“Because there’s no indoor plumbing.” Hollis moved away from the window and added sharply, “And it’s not here, Lisa. Not anymore. This is a rural slum, and the peasants don’t give a damn. Can’t you see that? Don’t you see how ramshackle everything is? Every man, woman, and child in this village wants only one thing: a one-way ticket to a city.”
She sat on the bed and stared at her feet, then nodded slowly.
“And while this might not be a sterile state farm,” he added, “it’s still a state-owned collective. The only thing these people own are their dirty clothes and greasy cooking utensils. As for these cabins and their so-called private plots, the government doesn’t care a damn about them. The plan is to wipe out the villages and put everyone in the state farms where they can be twice as inefficient and nonproductive in a true communist setting. If that shithead Burov came here with a piece of paper signed in Moscow, he could take these people to the Forty Years of October Sovkhoz and plow Yablonya into the ground. Once you understand that, you take the first step toward understanding this society.”
She didn’t respond for some time, then said, “You’re right of course. The people are alienated from the land, and the land is an orphan. The past is dead. The peasant culture is dead. The villages are dead. The bastards in Moscow won.”
He said in a more soothing tone, “Well, it’s too late to talk politics and philosophy.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I hope you’re right about these peasants, and we’re not awakened by the infamous three A.M. KGB knock on the door.”
“I think I was right.”
It occurred to Hollis that Lisa shared Alevy’s annoying and dangerous practice of dragging the Russians into things that it wasn’t fair to involve them in. With Alevy it was the Jews, with Lisa now, the peasants. And the Jews or the peasants might stick their necks out for a Westerner, but the Westerner was rarely around when the ax fell.
He doubted that these poor wretches of Yablonya even knew that it was against the law for a Soviet citizen to talk to foreigners, much less feed them and put them up. Hollis glanced at Lisa. She pulled off her boots and socks and wiggled her toes.
There was an awkward silence as Hollis considered what he was supposed to do or say.
Lisa said, “It’s very cold in here.” Fully dressed, she lay on the bottom quilt and pulled the two top quilts up to her chin. “Very cold.” She yawned.
Hollis took off his leather jacket and hung it on a nail, then stuck his knife in the log beside the bed. He sat on a trunk and pulled off his boots. He became aware that his heart was beating a bit faster than normal, and he was suddenly at a loss for words. He said finally, “Would you be more comfortable if I slept on the floor?”
“No. Would you?”
Hollis hesitated a moment, then took off his pullover and jeans and threw them over the trunk. He pulled the light chain, then slid into bed beside Lisa, wearing his T-shirt and shorts. He cleared his throat and said, “I didn’t mean to burst your bubble about rural Russia, peasants, and all that. I know you have some emotional involvement in the subject, and I think it’s good that you can see the bright side of things. I like that. The exuberance of youth.”
“Do you snore?”
“Sometimes. Do you?”
“Depends on who you ask. Am I on your side of the bed?”
“I don’t have a side.”
“You’re easy to sleep with. Why do you wear blue shorts? Air force?”
Hollis rolled away from her and looked out the window. “Spokoiny nochi.”
“Are you tired?”
“I should be,” he replied.
“I’m sort of hyper. What a day.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“I’ve said enough.”
“Are you angry about something? You sound angry.”
“I’m just tired. I think I angered you.”
“Are you annoyed because I have my clothes on?”
“They’re your clothes. If you want to wrinkle them, that’s your business.”
She said, “Before I was stationed here, I had three long-term relationships, three short-term ones, an affair with a married man, and two one-night stands. When I got here, I became involved with a man who has since left. Then there was Seth, and—”
“Slow down,” Hollis said. “I’m running out of fingers and toes.”
She leaned over him and put her hand on his shoulder.
He turned toward her and stared at her by the dim light of the window.
She said, “You shot two armed KGB men and never flinched, but now you’re shaking.”
“It’s cold.”
“I’m nervous too. But I want you.” She added, “There may not be any tomorrow for us.”
“Sounds like my fighter pilot line. But if there is a tomorrow?”
“We’ll take it a step at a time.”
“Right. And Seth? How will he take it?”
She didn’t reply.
Hollis felt her bare foot touch his, and he took her head in his hands and kissed her.
They undressed beneath the quilts and side by side wrapped themselves in each other’s arms.
She ran her hands over his back, and her fingers came into contact with smooth, unresilient knots.
“Scars,” he said.
“Oh.”
Hollis rolled on top of her and felt himself slip into her easily.
“Sam… that’s nice… warm.”
“Warm… yes.” He put his mouth over hers as he entered more deeply and felt her hips draw back into the soft feather bed, then she thrust upward with surprising force. She moaned into his mouth as her hips moved more quickly, then slowed to a rhythmic rising and falling.
Lisa pushed the covers off with her feet and entwined her legs around his back, then cupped his buttocks in her hands and pulled him deeper into her as she came.
Hollis came, and they lay closely embraced. Lisa put her head on his chest.
Hollis ran his fingers through her hair.
She said, “I hear your heart.”
“That’s good news. I feel your breath.”
She kissed his chest. “Now I lay me down to sleep.”
“Amen.” Hollis lay awake, his eyes open, staring at the blackness and listening to the silence. He smelled a cigarette from the next room, and someone coughed. The window rattled, and dried leaves blew against the panes, then silence again until a rat or mouse scampered over the rafter above.
An hour later he heard the sound of a Chaika’s engine on the lane, followed by the clanking of a tracked vehicle, probably a troop carrier.
He waited for the crunch of boots in the frozen garden, the smashing of the front door, then the footsteps across the wood floor.
He waited, but the engines droned off, and quiet returned. Hollis wondered if they were looking for him and Lisa, or for Jack Dodson, or all three. There were precious few citizens in this country whose whereabouts weren’t accounted for, and three foreigners on the loose was a major malfunction in the system, an intolerable situation.
Hollis closed his eyes and let himself drift. He vaguely heard Lisa mumbling in her sleep, then heard her say distinctly, “The car is stuck,” followed by, “I’m duty officer,” then, “He’s your friend too, Seth.”
Hollis always thought it bad manners to listen to the sleep talk of people he slept with, but this was the first woman he’d slept with who dreamed in Russian.
Hollis fell into a light, troubled sleep and had dreams of his own.
12