned outside our prison. My mind keeps returning to Yablonya, Lisa. The way it was when we were there, the way I saw it from the helicopter, and the way it could have been if the people in Moscow were different.”
    She looked at him, then put her head on his shoulder and after a while asked, “How did Major Dodson get out of here?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “What did you do while I was gone?”
    “Burov stopped by.”
    “What did he want?”
    “He just wanted to see how we were getting on.”
    “That
bastard!
”
    “Don’t let these people get to you, Lisa.”
    “It’s
him
. He… he hit you, he slapped me… he…”
    “What?”
    “He… he was in my cell… when the matron… searched me… .”
    “All right. Don’t think about it. You have to understand that he always intended for us to work for them. That’s why we’re here and not in Lubyanka. That’s why he hasn’t done anything to us that he thinks we couldn’t forgive.”
    “I understand.”
    Hollis said, “He also dropped off some reading material. Are you up to reading about your death?”
    She stared straight ahead for some time, then nodded.
    Hollis stood and went to a cabinet beneath the bookshelf. He returned with newspapers and magazines and sat beside her. He handed her the Long Island
Newsday
, opened to the obituary page.
    Lisa looked down at her picture and read the headline:
Lisa Rhodes, Accident Victim
. She cleared her throat. “My mother must have given them that old photo. She always liked that picture… .” Hollis saw a tear splatter on the newspaper, and he took the paper from her. He stood and poured two glasses of brandy. He handed her a glass, and she drank from it.
    Lisa composed herself and said, “My family buried me… poor Dad… I can almost see him trying not to cry.” She looked at Hollis. “And you? Your family…?”
    Hollis opened a
Washington Post
to the obituary page. “I got full military honors at Arlington. My parents probably groused about having to fly in from Japan.”
    She looked down at the obituary and read it silently. “I didn’t realize you were so important.”
    “It was just the circumstances surrounding our deaths that generated some interest. Here…” He opened a later edition of
The Washington Post
to a story in the A section headlined:
U.S. Accepts Soviets’ Claim, Calls Fatal Crash “Accident.”
    Lisa looked at him, then turned her attention back to the story and read:
    The State Department said yesterday that it was “substantially satisfied” with the Soviet Union’s explanation of the deaths of two Americans killed last week when a Soviet military helicopter crashed near the Russian city of Minsk. In a prepared statement released here and in Moscow, the department called the crash a “tragic accident” and said that there was no reason to suspect “foul play.”
    The U.S. embassy in Moscow had demanded that the Soviets conduct a complete investigation of the deaths of Air Force Col. Samuel G. Hollis, 46, a military attaché, and Lisa Rhodes, 29, a deputy public affairs officer for the United States Information Service. Both were being expelled from the country when the helicopter in which they were riding crashed for unknown reasons. The fact that Hollis and Rhodes had been declared “persona non grata” by the Soviets and were traveling in a Russian military helicopter without any other Westerners present when they died had concerned the State Department.
    Charles Banks, an embassy official in