The Charm School

bundles, and the train pulled out. Hollis checked his watch. It was nine-thirty. With stops in Mozhaisk and Golitsyno, the train should arrive at the Byelorussian station on Gorky Square well before noon.
    The grimness of the platform quickly gave way to animated conversation, jokes, and laughter. It was rough peasant talk, Hollis noted, but there was no profanity, and there seemed to be a bond between these people, though clearly many of them were getting acquainted for the first time. The bond was not only the journey, he thought, but the brotherhood of the downtrodden. How unlike the Moscow metro where you could hear a pin drop at the height of rush hour.
    Food was being passed around now, and there was good-natured teasing about the qualities of each person’s wares. Hollis heard a woman say, “Not even a Muscovite would buy these apples of yours.”
    Another woman answered, “I tell them they are radishes.”
    Everyone laughed.
    An old man across the aisle pushed a dripping slice of tomato under Hollis’ nose. Hollis took it from his brown fingers. “Thank you, father.” He passed it to Lisa. “Eat it.”
    She hesitated, then popped it into her mouth. “Good. See if anyone has orange juice.”
    “Low profile. Feign sleep or simplemindedness.”
    Lisa whispered in Russian, “Can I smoke?”
    “Not here. In the lav.”
    “Do you want another pear? Honey?”
    “No, honey.”
    “This is nice.”
    Hollis looked around the car. It
was
quite nice. Clean, lace curtains on the windows, and little bud vases attached to the windowsills, each with a real rosebud. The more he saw of Russia, he admitted, the less he understood it. The windows, however, were dirty, and this was somehow comforting.
    They spoke as little as possible, and Hollis urged Lisa to remain in her seat unless she really had to use the facilities. The conductor, a middle-aged woman, came through, took their tickets, and marked them rather than punching them. She said, “Are you Muscovites?”
    Hollis replied, “No. Estonians. From Moscow we go to Leningrad, then home to Tallinn.”
    “Ah. Your Russian is good.” She looked Lisa over and observed, “Those are very nice boots.”
    “Thank you.”
    “They have better things in our Baltic republics. I never understood that.” She handed Hollis the tickets. “Have a safe journey.”
    “Thank you.”
    The train gathered speed on the straight, flat trackbed. There was piped-in music now. It was not the classical or folk music usually heard in public places, Hollis noted, but soft, easy-listening music, Soviet Muzak.
    The train pulled into Mozhaisk, and there was the same crush of humanity on the platform carrying the same bursting cardboard suitcases and ungainly bundles. The train loaded the last two cars only. There were soldiers and militia on the platform. Hollis and Lisa slumped down into their seats and feigned sleep. The train pulled out and continued its journey through the bleak Russian landscape.
    Golitsyno was a five-minute stop, and within fifteen minutes of leaving the station they could see the tall spire of Moscow University in the Lenin Hills. “Almost home,” Lisa commented. She added, “No, not really home.”
    The train made short stops at suburban stations, Setun, Kuncevo, Fili, then Testovskaya. Lisa said, “Why don’t we get off here? We can walk to the embassy from here.”
    “We’re supposed to be going on to Leningrad, so we get off at the Byelorussian terminal.”
    “I want to get off
here
. I’ve had it.”
    “Sit down.”
    Lisa sat back in her seat. “Sorry. Getting edgy. I trust you. You did a magnificent job. Even if something happens and we don’t get into the embassy… . How
are
we going to get into the embassy if the watchers are waiting for us near the gate?”
    “I’ll show you a spy trick.”
    “You’d better.”
    The Byelorussian Express from Minsk pulled into Moscow’s Byelorussian Station at ten minutes to noon. Hollis and Lisa left quickly and pushed through the throngs packed into the hundred-year-old station. Hollis noticed that the people returning to the hinterlands had not appreciably lightened their loads, but were burdened now with plastic bags filled with clothing, new shoes, cooking utensils, and all manner of Moscow’s bounty. The most worthless thing they had on them were the leftover rubles in their pockets. A few passing Muscovites, well-dressed by comparison, gave the country folk hard looks to show they didn’t