The Charm School

fliers, Ted Brewer and another man, had gone outside and tried to push their way past the cordon of Border Guards but were forcibly carried back inside. Captain Schuyler, whom Hollis had met on the path with Poole and Lieutenant Colonel Mead, had punched one of the students, but the fight had been quickly broken up.
    To the students’ credit, Hollis thought, they took the verbal abuse and looked rather sheepish. Certainly, Hollis reflected, the school would be closed for weeks if not months after this mad night.
    General Austin sat in a small study, speaking briefly with groups of men and women, twenty and thirty at a time until most of the two hundred eighty-two Americans under his command and their wives and girlfriends had been addressed by him. Hollis made his way into the study and heard Austin say, “To attempt to escape is our only pure and uncompromised act here. So we shall try again and again and again. There won’t be ten years between attempts. There won’t even be twelve months until the next one. And if they want to shoot us ten at a time for each attempt, so be it. This school is closed.”
    Hollis listened awhile, then went into the barroom and got a glass of beer. Lisa found him and held his arm. “Sam, I can’t take much of this.”
    Hollis glanced at his watch. “Another few minutes. At midnight it’s over.”
    He looked around the long barroom and spotted Sonny and Marty talking in a corner. At a small table sat the four students he’d met in their cottage. One of them, Erik Larson, was looking more like Yevgenni Petrovich Korniyenko, Hollis thought. In fact, all the students seemed not to know how to act anymore, and Hollis wondered why Burov had subjected them to this. Perhaps there was a lesson here for them too. And the lesson had to be that the state was all powerful and that disloyalty equaled death. But they already knew that.
    Commander Poole came up to Lisa and Hollis. He said, “The men—and the women—are prepared to stick together. We can start a revolt, right here and now. We can refuse to leave here and hold the students hostage. We can march on Burov’s house. We can all rush the main gate, and perhaps some of us will get through and make it to the embassy.”
    Hollis looked at Poole, and they both knew that Poole was not stating viable options, but was enumerating different forms of suicide. Hollis said, “They have the guns, Commander. That’s what the twentieth century is all about. Whoever has the rapid-fire automatic weapons is in charge.”
    Poole nodded with his head down. “So we take the eleven losses and let it go at that?”
    “Yes. We have to live to try again and again. Someone has to get out of here. That’s what General Austin is saying, and he’s the boss. And you know, I don’t think things will be the same around here after tonight.”
    “No.” Poole thought a moment. “And you know what else? That’s for the better. We’ve all gotten too cozy with these people. We have our comforts, our women, our children, our intellectual freedom… it was hard for us to get angry and stay angry. That’s all changed now.” He looked at Hollis and Lisa. “I think your presence here was the slap in the face that we needed to bring us out of it.”
    Hollis cleared his throat. “I may have sounded hard at General Austin’s house, and I assure you my views haven’t changed. But I didn’t mean to leave the impression that I am not concerned for your welfare.”
    “I understand.”
    Midnight came, and people began streaming silently out of the hall.
    Poole said to Lisa, “We’ll pray tonight.” He said to Hollis, “Burov has imposed a curfew for twelve-thirty A . M ., so we are all effectively under house arrest until dawn. We can’t meet or discuss this any further. The penalty for breaking curfew is to be shot on sight. So I will wish you both good-night and see you on the soccer field in the morning.” He turned and left.
    Hollis asked Lisa to wait around until all the Americans and their wives were gone. Oddly, Hollis thought, most of the students stayed on. He noticed they began drinking, and as he suspected, one of them approached him and Lisa.
    Jeff Rooney greeted them with less ebullience than the first time they’d met. Neither Hollis nor Lisa returned the greeting.
    Rooney said, “I just want you guys to know I feel awful about this.”
    Hollis looked Rooney in the eye and replied, “You’re going to feel even worse when you get to