The Charm School

here. They will have lodgings now that the harvest is done.”
    Hollis replied, “I don’t think the car will make it. Do you have a telephone or vehicle?”
    “No. But I can send a boy on a bicycle.”
    “Don’t go to that trouble,” Hollis said with a politeness that seemed to surprise the man. Hollis added, “My wife and I would rather stay with the people.” At the word
narod
—the common people, the masses—the man smiled.
    Hollis looked closely at the peasants around him. They were coarse people with leathery skin the color of the earth on which they stood. Their clothes were little more than rags, their quilted
vatniks
not so clean or tailored as Lisa’s. The men were unshaven, and the women had that unusual Russian combination of fat bodies and drawn faces. Half their teeth were black or missing, and from where Hollis stood, he could smell the sour clothes mixed with various flavored vodkas.
My God,
he thought,
this can’t be.
    Lisa said to Hollis in English, “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Want to leave?”
    “Too late.” He said to the man, “You must let us pay you for our lodgings.”
    The man shook his head. “No, no. But I will sell you some butter and lettuce, and you can make a nice profit on that in Moscow.”
    “Thank you.” Hollis added, “I’ll put the car where it won’t block the road.” He said to Lisa, “Get acquainted.” Hollis got in the car and backed it down the lane until he came to a hayrick he’d seen. He pulled the Zhiguli out of sight of the road, took his briefcase, and got out. He walked back, where he found Lisa involved in a ten-way conversation. Lisa said to Hollis in English, “Our host is named Pavel Pedorovich, and this is his wife Ida Agaryova. Everyone is very impressed with our Russian.”
    “Did you tell them you are Countess Putyatova and you might own them?”
    “Don’t be an ass, Sam.”
    “Okay.”
    “Also I’ve learned that this place is called Yablonya—apple tree—and is a hamlet of the large collective farm named Krasnya Plamenny—Red Flame. The collective’s administrative center is about five kilometers further west. No one lives there, but there is a telephone in the tractor storage shed. Mechanics will be there in the morning and will let us use the telephone.”
    “Very good. I’m promoting you to captain.” Hollis introduced himself as Joe Smith. “Call me Iosif.”
    Pavel introduced each of the twenty or so families in the village, including his own son Mikhail, a boy of about sixteen, and his daughter Zina, who was a year or so older. They all smiled as they were introduced, and some of the old ones even removed their hats in a low sweeping bow, the ancient Russian peasant gesture of respect. Hollis wanted to get off the road in the event a black Chaika happened by. He said to Pavel, “My wife is tired.”
    “Yes, yes. Follow me.” He led Hollis and Lisa toward his
izba,
and Hollis noted that neither Pavel nor his wife inquired about luggage. This could mean they knew he and Lisa were on the run, or perhaps they thought his briefcase was luggage.
    They entered the front room of the
izba,
which was the kitchen. There was a wood stove for heating and cooking, around which were a half dozen pairs of felt boots. A pine table and chairs sat in the corner, and utensils hung on the log walls. Against the far wall leaned two muddy bicycles. Incongruously there was a refrigerator plugged into an overhead socket from which dangled a single bare lightbulb. On a second table between the stove and the refrigerator sat a washtub filled with dirty dishes. Hollis noticed an open barrel of kasha—buckwheat—on the floor and remembered a peasant rhyme:
    Shci da kasha;
    Pishcha nasha.
    —Cabbage soup and gruel are our food.
    Pavel pulled two chairs out. “Sit. Sit.”
    Hollis and Lisa sat.
    Pavel barked at his wife, “Vodka. Cups.”
    The door opened, and a man and woman entered with a teenage girl and a younger boy. The woman set a bowl of cut cucumbers on the table and backed away with the children. The man sat very close to Hollis and smiled. Another family entered, and the scene was repeated. Soon the walls were lined with women, their heavy arms folded across their chests like Siamese servants ready to snap to if anyone called. The children sat on the floor at the women’s feet. Ida gave some of the children
kisel
—a thick drink made with pear juice and potato flour. The men, about fifteen of them now, sat around or