The Charm School

eye.”
    “Thanks. Can I take a picture of you for my book?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sulking?”
    “Quite possibly.”
    “Well… I’m sorry… I shouldn’t even tell you this, but he was very interested in my work, in the project. He said he had contacts in a few publishing houses… so we went picture taking once in a while.”
    “Good.” Hollis could well believe that Alevy had publishing contacts. In fact, the CIA had many such contacts, the purpose of which was to get anti-Soviet books published with mainstream publishers. Hollis didn’t know what kind of incentives the CIA offered or if the publisher actually knew with whom they were dealing, but he’d heard it was a successful program. Lisa, he suspected, had no idea she was the subject of another one of Alevy’s little side schemes. Whether or not the book had merit, Hollis knew that someday he’d see it in a bookstore, courtesy of Seth Alevy and company. The man certainly knew how to mix business with pleasure.
    Lisa broke into his uncharitable thoughts. “You
did
say it would be dangerous.”
    Hollis looked at her. “What?”
    “Whatever is going on. Dangerous.”
    “Yes. Dangerous.”
    “Can you give me any more facts?”
    Hollis had a further uncharitable thought: that Lisa was reporting to Seth Alevy. But if that were true, then everything he thought he knew about people was wrong. He said, “You have the outlines. I’ll brief you on a need-to-know basis.”
    She smiled. “I’ll play the game, Sam, but I won’t talk the talk. Talk English.”
    He smiled in return, then said, “Whenever you want to quit, just say ‘I quit.’ Nothing further is required.”
    “Do you really need me?”
    “We’re short on red-blooded Americans here. I know this violates the USIS rules, not to mention Pentagon rules. But yes, I need you.”
    She nodded. “Okay. You got me.” She smiled suggestively. “What can I do for you now?”
    Hollis ignored the suggestion and said, “I’ll bet
you
know where Gogol’s grave is.”
    “Sure.” She laughed. “Doesn’t everyone?”
    “Not the cultural illiterates I work with, myself included. Where is it?”
    “Why do you want to know? Is there a party there?”
    “Oh, you’ve been asked that already?”
    “Sure have.”
    “Well?”
    She hooked her finger under his belt. “First things first. I’d feel awful if I thought I was a one-night stand.”
    Hollis put his drink on the end table.
    “So,” she said, “let’s do it again.”
    “Well…” He looked at his watch.
    She embraced him and kissed him, then ran her fingers over the nape of his neck and felt the scars again. “You could have been in the Charm School.”
    “I suppose.”
    “But instead you’re here. Your wife is in London. Gregory Fisher is dead, and Major Dodson is God knows where. How will this end?”
    “No idea.”
    “When do you finish your tour here?”
    “Whenever the Pentagon wants. You?”
    “Twenty months. Maybe less now. What will we do if one of us leaves before the other?”
    Hollis didn’t reply, and she said, “Step at a time.” She motioned to the staircase. “Let’s do those steps first.”
    They climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Like the main floor, Hollis noticed, it was Finnish modern, light ashwood, Finlandia crystal, things by Sotka, Furbig, and Aarikka, names that the American community in Moscow had come to appreciate. There was a long-tailed Chinese kite tacked in loops across the ceiling and down the wall over the bed. “Very nice.”
    “You’re only the third man who’s been up here.”
    “It’s certainly a rare privilege. Look, do you realize I’m nearly twenty years older than you?”
    “So were the other two. So what?”
    Hollis looked at her. There was something about Lisa Rhodes that appealed to him. She was tomboyish yet feminine, ingenuous but shrewd. And at times she showed great maturity, though there were other times she seemed refreshingly unsophisticated. He said, “I like twenty-nine.”
    “I’ve never tried that.”
    “Your
age
.”
    “Oh…” She laughed in embarrassment, then kicked off her shoes and unbuttoned her blouse. “Stay the night. I want to wake up beside you. Like in Yablonya.”
    “That would be nice.”
    * * *
    The alarm rang, and Hollis reached for it, but it wasn’t there.
    Lisa turned it off on her side of the bed. “You
do
have a side.”
    “Where am I?”
    “Paris. My name is Colette.”
    “Pleased to meet you.” The blinds were